Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 240: Muscle Imbalances Revisted

Episode Date: February 18, 2016

Muscle imbalances not only lead to poor performance and injury but can also affect the aesthetic appeal of your body. Sal, Adam & Justin go into greater detail about how to improve the function (& appearance) of your body by correcting muscle imbalances. Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Learn more about Mind Pump at www.mindpumpmedia.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. Justin, what would your Native American name be? Uh, it would be Hong like Buffalo. Probably. Squats with ass. Squats with ass. That's probably one for a Squats with ass squats with that's probably what's

what's with that you see the video of him what wipes with leaves what I don't know I just try to think of it native American smoke too much I didn't see the spotting video aren't you aren't you like you had Justin there to save you yeah No, you had to bail me out there. I thought I had another one in me nope. I was wrong. Did he him? He did was like a full embrace. He kind of reached around no

He's actually really good spotter actually where do you put his hands around your pecs? No, he didn't touch my pecs actually I gave him the all Cross work lift. Yeah exactly. Yeah, it was like a forklift. It was very nice. Actually, it was he drove my forklift. He drove my elbows up with his forearms. Yep. And he got under me just right to where it felt his hips felt great on my hips. And then he got his forearms. Yeah. Right underneath my elbows. It's good. It's good time. He gave

me that that third, the third hook they call it. And Brazilian just says, when I, I thought you're supposed to reach around and grab and put your hands on their chest and Lift him if it's a guy obviously right that's I supposed to spot him seriously like you reach around you grab him and then you go yeah, I guess that's it You know, that's a very that's a good question. Funny times if he's falling forward. I spotted people all different ways if he was Leaning forward a lot. I would definitely would do that to try and brace him into me. Yeah, and drive up. Yeah, yeah. But he wasn't. Just it was squat you and the bar. Yeah, I was squatting with him to drive up. Like I was. No, I think that's a good point. I think we have been to the new lift. It's the two man lift. The two man lift. Exactly what it is.

We were doing the two man version. The two man squat. Well, I think that I think in different clients, I would spot differently based off of that. Of course. Women, I grabbed the bar. Yeah, I grabbed the bar. I always grab the bar. And typically it's because they're not squatting so much weight that I can't just lift it with my hands. Yeah. And also because it's frowned upon in the fitness industry to reach around and grab a woman's chest and bar her with that way.

Not always. There's videos for like that tell me otherwise. But or you could do the under the crotch. So this just reminds me of a story. That one up. It's run. It was story. Yeah. Well, I was a cast. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

It's story time with Adam with the wizard himself. Well, I just had I just had this beautiful memory. My girl's going to be pissed at me for this one too. Uh, when I was like 21, I was a fresh guy. 21 at best, maybe 20, then I want to just start as a trainer. I had this gorgeous blonde hair blue eye just male supervisor. Yeah. Oh, gorgeous client. And she used to come in and she was a server. She was older than you or younger than you.

She was 28. Yeah, 26 or 28. She's about six. That's a nice age difference when you're you. She was 28. Yeah, 26 or 28. She's about six. That's a nice age difference when you're 21 and she's 28. Yeah, yeah. And she had, she used to wear these, I mean, literally the shorts were this big, but they were three inches long. I mean, they were literally that long.

And she had a smoke and body on her and she then she wore her just her sports bra. Wow. And we would literally like squat the whole hour. And I would, I would, I would totally spot her from her hips. No, you did it. Oh, totally, I was from her hips. More bad advice. That's such a bad way to...

Oh, God, it was so bad. And I remember all the guys inside the gym when I'd be training, they would just be like, shake in their head, and look in the whole time, you dirty, vassier, you're so lucky. Because to me, it was, and you took it seriously though. Oh yeah, I did it in a, I did it in a

unprofessional professional way. It was a very unprofessional, professional way. You know what I'm saying? It was like every chance I good, I wasn't like, I was watching your forum last time we squatted, your adductors really tight. What we're gonna do is I'm gonna work at the insertion up at the pubic area and just work our way down

and loosen that up so you could squat a little better. If you use big words it usually works. Yeah, it works. We're we're horrible right now. Listen, if you're a trainer and you're listening, if you're letting go of your hand position, you're just a little like it. Yeah, this is why none of us have a job anymore. Yeah. The truth behind why we all left 24 hours. Yeah, yeah, we were fired. We were fired. We were fired before they got in HR. I remember, I remember one time there was this,

you just reminded me of a story, there was this gay couple east of work out at the gym, couple guys and cool guys, but when they would work out, they would spot each other and I'll give you an example of how they would spot each other. Ooh, I want to picture this. Here's an exercise that you don't normally need to spot someone on. A cable row. There's no need to fucking spot a cable row.

I don't need to get, but this dude would get behind his boyfriend and they'd both be on the fucking cable row band. And his legs would be around the other guy's legs. So they're like one, you know, tandem, right? And he'd be behind and reach around and help them do the left Yeah, dude, that's how he'd fucking spot him. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah You know there reminds me of that cartoon the biggest gay duo Gadoo then they're like you know form and then they form this like one unit person then they're like, you know, form and then they form this like one unit person and then they jump into their dick car. So you did you never worked at

Captain McKeid, did you? No. Okay, so when I went when I was there, there was this gay guy. He was he was an older gay guy and he used to pick up on me all the time. And I was this is only like my early 20s and then what and he did the same. You are a dream. So you are a dreamboat. And he do it the same way. Well, you are a dream boat to stay there. You are a dream boat. And he'd do it the same way though every day, right? Cause he knew he knew this. How would he pick up on us?

He would ask, did you sell him training? No. Oh, that's the point. And you know me, like the competitive side of me, I'm just like, I'm gonna get him one of these days, you know, little I know. That's what he's thinking. Yeah, right, exactly.

And then exactly like that, it was like this closing game between the two of us. I'm like, I'm gonna sell this motherfucker training. And he's like, he's like, I'm gonna sell this motherfucker training. I'm gonna get him to come fly off the Vegas with me because that was what he would do is he would find an exercise or something that he needed help on or he needed someone to show.

