Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 281: Optimal Muscle Firing

Episode Date: April 26, 2016

Not building the muscle you want? Perhaps it is time to look at, and correct, synergistic dominance. Synergistic Dominance is a pretty fancy way of saying your muscle are not firing in an ideal manner. and Sal, Adam & Justin let you know in layman's language how addressing this can improve your results in the gym. Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Leave an awesome 5 star review and you may be announced on the show as a winner of a Mind Pump t-shirt! Winners announced weekly! Learn more about Mind Pump at www.mindpumpmedia.com

Come to the end of match black It's not coming back You better purchase that shit It's going away. Why haven't you bought it yet? Dang yeah, I don't recognize the song up first boys to men isn't it? Yeah, I look. Oh, was it boys? Demand boys to men ABC It's the end of the road. It's the end of the road everybody. This is the final day. This is the last day. The final final day. It's the last. The final final day.

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Yeah, you totally did. Well, I said twice. I said twice, it's 50% off. Plus all the cool shirts. Can I just say, you know what the number, what you guys, I know you guys don't track any of this stuff. Do you know what the number one shirt we sell is right now? Is it red?

Is it red? It is the mind pump black one? No. No. It's red. It's the? It is the mind pump black one? No. No. It's red. It's the fucking wife, Peter, that's Salwares. The red one? Yes.

The wife, Peter? Of course it is. Of course it is. He's got his fanboys. Because it's, because it's classic. It's, it's a classic. It's Italian. It's Italian.

I made it with my own family. Next program we got to have like some kind of medallion. Yeah. So crazy. So listen, the final day, don't forget, maps aesthetic is the program that's specifically designed to change the way you look. It's broken up into three phases.

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Did your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, up, mind, up with your hosts. Salta Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Let's get rolling, rolling, rolling. So fire the mics up. Okay, but you fire them up, they're fired. What do they sound like when they fire up? Right now, fire them up. I, can I just say something?

Maybe. This place is going fucking downhill. Whoa. This place is going downhill.. Whoa. This place going downhill. Yeah, yeah. We can't even take a shit. We can't. Thursday. How dare you take away my rights as a human being.

We're recording on a Monday and we might even air this today, right? Because since we don't edit God damn thing, uh, I was Thursday. So that's last week. That's quite a few days ago. All bathrooms at a order. So we all had to frickin' hold ourselves. Yeah. Uh, not literally, but you know, all bathrooms at a order. So we all had to freaking hold ourselves, not literally, but you know what I mean? You're pinching mine, I was pinching Adams.

It was a shame. I come in today, I look down the hall and guess what's at a order, both bathrooms. Shame. Both bathrooms and a shame. And here's the problem, at least one of us, every time I keep track of this, I keep track of what happens every time.

It is a little journal. At least one of us has to take I keep track of this, I keep track of what happens every time. It is a little journal. At least one of us has to take a shit. Here's Diary today. No bathroom access. Yeah, no, at least one of us has to take a shit at some point during our work that we do. What are you gonna do? There's no bathroom now, Adam.

Well, look at you for me Adam. What about you Doug, hold it like a man. You gonna take a poop? I can count on one hand and we'll tell you okay, I'm okay. You're all right, yeah. Okay. Doug and I went to the bathroom before we got here. Did you? Yeah, he take a poop. I can count on one hand and we're talking about that. Okay, I'm okay. You're all right. Okay. Doug and I went to the bathroom before we got here. Did you?

Yeah, he called me today. I think the bathroom is a starboard. Out of order out of make sure you stop and get it, go to the restroom and say, got you, Doug. Did you? Okay, the guy with the smallest bladder, we'll see what happens. Yeah.

We'll see you start squarming. I'll pee in the goddamn sink, bro. Mm-hmm. Don't trip. I'll pee in the sink. You do that anyway. I do. I do. Absolutely. It's't trip. I'll pee in the sink. You do that anyway. I do.

I do. Absolutely. It's all drained. All goes the same place. I know, just the same place. Whatever. We're going the back. The alley back there is not that many people back there.

Tis between skin. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you got there? I got some gifts for you guys. Why? This is for you, Justin. This one's for Justin.

Oh, it's heavy, Justin. It is heavy, right? That's for Justin. Which one's mine? This is for Sal. Yes. It's for justice, just for heavy presents. It is heavy, right? That's for justice. Which one's mine? This is for Sal. Yes, it's got like heavy metal font on it, I like it. Yeah, I want to open my gift from Adam. It's not so nice, Adam.

It's not for me. Oh, it's not. This is from our boys at Blowngear. Oh yeah, they said to some awesome apparel. Can I just tell you guys something right now? You know what? This is the type of people I like to do. These are the type of people I like to do these are the type of people I like to do business with the ones that give you stuff random gifts out of nowhere. Yeah

You know what so thoughtful. I will say this their shirts and I'm not just saying this because they gave me a bunch of free stuff That I'm sure that influenced me a little bit But I'm gonna be honest the the the shirts that they make fit really nice And they're really really good material soft. What is that? Is that like a blend? It's a tri blend. It's the reason why. Do you know anything about what we have? He doesn't know. Oh, dude. Bro, I'm setting you up to talk about it. I know what a tri blend. I'm trying to set you up on the show.

