Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Menno Henselmans on Stretch-Mediated Hypertrophy

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Does training at different muscle lengths affect how quickly the muscles grow? In this interview, Menno Henselmans and I discuss new research on stretch-mediated hypertrophy and the role muscle lengths play in combination with mechanical tension. This is something Mike Israetel and I briefly touched on in our recent interview on partial reps versus full-ROM training, but in this discussion, Menno and I talk about the latest science of resistance training at long muscle lengths, including a new meta-analysis that isn’t published yet. Menno has been on my podcast many times on my podcast, but in case you’re not familiar with him, he’s a former business consultant turned international public speaker, educator, writer, published scientist, and physique coach who’s passionate about helping serious athletes attain their ideal physiques. In this interview, Menno and I talk about . . . - What stretch-mediated hypertrophy is, possible mechanisms behind it, and whether you should modify your training to incorporate more of it - Active tension versus passive tension - The actual reason why full-ROM training is effective - Specific guidance on how to modify and tweak exercises for more loaded stretching  (including Bayesian curls, flyes, leg extension tips, and “skull-overs”) - Static stretching between sets (its effects and whether you should do it) - And more . . . So if you want to learn what the science says about training at longer muscle lengths, and how to incorporate more stretch-mediated hypertrophy in your program, definitely check out this interview! Timestamps (0:00) - My award-winning fitness books for men and women: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/ (4:22) - What is stretch-mediated hypertrophy? (6:28) - What is passive tension and active tension? (11:00) - Can muscles get longer, not just bigger? (15:34) - What are your thoughts on modifying full range of motion training? (28:06) - Are there modifications to exercises that can make them more efficient? (42:21) - What are your thoughts on different height positions for flyes? (45:03) - Can you explain skull overs? (48:17) - Are there any other modifications you want to cover? (50:15) - Does the position of the wrists affect pec activation? (58:22) - Where can we find you? Mentioned on the Show: My award-winning fitness books for men and women: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/ Menno’s Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmO2dykYM3nlb5BtsXxp9ZQ Menno’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mennohenselmans Menno’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/menno.henselmans/

Hey there and welcome to Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today to learn about a hot topic, at least at the time of this recording, which is stretch-mediated hypertrophy. Fancy words that refer to the relationship between muscle length, mechanical tension, and muscle growth, as opposed to just mechanical tension and muscle growth. So what some people say is if you can tinker with your training, if you can tinker with certain exercises to produce more mechanical tension when muscles are stretched, when they are at their maximum length, you are going to gain muscle faster than if you did those exercises in a traditional manner

that produces the most amount of mechanical tension at shorter lengths. For example, think about the barbell biceps curl. Very little tension when your biceps are stretched out, when your hands are down at your side or right in front of you, and a lot of tension when your biceps are flexed, when they are shortened, when you're at the top of a rep. Is that ideal for muscle growth or should you modify that exercise or do another type of biceps curl that produces a large amount of mechanical tension when your biceps are stretched out? Well, you are going to get an answer to that question and to similar questions that you might

ask about other exercises in this podcast. And in case you are not familiar with my guest, Menno is one of my favorite guys to talk to about really anything and everything related to health and fitness. He has been on my show many times, and he is a former business consultant who decided to follow his health and fitness passions. And now he is international public speaker and educator, writer, and published scientist. Before we wade into it, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, then you will probably like my award-winning fitness books for men and women

of all ages and abilities, which have sold over 2 million copies, have received over 15,000 four and five star reviews on Amazon, and which have helped tens of thousands of people build their best body ever. Now, a caveat, my books and programs cannot give you a lean and toned Hollywood body in 30 days, and they are not full of dubious diet and exercise hacks and shortcuts for gaining lean muscle and melting belly fat faster than a sneeze in a cyclone, but they will show you exactly how to eat and exercise to lose up to 35 pounds of fat or more if you need to lose more or want to lose more and gain eye-catching amounts of muscle definition and strength. And even better, you will learn how to do those things

without having to live in the gym, give up all the foods or drinks that you love, or do long, grueling workouts that you hate. And with my books and programs, you will do that. You will transform your physique faster than you probably think is possible, or I will give you your money back. If you are unsatisfied with any of my books or programs, the results, anything, for whatever reason, just let me know and you will get a full refund on the spot. Now, I do have several books and programs, including Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, Thinner,

Leaner, Stronger, and Muscle for Life. And to help you understand which one is right for you. It's pretty simple. If you are a guy aged 18 to let's say 40 to 45, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger is the book and program for you. If you are a gal, same age range, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger is going to be for you. And if you are a guy or gal, 40 to maybe 45 plus, Muscle for Life is for you. this as always. I'm looking forward to the discussion, which is stretch-mediated hypertrophy. Big words, and people are immediately wondering, what does that mean? And what am I supposed to do with that? And I think we should start this discussion really at the top, because this is not something I maybe have kind of commented on it tangentially, but I've not spoken or written about it in any detail.

So a fair amount of listeners probably have never even heard of it, or if they have, they don't know even what it means, let alone what to do with it. Yes, I think stretched-media hypertrophy is one of the topics that is currently the most promising and something that we don't yet fully understand. We're getting more and more research on it, both mechanistically as well as in terms of actual empirical studies showing differences in muscle growth. We have multiple studies now that show very compelling differences in muscle growth between muscles being trained at different lengths or emphasizing different lengths. And stretch media hypertrophy is the most likely mechanism i would say to explain these findings generally the finding is that training muscles at longer lengths all else being equal results in significantly more muscle growth than training

them at shorter muscle lengths and this ties in with range of motion that's you know most people are aware that you generally should train your exercises for a full range of motion if safely possible. And we are now basically finding that the mechanism for that is primarily stretch-mediated hypertrophy, which is a catch-all term for the processes that explain this finding, that explain why muscles grow more when they are more stretched compared to when they're less stretched. So stretched median hypertrophy basically just means we are seeing additional hypertrophy that is the result of the muscle being stretched. And I think we can kind of break that down into two factors, which are

pensive tension and an increase in muscle length. And those together are, I think, currently the most likely mechanisms for why this seems to be the case. And can you explain what those two things mean? Let me start with active tension. When you're training a muscle, it produces a certain amount of tension. And that's governed in part

