Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Justin Andrews on Quick and Easy Ways to Improve Whole-Body Mobility

Episode Date: July 3, 2019

If you’re an experienced weightlifter, chances are good you experience the occasional aches, pains, and tightness that sometimes get in the way of your training. Maybe a shoulder is tight, which limits your benching, or your hips are stiff, which restricts your deadlifting, or your ankles aren’t flexible enough, which prevents you from achieving proper depth in your squatting. What can you do to overcome and prevent such issues? That’s what Justin Andrews of Mind Pump Media came on the show to talk about. Before he was a podcast star, Justin spent many years as a trainer and helped thousands of people identify and resolve various movement issues and thereby improve their training performance and results. In this podcast, Justin goes over common exercise movement mistakes, how one injury or mobility issue can lead to another in non-obvious ways, how to screen for movement limitations, simple stretches for improving mobility, and more. 6:32 - What do you mean by movement aesthetics and why is it good? 10:46 - What are the common mistakes that you’ve seen in the gym? 31:08 - How do the tests look and how can people assess themselves? 35:11 - What are some of your favorite corrective exercises for shoulders? 47:23 - What’s new and exciting for Mindpump? Mentioned on The Show: Mindpump's Website: https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/ Mindpump's Live Events: https://www.mindpumplive.com/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, this is Mike and welcome, welcome to the Muscleful Life podcast. Now, if you like what I am doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please consider supporting my supplement company, Legion Athletics, which produces 100% natural evidence-based health and fitness supplements that include protein powders and protein bars, pre-workout and post-workout drinks, fat burners, multivitamin, joint support, and more. And now is a great opportunity to support my cause because you can also save a bunch of money. Legion is currently having its big 4th of July sale and that means that everything in the store is up to 25% off and ships free. So head over to www.legionathletics.com and use the code July4 at checkout and you'll immediately save 15%

on your entire order. And if you buy four supplements or more, you will save an additional 10% as well for a total savings of 25%. Again, if you appreciate my work and if you want to see more of it, please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love like producing podcasts like this. All right, let's get to the podcast. Now, if you are an experienced weightlifter, if you've put in quite a bit of time in the gym, chances are good that you experience the occasional aches, pains, and tightnesses that sometimes get in the way of your training. You know, maybe a shoulder is tight. I'm running into that because I'm getting back into golf and it really kind of jacks up. I'm right-handed. And so in golf, your right arm to

swing properly, it needs to externally rotate and then quickly internally rotate. And that kind of whiplash motion puts a lot of stress on the rotator cuff muscles. And so I haven't experienced that. My shoulder has not experienced that in a while and so now i'm getting a little bit the biceps tendonitis that i had probably from golf actually that i had years ago and at least now i know what to do and how to work through it and which muscles specifically to not only stretch but just kind of mash with a foam roller and a ball to get rid of it. But my point is it gets in the way. It gets in the way of benching and overhead pressing. For example, I'm having to close grip bench right now just to give my shoulder a break, lighten the load and up

the reps. But I think a few more weeks of just getting back into the groove, getting the muscles used to this motion again, and then working through the sticky tissues that cause the issues and I should be back to normal. Anyway, you can also have, let's say, stiff hips and that can restrict your deadlifting and your squatting. I've been there as well. I've had, for example, SI joint, just discomfort and immobility, a lack of internal rotation, specifically on my left side, which I had to, it took a couple months of stretching, probably five to 10 minutes a day, getting into that internally rotated position on my left side before I really started to notice it improving. You can also lack ankle flexibility.

That's pretty common actually, and that can get in the way of achieving proper depth in your squatting. Many people who really struggle to get into that bottom position in the squat, it's often, they think it's their hamstrings, and it can be, but I would say more often, it is a lack of ankle flexibility that

causes that. And so what can you do to overcome and prevent such issues? Well, that's what Justin Andrews of Mind Pump Media, the popular podcast, Mind Pump Media is their company because they also produce YouTube content and I think some written content as well. But the Mind Pump guys are best known for their podcast, which is called Mind Pump, one of the top fitness podcasts out there, if not the top actually. Anyway, Justin is one of the co-hosts of that podcast and he came on my show to talk about improving mobility and movement aesthetics, as he likes to call it. And before he was a podcast star, Justin spent many years as a trainer and helped thousands of people identify and resolve various movement issues and thereby improve their training performance and results. And so that's what

today's discussion is all about. In this podcast, Justin goes over the most common movement mistakes that people make in the gym and especially with weightlifting. He also talks about how one injury or mobility issue can lead to another and often often in counterintuitive ways, if you don't really understand the biomechanics and anatomy that's in play, which many people don't because it's just kind of a technical subject that your average gym goer doesn't get into. Justin also talks about how to identify your own movement limitations. And he shares some stretches, some simple stretches that you can do for improving those issues. And we all have issues. If you do a simple screening and Justin talks about this, you will find some things where you're like, well, that could be better.

