Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 972: Trainer Tips & Tricks for More Effective Workouts

Episode Date: February 21, 2019

Small tweaks and cues while lifting can make a big difference in the results that you or your clients get when working out. In this workout, Sal, Adam & Justin provide their favorite tips and tricks for each body part. Whether you are a trainer or are just serious about building your body, this episode has some real actionable gems. Sal has reverted back to his old haircut. (2:02) What is the weirdest thing the guys have been asked? (5:20) The psychological effect of how your thoughts affect how you feel. (12:15) Trainer Tip & Tricks for More Effective Workouts: Small tweaks and cues while lifting can make a big difference in the results that you or your clients get when working out. The guys provide their favorite tips and tricks for each body part. (15:50) Why you should think of exercise as a new skill. (1:08:15) People Mentioned: Mike Boyle (@bodybyboyle)  Instagram Mike Salemi (@mike.salemi)  Instagram Dr. Justin Brink (@premiere_spine_sport)  Instagram Products Mentioned: February Promotion: MAPS Performance is ½ off!! **Code “GREEN50” at checkout** Learning one’s genetic risk changes physiology independent of actual genetic risk | Nature Human Behaviour Mind Pump TV - YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this instructional and fun episode of the Mind Pump, you know, Put your trainer hat on. That's it for the first 15 minutes. You know, we do a little fun talk with each other. We talk about my new haircut.

25 dollars, not bad. We talk about the random compliments that we've received in the past. If you want to guess who had the most random compliments ever given to them and you guess Adam, you'll be correct. Then we talked about His Achilles and Update and the genetic risk and belief studies, kind of fasting, which led us into the bulk of the episode, which was all about just the tips and tricks that we use as trainers to really maximize the effectiveness of people's workouts. So if you're a personal trainer, you're going to love this

episode because we talk about the things that we talk, you know, like cues and stuff that we said to clients that help them feel muscles and be more successful. If you're not a trainer, you're gonna like this because you're gonna be able to pick up some of the stuff for yourself for your next workout and it's gonna make your workouts again, much more effective. Try these out. Now, before we get into the episode,

I do wanna remind everybody that this month maps performance, which is our athletic-minded workout program. This is the program we designed to develop aesthetic-balanced functional bodies, bodies that are strong, fast, bodies that have endurance, good mobility, and flexibility. That program is 50% off, half off. Just go to mapsfitnisproducts.com

and use the code green50, g-r-e-n- GRE and 50 for that discount. Also, if you're on that site, you can check out our other maps, programs. We have quite a few of them. And they're all designed for different people, different people's goals and different types of experiences. Again, go check all those out at mapsfitnisproducts.com.

So you guys didn't notice that the reverted back to my old hairstyle for a second. I like it. Yeah I did a side to side It looks good. It just handsome. Yeah, it looks like you got the the better lady at supercuts this last time It was a guy this time. Oh, yeah, there's there's all everybody's everybody's good at that location except for the Google I'd old lady. We got to wait it out to it out. Do you get her a lot then or what? I've gotten her twice and she's a nice lady, okay? So I don't want to say anything else.

She's just a nice lady, but she looks like a, what's that, like a chameleon lizard McGoon? You know the eyes of those lizards, how one eye goes this one way, and one eye goes another way. Yeah, one's just kind of traveling somewhere else. It's like that. So I think that that probably affects the judgment.

So why don't you like why don't you wait? You know, when I when I used to get my hair cut. Oh, I don't I don't want to when I go in if she if she's up. I'm like, oh no, I'll wait for the next one. So the second one was your fault. The second time I went, I was like, I gave her another chance. Right. But it was a first time, I'll give you that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Like that. No, she's, I think she's got skill, but again, I don't think she's got the, do you think maybe it's because you're a bad tipper? No, I'm a good tipper. Are you

good tipper? Very good tipper. Really? Very good tipper. What's it? What's it? So $9 haircut tip? It's actually a $20 haircut $9 actually like it yeah, where do you get $9? It did when I would see now when I I used to get a $9 haircut throw a $5 tip on that well you're like baller I was 15, but I mean I did when my grandfather when my grandfather used to get a haircut He used to ask for half price because he had half the hair Yeah, so it's pretty fun

Yeah, no 20 bucks. I don't know if you if you have if you know of a $9 haircut place Well back with your boy back the barber back when I used to do the the super cut type of thing like you do It was $9 so it's it's gone up obviously since then But that was like the standard price for a lot of 20 bucks of a thing like you do, it was $9. So it's gone up obviously since then. But that was like the standard price for a lot. So it's a 20 bucks, and I'd never under 20. And I tip on five bucks. That's a fat tip for a $20 haircut.

Yeah, you're half way there to like a real hair salon which you just commit. Bro, for the price of one haircut I get too. That's a big deal. That's the only thing. You're gonna get legit barber's and they'll mess with your beer First of all, I don't even know why you go to a $50 haircut place when you wear a hat

99% of time it makes no sense because half of it's for the off chance right for the beard lineup That's that's what so $50 you get a haircut and a beard line up. Yeah, do they straight razor inters It's just that's actually not bad. No, she doesn't. She's a hair salon, right? So they don't have straight razors, but she lines it all up and fades it and does all that. So I line up my own beard and I didn't shave down here for a few days, but I line my up. I'm really done.

It's nice when you have someone actually else. Bro, let me tell you something. Yeah. I've had several people ask me who lines up my beard. That's how good of a job I do. Nobody asks you. I've had several. That's a lot.

I've had several people Think about asking me like I can tell you think about it. I can tell they wanted to Yeah, I'm so glad you called boasting like nobody's asked you that I can tell Yeah, that'd be a weird thing, huh? Excuse me, sir wait a minute. Where do you get your beard done? Yeah? The weirdest thing I've gotten asked ever in my entire life. I've actually had to ask twice The weirdest thing that's ever been asked to me. I've had two separate people ask me what if I've had a nose job I've told you guys this part serious two separate times, okay?

You've a gorgeous nose. Yes, and and and both times I'll be thinking about this is a one hundred percent staring its nose now It's it's aesthetic. It is lots of it's very shabby. Lots of protruding fingers. It's very beat. Mine's fucked up. No, no, no. It's very beat. I'm a little jealous to be honest with you. A beak is not a nose.

A beak. Yeah, here we can have two cans, Sam. Luckily, you're going to take a drink and you're just like, always like dipping, you know, every time you take a frothy latte. Yeah, you can't have whipped cream on your hot cocoa. You smell it? Yeah. No, no, no can't have whipped cream on your high-scope. Just smell it. Yeah. No, no, no, no.

One was a plastic surgeon who asked me. Whoa. Yes. That's like a super complex. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I swear on my life.

It's the gym. This is when I managed 24-ounce sanitizer. I actually believe this more. A dude comes up to me and he's like, I got to ask you a question. I hope you don't mind. I'm like, sure. And he's like, did you get any work done on your nose? And I't mind. I'm like, sure, and he's like, did you get any work done on your nose? And I started laughing.

I'm like, no. I said, why you say that? And he goes, because you told me, is this you have a very aesthetic nose? It looks like I want to ask you where you got your work. Maybe, maybe that's, you know, if he's a plastic surgeon. Maybe some of the time. No, no, no, no, no.

Because he's a plastic surgeon. That's just like as trainers walking up to somebody you want to sell training to. Look at those calves. It's really good form right there. That's really good. You have a trainer? You've never had a trainer.

Oh, let me tell you about that squad. It's on point. I don't know. I never lied to people like you did. If I thought they had to get far enough. Dude, I had some girl walk up and she told me it was asking me if I had, what do you call that when you curl your eye lashes up? Or eye lashes extensions? I don't know. Yeah, if I had eyes, last extensions. What do you call that when you like curl your eye eyelashes up or like eyelashes tensions?

