Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 199: Ancient Training

Episode Date: December 10, 2015

Ancient warriors and athletes, as well as late 19th/early 20th century strongmen did not do body part splits or take protein powder but they were incredibly strong and impressively built. Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the importance of adding functional/performance based training to the mix to prevent injury and build real world strength. Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Learn more about Mind Pump at www.mindpumpradio.com

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. Hey guys. What? I had a great, great time with you guys this weekend. Yeah, I had a good time too. I had a great time.

I mean, I'm totally fried from it. Yes I'm pretty burnt. I did enjoy the entire thing. I think everybody thinks we went and party to our asses I know everybody asked me that everyone's like, oh, you not feel good because you're party depth there I'm like, yeah, if you if you consider Working from like 8 a.m. All the way till midnight every day. If you consider lots of gay sex partying, then yeah. No, we were, we worked the entire time. First of all, I'd like to say something about Reno, a little shout out to Reno.

Vegas is ugly step cousin. Dirty step cousin. Yeah, dirty step cousin. Yeah, we didn't see much of that. We, Reno, we literally went to the room and stayed in the room the entire time. We were locked it down. The one time we tried to walk outside,

your pussy ass was ready to go back in. I can't have it to you. It's so cold out here. It's so cold. My nipples. Tingly in my balls. My nipples. Oh my god.

My hairy nipples. What's up? What's up? I was really complaining about my nipples. The rest of me's fine, guys. You wanted me to hug you. It's just my nipples are freezing. It's because cuz I was like I trim my nipple here this week I'm so cold. It's cuz I was I was sick. I know it's your chin or what now. You're cold, aren't you?

I know I was talking shit now. I now I you caught my thing whatever I have see I think you guys slipped away when I wasn't watching and gave each other scabies No, does that happen? No, you already other skabies. No. Is that what happened? No. You already had that. Okay, fine. No, you guys got sick and I didn't. Well, so here's what happens.

We, on the way there, we're driving. What is it? Four-hour drive? Yeah, about that. It's, it was probably in my entire life. I first of all, I hate driving in cars. I just hate this fucking boring. I can't stand it.

Yeah. Anything long will come in 30 minutes. I'll fall asleep. Anybody who knows me will vouch for this. I do not stay awake in the car. I hate it so bad, I'll fall asleep. Anybody who knows me will vouch for this. I do not stay awake in the car. I hate it so bad I just fall asleep to get it over with. That was the fastest four hour drive in my life. Both directions.

There was not a low in conversation, like almost the entire trip. No, on the way there, we were on fire. Poor Doug is in the back. He has arthritis now. He was writing so many, so much shit. Why were we were talking? What's he's the back. He has arthritis now. He was writing so many So much shit while we were talking. What's his plan? Explains the note picture that you posted on it.

It's written by by the second day. Unreadable. Unlegable. His handwriting was just Was really like fourth grade cursive. Yeah. Now you really look like an eagle now. He's got the eagle claw hand and everything. But he was he was taking notes in the back. We were on fire.

He was your after grip. It was an explosion of creation. It was creativity all over your face. You know what I'm saying? It was big hard creativity. It was just like a splatter of. Well, let's be honest here. We took creativity right all over my forehead.

We took creativity. We made it big. And then we put it up inside you Adam. And you felt it. You felt that creativity. This was the first and then we put it up inside you, Adam. And you felt it. You felt that creativity. This was the first time that we had more than three hours together that we actually, and normally when we get together, we're covering what events that are coming up or it's stuff that content that we got to get together, blah, blah, blah.

And a lot of other work that we do is solo. You know, this guy works on this, this guy works on that. Everyone's kind of doing their own thing towards the ultimate goal and vision. But we have yet to treat this like a real job or business with the first time that we all collectively set down. And we're like, okay, we're working on this one thing.

Right now, right? So we're like, where you nervous, Doug? When you, where you nervous at all, what tech is this the first time getting together to actually work like that? What do you think? Yeah? When you were you nervous at all with tech? Is this the first time getting together to actually work like that? What do you think? Yeah, I was a bit nervous. And the reason is you guys liked to have a good time, right?

Yeah. Now we're going to Reno. The original idea was to go out into the woods someplace and buckle down. And now we're in Reno. We're staying at a casino. And I thought, well, we're probably not gonna get a whole lot work done here this week weekend.

Because these guys are just gonna egg each other on and the next thing you know, we're gonna be down in the casino, we're gonna be drinking, we're gonna be dancing. The whole thing, yeah. And so when these guys buckled down. My club DJs and got to work, I was very impressed. Yeah. What was it like? Because you were taking, I mean, you were taking a lot of notes,

recording a lot of our collaboration. I felt like it was, we talk about the creativity explosion. We were on fire at the time flew. We literally sat in the room for, what was it, 10 hours in a row. Nobody moved and we just wrote shit and processed things and designed things. And I can't go into too much detail

because it's a surprise. But it was crazy. It felt like we were all, like our souls were connected. Now it felt pretty amazing. What was it like? I mean, was it as crazy as I felt like it was? There was, it was like a ping pong game. One of those Chinese ones though.

The ball's going, big, big, big, big. You're slamming it. Yeah, yeah. It's just going back and forth and yeah, this sounds good. Well, I'm not even speaking in different language, right, Doug? Pretty much all kind of like going back and forth with all these terms and... Every now and then, like every couple hours or so, we'd get on a really good roll and the energy would flow and then also Doug would stand up and be like, you can just see the energy.

