Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 332: How To Build A Thick, Wide Back

Episode Date: July 21, 2016

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin break down how to build a thick, wide and powerful back. Get MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic and the Butt Builder Blueprint (The RGB Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get your Kimera Koffee, Mind Pump's first official sponsor, at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts!

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. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam was awesome. Hey, listen, you're about to hear us go into some awesome tips on how to train your back. We talk a lot also in the beginning of the episode about how great our private forum is. Of course, that price is going to be going up in August. So August 1st, the price of the forum goes up. But we realize something, a lot of people, most of our listeners have never enrolled in any of our programs.

And we always recommend that people start, if you're going to start, you start with maps and a ball, which we call red, maps red, or red maps. And so here's what we're going to do, enrolling maps and a ball, and you're going to be able to get the forum for half of what it's currently being offered. Half off the current price before it goes up to, before it goes up, right? So even more six. So if you haven't enrolled in anything, you're at first time, you're, you know, first time buyer, whatever, go to mindpumpmedia.com, enroll in MAPCentabolic.

That's our foundational program. You will get an alert once you do that little bump that's going to allow you to get the forum for half off. So then you can get in our private forum as well. Mindpumpmedia.com. Can I read you guys a post that just came up on the forum right now? Yeah, the form is crazy right now bro Well the form's crazy. There's there's there's there's there's some love it one of one guy I'm gonna see if I can have him call in so I'm not gonna read his cuz I don't want to you know

I don't want to spoil it because he said some pretty amazing stuff But this one's pretty interesting. This is from I'm not gonna use their last name Cuz I don't know if I have her permission to to use it, but's on the form, her name is Betsy. And this is Confessions from a former figure competitor. So she's like, hi, I'm Betsy. I used to be a figure competitor, always been interested in dieting and lifting weights as a way to morph and change my body. She started her educational journey by reading the bodybuilding Bible for women, and she started , she got started on body parts splits. For the next 10 years, she experimented with all sorts of workouts, diets and plans and the peak of her body morphing obsession came when she chose to try figure competitions for the first time. So she's 23 years old.

So no professional coach, she says she decided to get it ready for her on her own, absorbed as much information as she could and dialed in her nutrition, and she's got really good genetics. Built a lot of muscle, was really lean. In 2010, she entered her first show, and she did really well. She placed high enough to get a spot at the NPC USA, the following summer. She competed in another show just weeks after, and did even better.

So she's really pumped up at this point, went to the NPCs, competed in Vegas, and did okay. And she's saying how she was competing against women who are not all natural. Obviously, once you get to a show, you get to a show. What do you say? So at USA's, that's no joke, right? Yeah, so you get to a certain level, you know, that level you see now women are taking, you know, antibiotics.

Most all of them at that level. At the national level, almost there all of them are. But she was very, she was very, you know, happy with how she did. But after that show, and we've talked about this on the show, and she even says it here, she felt lost. You know, once you hit that goal, like, what do you do from there, right? Either you take the service or you don't, she didn't want to. So now what does she do? And she felt kind of lost. And so she thought, you know, how do I top that?

She liked being shredded, she liked being, you know, real tiny, she liked the looks that she got. But she didn't, she didn't like the pain that it took to get her there. The isolation she experienced, she worked out four hours a day, she weighed and measured every single morsel of food she put into her body, she says. Depleted her adrenals, stopped having her periods, missed out on weddings, parties, hangouts of friends, separated herself from loved ones

because they didn't understand, obviously, her lifestyle. So she just wasn't doing very well as a result. That's great. I just got totally lost the whole thing. I'll pull it right back up and just as I can. Somebody just called me right in the middle. Oh, don't you think I'll just make up for this? I found it.

I found it. So after that, she said, OK, I'm going to, I need to kind of get away from that, because she felt emotionally and mentally wrecked So over the next few years she gained 30 pounds From her stage weight which she wasn't overweight at that point because she was so tiny to begin with from the competitions But she still felt very self-conscious She wasn't feeling very good. She you know her her

Self-esteem was low basically. So she's saying she took a break from the gym scene started doing things like you know, her, her, her, her self-esteem was low, basically. So what she's saying, she took a break from the gym scene, started doing things like, you know, focusing on friends and family, started doing some yoga, staying active. A few years later, she felt renewed. She felt like she was ready to go back to the gym and her friend Christine introduced her to mind pump and she started Maps Black. She started doing Maps Black, started eating healthy whole foods, just like we talk about, started getting a better relationship with food,

decided to weigh herself. She hadn't weighed herself up until this point. And she had told herself that she's gonna be okay with whatever weight comes back, and she had lost 20 pounds without me realizing it. This is without cardio, without food obsession, without missing out on anything. Happ, she feels happy, healthy, and balanced,

and she feels like she's been reunited with the great love of her life, which is the weight room, but with a healthy mentality and with joy. It doesn't rule her life anymore, it makes it a lot better. And we all say, hallelujah. When I read stuff like this, or I hear stuff like this, and it makes me so happy. It makes me absolutely so happy because this is exactly what we can set out to do.

Well, this is what I mean, I love that you brought this up right now too because I feel like we're about to go up in price on the forum and... There's a lot of people that like they have not purchased a forum But have some of our programs like this the most valuable thing anyone that's on the forum will tell you all the stuff They've made as far as like the programs is that the forum has been the most Right because it's it's filled with people like this That have great stories that real life and that's what I love about it. It's real life.

