Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 852: How to Sculpt Your Legs

Episode Date: September 6, 2018

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin break down in detail how to build the muscles of your legs. To get Mind Pump's FREE leg muscle development guide go to www.mindpumpfree.com Why too much of anything is a bad thing. The addiction properties of nicotine. (2:51) How science fiction has predicted the future. (10:00) The evolution of Adam’s squat depth. (17:15) How to Build Your Legs (19:57) Range of motion: Different ranges for different muscles. (27:05) Effective exercises: Not all exercises are created equal. (33:25) Right Frequency: Recovery does not equal ADAPTATION. (37:58) Top exercises for leg development. (44:00) Sal’s Basic Formula to BLOW your legs up! (45:46) People Mentioned: Kyle Kingsbury (@kingsbu)  Instagram Dr. Justin Brink (@premiere_spine_sport)  Instagram Dr. Jordan Shallow D.C (@the_muscle_doc) Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned: Mind Pump FREE Resources – Everything You Need to Know to Reach Your Fitness Goals Mind Pump TV – YouTube The Ultimate Guide To Leg Muscle Development - Mind Pump Thank You for Smoking (2005) The Weston A. Price Foundation Minority Report (2002) Her (2013) Facebook shuts down robots after they invent their own language Sliding filament theory Would you like to be coached by Sal, Adam & Justin? You can get 30 days of virtual coaching from them for FREE at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get our newest program, MAPS Split, an expertly programmed and phased muscle building and sculpting program designed to get your body stage ready. This is an advanced program and is not recommended for beginners. Get it at www.mapssplit.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Also check out Thrive Market www.thrivemarket.com/mindpump! Thrive Market makes purchasing organic, non-GMO affordable. With prices up to 50% off retail, Thrive Market blows away most conventional, non-organic foods. PLUS, they offer a NO RISK way to get started which includes: 1. One FREE month’s membership 2. $20 Off your first three purchases of $49 or more (That’s $60 off total!) 3. Free shipping on orders of $49 or more You insure your car but do you insure YOU? If you don’t, and you are the primary breadwinner, you will likely leave your loved ones facing hardship and struggle if you die (harsh reality). Perhaps you think life insurance is expensive, but if you are fit and healthy, you can qualify for approved rates that are truly inexpensive and affordable. To find out if you qualify for the best rates in the industry, go get a quote at www.HealthIQ.com/mindpump Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get Organifi, certified organic greens, protein, probiotics, etc at www.organifi.com/mindpump Use the code “mindpump” for 20% off. Go to foursigmatic.com/mindpump and use the discount code “mindpump” for 15% off of your first order of health & energy boosting mushroom products. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Also includes 20% if you purchase! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts! Have questions for Mind Pump? Each Monday on Instagram (@mindpumpmedia) look for the QUAH post and input your question there. (Sal, Adam & Justin will answer as many questions as they can)

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. Alright, in this episode of MIND, Pomp. Minus one. Minus one, Doug, Justin's not here with. And Doug is getting a little cocky now, Adam. Ever since he won the six-week challenge?

He's got a little swagger to him. He's been talking shit and saying, he's gonna write all the programs now. He does. I'm starting to think maybe the guy who edited the photos should not have been in the competition. Oh shit. I think he might have pulled a Dave Asprey on this. You know, I saw him with the shirt off when he did the photos.

They're real. He does look like. Yeah, they are. They are real. He does. Yeah, they are they are amazing But in this episode we talk all about leg muscle development and training or legs now we start out by doing our or Introductory conversation we mess talk a little bit about the nicotine vapes that are real popular now We talk about the movie minority report The other movie her and the future, but then we get into like, Adam talks about his squat

and how big of an impact that made on his leg development and we get all into leg training, all of the myths and all the things you should do if you wanna develop a phenomenal looking leg. And a lot of this was inspired by the response that we got when we wrote, or when Sal wrote this incredible guide. I mean, this is one of the most downloaded guides that we have out there and so many people

appreciated and got great results from it. It's absolutely free. And the way you organized it, the way you broke it down, and the three major factors that kind of have hindered people from seeing great late development and what to do. And the first one being poor range of motion, second factor, being not enough frequency in the third one, poor exercise choice. And we really dive into all of that in this episode. And then of course, in the guide. Yeah. And you can find the guide mindpumpfree.com. So you can find this guide. And there's many

others on there. And you can download all of them if you want. They're all absolutely free. I also do want to mention, if youfitinistproducts.com, it's our new maps website where we have new bundles. Bundles are where we combine multiple maps programs and put them together. For example, our Super Bundle is a year of exercise programming, but we have other bundles. We have a businessman bundle, a 40 or over fitness bundle. We have a get shredded quickly fitness bundles. We got all these different bundles where we combine these different maps programs.

Remember maps programs give you everything you need for your workouts, exercise demos, blueprints, videos, explanations, everything. That's all at mapsfitinistproducts.com. And again, the guides, the free guides are at mimepumpfree.com. So without any further ado here. We are talking about Lake muscle development. I was asking drew how I know like when this this little this little nicotine vapor thing runs out

What is that called again? I don't know nicotine vapor thing. Okay. What's it? What's it really? What's it? I forgot it's got a brain name right. Oh, it does and VT Yeah, remember he was like give me a blower. What the we was called something. Well fuck him. No name I paid by him anyway. Okay, but jewel. Yeah, yeah, this isn't a jewel but it's like one of those right. So anyways I'm asking him how you know because we've had this now in here for what a couple weeks now right? Maybe two or three weeks. So I didn't see it. And I've taken a couple hits off of this thing. It pretty cool and Sal has been teasing me like oh, don't get a dude do that. Yeah, I'm like you I'm like dad dad. I'm like yeah, I'm like dad

I'm always trying to keep you healthy so then of course I turn around and I puff more I gotta figure out a good strategy Adam gets me ready for all my kids To do reverse psychology I'll do all start talking about the neutropic effects of nicotine. That's good and they're like fuck this psychology on me. I'll start talking about the neutropic effects of nicotine. That's good. And then you're like, fuck this. Yeah.