I don't know if I'd eyes last extensions and I'm like do I look like a guy's gonna have eyelash extensions? No, I totally don't but I that actually happened. Yeah, a girl actually came up She literally said that wow that's that's it's so I bat it on all day just like this sounds flirty very Yeah, it sounds like a flirty thing. What's the weird? I didn't know how to take it You don't have any weird things come at as of you at them. My calves have been complimented That's weird that's very he's actually fucking you win It's where the guy takes a cake a couple times back when they were looking like you know less bad They were they were freaking you know why it's a bolt because I got lots of veins.

For sure. It's because they were veiny and lean. You know, so you know, it's funny. And they're in public. Lean gets complemented and noticed way more than big. Ever does. So you can be skinny as hell, but have like definition people like,

dude, well there's no, there's no jack. There's no, there was no denying that I was training him. I mean, you can see that. It's just they were small. I was saying, but they were defined and lean and veiny. no denying that I was training him. I mean you can see that it's just they were small I'm saying but they were defined and lean and vaning and so that I'd got compliments That was actually those were like the times when I was I told Katrina like oh, it's worth it. It's paying off It's worth it's paying off actually. Yeah, I went from getting teased to actually getting come but it's never that It's never a guy. Let's be honest. It's never guy with like great cabs that comes does it's the guy It's fucking has shit caps.

And he sees it and he has a wristband. He sees the, he sees the tiny ankles of mine. You know, he's like, oh, this dude, this guy's worked really hard. He worked really hard for those 13s. You know what I'm gonna go compliment him, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that felt good.

I actually remember when that happened to you because you, I think you texted us, right? Yeah, yeah. You could get a guy up on the show. It's, it's, it's, it's in one of our episodes. Is it? Yes, totally. What we talked about, it impacted you, dude.

It did, and you're doing all the BFR. And all that, right? Well, there was a point that I was like, I mean, I was getting after my calves. I did not exaggerate the day when we were talking on the show where I, there was times where I was a mission. Yeah, I was on there with you. Both of us were there.

I was doing that, I was doing that, I was going mission. Yeah, I was on there with you Both of us were I was good. I was doing I'm going to the gym like today's calf day, you know like all calves for an hour, you know So there was I was training I gained about Over an inch on my calves and it took me about a year Which is okay. It doesn't sound that exciting, but it is exciting. Yeah, that's a big Come on now. No, no, no. And I go back and forth. I mean, right now, like I'm still, I don't feel right with the Achilles Achilles thing as weird, dude.

Like I. You think it'll ever feel normal? Oh, dude, I don't know. Like I was watching Demarcus Cousins play right now because he's coming back from an Achilles injury and you can just see the way he moves. And I was telling my buddy we were together last night and I was like, he's like, hey, how's your Achilles doing? And it's been over a year now and I said, yeah,

I said, you know, I can run and I've done that and I, you know, and I feel fine lifting deep. I've got good, I've worked on my range of motion, but it just doesn't feel right. Like, stable? No, not stable. Like, it feels like it's, and I've worked on the range of motion, so it's not like I don't, I have limited range of motion.

It just feels tight and like it, it feels like a dry rubber band. That's what it feels like. It feels like a really dry. Must be the scar tissue. Yeah, that's my best way to explain it. What it is, is it just, what scares me is to do, to call on something explosive.

Doesn't feel like it has the same resilience. Yes, it's a little brittle. So there's, and of course I know part of that has got to be psychological. I know that a part of it is just I'm scared and nervous because the last time that I did something explosive, it tore it, right? So I'm sure some of that is just my own doing

of being mentally scared of doing that. But regardless, I didn't have that out with my knee. When I tore my ACL and MCL, once I rehabbed it and I started to feel good, I was in afraid of jump boxes, lateral movements, and I was playing ball. It could be, if you did develop scar tissue, what ends up happening, scar tissue is very inflexible,

and it's not very pliable, right? And so what happens is the tissue around, the scar tissue has to increase its range of motion to make up the difference, if that makes any sense. There's not a whole lot of blood flow through scar tissue. to increase its range of motion to make up the difference. If that makes any sense. There's not a whole lot of blood flow through scar tissue. No, no.

And that to tendons in general, it's not like muscle. So are you doing like any jumping bouncing light movements to get yourself used to it? Yeah, absolutely. Even yesterday, I don't know if you're when we were waiting in line at Luna, you'll see me doing like little calf raises, like I'll emulate like kind of bouncing on it a little bit.

Like I do stuff like that. That doesn't, it's like what I'm afraid of is to call on everything I got to do something, to explode up. Like I haven't tried to dunk a basketball. I haven't tried to cut left or right as hard as I can or race, do a foot race. Like I'd be afraid if one of you called me out and said like, I'm faster than you, I'd be like, okay, you are.

You know, like I wouldn't. Sounds like an excuse. Yeah, that's it. I'm weird just gonna compete. Did you tell them about the foot race? Yeah, I'm trying to get that. We're about to have a little marathon. I knew that's gonna happen.

No, it's like that stuff right now, still, it still scares me. And I guess part of it too, it just, you can't help it. I'm sure this happens to every old man, right? He's just the risk versus reward. It's like, you weigh that shit out. Yeah, I mean, I'm snowboarding, I'm doing things on it,

I'm deep, deep squatting, you saw me. I do think that the psychological aspect is such a, you can't separate them. No. Because you're right when you're younger, you don't have a sense of, you do more shit, I think, because you don't have a sense of danger. Oh, the fear is way less. Well, you're just oblivious. Like, you do more shit, I think, because you don't have a sense of danger. Oh, the fear is way less.

Well, you're just oblivious. Like, when the shit that I used to try to do on my car, when I first got my license, I mean, I would never even think about even attempting today because I know the dangers. But back then, I felt like it was, I didn't feel it. Well, yeah, I'm just driving the car. I remember there was these little turnouts, like in between trees, and it was like dirt,

like dirt past and I would look at those as, yeah, I'm gonna go off road just for a second and like spin my car and do like crazy shit like in between get back on the road. Why would I do that? I don't know. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's the testosterone, it's the slow acting poison.

I actually posted an article that was published in December, so it's recent. And in the article, I got to read it to you, really fascinating. Actually, actually, it spurred me to do a post on Instagram about trying to separate the psychological from the physical, which is, oh, I tried. You just did post about that. And the, oh, here it is. So this was published on the 10th of December 2018 in nature, human behavior. And it's basically the title of it says,

learning one's genetic risk changes physiology independent of actual genetic risk. And so what they found in this research is that when people would learn something about their genetic risk, their fear over it or their belief over it or whatever would actually change their physiology to more closely match what they thought. And they found there's other research that shows that. So if you if you believe that you are

inflamed or you believe that you're stressed or you believe that you have gut inflammation or whatever your physiology will actually start to change to reflect it. To match your belief in your thought. No, that makes perfect sense. We keep going down this thought process and we've started finding out how powerful the placebo effect, how powerful the human mind is and how integral that is with how you heal and how you recover and all this type of stuff, it's like, that makes perfect sense.

So I was watching this documentary that was talking a little bit about this, but more about some other Ezra's terror stuff, but there was one point in the documentary that I thought was a fascinating way to illustrate kind of what we're talking about because everything you experience is an experience. So there may be some objective things that happen, but you can't separate those from your

experience definition. You can't separate those from your experience of them. So like, there's the physiological things that happen from pain, but it doesn't feel like pain until you experience it as such. And your brain literally is constantly creating your reality for you. And so the example they gave in this documentary is they said, it's like having a dream that you're arguing with someone or you're fighting with someone, realize you're arguing with yourself.

That is a person that you created in your own dream. That's your creation of your own mind. And they said that that's kind of a great way to illustrate how our mind affects or experiences intricately connected to everything about our physical, what happens to our physical bodies. It's funny as trainers, I was thinking about it as being a personal trainer, as I learn more and more that that piece, that psychological piece, changing my client's experience was everything.