It's real struggles, real situations. And then their experience going through it. And then other people relating to them and going through their experiences. And you've got you've got doctors, you've got physical therapists. We've got nurses on there. You got chiropractors. There's a lot of personal, there's a lot of personal trainers and there's a lot of competitors. There's all these just a just a plethora of information

and people on there. It reminds me of what everybody's seeking on social media inspiration, right? Everybody's seeking this sort of inspiration to keep them going through their program or their process, but they're getting it from companies like Shreds and companies like these supplement companies and fake facade.

Photoshopped up, it's just written by somebody else. All bullshit. And the forum is where real people are doing work and they're bouncing ideas off each other and they're tweaking and modifying their process together and they're getting support and love from what they're doing. And that's why it's so powerful. God, I'm so glad you pointed that out. That's so true. What that, what, how many people tune in?

I mean, because even after, you know, we, we kind of outstreads almost a year ago, right? You're in a half ago, almost we, we first outstim and since then we've seen like this huge, but there's still millions of motherfuckers connected to them. They're still doing it. Yeah, there's still millions of people that are and they're still growing. They're still going overseas. There's still so, you know, my butt might have ruffled some feathers, but it's not that we shut them down or anything. And there's still people that are tuning it. And they're still people that fight and argue for them because they because the

inspirational part. Yeah, because, oh, but they're so inspiring. You know, and I'm like, if you only knew like they're post or written by somebody else, you know, their pictures are And I'm like, if you only knew they're post or written by somebody else, their pictures are doctored in Photoshop like a magazine. Well, I mean, we're not here to tell you who and how you can get inspired, okay? But I'll be the first to say right now

that they're posts and their sites and forget them. The vast majority of the ones that are out there in the industry. We're an easy example. The vast majority of the ones that are out there in the industry. We're an easy example. The vast majority of the ones that are out there in the fitness industry are doing more harm than good. Okay, so there may be those people that are inspired to do things right and get healthy,

but they're doing a lot more damage than they are good. And I know this because I'm in the industry. I see it all the fucking time. I have yet to find anybody who gets hardcore into working out and gets hardcore into that scene that then doesn't suffer some kind of, all the fucking time. I have yet to find anybody who gets hard-coron to work now and gets hard-coron to that scene that then doesn't suffer some kind of, you know, either metabolic damage or the relationship to food changes, the relationship to exercise changes. What she said in that post, the one thing that

was that was really awesome as she said, it used to be my life and now it makes my life better. You know, instead of ruling your and now it makes my life better. Instead of ruling your life, it enhances your life. There's a big difference there. There's a very big difference. Yes, there's a certain level of obsession that you need to have if you want to succeed and excel at anything.

But if you're looking for long term success, then that's not the way to do it. You can't be like that all the time. You're gonna kill yourself. You're going to kill yourself. You hurt yourself. And this is everything, business, even in business. I have a tendency to overdo myself when it comes, or to over apply myself when it comes to work.

But definitely will cause my relationships to friends and family and to my children will cause them to suffer. And so there's a point there where you have to look and say, okay, how can I make this relationship with my business works so that it enhances my life rather than ruling it. And at the end of that, it's challenge, but at the end of it, it always works out much better.

And you know, it's funny, when you do that, let's just talk about exercise again. When you do that with exercise and nutrition, guess what? You end up getting better gains anyway. Like at the end of it, you end up getting in better shape. Yeah, you're working with your body.

Exactly. It's less of this crazy hardcore grinding grinding. What do you think, you're, what do you, what, I'm curious to hear all of you guys. What your favorite parts of the forum is? Like what do you like best about the forum? I like,

it's been so neat. And I really, I've mentioned this before on a podcast that, you know, it's salplated a huge role in growing this to where it was at. Because when it first started, I mean, I would start it off. There was 20 people in there and, you know, it was very easy to communicate every day and talk to all those people because rarely ever did 20 people on the same day. Have a ton of questions.

I need answered. So it was pretty easy to manage. You mean, now we're getting close to like a thousand people that are on that forum that it's crazy how active it is. And it's so neat to see everything going on. What do you like most about watching what you've done with that? Yeah, my favorite part is the ownership, like some of the professionals in there

have really taken and run with and figured out that they have a unique flavor that they're bringing into. Like, they're coming in and they have specialties that they can help to coach specific exercises and they can like add all this like really elaborate content that, you know, a lot of times like, we're here, we're talking, we're doing our thing, we're doing a lot of stuff. And meanwhile, we're getting really awesome, like good advice from other professionals in the industry that we trust to come in on that.

There's definitely been some, we've definitely seen some people emerge from the forum who've become leaders in like Justin was saying, in their own respective professions, where we have people coming out and there's biochemists on there talking about why certain supplements do what they do.

And there's naturopaths on there. And I forgot his name, gentlemen, who showed his shoulder mobility work with the stick. Carlton. Carlton, I love that video. I've referred to that video. Yeah, he's really come into, you know, his own with his own. I've referred to that video myself many, many times and I've incorporated some of the stuff I've seen on that video

and some of my shoulder mobility stuff, but my favorite, my absolute favorite, and maybe because I'm a sentimental guy or whatever, but my favorite part of the forum is hearing the stories and the confessions and then seeing the comments of people than support. So sometimes we'll get someone who will post and it's very brave, very, very brave of people to do this, but they'll get on there and they'll post, you know, their struggle, you know, like I don't know how you guys can eat, you know, so well all the time. I have so much struggle with this. For the last five days, I've been eating nothing but shit and I feel horrible about myself or I can't seem to get back in the gym the last week.