Lame. So anyways, I'm asking true. He slides the car, he's out and he shows me. I know I thought because we've had this for a few weeks and I've pulled on it quite a few times, you know, not a lot, but quite a few times. And I was like, hey, is this thing almost gone? And he's like, no, dummy. He's like, this thing is like, that's totally full.

So he's taking barely anything. I'm like, oh, well, fuck, we, this thing's like, that's totally full. So he's taking barely anything. I'm like, oh, well, fuck. We've had it for a couple of weeks, and we've been, everyone's tried it, and pulled on it a few times. He's like, I have friends that go through one to two of these a day. Day.

Yeah, it's, and so funny, huh? It's because they're like, oh, it's, it's not bad. Well, it actually is. It's still bad for you. So, and I also, it's same thing with this. It's tough in it, like crazy. Like, who had it? I don't know who had's tough in it, like crazy. Who had it? I don't know who had it.

I think Drew had it. Someone had it. And I'd never have tried one of these in my life before. And I know the whole on it cruise on the fucking nicotine, you know, dip and the, whatever. They're all under that stuff. I had pre-workout. That's Kyle, by the way.

You know Kyle brought that over there. Oh, he was either one. Before Kyle, this is me, this is an educated guess, so I'm not 100%. But I know Kyle used to love to dip, right? So he'd have the chew in his mouth. And nicotine does have newotropic type properties, and it does have some, I hate saying this

because people are like, it's gonna be an excuse. But really nicotine's got some good effects on the brain. It's also highly addictive. And the way you deliver it causes cancer. But anyways, Kyle would dip all the time and he uses those little packets, I don't know what they call those things called. Packets.

Little school, like. Yeah, they're snuffers. That's not snuff, what is that? I don't know if that's snuff, but yeah, whatever. Anyway, he gets these little packets and he was showing everybody that and then now everybody over there started doing it. Right, yeah.

But I mean, I didn't realize how much it's become a thing. Look, it's, and then, inzo piped in, and Taylor piped in, and they all piped in. Yeah, I mean, it just resurfaces. I mean, every like famous writer from like all time has been like smoking something. Yeah, like some kind of pipe or like, you know, like cigar or something, like,

it's been part of the process. It's a tobacco waste. The one of the worst possible things you could abuse because it's like a, you know what I'm so risk- What I noticed, there was, there was, I think there was probably three days there, we were podcasting where it was in here in the studio. This was before, when it was still charged up,

it died like a while back. That's part of the reason why we didn't even have it. Is it dead right now? No, no, I just recharged still charged up, it died like a while back. That's part of the reason why we didn't even have it. Is it dead right now? No, no, I just recharged it back up, right? And so, and what I noticed was I just took a hit of it today and I was like, whoa, I for like real quick, just from those couple of days in a row of me having it the last week or the week before,

whenever it was when we first got it, that first that effect the first time, it's got a decline significantly. So these cognitive benefits that they show, I would imagine that after you, you're puffing on it 45 times in a day. That's a good question. I would I would think you would diminish quite a very good

question. Well, I can I feel like I can feel, I mean, the alertness that I got right, I was like, whoa, no, what are these kids like this? I was like, whoa, right. That's why it went with coffee. That's why people used to smoke and drink coffee. Is that combination of the two?

It's the perfect substance to get addicted to because the effects are so short lived and you get them so quickly because you take a hit and so it's like pop, pop, pop. Yeah. And here's the thing, I take it back. I said the reason why the poppular is because kids think they're safe.

That's part of the reason. I think the real reason why people are using them or kids are using them is because cigarettes develop this gross stigma Where if you smoke cigarettes you're gross. I don't want to make out with you Because it used to be cool. Yeah, this is like a minty peppermint flavor to it like 30 years ago Okay, for the young listeners who're listening, let me tell you something right now, 30 years ago, if you smoked 40 years ago, especially you smoked a cigarette, you look cool, you know what I mean? Yeah, you were like a Wall Street anchor. You're like James Dean.

I used to have a Joe Cool Snoopy shirt, where he had a cigarette in his mouth, dude. He was one of my favorite. They got you. Favorite, what a older you. I don't know, it was my dad's and it was passed down to me. I had that shirt forever, man. It's one of those shirts I wish I don't know. Oh, it was my dad's and it was passed down to me. I had that shirt forever Man, it's one of those shirts. I wish I still had today. That's hilarious. Yeah, I kept it all the way to like high school

Joe cool and in the Marble man. Yeah, super cool cow marble man, that infosima that of lung. You get lung cancer Was it infosima? I thought I saw a movie is it where they talk about? Oh did you guys ever see thank you for smoking? Yes, what a great one. I never saw a movie great. Oh, you'll like that. You'll like it. You will like that Why don't you know my great grandfather smoked since he was 13 Chain smoked light one cigarette with the other one as it goes out my grandmother was like this 92 years old He lived till 92 years old the guy smoked, he said his sheets on fire several times, because he'd go to bed and fall asleep with the cigarette in his mouth. He just lived in spite of that. He just smoked all the time.

And he never, he didn't use a filter. These were a hand-rolled tobacco cigarettes. And the fucking dude died at 90. Is it crazy how someone like that, it doesn't affect. They make it all the way there. And then there's other people that get it right away from it. That's the unfortunate part. Well, that's, I think, what kept people for so long in the dark is because everybody knows that one person that smokes a long time and because I still get that for nutrition, like, for example, I was having a conversation. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, but genetics. Oh, I was having this conversation with my mom actually the other day.