And I was always the first trainer to go over and try and show someone to do something on the floor because it was always an opportunity. So of course, you know, he would come around. And I knew he was a lawyer. So I knew he had money. So I knew he could afford personal training. And I knew he liked my time, so I'm like,

this motherfucker's gonna pay for this, and I could never sell him, I swear to God, I never did. And this happened to me probably a hundred times, he did this to me, I called me over, and I'll never forget this guy, and he had this really bad to pay, really bad to pay, probably early 50s, late 40s lawyer guy, and just it was so obvious he was gay,

because after I get advice, it's so obvious he was gay because after he I get advice is that he'd be super thankful that and that and then he would always find a way to like throw in like hey he find out the Vegas next week and stuff like that if you want to go man just go out there for a couple days of it yeah all non show up like oh yeah that'd be fun that'd be fun. I just have one rim. It's like one of those it is. It's like college right? That's kind of a weird invite. We don't know each other outside the gym. You know, bring your jammies.

Am I the only one in here that gets extremely flattered when I get hit on by a gay dude? I get super flattered. Yeah, of course, super flattered. Except when it's like real descriptive, like I had this one time with guys walking down the street and he's like, you know, like, oh my God, you have a gorgeous face.

You know, I'm just like, oh, thanks. And he started touching my eyebrows and he was telling me that like, oh my God, you have to do something about all, you know, all this right here, all my like, the unibrow, he's like giving all these like fucking, you know, hygiene tips and then like, bro, like yeah, thank you, I'm good. You know what he's thinking?

He's like, he's that gay guy, and he looks at, he's like, oh, he's such a project. He's a perfect fixer upper I'm totally a project I had I was like I can close him you know, so we went to flattering, but no thing we were in Vegas for a bachelor party and we were at the hard rock and we were there to see Tiesto He's a EDM DJ. It was fucking awesome, right? So and we had this roped-off area. We had paid for this table.

And we're partying, we're having a great time. And we're dancing. And I'm in various states of inebriation. And there's a guy's dancing. And he's like, right, fucking behind me, right? And we're in our roped-off area. So it's not packed where we are. Now it's packed everywhere else.

Was he slithering like hips first? But where we are now it's packed everywhere else was he slithering like hips first but where we are it's their space and this dude's like dancing right behind me right so I Look back over my shoulder and he's got this smile and he's like huh? Doing this kind of thing and I'm like and look I Am impot it's it's almost impossible to offend me. I'm super so secure with myself that it didn't nothing bothers me So I look back at him and I kind of smile back like, hey, what's up, man? It's pretty cool, right? And he's like, yeah, that's green light, bro. Yeah, yeah, it's real cool. It's real cool. So I turn back around, right? And I kind of take two steps forward to give him a little space because he's dancing, right? This fuckers right on my shit again, right? So I turned around again, and I'm kind of in the heat.

Now I'm kind of giggling a little bit. I'm laughing a little bit. Yeah. I'm laughing because I'm like... Over your shoulder, like... Oh, God. I'm laughing. I'm like playing hard to get. Bro, this is a spicy one.

That was not the word you were looking for. Bro, I'm... Bro, I'm... I'm like, I'm looking back over my shoulder and I giggle. Yeah, I just giggle a little bit. So I look back, right? And I'm kind of laughing. I look back. You're giggling this year, right? And he's still there. And I kind of laugh a little. So I look back, right? And I'm kind of laughing. I look back. You're giggling, but you're right.

He's still there. And I kind of laugh a little bit. Giggle laugh, whatever. Same thing. Keep going, keep going. And he's doing that face again. Right? So I looked at him and I waived my finger like, no.

Like, no, no, no. Like, I'm not that guy. Wait a second, bro. Get you. Look back. Go over your first year smile. You look back, you're giggle. And now you give him the face. No, no, no, no, you are a tease right now in hindsight is being this means try harder

He's right in right game. He's try harder right. It's not happening on this dance So not on this dance, I'm not that kind of boy. But don't be naughty Room number so I look so now listen now that I'm looking back in hindsight I realize that I'm completely like, I'm not being clear. Yeah. So I think I'm being clear. It's mixed for me.

But again, keep in mind, I'm having a good time, I'm super fucking hammered. It's like, whatever. So I take another two steps forward. This fucker gets, now he didn't just like pinch my ass. He went like full on like middle of the ass undercroched. Bukah, Big old grip. Yeah dude, like to the point where I lifted one of my legs, right?

Whoa! So I turned around and looked at him. And now I'm in there with a bunch of dudes, right? And you know how some guys, you know, some guys can be assholes. And I don't feel threatened by the guy. I mean, he's not gonna, he's not gonna salt me. But I can see some of the other guys with me are like, ooh, you're gonna fall, you know.

So I took this guy's side, I said, listen, it's not, I said listen, bro, I'm not like that, you're gonna find out so I took this guy's I say listen It's not I said listen, bro. I'm not like that You know, I'm not into you whatever I'm married whatever here's my room number I said I said but you might want to leave now said you just totally grab my ass and some other guys don't respond the same sort of left But yeah, I'll never forget that I need to be more clear. I need to be more clear. I shouldn't giggle away my See that is you know what? I could see that.

I should say there's a wiggle in there, so I'm like, I was like, don't, don't get confused with my boner. It's not for you. Oh, God, for you. I'm so nervous. I walk around like that. This is what, you know what, I've been telling you,

you're too nice if you guys, sometimes, you gotta have a little more asshole on you. And I was like, listen, whatever, what's the word, what happened? You grab my ass, big deal. So what, I didn't feel threatened, you know what I mean? what's the word what happened? You grabbed my ass big deal. Yeah. So what, I didn't feel threatened, you know what I mean? He's probably masturbated to you at least four or five times by now.

That's all right, it's flattering. I don't want to watch it, that's cool. Yeah, that's all good. It's all good. It's the one that tears you. So we should probably talk about fitness now. I want to talk about a subject that Adam had fucking interrupted me last time. Oh yeah, what was it?

