Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 131: How to correct shi**y form

Episode Date: August 14, 2015

While Adam is off galavanting around in Tahoe, Sal and Justin reveal how to address muscle imbalances and correct crappy form to improve performance and to prevent injury.

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. When I was a kid, that's probably 12. This is a great story. I think it was 12, and there was an older, I don't remember who it was, an older Italian relative. And he was like, I don't know, 75 maybe. And not to stereotype, but the old school Italian guys, the old school Italian men from the old world, they kind

of don't give a shit that much. So anyway, I'm chilling there. I'm like 12, maybe 11 and he goes to sit down, right? So as soon as he touches the chair, he goes, oh! Right? And I'm like, oh, are you okay? And he goes, oh, he goes, I sat on my balls. And I'm like, what? Like what? Which is how I'm in love in, right? So I'm looking, I'm like, what?

Like I'm freaked out. How the fuck did that, what is this? Like your balls are back there? Like how did that happen? And he goes, you never sat on your balls? And I said, no. And he goes, don't worry, you will one day. Yeah, because they're still inside you.

I stuck, it stuck with me. Stuck with me since then. No, I'm waiting for that to happen. Grab it. I have yet to see it. Gravity kicks in, bro. They hang low. They hang low.

They hang low. So we should probably tell the listeners that we're missing one mind pump member. We are. Adam's not here right now. Yeah. Can we do our best impression of him? Of Adam?

Of Adam. Yeah. So this reminds me of a story that I was walking on the street and you know, chicks were basically telling me I was good looking and I was like, no, I'm not right now, I'm not carb loaded. And so I'm looking and I was like no I'm not right now I'm not carb loaded and so that reminds me of the time I was at this club you know and like I was just like I just don't want to be noticed but you know I'm just like

tired of girls hot women I was coming up and talking to me and so I was just like you know trying to be like a fly in the wall you know but I couldn't but I couldn't I couldn't it's impossible It's too gorgeous. No, he's he's where is he anyway? I don't know. Is it a oh Tahoe? Oh, he's just a trip with the girl What are yeah, well, I was gone last week on vacation and so I missed a couple sessions with your boys You know, you know who holds strong holds the fort down Doug you Yeah, you guys are always here D&J you guys are like you're like the herpes we are you don't go away no we kind of you know always there and we were very calculated So if you have a big event coming up we're gonna show it yeah if you're trying to get laid we're gonna show up. We're gonna. Yeah. If you're trying to get laid, we're gonna.

You're gonna be there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, I, so I was on vacation, I took the family to, we went to Legoland and see world and- Dude, that's awesome. How was it? Cause I want to take my son. Dude, it was, it was a great, great time.

I had a great time. However, I, it looks like I accomplished some, some pretty good bulking games over the week. I gained six pounds, dude. In a week. We talked about this, because we're like we said, we're kind of like, you know, girls in a sense. I'm like, wow, look at you, bro. I'm like, I gained six pounds in Justin was like, no, no, you look good, bro.

You can't even tell. It's good, pal, you're firm. You're firm. Yeah. So I would eat like at night, we would make s'mores. So I'd have s'mores. Oh, yeah. And then I'd drink during the day.

And I finally found an alcoholic beverage that I enjoy. Which one is that? Moscow mule. What's in that? So it's not a sex act. I thought that's what it was. I ordered one and I was expecting some weird donkey show.

No, they brought out a drink. It's Ginger Beer Vodka Lime Juice and Ginger Beer with Vodka. That sounds like a fucking hangover. I want to say stuff. No, dude, it's good. Really? Yeah, it was really good. So I had Moscow Mules and then I'm

I throw in a red bull vodka every once in a while. And you know, the kids are playing the pool and I'm just smashed. Yeah. Yeah. Watch it. You know, all the side of the pool. Vacation.

Yeah. And the kids are like, wow, Popeyes having so much fun with us. Are you so smiley today? Why are you so happy? You know, around 3 p.m, I'm like, all right kids, we gotta go back to the room and take a nap. Everybody stop shouting. Let's all take a nap.