That was a talk about. That wasn't you just waiting to get it. Stop. You're not following the cues. You're horrible. I don't. Horrible, too. I didn't know you were playing dumb right there. I thought you were just being dumb. I've never done so.

If I sat in the system with a cue card over here, like hey, yeah, that's why we use them for all of our shirts. They have the best shirts out there for sure. Try a blend, that's why they're super soft. They're very soft. I love soft shirts. They're comfortable. I don't know, I don't even know why.

They have the same feeling as well. Why does anywhere sell hard stiff shirts? I love soft shirts. They're comfortable. I don't know. I don't even know why. They have the same feeling as well. Why does anywhere sell hard stiff shirts? I hate stiff shirts. Yeah. Does anybody like that? Why do they even exist? They're all shirts to be either dribbling or polyester.

Yeah. Because there's people that are just going to turn a dollar on you. Yeah. I want mine to feel like it's made out of unicorn for. Ooh. Like imagine what unicorn pubes, they're soft. I think blown actually has that. Unicorn pubes.

I do. Do they really? I think unicorn fur, I'm not sure they do. I don't think they go that far. No, it's inhumane to collect pubes of a unicorn. I can't live without it. I mean, it's just successorizing really. Did you see the inbox where I see Cent over to us?

He sent us the packages were coming and I told him that years and Doug's, he didn't need to waste the big box. I said, why did you put the, why did you put their shirts and stuff in a big box? They'll just use a little sandwich bag. They don't need a big old box. Yeah, I don't wear big shirts at all. You want to talk about someone who's, who's not huge, but stronger than you.

Have you seen? Oh, yeah. I'm completely, did you see that guy tagged you on Instagram? I don't follow anybody that's stronger than me. I know, I don't know why you do. Look at this guy so much stronger than everybody. I make the point that I'm following those people. No, Justin, you would be impressed. First of all, this guy, he's not huge. He's muscular-ish, but he's not huge.

He's like a collegiate sprinter or Olympic lifter. I don't know. This guy's ripping 630 deadlifts, deficit deadlifts. He's doing squats with like, I don't knowinter or Olympic lifter. I don't know. This guy's ripping like 630 deadlifts, deficit deadlifts. He's doing squats with like 550, 600 pounds. And he's, and these are high bar Olympic squats. So he's like up and down, up and down. Yeah.

And then he's showing sprinting and then dunking a basketball. He's like, oh, he's the one you tag this on that he was doing the press behind the neck. Office traps. Yeah. And I don't know, I was like, it's being a biome. Yeah, it was like 315. That impresses the hell out of me.

Yeah, that was legit. It impresses the hell out of me. So I have a, you know, he's got a fan in me. You know, have you guys noticed too that like on our forum right now is getting way too many strong guys? Yeah, I don't know. There's actually a few of them that are stronger than we are.

I like it and I don't like it. Yeah, we're gonna start kicking them off, I think yeah, I think maybe we stop working and just work on getting What do you guys think? Maybe we're a little overloaded you're not work. Yeah, here's the rules. Maybe we'll get as strong as our forum guys Here's the rules if you're on the forum You're not allowed to squat more than Justin deadlift more than me or be handsome or than Adam if you more than Justin deadlift more than me or be handsome or than Adam if you if you region of those if you reach any of those you're kicked off if you reach all of those yeah then you've broken the laws of physics because you're

super cobra and we if the deal with you super cobra. Hey, you know what's kind of cool? What? I heard you on a podcast. Yeah, I heard you are smart drug smart. Our our boy killed it dude So can I say something? You sound so much smarter on there than you do here. I'll tell you what did I match my zero like he had no text like not like I was like whoa dude.

Yeah, and then I realized that's the whole podcast was like this is all right. Everything was just like like lightning fast. Well, so you have to be very intelligent to actually to listen to that episode. Well, here's the thing. Smart drug smarts is, I've plugged them before. It's one of my favorite podcasts.

It is a very smart podcast, but they present information in a entertaining way. Lots of great information. They cover subjects that are a little bit edgy, like they'll do a whole episode on microdosing LSD or mushrooms or they'll talk about the cognitive benefits of cannabis dial, which is compound in marijuana. And then they cover lots of other things that I find extremely interesting. So it's not dry and boring. No, no, no, I love Jesse.

