Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 415: Build More Muscle by Priming Your Workouts

Episode Date: December 8, 2016

Most people's warm-up is a mix of thrown together stretches and movements designed to ultimately prevent injury. The warm-up should be at the very least an effective tool to prevent injury but when done properly it should in fact, PRIME your Central Nervous System to fire with maximum efficiency and reinforce optimal muscle recruitment patterns. Moving beyond the concept of "warming up," Mind Pump brings you the concept of systematically Priming your body to get better strength and muscle gains from your workouts. Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you with a new video on our new YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint AND the Sexy Athlete Mod (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! @mindpump Instagram, Mind Pump, mindpumpradio.com, Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge, exercise, fitness, health, muscle, fat loss, ripped, shredded, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, MAPS Anywhere, Butt Builder Blueprint, No BS 6 Pack Formula, trigger sessions, anabolic trigger sessions, anabolic triggering, bodybuilding, muscle building, build muscle, raw fitness truth, personal training, 6-pack, Nutrition Survival Guide, Occlusion Training Guide, Intermittent Fasting Survival Guide, myostatin, Mind Pump TV, RGB Super Bundle, Build Your Butt Bundle, Sexy Athlete Mod, Kimera Koffee,

I love it when we have, when you go on Instagram and you see these girls and 80% of their pictures are their butt, you know? Yeah. But then in their bio, it's like, Philippians 9. Yeah. I know, I what? You're like, dude, please take that down. God is my man. Please don't associate yourself.

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Adam, I want to hear about the supercomputer from the... Super computer! I can't believe you didn't see him. There's a guy over in there right now. I almost want to... Where's the coffee shop? To not record right now. I want to show you guys, because I don't even know what he's doing.

So he has a big laptop, first of all. It's on this, like... Is it like Watson? Like the laptop? Yeah. I don't know. It's some like Like the laptop. Yeah, I don't know. It's like some like artificial intelligence computers. Oh, I don't know It looks it looks like this. So it's he has it and it's sitting on like this two inch like Blue hike this like a shiny blue Platform thing and the computers. He's got graphics all over it. This is at the good at the coffee shop. Yeah right now

and he's got graphics all over. This is at the coffee shop? Yeah, right now. And he's got on the back of his laptop, so I'm like adjusting on it right, I'm seeing the back of the laptop. He's got two terabyte drives. What do you call those? External drives. Yeah, he has two external drives mounted to it with fucking boom wires running into his computer from there.

He's got like a like a extension cord that's like yellow and blue that's like super thick. He's like when there's anonymous hackers that plugs into his computer. That's what I'm thinking like what the fuck's he doing? Oh, it's like super. I've never seen anybody ever like this. Did you look at the screens? He would do this. I was so I've got to look at the scripts all the matrix. No, it's porn. Like, ah, wow, you need all this gear. Damn it. He's doing something serious over there. I wanted to ask him so bad, but I felt like it would be a stupid quote.

Like, what do I ask him? What are you doing in this day? None of your business, bro. Yeah. Why all the horsepower? There's a lot of weirdos around this area. Have you guys noticed that? Yeah.

You think it's the area? I think coffee shops just in general. No, I think it's close to downtown. That's why. You think it's the area? I think coffee shops just in general. No, I think it's close to downtown, that's why. You think so because there's the homeless guy that sleeps in front of the church. Yeah. And he's like a staple around here.

I see him every single day, guys know I'm talking about, right? Yeah. He's like a staple around here. There's another woman who yesterday you almost ran into her on the way home when you were driving shoes crossed in the street. Oh, I saw her. I see her every day.

And she just kind of hangs out in the middle of the road La la la la I don't know if I'm gonna cross now or later like car like something Stop waiting for her and then she and then there's this old woman this older woman that I've seen Probably maybe three four times and well, you know, I mean you like I saw I know exactly you're talking about I don't I mean I waited for her I actually waited for her because you what I mean is you wanted to run her over I can tell it's not true and I get totally inches 10 points if you can leave her shoes Just a little brushback then there's this other older lady that she it's I've seen her like three times and she wears a

I don't know if she'll I haven't seen her lately. Maybe because it's cold But she'll wear like a really loose tank top no bra, but she's super old. Have you seen her? Oh? Let them take his hand I haven't seen her but it's bad though. They're like it's a good thing. I haven't they're like They come they come out the bottom of the shirt. Yeah, yeah, it's horrible. Do you think that's a real picture up there? Yeah, of course it is really? Wow, I bet that would be a beautiful sight in person what the feel. It's just a field It's a corn field right next to like these, look at how yellow those flowers are and for how long.

You know, Epic that would look in person? I don't know. I like the turtle better, that just came up. Yeah. That's a good screensaver we have on the television. It comes with the TV. That's it really. It's a fact.

It does. What? Can we personal, can we personalize it? I'm sure we can, but you know, I mean, the definitely you and I are not very tech savvy. Why can't throw me in that shit? Because I actually think you're worse than me.

You need an amigo. Yeah, but I didn't think I could find somebody that is so much like me until I met you. I'm like, God, I hate this fucker. Just like me. But you like me so much. It's like good and it's horrible. It's a love-hating totally. It's like, I feel like I'm like, God, I hate this fucker. Just like me. But you like me so much. It's like good and it's horrible. It's a love-hate thing, totally.

It's like, that's why I feel like I'm always just getting pounded by all this charisma and shit. It's hitting me in the head all the time. You're fucking calm down. It's double this double charisma. It's just like, it's so charisma. Just it's getting slapped like that. It's like, the constant leaves.