Muscle and balance. Oh, when I told you what I talked about stuff. All right. Let's talk about muscle and balance. Actually, you know what, I told you want to talk about stuff. All right. Talk about muscle and balance. Actually, you know, what I don't want to talk about that. What I want to talk about is we get a lot of questions on this. No, no, it's a great time. We get a lot of questions on muscle and balances. And, you know, I was thinking about this the other night, and I'm like, God, you know, there's so many different imbalances, common ones that we see all the time, that we can go over, but how can I present information

that is makes sense and applies to all the imbalances? You know what I mean? I'm looking for like the theory to unite all theories or the concept that will get someone to understand how to approach any muscle imbalance. And then it came to me the other night. Clifth notes. It came to me the other night. Clifth notes. It came to me the other night.

And here's what it is. When you observe a joint in the body, because muscle imbalance is cause pain because they cause joints to move improperly, which then changes, which solidifies a particular recruitment pattern, which can cause inflammation and tightness and a whole host of problems. But really, if you boil it down and you look at how each joint is supposed to move,

ultimately, I doesn't matter what the imbalance is, your goal is to get the joint to move the way it should. And so the solution is typically the same for almost any muscle imbalance. Does that make sense? Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, well, you gotta start with the blueprints.

You know, it's the bone structure. It's the way that your body, you know, all the levers, like, it's how everything interacts and then you have to assess like that portion of it and see where it's most optimal. And now you're making your micro adjustments to address specific areas of the body that you could see are not gonna be optimally moving and in good biomechanics. Yeah, because it came to me because a lot of people come to me with shoulder problems. That's one of the more common ones.

And there's, by sep-tening inflammation, you can have shoulder impingement. You can have issues with the internal external rotators or what people say, the rotator cuff. And for all of those, if the shoulder moved in unison with the internal external rotators, or what people say, the rotator cuff. And for all of those, if the shoulder moved in unison with the scapula, because people don't realize that the shoulder blade has a big role in how the shoulder moves.

And usually the imbalance comes from the scapula not moving the way you wanted to. Either it stays shrugged or rolled forward and it causes a dysfunction in the shoulder joint. And so the solution typically is bring the shoulder blade back and down. bring the shoulder blade back and down. Bring the shoulder blade back and down. Get the shoulder blade to sit back and down

and because the issue usually is the opposite of that. And that's the fix for most of these shoulder problems. So if you have shoulder pain, the solution tends to be the same for a lot of them. It tends to be due exercises and focus on pulling the shoulder blades back and depressing them and bringing them down. And then if the shoulder blade will get in the way when you're protracted like that, when you're just trying to go through a normal range of motion, your shoulder is capable

of it, has to have that open availability for it to move properly. And so if the shoulder blade itself, if that's causing that friction from actually getting you into proper positioning, it's going to stress everything out around that joint. It does. And if you look at like, okay, what muscles are tight that are preventing this from happening, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to do deep tissue work or stretching on those tight muscles. And then what muscles are weak that are preventing it from getting into the proper position, okay, I'm gonna strengthen those muscles. And that's kinda it, that's really kinda it.

And the second thing that I realized in a good friend of mine, put it in just eloquent words, and it's that proximal stability increases distal mobility. In other words, look to the center of the body and move out and you'll typically find your solution. So if I have like a distal joint, because a shoulder joint is relatively proximal, it's attached to the torso, right? But if we move down the body, like if I look at the knees, then let's go more proximal, let's go more inside the body, I go to the hips. And let me ask you guys a question. How often do you guys see almost always from the hips?

Yeah, knee problems always always come from the hips, right? So really it would be about increasing mobility and functionality in the hips and that solves a Good portion of the problem in the knee. How do you feel then, too? Because I've also heard a difference as far as a focus addressing the feet and really how the mechanics are with the feet and the alignment, the arches, and all these minute details of the feet

and figuring out a way to address that, which is then gonna affect the knees and the hips as a result on their own. Well, that's an excellent topic. Here's the thing with the feet. First of all, very complicated. Well, there's more nerves in the feet than anywhere else, correct? There's more bones, there's lots of muscles, lots of stable muscles, little tiny bones. Yeah, it's what connects you to the floor. And it's the point where everything wraps around each other, right? When you think about it,

we're completely connected everywhere. Everything's's connected a lot of people don't really understand that though every I mean every But it's a problem one place in closet problems absolutely so I'm a firm believer in you know And you have people that have that craft and that art to be able to touch a foot and feel it and feel where it they're in Balances in the feet and how it's relative to the body You know there's people that are trained to be able to do that and say, touch your feet and go, oh, and I don't know if you've ever experienced that or not, I have. I've been to doctors that can do that

where he'll touch a part of my foot and be like, oh, and then also he'll be on my back. You have problem right here. And I'm interested. And it also opens up and up or move me in a certain way. And I'm like, oh my God, that feels so, how you saw that in my feet? What the fuck, you see that in my feet?

And there's parts of the feet that are supposed to correlate with parts of the body, so. It makes perfect sense. Look, you take a car and you take one of your tires and make it off road, you know what I mean? Just change one of the tires, see how you drive. I mean, it's not that different, right? Yeah, you get it just a lot of time.

No, it's a great point. It affects everything from the screw that's inside the trunk, right? The screw that's inside the trunk, it's loose because of that, you know. Exactly, so when it comes to the feet, here's the trunk, right? The screw that's inside the trunk, it gets loose because of that, you know? Exactly, so when it comes to the feet, here's the way we look at it. Our bodies evolved to be barefoot.

So I'm not gonna recommend everybody go barefoot, but what I am saying is that, if you do walk around a lot barefoot, or if you exercise in shoes with minimal stability, like a flat sole shoes, if you lift weights and flat sole shoes, you're more likely to strengthen the muscles in the foot, which is gonna give you more support.

The problem I have a lot of times of correcting with the way people correct and balances in the feet is they use like lots of crutches. So like, oh, we need to give you this with more archer. We gotta give you this with it. And that treat it like a muscle. They treat it like an ailment that they need to cast in a mobilized. In a mobilized?