That's all take a nap. So that was that. Pretty much it. I think we need to do a song. We do. Yeah. I think why don't you go and start, and I'll throw in some. If you like pin your glitters, I think why don't you go and start and I'll throw in some

It's like the worst song ever my only beat is the the only beat that I know is that yeah, let's just do a techno beat I think the beat box is usually very like That's kind of like a little porn filter. Yeah, and then you gotta be like easy, but like, chuk chuk, chuk, chuk chuk, chuk banit. Yeah, that's kind of like a little porn filter. Yeah, and then you gotta be like, oh, brown, brown. Yeah.

I was waiting on it, but you know what, I realized that me and Justin are the not serious ones. That's what just happened, right? Yeah, we, I just noticed that too. Yeah. Well, I was not usually like, pulls us back in.

He does. Shit, what are we gonna do? I looked back at the last few episodes and we should talk about fitness. Yeah, I think you're right. It's time to get a little bit serious, but like, I don't know, maybe make fun of it afterwards. All right, let's do that.

Let's talk about fitness a little bit. So one thing that I noticed, I worked out the hotel gym, which is most people know, hotel gyms terrible suck, really bad, but you know, I made do and I saw something I did not think I would see in a hotel gym. I actually saw weights. No. Yeah, I did it see a few weights, but I saw a guy in there working out and he had the ILS Or otherwise known as wheelbarrow syndrome or imaginary lat syndrome. Oh, I yes, okay So they haven't heard the term ILS ILS imaginary lat syndrome. Gotcha. So it's a medical it's a medical term

Referring to the dudes that walk around in the gym. Arms out, kind of flared out to their sides. It looks like they're holding an imaginary wheelbarrow, or like if they have massive lats, but they actually don't. Shoulders are rolled forward. Right, super protracted. Yeah, and they're just walk around. And so then I thought to myself, said, you know, we need to do it.

We should probably do an episode on, on communations. Yeah, muscle imbalances. And correctional exercise, because we talk a lot about performance, had increased performance and strength and fat loss and muscle building and the sexual bedroom performance. That stuff too. Cover that.

But we don't we haven't really covered correctional exercise. And I think people need to realize just how important that is for overall fitness. Right, because it's, I mean, like we always kind of mentioned, like the common metaphor is building your foundation. And it not addressing these little issues as nuanced and as small as you might think that they are, could really grow and turn into something that's going to be, you know, a bigger problem. It's something that's really going to limit you as far as like how you're going to be able to build strength and how you're going to be able to move and be explosive.

And you know, whatever it is, your goal, you know, whether you want to build muscle or you're trying to like get better performance wise, it's really going to like stop you from getting to that place. It will. And here, I mean, we'll start with the obvious. Okay. The obvious is injury. Okay. Muscle and balance is lead to injuries.

Now, before I get into that, I think it's important we explain what a muscle and balance is because, you know, a muscle imbalances are glaring. They're obvious. But a lot of them aren't so glaring and obvious. And they become so common that we don't even notice that they're imbalances. We think that's just how people move or, you know, the way we're supposed to look.

But for all intents and purposes, a muscle imbalance refers to a recruitment pattern, a muscle recruitment pattern that is less than ideal. So a recruitment pattern refers to the way your muscles fire when they're doing a particular movement, the order in which they fire and which muscles do most of a movement and which muscles do less of a movement. Right, which are overactive, which are underactive.