It's awesome. It was, yeah, it was really cool. And for me, it was honored to be on it because I've been listening to them for probably about a year. It's one of my favorite podcasts. And yeah, I do go off on it a little bit, but I, you know, I know the audience of that show, every guest he has, I was actually kind of nervous because every guest he has is like a top scientist or some like lead, you know, world leading researcher or some, you know, doctor and then, you know, here, personal trainer sell to stuff. And I was about to talk about, you know, the cognitive benefits of exercise. So it's only the title. I know, like, the personal you know, hear personal trainer sell to stuff, and I was about to talk about, you know, the cognitive benefits of exercise.

So, it's only the title. I know, like, the personal trainer title. I wish we could beef that up a little bit. Yeah. Well, it makes me, I don't know. I like it. No, it's good though, because you come off just, boom, and throw the mallet all the way

to the underdog guy, you know. I'd rather you assume I'm an idiot than me and press you than the opposite. You think I'm really intelligent, that's true. I don't know. Well, I think the, for the audience, if you guys want to listen to it, you can find it. Smart drug smarts is their last podcast. It's the one on cognition and exercise or the effects of exercise on cognition. So I talk about how exercise can make you smarter.

Highly recommend for all intellects. If you're dumb dumb, you probably don't want to listen to this. All dumb dumbs. You be dick jokes and stuff. Don't bother. I think I said one bad word the whole time. Yeah, you cussed. Well, I think I said shit. Oh, you did, that's right. Yeah, once or twice you did, you cussed. I said poop.

No, you did, you cussed on that. I said shit. What was that? Yeah, that's about it. It was five. Yeah, five. So what's going on? I know you had a topic that you wanted.

You were not going to tell me until we turned to the... Oh, I thought you were going to go. You want to go? gonna tell me until we turned to. I thought you were gonna go. You wanna go? You want me to go? Why don't you go, buddy? The reason why I wanted to talk about... Let's go. Yeah.

I wanted to talk about synergistic dominance. Mm. And... In a sexual way or are you talking about an extra-siderly thing? Yeah. You have a same word, please. Yes, it's leather straps and no. This is actually something that I get asked a lot.

Obviously, somebody doesn't walk up to me and ask me to explain synergistic dominance. This is what it means. A lot of times, and this is very, very common with people, and I was just talking to a female. And she says, you know, Adam, I've been really trying to work my butt more and more. And I was using the tips that you gave me this and that. She goes, but I just feel like my quads are developing like crazy. And I just want the butt to go. And I'm not getting any but all quads, all quads, no but.

And I don't understand what's going on. And of course, I don't have very much time in these classes to explain, you know, synergistic dominance. So I thought, hey, you know what? I'm going to talk about this on the podcast. I think it's a great topic. I think a lot of people don't understand exactly what it is. And really what it is is what is,

your body is now prioritizing other muscles to carry the load. So for example, somebody who is having a hard time feeling their glutes when they're doing their squats and they're feeling all their quads or quads are gonna dump, that's because they've trained their body neurologically to carry most of the load from their quads. Their quads are firing and the glutes are not firing properly. So the quads would be synergistically dominant in this situation, carrying most of the load.

When you are trying to get someone to do that, this is where you want to teach them to fire the glutes properly. Yeah, it's a recruitment pattern. Now, a synergist is a muscle that helps a prime mover. This is more common. So you see muscle imbalances with synergistic dominance in everybody who doesn't work out. You have them do a row, you have them do a press, a squat. You're going to see muscles fire the way that they should.

However, this is also common in people who exercise a lot. It's more common with those people in exercises that may have two prime movers that are very closely related like the squat. The quadricep can be considered a prime mover in the barbell squat. However, for a lot of people, well, we know this as well with the barbell squat, you're better off having a dominant, dominant hips than you are dominant quads with barbell squats. Dominant and strong hips in a barbell squat, number one, you'll be able to move more weight. It's safer for the knees. It's

a, it's just a better way to squat. And so you have to, if you find yourself with some type of synergistic dominance with a muscle that is doing more of the work than the one you're trying to really get to work, if you don't address that issue and you just continue to do the exercise, even if you add weight, go lighter, do whatever you want with the exercise, it's not gonna change.

You have to actually focus on changing the recruitment pattern. Well, and sometimes in cases like this also, it's due to an imbalance going into it. You know, if you're somebody who sits at a desk a lot, you sit in a car a lot, you know, we've talked a little bit about the interior pellet till I thought not too long ago, and this is what's happened to someone like that. And so basically, you've put the ass to sleep, you know, you've put the ass to sleep and I've done that before at put the ass to sleep. You know, you've put the ass to sleep. And I do it all the time. And neurologically, all the other muscles

are having to take over. And then you go under and you decide, hey, I'm gonna do some heavy weight because I was told that, you know, I heard on my pump, you know, if I want to grow a bud, I need to do squats and go heavy. But the problem is you still haven't fixed the original issue, which is teaching those muscles