And I'm like, mom, you know that this, like when people's teeth are really crooked or when, you know, they say your mouth is too small for your teeth, a lot of that can get attribute, can get connected to diet. Like you have a poor diet and your teeth tend to not come in straight and you tend to fit in your mouth. And my mom's like, oh, that's baloney, that's not true. And I'm showing you the evidence and, you know, I'm showing you, you know, Western A price's website where he talks about it.

And I'm like, you really think that humans evolved to have too many teeth for their mouth. We would fucking die. Like, this is a more of a modern problem because, although we feed ourselves, and so we're going back and forth, and of course what do my mom do? Well, your sister needed braces,

but you didn't, and I fed you guys the same. I'm like, you know, that's not evidence, that's called anecdote. Yeah. And that's the same thing that happened with cigarettes for a long time where people would say, yeah, yeah. You know, that's not evidence. That's called anecdote. Yeah. And that's the same thing that happened with cigarettes for a long time where people would say, yeah, yeah. It's unhealthy, but like, my uncle John smoked,

my grandmother, yeah, you could always find somebody. Like, I knew somebody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I wonder if all drugs are gonna be electronic in the future. Should I say? Yeah. It's gonna be like that.

Served in doses like that. I've seen a couple sci-fi movies like that. You know, I think it was even Minority report where like Tom Cruise. Yeah, he takes this Yeah, it's one of those words a lecture Nick like in a alert. You're right. You're right, and then he sits and Yeah, like just just goes, you know, to the clouds. That's rad. Yeah, there's gonna be like a chip you put in your hand and you hit your Is that the part he that was and then he runs out of something so he smashes up old school pills, right? Is that because after he runs out of that drug

where you just inhale it through the, is that a good movie? It is. Graeme's the one. It's a rad movie. It was, yeah. Yeah, I can't be more referencing because it's one of those.

It's one of those good movies for you. I feel like they really nailed a lot of like the progression of where I see technology. Like I think that their depiction is a little more based in reality. Really? Yeah, because they even have advertisements. A guy's walking down the street, you see all this holograms of people talking to them and all the shit.

The way that it functions, we're always trying to evolve with like Apple and Google, they're always trying to make things like the way that you hand gesture and you do things like that. So they have all that in the movie where he's like hand gesturing images and slides and the screen and he uses the screen and all kinds of cool ways.

Well, it's cool about my minority report has become cooler as time has gone on because there's certain things like what you're pointing out right now that we're just kind of starting to see that totally mirrors that that I wouldn't have even thought of before that movie where there's scenes where the person's walking through like just a normal place and then also on a wall.

A dip is something that's marketing to that person specifically comes up, which I feel this way now. It's a predictive crime. I mean, it's a, this is literally happening. Like they're coming up with algorithms that can predict like, you know, based off of, you know, situations in your patterns, like where crime may occur. That's very interesting. Did you ever watch the movie Oblivion with him? Yes. That was pretty cool too. Yeah, that's not the visually minor reports way better. Is it really? I like future movies that are realistic.

Yeah, the most way, way out. It's like, that's what they do in this minor report. I mean, it's the same thing. This is like the scary side of what particular, now that's what they do. A really good movie takes, I think, some realistic bases and then maybe exaggerates on them. Well, they all do.

But you know how much science fiction has predicted the future in the industry? I mean, it's actually quite fascinating. I love about it. I mean, it challenge you to stretch your mind and see, like, you know, further out, like, where, you know, the warning signs are, you know, where we could go that might be even more beneficial. Like, it's a challenging thought process, and that's why I love science fiction. My most accurate movie I think for the future, or for sci-fi is her. I've said that before. What's his name, walking, Phoenix?

You know, I started to watch that and didn't finish it yet. Bro, I was into it. It is the most, in my opinion, the most accurate, because it's not this dystopian future, it's not this crazy, whatever. The styles that they wear, you know, sometimes future movies go crazy with the styles and stuff. Like, no one's gonna be dressing in tin foil and, you know, weird, like, you know, sharp shoulder pads.

Yeah, exactly. Like the Jetsons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. Nobody that he's gonna think that looks good, but in her, the way they dress, you could tell that they took past decades and mixed it into the fashion, just like we really do. So you look at them and they don't quite fit in today, but you could picture people actually dressing that way. Yeah, and it's interesting,

like their whole business was around, like writing these really like thoughtful messages to people and like reading it, or, you know, because people lose that ability. It's like a personal touch, you know, it's like, oh yeah, of course. But in them, we're gonna lose that, so that would be valuable. In the movie, and I'm gonna ruin it for you guys, this is a matter of still enjoying it's like, oh yeah, of course, you know, we're gonna lose that so that would be valuable in the movie And I'm gonna ruin it for you guys doesn't matter. You'll still enjoy I've seen only half of it in the movie

The it's probably it's the way that the directors and the create writers showed what they thought would happen with AI I believe To be more accurate than what all the the the fear monger say about AI. Because what do they say about AI? It's going to become self-aware. It's going to create more intelligent versions of itself, and then we're all fucked, and it's going to kill us. The way I look at it is, if we really do hit that singularity with artificial intelligence where it becomes that smart, that fast, because once that happens, it'll get fast, when

five minutes, it will have advanced a thousand generations, right? It won't need to, it won't look at us like threats, it won't try to kill us to take resources. And in her, that's exactly what happens. These AI machines become, or you know, it's like what it is is they have an app that talks to them and it's AI. And what ends up happening is they become so intelligent

that they just decide to disappear into the internet. They create the wrong world, they're like, we're outta here and they just go off. And that's, I think what would happen, I don't think they'd be like, we're gonna kill you for your food and look out. Why would they give a shit? It kind of makes sense, because I mean,

wouldn't they just create the world and then disappear? I mean, so, I mean, there's still monkeys and, you know, like primates, right? Like, we recognize like we've gone past that, you know, as far as evolution's concerned. We've filled up some, maybe they'll put us in cages and then we'll be, I'm saying, let's see, so. So we have a lot of people. So maybe they'll put us in cages and they'll be fine. That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying. So I'm looking at, I don't think so. So much more advanced. Why do they need to compete? They're not competing with us at the point. I don't think so. I think they'll disappear into their own universe because they're that smart.