by the length-tension relationship. So a muscle, at any length it has, it can produce a certain amount of tension. Most muscles have an optimum curve, which means there is a certain length, typically that's anatomical position or close to it, where they are the strongest. And it's because of the actin-myosin cross-breeches, which is how a muscle contracts. Like if you want to shorten your contract or biceps, it shortens. It's like pulling the actin-myosin cross-breeches into each other. And he does that in series but that's kind of the how you can

visualize it and at that length the actin and myosin are kind of at the ideal distance from each other to form cross bridges and therefore to produce force whereas if the muscle is too long the actin and myosin are sort of too far apart and you can even go into passive insufficiency where the muscle is so long that no effective cross-bridge formation can occur anymore and you cannot produce any force that's going to occur for example with the hamstrings when you stretch them both at the knee and the hip maximally then you are super super weak to the point that many of the muscle fibers are basically not producing any force now at that point active tension may be very low because the cross-base formation is impaired,

but passive tension can be very high. So passive tension is basically just the tension from the stretch, like an elastic band. You're pulling on the muscle, and that itself is a form of tension. And it's even more so when you're also performing dynamic muscle contractions, because especially during the eccentric phase so that when the muscle is lengthening under load under tension so like a bicep scroll you're lowering the weight then the titan filament so active myosin are not the only myofilaments the filaments that help muscles contract there's also titan which is kind of a sprain so when it's lengthening it's

sort of spring loaded and then it helps during the subsequent concentric contraction when typically when you're raising the weight or formally when the muscle is shortening so it's like your your muscles have some spring loads in them that when you're lowering the weight they're being spring-loaded and then when you are lifting the weight they help generate force now this passive tension is also mechanical tension and the primary mechanism of how a muscle grows is it responds to tension on the muscle and that is the primary signal for it to adapt in structure and one of the primary adaptations is that it gets bigger and it can get bigger in two ways. It can get bigger by the addition of sarcomeres in parallel which is basically muscle thickens so you're just you know adding more layers of muscle fibers or myofilaments sarcomeres are

essentially the unit around the myofilaments you're just stacking more on top of them that's why the muscle gets thicker which is how most muscle growth occurs. But you can also stack more sharp premieres in series, so behind each other, and that's how a muscle can get longer. You actually increase the muscle fascicle. Muscle fascicle is a bundle of muscle fibers. You can actually make the whole bundle longer, actually get a longer muscle,

which is typically more associated with flexibility training, which you can also do by training muscles at long lengths, and especially with eccentric muscle contractions over full range of motions and that also contributes to muscle growth so yeah those are the two primary pathways i would say whereby which the stretch of a muscle can actually make it bigger we now also have studies including from this year so most of this research is quite new, that show that just static stretching, we now have quite compelling evidence that just static stretching can

directly cause muscle growth without any active muscle contraction. You need pretty heinous protocols to achieve this. It's not like your typical yoga session is going to cut it. In fact, most studies use an orthosis, I think it's called, where you are basically putting the muscle on the calves.

You put the ankle kind of in a brace. And then when you just can tolerate the stretch, it kind of pulls up the foot a little bit more. And then after, like, you're accustomed to like, oh, okay, now I think it can go. I'm getting a bit more relaxed. It's like a little bit more. And then they do that for long periods of time. getting a bit more relaxed, it's like a little bit more. And then they do that for long periods of time. And then you see, well, okay, you can actually put enough seemingly passive tension on the muscle to make it bigger. Or you could do some calf raises, but the mechanism is interesting

and obviously contributes to this understanding of the importance of passive tension. That point of muscle length is interesting to me because I distinctly remember reading some research, this was years ago, that indicated that muscles could not get longer, could only get bigger. So did I misunderstand something or has the understanding of that point evolved over the last five years or so? Well, the thing is, it's unclear to what extent you can meaningfully lengthen a muscle, especially in a trained individual. It's not disputed. And just to give context, this was in the context of, I remember the reason why I was referring to some of that research is helping people understand muscle insertions, right? So

like think of a bicep and how the insertion affects the peak and how many fingers can you put between your flexed bicep and your forearm. And that gives you an idea of your insertions. And my kind of takeaway I was giving people with the context of you can't meaningfully lengthen that is you just need to understand that there are some things about how your muscles form that you really can't change all that meaningfully lengthened that is you just need to understand that there are some things about

how your muscles form that you really can't change all that meaningfully but you can make your biceps bigger that's going to help with peak blah blah yes so you're absolutely right a muscle is fixed between the origin and the insertion and you know the bones and the tendons are pretty fixed in place i mean theoretically maybe you could also learn from the tendons, but at some point, this is like the space you have. And if you make the muscle even longer, it becomes like a flap of useless tissue, right? So it wouldn't be useful anymore to contract. Some people, though, they'd reach out and they'd be like,

well, you know, I have, you know, two, almost three, right? And so you're like, well, maybe I can turn that to one and that'll look cooler, you know? I mean, it would only be functional up to a certain point to get longer so the body only does it up to a certain point yeah like like i said it would be it would start drooping down or something because there's no more space so yeah you can only lengthen the muscle up to a certain point and that also puts a big damper i think on the utility of just going for the stretch like just stretching for muscle hypertrophy. And just I post on Instagram, for example,

where I said like, look, most stretching protocols, they don't do anything for your muscle length, which is true. But yes, some of these extreme protocols in a few studies have been found to actually lengthen the muscle. Even if you can do that, it's very questionable if you actually want to implement that

in terms of muscle hypertrophy program design. Because for one, you can also do it with your exercises and probably much more efficiently. And two, it's probably mostly going to be relevant for novice trainees. That's also the stretching between sets and all these things. I'm very, very skeptical of any real utility of that in trained individuals. In fact, the last study we have by Wadi et al from this year, I think from this year, 2022, they were the first to look at this effect

of just stretching between sets. I think it was interset stretching. They did cable flies, stretching in between a cable fly machine, in between sets of bench presses. And even though they were clearly doing a lot more work, because you're also doing kind of a weighted stretch,

and for most people, that's not going to be completely passive, they didn't grow more. There were no increases in strength gains or muscle growth compared to just doing the bench pressing. And was it a long enough study? Yeah, I think it was a good study overall, similar to the other studies where we do see growth