And he'd have like this idea and he'd like forget the idea like halfway through the end of the day with the idea. Let's do this. You're so excited. It was and we were able to really collectively access some of our most advanced fitness knowledge. The kind of knowledge that if we were to explain it on the show would bore 99% of you. Oh my God. But that we love, right?

And so we're going over this and we're putting things together and we're really accessing our experience and our knowledge and fitness in such a way. In every angle that we possibly could have thought of, and then there's subtle moments of it, and then there's obvious ones, and it's just like, it makes so much sense. There was this clarity about everything that we were doing that was just like fantastic. And it wasn't the drugs.

It was totally just the normal thing that was in the heroin. That was the idea that that would have put me asleep. Why do you keep going, you're go to as the hero? I don't know, I just feel like that's my guy I feel like I'm gonna come here one day to bring I've been saying it all these times can we progress to that bro? You just I just ran to the top. Whatever happened to crack.

I don't know, I'll start saying morphine. Yeah, I just want to go there. But it was, and the other thing too, we were sitting down the whole time over talking, and a lot of times we'd stand up because we get so excited. But you don't realize how much energy you put out when you do something like that.

If you're listening right now, and you could think of a time when you just had these explosion of ideas and you had to get it down on paper, you had to get it out, and it was just like a machine gun, like you couldn't stop it until it stopped itself. You don't feel any fatigue, you don't feel anything until you're done, and then all of a sudden, you're like, holy shit, I'm exhausted. Oh, I didn't realize how exhausted we were until we were, now when we were driving home, so funny story,

we're driving home, and they were still left over energy So for the first like hour or so and then finally like the first pit of silence and then we played music We hadn't played music. Yeah, then we had some fun with some music. Yeah, then we went Yeah, I actually played all those two actually was really fun. Yeah, I enjoyed that Yeah, we all we okay, so we watched one night. We watched straight out of Compton That was our only break. Yeah, so it was a break. It was midnight.

Yeah, it was midnight, so it's like, okay, midnight to two. Let's go ahead and just chill. Yeah. By like, we go to heart all day and get room service. So we don't leave. Saturday, we got up by 7 a.m. Shower at 8 a.m. breakfast served to the room. Or no, we went to go to grab breakfast

and then we were working from then on out. Midnight, we took our first break to watch Straight out of Compton, straight out of Compton, phenomenal movie. Oh great. And of course got us all fired up. Just because those guys in there, they were part of a movement, whether it was the hip hop movement, but they were part of that or gangster rap, I should say they were part of the hip hop. We're part of the gangster fitness movement. The gangster fitness.. Gangster fitness. But you know, then I guess.

No, we don't have kids. I felt like that kind of kicked off our whole 90s feel, like so we were playing all our 90s music that we liked. And we started with some Drey and some old stuff and transitioned into rock, of course, since that's kind of all of our baby, but rocked out for like the entire way. But I remember we was tired of getting down

with some monster rap for quite a while. We were getting down some stuff. I felt like when I got home too, I was just, I was so excited to tell Katrina, I kept telling her because she was, she was, I was, I was, this is how bad I am. I didn't text her at all until the second day. And she sends me a text like, Hey, it's okay if you call me. I call there and I say, I'm sorry. I'm, she's like, I know, I know what you're doing.

And I know you're working out there. I know you love doing that stuff I'm sorry. I know what you're doing. I know you're working out there. I know you love doing that stuff. And you guys had a chance to do that. I said, yeah, I can't wait to come home and tell you. And I get home and I'm so exhausted. I was like, so how did I make it? Oh, it's good. I'm so tired. I was like, I just feel good. I'm scared of bed and sleep. Well, I got to say this too. The by what was it like by 1 a.m. the first night. So my kids, the previous week had this stomach virus that's going around the school. And if you're, you know, kids just get sick all the time.

They bring that shit home. So I was like, I'll help I don't get it. And I didn't get it until we that day. And it must have been because we're working so hard. And then it hit me that night. And then the next day I was sick. And it was, I was feeling shitty, man. I had a fever.

I was just feeling crappy. But still I was so energized to do this work And you guys are so fucking cool. Let me tell you what these guys did, okay? I'm feeling like shit. These guys go all the way to Whole Foods Where the fuck did you find a Whole Foods in Reno? Whole Foods get me probiotics. Valley. Get me some freaking kombucha. Just hook me up dude. Thanks bro. Thanks guys. You got your backs on yeah, and then you gave me the stomach virus. Yeah Thanks for helping me out. No, you can have it buddy. Yeah, swap and spit. Mm-hmm. That was a good one. Yeah, but um

It was it was pretty awesome. It was pretty awesome Adam ate a lot of sugar. That was one thing I have never witnessed in my life that candy. Bro, I have, and I know you don't eat like that ever. No, no. But I've never in my life seen anybody eat that level of sugar, like that much in such a short period of time.