I'm feel so lazy and kind of down on the cells but having a lot of courage, kind of put it out there. And then to read the comments of the support that people give back. And it's all great advice. I have yet to see anybody who gives advice where I'm like, wow, that's a bad thing to say. It's all very, very good kind of supportive advice.

And so, and just the welcoming process, too. I love that. I love that. That's how I tell everybody. I have like just go in there and say, yeah, hello, and hell who you are. That's it. Just watch what happens.

People just like intuitively, like they just want to make sure that they, they, you know, somebody knew they recognize them and they're like, hey, welcome, you know, we're so glad, you know, you're here. And, you know, just, you don't get that from a lot of places that you go, you know, in general. And I think anybody that kind of experiences that

from the very beginning, that's a powerful thing. I think it's understated just how important having a good network around you is to unbelievably. Just so yesterday, one of my clients bought his son's birthday, he bought him the RGB bundle. And he was asking me, he's like, you know, I think he needs the, I think he would really like the No BS six pack abs.

And I think he could really use the nutrition guy too. What do you think? And this and that. I said, honestly, um, get the forum for him. I said more than anything else that we offer. And I know you know that and you trust me because how long you've been with me and stuff. But he's going to benefit from that community more than all of our programs. And much of that love all of our programs.

And I know how beneficial they are. The forum is on a whole other level because you're just and on so many different things to like Justin was saying about like it's I'm so proud of that thing. I really am and it's like and so I know Sal has to be super proud because I feel like you really owned it more than anybody because the the community man you cannot go on there and not like smile or be positive afterwards because of a, and that's getting back to the like we are kind of shitting on shreds and it's not that. It's just that the industry is so flooded with all this superficial.

It's all about them. Yes, it's about them. It's fake. It's, you know, it's Photoshopped up. It's edited by other people. It's all glamorized so people get sucked into it when this is fucking as real as it gets people going on They're pouring their heart about about their struggles. You know, we just had someone come on I think it was at Ali or someone who just came on there recently and just admitted, you know, I'd fall off the wagon for like two months

And I just wanted to reach out to my my mind pump community and say, how do you guys deal with this when you feel like you're restarting back up? I mean you they're and then instantly, you know, 30 people on their commenting and explaining my pump community and say, how do you guys deal with this when you feel like you're restarting back up? I mean, you, and then instantly, you know, 30 people on their commenting and explaining either one, relating to or saying, I'm going through that too or here are some things I did to get over that. This might help you and just tons and the way people come across, I feel like we've done such a good job of fostering that community that everyone's truly positive, truly about others, truly about growth,

everybody is about learning, nobody talks shit. Like it's so, it also gives us a really good, it's a unique opportunity from a business standpoint. Now initially we created the forum so that people could ask questions and we could help them out. But I soon realized that it's an amazing thing for us to keep our finger on the pulse of our audience because they're so interactive, right?

So we can see what's working, what's not working, what people need, what kind of help, what should we talk about on our shows? The forum has really provided that. Now, I'll give you an example. We did, you know, I don't remember when we recorded, when did we record the abs episode? Well, it was a while ago. Yeah, when we talked about ab training techniques

and how to build a six pack. And these are things that we take for granted because I talk about that all day long with clients. And so I'm like, I don't think we should do an episode on it. But Doug brought the idea. So I said, all right, let's talk about this. And the forum lit up with people who were like, wow, I really learned this from that,

learned that from that. And so for me personally, hearing that, I realized that you know what, we need to stop taking those steps, types of things for granted, and maybe talk about more body part, how to train particular body-part. Specialized technique.

How, yeah, like what things we encounter as trainers in terms of difficulties for training certain body parts, because we talked about the glutes and how they're sleepy butt syndrome. We talked about the abs. The next body part I could think of right now where people have encounter the most problems in terms of activation, function, and just development is the back.

Is the back, would you guys agree? 100% the posterior chain row. This people, we do everything in front of us. Yeah, very hard to recruit. Yes, so, and that people don't realize, I think the misconception is how much of it's neurological. How much of it is just really under getting that connection first there. I think that's

One of the things that I think people don't get when you start training and you see like, oh, okay I do these exercises I do that and I should develop this but well Yeah, if you're getting the right muscles to recruit and fire replacing your your body in the proper positioning So you have the right posturing Even going into that lift to be able to get the muscle to respond the way you want it to respond. I mean, all these things make a difference. Here's the first thing that pops in my mind when it comes to the back, training the back.

Is whenever anybody's doing some type of a pull down movement, whether it be a pull up or a pull down, I don't care what grip you have or whatever, the biggest thing that I see because here's the thing, people get confused. They think if you do the movement, that you're training the muscle the way you should, right? Oh, I'm doing a pull down here. That's what it looks like. I'm doing it.

Therefore, I'm working the muscles the way they should be worked. When it comes to pulling things down, you always, you still want to be able to get scapular depression. You still, when I'm doing a pull down, I can pull away down and keep my shoulders elevated. And that will make that will number one train an incorrect muscle recruitment pattern, or at least one that's not favorable. And number two, when you look at my back, especially if you build

a nice impressive looking back, you can tell that the person hasn't trained it properly because they have forward shoulder and they have the kind of shallow look to their back. So whenever you're doing a pull up or a pull down, at the end of the movement, when the bar is down by your chest or when you're up by the bar, when you're doing a pull up, you don't just pull yourself up to the bar. You also want to pull the shoulders down and back, like you're doing the opposite of a shrug.

