Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2142: Maximum Strength, Stamina & Grit: The 3 Components of Strength

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover different types of strength and how to achieve them. There ain’t nothing wrong with getting a little strong. (1:25) At what point does strength training start to take away from athletic training? (3:01) The moment Sal realized there are DIFFERENT types of strength. (9:12) Celebrating the old-timey strongmen/women. (12:12) The three different types of strength and how to achieve them.  #1 – Max Strength. (19:17) #2 – Stamina. (26:58) #3 – Grit. (35:20) Three examples of bronze era athletes who demonstrated one of these three different types of strength. (45:21) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit MASSZYMES by biOptimizers for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP10 at checkout** August Promotion: MAPS Anabolic Advanced 50% off! **Code AUGUST50 at checkout** Mind Pump #1960: Four Different Types Of Strength And How To Train For Them Mind Pump #2005: How To Incorporate Isometric Training Into Your Routine Mind Pump #2095: How To Smash Through A Strength Plateau George Hackenschmidt: The Father Of The Bench Press And Hack Squat The Mighty Atom - Legendary Strength Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Mark Rippetoe (@startingstrength) 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 most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? Today's episode we talk about strength and three components within strength that you should train for the best body, max strength, strength, stamina and grit. So that's what today's episode's all about.

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This is a very, very effective muscle building program. It's 50% off. If you're interested, go to anabolicadvanced.com and use the code August 50 for the 50% off discount. All right, here comes a show. Strength, it is a foundational physical pursuit. In fact, it's the one physical pursuit that contributes to all other physical pursuits.

In other words, if you got a little stronger, you'll get a little better at everything else. So in today's episode, we're gonna talk about strength and we're gonna break it down. It disemcomponents because how you train your strength matters. All right, fun. Let's do it. There ain't nothing wrong We've been getting a little strong. Wow Am I am I right? That's good. Dude for sure you was thinking about that. I remember the first time I was a practicing Justin been saving that forever. He has been. I remember the first time I heard somebody communicate the value of strength this way

it was Mark Ripotow. Yeah, I said this and he said that straight. He's the first person I heard say that and then he goes on to explain and it's 100% true. If you want to improve your functional flexibility, getting stronger, we'll do that. If you want more endurance, getting stronger will contribute to that. If you want better balance, if you want pretty much any physical pursuit, if you get a little stronger, you'll notice improvements to all the others.

Now, this isn't true with all the other physical pursuits. If you improve your endurance, you don't necessarily get stronger or get more functional flexibility. If you get more functional flexibility, you don't necessarily get some of the other ones. So, strength is this kind of like, if you look at physical pursuits as a triangle, the base, it's at the base. So it's very important for everybody kind of trained. Also for strength.

For your athletic endeavors too. 100%. What point do you think that tips over? When you start to take away focus from other things. When I'm so specialized that you lose sight of other, I would guess. Yeah, I'm asking that because I'm picturing like a high school athlete who hasn't been introduced really to strength training. Or is it about to get introduced to strength training and just

Them doing the major compound lifts is going to contribute to whatever sport they play don't care with football wrestling basketball Or just by doing that they're gonna get better at their their sport, but at some point The weight training is becomes when the and when the weight training becomes such a focus or you get beyond the that like base of strength, I guess, and it becomes like almost weightlifting becomes almost specialized and then it starts to even take away So what how would you how would you tell a young athlete to approach that is where I'm getting? Yeah, no, so first off strength will always contribute to all the other physical pursuits. If it were simply snapping my fingers and making you stronger, the reason why you start to see a reduction in potential benefit is because it takes time to train for strength.

And when you're training as an athlete, especially as you become more and more advanced, if you're dedicating this much time to strength, to building strength means you're taking away time from being able to train front of the things and you're limited by recovery. So it becomes much more complex. Yeah. And then the strength gains you get need to be a little bit more specific because like for example, quarter squats, you know, you get a new athlete, like, like, you don't want to do quarter squats. We want to

get you good at being able to do full squats. But if you're a high level basketball like, you don't want to do quarter squats. We want to get you good at being able to do full squats. But if you're a high level basketball player, you're going to get tons of carryover from quarter squats and you're not going to get as much damage and you're not going to need to train as much time on working on the control mobility of a full squat. It's not going to have as much carryover, that kind of stuff. So it just gets much more specific. But overall, if we could just snap your fingers, I mean, take any athlete, if you could just make them 10% stronger with a magic wand, would they not see improvements in everything else?

Absolutely. Yeah, and I think too, like you can get to a point where you get really strong in like certain directions. To the point where your body then has to kind of compensate when you introduce other variables, other directions, other factors like so if I have to like change directions and now my body's in a certain position, I'm not quite as strong in sports and athletics, it's gonna expose a lot more of,

I guess like a multi-directional strength in terms of like your ability to be able to react, respond, have strength outside of just this sort of linear focus. But what's great about building up that base is you do build up that strength overall. You have to just consider the fact that that's not the end goal with it. You have to then extend to that and build in. Yes, your skill for your very specific sport, but also too, you have to get strong in

other directions. Yeah, I guess I was looking for a simpler answer and you guys both give me complicated answers. I'm picturing myself as like a parent of a high school student. I don't know very much about strength training. My son doesn't. I listen to the show. I trust your guys' advice.