It was everything. I could give them all the answers in the world, but until I change their experience of things Oh, dude What a great transition into what I wanted to talk about today, which is you know sometimes we have these Videos that we've posted. I know on YouTube and oh We had a we had an exercise in the starter program That I think I recommended which was the the kneeling program that I think I recommended, which was the kneeling, um, uh, kneeling, kneeling get up. Yeah, the kneeling get up lunge. And, you know, and rightly so, people ask, like, you know, why, why, why did you put that in there? And this is

where it gets challenging. I think sometimes, uh, and I remember when I did the bicep video and I talked about a split stance and pulling your shoulder blades back and keeping your shoulder blades back and not allowing any sort of movement in your shoulder. And I got a lot of, you know, fucking people talking shit about the function of the bicep as if I don't know. And you know, what that was is it was a trainer trick

that I have learned over years of training lots and lots of clients that didn't matter how many times I explain the mechanics of a bicep curl to them or show them or grab them and put them into the correct place, they, you just have this natural tendency to want to rock the shoulders and the elbows to go up into a curl and what ends up happening to a majority of beginners that are learning the movement and the elbows to go up into a curl and what ends up happening to a majority of beginners that are learning the movement is the shoulder takes over more the movement than it should. And so it's a trick that I teach, I don't like trying to teach, it's a strict mechanics that I teach to teach a client to get good behaviors to activate the muscle that I want.

to teach a client to get good behaviors, to activate the muscle that I want. And unfortunately, I can't argue it based off of anatomy with somebody who's... Oh, dude, cues are everything. Right, so, and to me, like that, that trumps those types of arguments. It's like, listen, go train hundreds of people and explain to them like you are,

and then let me take those people and see what a difference is. And as fun as Doug was like, man, that was crazy. I watched that video out of them. And, you know, I've been lifting forever. I understand mechanics, everything. And that subtle adjustment, I feel it in my biceps so much more. I'm like, exactly, that's, and that's what I have found. You learn that through experience.

Right. And there's, there's like a lot of things like that that we, and I feel like sometimes we were careful not to talk about it because again, it becomes debatable. I mean, you can go through all the major muscles in the body. And I bet you there's a tip that I give that is, make sound like it contradicts what we were taught in our textbooks on how to teach. Well, okay. So here's a good example of what you're talking about.

This is a very easy example, and it's a cue that if you're a trainer, or if you're not a trainer, if you're just listening, and you like doing this exercise, think of this cue next time you do that exercise and just watch the difference in how you feel. And it's really, it doesn't change your form in the sense that it makes it a new exercise.

It's just because you're thinking of the movement differently, it tends to promote better recruitment pattern. And this is with a lap pull down. Like when someone's doing a pull down, what you're telling them to do is pull your shoulders down and back, squeeze your shoulder blades, pull them down, activate your lats, you do all these different things.

And then you can just tell someone, hey, rather than pulling the bar down to your chest, imagine you're pulling your chest to the bar. A very, very, very simple basic cue. Boom. There are coppages like five different cues in one, you know, like real simple way to think about it. And what it's the least change is how they feel it.

Well, and what you understand about a lap pull down when you've taught so many lap pull downs to so many different body types is what's difficult about it is the mechanics that you're trying to teach somebody. Retracting the shoulders and depressing them is already counterintuitive for the average person because we are rolled forward. So it's already counterintuitive what you're trying to tell them to do. Then on top of that, you have something pulling in the opposite direction. You're

doing a lap pull down so then the weight is pulling them and exaggerating what's already natural and more comfortable for them, which is the rolled forward position. So when you're trying to teach a client who that is already counterintuitive to and then on top of that, the cable machine is pulling in a direction that is making that even more difficult, learning to cue them and give them little subtle tips. And I would actually take that further, I would take the lap pull down bar, and I'd actually, you know, I'd put my hands

right over their hands and I'd be standing behind them and I'd pull them down and then I would stop. And then say pull your gusset bar. And I would stop it like six inches, four to six inches from the bar from their chest. And I'd say now don't pull the bar down now lift your chest to the bar And then they would do that and then all of a sudden you'd see their shoulder blades whoop retract back and go down And you're like the most impactful part of the lift anyways that last those last couple inches to really get that the

Lats engaged in the process was what we're trying to do Yeah, it's I did this with the bench press with my son, is you're trying to teach someone to pull their shoulders down and back, and what I'm telling him is, I'm like stick your chest out, stick your chest out, bring your chest up to the bar, then it's easier for him to understand after that, pull the shoulders down and pull them down and back.

Now, because his tendency, like everybody, when they first start pressing, is to want to roll their shoulders forward. That's the hardest thing to teach is the intrinsic sort of stabilization and what they should be doing while they're just trying to accomplish the movement. Because half the time, we're just trying to get their body

to stay stabilized and stationary, like how we want them in good posture. And so to be able to have really simple cues of whether you can direct them quickly to getting proper position is super helpful. No, and these cues really is just working with the person's psychology. It's not really changing anything else. Right. That's what makes it hard because I think that's what we're addressing. We're addressing more of the psychological part than we are, you know, the biomechanical work. Yeah, exactly. And that's the hard one.

Which gets you them to the intent of the exercise. Well, here's a great example. And this is silly. This is a silly thing, but it's fucking real and it's true and anybody who's trained anybody for a long time or a group X class instructor will tell you that this works. If somebody has 15 reps left to do of an exercise,

if I break that up in a small pieces, I swore to God they perceive it as less, 100%. If I go, you got 10 left and I go 10, nine, eight, and I go all the way down to one, people are dying. We'll see, you're already counting backwards too. That's another psychological trick. That is, that is. Or if I say you have 10 left, that's five plus five,

five, we go up to five, oh five is just two and three. Let's go three more reps. You only got two left. It's like it pushes people, motivates them. It breaks them up in a small, we go up to five. Oh, five is just two and three. Let's go three more reps. You only got two left. It's like it pushes people, motivates them. It breaks them up into spots. It's all this psychology. And these are all the small tricks that you learn.

And you can use these on yourself. It's funny too. Like another example, I've gone hiking a few times with Jessica and I don't like heights, like super, super high heights. And I find that when I'm climbing on certain things, my balance is worse. But it's funny because I'll imagine that if I'm standing on something and I have like

my foot fully on a step, if I imagine that I'm not on a height and it's just all level, all of a sudden my balance is much better. It's the fact that I perceive that there's this drop off that changes how I feel. And so a good example for clients in changing how people perceive thing. When people have issues with nutrition and they say, oh, I have trouble not eating cookies because I know I can't have them. If they just change how they look at the cookies and think to themselves, well, I know I'll enjoy them, but I don't want them.

It makes all the difference in the world. Before you know it, they have no issues with avoiding whatever it is that they don't want to eat. Did you guys struggle with chess when you guys were avoiding whatever it is that they don't want to eat. Did you guys struggle with chess when you guys were growing up? Was that a hard one for me? Activating chess? Yeah. That took me a very long time.

I had like a... It was more back for me, I think. I had a very in-balance chess trick. I had one that was way more pronounced than the other side. It was off for many, many years. I didn't know why as a young kid who was getting into lifting and pushing, like I just was not working my chest properly and my mechanics were off. And then I would develop my chest, but then it was still developing uneven like that.

And I never had somebody or didn't have anybody for a very long time, like really teach me the importance of retracting my shoulders. In fact, I was part of the camp early on that thought that having a flat back was better for you on a bench. I was a myth that lasted for a little while. It did, even pulling the feet up on the bench. Like you created that flat. So I was looking for a flat back,

which is awful to point to tell somebody because when you flatten the back out, you promote that rounded or forward shoulder. And that's asking for shoulder problems. Yeah, it makes it even worse. So I was, and I always thought when you saw, I saw like, you know, Olympic, or when I looked at power lifters

and they had this excessive arch, I was taught that was so bad and so wrong. When in reality, reality, their mechanics, when it comes to doing a chest press, is far better than the average person that you see in the gym. And part of that is because they exaggerate that retraction and the lifting of the chest up,

like you said is a cue, so much that it creates this major arch in the low back. And people would try and hammer that as it's unsafe. So I fell into that belief, major arch in the low back and people would try and hammer that as it as it's unsafe. So I fell into that belief and that just promoted like poor mechanics for a very long time. I learned how to feel my chest with flies before I could learn how to feel it with a bench press. Partially, I didn't have a lot of muscle.