and that's, or increases in muscle length. And I think two big factors are the other studies where we do see growth or increases in muscle length. And I think two big factors are the other studies in untrained individuals. And secondly, they're almost all, I think literally all of them, involve the calves. And the calves are semi-unique as a muscle in that they are bioarticulate and can reach very, very long lengths. So the gastrocnemius in particular of the calves, it crosses the knee and the ankle, which means you can lengthen it at two places at the same time, and you can actually go into passive insufficiency. Like I just talked about, you can make the muscle so long

that it can essentially not generate any force anymore. And the gastrocnemius of the calves is uniquely easy to get into passive insufficiency. So its muscle life is actually a limiting factor for stretching and the like now most muscles like the pecs in the study by body at all probably they don't really reach that length where the passive tension from purely a stretch is really going to be that effective i think for most people to get sufficient passive tension you're gonna have to rely more on the spring

loading of titan as opposed to like purely just putting passive tension on it and thereby making it substantially bigger let's talk about range of motion right so i did an interview with mike isratel on range of motion and when sometimes it might make sense to try some partial range of motion with certain exercises. And he mentioned stretch-mediated hypertrophy. And I made a mental note, I should do an in-depth interview on that point in particular. And so when people hear that it would seem that the most effective portions of exercises are the portions where the muscles lengthened and under tension. And this is, as you know, part of the discussion. There are then people saying, well, then with certain exercises, especially some of these people who do kind of wacky things

on Instagram, like that's part of their shtick is is modifying exercises in strange ways to get eyeballs and saying hey well with this exercise even even some people i've seen people say this with the biceps curl saying well actually just stopping right here that's going to be more effective so all you're doing is that fully lengthened to partially lengthened you can skip the top part of the rep what are your thoughts on, I mean, there's that example and there are many other examples of explicitly modifying training to try to rack up more time under lengthened tension, so to speak? I think it's not a crazy idea. And I do think that most of the benefits we've seen with full range of motion training

are attributable mostly to stretch media hypertrophy. And there's actually a meta-analysis that I know is coming out soon, and it's not printed yet, to my knowledge, at the time of this recording, essentially also show that most of the benefits, if you look at compare studies where they are doing different range of motion, they mainly find the benefits one group, the longer or the full range of motion group. It's almost rarely actually full range of motion. It's like the longer range of motion. Also reaches higher muscle lengths. And it's not necessarily the same, right?

You can have the same range of motion or longer range of motion, but not reach a longer length. It's only typically when you go like deeper during a squat. That's quite It's only typically when you go deeper during a squat. That's quite well established now, that if you go deeper during a squat, you get better gains. And new meta-analysis quite relatively clearly shows that most of these benefits are attributable to the longer muscle lengths. I think that makes perfect sense.

We actually also have two very cool studies that illustrate this. One study, I think, which kind of a an opening to the floodgates of research on this the i think it's mao et al or i don't know how to pronounce it they compared seated leg curls to lying leg curls and the seated leg curls resulted in significantly more muscle growth specifically in the bi-articulate heads of the hamstrings which are the heads that are more stretched more lengthened when you are seated because you are flexing at the hip.

So if you think of like you're sitting in a seated leg curl, what you can actually do is you can lean way forward and then you'll feel the stretch for one. And so you'll also become a lot weaker. You can actually go into passive insufficiency even if the machine is, depending on the dimensions of the machine, if you can really like straighten the legs and lean way forward and you'll see you're all super weak

that way but then you probably get high passive tension now how much do we want to act on that versus active tension i think it's definitely possible to go overboard because for one we don't know how much passive tension matters how much is enough you can just maximize it by just training for a full range of motion for example so i think it's premature to bank on the stretch as the only thing we should pay attention to remind me after is to come back to the point of regional activation but first i should discuss the other study i mentioned it's probably the most compelling evidence in favor of the idea that we really just should be banking on the stretch.

That's a new study by, I think, Pedroso this year, or last year. I think it's this year. They looked at leg extensions over full range of motion, only the top and only the bottom. And full range of motion did, as many other researchers have already found four lines motion is considerably better than just the top but it did not do better than just the bottom in fact just the bottom resulted in more muscle growth now i think in this particular study there are a few things they didn't train maximally the leg extension machine also wasn't going

through four lines of motion and they trained with a slow cadence so it's it's possible that if you are more you're training more hardcore settings essentially and they were untrained in participants women it's possible that if you're training more hardcore and really maximizing the full length of motion training going close to failure that you're already maximizing kind of the stretch-mediated hypertrophy anyway, if you can flex the legs enough, which most people definitely do not do. So that's implication number one. During leg extensions, you want to get your legs as tucked as much as possible

to really get that good stretch. But then if you do that, I'm quite skeptical of the idea that you can actually get better results by only doing the bottom part. And it will also depend on the machine some leg extension machines are really bad they they're like only the top part is clearly the sticking point and then you could do a million more reps in the bottom right when you're you can't do you can't lock out the knee anymore you don't want to lock out the knee but you want to make it close i would generally say yeah it can matter a lot the machine can matter a lot uh the machine can matter

a lot unfortunately that's a just worth noting for people because if they're in a gym with a janky machine they might be surprised to hear that oh that's a good machine like some of them are not so great and and the lying might be a better option if the seated is just not set up correctly yeah and it's interesting you mentioned lying. The lying leg extensions have fallen out of favor, but actually, bivirtual stretch media and hypertrophy are probably much better than the current seated ones. And what I typically recommend is that people place their sheets as far back, the backrest, as far back as they can,

and then kind of matrix style lean all the way back because you're lengthening the rectus femoris the middle head of the quads and you'll notice you're stronger when you lean back a bit now if you're fully lying back it's um it's gonna be uncomfortable for some people but just leaning back or reclining in your seat even if you have a straight backrest you your lower back won't be against the backrest it's fine it's the back's not doing anything anyway it's just quads you're a little more weight for one i mean more weight all else being equal means more tension on the muscle means greater growth typically and specifically directed for morris the middle head of the quads should grow more from

also greater passive tension i find that that feels better on my knees too than being than being more upright. Yeah, there is an optimum, because for me, if I literally lie down, then it doesn't feel so good on my knees anymore. But you can't do that anyway in most machines. Yeah, exactly. You're going to have to invent,

that'll have to be the Menno extension machine. Well, some of the old school machines are kind of like that, but you don't see them anymore. Okay. I don't know if I've ever seen that, actually. And regional activation. So the argument against the idea that let's just do the stretch, let's do all our training in maximum stretch, just bank on that. And actually two arguments. The first is that you may suffer excessive muscle damage.