You smashed, like two pieces of the cheesecake and the cheesecake, that was like, it was probably like a pound of cheesecake. And then you ate a whole package of red vines that I bought for you. Oh my god. You was making up because we didn't eat scheduled meals. There was like one big meal and then like,

I was like, dude, I gotta just keep eating. Well, no, you just grab shit, so I can eat. I think you did brain fuel. Well, actually, this is kind of a neat because we haven't spent this much time to this. It gives you guys that we've talked about this on the radio show, but this is the exact reason why separating meals actually works very well for me is it controls me. And even though

I don't do it all time and I do a lot of fasting in two meal days, three meals a day, but when I'm on a schedule routine and I have it way to measured and just the right amount of food that I need to intake and I'm just constantly feeding myself every few hours, I stay in good control. But I am just, I'll be the first one to admit, if I got shit in my house, that's not good for me, I will fucking eat it. I will eat it. I will eat good control, but I am just I'll be the first one to admit if I got shit in my house That's not good for me. I will fucking eat it. I will eat it I will eat the chips. I'll eat the candy. I'll be like real candy like you're not you're not into like Oh, I'm gonna get that fancy. You're like I'm gonna get what were those things called? What were those those freaking sugar discs? Oh the neco's

Well, I go to the kid the first candy ever invented I I've revert back to the candy that I had as a kid because I'm not a big candy, right? And to the, to the, you know, I'll give them some props. It's pretty delicious. I did have a couple. They were pretty good. Yeah, sugar discs.

Yeah, sugar discs. They just just smashed a little bit of those. It reminds me of one of those like, you know, salt licks that cows have, but it was sugar. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I feel, honestly, that's, you know, and that's advice to some people that are listening right now.

I don't know how you set yourself up at your house, but for me, if it's not in your house, I'm good. That's a big key. But if it's in the house, I mean, that just, I'm a fitness guy. I mean, this is my life as shit. It's my profession right now. I mean, that's what I do.

And even I will completely give in if it's in my home. But I also think part of it was, is this, because none of us did anything fitness over the weekend. Yeah. We were not fitness professionals at all over the weekend. No workout, no activity, no room service for all our meals. Because we were so focused. We were on one, though.

Right. We were so focused that we just forgot about everything. I didn't even think about anything. Trigger session, nothing. Nobody did anything. Yeah. Well, you know, I think that there's, that's the extreme of one side of us. And that, you know, you're going to have balance. I mean, we're seven days a week. The fitness gym guys doing that stuff all time.

And, you know, I knew we went up to this trip. And for me, the number one focus had to been doing what we were doing, which was ripping out content, putting our minds together, getting our programs all done and getting that situated. Now, if we would have went up there, I mean, I would have had a great time taking you guys to the gym and working out and doing it. If the goal was just to go hang out. Yeah, the goal was to do that. But, you know, I, and I felt like, you know, what, I did not want to do that unless, I absolutely needed a break from what we were doing.

And, you know, God, we were just, once we got on a roll, I didn't want to stop doing it. I think it was one point. I don't know, I don't know who it was. We had been working, and it was like 10 o'clock at night. And I think maybe Doug said something like, hey, if you got, you know what, I'm going to grab this thing here.

I'm going to, he was looking up something on the computer for us. If you guys want to take a quick break, and we're like, no, it was like, no, we're not going anywhere. We wanna stay right here and keep going. So, good times, man. We gotta do that again. Yeah, hopefully more often. That's it.

I mean, it's obviously, that's- We might die recover. Yeah, I was dumb today. We're not gonna lie with my clients. No, you'd be big. That's funny, you know. You'd be funny, you noticed that. I was all over the place today. Yeah, like're just rebeeeeeeeing. That's funny, you know. You know, it's funny, you noticed that. I was all over the place today.

Yeah, like it was just like a scene thing, and I'm like, I'm putting work, I mean, I'm already bad enough as it is where I make works up, where I just skip them and send some shit, put them together. I mean, today was speed up, you know, I had it like three times in class and just had a sound, I had to apologize,

Harry, I'm sorry, I'm just not myself today, guys. So I'm just making shit up as we go, Harry. Yeah. I was like, you know, searching for like equipment all over the gym, I couldn't find it. And I'm like, I've been here forever. I know where everything is. What the hell's wrong with me? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I was bad. Yeah, no, I was, how was I today? It was awesome. I was okay. Yeah, I know, I only trained a few clients, so then I went to go work out. My workout was all right, I guess. It was okay. Halfway through, I felt a little better. Yeah, mine was weak. I only trained a few clients, so then I went to go work out. My workout was all right, I guess. It was okay.

Halfway through, I felt a little better. Yeah, mine was weak. You still did it. You trained today too? Would you hit? I hit some functional stuff. Yeah. Your favorite.

Yeah. You're favorite. So strong. Is that the video you posted today of using the Mace? Yeah, I did the Mace Bell today. How do you incorporate Mace into your training? Mace Bell. Not Mace. Yeah, I just bring my face with today. How do you incorporate mace into your training mace bell? Not mace. Yeah, I just bring my face of mace and just piss myself up.

Yeah, like there's a couple different moves and I didn't show the other moves. I'll probably show later, but like there's a lot of ways that you can incorporate power. You can incorporate it with strength moves. Like I'll do like, you know, a total body exercise with it. That's, there's an awesome move you can do a total body you can do it for conditioning So I was using it kind of a blend of of like a complex. I was doing kind of a

Like a flow pattern that had a bit of conditioning element to it. So I Used it for that and then just just basically to get overall range of motion and work just movement wise. Like my whole plan today was to get like good movement in because we were so stationary, seated, and then seated in the car. So I was just opening everything up. And so I was using the stick mobility alongside that.