That could be better. And if you improve those things, you will see benefits in your training. Let's get to the show. Justin, we've done it. Yeah, I know. We failed the last time, but hey. I flaked. You're going to have to give me shit about that, Mike. Somehow, you got to get me back for that. I made sure I got up early, like two hours ahead of time. There was rain. There was all that stuff, but I made it. So I'm here. I like it. Whatever it takes, no excuses, no days off, hashtag crush it. All the way here to your podcast. Oh, I like it. All right. So today we were just kind of, we were talking about just before we started recording, you were going into, I thought would be a perfect intro to what today's discussions

would be about. And so you were talking about movement aesthetics, I guess is a way to put it. What do you mean by that? And why is it good? I didn't coin this term. This was a term I actually heard from a couple different strength conditioning coaches. And it actually, it resonated with me because it sort of better defines my interests in health and fitness and pursuits that I've had personally being more on the performance end of training and different than say Sal and Adam and some of my other friends who were more interested in the bodybuilding side in the aesthetic side of training and but don't get me wrong I'm definitely a fan of Arnold and all the Predator movies and Conan and the Hulk looking

aesthetic like that's something that I was like I was always like wow that is impressive that's something that I was like, I was always like, wow, that is impressive. That's impressive to get to that level. However, like for me personally, I've just been more interested in the mechanical process of biomechanics in seeing how healthy patterns produce a lot better results on the field and then also like generate way more power. field and then also generate way more power. And that's a totally different process when you're in the gym and you're training and you're trying to improve your entire process of better movement and better recruitment. So movement aesthetics for me, it makes sense. So if you think of a visual for that being gymnastics, for instance, that's going to be the epitome of movement aesthetics. And every part of that process takes an insane amount of discipline. So from the start of the movement to the end of the movement, decelerating, landing, to the explosive process of being able to get their body up in the air and do flips and find where they are in space and land appropriately on a narrow beam. There's just so much going on there. And it's that whole kinetic

process that they've mastered. And so for me to take elements of that and really hone in on the process of being able to improve the quality, the grade of the movement was definitely an interest of mine. And I saw immediately how that applied to whatever sport I was pursuing and how specialized that process was going into each individual sport. So I think for me that a lot of people don't consider movement aesthetics as something that is an actual goal of your average person that goes into the gym. And why does that even matter when you're there just to get shredded, get lean, look better? Well, it also translates into actual aesthetics. So if you're training your body to move better and function better, you're going to be developing muscles that have balance. It has symmetry. It has

all those things that you want to portray on stage as well. And it actually has that healthy look to it, but also it moves, it functions the way it's supposed to. So you're expressing your joints in all different directions. You're going through that process of really understanding your body at a whole nother level where it communicates. You've built these recruitment patterns where now you're in communication with your muscles at a higher level. So you can call upon more force production. You can drive more energy into certain movements to get more explosive with them. So for me, that's always been something exciting to me. I can improve this process further and a big driving force that I tried to infuse into my clients and to be able to prevent pain and to be able to prevent

a lot of issues down the road that we compensate for every day. What are some of the common mistakes that you see people making in the gym? Let's just say everyday people who want to get in shape. A lot of people listening to me are going to be spending a lot of their time on compound exercises, a minority of their time on, you could say, accessory work, right? So squatting, deadlifting, overhead pressing, bench pressing, your kind of standard strength routine with some kind of bodybuilding stuff thrown in. And what are some of the common mistakes that you've seen over the years where people have used, I guess you'd say poor, you could say recruitment patterns,

or are we just talking about technique here? I mean, you could say both. One thing is the sequence of how we move. I mean, that whole process is part of the recruitment process. And so there's a way that we've established and we've sort of hardwired picking something up. And so sometimes if we haven't addressed that in a mechanically sound way to begin with, we're going to be fighting against that, that hardwired system that we have in place. hardwired system that we have in place. So a couple of things though, in terms of like the bodybuilder style training and hypertrophy focus, a lot of times, like I've seen within those programs, the biggest deficiency is the lack of rotation, the lack of the transverse plane being represented within that training modality. And this is something that I was passionate about while we were developing our MAPS programs, because I know personally that when I trained clients who would come into the gym, just an everyday average person who just wanted to get strong and lean and build and develop muscles, like most programs are just in focused on the sagittal plane. So I'm doing these compound exercises like you're