I was 14 or 15 years old at the time and I noticed and I noticed this with clients too, especially ones that don't have a lot of muscle, is that they first have to develop the muscle before they can feel it. So if there's like very, very little muscle, it's hard to feel, right? And so, but flies is how I did it. And I remember specifically reading,

and I don't remember which magazine it was, it might have been Flex Magazine. And there was a picture of Lila Brauta doing incline flies. And Lila Brauta was, he was a body builder in the 90s, he was known for symmetry and all that stuff. And I really liked him. I thought he had a great looking physique. And when he's doing the flies, I noticed that his, rather than having the dumbbell, the palms totally face each other, so you're kind of taught to have the knuckles face each other almost, his pinkies were turned out a little bit. So when he opened, right? When he opened his pinkies turned out a little bit,

and so I thought that's kind of weird. Let me give that a shot. And what I noticed when I did that is it, because really the hands aren't what's important when you're doing the flies or a press or whatever, it's really with the elbows. Because the pecs attach a pepper. That move in the wrist, cue the elbow.

Yeah, because if I turn my pinkie out, it kind of opens up my elbow and when I did that, I noticed I felt more of a connection to my pec. And that was a cue that I taught clients for years as a trainer was, rather than have the palms come out, which sometimes can encourage the hands to, you know, for the arm to kind of externally rotate, right, where the hand, where the elbow comes in, the hand comes out and you'll see people do flies like this. Turn them out a little bit and it encourages that open position.

Yeah, I didn't have as much problem personally, like, feeling my chest get involved, but at the same time, I was very much watching the powerlifting and athletic type lifts to where I was going like on a 1-1-1 explosive tempo to where I wasn't paying attention as much mechanically to what was going on. And so for me to then articulate to my clients, it took some thought and some work on my own to slow down and to really connect to the process.

So one trick that I found that was good to not just set them up properly because that's everything is setting up their shoulder blades and getting them in that position where you know they're retracted, they're open, they can get their chest fully expansive because I was all about like I have to get the bar all the way to my chest like I have to like touch my chest and then go. And so you know just to get to that level for my clients, but do it, you know, gradually, I would have them grab the bar, you know, at a decent width, but then I would have them actually as they squeeze the bar, they're squeezing and kind of pulling outwardly as they're coming down. So that was still like they're trying to separate their hands

on the way. Trying to separate their hands, which helped them to sort of activate, you know, and like in between the shoulder blades, get the rhomboid sort of, you know, and stabilizing and helping the process on the way down. And then now squeeze and kind of push, you know, the hands and the, in towards the middle. So they're not, they're not sliding, but that's the movement that you're, that's the tension. The irony is that, is that, that queue is such a solid queue to help somebody activate their chest that somebody went and made a fucking bar? Yeah, I've seen it. Oh, we're not lighting handlers. Oh, yeah, there's a slide. It slides and that's exactly how they teach on there is to teach that

So that's really funny. I think that what you're point of The the retracting and the pulling down in the shoulders and a bench press is everything to me and that was I Remember when I finally learned that, then the next key was just because I knew it was actually to perform it correctly. Because, okay, now I understand that I have to keep my shoulders retracted and peeled back in order to keep it all in my chest when I bench press.

But then it's really easy to say that. But then the body still goes back to, especially when you're lifting heavy, it just goes, okay, get this weight off of me. And naturally, what ends up happening is we tend to roll forward because that's more advantageous for the body that's been rounded forward for so long. So I began to, and this was before we created, probably this was a long time ago, which is also why when we created prime, I was like, man, this is, to me, the things that we put

in prime are part of this type of stuff, these type of cues and the things that are little hacks that we used. And for me, the bent over row, because you're already at an incline, you're at a flat bench, you're at the bar, but the barbell is right there. And it's just a lightweight. It's 45 pounds for me, so rowing that's nothing. So I peel it off every time I bench, whether it incline or flat. And I start off with like, I do a completely bent over

like at 90 degrees and do a 15 to 20 light rep, you know, get my lats and get my rhomboids peeled back and get a little pump there so I can feel them. So it's easier for me when I go in there because you get a little bit of a pump to actually feel that. It's tough to do that if you go in cold and start pressing when the body again wants to be rounded forward because that's how we are all day.

One thing I used to do with clients a lot too is I would just put them bodies in the position and hold it there while they moved to give them a feel of what it feels like. So someone would lay down the bench press. I'd have them stick out your chest. I'd say, okay, make sure your lower back isn't on the bench, put your hips are on the bench. Then I'd take my hands, I'd put it on their shoulders while they're holding the bar,

and I'd push them down, and I'd push their shoulders down and kind of push it towards their, almost like their back pockets. And I'd hold their shoulders there while they bench press, and it would help them get used to moving with their shoulder stabilized in a retracted position. Once they got the feel for it's one of those things it's like it's once you feel it now you know what to do. It's just getting to feel it is the hard part. That's always the challenge as a trainer is getting someone to feel where you're trying to get them to feel.

Once they feel it they know what to do. That's part of I'd say probably 50%. 100% that's priming. That's priming. That's why I like the you brought up the the chest fly on the incline Huge fan of teaching somebody incline flies to feel it in their chest because the angle that you're at because you're on a 45 degree bench Gravity is going straight down and the cue that you're saying that you want which is retraction and depression of the shoulders, right?

It's it's it's naturally pulling you in that direction. That's, I mean, you're using gravity to help out the queue that you want, which is that retract the shoulders, put them in your back pocket. Well, when you're on an inclined bench, you know, when you queue someone that or you roll them there, it kind of helps

because gravity's already naturally helping keeping them there, much easier to queue that than on a flat bench, where it promotes kind of the rolling forward. So I love to teach somebody who has a hard time fielding in their chest, incline type moves, which would be counterintuitive, I think, as a trained, as a young trainer,

because I would think, well, that's more shoulders are getting involved. Why would I want to teach them and exercise that, you know, kicks in more of the shoulder. Because you're on the incline? Yeah, because you're on incline. Yeah, it's just the easier form for those reasons, right? Because gravity's coming down

and then your cue is to retract and depress the shoulders down. That naturally helps that, whereas a trainer, a young trainer, I would have thought, well, no, my client can't fill in my chest, putting them on incline is not gonna help that. That's gonna make them feel it even more in their shoulders, but that's actually wrong.

It actually helps them if I'm queuing correctly to actually fill it in their chest more. Back was getting people to feel their back muscles. I would have to say is probably one of the more challenging parts of the body, because people don't see those muscles. They can't see them working. Disconnected. Totally disconnected.

It's a very difficult one for people to feel. because people don't see those muscles, so they can't see them working. Disconnected. Totally disconnected. It's a very difficult one for people to feel. And so there's a couple of tricks that I would use to help people be able to connect to their back muscles. One of them, just I would put them on a cable row machine, I'd have them sit up nice and tall, stick out their chest, they grab the cable,

they pull it back and I'd put my hands when my fingers right in between their shoulder blades and just tell them to pinch my shoulder blades. Then when they bring the bar forward, I'd let them, I'd tell them, go ahead and let your shoulders round forward. I'd want them to feel the contrast of the shoulders rounding versus the shoulders pulling back.

And then the other thing that I would do, which really, you know, and this is something again to help someone connect. This isn't how you wanna do your rows or your back exercises. As I would tell people to take a looser grip, a lot of times this real tight full grip just gets people to bicep the hell out of the rows

and their pull downs. Whereas I would have them do this kind of, you know, thumbless hook grip and I'd say, okay, I want you to pull this without trying to squeeze hard or trying to activate your biceps, almost like you're just pulling with your elbows. That's the other one I would use. Pull the weight with your elbows, don't pull it with your hands. And then you would see people,

and it would go super light. I'm talking 5, 10 pounds at the most, just getting them used to pulling with other than their biceps. And then once they start to feel their back connecting, then we could add weight. Yeah, I tried doing similar things like that, but also to just the overall function, like getting the shoulder blade to just retract was everything, so I wouldn't even have them bend. There elbow a lot of times and just work on that one mechanism,

that one movement. It's like a back shrug. Yeah, it's like a back shrug, but I'm trying to, because the tendency was always to bend and pull and tug and get that bicep involved. And then I would take them from there to then trying to prod them obviously

with my fingers like in between there to feel the process as they then, they rode back and then they retracted their shoulder with it. It's funny because the human, your body understands movement, doesn't necessarily understand muscle, so it's something you have to learn. So what I mean by that is if I tell someone to

lift something up over their head or push something in front of the body or pull something or lift something off the ground, they're not thinking what the body doesn't think, what muscles to activate, at least you're not conscious of it. Like I'm not conscious ever when I move of what muscles I'm supposed to be working. It's something that has to be taught.