They'll create their own little universe gone. Uh-oh, or AI machines go, they're gone. Why would they fuck with us? Why would they even care? You know what I mean? I don't, that's what I'm saying. I don't think we would even pose a threat. I don't know, yeah.

There's a lot of evil in humans, dude. You know, I don't know. In humans. Now, if we try to mirror human intelligence with machines, that's my fear. Well, isn't that what we're trying to do? That's the problem. Because you're like, like, like, X Machina, right?

That's what that means. That was a great fucking movie. Yeah, that's goddamn, that was such a good movie. One of my favorite movies of all time. But, or that one, what was it that one? Was it Google? Or I forgot who it was. They actually created this machine,

the AI that would learn off of surfing the internet. I was Facebook, I think this happened. And then it started down. Yes, Facebook. It started communicating with chat bots. They started communicating to each other with the language they invented. Yeah.

So they had to turn it off real quick, because quick Because they know the fuck was going on. Yeah They're saying it was a lot like we need to escape when toddlers or whatever like they babble between each other But they'd like know that they're talking to each other because they kept repeating like the same kind of Like phrases over and over again But they did it in a sequence that like was communicating, you know, and so that that was like almost like step one You know of like artificial intelligence is crazy. That's so funny Anyway, you know what I noticed like on our our Instagram pages how like we were definitely starting to People are like that follow just just it and just you adjust me. I case I it's more

I think that there's a lot of people that just follow absolutely absolutely Oh, yeah, absolutely, I feel like we have a time I think everyone I think everyone like may actively follow but probably communicate like you probably have certain people that you you consistently see communicating with you there's definitely people that relate more to one of us individually I see you do like a nerd post every now and then and it goes fire now or like a super hard rock one and you got a lot of communication like we're starting to find like the collection of people that listen to mine, but also into those same things that's kind of unique to say. Speaking of Instagram, though, I don't know if it was your story or if you did it on your

page, your squat. Oh, you know, I have a great depth, great form. If people only knew where you were three years ago, I'm trying to, they would think it was a miracle. It was 15. It was a beautiful looking squat. I, you know, I've been digging through my old computer to try and, because I do, I definitely have videos of me because I started videoing my squat early on

so I could kind of compare and stuff. I don't know how far back I have it. I wish I had it early, early on when I knew it was really fucked up, but I think I had videos of it when I already thought I was squatting good and progressing. As soon as I saw the pain go away and I was already getting better mechanics to where I wouldn't squat, because in the past, if I squatted more than eight reps,

my low back was on fire. I mean, I was such a mess. And that's why I avoided squatting for so long. But once I addressed everything and I could squat, I began videoing it. I was like, oh shit, I could do this. Now let me improve upon it. And I remember thinking I had a good squat

and not really, I mean, Brink was the one who just like, just totally fucking dismantled me. You know, I thought I was like killing it. And when he broke me down, I was like, fuck, I have to do this much to squat like shit. Yeah, I was like killing killing it. And when he broke me down, I was like, fuck, I have to do this much to squallak shit. Yeah, I was like, yeah, this much dysfunction. And so it's been a man, it's been a long, long grind and process. And I don't think, I know Instagram doesn't do justice to the amount of work that I have put in to get just to the point where I'm at. And by no means am I a perfect swatter at all, I know I'm like, definitely not.

Yeah, but you didn't just go from shitty, you know, mobility to like, okay, mobility. You went to really good form. Like that's a very nice looking squat now. Well, I've spent a long time this last, especially the last two years, you know, it's been probably four where I've been putting the work in, but the last two, I've really, I've really, really put a lot of effort into improving that. And it just took a different mindset, like I never in my life, I mean, there's times honestly

where I spend more time priming my body and doing corrective work than I actually do lifting in the gym, that never occurred in my life before. But just, I was too stubborn. I wanted to look a certain way. I cared about muscle-building muscle. That was my thought process for so long. And I really challenged myself to look at my mobility

as like a aesthetic goal of what that I was trying to achieve. I was like, okay, can I get to this point? Can I get to a squat that looks like this? And then also be able to do it strong, because that's the next thing, too. It's like one thing to get the mobility there, but then also to rebuild the strength in that mobile. So years ago, when we started talking about, when you started on this kind of like, I'm going to work on mobility type of thing, there was a lot of controversy and discussion around,

oh, you're going to lose muscle mass, because focusing on mobility means you're going to lose muscle. You're not going to build as much now because you can't lift as heavy. And we would make the argument that the opposite would happen. Because you would improve your mobility, thus increase your The range of motion that you have control over, that you'd be able to build more muscle as a result. And you were the perfect person to do this with because You know, when it comes to upper legs, my legs

respond very, very well. I can do almost anything in my legs and they'll build just and obviously he's got the cakes, right? For you, even being a pro, for you to compare that was your weakness, right? So I have a theory on that on why you are so much that way. And I wasn't because much of my leg development, because I did legs, I trained legs once a week, you know, for my most of my, you know, I did legs, I trained legs once a week, for most of my fitness career,

neglected it early on as a kid, but later on I did, but it was leg presses, leg extensions, leg curls, like machine exercises a lot, and then every once in a while I would try and squand, and then it would just, it would fucking crush me, and it would just be like, no, fuck this, I'm not gonna do that,

at least I'm gonna train my legs, I don't wanna do something and then be set back, right? So I think you installed squatting at such a young age as you tell the story when you were 15 and those guys made you do that. And I think that could have been one of the best things that ever happened for you. When you talk about the recruitment that you get

from squatting, it's, nothing even comes close to comparing. I do less work and my legs are, from squatting, it's nothing even comes close to comparing. I do less work and my legs are, and they're now becoming responders. So I've already had these times. Oh, I know, you're off gear and everything. Your legs maintain pretty well.