mentioning, I'm doing accessory work, but everything is basically right in front of me or right behind me. And my body isn't moving side to side. Very often, I'm not rotating, I'm not twisting and expressing my joints the way that I could say with a press. And so you see elements of that with like an Arnold press where, you know, I could say with a press. And so you see elements of that with like an Arnold press where I could do like a shoulder press, but now I can add elements of rotation with that to get the rotator cuff involved in to express this rotation that we're very capable of doing. So the body's really smart. I mean, it adapts to what we present it. To neglect rotation, it adapts to what we present it. To neglect rotation, a lot of these programs is detrimental long-term because now the body's going to start pruning in a sense. If you don't use it, you lose

it. I mean, and that's one of those old adages that does apply. So you see problems down the road where if I haven't been expressing rotation, my shoulder, it gets to a point where it's problematic. I've definitely run into a wall where I'm starting to get close to an impingement or an impending injury may occur because I'm adding now too much stress and load to the joint, but it's not stabilizing properly like it used to. So there's problems I see with rotation is a big one for me, but going through that process, I mean, that's probably one of the biggest ones with also ankles is a joint I've been more focused on later in my career. It wasn't taught very often

to personal trainers through their certifications. And I highly suggest any personal trainers out there really do the work and get educated on the foot and the ankle as lots of times we think the hips are tight. The hips are the ones responsible for the knee problems and all these other injuries. Whereas if we don't have proper support and stability there in the foot and the ankles, and we're not expressing movement in the toes, and this all creates even more problems that drives up the kinetic chain. And we are then trying to compensate with our hips and we're not expressing that internal rotation of the hips as much. So two areas of focus I tended to highlight right away were getting the foot strong, getting the ankle strong, and going through and expressing all those different toes,

spreading them out, lifting them up individually, trying to express more movement directly from the ankle and get the heel to be flat in a lot of positions to get that proper stretch Achilles. So, I mean, there's a lot there that it definitely affects. You see that in a squat right away when you lift your heels up and you can squat with depth. I mean, that's an example of- Yeah. And that's something that I've seen a lot, both in the gym and I've also seen a lot just from people reaching out to me and I'll ask who are having trouble squatting. They just can't get to depth. It always feels awkward to them. They don't know. Is it just that they have tight muscles or is it the hips? And they just have trouble even with a parallel squat where your hips are dipping a little bit lower than your

knees. They can't get their shins forward far enough. They can't get their knees over their toes with their heels flat on the floor. And that's an ankle issue always. I mean, and they find that, yeah, if they wear squat shoes, it's a little bit better, but it still feels off. And if they are not wearing squat shoes, forget it. They simply can't squat. They can't do it. They can like quarter squat and that's about it. Yeah. There's a lot of quarter squats going on out there and then, and not to completely shit on the quarter squat. Cause if it's sports specific, we could talk about that, where that actually would apply. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because

no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. A good exercise or a good stretch mobility exercise to really focus in on gaining exactly what you're talking about in terms of like not being able to get that knee to come forward, like over the toes,

combat stretch. So this is where we're kneeling. And this is also an assessment for me. So if I'm kneeling now, and I tend to use a wall to see if my knee will then collapse inwards and I can actually maintain my knee going straight ahead, but then also keep my heel flat as I'm now going forward and pushing my knee forward as far as I can. So you could use it as an exercise to then try to tense up, to really own and connect with your muscles in your shin by leaning forward, getting that knee and expressing that knee as far forward as we can. And then now lifting your toes up from that position while smashing your heel down. And this is really going to set on fire those muscles in your shin and connect more exclusively

there where it may just be a poor connection that you don't have that support, that stability there in the ankle. And so it doesn't feel like it can go to that range. Yeah. I just Googled combat stretch. I hadn't heard of that, but it looks like it's good for your hips as well. I guess I can do something pretty similar. I do a little round of yoga stretches every day, yoga poses, whatever, because I found that there were some imbalances in my hips in particular. It's like, well, it's shorts. Actually. I prefer the shorts where my ass cheeks are hanging out. That seems to be the thing now with like 15 year old girls, which is disturbing. Yeah. I was at the mall this weekend. There was a girl, she was probably 15 or 16 and I have a daughter. And,

you know, so now when I see younger girls, I just immediately think like that could be my daughter. And so she's wearing tiny jean shorts with her ass cheeks basically hanging out. And I'm like, God, if that were my daughter, no, those shorts would be banned. Anyway. So I think it's called pigeon pose. It's kind of similar actually to the combat stretch. It's just the back leg on the combat stretch is in a different position. Right. Yeah. You're a little more glute focused there with the pigeon stretch. Yeah, for sure. For the listeners of the combat, I mean, you're actually in a kneeling position, but then you're crossing the back leg and then you should be sort of leaning forward. So the knees trying to then go as far forward as it can towards your toes while keeping your heel down on the ground. So that's one of the staples that we

have in our corrective programs because it's a great job of like addressing ankle mobility, as well as 90-90 is another good one, mainly for hip internal external rotation, which that's something to also consider. The more stabilized we are in the joint, the more range of motion that we have at our access. And then also being able to then connect with it provides that strength and support. So then we can load it going forward. So wait, I'm sorry. Combat stretch. So I Google it.