So if I'm teaching someone to do an exercise, I am teaching movement that's very important. In the proper form, we'll encourage the right kind of muscle activation, but it's also important to learn how to feel what muscles you're trying to work, because you wanna have all that connection. So you have the ability, I remember the great example,

I think you might have brought this up long time ago, was when you're going to lift something up overhead, and you see a lot of times people just raising their heels and then lifting... How often does that happen? Off the heels and not even their arm all the way fully extended. Isn't that funny? Yeah.

It's a trip. Yeah, I remember that when I first put that together because it's a common thing with clients, you'll have someone do an overhead press who's new. Like you don't have to be tested. Yeah, and they just naturally, as they get to fatigue, they start to come up on their toes. And I remember thinking like,

what the hell does the calves have to do? Yeah, what's the scale? And they're not boosting it. It's not like they're using a push press. You just see them kind of want to come up on their toes. And then at dawn on me, what they're telling their body to do is lift something as high as they can.

Right. And because their shoulders are fatigued, their body instinctively lifts it higher by activating their... It's logical. They're calves. Get up on your toes, like putting something on a shelf. So just because they can't straighten my arm out, now I'm going to lift with my, with

my toes to get that, you know, where I want it to go. So that's why it's so important to become aware of the muscles that are being activated, how to utilize them, how to move them properly, how to activate them. And then on top of that, of course, you know, perfect your form. And some certain things like if I'm a trainer and I'm trying to think about what action I'm trying to really produce, a lot of times I'm thinking about to where I'm trying to anchor the body.

So like where I'm trying to make sure that I have leg drive or I have things that are like bracing me and holding me in a better position so that I can be more efficient and more effective with whatever I'm trying to do, even if it's my upper body. So I'm always trying to think of those things, you know, like where I could, like best cue,

even if we're talking about the bench press, like when I started to actually anchor and provide more leg drive within my bench pressing, like I could get so much more out of it. That was a big one. I forgot who it was that I learned that from, but I've always heard that, right? Leg drive, leg drive.

I remember thinking, what do my legs have to do with a bench press? They're on the floor. I'm not lifting anything with my legs. It's my upper body. My entire, it's basically only my upper body that's lifting the barbell. Besides my legs keeping me from rolling off the bench,

which I'm fine with doing. What is it with this like activate and push through your legs? And then I had a, I don't remember what it was. It was either something I saw on YouTube or somebody talked to me and they said, you know, if you try and squeeze something as hard as you can with your right hand, but keep your entire body relaxed, you're not gonna squeeze as hard

as if you squeeze with your whole body. And that's true. Everybody knows that. If you try and crush something as hard as you can with one hand, you will instinctively tense up your face and tense up your other hand in your legs because the CNS actually outputs more power that way. And so when you're lifting a weight, you know, learning how to connect to the muscles you're trying to work with is one thing. But then when you're trying to work with is one thing, but then when you're trying to move weight, it's important to turn yourself on. Turn things on.

With your feet, how often your feet off when you squat. They used to be off when I used to squat. Now I know, feet need to be turned on. I even wiggle my toes and my shoes before, if I'm squatting barefoot, I kind of grip the floor before I even get into it. So you can make that connection to the ground. Here's a great cue for pushups. I learned this one a long time ago.

You get, sometimes you'll get people who say they can't do pushups because it hurts their wrists. Tell them to grip the floor. Yeah, like push outward. Yeah, just like they're trying to grab the floor. And for a lot of people, they don't feel pain in their wrist. That's the other thing too, is like learning the cues, I think it's just, it's also learning what the common issues

or common mistakes that you see. And there's always going to be the exception, there's always going to be somebody who's listening who's like, oh, that's a terrible cue. I don't need that. It's okay, great for you. You're the 1%. Then there's everybody else.

And talking about back, you know, I love giving the controversial stuff. So I'm going to try and do that on all these that we talk about today and the stuff that I got the most shit for, but I also know helped out the most people. And I cue that academia loves to come after me when I talk about this is stick the butt out. And it's just when you think of the ugliest deadlift, the ugliest been over row, the ugliest single dumbbell row, if I asked you guys to envision what that looks like, 99% of them have this lower rounded back. It's like, you can just picture that guy or girl rowing some dumbbell and they have their their their back is completely rounded and their and their point or bending over to do a row and they're completely

Rounder point when you think of the dead lifting you know ugly the ugliest deadlift the ugliest row and the ugliest single dumbbell row They all have the same thing in common And protracted yeah, and they and they've rolled and rounded the the show and the low tail bonus talk Yes, and the tailbone tucks under like a dog trying to take a shit. And so the queue is to stick stick the butt out. So before before my client hinges at the hip, it to go into a deadlift or hinges at the hip to go into a bit over row or hinges at the hip to go into a single dumbbell row, IQ stick your ass out.

So I'll go stick your ass out first. So they kind of exaggerate that, like where they put their butt out, and then I say bend over. And what that does is it automatically starts to support that lower back and it keeps them into this nice level. But it's not just low back support. It's also allowing for a full contraction of some of the muscles of the back, including the lats.

So think of it this way, okay? When you look at the lats, they span over much of the back and they kind of cover part of the rib cage. When your back is rounded, that muscle can only contract so much because it has to spread out over the rib cage. When you arch the low back a little bit and pull the shoulder blade back. Now we're allowing for a full contraction of the lat. So you can't really get a full squeeze of the lat without some of that arch

and the low back without some of that butt sticking out. So people with the rounded back trying to work their lap. Yeah, they're still working the lap, but it's not nearly to the full range of motion that it's capable of. And you just don't feel it as much. Now the reason why they have, you'll have problems sometimes with sticking the butt out is that we have people with really strong arches. In which case, I'll tell people,

hey, if you feel any shearing in your low back, if you feel any pinching your low back, all you gotta do, here's a great cue. One of my favorite cues, brace your midsection and people will be like, well, what does that mean? I'll be like, pretend like I'm gonna poke you in the stomach and I'll go pretend like I'm gonna poke them in the head.

Like that's it. Soon as you brace your core, the low back, shearing or whatever, it goes away. And that's, by the way, one of my favorite ways to cue someone to tighten their core. You tell people to tighten the core and they have no idea what you're talking about. Literally go to poke them in the stomach and it just automatically, it and they have no idea what you're talking about. Literally go to Pokemon stomach and it just automatically

will stop me. That's all you have to do. Oh, that's what you mean. Yeah, that's what you mean by pricing. It looks to feedback. That's a big one. One for me that for overhead pressing, I tend to try and separate from using the barbell

and using sort of a bilateral press where I'm working more on unilateral. So, one arm at a time? One arm at a time and really just trying to work with the natural pathway that if I'm lifting overhead, my body's natural tendency is to want to rotate, you know, at the wrist, at the elbow, and then into the shoulder. And I feel like that, this is something I took from Mike Boyle and the way that he actually, like, starts somebody out is with a rubber band.

And so you step on the rubber band and I'm trying to create this vertical pathway to get to. And so as I'm pressing, so if I start right next to my chest and I'm pressing straight up, it has to be as vertical as possible. So I have to naturally start rotating into the band and then my elbow extends all the way to the top and then I keep it right next to my ear. So what's your cue for a client?