to fire correctly. Now, this is what I, why I wanted to talk about this is because we talk a lot of shit about glute kicks and floor bridges and you know, all these little, you know, jazz or size type exercises for like the butt that women love to do. This is not a great way to build the ass whatsoever. Is it though? It is a very good way to teach the glutes now to fire. Absolutely. That's what they're for. Teaching exercises. So yeah, like you said, like it's a neurological thing. Like you're focused on trying to build that

connectivity again. And it's a great way to use that almost like an accessory, you know, on specific days where, you days where you got your major lifts in and now we're trying to focus on amplifying that signal, trying to get it reestablished again. Yeah, because otherwise, we go back to do squats and nothing's going to change. Right. You're just going to keep the same patterns going to stay there. Another thing too that I like to teach clients is I also teach them the action of the

muscle and I put it in layman's term so they can understand what that muscle is doing so that when they're doing the exercise they know what part of the movement they should focus on. Let me give you an example. Sticking with the squat, the glutes extend or hip extending muscles. So what that means is if you imagine right now you're looking at someone squatting from a side view. So you're looking at the side of them and they go down into a deep squat.

What the glutes are doing is it's pulling the top of the leg, the femur, the thigh, back towards the back of their body. It's hip extension. That's what the glutes do. Now what the quadriceps do is they extend at the knee. They make the knee go straight So you can see now how those two movements contribute to a squat Well if you're if you're in your mind you understand what the glutes are doing

Which is hip extension which is bringing that leg back to stand you up Then you know when you're in your squat to focus on that movement So now when I'm squatting rather than just coming up I'm focusing on bringing those legs back and I'm getting hip extension. And a lot of times, visualizing what the muscle does will help quite a bit. And visualization is extremely important

when it comes to neuromuscular connection. This is why many times when someone's doing exercise, in particular, a back exercise, me simply touching the area I want them to focus on. Now they can visualize where they need to feed it. Feel it. Boom, muscle will start to fall. I think that there's two. There's a lot of ways that you can sort of think

about that process and think about like the subtle cues and different techniques that you can apply. Like for instance, I could focus a little bit more on being very heavy loaded in my heel. That being when I'm hinging my hips back, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to really try and focus on getting that connectivity, my posterior chain. So I feel everything like lighting up in the back of my legs, and then shifting and transferring that weight, you know,

through my foot, a little bit more into the mid foot on the way up into extension. So these are just different ways that you can visualize it as opposed to just, you know, going through like corrective exercises. One of my favorite exercises to get people to feel the glute besides the small isolation movements is your typical backstep lunge. The reason why a backstep lunge tends to get people to feel their glutes fire when they have issues

with glutes firing versus a either forward step lunge or just a stationary lunge is because when you backstep into the lunge and you go down, you have to step forward to bring your feet back together. And so that's focusing on the hip extension, rather than just coming straight up. The other thing that I'll do is I'll have someone combine a back step lunge with a toe touch.

So what they'll do is they'll go back into a back step lunge, step forward, step up and forward, but without putting their foot on the floor, they're balancing now on that foot that was forward, then they go down to a toe touch, come all the way up and then back step again. And it's just all glue, all glue, all glue. And they start to feel the glutes actually start to fire.

And so what I'll do a lot of times with clients who have issues firing their glutes is I don't even squat with them until I get good at other things like the back step lunge, the toe touches, hip bridges is another great exercise. Until they can get an idea of what the glutes are doing, then we go back to squats and it's like boom, there it is. Now, what's your guys' recommendation as far as,

let's say you're, this is someone's listening, they're following our maps program, and they're one of these people. I'm having a hard time firing my glutes. I'm not feeling it in my squats like I should. I'm following this program really well, but this, it sounds like this is my issue Would it be something that you would maybe incorporate into their trigger days as like a as a primary exercise that they would be doing like these type of movements?

Well, you know two things so the red maps maps and a ballic has trigger sessions and then black maps maps aesthetic has focus sessions And then you have the green maps with your mobility sessions. Now, those three things are focused on different things. So let me explain. The trigger sessions really are designed to create a systemic and a ballic response in the body. That's why you do it frequently throughout the day. You're not really targeting a muscle with tons of intensity,

but what you are doing is you're sending this muscle building signal whole body. Now, a focus session is specifically targeted on a particular muscle, in which case I could totally see using a focus session for that particular muscle. Mobility session would also, I think, would be good too, because if the reason why I'm not firing my glutes or whatever is because of poor mobility, well, now if I do hit mobility movements, it makes a huge difference. But I'll take it a step further.

I would say modifying your foundational workouts. So, you know, with the maps programs, there's typically three foundational work on two or three foundational workouts a day. I would say, rather than doing your barbell squat, maybe do hip thrust, back step lunge, toe touch, first, then go to your squat, go lie and see if you can still, you know, feel the glutes.