And then your guys' YouTube is the first thing that comes up. And the screenshot, I guess it's something you're calling lizard, is what I was seeing. I saw the thumbnail. I was like, oh, combat stretch. Okay. But that's not, I think the thumbnail was for, cause I'm looking at this as day 23. This is your video on mind pump TV on YouTube day 23 mobility workout plus exercises. And there's a lizard with rotation. I think that's actually what I thought. Yes. The combat. That's a totally different move. Yeah. Combat's a little bit different than that, basically how I described. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, just in case the listeners were confused, if they're looking up, they're like, wait a minute. Combat doesn't look – what the fuck is Mike talking about?

It doesn't look anything like pigeon. The lizard pose. Yeah. We're addressing something completely different with that stretch. But yeah, going back to the movement aesthetic part of it and why that's so crucial. I mean, for me, the assessment piece of being a trainer has always been, I've always valued it the most. And that being where we can start.

What are the prerequisites? Where do I need to go first to address any root problems to then build upon that and have more long-term longevity as I add all this excess insult, all this load to my joints. What's the quality of my joints coming into training? I don't know if many people even ask themselves that question, getting involved with fitness training. So that's something that I always felt like if anybody were to give personal training to go, if they get a good personal trainer, that's where they start. They start with testing out and really seeing the quality of joints because over the years, we just build all these compensatory patterns that, I mean, it really limits abilities and it limits progress

to where most athletes out there, they've sort of worked with this compensatory pattern to where they've refined it down such a degree that it's almost like you'd have to start completely over again if they were to go back and try and fix a lot of these problems. So the earlier you can address it, the better the overall mechanics throughout the kinetic chain will be. From my experience working with a lot of people virtually, it seems that most people are good enough shape to be able to get in the gym and start doing exercises, start squatting, start pulling, start pushing and pressing. And they wouldn't need a lot of mobility work or rehab type work to be able to start gaining some muscle and strength. But as time goes on, and as the weights get heavier,

especially when the newbie gains phase is over, because the first year you can almost do anything, maybe not year, but for six months or so, you can almost do anything and see good results. And usually for most people, the weights are starting out fairly light because this is probably their first time really getting into proper weightlifting. But after that, it's almost certain that there's a bit of what you're talking about. And I've experienced that myself as well, where I could have benefited from the little routine that I do every day, which by the way, I finally figured out it's the 90-90. That's similar to pigeon. I was still on your video. I'm like, something's wrong. It was the 90-90 is what the thumbnail was for the combat stretch. That's like pigeon.

Okay. That's another great stretch. Yes, exactly. That one, I'm going to try that today actually, because I like the pigeon, but that one adds a little bit of additional rotation on the back leg. But anyway. Right. You get an internal rotation. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Which is something I've been working on on my left side. I'm in the sauna every morning for the first 30, 45 minutes and I read in there. And so I do something similar to that in the sauna. And my hips have been imbalanced for some time where my external rotation on my right side has been noticeably worse than my left. And then internal rotation is vice versa.

Internal rotation on my left has been noticeably better than on my right. And I've worked with a couple of physical therapists and they've just explained it to me. They're like, yeah, it's just because your hips have been kind of in this little bit of a twisted position for some time that forces my left leg into basically a state of, it was always a bit more externally rotated than it should have been. So over time, my external rotation on my left gets better and better, but my internal rotation gets worse and worse because my hip isn't experiencing as much internal rotation as it should just doing everyday life and weightlifting and so forth. And then the opposite was true on my right side. So you just have, like you've been talking about, you have these compensations that your body does to just keep doing what you want it to do, but not in an optimal or most efficient

manner. And so bringing it back to weightlifting, what I noticed is as time went on, probably about three or four years of proper weightlifting under my belt, weights start getting heavier. My knees would hurt sometimes. And I don't know exactly, I guess it wasn't a severe injury, but I injured my SI joint deadlifting where I felt my hips kind of shift and it was like not what you want to feel, right? Now, fortunately, it wasn't, you know, it hurt for a few days and then it kind of just got better. But I've had persistent SI joint issues until I started working on my internal rotation on my left side, which I looked into just the literature to see what was out there. And there's actually quite a bit of evidence that impaired internal rotation, which I mean, it makes sense mechanically, but I don't know, I guess, biomechanics well enough to where it was just obvious where I was like,