So the stimulus to fatigue ratio may at some point go down. For example, hip thrusts are an exercise that probably won't result in much stretch, mean, and hypertrophy. I'm actually going to collaborate on a study very soon that compares hip thrusts and squats head-to-head. So that's going to be very interesting. But until we have that data,

it's unlikely that hip thrusts stimulate a lot of stretch, mean, and hypertrophy because they don't lengthen much, but they stimulate a lot of active tension, pretty much as good as it gets. So just to bank on the passive tension and stretch-mediated hypertrophy, I think will not be ideal. And even if it is, you're going to probably do a lot of muscle damage.

So you may also limit how many sets you can do. And then the question is, okay, is it really that much better that you have to sacrifice your total volume tolerance for the ability to really hammer down that stretch? The only argument with the work there is if you could do significantly less volume, maybe even for the same results, then people would say it's more time efficient. And I do think if you can only do some work, you should definitely aim for full range of motion, probably emphasizing the stretch. Like if you can do one set of packs, for example, you have time for one set, you better do

an exercise where you can also really get a good stretch. So I would probably actually not do a barbell bench press, for example. I would do something like a deficit push-up, a ring push-up, or a 15-degree incline dumbbell bench press, something where you can or even a basic fly like cable fly, where you can really get high tension and stretch as well.

The second argument against the idea that just the stretch is what matters is regional activation. And there is somewhat of a trend in the research that when you're training muscles at longer lengths, you're also growing them at longer lengths or distally specifically so squats for example it seems that a full squat result in more growth specifically

or primarily near the knee and that's very interesting and we also see research that training muscles are different lengths in part because of the length tension relationship like different lengths different muscle fibers are more active than others. Also because not all muscle fibers run along the entire muscle fascicle. And different muscle fascicles and fibers actually have slightly different length-tension relationships. So at different muscle lengths, you are activating different or preferentially activating different muscle fibers. And it's quite possible that even if it's only a few fibers and like on average you gain more from emphasizing the stretch there are some muscle fibers that do actually grow

better from emphasizing peak contraction so i think it's more a question of ratio like where you're going to devote most of your training and in general i would say you can't go very wrong with full range of motion training especially if that also means full muscle length excursion, then trying to really bank on the stretch exclusively. And a third argument that, or at least a point that should be noted, is full range of motion training works really well for everyone. And for almost every purpose. Yeah. So you look at, regardless of your goal, even if your goal is to get as jacked as possible, full range of motion training is going to get you at least most of the way there. But many people listening and many people out there just in the fitness space are not necessarily trying to gain every last ounce of muscle and strength genetically available

to them. They're just trying to get into really good shape and stay that way. And, you know, maybe with three to five hours of training per week. And I'm just mentioning that because I have to remind sometimes people who reach out to me, asking about more sophisticated techniques

or at least theories like these, when, you know, maybe they're in their second year of training and they're making progress and everything is going just fine. And so sometimes, you know, I just have to remind people, let's not make this unnecessarily complex. Let's not overthink this. For your goals, you might not ever have to make any of these types of modifications to your training. If you just want to for fun to see what happens, that's fine. But just understand that you're making good progress.

I promise you it's not going to change in any meaningful amount by adding some rest pause training or partial range of motion training or any other kind of sophisticated technique. Yes, you can get big on the basics. Hey there, if you are hearing this, you are still listening, which is awesome. Thank you. And if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you just like my podcast in general, and you are getting at least something out of it, would you mind sharing it with a friend or a loved one or a not so loved one even who might want to learn something new? Word of mouth helps really bigly

in growing the show. So if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. So then I think that's a good segue to to my next question, which is, are there certain exercises that you think again, speaking more to let's say we're not speaking to the natural bodybuilder who has already gained like the dude who has gained 45 pounds of muscle, and he's just trying to squeeze out those last few pounds, but more of a maybe everyday kind of fitness person who's just trying to continue getting stronger and continue gaining size. And are there maybe some modifications to exercises that are worth considering at least to try and see how your body responds? Like maybe you've

always been doing an exercise a certain way. Well, maybe if you tried it this way and you might find, oh, wow, I'm actually noticeably maybe more sore from doing it that way, or I'm getting a really good pump from doing it that way or some sort of indicator that you've made the exercise a little bit more effective. I wouldn't put too much stock into those indicators specifically, but there are definitely a lot of exercises that you can tweak by and make at least as effective or probably more effective, which also increases time efficiency. Like the leaning back on the leg extension. That's a good tip that somebody can think with. Exactly. So that's an example where I think it's win-win. You can't really go wrong with it. We don't have concrete research yet showing it actually improves muscle growth, but it's extremely unlikely that it will decrease it. And there's essentially no downside. Another example would be lat prayers,

which is an exercise I coined as basically a full-range motion straight-arm pull-down. For some reason, straight-arm pull-downs have traditionally always been done up to 90 degrees, and then you go down. There's no reason to stop there. Like, you can go all the way up. The only problem, I guess, for some people is that

if you're just standing upright, then you don't get a lot of tension when you go all the way up. Now, the, I guess, for some people is that if you're just standing upright, then you don't get a lot of tension when you go all the way up. Now, the solution for that is that you lean forward. That's funny. That's how I've always done that exercise. I always thought that was the way that you did it. Yeah, there are quite

some people who are like, oh, this is the better way to do it. I don't think anyone's coined the name differently, though. And specifically with the, like, the concept of the lap prayer is that you're leaning into it as you get, to get a full stretch, and then you're leaning back again. So you have to move the torso back and forth during the exercise.