I want to advise my son on his pursuit in the weight room, even though football is his passion, or basketball is his passion. How much should he be focusing on getting stronger versus going out and playing his sport more? Because you kind of started to allude to it. At what point does the strength training start to take away from the athletic training? That's obviously it would be too long.

Generally speaking, yeah. Oh, I mean, it's gonna be just a sliver of your training. Obviously, the skill's gotta be the most of your focus. And the cool thing about strength training is you don't need a lot of it to gain benefit from it. So even if you took the high school athlete and you had them lift once a week, you get a lot of benefit from that.

And minimal time taken away from, you know, yeah, I think it depends on how strong they are to begin with. And like, you know, what the capable, what they're capable of because if it needs attention and that's one of their biggest setbacks in terms of their performance in their sport, you know, that needs to be a focused effort to really build that base completely. So if you have a good base, then you can taper off, I think. Okay, that's a good point, just tonight, that gets me closer to where I'm searching, right?

So if you were told, let's say by your coach, like, hey, you need to put some size on, you're skinny or you're a lot lighter than the average athlete, like you need some more strength, and that's why you're lacking, right? And that's gonna be a huge difference. Versus maybe you're a more built muscular kid already, and you're already in the middle to the upper pack of strength and size naturally, that kid is more likely to overdo the strength training weight room time.

He probably benefit more from movement and being able to skill, yeah. Okay, so now we're being able to skill. Yeah. Okay. So now we're getting closer to, I feel like a good kind of general advice for a parent who's trying to advise their kid on pursuing strength for their sport is understanding that if it's hindering them, right, because they could be better at basketball or football if they were stronger because more than most of the kids are stronger than they are.

They would greatly benefit from the weight room versus if you were a kid who is middle the pack or even the top of the pack as far as strength wise, you're going to benefit more from your athletic endeavors than you would be spending even more time in the weight room. Now, you're also generally speaking, a small slice of the population for the sake of this episode. We're talking, let small slice of the population for the sake of this episode. We're talking, let's talk to the average person. The average person who's trying to become more fit, more healthy, look better, have a faster

metabolism, better hormone profile, just generally feel better, be more stable, and just have improved health. That's what we'll communicate to you because once we get to athletes, it starts to get, make it real, it can get complex. Really be complex and specific. But for the average person getting stronger, you'll notice an improvement in the quality of your life across the board, but then it gets a little bit more

specific in the sense that there are different types of strength that you can and you should train for because it's going to give you better overall strength. So I'll give you a full story that kind of illustrates what I'm talking about. I mean, I started lifting weights as a kid. I was 14 years old when I first started working out and never stopped since. And I remember at 16, this is two years after lifting, I'm a teenage boy, so full of testosterone. I remember going to work with my dad and he was, you know, my dad was a tile-setter. And I remember he was putting mud up on the wall. So this is like a real sticky type of glue that you put up on

the wall and you know, you spread it out and put tile and stuff like that. And he had this like, he would hold, he was holding this flat, it was like a flat square that he would hold with this handle and there would be a big pile of mud on it. And then he'd have his trowel on the other hand and he'd scoop it off that hand and throw it up on the wall, scoop it off the hand and throw it on the wall.

And he was doing this all day. Now my job was to mix the cement, bring it to him and pour some of it on this thing that he was holding his hand. And so as he's doing this, and I'm watching him and waiting to see if I need to put more on or whatever, that was like I said, that was what I was doing, I made a comment,

something like, man, that looks like fun, that looks real fun, right? And he goes, you think you can do this? I said, I mean, I could tell it takes some skill, but I could try. My arm, not only did I not have I mean, I could tell it takes some skill, but I could try. My arm, not only did I not have the technique, but my arm got so fatigued. Just holding it.

Yeah, and it was like, it was probably like 25 pounds, which doesn't sound like a lot, but all day he's holding this on. It's a ton. Now I curled, all kind of way more weight than that. I mean, 16 years old, those are really strong. It was already deadlifting almost 400 pounds and all this other stuff.

And here he is holding this mud. And I remember doing it for like maybe three minutes trying to do it while he's laughing at me or what. And my arm was just on fire. And I realized that there are different types of strength. Cause had him and I gone to deadlift or do curls, I could probably lift more than him but I couldn't have this isometric kind of like contracted stable position

yeah doing this particular thing and that was the first time I kind of realized that oh there's different kinds of strength and when you work out in the gym you can train all of them or different ones and doing so will give you more of a complete package. Number one, you're going to have a better physique as a result. There'll be no holes. You have less injury and you'll just feel better because all of these types of strength are expressed in the real world.