oh, of course, it's just my internal rotation is that's what's causing really the SI joint dysfunction, which then can refer to your leg. It can down your leg or up your back, whatever. Yeah, it's a domino effect. Totally. And since working on my internal rotation on my left side by doing something similar to actually to the combat pose has been the easiest way without jacking my knee up because it's kind of hard to find what's a stretch that will allow me to work this internal rotation without making my knee feel like it's going to explode. You know what I mean? Because you got to get your leg in that kind of weird where you have the bottom portion of your

leg kind of splayed out to the side a little bit. And anyway, so since I've been doing that, I've noticed, well, one, I've actually been able to correct a lot of the imbalances. Like my external rotation on my right is much better. My internal rotation on my left has gotten less time, which is something that I just throw out there for people listening is, at least this has been my experience with any sort of mobility work, is you have to do it consistently. And it takes time to correct even what seem like minor imbalances. I've been doing a 10-minute routine every day for over a

year. And it probably took like six or seven months until I really started to notice a difference. And that was just me. And it's probably could have put more time into it, but I was very consistent about 10 minutes a day. And that's what it took. But I haven't been doing the internal rotation stretches nearly as long. It's been about three months. So it's improved. But what I've noticed is my joints feel better when I squat, my knee pains have went away since correcting these things. And so I totally agree that it's something it's, it's better to start sooner rather than later on these things. Even if everything feels fine in the gym right now, because for the first while everything felt great. I was trained heavy, hard, you know, moderate volume, high intensity, and no issues

until eventually it caught up with me. And fortunately I didn't have any like major injuries, but for anybody who's going to really want to try to push the envelope in terms of genetic potential for muscle and strength gain, I would highly recommend doing at least some sort of regular mobility work. And like you've been saying, some sort of screening so you can understand where your issues are. And pain is an easy place to start in terms of like, okay, my shoulder feels bad after I bench press. Okay. Something's off. But unfortunately pain where it's hurting isn't necessarily the problem. And that can be tricky where what you're feeling is actually referring from some other sort of

dysfunction. Like another good example for me is on my right side, my longissimus muscles are just pissed off. And I only recently recently actually got it isolated because I'd worked with a couple of PTs and a couple of massage therapists. And I was like, there's something in my back. If you feel around, you'll feel. And it's knotty. And the muscle is just pissed off. And they're like, yeah, it might be a teres.

It might be infraspinatus. It might be rhomboids. We don't know. But I see somebody now once a month or so who's actually, he's a rolfer, but he's like multidisciplinary because he's done a good job. I mean, he's just into this stuff. He spent 30 years educating himself, getting all kinds of certifications. And so he was the first guy to be like, oh no, no, no. It's the longissimus muscles. Let me show you here. Here's how I look and let me show you. And he like digs into them. And I'm like, yes, that feels terrible. That's

exactly what it is. But what's interesting is the longissimus muscles, that pain refers into my shoulder. It refers up into the base of my skull. And so what was tricky about that though is, you know, I would have maybe in pressing, although my shoulder has been good in pressing, but in the past I would have some pain in like the bicipital groove area and there was some stuck stuff in there and it was good to get that work done. But without addressing the longissimus issue, it would have persisted to some degree kind of forever. So again, that's not mobility per se, but it is working on tissues, working on joints, doing things other than just slamming weights up and down every day and just seeing what happens. Right. And so you address that with the soft tissue work for the acute

issue, right? And so that's something that I find a lot of value in that. However, even going forward, what's the root cause? What's the movement dysfunction that keeps repeating in terms of how we're stabilizing that joint. Totally. One thought just for me is on that side, I've noticed in my deadlifting that I wasn't doing a good job on my right side, keeping my shoulder down and my lat engaged before I started pulling. For some reason, again, it's just a who knows what kind of thing on my left, I would always do a good job, shoulder down, packed, arm to the side, lat engaged for the pull. On my right side, for some reason, my shoulder would just be a little bit more slack and my lat would be less engaged. And that means that other muscles are going to have to take the brunt of that, at least initial pull before the lats do get engaged. And so that was an immediate thought that I had that that could have been something that just overstressed those muscles. If you can identify that's super valuable to then go into a seated row and really figure out where that compensation happens and occurs and, you

know, being able to maintain, you know, that, that perfect position there with the scapula is everything. So we actually have a couple tests. This was the biggest sort of project that we tackled was how can we duplicate that kind of screening process and make it so it's simplified so just your average person could figure this stuff out and just see based off of like, I can't touch my elbow to the wall and I can't flip my arm up and have the back of my hand touch the wall in this open position on this flat surface without then compensating somewhere else down the kinetic chain. And so we have these built-in tests that are like just three basic tests to really address a lot of like upper thoracic issues. So anything involving the head, the neck, the shoulders. How do those tests look? I'm sure people listening are now super curious. They want to assess themselves. What should they do?