Right, so you think of all the muscles movement and which muscles do less of a movement, right, which are overactive, which are underactive. Right. So, yeah. So you think of all the muscles of when you do a squad or a push up or a pull up, there is a specific recruitment pattern that happens for those. And there's recruitment patterns that are ideal that are going to allow your joints to move in an ideal way. And then there's less than ideal recruitment patterns that will place your joints to move in an ideal way. And then there's less than ideal recruitment patterns

that will place your joints and body in positions and in movements that are not conducive to long-term health and longevity when it comes to exercise. And so when you look at athletes or gym rats, injury is becomes a huge factor because we're working out consistently for years. So the average person doesn't have trouble being consistent with the workouts. That's one thing. But then when you have guys like us or a lot of our listeners who work out

week after week after week for years and years and years, repetitive movement. You're a chronic issues that are going to come out of these deviations. Yeah, you're going to encounter, eventually, you're going to encounter a problem. And if you don't address it, it turns into an injury. And that will stop your progress dead in its tracks. And you'll either a, have to avoid exercises altogether, which sucks, especially if it's an important exercise

like a squat, or b, you'll have to stop working out. And I'm going gonna say something that, I don't know, I mean, it might be controversial, but the truth is that rarely do you need to stop, completely stop exercise when you have an acre of pain that's due to exercise. Usually, if proper correctional exercise will correct the issue and you won't need to stop your workout

And I think that's important to note because a lot of people are like, oh, I had to stop Working out my shoulders for five weeks because I had a shoulder problem when in fact There would have been a better way to address it You're just really like shortening legaments or you're shortening muscles and you're creating all this like wound up tension that's pulling like a rubber band. It's pulling it in the not optimal way, right? And it sort of takes over and it's overactive. It's like, you know, when your knee starts tracking and you realize that, dude, if I just foam roll my IT band and I alleviate a lot of this pressure, I'm gonna have, that pain is gonna subside. And I think that too, it is tricky

because we're not physical therapists and MDs or stuff like that, so we don't wanna like prescribe things for people when they have pains, but at the same time, you know, you can differentiate whether or not it's muscular or you know, it's bone or ligaments or that kind of pain, like there's a difference, you know, and there's like a sharp pain, you know,

versus like, you know, more of an achy or like a more of a, even if it's a sharp pain, but it subsides, you know, it's not something that's like, I gotta go to the doctor, you know. Well, you can break, you can break most pain down into two categories, two general, and these are broad categories, but you can pretty much place pain into one or two categories.

One is acute, okay. And acute pain, an easy test, if you have a client or even yourself, you can assess this really easily. If a client comes to me and says, my shoulder hurts, I'll say, what, how did you hurt it? If they say, oh, I felt a pop or I tweaked it,

or I fell or I quitted it. Or I quitted it. Then that's acute. If they say to me, well, I don't really remember when I heard it, but it just kind of bothers me when I do these types of motions. Right. And it's kind of been bothering me for a while now. That's chronic.

And chronic pain is far more of that is due to muscle imbalance. A cute pain can be an actual injury in which it can be a traumatic, you know, some kind of like collision or something that happened. Yeah, you might have tore something or something like that. So that definitely would require rest, but most pain is chronic. Most of the time, you know, it's not something that we specifically did at one moment. It was just over time. We developed these issues. So I think, I guess it's for us, for for you to assess yourself, you're right. We're not physical therapists,

but you don't necessarily need to be one if you kind of understand generally how joints function. So we'll start with the shoulders because I see shoulder issues as being the most common amongst general. What's the most complicated, multifaceted, like it gives it allows for like almost the most ranges of motion that, you know, you could

provide out of a joint. How many, how many ranges do you see? Like it's like five or six different, you know, variations. So I can, I can, you know, I have rotator cuff in there so I can turn and rotate. You can rotate it extra. Yeah, exactly. You know, you twist you can I mean there's just so many different pathways that you can move your arm through because your So your shoulder joint is so versatile. It's super versatile. I'd say the next The next most versatile joint would probably be the hip. I mean, aside from the spine, of course. Right. And then you have joints that are very, you know, it just basically flex and extend like the elbow and the knee. And what's really holding together your shoulder? I mean, this little collar bone,

I mean, a lot of times I'll see like clients I have that are cyclists. You know, That's one of the first things that's gonna break. There's just so much, it only takes so much force and... Oh, you knew when they fall off the street? Yeah, exactly. Cause all they do is they fall over. Their feet are stuck into their pedals. That's the worst thing.