So you'll notice in the real world, if you only train one and not the others that you'll try doing other things like moving a couch and you'll wonder why you get so fatigued when you work out all the time. How long have we been aware of this? Like when you think I know you guys are more into looking back and like old, you know, way old people used to or older guys like as far as old timey type stuff, how they used to train, how long used to train, how long have we been aware of the different types of strength and where their specific exercises,

specific people that were specialized in different types of feats. They were aware, by the way. Yeah, well, even back in the Roman days, right? The inception of the Olympics, like they would do these strength feats and that were, you know,

produce these types of like granite-looking bodies. And you just saw like, you know, the people used to marvel at these feats that they used to do. And then that kind of translated into a lot of the things we saw with like the bronze era guys that would, you know, just lift benches full of people and do these bent presses. And they were very much of a different strength focus, I think, back then, because of the hard

labor. And the hard labor was a big part of that. If anything, we forgot. Not that we just became aware. They were aware of this way early, because early strength training was all about, first off, they would have to display it to an audience. If you were a strength athlete in the bronze era and you wanted to somehow make a living doing it, you would do it by doing demonstrations. The demonstrations to the average person, if you did a deadlift with a barbell, the average person

back then would look at it and be like, I don't know, is it a lot of way? I mean, I guess you could have people come try it. Yeah. But they'd look at it. But you'd have to, so what they would do is they would lift objects that people could recognize like, yeah, like a heavy iron wagon wheel or like a side show, almost like a vibe. They'd travel and they'd do these like performances for people. Or they would ban the horseshoe, right, or hold a young woman up in the air for a long time, right, or do stuff like that. Roll a frying pan or something.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, crush things. Yeah, so they were very, people were very aware, and then they would challenge each other. So, yeah, oh great, you could lift a really heavy rock that I can't, but can you hold this bucket of water at arms length for five minutes, right? So then I challenge you, and then you couldn't do that. And then you'd say, okay, but can you take this nail and with one hit, hit it through a plank of wood or whatever. So they were very aware of the different types of strength. And so they used to train them. Yeah. They would train all of them. So you didn't see these strength athletes only training a particular way. They would train in many different ways So you didn't see these strength athletes only training a particular way.

They would train in many different ways so that they could do these competitions and these performances and demonstrate their feats. The result of which being these really incredibly fit athletic, mobile, strong, healthy, natural bodies, way before anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drug. This is before supplements. They just eat food and work. They all had jobs. Very few of them actually able to support themselves

fully doing this. So they worked full time and then they trained their bodies and then they would do these displays. I remember when you guys first started showing me some of these athletes in the bronze era or weight lifters, whatever you want to call them. I don't recall ever seeing pictures.

I don't feel like it was celebrated or highlighted today. I assume that they didn't have physics. Whenever I saw like an old poster or a clipping that was black and white, if someone knew that, they actually never really showed like a physique that looked really good. So I just assumed that it didn't happen until a while later, but I've now seen all kinds of physics back then that looked amazing. Is there a reason why maybe they didn't care about that as much?

Is that why? They did, but what was more impressive to the feet of the fact that it was what you could do. Yeah. Because you'll still hear this today, by the way. This is an instinct that, especially guys will have, what do you see? This is annoying, by the way, but you'll see like a buff dude walking down the street, and then some insecure dudes are looking at him.

What do you bitch? Or they'll say something like, oh yeah, they'll say something like, yeah, but I bet he can't fight. Or whatever, right? So instinctively, it's like, but what can you do, right? That's always what comes out. Well, back then, it was all about what you could do. So if you looked pretty and you looked nice

and you were not doing anything, like you were really quick, everybody would discount you. Like, oh, yeah, he looks good, but what did he do? He can't do anything. Well, it wasn't like one of the first crossover's sand down because he had like that really impressive physique Yeah, I turned it into bodybuilding because bodybuilding I feel like it just started along his era, right?

No, it happened later the but so the original like modeled after him Yeah, so it was they were challenges so way before that it was like circuses and stuff like that and then these strong men Strong women by the, they were women too. Oh yeah. Dude, some of these women were crazy strong. Oh, yeah. Oh, like, I don't remember what her name, what was her name? Pudgy Stockton, I think, carried a 600 pound cannon. She carried the 600 pound cannon. It was a chick. And this was, this was, by the way, women who are, you know, they had like the promote, like, empowerment, stuff like that. Like this was back in the day when if you were outside

of the house or outside of the kitchen, like people would, like say something to you. And here was this woman who was, who would go on a stage, she would do these lifts and challenge men and she would put them to shame. So this is, yeah, this is pretty cool. But anyway, they would have challenges. That's how it started.

And then they started creating shows. And the shows were, first they were challenges. Then they, somebody was really smart and included a physique round. So they would come out, they would do some kind of a challenge, maybe a competition with each other, who could do most handstand pushups or who could lift the, you could lift the most of the bent press

or something like that. And then there was a physique round. Don't you think that would be cool if they brought that back today? Of course. I think that would be so cool. They would change the physique. Especially since, I mean, we've gotten to a level now

where like you go to like a Mr. Olympia and everybody looks fluffy and sane. Like everybody looks amazing. How many egos do you think we'll get crushed? Right. It's an actual... Because now you have to do something with that. Yeah. That's why it would be cool.