Right. So the first one, we actually have you standing against a flat surface of wall. And depending on how large your glutes are, we- Your back or facing? Back against the wall. You're going to lean all the way into the wall, so you're going to stay flush. So there's a nodule on the back of your head, and that's something that we want making contact. So it feels kind of weird. You have to pull your chin in, so it's almost like a double chin sort of feel to it, but that helps to keep this nodule then flush to the wall. We're going to keep our back and the shoulder blades touching the wall.

And then where we start is our hands are going to be at the bottom. So if you can picture my shoulders touching the wall, my head touching the wall and my back. And so I have these points of contact now with my elbows and then my hands. Now I'm going to flip my hands up. And so my elbows are in line with my chest and the back of my hands are touching. And basically I'm trying as hard as I can to press my arms into the wall and then my head keeping back and flush. You're going to notice certain compensations that are going to occur then with your lower back. So what I didn't mention was too with, you know, with having your glutes hitting and tailbone, basically trying to focus on having that contact point, we're then trying to press through our abs, our lower back

into the wall. So that addresses our TVA activation. So this is our transverse abdominals. This is our TVA activation. So this is our transverse abdominals. So if you have good activation there, you're able to draw in and be able to sort of smash firm your lower back through this process. Very, very challenging. And a lot of people fail this part of the test just right away, being able to maintain all these contact points between the back of my hands touching, my elbows touching, points between the back of my hands touching, my elbows touching, my head touching, and then having my lower back flush to the wall as well. So a lot of times you'll get this rib flare where

now I compensate because I arch, sort of puff my chest up to compensate in order to get my shoulders to touch and my head to touch. Two, a lot of times people, they can't touch the back of their head. And so they have this protruding forward head they need to address. So this tells us a lot of information in just that. And then if you progress even further, you can have them extend their arms and reach their arms up, still touching the whole time. So they're directly overhead, like an overhead press, but like touching the wall the entire time. So it's a very simple test, but it reveals a lot of information in terms of function of the shoulders, in terms of having compensations that have occurred because of sitting too much and leaning forward too much

in this protracted shoulder position. So I'm looking at my phone all the time. I'm doing everything on my desk in front of me, my head's looking down. So repeatedly doing this every day, this creates bad habits. And so this is one of the tests that it really addresses what we call upper cross syndrome, which is this protruding forward head is this rounding of the shoulders coming forward. And so if you think about that now in terms of a bench press, like if I go then into a bench press, I'm not going to get proper retraction of the shoulder. So I'm not going to really be able to open up my chest and support my shoulders by retracting those shoulder blades in. So that's one of the most valuable part of

being able to stabilize the weight is now I lower it down to my chest and I'm then pressing and extending it off. If I have shoulders that are forward, I'm going to get a lot of stress in my yourself and mechanically what's going on to then have a better form going into exercises like that that could be damaging on the shoulder. So what are some of your favorite corrective exercises for that? Because we see that posture all over the place, obviously that issue of slumped forward shoulders, head forward. If you go into a bench press like that and you're not able to really tuck your shoulders down and pinch your shoulder blades together, you're asking for problems. Yeah. So there's a few things that I like to do, especially for the shoulders and expressing that retracted and depressed sort of packing of the

shoulder. So there's one exercise I like to do a lot where it's basically, we call them scapular circles. So I basically, I'm diagonal to the wall and I'm just touching the shoulder. So that, and then my arm is sticking straight out. So I've extended my arm all the way out. And the point of the exercise is to take my shoulder through full range of motion and then add tension to that. So I'm trying to reconnect to the function of the joint. So what I'm going to do is keep my elbow fully extended the whole time, because that's one of the first things you're going to notice. You're going to want to flex at the elbow and we want to keep it extended fully the whole time. So I'm going to pull my shoulder blade back.

So I'm going to retract. I'm going to depress. I'm going to bring my shoulder down by squeezing my lats and then getting connected there. And then I'm going to pull it forward. So I'm actually going to protract it forward. And then now I'm going to elevate my shoulder up. So this creates the full circle and then I reverse that. And so to then add tension to that movement, this allows your body to go through the process of feeling supported in the joint and adding strength and neural connectivity there. The best thing you can do with these mobility exercises is to add tension and not just do it passively. So that's one of them. The other one would be a reach roll lift where I'm on the ground and my arms are extended, kind of like child's pose,