And if you, I call it a lap prayer because you, when you're on your knees, that rhythmic motion with your arms up and down kind of looks like a prayer. So being on your knees helps to stay put when you're using really heavy weights. Now, most people actually can do the exercise standing very well. But when you get to really heavy weights, then sitting helps. I think that's also an example where it's just better. Like you're just doing the same exercise, but over full range of motion,

and specifically adding the range of motion that's likely to induce stretch media hypertrophy so it's the most important part of the range of motion that people were omitting and another example would be like we have a lot of cool studies on this now i think a recent study also from this year like a lot of this research is really new they compared essentially push downs versus overhead triceps extensions in in very similar i think you used machines so that the exercise was overall like all the same it was like dumbbell versus cable stuff not 100 sure on that but i think it was well controlled and they found that the overhead tricep extension resulted in not just more muscle growth in the long end of the triceps which is

exactly what i would have predicted and the researchers also thought based on this exactly everything we've been talking about stretch media hypertrophy the long head of the triceps is a biarticular muscle it's also active at the shoulder like it helps the lats the long head of the triceps is kind of a helper of the lats in extending the shoulder pulling the arm down and so if you bring the arm overhead the elbow overhead you're stretching the long head now i've seen some people say the triceps can't experience stretch media hypertrophy i wouldn't know't know why they couldn't. That's very speculative at this point. I don't see any reason. Like, we've seen stretch-mediated hypertrophy in many muscles now. I don't see a reason why the triceps wouldn't be able to do that. And a new study indeed found

that the long head experience is greater growth. Interestingly, the other heads also grew more. And why that is, I won't be able to tell you. I don't think anybody currently can tell you that. But it might have something to do with, you know, it's pretty much a mystery. But the takeaway is, it's a good exercise. Do it. Exactly. And at a minimum, I would think we can replicate that the long head gets more growth. Maybe the other heads also get more growth.

Well, that's even more of a win but i think most people don't optimize that part of tricep training and in general most people don't really optimize this part of emphasizing the stretch that you kind of do exercises that were that are traditional that most people do and for the triceps you have push downs and then all the tricep training they do is kind of in this plane so like push downs skull crushers skull crushers have some stretch but i think for the long head you have to go pretty much overhead to get like a really good stretch yeah if you're not doing that you're probably leaving some gains on the table in fact in that case i think the addition of sarcomeres in in series just making the muscle longer can actually make a big difference because if you never train the triceps at full lengths, probably the muscle is not going to

lengthen to its full length. And that leaves a considerable amount of growth on the table, probably. Because if you think of the muscle as this, and then you can make it super thick, but now you can make all of that thickness also longer. And that increases the total muscle size quite significantly, even if the total increase in muscle length is only 10% or so. Yeah, and that can have a big effect on just the visual size of your arms. I mean, triceps, what, two-thirds of... Yes. And also, it makes it fill up the distance between the origin and the assertion more,

which can visually maybe even make a bigger difference. Like what you said, if you have big gaps between the muscles and the joints, then it's possible that that can help fill up that gap at least a little bit. Yeah, I personally have always liked overhead dumbbell extensions, similar type of concept. I've just found them to be, especially with heavier weights, I've found that more comfortable, just been able to perform better than trying to go heavy on the overhead, like an overhead rope, for example. Now, you mentioned Bayesian flies or curls. Can you just explain what both of those are? Yeah. So those are two other exercises that I coined, and they're just modifications of very popular exercises.

The most common type of dumbbell curl, by far, I think, is the dumbbell curl, and otherwise the barbell curl. And what that exercise specifically does not do, just like the straight arm pulldown, is training the muscle well at long lengths. In fact, when the dumbbell or the barbell is at your side, like the arms are vertically down,

there is no tension on the biceps which is probably the most important position for the biceps in particular because the length tension relationship of the biceps is so that in like other muscles it's actually strongest not just in passive tension but also in active tension when the biceps is stretched so you're missing not just passive tension but also active tension on the biceps. Now you can remedy that with either something like a preacher curl and I think that's going to be effective but the preacher curl typically neglects the top part very much and also it can be quite hard on the elbows and like the muscle damage can be pretty severe.

So what I typically do is a basion curl which is a cable curl and when most people do a cable curl they look at the cable like they they stand at the cable the cable this is the cable station they pick it up and they're like curling like this but then you have the exact same issue so if you look the other way so that you're putting the cable from behind and then doing the curl then you do emphasize that stretch position and you get nice tension throughout the entire hinset motion so you're not sacrificing the top part and you're getting good tension in the bottom position and then you can also kind of like the lap priors rhythmically move the upper body where you're fully upright and getting a good stretch and then kind of leaning into it to get good peak contraction as well. And you don't have

to overdo it. You just have to intuitively go by, do you feel good tension in the bottom? Do you feel good tension at the top? If not, adjust your body position slightly, just like with lap prayers, to make sure that you do. I don't see any possible downsides of that type of cable curl, evasion curl, compared to a dumbbell curl and a lot of potential upsides. I like also that you can get a good training stimulus with less weight. So it's just easier on your joints compared to, say, a barbell curl, which is not a bad exercise. But when you get stronger, I mean, I don't know if I've ever gone over 155, but that's a lot. I mean, that's hard on the

elbows, whereas I'm not as strong now as when I was barbell curling 155, but I'm still fairly strong. And I was doing, I think I've seen them behind the back cable curls. You want people listening, might be able to find that exercise under that name too. So I was doing, I have those in my training block and I have to pull up my spreadsheet, but I think I'm only using right now I'm doing sets of eight to 10 and I think I'm only using 35 pounds, I think I'm only using, right now I'm doing sets of eight to 10, and I think I'm only using 35 pounds. No more than 40 pounds. And, you know, it's nice.