Yeah. I think it would be a much better way to separate them because they're now at a point where, man, it's so subjective. Like it's so, like everybody looks so good. The guy who comes in last place, like most people that don't know how to how the bodies even get judged would be like, I don't get it. I don't understand why so. It would be cool to add an element into the show where it's like now You have to do like this bent press or do some or you get to choose right you have a couple of different feats

You definitely get something like me more interested Just turn your channel page it. You know, I mean although like to give the guys credit, you know That most of them can do something pretty fucking strong and impressive. Yeah, a lot of body bills are strong. Yeah, yeah, you know, like you, if you got that mass of that big, you're not, you're not, I'm not just counting that, but yeah.

I know. So all right, let's talk about one of the types of strengths that you can display that you should also train and practice on, and that's max strength. This is what most people would, this is what most people think about if you were to mention strength, is they would think of this type of strength.

And it's basically your ability to generate maximal force, it's your ability to lift something heavy one time. So it's like, you know, like, how much can you deadlift? How much can you bench press? How much can you squat? Can you lift that really heavy thing off the ground or press that really heavy thing in the air?

This is an important type of strength to train. It is specific, meaning you train for this to get this. There is carry over to other types of strength. But it's important for everybody to develop the ability to generate maximum force through a range of motion. Okay, through a range of motion, meaning not just force, but force and movement. So like a squat would be example. And this is again, everybody should train this. At some point, this becomes less important when you start to get really strong. But within the first at least three years of training, this is a very important type of strength to train for.

You know what's interesting about this portion is the rituals involved with being able to get in that mindset and be able to recruit as much muscle fibers and force as possible. Everybody has kind of their own thing. It's like, whether it's crazy, crazy hype music or it's breathing, certain erratic breathing or it's slapping somebody. I'm always very fascinating to see how people can get into that headspace, the lift, like the most maximal amount of weight possible.

I wish this was actually communicated better to me, because even as a trainer, like I told you guys, like I never, I never matched out. I thought it was silly, I thought it was too high of risk for the reward. I cared about how I looked. I didn't care about proving how much I could dead lifter squat. It was relatively strong, so I didn't care.

But the irony of that was when I started to train more like a strong man or learn how to lift like a power lifter, the benefits and carryover that I got from aesthetics. I wish I understood that earlier, I think I would have got to my destination much faster as far as the physique that I was trying to build as a young man. But I avoided it because again,

I fell into that category of people who look at the way people train as like a camp. Like, oh, one rep max, I'm not a power lifter. I don't have train that. Yeah, why train that way? Why would I ever train that way? And it's only risky to, that's a good question. Why train, why train to develop max strength?

Number one, it's training your central nervous system to fire with incredible force to get your muscles to organize for one concentrated effort. And it also builds and strengthens the tendons and ligaments like nothing else. So that's why it's very important. This I did not because I knew it was a great way to build a physique, but because there was always an infatuation I had with strength athletes. So I liked to try doing that. When I started applying this to clients, because I never trained clients in low reps until

the back half of my career, it wasn't until the back half of my career when I started reading books that were written at the turn of the century by people from the bronze era, when I started to say, God, you know, within with good form of technique and all that stuff and appropriate, I should start putting clients through cycles of training for max strength. It became my secret weapon. Why? Because no trainers are training average people. So you was touching it. Especially women. Yes. And there's so many, I mean, there's pre-requisites involved, obviously, before we get to that level where it's like, let's go ahead and get after

it and go for like our max output, just because of safety. And so I think that there was a bit of a hesitation there amongst coaches and trainers, but really, like you said, like I, same thing in my career, like later on, because that was such a high concern, was like, I don't know, are injured anybody, I don't hurt anybody, but really like to be able to build that capacity to, you know, really show them what they're capable of. It really just, it bled into everything else after that in terms of their ability to get strong in these other strengths pursuits. Oh, it was, it was my secret weapon because they'd people who'd been with trainers before and all of stuff and I'd look at their workouts and I'd know they'd never train this way and I'd

start them out that way and within two months they were just they would get blown away by the results. Speaking of safety, now everything has to be done properly, okay? So let's just understand that context. But heavy deadlifting, heavy squatting, heavy overhead pressing, like just heavy training like this appropriately, is what actually made my clients the most bulletproof against injuries. That's the irony.

Well, it's also, it's relative to the individual, right? So if you have somebody, right, we all have had this client who is never lifted really heavy or one rep max or ever below five or six reps, but they train eight, 10, 12, 15 reps all day long. And they have a weight that they choose every single time with that. It's simply taking that same person and going, hey, let's add 25 pounds to the bar,

which you've never done before. And if you only get four or five, it's okay. Or let's add 50 pounds of bar, and if you only get two or three, it's okay. So it's all relative to where they're currently at, how much you load it. It's not like you take somebody's like, it's got to be appropriate. Somebody who's never lifted before, let's just slap on two pounds. And put a towel in their back right away. Yeah. And so Max deadlift with some of my clients was the bar. This was like my older clients. They lift the bar for the first time. my clients was the bar. You know, this was like my older clients.