That was your weakness. Right. And that is definitely, one of the big things was exercise selection for sure. And there was a lot of things that were like huge light bulbs for me that I, for example, it tripped me out when I went on my deadlifting kick for, you know, for a while, when I was chasing you. And a year had gone by that I didn't do a lying leg girl on the machine. Like a whole year had gone by. Like I just

fuck it. I don't care about it right now. Like this is my goal is to get better deadlifting. So what am I doing on lying leg curls, right? So, and that was always a challenge. Lying leg curls can be challenging. And hamstrings typically are weaker muscles for most people and overlooked most of the time. And I hadn't done it for a year and I thought like,

oh shit, I'm gonna be weak as fuck when I get back to that. And I went and did it. And I remember putting the weight on. And right away being aware that I hadn't done this in a long time, so starting a little bit lighter than I know that I could do. And it's just feeling like it was way easy. And then I remember going up. And then I was like, I was doing a PR on a machine

that I had done for 10 years that I had not seen a major budge in strength there. And just from going to deadlifting for one year of my life, I'd like tripled my weight strength there. It was fucking insane to me. I was like, the same thing happened to me with the seated row because of the dead lifting. I noticed that. And the same thing that happened to me was squatting. Like after I really started to squat, if I were to go back and visit a leg press machine or some exercise like that, or legs, it was like my legs were so much stronger,

so much stronger. And then they held size better. Before I would always, I would, I would chase like the pumps in my legs. So my legs would look cool, you know, when they got it, well after I did, you know, seven sets of leg press and five sets of leg extensions and maybe some lunges or something, like my legs look cool, you know, when they got it after I did, you know, seven sets of leg press and five sets of leg extensions

and maybe some lunges or something, like they would look cool, but then they would deflate and then they wouldn't hold their size where, you know, now like the masses, I'm keeping size there, dude. And I was doing that with lightweight, I wasn't moving that much weight. I mean, I just now got myself up to that deep of a squat,

all natural and 315. So that is in a sense that's a PR for me. It's not a PR, like I can lift over four, I could squat over 400 pounds and I have before, but I also was on HRT at that time. So it wasn't natural at that time. And I definitely didn't have as deep of a squat. So I had to regress the way back.

You know, I'd be working out with 185 to 25, which was humbling as fuck, you know, to have to do that. But when I realized that I wasn't losing size on my legs while I was doing it and I was improving my squat and then I was noticing things like my low back feeling better, knees feeling better, all those things were coming together. I was like, man, it was... That's a very important point to make

because I think people feel like if they go lighter, they're gonna lose muscle or they're not able to build more muscle. But here's the example I like to give people to illustrate this, right? You could probably squat way more weight if you just went down four inches. If you just got under a bar

and squated down four inches and came back up, how much weight do you think you could squat? It's a lot more than you'd be able to squat going down to however deep you can with good control if you're listening to this podcast. And now which one of those will do you think will build more muscle? The four inch squat with way more weight or the fuller range of motion with lighter weight. Now if you're're smart, and if you've experienced this, you're gonna say the full range of motion squat. Well, that's always true. So what I mean by that is, if you can only squat to parallel,

and because if you go lower than that, things start to break down in your body hurts, and you're like, you know, I don't wanna work on mobility, because then I have to go lighter, and my legs are gonna shrink, not true. Yes, you are gonna go lighter, but you're actually gonna build more muscle because you've increased the range of motion.

And this isn't just my anecdote, although there is lots of anecdote around this. It's also fact, I've done lots of studies on this and I'll find that fuller ranges of motion create the most response, both visibly and, of course, functionally. So range of motion is one of the most important things you can work towards when you train anybody part,

but especially your legs, there's a lot, I mean when you're doing squats in particular, there's a lot of moving parts. The other thing too is a squat is a, it's a natural human movement that we've completely lost the ability to do. And so gaining the ability to do a squat really benefits your entire body.

It's no different than a human never walking and losing the ability to walk. And you get them to walk and then everything else starts to feel bad. It eliminated my low back pain. I was constantly, if I was not, so this was kind of my pattern even as a trainer my entire career.

If I was on my game, if I was training hard, doing a lot of my core exercises and in good shape, my low back didn't bother me. But the moment I stopped, you know, training core or even training consistent and hard, my low back would just be on fire all the time. And I'd always be, I'd be in pain all the time. And it just chronic pain, like it's not pain where I was debilitating, I couldn't do anything, it's just nagging pain, you know, where it bothered me all the time. And it just chronic pain, like it's not pain where I was debilitating, I couldn't do anything, it's just nagging pain, you know, where it bothered me all the time. Where once I started working on the mobility, getting out my squat, I don't get that anymore. I didn't have that. I just didn't, I didn't have the control of my hips in those positions because I'd been said, I'd never

dropped it deeper than 90 degrees for, what, 15 plus years? It's funny because that's the first factor that I talk about. So I wrote a guide that's on our MindPumpFree.com site. And they're all free on there, by the way. And I wrote a guide, the ultimate guide to leg muscle development. And I thought of all the people that I've encountered in my life

who've had difficulty building their leg muscles. So I started to compile a mental image of all the people that I've talked to who are like, oh, I can't get my legs to respond, they don't want to respond to working out, they're not building muscle, they're not shaping whatever. And the number one issue that I saw that was, because I narrowed it down to three,

but the first one that I noticed among most of them was just poor range of motion, lack of control of range of motion. I mean, see that, yeah that with most clients that come in. It's really just that inability to even get to certain depths or certain positions with their body where their body has become accustomed to certain ways of moving and picking things up. And there's this hardwired way that they've told their body,

like this is how we're gonna move objects is how we're gonna pick things up. And so your muscles only develop so much as to far as what you're telling your body, we need to do. And so taking you through those extra couple inches and really gradually taking clients down to new depths really creates a whole new response that the body has to deal with.