And then the Indian clubs, I was getting nice rotation out of my shoulders. I was nice rotation out of my shoulders, as getting rotation out of my hips, as you know opening up, you know the interior line, everything so. Now I feel a lot better. Normally you wouldn't do that on a maps foundation that you do that on a maps mobility days,

which you would normally do that on when you. I would. Yeah. You mean a trigger session? Trigger session. You know, we have to add it to that. Hold on a second. So for the listeners who don't know what a mace what's called is the called just a mace. Mace Bell. It's a mace bell.

Yeah. It's like a it's like a barbell, but there's a big round weight on one end and the other end has no way. Right. You're right. It almost looks like the long cannonball at the end, but it's a long stick. Yeah. So you can swing it around and there's specific moves you can do with that. It's kind of like, if you're familiar with kettlebells, they do a move called a halo. And you kind of mimic that with the stick. And this is an old technique where you kind of use momentum to where your limbs are close, but it's really like your core is working over time to stabilize you as the pendulum is sort of in the momentum is building with the exercise. Yeah, mace bells are much older than dumbbells, I believe.

They've been around for a long time. I think so, yeah. I think that's true. It's pretty ancient practice. It's just one of those things. If you're constantly training with particular types of equipment, even if you modify and change your routine and workouts,

your body over the years will get just even just get adapted to the feel of the equipment that you use. And a macebell, how often do you get a barbell with weight on one side? Don't you find it kind of funny how stuff like this that's so ancient and old, like how fucking solid it is compared to some of the shit

that you see in the Instagram and Jim's now, it's like, you'll never see someone do a mace bell, but you'll see someone do a side fucking chest press on the hammer strength. You know what I'm saying? It blows my mind how many great, great movements, great exercises, great tools that were from from way back when. And then also it's been lost in this all this crap and this bodybuilding.

Smart people, you know, they come back to those things and they give them new life. And the thing that I like about it too, it's using the mace belt, it feels like weapons training on some level. Because if you think about swinging around, I mean, it's almost like a bludgeoning tool. I mean, same thing with the Indian clubs, it's just like, it's this movement that is real unique, but like your body is very, it's very natural.

It's a very natural range of motion. Well, would you gotta keep in mind, you know, you brought up, you know, you know, these ancient tools, what you have to keep in mind is the lifestyle and the ideal that existed back then was very different than today, you know, like the lifestyle that a man had in those days

required you to be fit. Your life required you to be fit. Your life required you to be fit. Yeah, because you gotta pick up heavy shit, you gotta go kill big things, you gotta slaughter big things, you gotta drag big heavy things. Exactly, and you know, guys got your own food, grind it, you know, prepare it.

And if you weren't fit, you were dead. You know what I mean? You were nothing. So the way they trained reflected that for those people that did train. And then those athletes in those days, cause in those days they had athletes, shit they had athletes in ancient Greece,

obviously the origins of the Olympics, they, it was all about function. Now they did, of course, the Greeks in particular, definitely idolized a symmetrical type of beauty. But even if you look at their statues, they don't, they look muscular and impressive, but they don't look like bodybuilders. They don't have, you know, super tiny ways,

white shoulders, big old, you know, balloon chest, they looked like they could fuck shit up. Well, if you don't know one of their muscles contributed, you know, it had a purpose to it. That's right. We're not, we're not silencing the signal to any muscle. I'm not trying to not develop a muscle because oh, I don't want to look that way. You know, it was all about developing the entire body to produce, you know, movement maximal maximal, yeah, maximize all movement and works energetically, right? Versus everything's working together to produce, you know, the optimal

form of function. It's, and this is, I mean, this is what they, this was their life, right? You know, so that's the way they trained. And even if you go back not that long ago, I mean, it was a long time ago, but we were talking, you know, ancient Greece, even if you go back to the strong men of the, you know, late 1800s, early 1900s, still in those days, you, you were physical. When you did shit, you had to be physical, you had to be fit, just to, you know, live in society. Um, the way that the strong men trained in those days, uh, was, it was reflective of that as well. It was all about function. It was all about what I can do, not how I look.

Of course, the side effect of training in order to do more shit was they looked impressive. It looks very impressive. And you gotta keep in mind, this was before the advent of protein powder, it was before creatine, it was before body parts splits, it was before the pump, it was before knowing any of this shit. It was, I do this exercise, it makes me stronger here,

I'm gonna keep doing this, this exercise, I noticed nothing from it, you know, I'm never gonna do that one again. And if you look at some of the strength feats of these strong men from back then, many of these men were 180, 200 pounds, they weren't huge by anybody, you know, by crazy standards, but the lifts that they did were ridiculous.

Like, I don't know what the exact numbers are, but like Arthur Saxon could bent press like a ridiculous amount of weight. And it's this odd lift that nobody really does today. Right. Bent and then, yeah, it's almost like, it reminds me of like when they were lifting like a bench overhead with people sitting on it.

Yeah, and you see these old pictures that they're doing those examples. Like these were people who were just solid, muscles made out of cable. You know, they were made out of cable and steel. It wasn't, it wasn't, you know, had nothing to do with how they looked. They were, they looked with us, it was a side effect of what they could do.

Exactly, exactly. It's a buy product. It's a buy product. Let's talk about the evolution. What do you think, why do you think that is? Why do you think we went from that to this extreme where we're at now? Like, what took us here? Society, society changed, dude.