It's joint friendly and it's difficult. Yeah, you can also find, because I have super sensitive elbows. Like I have very slim wrists and ankles for a six foot one guy. And with a cable, it's nice that you can can like a dumbbell is very free so it's already quite good compared to a barbell barbell is very fixed motion trajectory but with a cable you cannot just determine vertically how you move up the weight but in every possible direction you can move the cable more out to the side in fact i often stand like at a slight offset so i'm kind of curling like this instead of curling like this and i find that my elbows like that a lot better

and it doesn't make any difference for the effectiveness of the bicep so yeah you have like this instead of curling like this. And I find that my elbows like that a lot better. And it doesn't make any difference for the effectiveness of the bicep. So yeah, you have a lot of more leeway as well in terms of which movement pattern fits your body structure the best. Yeah, I find I like to get into a position just that because sometimes my shoulders will just get a little bit irritated, kind of in the bicipital groove. And so how I position when I'm doing exercises sometimes makes a difference and so it's also nice just for that point where i can get myself into a position where i'm not really feeling it in my shoulder and i can do it without being irritated you know yeah definitely and i think the the side angle also can help with the shoulder issue

yeah that makes sense now you mentioned also flies, Bayesian flies. How does that work? Yeah, so a dumbbell fly is actually a good exercise in terms of stimulating stretch-mediated hypertrophy. And I probably underrated it in the future,

but it's also quite injurious because it really banks on the stretch. And it also enforces or it incentivizes a guillotine- style movement because otherwise you have to kind of tuck your elbows into it now most bench pressers and stuff know how to do that but many people don't and the shoulder is in a quite precarious position when it's in a full stretch in general most joints are in a precarious position at end range of motion. So that position is also by far the hardest.

And then you have almost no resistance at the top. I think that's actually an example of an exercise that banks too much on the stretch. Whereas with a cable, you can spread out the resistance a little bit more, get a bit more of an even resistance curve, so that the full contraction still actually has a contraction on the backs, because normally with a dumbbell, if your arm is like this, then there's no more tension on the packs, because the packs go this way and the resistance goes this way.

Whereas with a cable, the resistance goes kind of this way. Yeah, it's always pulling on you. Exactly. So you can still emphasize the stretch, depending on how you position the cable, but you can still also stimulate the top position and it's much joint-friendlier. And is that something that

you'd be doing? Would you bring a bench over or do you like to do it standing or some other... Right. There are a few ways you can do it. Typically, if you have two of those cable towers that are very far apart, where all the bros are always doing their diagonal crossovers.

If you can ever get in there, yeah. Yes, if you can ever get in there. Between you guys doing the crossovers, where they're only training the bottom packs because they're lifting so much weight, they can barely, they're just doing it like this. You sound jealous. Then you can just position the cable, I would say, typically about nipple height.

Maybe one, yeah, around nipple height typically works well. You don't want it to be like a full guillotine like this. So you want the elbows slightly tucked down, not 90 degree shoulder abduction. And then you grab the both ends of the cable. You step forward. And depending on how forward you step, it also determines whether you emphasize the peak contraction or the stretch if you step very far forward then you're going to stimulate the stretch more and if you are only a little bit forward then you stimulate the peak contraction more so also depending on how how well your shoulders tolerate the stretch position

you can also manipulate that which i think is is nice. A lot of people have shoulder issues, one of the most common injuries for all-weight trainees. One more modification of the Bayesian fly is that if your shoulders are happy with it, instead of having a neutral grip like this, you use an internally rotated shoulder. So you're just like with a

bench press. At the end of a bench press, you can see all your knuckles in line like this, whereas with a cable fly, most people, because of the... They don't really think about it. It's just how the cable... It's just how the handles, I mean, you just start kind of naturally. Exactly. The structure of the handle. But you can also tilt it.

In fact, you can even just get rid of the handle or use a rope or whatever. You can internally rotate the shoulder. And if you look at the fibers of the pegs, like if you're thumb up like this, then these fibers kind of have to run over and they're going from here to here, which is not a direct line of pull.

Now, there's a principle that the body typically recruits the fibers that have the most advantageous leverage for the exercise. Now, this may not matter when you're training close to failure anyway, but I think it might be beneficial at least to internally rotate the shoulder. And that's what it does. So your hand is now like this.

It aligns the fibers directly with the movement, which should result in the body emphasizing the back fibers and you being slightly stronger. And since we're talking flies, what are your thoughts on the lowest position, the highest position? Some people will say, oh, you should be doing all three positions. You should have that. You should have some of your volume in that middle nipple range, but then you should also at least alternate between that and a low and a high. Right. So that's kind of a similar

topic as whether you should do incline and decline pressing or just horizontal pressing. And research typically finds that due to the structure of the pecs, if you're doing a horizontal type press or fly, then you're recruiting all the fibers. Like all the fibers kind of converge towards the middle. And if you're doing horizontal flexion or adduction, so bringing the elbow closer to the body, basically, whether it's a fly, a double bench press, back deck, anything, you're recruiting pretty much the entire arsenal of muscle fibers

because they're all like a fan bringing the elbow closer to the body. If you're using an incline, so the upper fibers of the pecs, they also extend, they bring the elbow up, so they're flexing the shoulder. And the lower fibers, they kind of help the lats and they they also extend, they bring the elbow up. So they're flexing the shoulder. And the lower fibers, they kind of help the lats and they extend the shoulder.

They bring the elbow down, which is why during a pulldown, you can actually stimulate some lower pec fibers and during a pullover. And with like a front raise, you also stimulate the upper pecs to some degree. If you're already recruiting all the fibers with a horizontal movement pattern, then that doesn't leave a lot of room to optimize above that, improve upon that. And that's typically what we see. So what happens, at least based on EMG research, like electromyography, we see that muscle activity does not really increase or only marginally increases if you're doing more an incline-type fly or press in the upper fibers. So you're not actually training the upper fibers much more there was a recent study in bodybuilders which found that it does slightly increase their muscle activity but mainly what it does it just

decreases the activity of the lower backs and if you do a decline type press or fly then it's not like the lower fibers activate considerably more it's not like the lower fibers activate considerably more. It's mainly that the upper fibers activate considerably less. So you're not really improving the muscle growth for the target musculature. You're just making it more isolated. Now, that might have a place in people that have an imbalance between the upper and lower packs. But for most purposes, if you have balanced development, time efficiency and the like, just the horizontal movement pattern covers pretty much all your bases and then i think the the switching of the angles

and the like incline decline is gonna yeah have very little utility for that like the the effort to reward ratio is going to be quite poor also unnecessary complexity. Yeah, exactly. Another exercise here, the skull over. You want to talk about? Yeah, skull overs are an exercise that even my clients still confuse for skull crushers.