Oh, God. I don't know if I can handle it anymore. We're's getting scrapping me. Yeah. The constantly just, oh god. I don't know if I can handle it anymore. We're gonna spray our charisma all over you. Sometimes I bring a rain jacket. Sometimes I want to get really mad at Sal and I'm like, fuck, I would totally do this. Same thing, I can't get mad at you. Exactly.

It is, then it just irritates you more. But if you get mad at him, it's like you're getting mad at yourself. But I feel like it gives you opportunities to talk shit about me. Like you come in and you're like, oh, Sal, fuck, I hate it when we're both so stupid. And I feel like it gives you opportunities to like talk shit about me. Like you come in and you're like, oh, South, fuck, I hate it when we're both so stupid. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Well, you're actually a dumber than I am. You're absolutely right.

But we're both, yeah, he does it in a way that I'm like, well, did he just insult me? I don't know. I don't know. They were both, we're both self. Yeah, we're both tech stupid, right? So none of us know tech. Like, wait, hold on.

We're such morons. There isn't R2 insulting V. Bull 2, I guess. I'll do the opposite. But like, hey Adam, it hold on. We're such morons. There isn't R2 insulting people too, I guess. I'll do the opposite. But hey Adam, it's crazy how we're both so handsome. You know what I mean? You gotta mix it in there. You try to build it. It didn't work as well though.

I gotta humble. I have to take you guys down. I gotta humble us every once in a while. That's what it is. So I've been seeing a lot of people, and I think it's some verbiage, and I don't know, maybe we're the first ones to kind of use it, but I see people talking about what they do

before their workouts and referring it to. Oh, can I just sidetrack you before you get into that? Yeah, do it. You sent a shared an article. Actually, you didn't hate and did on our Facebook, our private forum. Oh, you tell me what the gut floor being attached to Parkinson's.

They're finding a strong connection. Yeah, connection between gut flora or certain bacteria and the early development or onset of Parkinson's. Which I feel like we kind of knew, right? We've been talking about this and we've been seeing it. We haven't, I mean, it's just like confirmation. We've been talking about it. Now that we know the lymphatic system,

how it connects directly to the brain, and from the gut, there's kind of this direct highway now where the gut can communicate with the brain and vice versa. But five years ago, if you were to say gut flora or your gut influenced your behavior, people would think you were crazy. We said that it had a strong influence on certain autoimmune disorders, but most people would think you were crazy. If we said that it had a strong influence on certain autoimmune disorders, most people would think you're crazy. We're finding a lot of crazy evidence now coming at recent studies.

I mean Parkinson's, depression, Alzheimer's anxiety, you know, stuff, it's weird, it's crazy stuff. I talked about the Center, you know, one of our recent episodes where they've done studies where they'll take people and put them under an FI Moraimachine, which is an MRI, but kind of real time. So you can see what's happening in the brain. And they'll give them a probiotic, and they can see, you know, the activity in the brain change

from eating a probiotic. Yeah. I mean, a pretty weird, kind of crazy stuff. The introduction of that new bacteria started communicating immediately. Well, and the thing is, we still have no, we really don't know what a good bacteria, fingerprint looks like.

We kind of know what some bacteria good and some are bad, but we don't necessarily know what the right formula is. What's the combos? Like, we don't know why fecal transplants work so well. They do, by the way. They sound crazy, but they'll take poop from a healthy person and transplant it to an unhealthy person and they'll get better a lot of the times.

And these are people that think curable. So I don't see enough to be a guinea pig. You know what? That someone else is. I don't wanna be. Ashtag Adamy Dex. It's good for you. But I mean, think about it.

That's pretty wild, right? Or while they'll take an obese person and They'll transplant are actually they've done this with animals. They'll trans but they'll take a obese mouse and a Lean mouse, you know with different metabolic rates They'll do a fecal transplant from the lean mouse to the obese mouse and the obese mouse will start losing weight Yeah, I mean it's fucking crazy. No, it's actually now he changes and all that. It's extremely fascinating to me And it's also that man What are these guys gonna do? What are these guys like Lane Norton's and stuff gonna do with all of their

I-I-F-Y-M that they've been preaching so hard for so long What are they gonna do when this comes out man? It we're get we're so close We're so close for it to be like because like the only way they can even stand right now with their argument is that there hasn't been enough, enough stuff come out yet, like we're close, we're like this close and we're connected, the dots are getting, like I feel like the average like fitness intelligent mind can see enough of the dots

to connect and see the picture, right? I can see that it's not finished yet, but I'm smart enough to look at and go like, I can see this picture. I can see where this is going, right? Where, and I know they have to know, but they continue to just ignore these signs. Well, for me, it's just further verification that we don't know nearly as much as we think we do. You know, like I said, five, ten years ago, people would have laughed at you for saying some of that stuff.

And now we've got some pretty crazy science coming out. And some of it's rather conclusive, showing that there's a very, very strong connection between your internal microbiome and all these other things that we thought would not be influenced by stuff like that. So, you know, when we make recommendations on nutrition and we say things like, you know, these artificial sweeteners and these colors and these processed food, no, it's just about

the calories and the proteins and the thatsic carbohydrates and those things don't matter. They're inert, they're not going to bother you, they won't hurt you. Look at all these studies that we have showing that aspartame and sucralose are totally fine, totally healthy. Well, they weren't testing for this kind of stuff before. You know, we didn't know to test for it before. So it's just, like I said, it just kind of confirms like we don't know as much as we think we do.

And going back to eating foods that we kind of evolved always eating tends to be your best bet. Not because we know everything about it, but because well, we evolved eating it all. Yeah. You know, so we're probably going to do better with that than stuff that we didn't evolve necessarily, you know, eating, you know what I'm saying? So I don't know, kind of crazy stuff. Yeah, I didn't want to completely sidetrack you from the direction you were going. I just felt like that was a word.