And if you have, here's the other thing too, if you're a foreign member, you can just ask on the forum and we'll help you modify. But I would say definitely prioritize it in your regular workouts, even if you do a body part split, prioritize that muscle, see if you can feel it first, then go. And our good LIDAR as well, too,

to go through the full range of motion and wrap and really try to feel that connectivity and reestablish it. So you could also do that with some of those corrective exercises, Salva's mentioning is like a pre-exhaust or just to get that to fire, that sequencing effect. Well, the crazy part is it's kind of opposite of what you see. You see most, right now, they go do their squat or their leg press or their neck squat machine or whatever they do, and they do their heavy weight and then the girls go over and they do like they're finishing exercises for their butts.

And what we're trying to explain is that those type of movements, the idea and the purpose behind it is more neurological than anything else. That would be more beneficial. In the beginning. To start with those type of movements to really point fire those buds and they get it but it's the opposite of what you see so you know that that's something that hopefully that helps out some people that are listening right now because I feel like it's a common question I get it I get asked a lot especially with butt. I do I would say it applies to many other things but not yeah

I'd see the most common one you see is like you said, quad dominance and a squat. The other one that I see a lot is lat dominance in a row. I see that quite a bit. So I'll see people rowing. Bicep. Well, bicep is another one. You know what's funny? It's easy stabilizing.

Yeah, so years ago, there was a gentleman, this is a long time ago, he was a member of one of the gyms that I managed. And he was a competitive arm wrestler. And he would do pull-ups all the time. Arm wrestlers love doing pull-ups. But if you saw him do a pull-up, I had never seen this before, and I've never seen it since. I've never seen someone so bicep dominant with a pull-up.

It was like, I mean, he was all arms the way he was pulling himself up. But what a fantastic example of synergistic dominance. Right. Yeah, that's just, that's completely, you know, an accessory to the major muscle groups. Yeah, the bison plays a, like a supporting role in every compound movement that has to do with back. It's not, yeah, it's not the primary.

Any polling movement in general. No, I would say that's the lat dominance one is super, super common. What do you guys do for that when you guys see that where people's lats are just, you know, firing too hard? Well, a lot of times it's because it's, this one's caused of a deviation. They have a major protracted shoulder girdle, so they're, they're, they're chest and they're deltoids are so tight, it's rounding the scapula forward. So then when you ask them to try and retract the scapula, it just don't.

Traction and full depression that you can get there. Yeah, they can't even contract it. Exactly. So they can't, and then so if they are in that position, you got to open them up. So opening them up with some shoulder mobility, open them up with stretching their chest out, kind of open up that whole area. Then from there, then you're taking a really lightweight on that seated row and you're just trying to teach to pull and squeeze and they're going to do holes.

Well, it's really, yeah, it's that range of motion. It's that shoulder mobility in general. If I can't even bring my arm like above my head, I'm not going to be able to really get that pulling, you know, full stretch and full pull, you know, contraction to the lat. So it's like, that's the first thing I want to address is getting my arm into good position. That's a big one, what you just said, because people who tend to be lat dominant also tend to have issues with full extension

of their arm above their head. You'll see them do a shoulder press and you can clearly see them leaning back and kind of pressing to the front of their body. What's funny is that my presses are so much better after meeting Justin because he's so big on shoulder mobility. And it was something that I didn't really even

think about for myself because it wasn't like I had major, super major issues, but I realized that I didn't press straight up above my head. And then when you look at Olympic lifters, you can see how the perfect line that they create, and that's what allows them to support so much weight above their head when they do their heavy, heavy lives. It's really good levers, it's really good mechanics.

And that's the perfect examples, these Olympic lifters to aspire to that form, because that's so key for them to be able to Progress like if if if anything if they perfect their technique then you know the rest of it is just work to to really accumulate You know the volume and the frequency of applying it to get to that level But really like that's the first thing is really to get that technique in mechanics down pat Well, you we talked about this not too long on a podcast about I still to this day, even as much as I've squatted as much as I've deadlifted, if I fail ever, I always feel like it's mechanical.

I rarely ever feel like, oh, that was just too much way because I never progressed. I know better. Like, I don't, you know, if I have 405's a lot of weight for me, I don't put 500 pounds in the bar and think I'm going to try and PR. That's just silly. So if I try a little bit more and I fail, it rarely feels like, oh, my muscles just didn't have enough to get in. It's like something broke down mechanically.

And then I failed. And then I bailed or whatever. Any compound movement like that, especially power, lifting type stuff, I mean, it takes a lot of technical form to move some of the way. Well, I think too, that's what's open my eyes a little bit more with like the transfer of weight form to move. I think too, that's what's open my eyes a little bit more with the transfer of weight between my feet.

Like plays such a big role. Oh, it's like that. So it just, it plays such a big role in how I lift. I notice a forward or depending on how I'm loading, maybe to the side or a little bit, the barbell itself will move with the way that I'm loading my feet. So, if I just were to place your body weight,

is that what you mean? Yeah, exactly. So, I know that I'm gonna be off because I'm a little too much in my, you know, four foot and I'm going into the lift. And so now my momentum is definitely carrying me a bit forward. So, well, you gave it, there's like a happy medium there.