Like you're doing that downward shrug. That one change alone, I've had clients who were very muscular, I had one guy that was thinking about competing, very muscular guy, and one of the very few things I did was that, as I said, hey, look, when you do your pull downs, your shoulders remain elevated, and you're not really getting them down and back, just change that one thing.

So we had to go lighter to correct that. It looked like he gained four pounds of muscle on his back. I swear to God, actually, three months of doing that, you could see much more definition and detail, especially in the mid part of his back. So a tip to teach someone that. So here's for your trainers. I'll take a client on a lap, pull down if I even teach that.

And I will tell them, get them all in the right position, get them slightly leaned back, and then explain to them, puff the chest up, get ready to retract your shoulders. Then I have them pulled down the bar and I have them shorten up before they get to their chest about six inches. And then I stop them there and we're going really like because I just want them to fill the mechanics. I said, now that you're right here,

now this last six inches, I want you to think, bring the chest up to the bar. And that last bit will force them to retract and depress down. Open chest. Yes. I do the same thing. So and that it'll open their chest up. It'll naturally retract and depress the shoulders if they think that. So you pull the bar down six inches, then you stop there and I go, okay, now the last six inches, you're going to bring the chest up to the bar instead of the other way around. And that that's smart. It's a easy, it's an easy tip that will help a client get them to do what we're trying to get. Because what you're doing is technical, right? To tell

somebody, if you told a client, okay, which is, I always love to catch these trainers that love the sound how smart they are. You know, when you start talking mechanically, biomechanically like this in terms of, so you want to retract the shoulder, shoulder and depress it, you know, I'm saying like, dude, your client doesn't fucking get that. Give them something easier to get them to do what you, what you, yeah, get them to do what you need them to do in layman's terms. And one of the ways I would do that was I would pull the bar down. And then I would not allow them pull it down anymore. Now you bring the chest up to the bar and it'll naturally retract and depress the shoulders.

Well, and also keeping tension, keeping tension with the bar. Yeah, on the way down and makes a big difference neurologically for me. Good point, dude, because if I'm bringing it down and it's all momentum-based and I'm relying on the load to increase that sort of tension and get response out of my muscle, I'm doing it at disservice because I'm not properly recruiting and activating. So that's a tip that I kind of throw out there. I like that too, that's where I really get.

Well, applying the tension all the way. So, you know, having tension in your eccentric portion, your isometric portion and your concentric portion. So, you know, this trains your muscle properly to respond in each one of these contraction faces. Well, here's another thing too that I noticed is that, and this is more important for those of you that lift heavy, who have decent activation in the back, you know, you can do a proper row, you can do a proper pull down. This is something that I see that is a big mistake.

I see a lot of guys and girls who will almost lightly grip the bar. It's almost like they don't get a full, hard squeeze on the bar on the rowing. And it's almost natural. Like you almost want to hook the bar with just your fingers, because you're trying to isolate your back. When you've already got decent control your back,

you're better off crushing the bar and then pulling. You're going to get better. First of all, you're going to be able to lift heavier because your CNS is firing better. And number two, you're going to able to lift heavier because your CNS is firing better. And number two, you're gonna get better, a more favorable recruitment pattern at the shoulder girdle. And they've proven this by doing studies on people who've used wrist straps.

wrist straps will change the recruitment patterns on the shoulder when you're trying to pull away because it has you disengage your grip. So when you've got good recruitment patterns and you're one of those guys' girls that likes to lift heavy and you especially do heavy rows, don't just hook the bar with your fingers, grip that fucking bar and squeeze the shit out of it

and then row and watch what happens. Yes, you will feel more in your forearms, but that doesn't mean you're getting less activation in your back, you're actually getting more. Well, this is like when you talked about, before you lift a heavy deadlift or something too, is gripping the bar, you know, it gets that CNS to fire, right right before you snatch it up off the ground.

You know, talking about back too. So we lap pull down. Lap pull down may not be one of the exercises I teach. To me, it's kind of an advanced movement. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't teach it because I would teach even a beginner just like the tip I just gave, but I think more in my career later on, I've, because it goes against what you're trying to do with most people's posture. That's the reason why I don't like it,

because most people are... No, row rows are probably more important. A really light row and teaching them how to do that. I, one of our four members ran into me at the gym a while back and he just, he was like, oh man, I'm so glad I caught you. You know, my shoulder's been bugging me and I kind of like, we talked about what was going on with them.

And he just, you know, he's got poor shoulder mobility and part of it is having a hard time with his retraction. And so he's feeling when he does shoulder press or he does chest press, you know, it starts to aggravate it. And that's because he's not getting in that retracted position, right? So I said, okay, well, every time you come to the gym and I brought him over to the C2 row, I said, I want you to do this, you know, for three sets of 15 to 20 reps before you start your workout, every single workout. And real light, I said, you know, put

it on like 50 pounds and, you know, hold three to five seconds. And when you come in, retract, depress the shoulders. Yeah. Get them. And what we're doing is we're just reestablishing that neurological connection. You're not trying to strain it. You're not trying to get a pump from this. You're trying to really connect to that. And he came back to me like two weeks later. He's like, oh my god, dude, my shoulder pain's completely gone. Oh, yeah, well, we just you're getting, you're getting those muscles to hold you back. Rewiring and rerouting that process. Well, there's definitely not enough

rows being done in the gym, not enough heavy rows or proper rows because you see a lot of people use the cables, you see a lot of pull down movements, I think is easier. But when you look at the backs of people, and I see this a lot in physique competitors, I look at that they turn around and you can tell that they don't do heavy rowing or deadlifting. Their backs look shallow. You know, they've got the muscularity. They've got some lats, but their backs look, doesn't have that three-dimensional sort of.