Where was the article? CSNBC? It's breaking news. Yeah, it's been posted everywhere because it's a new... Oh, it has. I really saw it on the CNBC. No, it's been posted everywhere because it's a new... Oh, it has. I always saw it on the CNBC. No, it's a relatively new article, or scientific study that got released.

So, I don't know, man, crazy stuff. But what I was gonna talk about was, I'm seeing people post movements and stuff to do before the workouts. And a while ago started really diving into this trend. And I hate to call it a trend because it's not a trend. It's not a trend. It's just emerging somehow.

Yeah, just emerging. This is a, I would say one of the biggest missing components in people's exercise programming is what they do before the workout. Movement preparation. Yeah, and it's really different than a warm-up You know, I mean like a warm-up when we think of warming up before you workout What do we what do we normally thinking like what are you thinking when you're when someone's warming up? I'm a working injury. Yeah, what an injury or you know, what are the some of the things you've just getting the blood flow

You know, I'm sitting loosening the body up increasing my body temperature the very yeah burn burn, you know, we used to even talk about warming up to the point where you, you, you spend 10, God, you remember this boy, you just brought me back right there. So I used to tell people that the body has three basic, like, energy systems, right? And when you first, when you first start moving, the body's utilizing ATP and ATP as its primary source of fuel. And then it goes through like this lactic acid phase, and then the third and final phase. It's kind of like the whole crebs cycle kicks in, and then now the body is starting to

metabolize fat, which takes the, and this is actually, this is true. It takes the average person six to 16 minutes to get into that zone if you were to start and get on a treadmill and start running. So warming up would now get you into this phase before you get to work out. So that's funny. Yeah, yeah. You don't remember every use and stuff. I do remember that. For example, taking some good science and then like...

And just taking it to sell some bullshit and make something up. Yeah, no, that's the whole purpose of exercises to elicit some type of adaptation response, not just to burn calories. But when it comes to your warm-up, people think of it as, I got to do this warm-up so I don't hurt when I'm doing my squats, or I got to do this warm-up so I don't injure myself. They don't understand that the warm-up in reality, and I hate calling it a warm-up because now we've associated that word with, you know, just gender-or-treatching. And yeah, the reality is, what you do before your workout can contribute tremendously to the results

that you get from your workout. And there's a number of different ways it can do this. One of the ways it does it is it can promote, or you can with the right kind of warm up, or what we call, you know, now you're starting to see people use this term priming, which is what we've been saying. We've been calling it that for a reason.

Is you can set up the right recruitment patterns before your workout. That's just one of the things you can do. So let's talk about that for a second, right? Why is it important to establish a proper recruitment pattern with your priming session with your warm-up or whatever before you work out. Why is that so important? What will that do for your exercise? Yeah, that's going to determine what muscles fire in the sequence and all that that's more

favorable in your workout. So if I'm doing a squat and I want my glutes to contribute, I'm going to need to put the work into prime, especially if I'm not as connected as I need to be. I need to really focus on priming my central nervous system to respond properly in that way. It will kick in. You will feel that contributing because it's a major muscle that we need for that type of a movement.

It's amazing because we don't think of the central nervous system as being such a massive player in the kind of in contributing to the type to results into getting gains or you know building muscle or fat. What's one of those things that we've had a hard time quantifying right? That's the reason why we I think it's not a people don't speak to it as much because it's not tangible. It's hard to quantify. So we just kind of push it to the side and talk and some people talk.

Oh yeah, the importance of it, but not really like we put so much on everything else when reality man that that has to be one of the most important parts. What do stimulants do? Yeah. As stimulant does that, artificial caffeine does. I am not the central nervous system. Let's be honest, that's the best thing it does, right?

That is the, yeah, that's the sole purpose of using it. I'm a majority of what a pre-workout does that is really beneficial is that is the priming of the central nervous system is getting it fired up and amped up before you go into work out, which most people can feel that and they they can someone get it. They don't really maybe understand exactly what's happening. That's what you that's the performance benefits at least. If you take a pre-workout, you notice you work out harder or better.

It's because it's got the stimulants, but you know, there is a double side to that, right? If you do it the wrong way, I follow you do is hammer got the stimulants, but you know there is a double side to that right if you do it the wrong way I follow you do is hammer yourself with stimulants You you will fatigue the central nervous system you can cause a stress response in the body and then you can not get Favorable adaptation. Yeah, well people don't realize this movement is it does a very good job targeted movement program properly Does a fantastic job of getting the central nervous system ready to fire the way you want it to fire. I'll give you a good example.

We've talked about this on our YouTube channel, on NPTV even, before you do a bench press, for example. We know that a good position to be in when you're benching is to have your shoulder blades back and down or retracted and depressed. Well, we've recommended in the past that people do, you know, maybe a light row or band pull apart before they go into a bench press. And what you're doing is you're, although you're working the opposing muscle, right, I'm working the back of my body, whereas a bench press is working the

front of my body, by doing that priming before the bench press, I'm able to turn those muscles on a little bit more effectively and efficiently so that when I do get in my bench press, I'm not- Retraction. I'm getting better and more stable, retraction in fact. I can't tell you how many times I've had clients reduce their shoulder pain, just by doing that right away.