Just keep it as straight as possible. It's straight and vertical as possible. So then your body will just naturally rotate in towards the band and then you get that full external rotation. And then on the other side of it, I cue like making a fist as you retracted the shoulders in your good posture. I'm going to squeeze that fist as I'm pressing.

So now that's anchoring my other shoulder and I'm keeping in good position. So you're squeezing the fist of the hand that's not lifting. Yeah. Oh, I like that. And then that naturally just takes care of the whole. I like that because you're automatically activating the other side, whereas some people might want to keep that side relaxed, which is probably not a good idea. Yeah, that was a game changer for me with the shoulders because I,

when I learned how to do an overhead press as a kid, the way bodybuilders did him in the magazines, or at least the way it looked like it was dropping at 90 degrees, looking up at the bar. The elbows were always at your side. I did that forever, finally. And I'm gonna tell you something with the shoulder mechanics. Now, you can have really good shoulder mobility and you can get away with it if you're stable and all that. But for most people, if you're gonna come all the way down

with a barbell, the natural position for the elbows under the hands and more towards the front of the body, not way out to the sides. You bring them way out to the sides and what you're asking for is this, you know, in technical terms, this external rotation of the arm, which is kind of setting you up for a problem. I hate that way for shoulder pressing and did it myself for 10 years for sure of my lifting career. And what I hate is that there's still this thought behind it that it's a better time and attention

and it's better for developing the shoulders and the guys that are, and my shoulders look better when I was taking them through full range of motion. Always, of course. But I had to go wait, I had to humble myself and go a lot, a lot higher weight because with you have been training that way, like I had been for a long time,

I could, I could bodybuilder shoulder press 225 over my head, no problem. But taking that all the way down, the bar down to my chest and lifting it all the way up, full extension over my head, shit, I couldn't do no 225. I was lucky, I think to get up to like 185. A lot more distance to cover.

Oh yeah. In fact, I teach, when I teach clients how to do an overhead press, I either a, have them hold the dumbbell with a neutral grip, that's where the palm faces in, or I teach them how to do the rotating Arnold press with the dumbbell. I never teach them with the dumbbell, their hands facing forward.

If we're gonna do hands facing forward, it's a barbell, and then I'm teaching them more with mechanics. But it's typically neutral or Arnold type, you know, rotating with the hand, because that's the full range of motion. Right. And you can get that nice tight fist position, so it protects your wrist too, which is another thing you'll notice, like, is people break at the wrist. Like, that's going to put tension there on the wrist.

And yeah, for me too, and the lower back is definitely exposed whenever you're lifting anything over head. And so this is where, like that's the first thing I'm checking to make sure, as you're lifting, you're not like disconnecting from that process of where now my body, just you wanna extend at the lower back just to be able to get that last you know

Inter-2 and so you just really have to that stay focused. That's why the cue the cue for me when I think of like geese in your game game changer cues for the overhead press were the the squeezing the glutes and pulling the head through the window. Yeah that was game changer for me it was a game changer for anybody I've ever taught an overhead window. Yeah. That was a game changer for me. It was a game changer for anybody I've ever taught an overhead press. Yeah, and pulling the head through the window for the people listening who don't aren't familiar with that. That's literally, you have a barbell up above your head.

It is directly up above your head. Your head, you have pushed through that with your head and the arms are straight up next to your head. You're not in this kind of leaned back, looking up at the barbell where it's in front of your body Which you see a lot of you shouldn't be able to see the bar No, it's it's straight up above your head with your head going with they say through the window break you No, it's it was a game changer for me because I again fell into that camp too

Even when I started to push full range of motion I would I'd still want to look up you and And if you're, again, pushing from that rounded shoulder forward position, the bar is like up and in front of you a little bit versus up straight up above your head and you're on, I'm looking for, I want my ears to be in line with my arms. So the window is your arms, right? Your arms connected to the, to the barbell

makes a frame of a window. And so you press up and then you want to pull your head through the frame. And while you're queuing that, you're also queuing to squeeze the butt. So that's what's going to support the low back, like Justin's saying. So keeping my butt squeezed, he's going to help support

the low back. And then me pulling the head to the window is then going to retract my shoulders back and then put me in that nice position. The difference between the less effective, like I could say, old-schoolbuilder way of doing the overhead press and the proper way of doing it really is this. When the old bodybuilder way of doing it,

you know, use a lot of weight and don't fully lock out, weights almost in front of you a little bit. In fact, I've seen bodybuilders slide their hips forward and they're actually hitting chests along with their shoulders. So it actually looks like a really high incline when you watch them do a press. Now, when overhead press, a real overhead press that's going to yield you the best benefits actually uses more mid back than it does chest because the weight is up straight up above your head

and that requires your mid back to stabilize and pull the shoulder blades back. And I noticed that the first time I did that, it's first time I started working out that way, I was like, well, this is more shoulders and mid back than it was the way I was doing it before, which was more front-down and almost upper, upper chest. And as far as function is concerned, you want to be able to get that full range of motion. So the head through the window was just an absolute game changer. The other one was with laterals that I used to teach people. This one I actually learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger. So when I read the Encyclopedia Body Building, what you guys got to see, how great was that?

It's in the chop-up. Yeah, that was a great book. In that book Arnold talks about when he does laterals that he pretends like he has two jugs of milk in his hands and he dumps him out. And he's trying to pour them out at the top. And so what ends up happening is your pinky rises a little bit higher than your thumbs. Now, why is that important?

Why is that an important cue with a lateral? It's not because the hand really has anything to do with the shoulders, not rotating, or it's not rotating your wrist. But when you do lift with the pinky, it tends to get you to keep your elbows up in line with your hands. Because one of the big mistakes that people make when they do a lateral is they lift the weight up and the hands are higher than the elbows and they do this kind of external rotation with their arm. It looks almost like a high row or something like that. So you want to pull up with the pinkies and when you do that and've got to go lighter when you do that, you will feel it more.

And this is another one of those cues that you can get. You can go back and forth with academia. Oh, yeah, they don't like that because that rotation doesn't it? But if you want to feel the side deltoids, that's the way to do it. Yeah, that's why I like that one too. I like that one because it pisses everybody off. It pisses everybody off. Of course, yeah, that one's so great.

Well, between that and what you've shown the world with Plancks and how we get in the proper position to really enhance the app involvement within, you know, Plancks. Ever since that, by the way, people teach Plancks now. You see it all over the place. Yeah. It was the first active place. Our first, you know, quote unquote viral video that we did on YouTube when we put that out there I love that video that was a game changer for me also I mean, I know we're talking about shoulder stuff

But you know since you transition there just in that that understanding like when you even as a trainer I remember teaching a plank and being like oh this is important for your core like okay And that's what you say and then you just have clients do it and then when you'd walk around and you see trainers doing with clients Like all these planks look like shit. You know? It turns into things like what ends up is people. I'm a little bit better. And endurance.

Yeah, exactly endurance. People just want to see, oh, I can hold a plank for one minute, oh, three minutes, oh, I can hold it for five minutes. And it's just like they start getting focused on how long they can hold their body in that position. Not what exactly are they doing while they're in that position. And most people are putting all the stress

on the low back or your shoulders. And so the cue of the tucking the tailbone, which looks weird for most people that you've seen do planks and you're kind of exaggerating the opposite. It reminds me of my cue of stick to butt out. It's the opposite of that. Yeah, it's the opposite of that, right? But you're exaggerating a movement so much

because you know that that's going to help 90% of the people that have ever done this plank. That's how I feel about the back exercises. Sure, there's gonna be that one girl who has that excessive arch in her low back that's so excessive that you don't wanna teach her to stick her butt out more because she's gonna feel shearing in her low back,

but she's the one percent. The rest of the population kind of tucks their tailbone. And then the opposite is true in a plank. And a plank, what ends up happening is because they have weak abdominal and oblique muscles of their core, is their hip flexors end up pulling on their low back, low back shortens and tightens.

And they're supporting themselves with their so-as muscles and their low back, and their core is in this lengthened, partial stabilized position, and they hold it for a long time, and it's like, okay, no, no, let's tuck the tailbone, squeeze the abs, and before we know it, they can barely do it for 20 seconds.