I guess, where one way to do that to make it sort of more feasible is to get a block so your hands can rest on top of a block extended out. And then we're going to go through internal rotation and we're going to open up by rotating the wrists so the palms are facing up. And I take one at a time, keeping my elbows extended, I'm going to lift one arm all the way up and then back down. And so now I'm regaining that internal rotation abilities that a lot of times we tend to overly dominate by externally rotating with the shoulder and doing everything externally. So that's one of them that helps to address a lot of common problems with upper cross syndrome. And then there's a plethora of others, but to

strengthen better recruitment, I then will take somebody over to a seated row, like with the cable, and we will then build upon that strength and connectivity of keeping the shoulder depressed and then retracting and then strengthening while we row weight and build upon that. So it's about establishing that better movement again. And now we want to strengthen that better movement. So taking the time out to really address it, I feel it helps to elongate the process, eliminates pain, and we can build upon that and actually build an impressive physique while maintaining function along the way. Yeah. Yeah. And even that point I think of with pulling, for example, if you can't

really get that and you can't feel that. And I just, I guess maybe I haven't experienced it so much myself because I probably just learned properly early on, but I've heard from quite a few people and also worked with some people in person who would complain of not really feeling their back muscles when they pull. And often it was because they weren't able to get into that proper position. And so they weren't engaging the muscles we were trying to train as much as other ones that we weren't necessarily trying to train. And maybe their biceps were taking the brunt of it as opposed to the lats or some of the other back muscles that should be engaging more than they are. For me, that's everything is to be able to teach proper function by really connecting. So I mean, like in bodybuilding, they call it like the mind muscle connection.

And I really do feel like it is important. And so if you think of it too, like, and I'm trying to kind of not overwhelm people with sort of that process of it more. So even if you take the time to address each joint individually, and I think that a lot of these accessory exercises, if you can get yourself in the proper angle and position and slow way down and really try and connect with the process, really connecting with the muscle to where you feel where you're supposed to feel on really a surface level, that's going to do you a lot better than going into these compound lifts. Any little compensation will get exaggerated quite a bit. A lot of people don't address it, it becomes a problem and then leads to injury as a result. So to take the time to kind of peel back and make sure everything is working properly and

you have the abilities you should out of the joints, I think is way overlooked. It's an unsexy process, but it's going to benefit you tremendously. Yeah, I agree. And it's also, I would add, although these days there is more and more good information on this kind of thing out there, previously it's been confusing because there was only Becoming a Supple Leopard, really. Obviously, that's a good book and has a lot of good information, but it has a ton of jargon. It's not well-organized. It's not prescriptive. As an everyday person whose goal is just to get into good shape, they need to lose some fat. They need to gain some muscle, gain some strength. They've started to educate themselves, but they haven't invested hundreds of hours into reading and clarifying terminology and connecting things. So you give them that book and they're lost.

And I understand. When I first got it, I was, I guess, fairly long in terms of my understanding of things. But first thing that hit me is like, this is an encyclopedia. This isn't very useful. If you have an individual issue, I guess you could just go and hit every single exercise that's there and just see what helps and what doesn't. But even that, that's asking a lot of people. But then if you don't even have any particular issues, if you want to just be a bit more proactive, like what you're talking about, what do you do with that book? What do you do? Do you just pick random stuff? So that's been an issue with that book. But now there are more and more people as mobility in general has gotten more popular, which Kelly Starrett definitely was the dude who popularized that. You have people out there who have broken things down and just made it more palatable,

more digestible, just saying, okay, if you are a person who does a basic kind of strength training routine with some bodybuilding type of work, here are the, let's say the top three to five things that you should be paying attention to. Here are some good exercises for those and spend maybe maximum an hour a week, 45 to 60 minutes a week, broken up into a few different sessions, doing these things, your weightlifting will benefit from it and that people can get behind. Yeah. And I think it's an individual process because we all have different patterns we've established. And so it is an inherent problem that all these different books out there based off of mobility and all the different gurus out there are just are very much speaking over

people and they're not really simplifying the process, which it is tough. I mean, it's tough to kind of simplify the process, but that was something we wanted to tackle and address and just to help people to then go through the identification process of like, wow, why doesn't this move the way it should? And then that builds into if this, then that. So we actually like built out sort of this spreadsheet based off of a pass-fail system. If you pass, then we feel like you're at an ability joint-wise where you can handle then going into the gym and just starting the process of basic fundamental exercises. Even then too, people will be able to go into the gym and just lift.