Perhaps I should have chosen a different name for that. Mike Ripito has a similar exercise which he called the PGR pullover, but it's quite different. It's different in its nuance, which has a big difference

in practical utility. So during a skull crusher, like you're doing a standard skull crusher and you're kind of lowering the weight on your skull, which is why it's called a skull crusher. If you would drop the weight, it would fall on your skull. And crush your skull. It makes it, you know, gives it a cool name and kind of makes it popular. However, most people don't crush their skulls when they're doing it. They are crushing their elbows. So you could also call them elbow crushers because many people, like for somes when they're doing it. They are crushing their elbows.

So you could also call them elbow crunchers because many people, like for some people, they're fine, of course. And then, you know, if you have no issues at all going heavy on those, it can be a fine exercise. But for many people that have at least somewhat sensitive elbows, they really wreak havoc on the elbow joint. For me as well, on the tendons, it's really nasty. So you can actually change the exercise even just a little bit by letting the elbow come up over the body so that you're literally moving

the weight over the skull rather than on the skull so a skull over rather than a skull crusher and now you are both stimulating more stretch media hypertrophy because you are lengthening the long head of the triceps more and it it's much, much easier on the elbow joints. In particular because, like I said, most joints are more sensitive to injury at end range of motion. And the peak tension in the skull crusher is exactly in the full stretch, so at end range of motion. And with a skull over, you distribute the stress a little bit more towards the middle part of the movement being the hardest. And then you kind of throw the weight over your head back up to full extension so it's just a skull crusher but you're letting the weight you're letting the elbows come up so the weight can go over your head

instead of dropping on your head skull brusher maybe yeah well actually that that would be a good name in the sense that you should it has to go really close over the skull and many people because you don't want the elbow many people because you don't want the elbow to come uh you don't want the forearm to be vertical in the bottom position because then there's no more tension in the stretch position which is where you want high tension so you need to let the weight come really close over the skull and i think for most people actually it works well to do it on the edge of a bench so that you can move your head up so that you can literally let the weight go over the head so you're kind of moving the head out of the way

rather than the bar. And that typically requires some coaching and finessing and experimentation. But then when you get the groove down, it actually works really well, feels good on the elbows, probably nets you more stretch media hypertrophy. So I would say that's also an example

where I pretty much only use skull overs instead of skull crushers with my clients. How low are you bringing the bar? Like how far beneath? It typically goes, yeah, just below the head. Yeah, but it depends a little bit on someone's individual structure. Like you want full elbow flexion.

So you want the elbow angle to fully close and you don't want to have that occur when the forearm is completely vertical. For some people, for the elbows, that's the elbows friendly, most elbow friendly. But for most people, you want a little bit more of an angle. Makes sense. Are there any other exercises or any other modifications that we should cover before this last point? Well, there are a lot of exercises that can be modified to some degree.

And I think you always want to ask yourself, can I increase range of motion? So one, for example, tip that Brad Fulcher has alerted me to, got it in turn from a female influencer, if I'm not mistaken, but I don't know her name. She basically came up with the idea that in a hip abduction machine, you can put pads to the sides of the machine so that you're getting the legs closer together. Because most hip abduction machines, kind of when your legs, you know, you open the legs,

they kind of stop when the legs are kind of in line with each other, parallel. And that's not full stretch. And you also feel it. It's definitely not a full stretch. So if you put pads on the sides, then you can actually bring the legs, so pads on the outsides of the legs, on the knees,

you can get the knees all the way fully touching each other, you can get a much better stretch and get greater range of motion. That's probably also a pure win scenario. Now, it's not super practical. You need pads that are just the right size, and then some machines, like if the pad's too big, you can't close, like you can't

uncouple the weight in the cable. So it's not super practical, but there are a lot of these exercises where you just always ask yourself, hey, can I increase the raise motion of this exercise? Or hip abductions on a bench. Most people stop with when the, or like a lying hip abduction, primarily relevant for female trainees that want maximum booty gains and also trained glute medias. If you're lying and you're doing a hip abduction, then the floor limits how low your leg can go. But that's not full range of motion.

Your feet can dip below your hips. So that's what you want. And if you're lying on a bench, then there is no floor, so the foot can dip below the hips. So typically, I would coach those, and I would teach my students to do them, to let the foot come below the hips. So typically I would coach those, and I would teach my students to do them, to let the foot come below the hip, do it on a bench, get greater range of motion, and profit.

Question mark, question mark, question mark, profit. Have you, with dumbbell pressing, have you rotated your hand, just for people listening so they can see this, so palms are facing each other on the way down right so at the bottom instead of instead of palms facing away like people listening think of a barbell bench press where you just kind of keep that position with dumbbells though you can rotate at the bottom palms facing and get a little bit more of a stretch

and get a little bit more of a stretch. Thoughts on utility of that? Yeah, so the position of the wrist itself does not determine anything for the pecs. It's just the shoulder friendliness of it. Yeah, so in theory, you can even do a supinated grip, and it's the elbow position that determines what happens to the shoulder and the pec activation.

But in practice, of course, just like if you're looking down during a squat you're more likely to round your back because the typically the rest of the spine follows the neck it's unnatural to move them in two different directions so too with the wrists and the elbows if the wrists move in one direction it's very unnatural to move the elbows in a different direction or to not have them go in the same kind of direction so if typically if you're rotating grip and making a neutral grip then the elbows also naturally tend to come towards the midline of the body so essentially you're you're intuitively gonna tuck the elbow which is more shoulder friendly and yeah that depends on how your shoulder health because i think for most people 45 degrees or so is about optimal where you get a good stretch you want to you

want to have that you know horizontal type adduction slash flexion so a guillotine press in that sense would actually be optimal but you have to balance that with the potential for shoulder injury which anecdotally tends to be a lot higher with guillotine style pressing than with the elbows a bit more tucked yep yeah i never particularly liked the guillotine style pressing than with the elbows a bit more tucked. Yeah. Yeah. I never particularly liked the guillotine press personally. I know some people recommend it. I just found

as I got stronger, I found it not nice to my shoulders. Yeah. I only ever do those exercises for once through guillotine, like 90 degree, I almost never do.