Because they're hating the muscles, and activating the muscles that they need to work. Oh no, the plank can be a very good core exercise if done properly. That's what brought me to do active planks, because I would see people do this and I'm like, you know, you can actually turn this from a stabilizing exercise to a... Do you have your reps? Yeah, like a reps. And the way you do it is, you know, you keep your upper body up, you let the hips drop

which will naturally arch the back, and then you pull your body up off the floor again, you tuck them again. And so what you're literally doing is reps with your abs with this active plank. And that, by the way, is one of the single most effective ab exercises. If you do it right, it's actually very difficult.

You're looking at maybe 10 reps if you're really, really strong. So it's a very effective one. But that's the big one with the abs is I think people when they're working their abs, they don't realize the function of the abs where the full function of the abdominals is to bring the rib cage closer to the pelvis. It's to round the lower back. That's when it's squeezing. It's not to fold the body forward. Folding the body forward can involve the hips. The abs don't do that at the hips.

And so when you see people do things like leg raises or sit-ups, what they're doing is they're just bending at the hips and it's a lot of distinctive difference. And that's something too that's tough to, like so when you're trying to teach a hip hinging type of a movement, like that's tough to, so when you're trying to teach a hip-hinging type of a movement, that's something that you want to then help to provide feedback. And so for me, I've used tools, and this is one of those where I'm like, I love having a stick for being able to teach people how to hip-hinge properly,

just to be able to see if they can then try to actively press their lower back into the stick as then now you karate chop, which I think, let me mind it, Tommy, that one. You chop them in the hips. Chop at the hips, and so their hips actually are pushing back, but you're keeping it and maintaining contact with your lower back on that stick, and then the other points with the nodule of your head and then between your back. But yeah, to get them to then fold, fold, but keep that tall chest as they're folding down

is something that takes work. So either it's the horizontally, I could place the stick across their shoulder blades and have them hold that way to keep a nice open chest or vertically down their spine so that way. And now it's all about the lower back feedback. Yeah, and that's for the hip-hinging,

which is what you don't wanna do when you're working your abs. You don't wanna do it. It's the opposite. It's the opposite of that. But they're both important things to understand because why is a hip-hinge so important? Well, if I'm doing any bent over rowing movements,

I need to know what a hip-hinge. If I'm doing a deadlift or if I'm doing a stiff leg, a deadlift, that's how I learned how to hip hinge. I learned how to first hip hinge with a stiff leg, a dead lift, because I would see Romanian deadlifts in the magazines, and I'd be like, I don't feel this in my hamstrings at all. I feel this on my lower back. And then one of the people working out the gym with me, so years ago, goes, oh, as you bend over, stick your butt out. And all of a sudden I was like, boom, right in the hamstrings. I was like, oh, there's a difference.

Like it's not just bending forward. It's where I bend. That's why I like that cue so much and I can't stand when I get into it with guys about that. Cause it's like, you've trained enough people that cue helps more people than it hurts. And I know there's this exception that rule that if you're right, if you have someone who's excessively arcing that you will feel that.

But that's right. If you feel shearing there, you're not that person. You're that one percent that already has it excessively arches, but everybody else tends to run when they bend. It's just natural. You tell someone to bend over and we tend to just run. If you right now just had, you threw something through a quarter on the ground

So pick it up. Nobody slides their hips out. You know, nobody hinges at the hip and they're been however their body Yeah, they just round over so what makes us think it's any different just because it's a hundred something pounds It's on a bar below. You tell someone to do that. That's their natural. Yeah, I want to I want to like with a Romanian deadlift for me because you you want to keep like a soft knee, like a bent knee, but it's a fixed. It's fixed. So that whole fixed mentality of keeping, so my knee is literally going to stay right there. Wow, the rest of my body moves around it. So I'm trying to like move my hips in a certain angle, so I can perform the movement, but

my knees never travel forward. They never travel, you They never travel back. It's right there in my, that natural bend is where the hip goes is where the bend happens. So that's a really good point and cue that reminds me of all the clients that I've trained doing any sort of a deadlift or a row. I would get them in that position.

They'd be standing upright. I would kneel down right next to them. I'd put my hand where I want their knees to go, and then I'd be like, bend it, bend it your knee, just a soft bend in the knee. Don't let your... Keep it there. Yeah, and I give my hand there so I can get the feedback if keep it fixed there, so it should move, and then it's to stick the butt out, now bend over. And then you tell someone that, and they tend to fold over in a nice, neutral spine,

right, where you want them to be. It's funny, because you start to take this for granted when you're working with people and you understand your body, you know, how to move, just how disconnected people can be from their muscles. And I got reminded of that, it's been maybe two years or three years now when we first met Dr. Brink.

And he broke us down and really where he blew our mind was with our feet because this was an area that really none of us had ever considered before. All the muscles and strength and musculature of the foot and how disconnected we are from our foot and how important that is for stabilization. I remember Dr. Brink showing me a movement called short foot. Now short foot is when your foot is on the floor flat

and you're literally shortening your foot by flexing the muscles that make up the kind of in the arch of your foot. Now it's not curling your toes forward, so you're not like rounding your foot or whatever, like you're trying to grab something. It's literally flexing the muscles in the arch of the foot to shorten the foot.

Now I remember him telling me to do this and I'm sitting there and I'm like, I have literally no idea. It's like your cat stretch but shorten the foot. Now, I remember him telling me to do this, and I'm sitting there and I'm like, I have literally no idea what you're talking about. You're talking about stretch, but for your foot. Yeah, I'm like, I have no idea what you're doing. I can't do it. And he's like, no, no, no, flex this muscle. I can't do it.

He shows me with his foot. And I'm like, wow, that's possible. How's that possible? I can't do that. I can't do that. It's like I had no connection to it. Which is a good example of what happens to a lot of people and a lot of other Muslims.

Everything. I remember when I did that, I was like, God, this is what people feel. When I'm trying to teach them how to activate their glutes or their lats or their chest or whatever, they just have no connection. And so this is where that whole mind and muscle connection becomes so important.

Practicing your form and technique is also equally important. All this stuff is important, but these cues make such a big difference. So the cue that he gave me with that was he said, pull your toes up a little bit and try and grab something with the middle of your foot. And marble. Like a marble.

Oh, I think that's where it is. But it was so frustrating to me. I literally practiced every day with my shoes on. I would just, I still do it to this day. Did you ever get it? I could do it. I can still do it. I can do it a little bit,

but I've practiced daily ever since then, because it was such a terrible connection. You know I'm terrible there. Yeah. But anyway, I mean, these are important cues that I think people, are there any other you guys think of? I knew one for bicep.

Here's a good one for bicep. What you normally think to yourself, like that people need a special cue for bicep, just curl the weight. But one thing that a lot of people do is they curl their wrist when they're curling a weight because again they're thinking bring the weight up. And so what I would tell sometimes is that people, as I tell people to cock their wrist back a little bit. So just pull your wrist back, just the tag, keep it there. Now curl the weight. Yeah, lead with your palms. Yeah, lead with the heel of your hand almost. Yeah, yeah.

And boom, they would feel it in their bicep. Just cock it. Yeah. I learned that one from Arnold. I, the bicep one is one that, again, I'm going to keep throwing all the controversial ones, because those are my favorites. I talk to the ones that everyone gets mad about. We know the action of the bicep.

We know that the front of the shoulder is involved in full the action of the bicep. We know that the front of the shoulder is involved in full flexion of the bicep. But what happens with the average person that does bicep curls because we are all in this forward shoulder position, we already are taking over the movement with our shoulders more than we should be. So queuing somebody to retract the shoulders and keep the shoulder blades peeled back, and then I used to cue the elbows by your side.

And I used to tell people, okay, now that your shoulders are peeled back, your elbows are down by your side. Pretend as if you had a rod that goes through your elbows, through your midsection, and through the other, the elbow on the other side. And you can't leave from that rod. So it keeps you in that position and then get you to do your full bicep curl. And what that does is it keeps them from rolling the shoulder forward to get the dumbbell up even higher, which I love teaching this Q just because I know it pisses off.