They lift the bar for the first time. And that would be their, you know, us training low-reff. Doug is a good example. Doug's was my client came to me because of back pain he could not fix. Chronic low back pain. You know how we fixed it? Heavy dead lifts.

A back exercise. Literally got him to pull 400 pounds and the way his back used to bother him and hurt and also disappeared. And it was from training in this particular fashion. So it's got tremendous value. Now when you train this, there's a couple things you want to consider. One, is you're obviously training a low reps. Okay.

Two, you're not maxing out all the time. So I know we're talking about max strength, but to train for best max strength, you've got to train with sub maximal weight. Meaning let's say I do sets of two reps in the lift. So I'm doing a set with just two. It's not that I'm not picking a weight where I can only do two. I'm picking a weight where I could do four. But now what I do is I do five sets of two reps. That's how you build maximal strength. When you're ready to test yourself is when you go for the max. That's not how you work out in this low rep. But few exercises, lots of sets, compound lifts, low reps. That's the general recipe for building max strength.

And you can apply it to any exercise, but compound lifts are going to give you the most bang for your buck. Training single joint exercises like this, there's not a ton of value in comparison. So, all right, the next one is strength stamina. This is a type of strength as well. Now we're not talking about lung capacity or VO2 max, although that plays a role. We're talking about the ability for your muscles

to generate strength repeatedly. So like, your example, you give your dad. Yeah, well, that would be more of the isometric, which we'll get to, but it would be more like a set of 25 reps in the barbell squat, right? You would consider his flicking up the, oh, I was talking about the arm that was holding.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, I think I was thought you were explaining that the reps involved with that kept hitting. Well, that arm, yeah, right. Yeah, and the arm flicking up the, yeah, that for sure. Oh, I'm glad you made that clear because when I was picturing you trying to do that, I was thinking even more so the,

it was the hand holding the metal, the flat plate with the mud that I couldn't believe how tired it got me. So you know, hold that kind of way for that long of a time. Yeah, but I mean, that's great, great still example, right? So there's an example of,

there's two different types of, yeah, my right hand is the repeated stamina. Yeah, yeah. And the left hand was holding the mud for, you know, for that, just for that time. But yeah, strength stamina is reps. Can you repeatedly generate strength? So here's a great example. Let's compare what we just talked about. Max strength to strength stamina. You could be somebody who can squat 500 pounds. And all you do is train max strength then somebody puts 200 pounds less than half on the bar and they tell you to squat it for 30 reps and you can't yeah That's a common example by the way is that somebody for 30 reps wouldn't be able to do that who could squat 500 pounds

So just to give you example how specific Strength can can be and why you want to kind of what you're both you see specific strength can be and why you want to kind of, why you want to do both. You see fatigue setting in and how that affects the body and how it literally shuts parts of your system down. Like you just start shutting down if you don't have that kind of long-term strength. It's the worst.

And it's one of those that's very exposing, especially if you are that kind of person that, like you just like to lift heavy weights and then Somebody takes you through something around 15 to 20 reps and you just Barry shoes. Oh my it's it's embarrassing and It just highlights that there's different Completely different types of strength and this is also a necessary Part that's very functional in real-world situations. Yeah, I think of

Ranchers cowboys. Yeah, that's what comes in real world situations. Yeah, I think of ranchers, cowboys. That's what comes in mind. Being able to stack 70 bales of hay in a day, or hauling fence posts and nailing down a whole acre worth of fence posts in a day, just like that ability to just hammer something out like that for hours all day long and one average person would do four or five. They're almost as strong at the end of the day as they were at the beginning.

Right, right. Bodybuilders actually have our good examples of strength stamina. Bodybuilders because of the high volume. Lots of super sets and triceps. Yeah, just like, okay, today's Chester, you take a power lifter and a bodybuilder go to work out. And what the workout would look like, the power lifter would be stronger than the bodybuilder

in the beginning. But about halfway through the workout, you know, set number 15, all the power lifters just as muscles don't work anymore. So I always got Justin. Yeah, that's right. So this is where I was good, you know, say, I never trained the one rap. You bury me all day long and hard out of the gates. And then I was just dogging the double triples. But give me 45 minutes in, bro. I got this guy. Yeah, so.

Yeah, now this is also typist. By the way, all the ones that we're gonna talk about today contribute to muscle growth. All of them are the most effective thing you could do for muscle growth when it's novel. Meaning, if you always train in one, then training in one of the other ones will give you some like really fast initial gains. That's one of the reasons why it's so good to cycle through these is because the body gets becomes really adapted to one and then switching to a new one, it's a new stimulus

and the body just responds along with of course developing a better more well-rounded physique. This kind of training also produces really good pumps So for those of you who really enjoy that feeling in the gym or the muscles get really full and tight And you like to see what you look like if you were a little bit more developed like Stamina strength type training high volume higher rep type training is a surefire way to do it. It's like the guaranteed way to do it. And it does increase blood flow. It does burn a lot of calories.