That's one of the first things to go. And there's just not a whole lot of really rigid like bone structure there to to combat any kind of like force and trauma. And to it's one of the most used, you know, your arm like, especially with sports, you know, like think of pictures and think of, you know, quarterbacks and whatever, like hockey. Any upper body, just the repetitive movement of that is gonna stress out all those ligaments. Well, I mean, let's look at a common, here's a common deviation or issue with the shoulder.

You see people with what's called forward shoulder. And this is where, and just to exaggerate this particular deviation, it would be with someone's whose shoulders are kind of rolled forward. That's in a common individual, someone who maybe doesn't work out, or even people who do work out, you'll see it in its extreme form. But then again, you see this in people who work out a lot, and this will be when they go to a back exercise or a pressing pressing exercise and they don't get good

What's called scapular retraction and depression? So let me explain what that means the shoulder joint is in its most mobile position or I guess it moves best when it's retracted and depressed So that means when the shoulder blades are down and back When they're down and back and away from the ears, you have a very good full range of motion and it's in a relatively safe position. When it's shrugged or rolled forward, lots of issues can happen. Things from impingement of the, you know, infraspinatus muscle or the supraspinatus muscle, you get bicep tendon inflammation, you know, rotator cuff, you know, issues along the rotator cuff, which is along the scapula.

So if one of the things, if you have shoulder issues, one of the best ways to address it is to focus on exercises that strengthen that shoulders down and back position. Right. Yes. It's supporting that. And it's almost like you're shortening it to that optimal length, right? So you want that scapular retraction, you want to work on those rhomboids and strength

and that posterior part of the shoulder. And that, because that, honestly, that counters a lot of normal posturing throughout your day, too. Oh, you sitting front of your computer, you're sitting your computer and you're even just sitting in a chair like, what do you normally do? You're leaning forward. We're always talking to people in front of us, right? And so we're talking to people in front of us.

This leads to that posturing where everything else is sort of like hunched forward. You know, you get that forward neck, you know, and that creates other deviations. And so like there's cues that we look for as trainers too. Like so, if our shoulders are coming up and my trapezius is really tight, you know, that's something that we want to address, just like you said, with the scapular retraction and everything else and pulling everything down for optimal length. But then you look at something like, say I'm a boxer, right, how are boxers posturing?

Yeah, you need to strike your knee. Yeah, you need to have your... You want to cover your chin. You want to cover your chin. And so it's like certain sports, I think, too, like that, when you go out of sports, especially like it's really hard to sort of address all these things that happened as a result of your sport.

Well, yeah, with a boxer, I would still focus on retraction and depression and scapula, just because it offsets what he's always doing. Yeah, it's a great point. He's always doing the ring. Same thing I would do with, you know, pictures, you know, I have them throwball backwards along the same trajectory. Oh, yeah, opposite. Exactly. Yeah, so here's the deal. So when I say this to people, especially to people who are experienced

in the gym, but aren't necessarily experts or incorrect in an exercise or trainers, they just work out a lot. When I say to them, you need to work on bringing the shoulders down and back. The first thing they do is say, oh, okay, I'll do more rows. And yes, if you do a row, theoretically, that's what you're working on. However, here's the difference between correction and exercise versus exercise for muscle building and for performance.

When I'm trying to build muscle, I'm using a weight that is challenging. I am pulling, I am giving myself, I have to work out a certain intensity to stimulate muscle growth. When I'm working for correctional exercise, I'm not looking for muscle growth, I'm looking to change the recruitment pattern. Here's the difference.

If I take a guy, and I've done this a million times, if I take a guy or a girl who's got that poor, you know, recruitment pattern to shoulder, and they're getting that forward shoulder, the shrug shoulder like you said. And I have them do heavy rows. You know how they're gonna row the weight? They're gonna row the weight with their shoulders shrugging.