No, it does. It's so obvious to me now. Do you see it now? Of course, way more than I did before. Oh, bro, I can pick out, I can pick them out in a lineup and be like, you don't deadlift, you don't row, you just, yeah. I can feel like the deadlift can give you those canalslift, you don't row, you just, yeah. I feel like the deadlift can give you those canals.

Oh, down the back, mid back. Oh yeah. Yeah, you just don't even have that. Like you can develop this wide V all day long and stuff. And you, and definition by your rear deltoids, wrong boys and I thought that, but to get that, those canals that run down your back, and that's where that, I think that thickness,

you know, that's what I mean. That's what I mean, E-Locase, I would say, like that's what gives that. Exactly, exactly. The other thing too is when you're, you know, that's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. kind of this tight position and then do this like. You could never get protracted all the way. No, the reality is when you're doing a dumbbell row,

yeah, you want good posture, you know, over the bench. I'm over the bench. But I do want my scapular to drop down. Right. And I do want it to come up and I do want a slight rotation of the top because those are all actions of the back and that's what's gonna give me,

it makes natural motion movement. Same thing with the cable row. I think Adam, I think in Maps aesthetic, Adam was demoing the cable row, and we were like, oh, people are gonna come after us, because the way Adam was demoing it was at the beginning of the rep, he would have his scapulas would be protracted,

shoulders rounded forward, leaning forward, and then he'd pull back and retract the scapula and do the row, and we were taught, always keep scapula retract to throw out the whole part of the movement. But then you're not working anything in full range of motion or at least the mid back. So that is another huge tip is when you're doing your rows to understand that, understand that, protraction and retraction. But you're not using momentum. No, and so that was the big key.

I think that's where people do it wrong. You know what I mean? If they're going for, I think that's why they tried to kind of prevent that and they wanted you in the retracted position because they were trying to keep you stabilizing, you know, that position. Well, they don't want any flexion or extension as well. Yes. What I see most often with the guys that do momentum is they still try and keep scapular retraction and they use momentum. So they come forward, they come forward, and they're stiff still, and then they use the momentum to rock back

with their already in retraction, where I'm just letting the body fully roll forward and back, fully roll forward and roll back. You should actually post that, like you're a post something similar, I think, because people that don't have mass black or whatever, that is a really good, unique way, and technique that people need to understand properly.

By the way, I want to be very, very clear here when we talk about momentum that for people who have good recruitment patterns, for people have a good feel for their body, for people that understand how their body's working and their relative of the experienced, momentum can be a tool, it can. It doesn't mean you should never use momentum.

There's like a cheat curl for now. I was just gonna say cheat because this is what Arnold talks about in his, there is a place for this. Yes. And in reality. You know how to use it? Well, in reality too, if you're trying to lift a car off a baby

or do something fucking crazy, you would use a baby. Well, no, let's be honest. If you were gonna do something fucking crazy. You would use a baby. Well, no, let's be honest. If you were gonna do something like something crazy, right? Like that, you need every bit of your strength to do it. You want the entire body able to work together to help you do that. So there's a play, but learning how to do it properly

so you don't hurt yourself is why we don't ever teach it. I can only count on one hand probably how many times I've taught people You know cheat curls and cheese because you have to be pretty advanced I want you have to have really good Control of your core and be able to keep you know neutral spine through all different planes and movements and you know That's hard for a lot of people to do you know you get to know how to do it I think towards the end of the period of time I was training Doug, there would be times I told him, he said, okay, you can use a little body English.

Yeah, Doug is somebody you could teach that with because of his knowledge and how advanced he is, I could teach someone like that. Right, right, right. But now, so I would, I'll venture to say this with back routines. When you're doing your back routines, first of all, the deadlift is a foundational movement for the whole body. So I hate to say it's for back, although it will develop

an amazing back, but it's really a hip movement. So let's just take deadlift out for a second. We know that's a bad ass exercise. If you're not deadlifting, you're missing out. Let's talk about other back exercises now. I think most people's routines should begin with some type of a row before they do any type of a pull down. For the most part. Now, I'm in, I went for your advance and you're at the point where you're trying to really develop, you know, other parts you're back, then I understand that, but for the most people, I rarely will start anybody with a pull down or pull up. Maybe a pull up, because that's a little bit different, but I'd say a row is probably more important should take more priority out.

Then over a T-bar though, not like a seated row. No, no. I would do a compound movement. I would do a dumbbell row, a barbell row, a T-bar row, something like that. Because you're gonna get more out of it. It seems to be a little more functional. Because when you're pulling, you tend to be pulling

in that kind of horizontal plane, right, rather than vertical. And then you can move into your pull down movements. But here's a back exercise that is super, super underrated that I don't see, I'm starting to see a little bit now. It's not really a compound movement, but it's a fantastic exercise for the back. And that's a cross bench dumbbell pullover. I don't see a lot of people doing those anymore.