So they're trying to mobilize the problem or the pain area. But what they're doing is, in a sense, is teaching the muscles to atrophy into that position by cushioning it. Oh, dude, do you have any idea how weak and pathetic our feet are? Compared to what they're supposed to be. Do you have any idea? Have you ever seen pictures of? Well, think of our hands. I mean they How the dexterity there? We have a lot more dexterity in our feet than we give them credit Well, have you ever seen pictures of the feet of like people that live in tribes that live, you know that walk barefoot? They look way fucking different than our feet

Yeah, our feet are because of we wear shoes since we're you know, we can barefoot, they look way fucking different than our feet. Our feet are because we wear shoes since we're, you know, we can walk our toes are squished together. Usually toes are spread apart, feet look wider, they're very muscular, and they have very thick pads on the bottom. The soles are very thick. So there's a lot that goes into training and strengthening the foot and correcting those imbalances. And for the sake of time, I mean, first of all, I'm not an expert in correcting feet imbalances. And for the sake of time, I mean, first of all,

I'm not an expert in correcting feet imbalances. And number two, that is such, that is a science all by itself. Yeah, yeah. I just, yeah, I know that like, there's a couple trainers I do respect in the industry. One of them I think is in England and they have a whole assessment protocol

revolving around the feet and they deal with a lot of runners and you know athletes and such but It's just interesting to me that they would focus on that first and foremost as like their sort of Gage and they're they're they're level of like what's affecting everything versus I've also heard hips, you know and like you said like working Proximal yeah, and know, and like you said, like working proximal and distal and kind of getting that sort of figured out. Exactly, because if you look at it this way, if you've worn shoes, you guys remember the whole barefoot trend,

it's kind of over now, but for a while people were like running. I still see it. They were running barefoot and stuff like that. I still got a lot of people coming to gym. It takes, is running barefoot better than running with shoes? Yes, if that's how you've always,

if you've never worn shoes, it's superior. Unfortunately, all of us have worn shoes since we could walk. So, trying to go run barefoot, it's gonna take you like five to 10 years before you can do it properly without hurting yourself. That being said, if you've always worn shoes like most of us have, then you're probably better off looking at joints like the hips,

which don't have, you know, you're not wearing a hip brace your whole life. So the hips, you can work with a little differently. You know what I'm saying? And strength and increased mobility. And that affects all the distal joints like the knees. The knees are, you know, when it comes to imbalances and the knees, they're not as common as imbalances in the hips. The real imbalances of the knees

is when I'll see quad dominance, that's the more common one, right? Where you get someone whose quadriceps are really strong and tight and they've got weak, you know, hips, hamstrings and glutes. What also has to do with the complexity of those areas too, the complexity of the hips in comparison to the knees too, there's so many more moving parts and stuff and that the

hips can do in comparison to what the knee can do, you know, right? You know, the knees got flexion extension, that's it. You've got rotation involved in there with your hip joints and so by that. So there's a lot more room for air, a lot more room for not training it properly and strengthening it like you should in all planes like we've talked about before. Well isn't it isn't it most common it's like the supporting cast of of ligaments around it right like you're going left to right and getting you know the LCL or MCL as opposed to ACL injuries and tears, cause that's something that takes a lot more stress

and I see a lot more common. I don't know if that's true though, I guess as far as a number's perspective, but I feel like there's a lot more ligament injuries. Well, the knee ligament, the ligament's the knee are designed to keep it from doing anything other than flex and extend. So the knee doesnament, the ligament is the kneeer designed to keep it from doing anything other than flex and extend. So the knee doesn't flex laterally, it doesn't rotate because the ligaments, the meniscus

and the PCL and ACL and the lateral ligaments, they keep the knee from doing everything but flex and extend. The flexing, all the other movements come from the hip. So if the hip has tightness or weakness, then those ligaments have to be, have to apply much more strength to keep that knee together. And if that hip isn't mobile or flexible, then that's what's going to snap.

So like I'll give you an example, and in submission wrestling or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, there's a submission called a heel hook. And if you don't know what that is, you could Google heel hook, and it's a quite, it's quite a common submission in MMA and in submission wrestling. And what you're doing is you have the, you're twisting the leg in this position, you're twisting it from the heel. And a lot of times people will feel pain in the ankle. But the reality is when you get injured, it's the knee that tears. The knee doesn't tear when you have really flexible hips.

And sometimes, every once in a while, you get these really flexible people whose hips can really rotate and people will apply a heel hook on them and they'll twist the shit out of their leg. So the force doesn't stop right there. It doesn't stop the knee. It goes all the way through. Yeah, the hip can rotate. So like me, I'm fucked because I have really bad internal rotation.

You know, that's why I was thinking that ACL would be less common, right? Because it's is not in line more with the actual hinging. It takes a lot more blunt force and trauma to injure that. It's also bigger stronger to the other one. Yeah, bigger stronger. Yeah, I think you see ACL, I mean, it's kind of complicated, but I think you see a lot of ACL tears because of, especially in girls, because of the angle of the hip, hip to knee, also sports involve a lot of stopping and starting. Yeah. And that's where

you get that. Decelerating. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a breath. And again, that's the hips. Again, if the hips were really good at decelerating, that's true. Then you wouldn't have those issues. Look at the rotator cuff, rotator cuff tears, right? You have all these powerful, big strong muscles that accelerate your arm when you say, throw a punch or when you throw a baseball, right? Lots of your lats, your pecs, you've got all these powerful muscles accelerating the arm.