And it does contribute to traditional endurance much more than max strength. Yeah, I think this one has more cardiovascular benefits for sure because of all the blood and oxygen pumping through your body. I was going to ask you, what are the things that you think really that contribute to this more so than like the single rep? So you're going to get the cardiovascular, you're going to get the stave off fatigue, you're going to have muscle stamina, right, that you're going to get from it, you get the pumps and probably benefits if I perched your feet from in there.

What else would you say? Well, I think it's, this is tends to be easier on the joints, so long as your form and technique are good. So, so if you have good, now if you have bad technique, stamina, strength, training can be terrible. I've seen so many examples of loose, crazy form. But if it's really good, it can be easier on the joints. So let's say you're older, you've been working out for a long time, you're already pretty strong, you'll probably spend more time here than you will. Or you probably will.

Less risky, you know, in terms of on your joints. And yeah, like the stress, you're gonna get in ligaments and things. So I think it does have a bit more, it weighs higher in the longevity spectrum. Yeah, and then lots of health benefits. I mean, they all have health benefits, but this one you can throw in some of the benefits

of cardio in with this type of training. We go do a barbell squat set with 30 reps and tell me you're not getting some cardio benefits from that, you're going to for sure. So now people in the strength and muscle building world will tell you that this produces round looking muscles, whereas max strength type training will give you that kind of like hard granite look. And, again, I think there's some truth to that. There's zero science and studies to support any of what I just said

with that. But in my experience, training myself and training other people, and it's a small effect, so it's not like a, it's like this dramatic difference. But it does. There's a different look to my body. Yeah. When I trained one versus the other, I mean, it was dramatic for me. I felt like it was. I think it was dramatic for you because you had, you were so long. Right. I was an extreme example of it, right? I was in extreme, you had so much muscle. You're. Right, I was an extreme example of it, right? I was an extreme. You had so much muscle, you're an pro. I was an extreme example of somebody who trained like hypertrophy, high reps, super set,

very much so in the, you know, stamina, strength department, not the max strength department at all for years, a decade of training that way, and then switched over to training. And there was a very obvious physical change to my body and it wasn't just that I added more muscle, it was like the way the muscle looked on my body. It was very clear to me that I'd always had this like ability to air up right in the training in the strength stamina where I get these bubbly looking muscles and I would look full. And then after an hour or two, I'd have this kind of deflated look.

I wouldn't feel like I looked as muscular where when I started training max strength, my body didn't get as big and round during the workout. But then the muscle that I built on my body felt like it stayed on there even when I wasn't aired up if that makes sense. I guess the best way I can describe what that was like for me to go through that transition but I felt like it was dramatic. Yeah, I feel like when I train like this,

I feel, if I do it well, sometimes I can over train with this because this adds a lot of volume, okay? But I feel good. I feel healthy, I feel like I got good, you know, my muscles are working really well. When I train with a lot of max strength, I feel solid in my body.

I just feel really solid and tight. So it's a different feel as well on the inside. All right, the next one, this one we can label as grit, because I can't necessarily think of a better description All right, the next one, this one we can label as grit, because I can't necessarily think of a better description that the average person would understand. Isometric strength would be what we would use the trainer jargon, but grit is your ability

to maintain and control tension. This, I also have a great story to tell where I experienced this myself and this is when, as an adult, as a young adult, after years and years and years of lifting weights, at this time, I was a big boy at this point, like 220. I went and went and signed up for a Brazilian JiuJitsu. And these were with the GEE. And I remember in the class, as I'm learning, as I'm taking the classes, I'm a strong dude. I'm stronger than anybody in the class. I'm the strongest guy in there for sure, okay? But halfway through, my hands will just stop functioning. I couldn't hold on to people's GEE anymore,

because so much of Jiu-Jitsu is grip and grip training and then holding people in a position if you're on top or on the bottom, maintaining guard, maintaining grips. And I remember like, even though I'm the strongest guy, you've got the biggest muscles in there. Like that was it. Like once that I was done, I couldn't,

I symmetrically hold anymore. And then I was like, you could just take me apart. That's a different type of strength, is the ability to maintain steady tension. Here's another example, new dads will understand this. So if you listen to right now, you work out, you became a new dad, you probably were embarrassed about how tired your arm got holding your kid.

You know, you got a baby, literally a 20 pound baby, and you're holding them, you're like, man, my heart was tired. I go and do curls with 50 pound tub belts, and I'm holding my baby right now, trying to do stuff with the other hand, and my biceps on fire, like what the hell's going on? The coolest part about this one

is this is probably the safest one to train. 100%. And what's really cool is if you have somebody, if you're a coach or a trainer and you have somebody who advanced age and you're hearing us talk about these different benefits of building you know max strength or strength, this is a great place to start a lot of your clients who you're not certain yet if they can handle the other types of of strength training because has tremendous benefits and it's really easy to start

anybody at any level. It's why I love using this. It also causes the least amount of damage that you could train at the most frequently. And there's this weird myth out there that isometric training or training for that kind of stability or whole, the ability to maintain that kind of tension, is not a muscle building form of training. That is so wrong, it's not even funny. In fact, it is the best muscle building method in the initial short term.