You gave a very good example of that with the hanging clean that you demonstrated on there. I've never seen somebody teach a hanging clean like that before where he uses his hips to thrust for he rocks back on his heels and rocks forward on his, and you could see how much focus you're putting on the feet. You know, with the average person,

they see a hanging clean and you're looking at the barbell, you're looking at the person. You know, with the average person, they see a hanging clean and you're looking at the barbell, you're looking at the person's arms and how they're pulling up. When in reality, I was watching your feet and ever all your work is starting from there. And your hips, hinging back on your hips, rocking back on those heels, and then you rocking forward on the toes. And then when you get good, you don't have to, you're not picking your heels up,

you're not really making it like you're exaggerating it, right? So sometimes I'll start by exaggerating it just so I can get that. Right. Yeah. Which I could tell you were doing that. Uh-huh. But like, yeah, my feet will be flat, but it's really that transfer of weight. Uh, really makes a difference for me. And I notice it, uh, my line gets a lot straighter as a result when I perfect that. So, you know what?

That's, uh, great points you guys are bringing up because when you look at the world's strongest people in particular lifts, A, they're very strong, they have very strong muscle, but B, they've protected, they've protected the biomechanics of the movement and many times their bodies are also built to do very well in a particular movement. Like, you ever watch videos of Tom Platz, you guys know who Tom Platz was. Tom Platz was kind of a bodybuilding icon of the 70s and 80s, well known for his incredible leg development, totally overshadowed his upper body, but he was also known for his feats of strength with squats.

Like I believe he did, you know, he would squat like 135 and he'd do it for like a half hour, or he did 500 pounds, I don't know, like 20 reps or something ridiculous like that. I was just tremendous feats of strength with the squat, but if you look at him in his biomechanics, it's like it doesn't get any more perfect than the way he looks with his squat.

And so, forget about, okay, fine. You feel like your, okay, fine. You feel like your muscles are developing fine. You don't feel like you need to worry about synergistic dominance. You still want to perfect the way you want your muscles to fire because you're gonna be able to lift more weight, and not only you're gonna be able to lift more weight, but you're gonna be able to lift more weight safely.

And some of the best lifters in the world, the best squatters, the best dead lifters, tend to be able to squat and deadlift into their old age. Whereas if you got people with poor, kind of muscle recruitment patterns, maybe they have a good squat, but they never work on it to,

you know, their recruitment patterns, they're really great. Great, great. You know, when they're 50 years old, 40, 50 years old, all you hear are stories about, I used to be able to squat. And I can't squat in real. Yeah.

I don't know how many people I know that are in their 50 plus and don't squat, don't deadlift because they're afraid to or their doctors told them not to because they got these issues going on and they talk about all the how they used to squat. I guarantee if I had a video of them squatting when they were in their 20s and 30s,

it wasn't beautiful form by no means. And that's a lot of people when they think squat, I think that's why I like to talk about this squat because it is a primary hip hinge, type of movement. And you think squatting, you think up and down, people think squatting up and down, it's really the sliding of your hips, sliding of your hips back and forward. It's just like compressing your vertical body down. Yes.

And a lot of people drop down into a squat like that. And unless you've got these great genetics of where it just it works well for you, the average person doesn't, it shouldn't squat that way. You know, it's more focused should be on the sliding of your hips forward and back versus you dropping straight down. And you know, these guys that end up having these all these knee issues and they say, Oh, I, I've got bad knees because I used to squat really heavy weight. Like, well, no,, I've got bad knees because I used to squat really heavy weight. Well, no, you don't have bad knees because you squat it really heavy weight.

That's because you squatted bad. Yeah, you squatted poorly. Yeah. If your knee is tracking back and forth while you're squatting the whole time, then it isn't just being a hip or just isn't just being a hinge anymore. Now you're putting strain on it. It's just like somebody who opens a door. If you were to every time you open the door to your house, if you actually hung on the door, while you opened it, you could door would still open,

and it would probably still open, probably 100 to maybe 200 times for you, but eventually you're going to bend the shit out of those hinges, and I'm sooner or later, the door's going to be grinding on the floor, and you won't be able to close the door anymore, and it's going to be an issue. Right. I mean, if you're looking to have longevity with resistance training, it's going to be an issue. Right. I mean, if you're looking to have longevity with resistance training and if you're looking to be able to lift heavy and not just lift heavy now, but lift heavy even five years from it, I'm telling you right now, if you don't have good biomechanics, if you don't have good

function, I don't care how strong you are, you keep pushing it and five years from now, you're fucked. That's it. It's a short period of time. Within five to ten years, something will end up preventing you from being able to lift what you could lift before, and some type of injury or chronic pain. So it's something you should constantly focus on.