Yeah. It became less, you know, bigger, stronger, faster. I mean, that's my, like, people wanted to, to exaggerate, you know, these features, I feel like shit. Well, even before that, right? So we had this, we had this time,

okay, back in ancient times, where you trained to perform better, to perform better, to, to, it wasn't about you looked, you put your body need to work synergistically, you needed to be strong You need to be powerful these you need to be functional these things were super important to that to that the modern age or the ancient man Right, and then we have this time and that and that way of training or taking care of the body

Was never glamorized it was something that you need to do for survival I was there for that reason and then we go go for, I don't know what, maybe a few hundred years. And then all of a sudden, you know, maybe the 60s, 70s come along, you know, with 50s, you get body building where it comes kind of a sport a little bit. Well, you got to think about this way. The way you look, the reason why,

I'm speaking from a male's perspective, okay. The reason why women find men who are muscular, attractive, just from a physical standpoint, is because it represents what they can do. They might not realize it. They're not thinking of themselves. I'm attracted to that muscular guy because it looks like he could lift a lot and defend himself and protect me. They're not thinking that because in today's society, you don't need that. They're thinking he looks sexy, but why did she find him sexy or attractive? It's because, historically, that meant he could do shit. That meant he could go on a warrior or he was strong. You know, he could live shit, he could kill shit,

he could protect me. And so that's, that was a difference. So when society changed to when it didn't matter anymore, nobody could see what you could do. It just became about how you looked. And then of course, Hollywood glamorized certain things. You had judges and competitions that were going, the original bodybuilding, I don't know if you knew this atom,

but the original bodybuilding shows, they weren't just like flexing. You had to do a strength fee and you did posing. It was both. It wasn't until later where they, I think it was the ninth, I want to say the forties, maybe were the first bodybuilding shows, if I'm wrong, please forgive me, but it was maybe in the forties, maybe the fifties where they were most bodybuilding shows then were based upon

how you looked. But before that, but when the original bodybuilding shows, it was about a strength feat, whether it be a gymnastic feat or lifting something really heavy, or you're with your partner, and you guys are balancing on each other's hands like gymnasts or whatever. That's what the shows were all about. I got a quote I just pulled up right here.

This is one of my favorite quotes of all time, and it was by Socrates. Okay, this is an ancient quote, this is from, you know, probably 400 BC, no man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength

of which his body is capable. That's a powerful, powerful quote. But notice what he said to me in the loins. But notice what he says here, it is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength not of which how he looks of which his body is Capable right. It's all about what it could do you know, I'm saying and and I think and hey, I hate to say it guys You know, I'm not gonna rag on like I'm not gonna rag on crossfit right now, but I what I will say this they Are a direct result of fitness becoming a hundred percent focused on cosmetic and crossfit with the backlash now

The way they did it we disagree with obviously the way they handle it But that's a direct result right it's all about before they're more about Performance you like a revolt from the bodybuilding. I was just saying you fast forward it. You fast forwarded on me right there because I feel like you were starting to talk about the evolution from the 40s, 50s, we lost strength. You want to wear a went?

Yeah, then from there, we go 40s, 50s. Now we eliminate a strength feat plus the body. Now we're looking just looks and then we go into the Arnold era which becomes the sculpting thing. Right. And even Arnold talks about it, you know, it's the like an artist, you know, like he's putting on pieces of muscle on his body like clay and it became about how you, it became about how you looked.

Yes. Now, the thing about the training back then, I will say this though, the bodybuilders in those days, a lot of them worked out together. Well, this is where I'm getting it still, we still have some great movements. We still got some great strength. There is. There's some great compound lifting. And a matter of fact, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the king bodybuilder of the time and many who

trained at that time, all trained specifically for function and strength for cycles of time. And they said it contributed very, you know, they said it contributed the way their bodies looked. But there was also a component of their pride in the fact that they could do shit. Franco Colombo, who was Arnold Schwarzenegger's training partner for the longest time, he was his main training partner. Franco Colombo was known for being one

of the strongest bounty builders of all time. He was, that's what he was really known for. Most people who know Franco Colombo, a lot of them don't even know he won Mr. Olympia, I think once or twice. They know him because, oh, Franco, yeah, he's the guy that was stronger than Arnold, that was really small, but he could deadlift the car

and all that kind of shit. So it went from there, but then it started to, you know, and I think part of it has to do with, you know, the performance enhancing drugs that entered the fray and allowed people to build big muscles without having to challenge their bodies in the same way that they did in the past. I think that was that's part of it because they chemically manipulated their body in order

to produce a different look. At first it was trying to mirror that look of what the Arnold era, they were like really kind of promoting. Although I'm sure that was slowly creeping in at that point, but then it really got exaggerated once science sort of evolved and people started understanding more, hormonally, what they could do to manipulate the process and then therefore

the training somewhat, I think, has been less of a priority at that point, right? Training, if you take a bunch of pro bodybuilders routines and a bunch of pro-physic athletes routines, put them up on the frickin' wall, mix them up, you would look at them all and be like, they all look the fucking same. Really, there's no different concept, there's no different, the training has not become a priority anymore. all mix them up, you would look at them all and be like, they all look the fucking same. Really, there's no different concept, there's no different, the training has not become a priority anymore.