What decelerates the arm? What slows that spin, that rotation on the humerus? It's those rotator muscles. And those rotator muscles, many times, are nearly as strong as those big accelerating muscles. So unless you strengthen them, it's imperative. You're asking for trouble, right? They deal with those specific drills because it is a very interesting muscle group to target. You have to have a very specific range of motion to address that. So, yeah, that's one, that's a very good point for athletes to know that. Know where your

weak points are in the mechanics of what you're doing, whether it's kicking a soccer ball and decelerating your momentum with that or throwing a baseball, throwing a football. You understand your body on that level. So that way, when you go into your or, you know, it's throwing a baseball, throwing a football, you know, you understand your body on that level. So that way when you go into your training, you really build up your support system. I've seen really, really big strong guys do something as simple as throw like a snowball. Well, I was just going to tear the frickin' up. I was going to say, you know, you're relating to that. I was going to relate back to the,

you know, us talking about the knee and the hips is, you know, this're related to that. I was going to relate back to the, you know, I was talking about the knee and the hips is, you know, this is why it's so important to squat and deadlift too, because a lot of people neglect those and you could have these great quads and hamstrings from all these isolated, salarating muscles. These are whole posterior changes. Yeah. And and you're not doing no squats or no deadlifts. Like you got some weak ass hips. You might have some, yeah, sure, you can build some quads, like, you know,

J. Swolves, you can do that. You can build some quads on leg extensions all day long, but you got some weak ass hips, you're just asking for it, you know? Well, they, if you were to really boil it down to the more common things that we probably see in personal training, I would say, strengthen, strengthen the function of the scapula,

the shoulder blades to come back and down. That's one. Strengthen hip extension, that's two. Three would be hip mobility in general, and then four would be to work on core stability independent of the hip flexors. So hip flexor dominance is so common also because people are always sitting down. If you do those things right there, you tend to eliminate most of the problems

that we see as personal trainers when people are coming into the gym, right? Because there's a lot of back pain, a lot of chronic back pain that comes from tight hip flexors. People don't see that, you see the arch, the excessive arch. You see them trying to stand up straight, they're gonna have to compensate when it's really short like that.

So either they're gonna arch their back or either they're gonna bring their shoulders forward to kind of address that and like get in a more comfortable position. So that's where we look for all these little compensations because that sort of brings us down to, yeah, it's your hip flexor. This is pulling everything down. Yeah, people don't realize that there's a hip flexor that attaches it to the lower spine

So there's a hip flexor called the so as and it's there's a pee that starts The beginning of the word is with peace with ps a OS Ilios so as but you could just Google so as and you'll find it and it's a Herald-Lue-Lue-Sour ass. Don't look don't go so ass. We don't want to see a picture of Adam now But the just just kidding. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the so as muscle attaches at the femur and it goes through the body and it attaches

at the lumbar spine. And if that muscle is tight or overworked, you will feel pain in the lower back. Super common. And it's so fucking common and people don't realize that it's a hip flexor that's causing the problem. Now how do we fix that? Well, if we do a lot of leg raises and regular sit-ups, guess what we're doing.

You're shortening it even more. You're making the hip flexor. You're making the so-as, you're overworking it even more. You're strengthening that. How it's already aligned for that. And that's where, that's when I said, you you wanna strengthen the core, independent of the hip flexors. So a good way to do that, anytime you wanna muscle to relax

is you flex the opposing muscle. So if you were to get into a crunch position, let's say you're on the floor with your legs elevated, place your heels on something and lift your butt off the floor at pushing down into the bench with your heels and that'll activate your glutes just a little bit. You just wanna hover them above the floor.

Once the glutes are activated, the hip flexors will relax and then do your heels, and that'll activate your glutes just a little bit. You just wanna hover them above the floor. Once the glutes are activated, the hip flexors will relax, and then do your crunches like that. And what you're gonna do is you're going to teach the body to stabilize with the core without having to rely so heavily on the hip flexors. The last thing you wanna do are leg raises in that particular position.

And by the way, a leg raise, the first half of the movement is very little core. It's all hip flexors. It's the last half of the movement. Is that a good differentiation between what people commonly think is lower back pain equals, I need to strengthen my core. Right. And then just that distinction alone, knowing that like hip flexors are going to be very much involved because they're probably way over active, doing your crunches, doing your leg raises, doing these things. You're worsening the issue here.

Well, we get a lot of people to that. They only fill it in their neck because of that, too. I was listening the way you explain it, because I explained it a little bit different. I actually will have them focus on their low back, and they'll have this natural arch because of that, because they're tight in that position, for sure. They're going to have a pelvic tilt. And then I have them focus on actually pressing the spine against the ground and just that. They're on their back. Yeah. That automatically gets the spine to extend like that right out just by them and activate

their core right away. And then you barely got to move or crunch or move your knees, relax at all and you're getting good contraction and core work versus, you know, focusing on you, you know, sitting up or crunching too much or creating some movement that you saw on IG, you know. It's amazing too, because the exercises that everybody does in the gym when they go on Instagram or they read a muscle magazine, they're like, oh, this is what I need you to build to build muscle.

This is what everybody will do. Bench press, lap pull downs, leg raises. Those, by the way, are the three worst exercises to do for what we just talked about. If you have forward shoulder, which most people do, that's a common imbalance, the last thing you wanna do is bench press and do lap pull downs.

You're just gonna make it worse. If you have back pain because of tight hip flexors, the last thing you wanna do are leg raises. And I know why people do leg raises because they think it hits the lower abs. It doesn't exist, you can't do that. So what they what what should they do? They should loosen the chest. It's okay to bench press, but only do so with good scapular retraction in the bench press. Kind of like a power lifter does. And then instead of doing a lap pull down, do a really light

row and focus on that that shoulder back position. Yeah. And like I said mentioned before, like with isometrics, like I'll use that to really focus on that's the issue, right? So if it's my hip flexor, I want to open that up and hold in an isometric pose. This is where like, yeah, yoga does have, you know, some some great effects for this. If it's the kind of yoga where we're going to hold and contract our body in these poses and positions, but then also like adding other things like how to recruit proper muscles with that, like it's all insane and crunching in the nice and metric pose.