And I don't know why. Yeah. Really,. I don't see a lot of people doing those anymore. I don't know why. Yeah. Really, I feel like I see decent amount of people. Yeah, I mean, I'm at Golds, Bernal. So I feel like you got a lot of competitors. Maybe they are now. I don't know. Yeah, I see that.

I don't see that in my gym. And even the monitoring. Yeah, that's what, how many exercises can you think about that work and that type of that plane, right? None. Yeah, that's, you know, back in the day that there were certain exercises that were considered measures of strength, like if you could overhead press, overhead press has always been a

measure of strength. If you could lift something off the ground, like a deadlift, and then there was the bent press, which nobody does anymore. But another one was the pullover. Back in the day, these old time bodybuilders are strong, man, would do like a barbell pullover. They wouldn't use a dumbbell, they'd use a barbell bent arm pullover, and some of these guys were able to do it with, so they'd have their arms kind of fixed like this, 90-graingill. Some of these guys were able to do like 300 pounds.

Crazy. No, I have a buddy, I'll tell you guys, and he does it with 315 off the bench. Holy crap. Like reps. Wow. Strict form. Wow.

Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. Like 40 something years old too, a natural freak. Wow. Yeah, I remember seeing him do it when 40 something years old too, and natural, freak. Wow. Yeah, I remember seeing him do it when I was like, I think I tried to do it and I was like, oh, plate was challenging. Like 135 was like cool enough for me. I'm like, okay, this is getting me in up.

Yeah, this is getting. It's an interesting, and if you don't train that motion, you find that you're pretty weak at it. Well, that's why I feel I just don't train that. You know, he's obviously put some time and effort into that exercise for a while to be able to rep out 315 like that. It's also an exercise I've used to help people with shoulder mobility for people have issues with raising the shoulder Other head, yeah, their arm above their head because they're resisting the weight and they're letting the weight kind of take

them into that that range of motion while they're resisting it and so it tends to allow for a greater range of motion. And so I've used that on clients for shoulder mobility. Definitely another advanced exercise too, though, that I wanna, that's why I think the back is probably too up there with probably one of the most complex, if not the most complex muscle to develop because one, we rarely ever do anything behind us, so we don't use, it's hard to engage the back in the first part.

And you don't see it. Yeah, you can't see it. It's, and there's a lot of moves that the best, some of the best moves can be compromising if you have poor posture and poor form. You know, a bent over, you see a lot more injuries. Yeah, a bent over row could be an extra, great exercise.

It could also be dangerous if somebody is going to heavy, and doesn't know how to do it properly a dead lift is One of the king of all exercises, right? And a lot of people don't even do it at all because they're afraid. Yeah, so people are so scared of death And you know, let me tell you that I think that to me I don't think I think you should come to the gym and when you're working back if you don't deadlift You shouldn't do anything else till you figure out how to fucking deadlift. Because I feel like that is the foundation of your back.

We talk about the squat for your legs and your squat is your foundation, your deadlift is your foundation. If I come in and you can't deadlift, my goal is to be able to get you to deadlift. And I might use all those other accessory exercises to get you into proper alignment, recruit muscles. And I need to... I mean, it's your whole posterior chain.

It's understanding how to activate your posterior chain because like you're saying, like everything in the anterior chain, that comes easy because it's something that's a little more natural to everyday movement. Whereas, you know, if you're not highlighting and able to connect, you know, with your glutes properly, with your back properly, you're able to stabilize properly, even like take and relieve tension on your lower back and figure out how to incorporate more of your core to stabilize you properly with that, you really have to put the time and the effort just into that.

Well, what's funny to me, too, is because you don't see your back, right? You're looking at me like Adam was saying, you're looking at me, you never see your back. How often do you ever, you know, turn your back to the mirror, grab another mirror and look at your back? I mean, unless you're one of us, you probably never do that. But I can almost always tell if somebody's really fit by their back. Much easier but than by the front. You know, you can see them walking away from you, you can tell, man or woman, you can tell posture,

you can see where their shoulders are placed. You might be able to see, you know, if they're wearing a tank top or whatever, and you can tell like that person is strong, and that person works out. God, I feel like we haven't even touched on women in this area, and that's so, that's even more important

than you just said that. I think this is most common in clients is females with an excessive protracted shoulder girdle and with the need of back development more than anybody just for posture reasons. And it's so amazing. You take a girl. Especially that big chest. Yes.

No, it's true. If you have big boobs naturally or you have your breasts with the fun bags. Yeah. No. Let's be serious about that. I mean, someone who's got really big boobs Eat whether they're fake or real come to Adam. He's got they they naturally we want to help you They naturally are going to have this round where how often let think about that how often do you see a girl with great big old

Tits and has great posture to go with it. No seriously. No, you don't seriously. Do you know why super protracted? Do you know why let's confidenceract. But do you know why? Well, it's a confidence thing too. Yes. They're almost like kind of embarrassed to do that. Number one, if you're a woman and you're listening and you've had breast augmentation, chances are, and you don't work out properly, chances are you have issues activating the mid-back. Because many of the augmentation, you know, surgeries that happen now, a good percentage of now are under the muscle of the pec. So when you think about that, the implant and is underneath the pec, it's pulling the pec forward, causing the pec to be tighter, which is going to pull my arm forward.