And the pain is just a signal again, it's telling you that your form is off or whatever, but doing that before the bench press and it's like, whoa, all of a sudden I don't feel pain in the floor. That's extremely common. I think that's, I would say, I'd venture to say 80% of my clients that ever battle like any sort of shoulder pain,

even the clicking sound they hear in their shoulder, all that. A lot of that is, and of course there's exception to rules. So I know there's somebody that's listening right now that's like, that's don't, I didn't, well, okay. There's like I said, 80%. Most clients, the nagging pain or whatever they have in their shoulders

is from them having their shoulders rounded all forward, right? So like we talk about upper cross syndrome and the protracted shoulder girdle. And then the humorous is catching on the scapula when they're trying to do a movement. And when you pull those shoulders back into that neutral position, And the humorous is catching on the scapula when they're trying to do a movement. And when you pull those shoulders back into that neutral position, it allows that shoulder to move freely and the humorous doesn't get caught on it anymore.

So activating that and waking that up is, I think that right there has done wonders for clients. There's so many things that I didn't really notice until I got a little bit older. And I hate saying the age thing and the older thing and maybe a better way of saying is after years of training, because I- Just the wisdom you acquired. Well, what I mean is that it's more about...

Out of the gray. The gray. No, I don't... Do you guys remember when you started to have like, achy shoulders or elbow, like that wasn't at 22? I didn't feel that. I didn't feel that at 23. I didn't feel those things.

It wasn't until I realized that there was enough of a problem that it was causing, it was causing pain or discomfort or I wasn't feeling something correctly, then I started to really start to address and start to try and figure it out. And it's unfortunate because I wish there was more information about how to prime the body properly going into a workout. I wish somebody would have put more emphasis on that to me when I was younger, so I created good athletes.

Well, it's always been an afterthought. I mean, in all programs, it's always been an afterthought, is like, you know, if you're experiencing pain, here's what you can do, like to sort of make up, at the end of the workout, here's what you're gonna do, or you should warm up, or you should just do some light jogging or something. And that still pervades the industry.

A lot of people, a lot of quality trainers and quality coaches out there, they're still sort of, just run a couple laps and then they get into like the... I'll be the first to admit that for probably 10 of the 15 years of being a trainer, my clients all did a very generic warm-up. Yeah, they all had, you know, I had this... Get on the treadmill.

Yeah, I had this little five to ten minute, you know, walk them off from rolling, yourolling, do your basic stretches, and it's like, and then you're ready for me. That's the thing though. I think the reason why there hasn't been emphasis placed upon what you do before your workout is because- Lack of education?

Well, it's just the all- And the supplementation. No, the motivation behind it was all preventing injury or don't hurt. Well, if you're working out and you don't hurt anyway and you feel great, then there's no motivation to do it. The reality, here's the reality. The very least that your warm-up should do is help you prevent injury. That's the least. If you do that, then you're scratching the bottom. I mean, you're not doing, you're not reaching

its full potential. What it could do and what it should do is it should make your workout much more effective. And that's what people don't realize. What you do before your workout literally, you could take your workout and change nothing about it, but prime it properly and get 10% better results just from what you do before your workout for 10 minutes. And it's nothing crazy. If you program it properly and apply it to your workout, next thing you know, the same workout, the same everything, you're getting stronger faster, you're building muscle faster, you're

burning fat faster, and your performance is improving at a better rate because of the way you set yourself up. And part of that is getting the central nervous system ready to do what it's supposed to do. And people don't realize it's not just about turning the central nervous system on. If your central nervous system is super-amped, like super-super-amped, believe it or not, it will reduce your range of motion and your mobility. Let me give you an example. If you're in a super-hyper-stressed, scared state where you're just like, you can barely sit still, try and get in a fucking very low stretch

or long range of motion move. You can't, you're too tense, you're too amped. Bracing everything. The central nervous system has to be primed properly. It's not just about getting super crazy. And I recognize this to myself the other day. The other day, I have mobility issues, especially in my squat,

and I've been incorporating things like meditation in my regular daily practice now, and I got the best mobility I've had in my life the other day. I was tripping myself out, I was like, wow, what's going on? My girlfriend said, well, you meditated. You just got your central nervous system kind of chill out a little bit, and she was totally right. system kind of chill out a little bit. And she was totally right because I realized that, if I'm super tense, it's hard for me to get into certain positions. And that's really what static stretching does, right? And that's that we're recommending static stretching before you work

out, but static stretching is a way of telling the center nervous system to chill out. And that's why you get that increased range of motion. When you do a static stretch, I mean, I could take a client who can maybe get down to a parallel squat. And within a 10-minute stretching session, 10 to 15 minutes, I can probably increase the depth by an inch or two that day. I haven't made their muscles longer. I've just kind of told their central nervous system to do what I wanted to do. Wanted it to do.

This is something that I think that is we've learned a lot more about this in the last five to ten years as far as where science has came on this because we used to I think the way you explained it and I feel like even as a trainer you you kind of explain this like elongating or stretching of the muscle and so you have this visual in your head as a client that you know oh you know it's my my muscles all just forever like a forever man that goes, yeah, and then they're making it longer and stretching it out when it really has nothing to do with that. The length of your muscle is the same as it was before and after you stretched out, it really has almost, you know, everything really to do with the central nervous system and

allowing you to relax, which to me just kind of really should open people's eyes that, you know, if you're trying to sit down like the way a toddler sits where a toddler sits down in a deep squat and can sit there and play with toys, and that's an extremely uncomfortable position for you or you can't even get down in that position, you've got the same ability as far as muscles in the skeletal system as you had before, unless you've had some crazy accident and you're missing something You have it. It's just you your body has shut that off and your tissue is tight Yeah, it's not allowing you to do that and your and your central nervous system is is basically Tensing you up and not allowing you to go deeper for further. I've seen Dr. Brink actually do that with one of my clients where you know shoes she was having a

very hard time, you know, getting depth in her squat and because of knee injuries and all these types of things and just held her hands and Okay, keep going drop down drop down drop down all the way down into that deep deep squat Tyler squat. Yeah, all and it was just tripping out. Like, I can do this and I didn't snap anything. Yeah. No. You're just not connected to this process anymore. And that's just it.