So these are all just good techniques to kind of take your body out of these imbalances. Well, it's all about prioritizing, right? So those that follow me already on Instagram, you know, right now I'm in the middle of transitioning, I'm going through our maps performance program. And now my focus shifts, you know, I go from being aesthetic driven and caring about, you know, lifting more weight,

building more muscle, being more aesthetic. To now, I'm still doing a lot of the similar movements, there's a lot of similar movements that we use in all that are foundational that you're not gonna go away, but now the focus becomes different. So like, Salis and about a bench press. So, you know, so if someone who cares more and is trying to prioritize mobility and feeling good

and overall health and balance in their body, then your focus, the weight and how strong you are goes out the window. Your range of motion that you move becomes far more of a priority than your ability to put up another 10 pounds. And you would be better off dropping the weight and taking something through full range of motion or incorporating a dynamic flexibility exercise

within it or mobility exercise like we do in performance, intertwined with it, that's gonna help take the body through full range of motion and focus on that. So that's a great point, cause I'll tell you something right now. What's better to go heavier with a shortened range of motion or to go lighter with a full range of motion? Yeah, lighter, full range of motion for sure.

Lighter, full range of motion, write that down if you're listening right now. If you're stuck on how much weight you're lifting and you're like, I can't, you know, I don't wanna go lower in my squat because then I can't, you know, I don't want to go lower in my squat because then I can't go as heavy or I don't want to do a full-arrange emotion with my shoulder press. Let me tell you something about that.

I'll use myself as an example. For a long time, I would shoulder press and I would bring the bar down to about nose level. Like I'd come down about ear or nose level. I did it for years. And I could lift a shit ton of weight like that. Yeah, I could do over 225 like that. Yeah, for a long time, right?

Yeah. And when I would try and go all the way down, it would hurt my shoulder. So I'd like, I can't go all the way down. It hurts my shoulder. That's why I only go down to my nose. Well, you know, I had to check my ego and go away fucking lighter and start working on that full range of motion with lighter weight. And if sure, it doesn't look as impressive in the gym, but over time, I got way better

development from it and my shoulder is way healthier as a result. This is how you should approach all your exercise and when it comes to correctional exercise, your approach is not to progress with weight. Your entire approach should be to get the muscles to fire the way you want them to and if you're training and correcting a recruitment pattern, you're not going to be able to use a lot of weight at all. Because the second you use any weight that's challenging, your body will recover.

Ever. Yeah. Ever those patterns that you've established. It'll always use the kitchen. Yeah, it'll always choose the easiest path. And the easiest path is the one that it's best at, which is that improper recruitment pattern. And so what ends up happening is you end up strengthening

that wrong, incorrect recruitment pattern. Keep that signal super loud. Exactly, we're trying to turn it down. Exactly what you said about the so-as. You would think a lot of right away, someone who has low back pain thinks they should be working on the abs. They go over, they start doing the leg raises

or knee raises on the Roman chair, whatever, and have no idea they're just worsening an issue because they're just tightening up that hip flexor. Yeah, your approach has to be, if you're looking for longevity, or even if you're just looking for maximum development, you got to, it's really an ego check, I think, a lot of times. I mean, you know, like a lot of times,

I'll do a lift like a bench press and you know, I've had shoulder issues in the past. I think I have a slightly separated acromicleviicular joint on my right side. And the problem comes about at the bottom of the lift and as I go through from bottom to mid-range. And so I've lightened the weight and I've paused. Now I do pause bench press at the bottom.

And I'm trying to strengthen that position as I move through that. And low and behold, I have to, of course, I have to go much lighter. So if anyone's looking at me bench press, they're like, wow, he's only lifting, you know, 185 pounds or 200 pounds. But it's getting strong in that position it's starting to feel better and I'll be able to add more weight later on and then of course I have longevity.

Right. So really your approach with exercise has to be that way you have to kind of check your ego a lot of times at the door. I've lightened my weight many times because I've gotten really strong and then I've recognized that you know my form is a lot. The best yeah way to move it. It's not you know what I've gotten really strong and then I've recognized that you know my forms a lot. The best, yeah, way to move it. It's not, you know what I've done recently? I've eliminated my weight belt. I'm not lifting with my weight belt anymore for a while. Amen.

And the reason why I'm doing that is because... I haven't in like 10 years. Because, yeah, so when I did lift, I'll always use my belt right when I get to 400, 450 pounds. Up until then, I won't wear a belt, right? But my PR is going up, right? Shouldn't my belt list lift also go up? But it doesn't.

I feel uncomfortable. Anything over 400, 450 pounds with a belt, I don't feel comfortable. So I had to do a Nego check and I had to say to myself, look, if my fucking PR is gonna go up in my belt, then my PR and my lifts are gonna go up in my belt, then my PR and my lifts are gonna go up without my belt too. And so I've eliminated my belt and I've dropped the weight

way down and I'm bracing my court, retraining the way my recruitment pattern happens. And I know ultimately in a few weeks that my belt PR is gonna go up. I've done this with my squat too. I don't feel comfortable squatting over 350, 330, 350 pounds without a belt. Well, guess what I'm doing. I've took the belt off and I'm just doing reps of 315. It's interesting. It reminds me of, and I know this is like, I don't know, controversial because like people don't like the way these

trainers train animals and stuff and like circuses and stuff like this. But I just thought of this because, you know, for elephants, like they would tie them to, you know, like a steak or something that like would hold them and just them doing that constantly, they didn't have to ever again, like put it around. Oh, they would use a little skinny string after they would condition them.

Yeah. To, uh, in their mind that it was always, you know, it was the same thing. And I just feel like we, we get ourselves in that sort of a rut where, uh, you know, we have this sort of block. We have this, this bench, this thing in front of us that we've always, well, this is, I get to this point and then this is where I'm at, you know, and then it just becomes that, that response that even your mind is going to play into with your muscles. Oh, I guarantee part of it's mental and I guarantee you part of it is my recruitment patterns

change when I get to a certain weight. I know it. I might, my core braces and pulls in up until I get to a certain weight and then it wants to push out because it's used to having the belt there to provide that external stability. So I can't wait to wear a belt, I've got two months from now. Because I know I'm gonna be stronger.