Because that's their recruitment pattern. So if they just do more rows, if they say, if they listen to what I say and they say, fuck it, oh cool, I'm gonna go do more rows then. Oh, it's a great point. All they're doing is strengthening the imbalance. They're not correcting the imbalance. Well, cause your body, yeah, your body too,

is like it wants to make things, the way that you're posturing, it wants to enhance that. It wants to improve, basically wants to make it easier. So if you're lifting weight, your body's like smart enough to wanna make, you know, that less challenging for you based off of like how you, you're already structured and how your length and tension relationship is exactly great, great point. And so with that individual, what I would say is no, no, for when you do your rows, let's say you use 150 pounds on the cable row,

I want you to use 70 pounds, something that is light for you, maybe even 50 pounds. And what I want you to do is I want you to focus specifically on that downward and back squeeze of the scapula. And it's not going to be challenging in terms of the weight. The form might be challenging, but the weight's not going to be challenging. But what it's going to do is it's going to teach your muscles to fire differently. So let me explain what happens when your, why your body starts to shrug or why it'll continue

to shrug. If you've always shrugged when you've done these rows, what's happening is, and just like what Justin was saying, your body doesn't understand muscles, it understands movement. So when I'm telling my body is to pull the way back if if my Downward and back squeeze is weak because let's say my rhombods are weak or my my mid-trapezius is weak My body doesn't say okay, we need to strengthen those muscles It says I need to pull the way back so it calls upon the next available muscle

Mm-hmm in this case. It's the upper trapezius. And so I'm going to continue to strengthen that imbalance. So we got to lighten the weight and correct that form. And then what it does is it changes the way your body recruits muscles. And then eventually over time, I move up to that heavy weight again, but now I'm strengthening the, I'm working on the imbalance. I'm correcting my recruitment pattern and I'm building muscle. And it's a great point. And it also highlights how when you have an injury, how those recruitment patterns change, because your body's efficiency is the priority, right, with movement.

And so as I'm going and rehabilitating that I wanna focus on re-aligning that pathway and getting that recruitment pattern again, so that you can get the right muscles involved with the movement. So, and this is hard because a lot of times people have surgeries and things, and especially like, I noticed with some clients that have had like a C section, or something like that, we're like, it's some clients that have had a C section or something like that, we're like, it's really hard to establish that again with the dog.

Back connection, yeah, that connection. But it's so vital to then supporting the movement later on. So if you're not addressing that and you're just trying to get back into shape and getting into shape is the priority. You're gonna experience other types of injuries as a result of that because now you're not recruiting the right muscle groups to support your spine. And really supporting your spine is of the highest priority. And then out of that is,

as far as like, you know, turns into aesthetic, but also like, you know, we can, I don't know. Yeah. No, no, I mean, and a lot of, and here's the thing, besides injury, you'll build more muscle and perform better if you correct these imbalances. So even if you don't have injuries, even if you feel fine, if your body's not, if your recruitment patterns aren't optimal, you will limit your ability to get stronger and to improve. And I'll give you another example. I cannot count how many times I've had athletes come in or people who work out a lot come in and increase their bench press by 5%. Not because they've built more muscle, I'm talking about in the same session like I'm like we're

gonna start training right now and 30 minutes later you're stronger in your bench press. Why? Because I'm able to put your body in better positioning with your form with your bench press. This is true for almost any more muscle activation better muscle activation better form and over time, you're going to build more muscle. So if you're having issues with some of these big multi-joint movements like squats or dead lifts or whatever, a good thing to do would be to lighten the load and perfect your form. And look in the mirror and have people assess you and say, okay, I'm not activating these muscle groups. I'm going to go light and perfect this and add weight only when it's perfected. And then add weight. And if my form gets goes down again, back off on the weight. And I promise you, if you do that, you'll get

better results in the short term, not just in the long term, but in the short term. You know, you brought some interesting up about like core activation, like when women get C-sections after pregnancy or even, I'll give you another one, this one's interesting. So I learned this from a physical therapist friend of mine years ago and it blew my mind. It absolutely blew my mind. So we've talked about this in the past,

but a muscle contracts best when the muscle fibers, you know, without getting too technical, within a certain range of motion, your muscles are going to be the strongest. If you put a muscle in the deep stretch, it's not going to be as strong. So for example, if you take your pec and you stretch it as far as you possibly can and then try and lift heavy weight with it You're not going to be as strong as if you start as if you start in the middle, right? Okay. So now let's talk about Weight gain especially men where we men will gain lots of body fat in our belly But not on top of the muscle underneath it the visceral body fat