It's, I got a train, I got a lift and get a good pump, and then I got to watch my diet. There's, it's not about, you know, there's no major difference because, basically because they're just worried about. Well, either that or they take one single concept that's popular and they throw it in there and they decide that this is the, you know, and that's either intensity, you know, they're going to and it's intense like through the roof or, you know, like your FST, your fascia, getting into fascia

training and stuff like that, you know, they'll take one gimmick that's out there and they'll integrate it into a regular body spot body parts playing. I think that's a great point because even you mentioned CrossFit, I think that was one component that people had strayed from for a long time, the intensity and the compound lifts that really were exhaustive. They took it to that level where let's combine the most exhaustive way to train and then add conditioning and then add all these things at once the same time So you just beat the fuck out of you. Yeah You know where as you know you see bodybuilders in the gym sort of I mean they're there all day

And they're just they're just you know getting through their pump getting through their pump and sitting down Well, look through their pot everything in the machines are all based on sitting down Yeah, you got we got let's we got to be very clear here. Okay. It's not set enough, but muscles that are too big, even if they're strong, take away from function. Okay. So when bodybuilders got fucking massive, when you've got guys that are 270 pounds in

the gym, it's better for him to do small isolated pumping movements because he or she can't do the other big movements too often because they get hurt, shit breaks, shit rips. Take a big probiotic, I take a lot of them, have them run down the street, you'll pull something or she'll hurt something or they lose a lot of function because of that immense size. Now, and most people don't want to even look like that anyway. You know, most people don't really want to look at.

Most people want to look really muscular, but also want to be able to perform. Well, because of priority, right? It's like, I just want to look a certain way. So therefore, the Smith machine makes sense to me. Yeah, right. And I'll just, you know, increase my volume at that point. Right, and then I have to worry so much about the impact

that the weight is gonna apply to my joints and everything because I've probably compromised my tissue. And incidentally, here's the thing too, incidentally, if you wanna look a particular way and you really don't give a shit about performance, and especially for natural or for the average person, you're better off not training that way either. I mean, let's be honest.

You're also better off focusing some of your training on some of the functionality or taking the concepts of things we talk about, the frequency of training and, you know, targeting particular muscle. Everybody is. I mean, even myself who I'm Mr. Bodybuilder Guy and say that, oh, you know, I care about is how I look and I know I press that issue lot. But you also will find me in the gym with Justin on Fridays a lot doing functional movements. I don't talk a lot about it because I'm geared and focused more on aesthetics, but does

not mean for one minute that I neglect the importance of that a lot of these guys do. That's so important. It's actually reflecting in your physique a lot now, too. Well, it's so important. It's important for functionality. I mean, at the end of the day, yeah, I joke, like I said, about all I care about something, but no, let's be honest, if I looked amazing,

but I couldn't walk your jog down the street and I couldn't do anything, I mean, that'd be pretty worthless. But for me, is my main focus is always aesthetic, but I need to still be able to do those things. And learning to listen to your body and learning how to incorporate that into a routine. So even if you are, you know, an aesthetic driven person, if you're neglecting routines that are performance driven or functionality driven, you're silly, you're missing out,

you're missing out on growth and your end development and your physique, even if it's not your main focus. Or just just just just exercises that you're lacking. Yeah. You know, if you're not doing overhead presses with a barbell standing properly, you know, if you're not doing, I don't, you know, and that's, let's stick on that, let's talk about that for a second.

I don't see very many people doing standing. Barbell shoulder presses. I'm the only fucker in my gym that does it. Everybody does it seated, and they go down to what, 90 degrees, you know, they bring their elbows out wide, they go to 90, you don't see very many people bring the bar all the way down to the upper chest,

press it up properly, like an Olympic lift or wood with the head coming forward. So you're now, you're not teaching your body to properly stabilize overhead weight, right? Right. Right. When you can lift something over your head when you're sitting that way from your body, exactly, not going to be able to recruit to stabilize it. So you're going to have the guys in there with the weight belt for everything they do. Because yeah, you are gonna be compromised because of the way the pattern of your training. You know, like I feel like people like

they stray away from that fact that it's really, it's in the training, it's what you're doing, that oh my god, well that hurts my back. Yeah, it's because you're not incorporating that into your program. You used to, funny, you said that Adam, you told a story about how you used to shoulder press. Yeah. No, I wasn't.

And you couldn't do it standing because I heard you're back and it was all about how you did it. It's a pervert example right here. So, you know, because all of our certifications that we got as kids are young men growing up through the fitness industry, all would recommend that you train your clients to where they come to 90 degrees. Yeah, where the elbows bend at 90 degrees. Yeah, that's the shoulder press. So, I mean, so I know there's people listening right now and if you're a trainer,

I'm sure you've seen this and some of your certifications to this day. So, just like all of you guys, I'm looking at this going like, okay, this is proper form and technique and this is how I train my training clients. So, I train that way. But in all reality, the reason why the certification has put it in there is because they, the certification knows that probably, well, not probably for sure, 80% of your clientele is a middle-aged man or woman that's out of shape and deconditioned. And they can't take away all the way down and all the way up like that.