Yeah, it's fun that we've been experimenting a lot and more too with how to amplify our central nervous system, how to really like improve this response, like going into just, you know, your normal workouts. Like for me, I've really been experimenting a lot with it. It's made a huge difference. And like, I'm just like, I've been cutting weight, a lot of weight down.

I'm not posting like fancy like PRs on Instagram. And that's definitely a check for me, because I don't want to put this up there. If it's not like a ton of weight, you know, and then I'm just like, I don't care. Like I'm doing this and you know, and people I'm like, I don't care. Like I'm doing this and, you know, and people, it doesn't matter like to me, like how much you can lift if you have to compensate

your way to get there. Well, I learned something from you, Justin, watching you because you have such a beautiful overhead press. For those of you that don't, I don't know if you post that in any videos you're yourself doing overhead press, but you watch Justin doing overhead press, and it's wonderful.

It was a great shoulder mobility, scapular drops, arm comes up, it's slightly behind his head. So we worked out a while ago at, you know, where you train. And so what I've done is I've gone lighter and I've just focused on more range of motion. So I come down lower with the weight, I come up higher with the weight, and I bring my arm behind me and focus on that real tall kind of position. Because in the past,

I would press it up, but I wouldn't hold it at the top. I press it up and bring it down, because I couldn't stabilize it at the top. Now, I feel like I can get any weight, hold it up in that top position and support it. And it's because it took me time, but I focused on that particular portion of the rep. And I'll tell you what, for a long time, I moved away from perfecting the technique of exercise and perfecting how my body moves. And I focused more on supplements and diet and other aspects of programming when that's one of the most important. That's one of the most important things. It's funny because I was probably exact opposite. I really had to come back to revisit nutrition because it's one of those things that I knew.

Okay, there's part of my programming where I'm just not addressing every issue. I know there's people that really want to see their body and get response and results that they want to see. I'm like, I got to get better at nutrition. And so that I like, I hired on a nutritionist. And then I followed her around it forever. And then I hired on a personal chef. And then just me doing day to day to day stuff with them,

like picked up so much more. And then I got a nutrition certification, you know. And then, you know, I, but it's, I addressed it. I'm like, look, like this, I know this was a whole. And then I tried to try to make that, you know, a strong point. So it took a long time, but it, it, there it was. Could you imagine how much stronger people would be in the gym and how much better there results would be if they made correcting imbalances part of their normal

programming, you know, part of their normal programming. You know, part of their training knowing, okay, I'm feeling a little bit, you know, this with my shoulder, I'm going to, you know, this week I'm going to work on external rotation, I'm going to work on bringing my shoulder blades back, or, you know, I'm going to focus on this portion of my squat. You would see such people would see such better results. And I think we get so focused on the aesthetic, just like Adam was saying,

that we forget that that plays a role in the aesthetic. Like if you work on those things and you are constantly focused on maximizing your mobility and your performance, you're gonna look better. You're just gonna respond to look much better. And it's interesting the movement now. Like I see it already starting as far as people getting further into fitness and progression and you always you always see it when you when

you look at professional athletes and the trends and the trends are all about movement and quality of movement and establishing these really intricate, interesting movement abilities, because now, you know, I have so much more skills, like I have more skillset to pull from that my body is capable of. Adam, I'm not limited. Adam, when you switched to, you know, you've been doing mass performance now for how long? A week, four or five.

Week four or five. What have you noticed, aside from in the jam? Like what about everyday life? Have you noticed any differences in how you move and? Oh, there's a lot of stuff going on with me right now. Um, for sure, I mean, the hardest part to deal with, um, is, you know, is saying exactly what we're saying. I mean, we preach it all day long, but trust me, it's just as difficult for us. I feel like sometimes in my, for me at least, I can speak for myself. Um feel like sometimes in my permeately, so I can speak for myself, I miss building for aesthetics.

You know, I do. I miss that. So I have to learn to fall in love with the other things that I enjoy about mobility. And I do. I have energy levels are up. My flexibility, aches that I was having before is gone. You know, things like that, or I just feel much better.

I feel like my body is at its size and where it wants to be naturally. And it doesn't feel like I'm fighting it to be here. It feels very comfortable. The amount I've eaten right now, the way I move, everything about it, and every day, every day that I work out, I feel like it's improving and getting better. And so, I'm learning to love that process and enjoy it. Now the hard part is, you know, my strengths, my, my PRs are all, everything's down right now and all, all my stuff because I've been,

I've also been reducing body fat at the same time and size. And like I said, it's no longer the priority, the priority now. And it's just bottom line. I know that my body has a harder time with that much muscle mass on it when I'm walking around at 230 versus when I'm walking around 210. It's a lot more comfortable for my body. So, I knew that I needed to come down if I was gonna, because I care about form and technique.

And if I was gonna take a lot of these movements that we have in there from mobility through full range of motion and be able to do them, I knew I had to come down. So, interesting to say that, because I've seen some of your lifts now and your pound-for-pound strength is better. Well, yeah, okay. I know you always, you're still squatting four or five.

So, it's always nice to do that to make me feel better about myself. No, it's not all feeling better. It's about, ideally speaking, if you could have a better pound-for-pound strength, you're better off always. Well, that's your right. I'm not losing muscle in this. I'm definitely not losing muscle. I'm losing size, period. And that's, because I'm not losing muscle, and I'm mainly losing body fat, it still gets in my head a little bit.

I like to be the fuller guy. I was the thin kid growing up my whole life. So, the point is I want to be real with everybody and let them know that this is a challenge for me. It's not like I'm going through performance, and it's like this is totally my personality. And what I like to do, no, it's out of my comfort zone. It's not like I'm going through performance and it's like this is totally my personality and what I like to do. No, it's out of my comfort zone.

It's not my favorite thing to do, but for me, it's important. It's important and before I got into competing, I would naturally throw this type of training into my routines all the time. I just didn't program design and focus the way we have done this now with math performance. And now I've realized, and because for the first of my life, I've never stuck. And you guys talked about how

Justin said nutrition was his big thing, and you were talking about really getting into form and technique. Well, I've been, especially since competing, I've been dialed nutritionally, like I've been very, very, very anal about that. I've always been the guy who is critique, I'm like super form guy. But what I haven't been is super detail about program design, because I was also the guy who was, you'd go in and just, everything.