It does, and I have, now I have a theory as to why this may happen. And I, you know, if you have a background in education in this, you know, feel free to DM me and correct me if my explanation is off, but this is my idea. And you guys remember the sliding filament theory? Remember learning that about muscle fibers and how muscle fibers kind of Velcro. Yeah, they run along inside each other and they connect to each other through connections, kind of like Velcro and what makes the sores the tearing of those.

Well, as a muscle goes through full range of motion, you're working those connections all the way down and up where the muscle fibers can connect to each other. And there's shorter range of motion, the less that that happens. And that's an important factor in signaling muscle adaptation. And I think that's the primary reason why full range of motion is more effective than short range of motion. And why when you're working out, if your goal is to develop your muscles

to the fullest capacity, then you want to constantly work towards greater and greater ranges of motion. I do want to be very clear. When I, in the context of this conversation, I'm talking about greater ranges of motion, I'm talking about the ones you have control over. So what you don't want to do is say, I heard on my pump,

if I go super low with my squat, I'm gonna build more muscles. That's to grass, like right away. Yeah, and then you go and you lighten the weight a little bit and you sit all the way down and come back up and you get all kinds of tailbone tuck and instability in your knees and your femur's twist in. And next thing you know, your meniscus hurts.

Oh, you have to be supported. Yeah, you gotta have control. You have to have control. So this is a process process but if you gain control over deeper range of motion and then you work your body out You're going to you're gonna build more muscle and this is true for all of them But especially for the life. Well, what's interesting to me is our minds were blown when we you know met with brink But one of the biggest things was the focus of the feet in terms of like, we've always focused on the hips and like, trying to help out as far as like the mechanics go

with the squat and that's immediately where I would go first. Whereas just looking at the shoes people wear every single day and the patterns they develop just from walking, standing, sitting, with everything supported and elevated, and it creates these recruitment patterns that they take with them into just teaching them to squat, to deadlift, to do these types of fully involved exercises.

And so we're always trying to correct these things and trying to just just based off of the hips and how that's affecting the knee and then down the kinetic chain. Whereas for me personally, even I started wearing minimalist shoes, flat shoes and eliminating a lot of my Nike's that were runner shoes. I was up on this elevated pad and that really did affect me and especially stabilization left the right. So to be able to fully ground my feet

and develop muscles with, you know, between my toes and be able to grip the ground better, it created a whole new support system. I didn't have. My feet used to be turned off. Well, you know, I know we're off when I was talking. Talking about that, I should address too, because in were off when i was talking about that i should address to because in the in the photo that sells talking about on my instagram

i'm in my uh... shoes and i have my belt on and so i had a lot of people asking me like you know i thought you guys aren't big on squat shoes and bell and i said no definitely not this is this is literally the only set that i'm i'm wearing a belt it's questions because i pushed a weight in a new found-range emotion that I never have. So the rest of the workout, I'm either barefoot or in flat shoes, but when I go to do something, especially fucking where I'm at now in my life, I'm always going to weigh on the cautious, be cautious not to hurt myself. So if I'm going to put on

a weight that I know is heavy for me in a new found range of motion. The shoes I'll be smart about. Yeah, so the shoes in the belt was just me being safe there. Like, could I probably push that weight up? Yeah, I know I could because I got triples of it. So I know I could get a single out belt list and shoe list and barefoot if I want to, but I also want to, I'd rather have sound mechanics and take it all the way down and like so in a perfect world, I'm barefoot in that,

but I'm also not in a place in my life where I'm willing to risk that right now because I'm not that mobile, I'm still working, I'm still got work to do to get to a point where, yeah, I could sit that deep, that low, no belt, no shoes, but I most certainly don't train with the belt and with the shoes on a river base. I'm not a power that there's no reason for me

to be searching for records. I want to improve upon my mobility every once in a while. I'll throw some weight on my back that I know is really challenging. But then when I do that, this is where I use these types of tools. So I got a lot of people asking that, like, because I know on the show we've talked about it, and I don't know if I've ever played a post up, or if I have, it's been a long time where I'm belted up with shoes on. Now, the other thing, too, and I'm going to get a little controversial here because there's

always this argument that I get from people whenever I say that the squat is the best leg exercise. And I always get the whole, well, not for everybody, you know, some people do better with leg press and some people do better with a hacks quad or whatever. And you know, I get the whole not for everybody argument. There are lots of individual variances, but barring injury and barring, you know, anything around that, here's what I have to say about the squat. I will argue that for the vast majority of people, 99% of the people out there, the barbell squat is they far superior exercise to developing your legs. The reason

why I'm saying this, by the way, is, you know, of all the people that I remember training that had issues building their legs, they didn't squat. A men of them squat, and all of them did leg presses and leg extensions and leg curls. And about over half of them got the legs to build just because I got them to squat. I've never met anybody who was a major squatter and has complained about being able to build.