And there's that recovery period, right, where it hurts and I got to, and they bandaged me up. And in that short period of time, by the way, recruitment patterns change very quickly. I could change a recruitment pattern in a week simply by adding a bandage somewhere. If I took your arm and closed your arm with some bandages, took the bandages off. Especially in muscle or an area that's utilized a lot. Yes, it's having to be fired all the time. So they have recruitment pattern issues in the mid-back, and so you get a lot of that forward

shoulder problem with women who've had breast augmentation. Now women with naturally big breasts, many times it's a confidence thing, like they probably developed at an early age and they kinda hid their chest a little bit. And you ask a woman with big boobs, stand up straight and you know what they'll say to you, no, I don't wanna do that,

because then I'm poking out my boobs, you know? Literally my ladies that are listening, like let them fly. My ladies that are listening right now, make this a part of your routine, every workout right here. Band pull apart's seated row. Light, super light, you're not trying to go heavy.

All you're trying to do is continue to work on that neurological connection. This will do wonders for your posture, your body, any sort of nagging issues you might have as far as aches and pains going on in your back. Yep. Do seated row, band pull apart, three sets of 15 to 20 reps, very light, really concentrate on your form and your posture while you're doing it, and you're really trying to retract

and depress those shoulders in both those movements and literally do three times every workout. You know what that'll do, by the way, because I get lots of complaints, especially from women, is they get lots of neck tension. You know where that's coming from? Protractor shoulder. A lot of them are. I mean, I always, but a lot of the time, most of the time. So you start correcting that posture, and next to you know, you're not getting tension in your neck, you're not feeling, you know, your neck doesn't feel kinked. And a lot of times that contributes to headaches, you know, I neck doesn't feel kinked. And a lot of times that contributes to headaches, you know, I know women are much more likely to get headaches and whatnot.

And that can contribute to that. So I've had women tell me because we've corrected their posture that they don't get headaches nearly as much. So I was just talking to a private, I was just with a client right before we got here. And this is her issue. And we were just doing shoulder mobility. And I didn't realize how tight she was until I had her do in the movement.

Mara, we always talking so funny. I had this plan, right? So she's, we're dealing with some hip issues right now. She might, she might have something torn. She's getting on my eye next week. So, okay, well, we're just going to do some core stuff and I was going to work on some mobility things with her. And then I started having her do some movements and I have her moving with a bar

and working on her transverse abdominis and I noticed her posture when she's standing there like she has like elevated scapula one side and she's kind of off of kilter and I'm like what's sit down for a second I have her sit down and get behind her I'm like holy shit like she's so tight on one side so then the whole workout changed you know now we redirected now I'm doing like threading the needle. We're working on some opening up her thoracic region and her shoulders. And we're doing all that. And I'm explaining to her like how important this is. And we've got to get this down. And that that could be causing other things. And then she's like,

you know, could that be causing my headaches, too? I'm like, absolutely. What I wanted to ask you though, because what and I didn't wasn't able to tell her was the why behind that do you know What is I just know I know that from just how many clients I've trained for so many years When when they do get all tight up there that it also correlates with headaches is there is it a nerve? Is it a blood flow related? What is it that's caused? It could be all the above so if when you look at the when you look at the back You look at the shoulder girdle And if you have issues or recruitment patterns that are preventing you from having proper

scapular depression and retraction. So in layman's terms, the shoulders don't wanna drop and pull back, okay? Then what ends up happening is the next available muscle takes over to stabilize the shoulder girdle. And usually that has to do with the muscles that elevate the scapular.

That shrugged the shoulders. So your traps, your upper tra with the muscles that elevate the scapula, that shrug the shoulders. So your traps, your upper trapezius, levittator scapula, all the muscles that attach right around the base of the skull. And that's where the problem happens. When you get that, I forgot the name of that joint there that chiropractors like to, the atlas, thank you very much. Those muscles, if they're tight, they're gonna cause, and here's the thing about tight muscles,

or overactive muscles. When muscles are overactive, when they're constantly doing more work than they should because there's certain muscles that aren't doing what they're supposed to, you will typically find inflammation at the insertions of those muscles, okay? So like, if I have tennis elbow,

it's because I have, let's say overactive. It's already making sense to me. What is it making sense? Yeah, well, because you're by you saying that you're telling me that there's it inserts out there the basically the bolt base of the skull. And if I'm getting inflammation in there, I mean, you got you're going to have blockage for sure. Correct.

It's not going to be. Correct. You can either go to the nerve in those areas. It could cause my it could cause my recruits. Because then it goes up the chain, right? Now my recruitment patterns for how I turn my head change, my recruitment patterns for where I hold my head, now how I hold my face,

now all that stuff contributes to how my, how my head's gonna respond it in terms of pain with headaches. Now there's lots of reasons that headaches can happen. Everything from excess, you know excess vasodilation to having these weird brain waves happen that almost look epileptic. But at the end of the day, they can all be triggered by tightness

in these surrounding areas right around the skull. And if you don't believe me, clench your jaw as hard as you can for five minutes and then relax and see if you don't get a headache. Oh yeah. You said I'm saying so. That's right, get all mine from overnight is just clenching. Do you really? Yeah.