Like, what you do before your workout, I think there's no, there's no rhyme or reason to what people do before they work out. I think they just put things together and they expect. And that's to the people who actually do something before the workout. Most people don't do anything. Well, the other thing I think I see people do is they address like muscles that are sore from previous workouts and that's their warm up. So like, you know, I hammered my chest and shoulders yesterday, even though I'm training

the legs today, I'm stretching my chest and shoulders because they're super tight from yesterday. So that's their thinking, right? It's always this corrective type mentality versus priming the body and getting it ready for its workout. There's definitely a different mentality. You prime it right.

Here's what you're gonna get. You'll get greater range of motion with stability, right then and there for your workout. So that means that you can go deeper in your squat, you can go deeper in your flies, you can get better range of motion, your bench press, your overhead press, which we always, we know 100% better ranges of motion with stability are going to contribute to better strength patterns, which contribute to better muscle gains. It's also going

to turn to promote favorable recruitment patterns. So that when I am pressing overhead, my shoulder is moving in the way that I want it to. And I'm strengthening, and here's proper strength stability. And I'm strengthening the pattern that I want. Because it's not always, you get to understand this, it's getting stronger isn't necessarily always better. If I'm getting stronger in a recruitment pattern

that's not favorable, all I'm doing is setting myself up for failure later on and setting myself up for pain later on. Or I'm limiting a range of motion, you know, range of motion where I can get, you know, further range of motion. So I'm limiting the type of results I can get from this particular exercise.

I'm also with the right kind of priming sequence, setting up my central nervous system to be able to fire fully and effectively, but when I want it to, not to be in this constant state of tension, but also not to be where, you know, if I go grab a dumbbell and want to lift it, you ever do that where you go to the gym and you just feel kind of loose, and you grab a dumbbell and it's like, where's my strength? I just don't feel, and it takes you a second to kind of get into it and you got to kind

of psych yourself up. You're so fucked, yeah. Yeah, you want to be able to have your CNS be responsive so that when you go do your exercise, boom, it's turned on, you do your exercise and it's very, very effective. You will recruit more muscle fibers doing this, by the way. Which is a good thing. You want to be able to recruit more muscle fibers. When I think of priming my body before I go on into workout, there's two things that I'm really

I'm really thinking about. And one of them is I'm either priming my body or for this movement that I'm doing, I'm priming it to be more responsive, more explosive, to get more out of that movement. And then I have a priming where I'm trying to get myself to move properly through that movement. So I'll give you an example, like an example of how I would prime my squats.

Like I'm, today's a squat day. And I, first I'm gonna prime it from more of a corrective standpoint, meaning that I wanna make sure that I'm hinging at my hips properly and I'm not driving off my quads too much, right? So I'm getting my hip flexors out of it as much and getting more glued activation. So a good primer before I head into my squat for those reasons, I might

be to introduce some floor bridges. And while I'm doing my floor bridges, I'm really paying attention to making sure my pelvis is neutral. We just did this on the YouTube channel not too long ago too. So it's on the YouTube channel at Mind Pump TV on YouTube, where I tilt my pelvis, get in the neutral position, I do my floor bridge. I'm working just working on that hip hinge, so I'm really connected to my glutes firing in the squat. Then I have another way that I would prime,

if I wanted to prime that explosiveness, that responsiveness right away, where maybe I'll do like a jump box before I go in, which is a plio. Yeah, and this is how we would utilize plio. I'm not doing it to fatigue, I'm not doing 10, 15 reps. I'm going to do like two. You have to be explosive that way. Yeah, I'm going to do two or three, right?

I'm going to do two or three of these jump boxes. Just hard fast jumps, explosive. Which is what I used to do before an event or a game or something like that, you just get those really quick. Something that's not gonna completely fatigue you, but it's gonna give you those type of, that fast action response. You're gonna turn you on. Yeah.

And both of them are, you're turning on for two different reasons, right? They call that what post activation potential is. Yes, yes. So you're PAP, right? So you're doing that. I'm doing that to get the explosiveness out of my squat. Then the other one is more, you could say, more protective

or recruiting the right muscles to fire to that movement. So there is different ways to prime. And there's different priorities. And everybody's priorities are different. If I think the explosiveness and responsiveness, if you're training in like a maps red, phase one, or you're an athlete and you want, and you're really focused on explosiveness

and getting the most or maxing out that day or going after a PR, whatever, that day that that's very important to me. Now, maybe on a regular day with a client where I'm just trying to repattern them and get them to hold their posture correctly or utilize their glutes in the squat. The floor bridge thing becomes more of a priority and that's really a focus. Another example, I think, and I'm trying to use common ones that we use a lot as trainers.

So hopefully this helps out some people. Another one would be like the seated row to get you into that retracted position. So, Sal brought up like, you know, like a chest. Like if I was gonna do my chest press, it's chest, you know, you're getting ready to go into your barbell press. Before I do that, especially with most clients, I'm gonna go do some sort of either a seated row or a band pull apart or a row with the bands

to just get the back firing. So it will actually wake up, hold my posture into that neutral spinal alignment or retract the shoulders in this case before I do a chest press. So that one is a big one for me. It makes a huge difference when I wake up my back. Because otherwise, when I start pressing,

you know, and as soon as I get over 200 pounds on a chest press, which is good amount of weight for me, and I start pressing that, the body, I mean, now I become so focused on getting the weight up that my mechanics want to break down, and the first thing to break down in a barbell press is the rolling of the shoulders forward, because my body wants to use that momentum and everything I can to get that weight up, and it naturally will want to retract and press forward. And if I don't do a diligent job of waking those back muscles up, you know, to hold myself in that retracted position, then it really, it'll fold really easily and it'll go.