Constantly focus on how I'm feeling the movement, does it feel natural, how are my biomechanics, where are my tight, where are my loose? Constantly focus on that. And I look, I fall for it myself. I've been working out for a long time. I'm going to be able to get out of my bio mechanics, where my tight, where my loose, constantly focus on that. And I look, I fall for it myself. I've been working out for a long time. And there's days where I'm like,

I should be working on perfecting my squat mobility, but I don't want to not squat real heavy today. Or, you know what I mean? I know I'm going to go for PR instead. And I fall victim to that myself. But you're so much wiser if you don't do that and what's going to end up happening you're progress faster anyway and Every time I check myself. I'm always so happy. I'll check myself and say okay today

I'm not gonna go heavy even though I feel like I'm strong. I know my form is a little off I'm gonna perfect my form. I'm gonna sit at the bottom of the squad or I'm gonna do a box squad or I'm gonna do this type of a deadlifter Whatever and sure enough I practice for two three four weeks I go back to my lift and boat, I'm stronger, almost everything, and I feel better in the lift. And of course, if you're moving better, you're stronger by a mechanics or better, what do you think's gonna happen to the way your body looks?

You know, what do you think's gonna happen to your, your aesthetics, your muscle development? You know, we've talked about this in the past, but you can typically, you can see those this in the past, but you can typically, you can see those people in the gym who are well developed muscular, but they just don't move well. You can tell like something's not right.

They just, they don't look like the pieces are put together harmoniously. It looks like this kind of hodgepodge of muscular body parts, and then they're walking and moving like, I see this at goals all the time. What is it with the slow gorilla walk? At the gym?

You know what I'm talking about? In between sets, everybody seems to have this really slow swing arms, protracted shoulder girdle, type of walk. And I don't know if it's- Because they're just living on chest day, bro. I don't know if it's that or what if they watch other dudes like they see like big dudes and just say, that's the thing to do.

I'm gonna walk, drag your knuckles on the ground. Yeah, I'm gonna walk real slow and swing my arms like that. Which is, I think it's also, it's a wide, some people don't like that look, you know, oh, he looks too big. He looks, I think somebody who has got great posture, like, you, I don't know if you can look too big when you have good posture.

But someone looks too oddly big, it's because they're all rounded and they look, they look like a meatball, you know? Because their shoulders are all protracted. They walk like a grill. Other hands are all rotated. Right. They look silly. That's why they, I mean, just, but maybe to a young boy, he sees his biceps and his biceps are huge. So it looks impressive. But I mean, the trainer and me, I look at a physique right away and how they walk and move around. It's, that's what's impressive to me.

I will say this though, I, this is a funny story. So back in the day, I used to allow myself to bulk up, which is code word for I get fatter, and I try and get as big as possible. Here's the thing, on my body, of all my muscles, okay. My legs, my thighs, just, I can make them grow whenever I want, they just blow up. And so when I'm trying to gain, if I'm trying to get up to 225 in my body weight, which is heavy for me,

then I do focus a lot on my legs. I know I'm gonna be able to gain a lot of weight there, but you wanna talk about not being in the walk properly. My legs get really fucking big. Straighted, shaved. Well, no, I can't, I can't, I can't do like a straight gate. Like my legs have to like circumvent each other.

That's like move around each other as I walk. So I developed this kind of like interesting waddle like walk. Like look, yeah, yeah. So I'm walking in diagonals. You're like your right horses all the time. Yeah, so I think, you know, just getting super muscular

probably would make you move not kind of funny anyway as well. As you know, issues with the, but you have to get pretty fucking big. Yeah, yeah, you know, it'd be able to do real big. Most of the guys that walk around that are not that big. No, they just, they've just fucked their posture. Dude, cause yeah, you've seen sprinters, dude. They got some massive legs.

Yeah. You know, it's just all a matter of what you're doing with them. And like, yeah, the sequence of how you're firing and how athletic you are. Yeah, the other thing too is the pre-exha super set. We've talked about that before. It's a pop to my mind. A pre-exha super set is when you do an isolation movement

For the muscle you're trying to target Then you do a compound movement for that. So isolation movement typically means one joint is being involved So like if I was doing an isolation movement for let's say my quads a leg extension would be an isolation movement A compound movement for my quads would be a squat or a lunge. So if I were to focus on my quads, I'd go leg extensions first and then jump right to the squat. Well, they can also be used to focus on muscles that maybe are not the dominant,

muscles that you need to have be dominant like the glutes. I would say somebody could do, let's say, floor bridges, get the glutes to fire real hard, get them fatigued, then go straight to the barbell squat with lightweight and focus on their glutes working. I've used that for some success where people will feel that particular muscle firing now because it's already pre-exhausted from the previous exercise. Yeah, pre-exhaust would be, like said single single joint movement straight to compound movement for that particular

You know muscle grip. So do you guys notice any other synergistic dominance? You ever see like tricep Sent dominance and bench press and stuff like that. Oh, yeah Now you've seen that you and that's really obvious and when you see these guys with these abnormally huge triceps Yeah, and they tend to they tend to dip Well, they don't go down as deep again. Well, sometimes it's that, and then they also, they're like the opposite.