So then you just, we just continue to perpetuate the problem by shortening their range of motion up at 50 degrees. So I taught myself that way. That's how I would train. And then when I got smart and realized how silly that was and like, oh my God, I'm not in training this correctly, and I'd do standing overhead presses, or even if I did seated, I would bring it all the way

down to my chest and up, and I'd feel this crazy stress in my low back, but that's also too, because I had not trained my body on how to properly press that way when I get a weight all the way over my head. I wasn't bringing my head forward as I press an elevate over. You weren't getting good scap, you weren't getting scapular retractions. No, I wasn't retracting this cap,

what I was doing was I was looking up at the bars I pressed it because it was the natural thing to do as you press, you look up as you're pressing over your head, but for safety and for proper form and technique, that's not how you do it. So it took me a long time before I figured it out. No, no, that's a great point too. You know, when you're doing shoulder presses,

a lot, if you feel like you can't get your arm real straight up above your head, a lot of times it has nothing to do with the shoulder, it has everything to do with your scapula, not retracting back. You need to work on that. You need to work on your range of motions, to properly get in good positioning. So you can get your body under the weight. Yeah, if you're listening right now,

and you've been working out for a while, and you don't have a major shoulder injury, and you're thinking, oh, I can't go all the way down, that hurts my shoulder. You've got a muscle imbalance, and it's all because you haven't gone all the way down. And what you need to do is get really lightweight and start training in that real good full range of motion,

find a way to move within it properly, the way we're discussing, maybe go online, look up how to do, you know, proper Olympic overhead press. And it makes a huge difference. Oh, you got to check your ego at the door too. Because let me tell you, being somebody who could shoulder plus two plates, you know, on a, on a freaking, either a Smith machine or on a 90 degree bench, you know, at 90 degrees, and that's all you go to when I do a standing or I

had to start with the two tens and a 45. You know what I'm saying? Literally like 65, 75 pounds. I was president going from 225 pounds dropping all the down because I was not used to that at all. And it's yeah. I mean, I'm going through this whole process right now too with with one of my clients that she was very focused on, you know, physique and she went to the on stage to do bikini, to do all that kind of stuff and, you know, just what they taught her as far as limiting her range of motion, I'm working my way through all that stuff. And just the disconnect between the upper body, the torso, the lower body, there's no communication

between all three of those. Like it's all separated. And now if you keep doing that, you're not gonna have proper communication when you're actually doing something functional. When you're grabbing a box and lifting it overhead to put it up, you're gonna hurt yourself. Well, let's, real quick, define functional.

We hear that term thrown around all the time, right? Yeah. What does that mean? I mean, to me, when I've explained that to clients, it's being capable. What I say to them is the strength gains in performance gains that you get in the gym translate to the real world. Rather than a lot of people get strong in the gym

and they barely notice anything in the real world or they hurt themselves doing some mundane task like I've seen, I know guys who could bench press three and a pound, do all this crazy stuff, and they'll go, lift the box, twist to put it up somewhere, and oh, I threw my back out. Like, wait a minute, you threw your back out, you freaking work out every day, I had that happen,

you lifted a 50 pound box, that should be no problem. Right, that's dysfunctional. Functional is, my performance in the gym means I increase my performance in the gym means I increase my performance outside. Walking around stiff with with no fluidity, but you know, it's just like it's so obvious to me how you train based on how you walk, how you stand and how you sit. I can tell you right away how you train. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, it will also a lot of stuff that your basic movements, especially in your body parts splits,

that people do body-biller world, is not functional because you stay in one plane all the time. That's it. You know what I say? One plane, the body does not move in just one plane. You know what, something you said too, Adam, over the weekend that I found that I've never really thought of. Which is one of the reasons why I love hanging out with you guys when we get a chance,

is I learned things from you guys all the time. You were talking about how you did a, you called it a staggered stance. It wasn't a complete staggered stance. It was like a partial staggered stance or one foot behind. When you're doing just your traditional basic exercises like a dumbbell curl or you know tricep press down and whatnot and you alternate which foot was in front which foot was back and you had explained to me that it was to Work on your balance and stability rather than always having your feet together made so much fucking sense Made so much sense to me. Oh, I've taught all my clients that now for years And I don't I couldn't even tell you where where I first got it from

but I remember I used to have a challenge with Getting my clients to do like a basic simple move like a straight bar curl and just getting them to hold still to not arch their back. I mean, and I'm talking about really bad people. So obviously some people see it. You can teach them. It's a very basic movement. But you you guys remember those clients that you know, just they just have no mind muscle

connection. Think about it. It helps already immediately by staggering the stance with the lower back arch. Yes. Right. It helps with the lower back arch. It automatically activates the core because the core now has to stabilize yourself and

that's that single stance. Right. So you're sending the signal, you're firing, you're engaged. Yep. So and it's kind of it was kind of a trick for me to get my clients into good posture. And then I've always just done a two where if someone's very dominant on one side or the other, so you guys can all practice this at home right now when you can stand on one leg, lift one leg up,

and the side that you probably just did that on is probably the dominant side of the more natural. Now do that on the other side and see how stable you are. And most people have a really hard time standing for 15 or 30 seconds on the fall forward and see which leg comes first. Exactly, that's how you figure out your dominant one. So if you take a step forward, which one,

or get pushed off a ledge, or if a small step, or whatever, you'll see which one steps forward. But the non-dominant one, I would put that, my clients always with that foot forward. So if it's really in balance, and they have a hard time balancing on that one leg, that would be something that they would just know. They knew that in any time they trained with me, anything we did standing that was a basic movement, like a lateral a, a bicep curl, a overhead shoulder

press, anything. I split stance. Yeah, because these, and I correct me if I'm interpreting this wrong, but the way I'm interpreting it is the best way to use that would be for your standing, kind of like your standing single joint type movements. Because if I'm doing, obviously if I'm squatting, doing deadlift stuff like that, you want your feet together, you want to drive through the floor

and generate your power there. That's functional in that particular position. But you're talking about like curls, side lateral. Yeah, pretty much any, I mean, I really incorporated for sure any single joint movements for 100%. And then I really, if I'm not trying to generate a lot of power and so if I'm working more hypertrophy phase,