So you want to keep in mind that these big gross motor movement exercises are very, very effective. But if you're not setting them up properly, you're not getting the max benefit from them. I mean, if a squat is worth 100 points, you may be only getting 70 points out of that squat because you're not prepping properly for it, you're not setting up the recruitment pattern that you want,

you're not getting the central nervous system turned on the way you want, and you're only solidifying poor recruitment patterns or you're not getting the range of motion that on the way you want, and you're only solidifying poor recruitment patterns, or you're not getting the range of motion that your body's actually capable of going through. And so you're, like I said, not setting up your workout properly. This is a proper sequence for all this stuff. There is, and there's, you know, program it. You know, that's the thing

like we've spent so much time on programming your workout and figuring out what to do with your workout. Yeah. And nobody spends any time in reality. It's the real pre workout. Yeah, I mean that's the real pre workout That's that's not the powder you threw in your water. Well, let's be even more let's be I I would argue that you would get more From learning how to start and finish your workout Then you ever could from any pill or supplement on the mark by far one hundred percent by far not even not even in the same universe. Yeah, especially anything over the counter. I mean, you could you could argue that anabolic could rival that right? I don't know. I take an antirdraw before every workout. Yeah, you know, you know, you could

you could you could you could argue that anabolic would would rival this, but anything any pill powder supplement over the counter that is like splitting hair difference in your workout, learning to set the body up properly going into your workout and also how do you finish it? You just, I'm so glad you said that because how you finish the workout is also very, very important. You don't want to just stop your workout and leave. You want to spend a good five to ten minutes now solidifying what you just want to fortify those connections

that you have made that you tried to that you're trying to make when you first started. You know, you you amp it up, you start it, you primate correctly, you go through the workout, you have phenomenal work, and then you fortify it. So it's and it's just you're like increasing the amplitude of that recruitment pattern. That's the one that'sify it. And it's just, you're like increasing the amplitude of that recruitment pattern. That's the one that's the priority. And now we're putting so much more emphasis on it by also, you know, making sure to program

that at the end of the workout. So that way your body has a better response going forward. You know what? In fact, you know, I'll give you an easy example. Static stretching, got a great place in a routine at the end. At the end of your workout, you've just had a great workout, you did a great, you primed it properly with your warm-up, you did your workout, now you're done.

Static stretching now is quite beneficial. Now you can get into a static stretch, but it's not your typical static stretch. Quite, I would once again, I would argue to say, this is the only place it belongs. Probably. Yeah, I mean, except for like a static stretch, but it's not your typical static stretch. Quite. I would, I would once again, I would argue to say this is the only place it belongs. Probably. Yeah. I mean, except for like a correctional, like I'm trying to, I was reading the hypertrophy coaches page, like maybe a couple of weeks ago and he did a post that was pretty funny and it said something. It said, are you still stride, are you still stuck in the, the, the eighties in static stretching. Are you still stuck in the nineties and still foam rolling? Are you?

Yeah, he went through each one of these modalities of stretching or rehabbing or whatever but they have they have their benefit. They have their place. You that's it You got to know Wendy. They have their place and there there is a place for them And that's I mean, and that's the science that supported them in the 90s and the 80s isn't now wrong. It's just that it's evolved. We've learned more about it.

Even better sequence. Yeah, exactly. And we've learned that there is a better place for it at different times. And there's other things that are superior to it like mobility and an active movement. Because we've, then this goes back to the central nervous system, which we're talking about. We're learning so much more about that. I mean, I feel the two things that I think,

if you were to ask me that excite me the most about learning right now in fitness, gut flora, and central nervous system, like those two, I feel like. Very underrated, but should be at the forefront. It, right? And I feel like we're watching it get should be at the forefront. Right. And I feel like we're watching it get there, right?

I believe we're a part of that movement. I believe that we're seeing more and more good science come out to support it. And in turn, I think so many people are going to benefit from it. The more people that learn and understand more and more about their gut and the importance of what they're putting into their system. And then the more and more, we start to learn about how to prime your system, like your central nervous system. I think people are going to be blown away by the results that they're going to start

to get and they're going to see, like when you learn to prime the body correctly going into workout, you will instantly notice the difference, the first workout that you do. It's actually, it's a major game changer. I can't stress this enough. It is a huge game changer. I can't stress this enough. It is a huge game changer. It is one of those things. We're starting to see now, we've been talking about it for a little while, and we've been using the term priming,

priming the body, because warm up is just, it's connected to, it doesn't do it just. To find it, well. No, but you're starting to see more people talk about it. It's gonna be the next thing. You're gonna see much more and more people talk about it. It's gonna be the next thing. You're gonna see more and more people talk about how to do that properly because people are discovering that it is literally a game changer.

You know, I talked about static stretching and I wanted to get into that a little bit because I want to be very clear. Static stretching done properly post workout can be incredible at improving range of motion and connectivity. And also it's solidifying recruitment patterns that you may have, you know, the signals that you may have sent during your workout, but there is a specific way to do it.