Yeah, no, definitely not. No, and you ever met someone who squats consistently, you know, not like I have, yeah. Yeah, that is said, like, I just. No, and you ever met someone who squats consistently, you know, not like, say I have, yeah. Yeah, that is said, like, I just can't build my legs. No, nope, nope. But I have met a lot of people that have struggled to build their legs that inconsistently squat. And that doesn't mean squatting,

because I squat it like this too, once a month, you know, or once every couple of weeks, like if you're not squatting every week, a some more of a form of a squat. It needs to be the cornerstone. Yes. It should be the cornerstone of your routine. And it is the best exercise for most people, not because it's the best exercise

and it gives the best results, but that's also true. It's the best because it is a fundamental movement. It is a fundamental human movement. Well, here you go. And on this note, another thing we should address, because we had this on the forum where some kid was talking about the hip thrust being one of the most functional movements.

And I was like, what? I'm like, how do you figure that? This squat is far more functional. And functional is supposed to be something that we should be able to do on a daily basis. Getting up and down from your toilet is something that every single human being will do multiple times. Every single day. That is, does it get more functional of that? from your toilet is something that every single human being will do multiple time.

Every single day. That is, does it get more functional of that? You may never be laying on a ground and a refrigerator lay on your lap and then you have to fucking thrust it up off of you. That doesn't mean threat like that's something. Bigger listeners. That's not a functional exercise. So, you know, and you could debate whether a squad or a split squad or lunch is more functional.

That's debatable. That's fine. But some form of a squat is the most functional thing we could do. Go to any modern hunter-gatherer society, go to any third world country where they don't have chairs and seats everywhere, and watch how people relax, watch what they do when they're thinking or when they're making a fire or when they're doing something on the ground. They don't sit on the ground. They sit in a squat.

This is what people do. To the point where in many countries, the public toilets are all whole on the ground with two little places where you put your feet. Because you imagine it as a move, man. Because you imagine if we were like that all of a sudden, people would die because the average person can't sit in a squat, let alone sit in a squat and poop at the same time. They should on themselves, or they fall over. It is a, it is, it is, this is how women gave birth. It's how we pooped.

It's how we sat around a fire and talked to each other. It's how we relaxed. Now, here's the problem. Now, there's, there's for sure a few thousand people probably listening to this right now that are instantly turned off because they're like, well, my doctor told me I can't squat because I have this low back surgery pad or I had this shoulder issue I did or I have this knee condition that I had. And so they've been scared away from trying to, and trying to perform a squat period because of that.

There are cases where that may be the case, but my advice is always, well, then work on correctional exercises appropriately. Don't just get under a bar and try and squat, but your goal should be to be able to squat. Look, here's a deal. If you went to the doctor and the doctor's like, oh, we got to do a back surgery on you, it's going to be tough for you to walk. Do you just say, fuck it, I'm not walking anymore? I mean, in some cases, what most cases you know what you're going to do?

You're going to try to learn, because walking is great. And now, walking is a fundamental human movement. Squatting is a fundamental human movement. It is one of our fundamental, just like throwing, throwing, walking, running, and squatting, or I think, and twisting or whatever. These are very fundamental moments. How are you gonna, like, decelerate to sit down? Exactly.

Anywhere. Yeah, that's true. Ah! Some people are just gonna fucking fall back like everywhere you go. Some people do that, your CPS will sit down. Yeah, that's the best. You know, the other thing that was a huge game changer for me

was when I started a piece, the frequency thing together too. Oh, do training enough times? Yes, because I used to be the guy who would go to the gym. Lakes response so well to you. And I would have to do 24, and that's why I only did legs once a week.

I dreaded it every time I had to do it because it was 24 plus sets of leg exercises. And I would just be chasing after a pump and it would be like cardio. Did I want to throw up? I remember training like that all the time just to get this pump in my legs and it just I it was miserable And I would never want to do that a second day in a week

I was already dreading it to come back around the next week, you know, much less two or three times And so even the even the information that I was hearing about frequency I was like, just no way I'm doing that like I never and I was too scared to decrease my volume I was too scared to go Well, then I got to, maybe what if I actually just went down to like eight sets and did it spread out over three days? Like what would happen?

And boy, was that like a like light ball when I was like, oh yeah. I would do the eight sets and I'd still want to do more because I'm like, well I'm fine at eight. It's not until I get to like 15, 17, 20 sets where I want to throw up, you know? And so then a part of me would, I'd have this mental battle and I definitely had many times where I fucking still flirted with it and did more That I needed to and then that hindered the next leg workout

But once I finally conditioned myself, okay, you're only gonna do five to eight sets of these legs Move on from it. This was an area of contention for you for a long time when you're growing up, right? Was your legs not developing? You imagine knowing what you know know now, giving it to yourself when you were 20 years old, and working your legs out? It would have blown your mind. I had this one kid, I just popped in my head, Nick. Maybe he's listening right now. Young guy, he was 18 year old kid, came to me,

he'd been working out for a couple of years. So he, me and him connected on a lot of different levels, because he reminded me of myself, working out young and all that. And he's like, my legs just won't build. He goes, everything else. And he was muscular. He developed his body pretty well on his own.

He was natural. And he's like, my legs just won't build. And I'm like, well, let me see your routine. His routine was leg press, hax, squat, leg extension, leg curls. And he did the once a week, 20 sets per body part type workout. And he just wasn't building.