And I feel my body and I just do everything, and I've always done this training. Well then when I switched gears over to competing and aesthetic driven, well, my mindset, I had to program design. Now was like looking at my body, assessing weaker points, and saying, okay, the way I'm going to program design, this is it I need to bring in my shoulders up, I need to bring my legs up, I need to do this, and I can let go of this a little bit, and that became a priority.

Well, I did that for two years, pretty consistently, competing. And boy, it took a toll. It took a major toll on my body. And now, the things that I'm loving about mobility is getting that feeling back. I feel like I can go play ball again. Like you asked me two months ago, you know, hey, you want to play a game of ball? Like I'd be kind of scared.

Like I probably would have heard something that are terrible something I feel that way, you know? Where now I don't. I already just already four or five weeks in. I already feel like we could run up it down the court and I could be my old self again. And I'm excited to improve on that right now, which is cool because I'm not even halfway through the journey of performance and already seeing the progress and I'm doing like, okay, cool by the end of this,

when I hit that final phase of this, I'm going to be feeling really good. I may not be the biggest I've ever been, I may not be the strongest I've ever been, but I know I'm going to feel great. Overall, you'll be able to feel great. Yeah, I know for myself, you know, because now I've been incorporating a lot of those a lot of the concepts that we put in mass performance I Personally, and it's interesting. I don't realize that this would be the case I should have known because I've always been kind of strength oriented where I like to you know perform I'm having more fun my workouts are way more fun now

You know I the fun about lifting weights for aesthetics is the pump really that's the fun the fun about it. Oh, I got a good pump. The fun about the workout now is the workout. It's like a game, man. Like I'm in there. Oh, man, I'm throwing, you know, I've they got the thing, you know, now they got the rubber plates over at Golds, which is great. And I mean, I'm I'm cleaning and I'm pressing the better. They got that. Oh, it's great, dude. And I'm doing pull-ups and I'm using the, they have these rock climbing grips that I'm using and I'm doing all these different things on the bars and I'm just playing man. I'm fucking having fun again and it's funny my old buddy I ran him I ran into a gold side yesterday and I haven't seen him a long time and it matter if you look at me right now You would think I don't necessarily look different actually feel like I look a little more dense

But he saw me and he's like, man, you look like a mixed martial artist right now. And it's because of the way I think of the way I'm training and the way I'm moving and the gym is very different. I'm not walking around trying to just get a pump. And I'm kind of falling in love with it a little bit, Justin. I think I might be a blue-on to your side. The green.

Sorry, Adam. Get me and get green. Yeah, I won't lie. I missed the other side. But you know what, I understand the necessity of it. And I think that's the point I want to get across everybody's. I mean, ideally someone should go from camp to camp, right? If you're working out long term, ideally you should be able

to go from, and this is why we have a lot of people doing maps at anabolic, going to math performance, then they go back to anabolic, you know, it's awesome. Well, and this is why two crossfit appeals to a lot of people because they kind of see that and they think that the only problem is that that's not how you do it. You know, but they get it and a lot of smart buddies of ours that are trainers. I mean, that's their argument. Like, oh, you row one day, you run, you run a mile another day, you're cleaning another

day, like, you're moving, but it's like, it's so chaotic that it's not organized, that it's not the way you want to train the body for optimal performance in any of those things. But there is something to say about doing something different and moving in different planes and keeping the keeping the body challenged that way. But there's, you should do a by structure. And the other thing too is incorporating mobility focused work, which we're talking about muscle imbalances, right? This episode's about that, but mobility is about preventing imbalances. We didn't even touch on that,

dynamic flexibility has changed the game for me. Well, 100%. I just started doing it. I haven't foam roll since, but foam rolling has its place. But mobility training, specifically going into the gym and thinking in terms of mobility, it's a different intent. Life, for me, life-ching, I've been doing this for decades. I've been working out more than most people have.

I've been doing this since I was a kid. It's been, for me, it's been earth-shattering. Because now I go into the gym with the idea of, I'm gonna work on mobility. Like, what the fuck, what does that mean? It's not just, I'm going to stretch for a little bit and then, you know, I'll get into a real workout. You know what I mean?

Like, that's always been the ego thing, is stretching is an afterthought. And really, it's not that it was stretching, like especially with these dynamic warmups, like we're providing new ways for the body to move by opening you up. You know, the capacity to actually produce these movements. And then we strengthen those movements, you know the other days

So yeah, it's just it's just keeping care of your body. It's keeping a well-oiled machine. It's it's it's like Reestablishing like the right way for you for your alignment For everything to work together and being the optimal length tension like everything The other great component to that is now we're addressing aches, pains, we're being preemptive about it. We're addressing it, you know, as we're also lifting heavy and we're still doing that stuff. I would say if you're listening right now, if you incorporated just one day a week of mobility slash corrective exercise

as part of your routine, you will be blown away at your progress. You'll be blown away at the, how much more muscle you'll be able to build, how much more effortless it will feel, and how much better you'll feel. If you just did one day a week of that kind of stuff, that's one of the thing, the takeaways. And then for the people on the forum, you guys know you can always ask this question on

there in terms of how to correct particular muscle and balance. And if you're not on the forum, you can check it out mindpumpmedia.com, $27 gives you lifetime access and then you can ask those types of questions. You can find this social media at MindPumpRadio, that's on Instagram. You can find me at MindPumpSow, you can find Adam at MindPumpAtom, you can find Justin at MindPumpJustin, and please leave us a five star rating and review on Instagram. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal, you can find Adam at Mind Pump Atom, you can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin, and please leave us a five star rating and review on iTunes. You may get a shirt. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. For more information about this show and to get

valuable free resources from Sal, Adam and Justin, visit us at www.mindpumpradio.com. Until next time, this is Mind Pump. www.minepompradio.com. Until next time, this is Mind Pump.