And we all know that that guy with the big belly where you poke his belly, it's hard because there's fat underneath it. What is that body fat doing? It's pushing the abdominals out and stretching them out. They are losing core stability simply because of the inflammation and fat underneath the abdominals that's stretching it out. Now women don't necessarily typically store lots of visceral body fat in the gut. However, women will typically suffer from lots of gut inflammation, even more so than

men. And you'll hear women say, like, I feel bloated or my belly feels bloated, this will also reduce core stability. And so what goes along hand in hand with this is back pain. And I've had people reduce back pain by reducing gut inflammation because now their core muscles can fire better. And so when you get someone who's got a distended belly,

we can really work a lot on trying to activate the core, but if we don't reduce that distinction or that inflammation, it gets very difficult. That's so crazy. That just brings it right back so I nutrition is so like symbiotic with the whole training experience. Because a lot of people think of nutrition as just a way to get leaner, not necessarily performance, right?

I mean, if you sort of load up on sugar and all this before an event, obviously you're going to get a spike and you're going to get this surge of energy temporarily, right? And you're going to crash. But I mean, just the inflammation, like over time and the chronic toxicity levels of your body, you're gonna end up having to fight all that intrinsically, whereas if you address that, like your overall body performance will enhance because now your body doesn't have to fight so hard.

Internally with all this stuff going on, and it's gonna be more optimal, and I'm sure your signal would be louder, right? And so if we apply that on a systemic scale, the whole body, think of chronic inflammation now, what it's doing to the rest of your body's ability to fire muscles properly. And you see now why I've had so many clients,

like I said, we'll reduce their inflammation. They haven't lost weight or anything. We really haven't even worked out at this point that much, but they'll notice less pain in areas like their back and their neck or whatever, because muscles are able to fire more optimally because they're not so inflamed. So this is the correctional aspect,

and I placed that in the correctional exercise category. This is a very important part, and it's not as glamorous as training to look a certain way, or it's not as fun as seeing big weights move up in the gym, but it contributes heavily to those two things. We can talk about the knee. Let's talk about the knee first. We just talked about the shoulder.

I would say in a nutshell, the ability for your shoulder blades to pinch down and back is a kind of a cure all when it comes to chronic shoulder pain. Now it's not going to fix everything, but everything from shoulder and pinchment issues to bicep tendon inflammation to rotator cuff issues. That ideal position will benefit those. Let's talk about the knee now for a second, right? The knee is not nearly as complicated as a shoulder. It only really does two things. It flexes and extends. It flexes and extends. It obviously has stabilizing components of your in a single leg situation or whatnot or like lateral forces and transverse. So you know, it can adjust to that. But that's main function is that. an extent. Yeah. So the here's the thing about the knee, the knee rarely operates on its own in movement. 99% of time, your knee, if

you're doing something that involves your knees, you're also doing something that involves your hips and your ankles to a lesser extent. But mainly your hips. Many, many, many, many times. I would say the majority of times that I've encountered knee issues with clients, and I'm not talking about an acute injury, like a tear or whatever, just chronic pain. It's involved with the hips. It's a weakness in the hips.

It's a weakness or an imbalance in the hips, either tightness or the fact that the hips are not firing optimally. So I'll give you an example, right? The hip joints twist. I can twist my, I can turn my foot out and turn it in what's called external internal rotation with my hips. My knees don't do that.