This real narrow guess, they're opposite of like the body builder, right? The body builder, chest press, really flared elbows wide, and then you have the other guy who's got his elbows tucked in and his hand grip is really close, and then he's got these massive triceps, because this is also, you bring that up, this is what inspired you know, you bring that up. This is what

inspired me to start using that as a primary exercise for me for building my triceps. So I might go to tricep exercise for building size on my tricep is a close grip. A narrow grip bench press. And I use the end client because it's a lot more comfortable on my shoulders. But nothing's put more mass on my shoulders than doing a bench press close grip for my triceps. I think it's like the king of all movements for me as far as growth. Well, those compound movements are just,

I mean, even the muscles that are not the prime movers get better work. I started doing, I had injured my arm a little bit, especially when I pronated it. To row with a pronated grip was bothering my arm quite a bit. So I had to do supinated grip for a lot of rowing and pull-ups and stuff. And the side effect of that was my biceps got bigger because I was involving them a little bit more.

Yeah, we talked about this. Full range of motion, pulling up versus a curl. Yeah, you're going to get a lot more benefit from that. Absolutely, and that's why I noticed on my arms. Speaking of which, you know what I did today that I haven't done a long time. Do you guys still use occlusion at all? You incorporate that on a weekly basis?

I wouldn't say, I'm not that formal about it right now. I was when I was competing. When I was competing, I was very formal about it and I paid attention to all that stuff and tracked. But right now, I kind of go off of how I feel. If it's one of those days where I don't want to smash, my calves really hard because I just hit, I hit squats really heavy like two days before that

and I can actually feel my calves a little bit already. My leg will include them then. So I don't include my arms, so I know you include your arms. My arms, that's my, that's my good. That's too big already. Yeah. That's too easy for me to, I don't include my arms. I'm not trying to get them in.

I've clued my face to make it my hands up. They're already dominant in compared to my shoes. You know, you know the cell skin compression when you take those pictures right there? Right after you include it in the floor. Of course. So, no, check this out. So today, I haven't done inclusion for like three weeks this out. So today, I haven't done occlusion for like three weeks or so.

So today, I did a little experiment. I did my regular workout and I had a nice pump going on. So I measured my arm and my arm today, after that part of the pump, was almost 18 inches with the pump, okay? Then I did an occlusion. I did three sets of occlusion. So they're already pumped. I wanted to see if I could make them even bigger or more pumped an occlusion, I did three sets of occlusion. So they're already pumped. I wanted to see if I could make them even bigger

or more pumped with occlusion. So I did, I did triple, you know, I did three sets of occlusions, supercell would try a set, right, back four, back four, back four. Went and quickly measured them, quarter inch. It was a quarter inch of a pump. So that fluid, man. I didn't realize it was that much. Yeah, that's a lot.

That's a fucking lot. And that... I was actually gonna start trying this because people were talking shit on the forum about that one picture. I was like in the background. You guys are the foreground. But it was,

it's what you were talking to. By arm size, I was just like, whatever man. You got massive arms. Your arms are bigger than mine dude. No, it was just funny though. Cause like,

I, dude, I'm not like, you know, like trying to defend myself. I'm just like, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna show you what because like, I, dude, I'm not like, you know, oh, like trying to fend myself, I'm just like, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna show you what like, you know, fluid in the arms looks like. Okay, that will help. Trust me.

Yeah, that shit about me. Well, I mean, that extra squee, that extra pump, that's the, that's the part of occlusion that makes them, that signals the muscles to grow. And it's not that much damage, you know. So for the listeners right now who are not familiar with occlusion, occlusion is when you partially block or occlude what's called venous outflow.

Blood goes into the muscle, but less of it's able to come out so you get a more intense pump and the way you do this is you use knee wraps to tie off particular muscles, but I use that word very carefully because you don't necessarily don't tie it off. There is a proper way to do it. I implore you. We have a guide of MindPumpMedia.com that we have. I implore you. If you're going to use a clue, do it right. If you do it wrong, it could be very dangerous.

We have a guide. It's very inexpensive at MindPumpMedia.com and we teach you how to do it properly. Also, don't forget to leave us a five star rating review on iTunes and check me out at MindPump rating review on iTunes. And check me out at Mind Pump Sal on Instagram. You can check out Adam at Mind Pump Adam. And you can check out the sexy glutes of Justin Andrews at Mind Pump Justin. And you can check out the Mind Pump Show at Mind Pump Radio.

You can also check out Maps Estetic, which is on sale right now, which I believe this is gonna be the last day to. And, G. Final day, April 26th for the sale. The price goes up and they'll never go back down again. We keep our word when we do that, by the way. So it's on sale on discount right now.

You could start for as little as $44. Yeah. 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.minepumpradio.com. Until next time, this is MindPump.