Everybody that really understands the mechanics of the bicep and know that the shoulder does play some more some of the function But the problem with that is most people you don't need to work on that with beginners, right? Yeah, that's gonna happen right and and then that's always my response is like listen, dude This isn't for you if you're somebody that understands the function of the bicep that well that you can debate me over this Go ahead and roll your shoulders a little bit in your bicep curl and you're probably going to be fine. But the 90 something percent of the people that I've had to coach and teach how to do with bicep curl can't even curl it without their elbow swinging back and forth

and their shoulders rolling completely forward and many, many times they feel more of it in their shoulders than they even do in their bicep. It's the biggest thing, yeah, you're trying to address with beginners is the swinging of the arms forward, which you see all the time. That's very complicated.

Because it's natural. Again, going to its sounds point about how the body just naturally kind of lifts up on its toes when you try to read something over its head. Well, when you curl something in the bottom. Curling your wrist, you're curling your shoulders. Yeah, everything closes in and rounds forward. And so what happens, the shoulders take over,

the forearms and the wrist take over, and then they feel like that. I don't feel it in the bicep very much. So if it hurts my shoulder, right, it hurts my wrist. So by placing, placing my client into this very strict position where I retract the shoulders, I keep the elbows pinned by the side, and then tell them to come all the way up, they feel that. Here's another good one. Curl with your pinky with the bicep exercise. Right. You know, the bicep,, doesn't just lead with the pinky. Yeah, it doesn't just flex the elbow. It also twists the hand.

So, and this works with a barbell too, by the way. If you have a barbell, pretend like you're putting more pressure on the pinky side of your hand as you're curling. And if it, now for some people this may bother your wrist, but if you feel fine, try this, and watch the squeeze you get in the biceps because you're creating more tension

in the biceps to do more of its functions, one of which is twisting and supinating the hand. What about squatting or doing a squatting type motion? Do you guys have any cues? Because one of my favorite ones for clients used to be, I would train a lot of people in older age, and my goal was always to get them to be able to do a barbell squat, but in 9 out of 10 of them, actually 10 out of 10 of them wouldn't be able to do it right out the gates. And so I would have

them do lunges as the first exercise, but one of my favorite ways to do that is I'd have them hold onto a bar, a stationary bar, so if I had a Smith machine nearby or a barbell like a put in a rack, I would have them hold that with their right hand, stand sideways to it. Then they would step forward with the right leg. So same hand forward, some leg forward. And I placed their left foot back and put them in a stationary lunge beginning position.

So now they have a split stance, but they're holding onto something for balance because a lot of them will have poor balance in this position. And then what I'll tell them to do is I'll put a pad, a thick pad underneath where their left knee would go down and it'd say, Neil, that's it. I'd say, hold on the bar and Neil with control.

They're Neil and they'd say, now stand up. And it would just put them in the proper lunge position. As I got stronger with that, then it was easier for me to progress them to the other squat positions. Well, I like that's why I like the kneeling to a standup because they're already, when you have their knees down on the ground and then you tell them to swing their hips up and then just get up, it kind of does that same thing. It puts them in that position.

But I also like that for many years, I used the single leg standup off of a bench for like helping somebody properly hip hinge. So when they're balancing on one leg, it's already hard, right? So if you got a client, and I could do this with all ages. So if it's somebody who's much older and weaker, I allow them to kind of hold my hands.

And so I'll stand in front of them and they're holding onto my hands. And then I tell them to balance on one leg. So they're balancing on one leg. And then I tell them to sit down. And it's funny when you're having to balance and then you tell him to sit down. And it's funny when you're having to balance, and then you tell someone to sit down, that the body does tend to wanna go into

what will keep the weight evenly distributed at which also creates good mechanics. This is also why I like it. They're more like people. They're more like people. They're more like people. They're more like people. They're more like people.

They're more like people. They're more like people. They're more like people. They're more like people. They're more like people. They're more like people. They're more like people. They're more like people. They're more like people. he naturally has to fold a little bit yet to keep them balance. Stay balanced. He's behind them. Stay balanced. They have to let the chest equally come forward as the hips slide back and it actually kind of throws them into this nice, which is the hardest thing to teach and the squad is really to get that balance and that simultaneous sort of bend of the knee and sliding back

of the hipstrap at the same time. And then it also teaches them to cue the butt when they get up because they're in this deep 90 degree position off of a bench and I'm standing there and I'm holding their hands and I say, okay, now get up out of this and they naturally drive off their heel and their butt. And what I like about that too is, you know, on the way up to you can cue like not using momentum. So like, yes, so that's that half the battle of that is for them.

They want to really excessively lean forward and swing their arms and, you know, pull themselves up. But to be able to just stand up, they have to engage, you know, their glutes and really drive that heel into the ground. Yeah. That's a good one. And then just regular box squats, no barbell, nothing. In fact, I would, I would very rarely put a barbell on someone's back when they did box

squats first time. Yeah. I would have them either reach forward with their hands like they're a zombie. I tell them, I reach forward with the hands like you're a zombie and I put a box or a bench behind them. And then I tell them to sit down softly. So in other words, don't just sit down and plop down, but sit down and barely sit down and then fully sit down. And then while maintaining your hands forward, stand up. And it teaches people to squat, it teaches them to kind of throw their hips back. So that's a good point you just made right now because it reminds me if I had to fix something or cue something else when I was teaching the single leg squat is the habit that people

have either you're doing this movement is when they go to sit down, they'll just plop down and they're core will collapse and they round forward. So I, I would cue them to keep the chest up high and the abs tight and don't let your, don't fold over. So don't fold over, sit down slowly. As you sit down, keep the abs tight and sitting up tall and straight, don't relax the core and fall over. And so you teach them to do that. It's just so important to communicate to people that they're learning new things. They're learning new ways of moving. They have to create new neural pathways.

They're learning a new skill. Now, why is this important? It's important because most people don't think of exercise as a new skill. They think of it as a way to get sore and sweat. They think of a workout as that. Versus, if I'm teaching you how to roller blade, the sweating aspect of it is a side effect.

You're thinking of the skill. Like, okay, teach me how to roller blade, teach me how to balance, teach me how to stop, teach me how to speed up. It's no different when you're exercising. And so all of these cues, all of these things that we're talking about, if you're a trainer, they work great for your clients,

but if you're not a trainer, they work great for yourself. And remember that you're learning, you're learning a new skill and practice the skill as such, as it's because it's a skill. And you'll end up making better decisions. It will direct you in a more appropriate way with your workouts versus the mentality where I'm going to the gym and it's a means to an end.

Like I'm doing all these movements, but really the goal is just to sweat and feel sore. And when you do that, then you're right. You take the mentality that it doesn't matter that your form and technique don't make a big difference because it's just the means to an A brush through it and then there's certain parts of the exercise that are you know Are like we call it the intent of the exercise like it gets lost because it just becomes about how can I get through this and I got to make

You know like I get I got to do a certain amount of reps and And you lose a lot of what the value, the true value of your exercise. You are learning how to work out every single time. I'm gonna care how advanced you are. You're always perfecting the skill of working out. Part of that is feeling what you need to feel. Part of that is perfecting your form

and your biomechanics. And the side effect of that is the workout. It's a different mentality, but just like we talked about at the beginning of the episode, how you perceive things makes a massive difference. If you perceive your workouts as just a means to an end to sweat and get sore, you're gonna go down a path that probably is gonna lead you

more towards failure, injury, just not good results. If you go into it with the mentality of perfecting the skill of it, you're much more likely to have success doing it. And with that look, if you go to MindPumpFree.com, you can download any one of our guides for free. We have guides on everything from how to squat better to developing more muscular or more sculpted arms, working your midsection, had to lose body fat. We have a guide there for personal trainers.

If you want to be a successful personal trainer, there's a good section in our personal trainer guide on how to sell more personal training. It's a very important part of being a successful trainer. All those guides and more can be found at mindpumpfri.com. 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 Superbumble at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps and a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic.

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