I'll get bad headaches. Yeah, because you'll go to dentists and stuff and they can give you mouthpieces and stuff that'll get rid of your headaches just because of that. Right. You know, so. Makes a lot of sense right there. So the back is one of those important muscle groups. It's one of the muscle groups that I see trained most improperly and kind of just to just

kind of recap and just kind of give you something to take away from this episode. The fundamental movements of back when you're doing your back exercises, you have your row movements which we deem to be, tend to be the exercise that are more important. More important. Then you have your vertical pull down movements which are important as well. movements, which we deem to be, tend to be the exercise that I'm more, more importantly. Then you have a vertical pull down movements, which are important as well, but when you do that, make sure you get your shoulders to also drop and come back,

especially at the bottom of the movement. And then you have movements that are kind of like your pull over movements. And when you do those, I forgot to add, at the bottom of those movements, you also want to be able to get your shoulders to drop down and pull back. You don't want to do a pullover type movement with shoulders forward because that will encourage

poor recruitment patterns. And lastly, if you're one of those people that has issues feeling, especially if you've been working out for a while, you never felt like a really good pump in your lats. Here's a little easy tip. Do a pullover movement and then superset that with a pulldown or a row. So start with a pullover, go to the row or the pulldown and the vast majority of you will all of a sudden feel this wonderful pump in your lats. This is the first time I ever felt a pump when I was a

kid is when I did that. So yeah. That's pretty awesome. I feel like having dead lifts in my routine makes a difference. Oh come on. Yeah, I'm not talking about that because I feel like that's a given. Like, you have to deadlift. Well, you know, did your back change so much? Well, you say that that's why I feel like I wanted not to hang up here without stressing the importance of a deadlift.

I mean, I think for, and then a rack pull. And I, and I do, No, real deadlift. Yeah, right, a real deadlift, which is so funny, I'm seeing so much of that now. I had to say that because I saw it just like yesterday.

Oh, god, it's crazy right now. I've seen all these rack pulls. Like go lighter weight, do the fucking full range motion. Yeah. Unless you're like a expert dead lifter and you know how to use a rack pull problem. Yeah, no, there's not to say a rack. If you're a rack point, I hope you're a competitor

and you're using it. Yeah, either via it's and by competitor, I don't mean like a men's physique competitor. I mean like a powerlifting competitor and you're using it to get you past sticking points or it's an auxiliary movement to something else. You know, you shouldn't be doing it for an exercise that develops or you develop, you know,

do a full fucking deadlift. Well, no, these physique guys are doing rack pulls because they don't want to make their waist bigger. I mean, they're coming up with some sti. You know what I need to do and I have it. And I know I said I was gonna do it because I've been enjoying being big is I need to get I need to get fucking two percent lean again and show everybody like it was since I've been dead lifting hardcore for the last couple of years now And show that my waist is just as fucking tiny as it was two and a half years ago before I was dead lifting as heavy and as hard as I'm dead lifting right now

But I also remember when I talked about when I had gotten on the hamstring curls and I hadn't gotten onto the hamstring curls in a long time, I did a machine. I recently, remember when I was telling you guys that I was starting to have recruitment problems. I was getting some recruitment problems because I was doing so many barbell movements and not doing a lot of my mobility stuff, not using dumbbells or cables as much. I was doing so much deadlifting squatting. We always say we're the best trainers when it comes to helping others out,

but we're always flirting with those fine lines with ourselves. So I had been doing that and I started in, of course, I waited until it started to cause problems and then now I'm addressing it. So I haven't been dead lifting now. It's been almost a month, been doing a lot of my rows and doing all these movements

that we're talking about right now to Reestablish that connection and But I get on the seated row. I hadn't then a seated row of row and God knows how long I had not used that in forever And I used to strap up on there and I would row like a hundred and fifty pounds or 175 I'd probably get up to dude. I was fucking rowing 300 pounds with no straps. And I hadn't done a seated row in like a year dude and I'm like, no straps. No straps. No straps. That's how strong you feel.

Just crazy. It's blew my mind. Because I had been doing that, that was used to be a staple movement in every routine. So every back workout had a seated row in it because it was one of my favorite to do. And I mean maybe at my... So why we were so against the wrist wrap thing, you know, like back in, back when. It's just like, if you're gonna keep relying on this,

like long-term, it is just gonna interrupt that whole process where you're gonna gain that type of response. It is, but I also, you know, I'm still a guy who will find his places to use his wrist wraps here and there, and I still utilize it. Yeah, but you're also a guy that knows what he's doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was a bit different. So that's why I'm always careful when we say that because you're right. But then you're also, there's also times where I find a perfect thing for me to do when I'm especially trying to isolate something. But I was just blown away by the strength gains. I mean, it took me, I remember I think I peaked out

at like 200 pounds. I think the most I ever seated row was like 200 pounds before I was really deadlifting. So to get under there and I mean like I was rowing like 242, 60 like 15 reps controlled easy and what holy shit like this was not only was this not only above my max It was like way easier on it was crazy to me crazy crazy crazy to see that much of a gain And that just shows you how much Deadlifting carries over to everything else. You could see the you could see the row machine row hammer strength row And all those exercises till you're blue in the face work your ass off for years to see incremental gains and

in the face, work your ass off for years to see incremental gains and avoid deadlifts, then incorporate deadlifts, and then watch what the fuck happens. I mean, it's blown, my post-ear chain is like on another level just from deadlifting alone. So. From this thing, it looks beautiful. Thank you.

Listen, if you like Mind Pump, leave us a five star rating review on iTunes. If we like it, if it's good, you might win a free Mind Pump t-shirt. You can also find us on Instagram at Mind Pump Radio, you can find me at Mind Pump Sal, Adam at Mind Pump Adam, Justin at Mind Pump Justin, and also don't forget Mind Pump Media dot com, so we have all of our programs and testimonials. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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