That's what studies will show. Now, eventually it falls off very quickly if that's all you do, and then the other forms of training are superior. But if I only had to train somebody for three weeks and I wanted to show maximal muscle and strength gain and I took and you gave me beginner and I was competing to get someone else,

this would get them more strength and muscle in the first three weeks than anything else. That's what the studies show. Now, for everybody else, if you work out and you're fit and you're consistent, if you just inject this kind of training into your routine every two or three months for a couple weeks,

or you inject this kind of training into your normal routine. Here and there, you'll get tremendous benefit. So many interesting factors to the isometric training, like even the fact that you get strong 15 degrees in both sides of whatever it is that you're contracting, whatever angle you're contracting, it's going to carry over 15 degrees on both sides of that strength curve, which, you know, sounds kind of interesting, but it's, you start to understand how that now translates to feeling stronger in different positions

that you're holding, which a lot of times when you're doing regular lifts, like say you're doing it in the max lifting portion, there's a little bit of a weak spot somewhere, which this will inevitably fill and it will send that signal. Everything is a counter-force stable and strong, so you can apply like even more

or a consistent amount of force To be able to lift more weight and then on top of that, too, it has an analgesic effect where Say, you know, there's there's an instability or your your body kind of has this natural governing System in it to be able to tighten up and restrict movement and keep you kind of from injuring anything further Where if you start like holding a position and trying to increase that range of motion very gradually and you squeeze and you tense, you're sending a signal now that it's stable again. And so now the pain signal kind of dampers down. Yeah, a lot of people don't know that the pain signal oftentimes isn't necessarily because

there's an injury, but rather because your body's trying to prevent you from doing a particular weakness type of movement, and this kind of training tells the body it's strong. But I mean, to your original comparison or example of construction, I just remember for me, having to be in really uncomfortable positions, I naturally would, I would never be in, right? I'd be underneath, yeah, the house, and I'm having to fix something, but propping myself

with one arm and just holding this position to try and make sure that I can like stop a leak or something into the house. And it's like, it's just, it's a very strange, like, way of thinking about strength, but to be able to hold myself and maintain that position for a good amount of time, like required, it was exhausting. It fully floored me sometime. There's a viral clip right now going around of an old ex body builder who claims

to only do isometric and negative training now. Have you seen this? Wow, no. Yeah, and in the clip, it's a very short clip, but he's talking, I mean, again, like social media, it's like extreme, right? All this other things are waste, you know? Yeah.

So it lost me on everything else as a waste, but obviously like many things that go viral, there's some truth to it. And that he's basically making the case that, you know, that the eccentric portion, the exercise, and the isometric portion are the most valuable portions of any exercise. And so why waste any time doing all that damage

on the other one that has the least amount of return by just working on the concentric? And so, I mean, again, I, some truth, yeah, some truth to that, but it just shows you too though, how valuable it is, you could have somebody who that's all they train and actually build a legit physique from it Yeah, you were talking about your talking about construction. Did you ever you guys ever do this where you like with your dad or your uncle or someone as a kid? And he's like hey hold this up for me while I you know something over here. Yeah Yeah, and you're like

They're doing all the work. Everything's collapsing. Yeah. That's the type of strength that we're talking about. Do you find something there, though? I didn't find it, no. Oh, never mind. Yeah, that look like it.

No, it's like you're gonna say that. You gotta shake your head. Yeah. I mean, there is a guy named Richard Moniston, but I don't know if he's the one. Oh, I know. But yeah, so this kind of training builds muscle. It builds tremendous solid stability.

And it is very safe, very, very safe. Literally pushing gets an movable object means you're not moving. So you're risk of injury goes back off at any time. You could back off at any time, apply as much or as little tension as you want, and there's different ways to do this. It could be as easy as holding a heavy weight above your head for time, or out at arm's length for time, or holding something like a suitcase or a farmer's

walk and just holding it for time. It could also be pushing against something that won't move as hard as you can or just holding your body in a position for as long as you can or for extended periods. This, that's how you would train this kind of training. And if you've never done it before, try it and you'll be surprised at how maybe strong you are at other stuff, how weak you are at something like this

and that just goes to show you the potential benefit that could possibly be that's a value here. Yeah, that's another thing I want to mention. All the ones that we're talking about, if you go to the gym tomorrow after listening to this and you test one of them, because you're like, you know, I never trained that way, and you find that you're terrible at it,

that is a huge opportunity, huge potential for your body to progress. Like this I learned much later on my career, I wish I knew this as a kid, but when you find something in the gym, if you're advanced, and you find something in the gym that you're not good at, even after you've been waiting up for years, you just found a way that you could get your body to really progress and grow. Whether it's an exercise or a rep range or a style of training, I actually later on started to figure out to look for these types of things that I stuck to.