I'm fun in that phase where I'm wrapping out 12, 15 reps, you know, if I'm doing, like you say, if I'm doing an overhead press with, you know, with a straight bar and I'm, you know, trying to push some weight over my head, well, then obviously I'm gonna get in a standard stance so I can generate the most power to get over my head. But if I was just pressing some dumbbells over my head. Well, then obviously I'm going to get in a standard stance so I can generate the most power to get over my head. But if I was just pressing some dumbbells over my head real light,

I would even do that or a lateral raise or anything like that. I would put in a goodness split stance, but definitely all bicep curl, triceps stuff, all that work. Just to me, if I can work on your posture, I can work on a little bit of core at the same time I'm moving this simple because, I mean, we know that touching the biceps and triceps

is such a small movement that unfortunately, a lot of people spend so much time on doing in the gym. If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna make some use out of it for sure. Yeah, getting back to like what we're talking about, what is functional? Like if you also think about an Adam sort of mentioned

like just being in one plane and then versus like multiple planes. So there's a lot like, as far as loading is concerned too. So you mentioned like the barbell squat and like having both feet down. You know, as far as loading too with a barbell, right? We know the benefit of that because it's in a symmetrical fashion. We're spreading the load throughout the body. We're getting the whole body involved.

But there's also like unilateral loading and something that's a little more asymmetrical. So that actually- Were you like, hold a dumbbell or something on one shoulder? One shoulder, yeah. So that, I mean, tends to mimic real life situations in my opinion, even more because you just don't have that sort of balance when it comes to load.

And then weight shifts. So if you grab something that like it's like a sack of potatoes or it's, you know, it's something really heavy and it can move and shift. You have to be able to react properly otherwise. That's another way that like potentially there could be injuries. Right. So that really the bulk of your strength comes from where you're pushing heavy weight and it's balanced, it has to be balanced

because it's heavy, so you got a barbell, lots of weight. Bulk of your strength is gonna come from, gains are gonna come from that. But to integrate that strength into a way which your body can now translate that strength into multiple planes, you incorporate some of this unilateral off balance kind of stuff. And this is where you can combine them

to produce maximum strength, that's also functional. Because again, if you just did the unilateral stuff, you wouldn't get the benefit of the maximum strength from the heavy, big, balanced stuff. But if you incorporate them together and you put it in a good program or programming, now you've got yourself. I have a funny nerdy fitness guy thing to admit

that I do, every time I go get dog food over at Petco and I pick up two, you taste it? Yeah, do it. See how it is. No, no, no, no. For the dogs, I pick up their two bags. I don't know, they're probably, I don't know,

30, 40, 50 pound bags. I don't know, they're the big bags, whatever those way, I have no idea. I've never even eaten those milk bones before. I've never eaten milk before. I totally have. What is this? What?

It was awful. Wait, why did you eat a milk bone? I don't know. Some callage, some callage, of course. It was one of those things. Kid drunk at this time. Dude, there's a lot of those weird things you eat just because like you got like, the boys are like hyping you.

Yeah. Yeah, like one time one of my good friends, we got him to eat this like huge praying mantis Like he'd chop the head off and it just ate it and it's like legs were legs It was the worst thing I've ever seen. I was like This huge like Thorax and oh god Disgusting. Yeah, we were all one to yeah Adam. What did you do with the dog back dogs? The bags of dog food I I give my unilateral training.

I actually throw both bags over one side. And I always get people that laugh at me are like, what the fuck is this guy doing? Because of course they have carts in there that you can put the carts in. But I always choose to go all the way back to the store and go grab my dog food. And I'll stand there and I'll wait in line

while I'm holding on. You know what, dude? I do the same. I do shit like that all the time. You know what I'll do? I'll get heavy objects that I can, that I either, I would need to wrap my arms around the same. I do shit like that all the time. You know what I'll do? I'll get heavy objects that I can, that I either, I would need to wrap my arms around the lift, but I'll grip them with one hand

and see how long I can hold, walk with them, holding with one hand, and then switch to this. And the time I go to Costco, I just throw everything on me somehow and try and balance my way up to the house. I just don't like to go back. I was like, I could get more.

No, multiple trips for pussy's. Exactly. Well, I saw a mean, I saw a funny meme that was a picture of like a guy like taking his groceries. And I know every one of you've done this when you get to the groceries and you like want one trip. That's it. So you're like, holding on to like 16 bags.

Oh, that's mean. He's the team. This is the main reason why. In my teeth and everything. That's the main reason why I got angry when they banned plastic bags. Because you could carry, I could carry a thousand plastic bags full of groceries. Paper bags, you can't they rip. But before I was like, fuck out. Go ahead.

Which I know everyone of us, that's happened to us too. One time, how many times have you tried you anyway, still with paper bags in the handle ribs off? Yeah, I'm carrying like eight of them in the water mills. And all the apples are rolling down my driveway. Shit! Get the red vines! Please subscribe to Mind Pump and leave us a five-star rating and review. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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