But I only ever do those exercises with super high reps, like sets of 30. And then it's like, yeah, even though it's a relatively injurious exercise uh anecdotally at least it's tolerated pretty well as long as you don't go heavy sure yeah you got to do sets of 30 though so there's that but okay that's great that's great on the exercises can you before we wrap up here can you

speak about stretching in between sets? Because that also is always part of this whole discussion. And, you know, I see some people aggressively stretching in between sets, like you had mentioned, going from the bench press to the cable fly and, you know, really trying to maximize their rest time, so to speak. So there have been two studies which found it can increase muscle growth. One had serious design flaw in that the reps were equated between groups. And what people don't realize

is that there's also quite convincing research that excessive static stretching before your workouts, which is why it's fallen out of favor, reduces muscle growth. Because what static stretching primarily does is it teaches the nervous system that it's okay to relax the muscle, which is kind of the opposite of what you want.

So, you know, if you're doing activation drills and static stretching, you're telling your body two opposite things, right? Your activation drills, they don't work, by the way, in most cases, but they're supposed to kind of help you activate the muscle more and therefore reach higher levels of muscle activity

and get greater gains. And then static stretching essentially tells the muscle more and therefore reach higher levels of muscle activity and get greater gains and then static stretching essentially tells the muscle okay relax don't fully activate just chill let the lengthening happen and just experience the stretch because it doesn't lengthen the muscle as we reached out on earlier at least not permanently not in terms of muscle passiculate so doing that reduces muscle performance because you're teaching the muscle to relax rather than activate. It's the opposite of an activation drill. And there is direct research showing that reduces strength development and muscle growth.

So when this new research came out of static stretching, which is I think 2017, the first study, which had serious design flaws, like I said, and in 2019, another one, both in untrained individuals and there they found if i'm not mistaken it did help muscle growth and it seemed a bit better controlled but they were effectively uh no this was last year's study and they were doing calf raises

but then adding a stretch after the set so basically finishing the set and then adding with a lot of stretch but that's kind of like a drop set or just adding more of the set, right? Or isometric contraction in the bottom position. For one, it's not going to be fully passive. And second, you're just adding to the set. And then found, okay, yeah, you can stimulate some extra muscle growth, potentially that way. But then the study I mentioned earlier from Wadi et al from this year

found that in trained individuals for the packs, it didn't induce any additional muscle growth or strength development. I think for most individuals, if you're going to do something like that, you could just do another set. Or if you're super time-pressed, maybe you could do a drop set or something, which I'm typically not a fan of. I'd rather do my reps or something else, but that's another topic. I don't think that just a passive static stretch is going to be the solution because it might reduce muscle activity in subsequent sets and the research base for it is not compelling at all.

So I think you're much better off just focusing on sets that also produce active tension rather than that stretching in between sets and the like. I currently see very little utility of that. Whether it works at all in trained individuals is to be determined because it's mostly going to be addition of sarcomeres in series, so making the muscle longer, and that

cannot happen after a certain point. And secondly, you're re-banking purely again on the stretched medial hypertrophy to passive tension, where in that same time you could have also been contributing active tension, which probably would result in more muscle growth. And you quickly commented on this, but set to set performance can drop too.

With some of the stuff I've seen people doing where it's like a minute or a minute and a half of aggressively stretching their pecs. And then I don't even know if there's any extra rest in between the sets. Maybe there's an extra 30 seconds and then they're right back to the bench press. And I haven't done that. I mean, maybe when I was and then they're right back to the bench press. And I haven't done that. I mean, maybe when I was younger, I haven't done it in a while. So I guess I can't say that I've tried it myself at least recently, but guaranteed performance is going to be worse on that subsequent set compared to just resting. And now, of course, you go back to, okay, so what if you have to take weight off the bar? Or what if you are getting several fewer reps per set now because you did that stretch? Now you have to weigh whatever you might have gotten from the stretching,

which is, as you've mentioned, partly theoretical, unknown, against what we know about, well, you could have just used heavier weight on that next set or gotten three or four more reps. And, you know, that we know matters. Exactly. In many of these cases, it's always, are you going to bank on the speculative thing or are you going to bank on what we know for sure is good? And then, yeah, let's stick with, you know, what we know for sure and then maybe modify it slightly rather than really throw the baby out with the bathwater. I've joked that so much of effective strength training is just doing the same boring exercises, variations of exercises, basic types of workouts forever.

And I'm exaggerating a little bit for humor, but I think there's more truth or that's more right than wrong. Yeah, I would say as an educator, like for my PT course and stuff, I steer people away from complexity, at least as much as I guide them towards complexity in favor of for optimization. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's everything that I had on the outline here for this discussion. We've touched on a lot. Is there anything though that I haven't asked you about

or that you just had kind of in the back of your head that you wanted to mention before we wrap up? I think we covered the topic pretty well. Yeah, yeah. I think it was great. Thanks again for doing it.

And let's wrap up then. Let's let people know where they can find you, find your work, your PT course. And let's wrap up then. Let's let people know where they can find you, find your work, your PT course. If there's anything else in particular that you want everybody to know about, let's let them know. Sure, yeah.

I mean, I'm on all social media now, including YouTube. So I'm doing a lot more with video. TikTok, are you on TikTok? I'm on TikTok, yes. Unbelievable, right? I'm on TikTok. It's not taking off super well yeah

it's not my type of core audience you have to get good at dancing and voice and voiceovers i think i think that's the key yeah that's not happening but yeah i'm posting the same type of content there uh i mean tiktok i basically just post what i post on youtube uh copies and so yeah youtube is something that i think i'm going to be working a lot more on the more video so that's what that's but I post on YouTube copies. And so YouTube is something that I think I'm going to be working a lot more on, do more video. So that's nice. And I still do all my usual social media.

My newsletter is good for people that are not on it yet. Get like a tour of my most popular contents. My PT course currently sold out, but there's one next year that's still available for PT certification. And I have a new Patreon account for like the people that are really into

like the more hardcore research updates and the like, really following the latest updates of everything. And yeah, the more serious people really interested in fine tuning and the optimization. And yeah, lots of free stuff

on my Instagram as usual. Cool. And all the links will be in show notes. But for people who are just listening, they can find you in all of those places by just searching your name. My name, Menno Anselons. Yep.

Yep. Yeah. If you put in Menno, hence H-E-N-S, it should pop up. But the rest is, the rest is E-L-M-A-N-S just for people wondering how to spell it.

Okay, great. Well, thanks again for taking the time, Menno. I always enjoy these discussions and I look forward to the next one. Likewise. Pleasure as always. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes.

And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope

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