My meniscus holds my knee in place from twisting. However, if my hips are super tight and I'm trying to do twisting movements and everyday activity, my meniscus is going to have to stabilize the shit out of my knee. And so you'll get meniscus issues in pain. And this will reveal itself with clients who say, like, I don't know what I did, but my knee just gets swollen sometimes.

And a lot of times I'll look at their hips and notice that they're tight as hell on their hips and so it must be their meniscus that's getting tight. Yeah, I swear the go to and this is just it holds true with almost everybody in the population I've trained like it's it's it's like the piriformis just takes so much stress. And like if we address that and like, it just helps to alleviate so much of that tension that's really drawing everything out of this optimal biomechanic situation. But yeah, a lot of times like knee pain,

it's just like this immediate result of the hips, being out of alignment or not, you know, doing its optimal function. Yeah, I would say, um, you know, in that particular issue, like, like I said, when I'm training clients or athletes, I focus a lot on proper hip extension, you know, the, the, the posterior chain, the glutes and the hamstrings and how they're firing. So, um, that, yeah, and that's one of the main things. So, um, Dr. Ed Thomas, like, so he's done wonders with, like, physical education in, uh, in Iowa.

And I hold a lot of respect for him. He's like, almost like the father of physical education. Um, but, uh, he, some things I picked up from him as far as movement is concerned, just frequently placing the body into full extension. You know, it's so important to do that because, you know, you think like I said in the beginning how everything is so in front of you and forward and the posturing of everything, the arms are down, just taking your body and sort of in full extension and getting that out of the hips and knees

and it helps to counteract a lot of those forces. Well, I think, let me explain because I'm sure some listeners are getting confused with what we mean when we say extension. So when Justin says extension, so flexion at the hips would be, if I'm standing straight up, flexion would be me flexing down to touch my toes. Extension would be coming up. So hip extension is me taking my leg, keeping it straight and kind of kicking my heel back

with my whole leg, like I'm doing like a kick back, if that makes any sense. Whereas a flexion would be bringing my knee up or bringing my knee up to the front of my body. So hip extension, bringing my leg back, hip flexion, bringing my knee up. So hip extension is the glutes, hamstrings, and or if you just think about humping. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of

Extending there's a lot of extending when you're humping if you don't do full extension with the full hump You're missing listen. You're missing a full inch or so not only yeah Like I said, I got back to the sexual I know I was like that was that was quite a run. I need to spice it up Humping so like if you look at a squat if you need to spice it up a little bit. Those things. Humping. So like if you look at a squat, if you look at someone doing a squat, believe it or not, we think of squats as this quad exercise,

you work in your quads a lot. The hips are doing a lot more, or at least they should be doing a lot more of the load than the knees. If the hips are weak, you're gonna put more load on the knees. So if you have issues with your knees, you should be focusing on like single leg toe touches or single leg deadlifts

or stiff leg deadlifts or hip bridges or exercises that strengthen that extension part. Then you go back to doing your squat and you'll see that your knees probably won't bother you as much when you're doing your back seat. Absolutely. So you know doing your bar back seat. Absolutely. So, you know, this goes to everybody. Correctional exercise should be something that's always in your back pocket. And when you're noticing an issue with, you know, aches or pains and you need to really warm up a lot of a particular joint, it may, it's probably in your best interest to focus

on correcting the issue before you move on. You know, I'll give you another example with, I'll use presses again with rotator cuff issues. And you're seeing more people do this now, more people are kind of hip to this, is strengthening the external rotators of the rotator cuff. So in layman's terms, that's the, those are the muscles that, if I put my arm out to my side, like I just did a side lateral, it's twisting, so I'm twisting my thumb up and then twisting it back. The muscles that rotate my arm out are the external rotators, and there are exercises that can strengthen that particular movement, which tend to be weak in people who just do lots of bench presses and shoulder presses.

And so this would be, you know, I'm standing straight up, I grab a cable, my arm is bent at 90 degrees, and I just rotate my arm out. I'm just twisting out and then letting the weight bring back in and twisting out. I also do that, yeah, with the rubber band. With the rubber band. I just turn it onto a squat rack. Or even a dumbbell. Right.