The static stretching, I think we've been taught in the past, was to get into a long stretch and to relax and to be passive. Yeah, to be very, very passive. The key is when you get into your deep static stretch that you hold is to get into the stretch, relax at first but then tense, but then tense up. Yeah. You know, cause, give yourself, ramping it up. Yeah, give yourself a little bit of resistance within that.

Like for example, if I'm doing, if I'm sitting on the floor and just touching my toes, right, stretching my hamstrings, at first I'm going to try and relax in that position, but then I'm going to grab onto my legs with my hands, create an anchor, and now I'm gonna push down with my hamstrings while I'm stretching them. And the reason why I'm doing that is I want my central nervous system to be okay with activating in that new range of motion, because that's gonna give me strength

in my new range of motion. There's a difference between passive and active too. I think it's important to explain that, what you just did. So, we wanna be able to move the body of an active too, I think it's important to explain that what you just did. We want to be able to move the body through these new found range the most intrinsically and without using an outside force. There is a place for passive stretching where you utilize a tool or leverage on something

to push you through a stretch, but the ultimate goal is to be able to take the body and move it through that. So, and this is like what we would call fortification. Like after a workout, you've preined the body, you've worked out everything you want to. Now I want to take my body through this with my own body or my own body weight. I'm not trying to use a tool to force myself

in there too. So, I think there's that piece that we forget. Well, I think static stretching, kind of when people think about it, it sort of reinforces that, that old mindset that your muscle is elongating. Yeah. And yeah, it's a good point. Because you have two anchor points and then your whole goal with that really is to like sort of place your body in the ideal positioning.

So that way, your muscle can sort of relax and set off of those two anchor points. Whereas what we're saying is, you know, that whole process of getting it down into that position, you know, you need to be responsive in that. You need to be active and, you know, be teaching your central nervous system that each one of these like increments is something that you need strength and support in. And yeah, if you just sit in a stretch and just relax, you will get a deeper range of motion, but you're not going to get you will get a deeper range of motion, but you're not going to get any connectivity to that new range of motion, which is not a

good thing. You don't want that. In fact, that's quite dangerous. You want to remain connected to that. And that's why, at the end of your workout, when you're doing these static stretches and you're stretching these muscles that you just work, get into that deep stretch, relax for a second so you can get into it. But then, once you're in that stretch and you're sitting there

for a second, start to activate that muscle a little bit, create a little bit of attention. Don't drive into it because you'll tear your muscle. But push into and create some tension because it's teaching now the CNS to fire. You won't tear anything if you're doing it intrinsically. Where people get in trouble is, and that's why I want to have like weight Yes, or they use it or they use a towel or they use the stretch strap or they use these tools To pull and leverage and intensify the stretch You want to intensify the stretch, but you want to do this intrinsically you want because you can always back off

Yeah, exactly You can control that yeah, and you want you want to teach your body to take you through that stretch. You don't want to have to, now when this is going back to, there is a place for using tools and doing things like that. I'm not saying that, you know, a stretching strap or using a towel to stretch at another time, isn't useful or you can't utilize that tool. But ultimately, I want to be able to take my body through that full range of motion

or take my body into a deeper stretch. Intrinsically, I don't wanna have to use an outside force to get me there. And if you're actually doing it, you won't hurt yourself. I've at least in my experience, I've never had a client stretching themselves and doing the stretch intrinsically, meaning that like, if you're like

sal saying you're sitting on the ground and you're doing like a hamstring stretch and you're reaching for your toes, if you're, take momentum out of it, so you're not bouncing in it. That would be the only case. Yeah, right. If you're not bouncing into it,

you take it to the stretch and then you internally trying to go deeper into the stretch without using leverage. You're not using momentum, you're not using leverage, you're not pulling from your core to put this. Yes, you're, you're internally trying to take yourself deeper into the stretch is actually very safe. I've never once had a client hurt themselves doing that.

I mean, to take it a step further though, you're also trying to even activate the hamstrings a little bit when you're in that position. That's what I'm talking about, like five. Well, you'll see, you have to. You have to. That's what bit. When you're in that position, that's what I'm talking about, like fire. Well, you'll see, you have to. You have to. And when you're in that seated position and you go to do a stretch,

and then you go to go deeper, the very first place you're gonna notice is the hamstrings firing, because that's what's responsible for. It's gonna, you've got these counterbalances trying to kind of fight each other. And that's what you want. You wanna be able to move yourself in this position.

You want your CNS to be able fire when it's in these positions. And that's going to solidify, I mean, look, you just had a hard workout, right? You just did a great workout, great workout programming, maybe your following maps, whatever. But at the end of the workout, you want to solidify that, you want to get that signal and you want to take that signal, you want to aim it to the perfect point so that you get the best results out of that workout. Because really look, let's look at it this way. The reason why there's a huge market

for pre-workout and post-workout supplements to begin with is people realize and have identified that the workouts, the most important fucking thing that you do when it comes to your results, it is. That is the signal without your workout and of course your diet is important as well. But I'm talking about, if you don't send this signal in the first place, you can have the greatest diet in the world.

You're not going to build any more muscle, you're not going to get any better performance, you're not going to get any of that stuff, because your body doesn't know what it needs to. It's that work at that so important and pre-warp post-workout supplements are popular because people identify that and they say, how can I make my workout more effective? I know, I'm going to take this supplement before and this supplement during this supplement after. Now the reality is those supplements do very little to nothing to improve the effectiveness

of your workout. The reality is, is the movements that you do before your workout, the workout itself, and then with the movements and stuff you do after your workout, that's what maximizes everything. You can take your regular workout, primate it properly and fortify it properly at the end and whatever results you're getting at your workout, you can go ahead and add another 10 to 15% results just from doing that. That's literally how important it is.