I'm like, you don't use squat and deadlift. He goes, you know, squats hurt my back and deadlift bother my back too. So I know I don't really do those. And I remember looking at him and was like, I'm gonna put two inches on your legs in about six months. He's like, no way. I'm like, you'll see, as long as we can get to the point

where you can squat and deadlift without your back hurting, watch what happens. And I cut everything else out. Like that's all we did for his lower body. Did it three days a week, is strength with the roof. The kid gained over three inches within that period. He got stretch marks around his upper legs

because they'd never been able to stimulate them that way. And they fucking blew up and the kid put on a bunch of mats. This is how I felt when we started squarrying deadlifting I was so blown away by how little the amount of extra other exercises I was doing I was like I used to bounce around to all the fucking creative not all this machines Doing all this stuff to get my legs to grow thinking that's what I needed to do and I could I eliminated like all of it It's it's also In your element and legs of all the body parts on your body

your relevance and legs of all the body parts on your body, legs and maybe your forearms, I would say, are the ones that can handle a tremendous amount of frequency, probably because we evolved, obviously, being on our legs and walking all the time. Right. We walk all the time, we grab things all the time. Yeah, and so I've experimented with frequency with my legs. You're not happy. Super grabby. I've experimented with frequency with my legs and I'm super grabby. I've experimented with frequency with my legs

and I've never gone over five days a week. I've actually done it where I've done a leg exercise of five days a week. I have yet to hit a point where I think it's too much frequency. My legs just respond. The more I work out, the more they grow. And I've noticed this with other people as well,

where their legs, if you train them appropriately, just take way more volume than like Chests or shoulders or back. It seems to be one of those body parts that just handles a lot of frequency So you know if you're doing 15 sets once a week for your legs, just split that up over three workouts You know what I mean and watch what happens. Yeah, that was a that was a big one for me too. Yeah, I think those Those are probably those those are the ones you highlight in the guide, right? Yeah, I go over range of motion, what to focus on to get better ranges of motion. Here's anything with range of motion, because you know, there's a lot of ladies that,

and women don't tend to neglect their legs like guys do, but you know, when women work out their legs and they can't respond, they get really frustrated, just like guys do, especially when it comes to the glute development. If you're not able to get a full range of motion with your squats, you're not going to develop your butt very well. You hit that butt at that lower part of the squat. You know, and sometimes I like to go unilaterally to address range of motion and stability and really concentrate on that to get it to respond.

Sometimes I find it valuable to do, like, just, like, you know, just a lunge in place or like a Bulgarian squat and really, like, spend the time with less load, um, expressing that range of motion and finding that control. And then how that translates now going back to a backload of squat, it's, it's pretty substantial. That's how I'm training my son right now, because he's obviously never lifted weights. He's tight. He's got, look, tight tight in his lower body takes after his old man and No way I could put a bat a bar and his back and have him do a squat not even a standing squat He's got immobility issues, but I can have him hold on to something for support and do a split stance squat or a lunge

And what you'll notice when you break down a lunge when one you know They have one foot forward one foot back and they straight down, that front leg is doing a full squat. And so what you're doing is you're actually taking that one leg to respond to that. Yeah, or yourself or whatever, you're taking yourself, or if you're a trainer, you're taking a client through a relatively full range of motion squat with that front leg. And so that's how I'm starting him. Now along those lines, I would have to say that split stance, anything, lunges, bulgarian, split stance squats,

and the variations of lunges are in the top five for leg development. I don't know how you guys feel. I'm kind of sure. I think bulgarians were one of the things I hated doing. I hated. They're a little difficult to get in place. Like, I highlight the instability, like nothing else. Yeah, hated. They're a little difficult to get in place. Like, highlights the instability, like nothing else.

Yeah, no, and there, and there, a lot of people, they, they fuck up by the way they put their trail leg. That's probably, we should do a YouTube video. I'm not sure if I can do it if you write this down. The way you showed me how to get in position, I thought it was brilliant. Yes, and the reason why that's over years of me fucking it up myself, because one of the reasons why

I stayed away from Bulgarian splits caught forever, my hip flexors would be on fire from that. And it was the way I was setting my trail leg up and how I was getting in position to do it properly. Once I figured it out and then I actually started to, boy, my legs blew up from that big time too. And I also got from Jordan Schalo. He's got me one of my favorite things to do.

Before that day, I just did the picture on Instagram. This is how I, aside from doing my band work that I primed that I showed on the story, I also, what I didn't share in show, was I did Bulgarians, but I do like, kinda light, like I do a 25 pound kettlebell, I offloaded it, one arm on one side, and then I do like, kind of light, like I do a 25 pound kettlebell, I offload it, one arm on one side, and then I do the bulk areas for just like five reps.

Real slow controlling, then just sent down and then explode out, real slow on the way down, explode out, I'm paying attention to my knee not wanting to collapse in. And it really just gets everything firing well. Then when I go into a heavy squat, whole, it moves like butter, dude. It's a great way to primer,

and you don't wanna fatigue in that, if that's how you're using it, right? But I've used it also to just develop. I've done a hundred pound dumbbells on it, it's fucking moving my legs. A few weeks of just focusing, yeah, on like unilateral and then jumping right back in, it made a substantial difference for me.

So here's a very basic leg workout. This is the one that I did as a kid that put, I don't know, 15 pounds of my body over a summer. When I met those strong, those power lifters or whatever, literally blew my legs up and got me really strong, very basic workout. This is what you do three days a week and you can combine this with the rest of your workout.

But one day a week you focus on barbell squats, back squats, the second day a week, you work on front squats, so you do front barbell squats, and the third day you do lunges. That combination was the best, and it's still super basic, back squat, front squat, split stance type squat. Well, part of that formula is in our program.

That's right. I mean, there's a reason for that. That's right. But if you did like, if you just did five sets of each, that's it, or even three, you could do three to five sets, back squats on Monday, front squats on Wednesday, split stance squats or lunges or Bulgarian split stance squats on Friday, just do that.

Keep the intensity moderate to high, like stop two reps short of failure and you know, work with the different rep ranges. Watch how your butt hamstrings and quads develop from that simple basic silly routine. 100% agree with that. And the ultimate leg guide, or leg muscle development guide, is available at minepumpfree.com. So you just go there, you can get it. And we also have other guides on there as well. We have like a chest guide and a midsection guide,

fat loss guide, a bunch of other ones. But the leg muscle guide is the one that we're talking about right now. Again, it's at MindPumpFree.com. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance,

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