This is what's made me infatuated with moving in and out of different types of modalities and because I figured that out. After you've been doing this as long as any of us have been doing it, it's tough to continue to see these gains that you are chasing through training the same way that you've kind of trained always. So finding unique exercises or unique ways to train always creates that novel stimulus and that's where the most demanding, especially when you're advanced, you're going to get. I mean, sure, it has all kinds of benefits, we said earlier about a beginner in incorporating all of these, but there's everybody listening right now could apply one of these three and I guarantee they suck at least one of them if not two of them

for sure. Like everybody, there's, I've yet to meet anybody who I think has got all three of these like nailed down that you're really, really strong and all three, we tend to neglect one or two. So I have three examples of Bronze era athletes who demonstrated each of these in their strength performances and feats or how they trained that are great examples So if we go to max strength maybe Doug you could look up George Hackenshmit and look up his look up his max One arm bent press now. He was the one to break Eugene Soundow's record. So he was widely known as the strongest at like Max type of strength. This was a, by the way, if you see a picture of this guy, I mean, you, if you didn't know that they didn't take that steroids, you exist back then, you wouldn't believe it because the guy looked at the beast. Yeah, I mean, he was also a wrestler and

then you wouldn't believe it because the guy looked at beast. Yeah, I mean, he was also a wrestler and, but Doug, while Doug's pulling up, pull up his one arm max bent press, you should be able to see a number there, or something like 270 pounds or something like that. Let's see, now Sandal got up to 271. Okay, so wow, that's crazy. I know how can I beat that?

Yeah, I'm not seeing that offhand. I see his overhead press. What's his overhead press? It's a snatch, $196 pounds. With one arm. With one arm, yeah. It's crazy, just crazy amounts of strength. Then stamina, you mention Eugene Sandal.

A lot of people on the other side, Eugene Sandal would often train in the 50 to 60 rep range with other. Oh, right. So he would grab light dumbbells and do sets of 50 to 60 reps. And so, you know, he would demonstrate, you know, this kind of, you know, kind of strength stamina in some of his training. Great. I got someone for you.

The mighty Adam, maybe Doug, you could look him up and show, maybe look up some of us training. Great, I got someone for you. The mighty Adam, maybe Doug, you could look him up and show maybe look up some of his stuff. He was this little muscular, strong man dude, kind of crazy looking hair. Kind of fruity hair, yeah. Yeah, kind of crazy hair. He's been a crazy guy. But he would do things like bend, like prison bars

and stuff like that, and demonstrations and horseshoes. And he was this little like granite looking kind of dude that just had this crazy hand strength in particular. For some of this tall and how much you wait. You know, I don't know if Doug pulled them up already. Yeah, same was Joe Greenstein. But they called him mighty Adam. The mighty Adam. That was his performance. Yeah, like they call it, mighty Adam. The mighty Adam. That was his form.

Yeah. Like an atto. Yeah. So he would pull a train with his teeth, stop a plane from taking off with his hair, bending iron bars with his bare hands. Yeah. That one I remember, which I always love to see that because it's one of those you can put context to it and be like, oh, yeah I've actually tried like you know try to do that

That was take a lot of force that he just five four and 140 pounds. Oh, yeah Yeah, so he was yeah, so the story with him was He weighed four pounds at birth. This was in 1893 and He had tight health issues and doctors are like he's not gonna live longer than a couple hours Well, of course he he did survive and then he became this guy that would just do these feats of strength. Yeah, he would break like chain, a chain with his teeth. Oh my God.

Awesome. Of course he has like a story like that, right? Yeah, it's really, really cool stuff. But yeah, if everybody, by the way, there's other attributes of strength that we didn't cover, like speed, strength, power. That's also important. The reason why I'm talking about it here is because it requires a lot more skill. And right now, again, where community came to the average person. Yeah, these, I think, usually like the three most basic that no matter what you're pursued is, you should find a way to rotate through.

Exactly. Maybe that's what you talk about right now is what the phasing looks like for something like this. I know there's a lot of different ways that we could program this because you could easily be in a phase or like say, I could train strength stamina for a year straight rotating exercises and these other things and still get the benefits of it. But how would you suggest to somebody that's listening that was writing their own program or following their own workout, how to incorporate this to get the maximum? Two main ways to do this. One is to incorporate some of each and every workout. The other

is to focus on one for a few weeks to maybe a couple months and then move to another one. I tend to favor focusing on one, moving to the next one because each one of these requires such a different mental space and a different, completely different focus, feel and focus and attitude, plus combining them, although there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's a great way to train as well. Requires a lot more careful programming and planning, I would say. People tend to, because when you're mixing stamina with max strength with grit, you really got to understand workout programming and the same workout to know where to place what and how to place the focus. But that would be pretty much it. And if you spend

a little time in each of these, you'll get a better body over time than you will if you don't. And that's the lesson of today's episode. Look, if you like, mind pump, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out some of our fitness guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal and they're all free, they're free, 100% free. You can also find all of us on social media,

Justin is on Instagram, mind pump Justin. I'm on Instagram, mind pump to Stefano, and Adam is on Instagram, mind pump at him. 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 MindPump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad,s Performance and Maths Esthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by

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