It's so crazy, because the emphasis has always been on meal timing and then getting that recovery post workout shake and the pre-workout to stimulate you in the beginning. That has been just pervaded the industry forever. It's so interesting to really shift gears and look at that and see how much more effective just the movement of it and the quality, like those two things you can easily control, and you're not spending money in buying all this artificial stuff

to flood your body with. I would love to take the body builder guy who is so hung up on his pre-intra post workout, eating his meal in the locker room. I would love to take that guy and say, throw all that shit away, don't do any of that. Let me show you how to prime and fortify your workouts and tell me what you notice.

Like, he would be the first man. Well, I mean, first man, I always do his workout, but you know what I mean? We could literally say, we will benefit your workout like 20%. Oh yeah, I mean, you're right. Even if he wasn't following maps,

even if he wasn't following maps, he had his bro split, which is totally fine. I, you still can totally amplify that session or increase his results by priming his body and learning how to fortify the body afterwards, way more than his meal timing, his pre, his post and his intro workout ever will do. Well, I'll tell you what, this was a game changer, I think for all of us, when we first started

mind-pump because when we first started working together, you know, just and introduced, you know, both you and I, Adam, to like tension and how to utilize tension to get better ranges of motion. We, my warm-up used to consist of foam rolling and stretching to avoid pain. Then it turned into more mobility movements. Then it turned into more structured priming. I noticed my workouts were way more effective. My range of motion was better. I didn't have as much pain.

Then I brought the foam roller back and I started using it at the end of my workouts, which before used to be at the beginning of my workouts and I got way better results at the end. Now understanding how the body works on a deeper level, I can see why that makes plenty of sense. Like the foam roller definitely again has its place, but use it at the end of your workout to help solidify what you've just sent, increase playability in those muscle groups that you may have just worked intensely and watch what happens. Then you'll see some of the benefits of the foam rolling that you didn't know even existed.

It's pretty incredible. I find myself days after my workouts where normally I'd feel sore and stiff after a heavy deadlift session, where I feel I can tell I worked out, but I feel like I've facilitated recovery on a whole new level. It's just great to see how you can still refine the process even more.

And it literally is like a sequencing thing great to see how you can still refine the process even more. It literally is like a sequencing thing where I'm trying it here at this time, I'm trying it here at this time, this concept, where does this go best? I feel like it's great because the more we seek out this type of knowledge and dig deeper, it starts to become more clear. This is actually more beneficial here. Well, tension was a game changer for me. When you showed me how to use isometric tension

before a lift, like for example, when I did the Dumfee squat, with the stick up in the corner of the wall, and I'm just staying super-t tense and driving myself down into a squat and coming out of a squat and really really slow. I couldn't believe how strong I was going into my barbell squat. How quickly I was there. Whereas before it took me set after set after set after warm up

and it still didn't feel right, I would be able to jump right in. I was like boom man, I was just turned on. Everything's moving right. It just blew me away. Of course, knowing what I know now makes perfect sense. I was just getting the CNS to fire the way it wants. What's severely lacking, of course, is programming in this realm. How do you figure this out? How do you know what to do before and what to do after it can be a little complex and I think that um I Think during your journey you you're going to you're gonna piece things together I think this is something that I continue to improve upon and I mean, let's be honest

This is where we're this is our a big area. We're breaking new ground with this This is a this is an area where we have focused a lot of our energy and we're not giving specifics yet. Well, especially when you got like Justin's invention that's around the corner too, which is, you get right into central nervous system. This is definitely, if you wanna talk about the things that were really heavily, that's why I said that,

these two things right now between your gut and central nervous system, where we're probably, the three of us are probably reading the most is right here, like as far as what's coming out, where are the studies saying, what direction are we going with this? Like most of our energy is heavily focused

in those two areas. I wouldn't you say that when you say, at least personally myself, that's where most of my reading is, right? Yeah, I mean, they're both very, very fascinating areas of research, but the one where I'd say our expertise can be applied the most, obviously, is in the workout aspect of it, right?

Got floor and stuff like that. I love, I wanna have more people on our show who, you know, are experts in that field, more, you know, who did we have on? That was Dr. Terry Walls, talked a little bit about it. I'd like to have more people like that, really break it down for us and explain those things. I know we were in communication with Rhonda Patrick.

I know, I know, Brionne was. It should be great. Was talking to her. I don't know if, I thought we had her lined up. I can't remember who we had. I'm not sure. I know she's really, really busy. Who's the guy that wrote Brain Maker or Wheat Belly?

You know, you're on you remind me just to remind me because I know Your on was actually meeting today with Pearl mother one of the top researchers Yeah, one of the top researchers on microbiome. So I think it was Dr. Pearl mother he already told me that he could get them on the show really yeah Yeah, so we'll we'll we'll make that happen Well, you know the hardest thing with a lot of these guys and girls, it's neat now that the show has gotten to this level.

It's not hard convincing guests to come on and talk about whatever it is they're doing. That'll be a good time. It's just about the timing, getting the schedules down because we're pretty crazy. But when it comes to the exercise stuff, you can count on Mind Pump. We'll figure that out. Yeah, yeah. We got you on the CNS part, but we'll definitely continue to reach out for experts on the microbiome,

because both those are exciting. Very exciting. Thanks for listening to Mind Pump. If you like the show, leave us a five star rating review on iTunes. If we like your review, we'll give you a free Mind Pump t-shirt. Also check us out on Instagram at Mind Pump Radio.

You can find me at Mind Pump Sal, add them at Mind Pump Atom, and just in at Mind Pump Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps on a ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by

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