But what's my ritual? able to go into the gym and just lift, but what's my ritual? What's the 10 minutes before the workout that I could do that's going to optimize my workouts individually? And so this is something too that from a performance end, if you address certain compensations that tend to occur based off of lifestyle and work and everything else that you're doing constantly throughout the day, lifestyle and work and everything else that you're doing constantly throughout the day, if we can then undo some of these bad, poor recruitment patterns, it's going to translate into the gym to performance and gains substantially. So within this prime program, which is our very surface look at how to improve the overall function of your body by going through these three tests. And I'll

just briefly go over the other two tests. So you have the wall test, which addresses the upper portion of the body, the upper thoracic area. And then we have the windmill, which then looks into the quality of hip hinging ability and also the rotation of the body. So being able to go through and actually do exactly how we highlight the form within that exercise, if you have the ability to do that, then there's nothing to be worried about there. If not, that's something that we can start working on and will improve the overall function and stability and support of the kinetic chain. And so now we go from the windmill, then we go to the squat. So we apply the squat with a dowel bar. And so I didn't mention that either. With a dowel, you can use for the wall test, you can put behind the back

and then smash that into the wall with your abs contracting and really push into the wall. So we use that same dowel stick for our squat test. So now we're bringing the points of contact there with my head in between my shoulder blades and then all the way to my butt and then crossing my arms behind my back. So now I get internal external rotation there with the shoulders. And then I'm trying to maintain this position while also keeping tight and drawn in with the core. So that's probably our hardest exercise that we have as a test. But it also then reveals what the quality of our squat looks like and where the breakdown

occurs, where we lose that connectivity, where we lose tension within the muscles. So if I had to pick any, like we're addressing all the different planes of motion, we're addressing every joint on a very quick level. So it's going to tell us a lot of information right away to then apply to our workouts and then keep us moving forward pain-free. So, I mean, it was our attempt at really taking a lot of complex mobility information and really reducing it down to the meat and potatoes of what should be concerned with based off of the typical person sitting a lot in working at a desk or having these compensatory patterns that occur because they're reaching for things in front of

them all the time. Yeah, I like it. And just so people know, so it's called Prime and it's Maps Prime though, right? It's Maps Prime. Yeah. All of our programs are Maps. Yeah. And where can people find it? So you can go to mindpumpmedia.com and we have a whole section there where you can look at our programs and we address a lot of different pursuits, a lot of different goals people have. We've tried to really kind of fashion each individual pursuit of, I want to just focus on aesthetics. I want to just focus on strength. I want to improve the quality of my movement. I want to be more athletic. So we just tried to do our best

in terms of creating a guideline for that. We wrote all of our three decades of experience together. We tried to then combine and leave it open-ended so you could modify. But really, it was just, here's sort of the fundamentals that you should consider while going in that direction. So our MAPS programs, if we haven't addressed something you're interested in yet, that's something that we're probably thinking about. So that's our MAPS programs. Awesome. And what else do you guys have? What's up and coming? What's new and exciting? What do you want everybody listening to know about? We have our next live event in LA. Manhattan Beach is our next event. And we do these with some of our sponsorship,

some of the sponsors that we've partnered with. And this is at Viore. So this is a clothing company that we've partnered with. They got great clothes. They outfitted us. People get to go there and get a percentage off. But we're really there just to immerse ourselves within the community that we've established that have followed us. And we're trying to make an appearance, get some feedback, and really connect on a deeper level with people that are listening to us. So I enjoy the hell out of them, these live events. And they're fun. And we try to make it like Q&A style, like our show. We call them quads. Try to get a little bit ridiculous, let our hair down a little bit. But try and provide value, answer questions to the best of our ability,

and have fun while doing it. And so, yeah, our live events are rad. And you can check out our next live events on mindpumplive.com. And hopefully we're coming to a city near you. You know, Sal and I have been talking about, and I think Adam as well, just in our random text messages, have been talking about doing something here

on the East Coast. And then also I want to come out there on the West Coast as well. Yeah, we want to have you, Mike. I know, I know. I'm just so antisocial. I'm such a hermit. Yeah, dude. We're trying to break you out of your shell, man. We're going to get you out. No, no. All comfort zone for me. That's how I live. That's right, man. You're productive. So I can't take that away from you. Yeah, definitely. I'm going to make it out there. I think this year should work. I have, let's see, we're in the end of May right now. I have a family vacation in June. So it's not

the entirety of June, but it's a couple of weeks of June. So June's going to be kind of shot. But then after that, it would be fun. I'd love to come out. Dude. Yeah. Make it. I mean, that would be awesome to have you. And our fans would love you too. They love hearing from you on our show and everything else. And yeah, you're one of those guys that they would be pumped if you made an appearance on our events. So yeah, let's make it happen. Yeah. Count me in. Because I think if I just made it a long weekend, a five day, that would probably work, right? If it was like a Thursday and fly out Tuesday or something like that. Yeah. We'll hit up the event. We'll hang out. We'll talk some shop and take over the world. Pinky in the brain. That's immediately what I think of.

Yeah, dude. All right, man. Well, thanks a lot for taking the time. This was a great discussion and I look forward to the next one and seeing you guys in a few months. Yeah, man. It's always fun. Thanks for having me on Mike. I appreciate it. You're a good dude. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus

helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, So please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.

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