I had a guy, not that long ago, add 15 pounds to his bench press just because he added that. All he did was add or let me do a little plug here Indian clubs. Indian clubs are excellent for the shoulders. Yeah. Absolutely. You get a lot of the internal external stabilizers, you know, working on that. Yeah. Which then contributes to strength and all your heavy lifts.

It's just it. And I, I don't know, I guess is why I've kind of fell in love with them. It's just because I've gone through so many programs for strength training and everything performance-based. You're talking about the Indian clubs you work out with, not the Indian clubs you go out and party at. No. Vale, vale, vale. You can find Justin at the Indian clubs you go out and party out. No. Bale, bale, bale. You can find Justin at the Indian clubs.

Hey, I get down. Dude, that's so good. I get down that Bollywood all day. Yeah. What was I talking about in the clubs? So why I fell in love with them was because I haven't found anything else that really matched the ability that the human body has at the shoulder joint, like with the Indian clubs. It's this fluid circular motion that you're not going to ever experience just by pressing

stationary weights or even kettlebells. Kettlebells do a decent job at allowing, you know, more rotation in the rest, more rotation, elbow, you know, shoulder. But it just helps to really just establish that, that fluidity and get that joint, that kind of movement that it needs. And then it adds just enough stress. So it adds just enough of a load to enhance that movement and basically build more strength with that, right? So if you think of gymnasts or they have like crazy flexibility, but somehow they're super strong in that flexible. And that's an extreme example because they have trained their body in a very extreme way

to be able to get, you know, crazy range of motion in any normal person is capable of. And so anyway, this is just a way to counteract a lot of like deviations as well and strengthen, you know, the whole shoulder blade and the whole shoulder joint and everything. So, well, I would say, because I've had people ask me, well, how do I make sure that I don't get injured or how do I make sure that I don't have to encounter an issue where then something hurts and then I have to try to fix it? Because once you start to have that pain to try to correct it,

you need to have a little bit of knowledge on how to do so. Now obviously, this is what we do for living. So we know how to do this, but for the average person, here's what I would recommend. Every few weeks or so, dedicate one workout or maybe even a week of workouts to perfecting your form and your range of motion on exercises. So one way to do this would be to film yourself with your iPhone or whatever, doing a squat, a deadlift, a bench press, an overhead press, a row, maybe you have a workout partner, a film ease from behind and from the side.

Watch them and be really critical of them and put them next to videos or pictures of what, you know, or demonstrated to be perfect form on those. Or, okay, just get on our forum. Of course. And we will help critique, because that's one of the, I think, the greatest benefits that we've had. Yeah, with a lot of the members in there

that are doing a dead left or a squat, and they want a quick little form check and we're usually pretty good about. Oh yeah, we've had about at least five people post videos of themselves doing other trainers and everybody kind of chimes in together like to help articulate little things you probably don't see. Because as much as we want to work out and be a a renegade, and just do it all by yourself. It benefits you to have people that are knowledgeable,

give you real valid critiques, and it'll just help to enhance your lifts the next time you go do it. It does, and if you're listening and you're not on the forum, I mean, we suggest you get on there, but if you're not, and you post a video of yourself doing a squat

or a deadlift or whatever, go ahead and, you know, just tag Mind Palm for me. I mean, we'll try to get to it. We have a lot of people at the moment that have been asking questions and stuff, but we'll try to get to it. But if we can, I have no problem. I know Justin and Adam are so much. Yeah, definitely, we always try to help people. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're in our little ecosystem or not. Like people on the gym will come up and ask me, so if I have a second of time available, I'm going to give it to you. It's just that we don't always have that. But at the same time, we're definitely there for you guys. And that's what we're doing this show.

We're not getting paid to do this show. That's always reminding me. I always feel like I have to reiterate that though, because like, you listen to a lot of podcasts and you know, we have a parallel, we have all these different things, but like, we're not making any money. No, you know what I mean?

It's just not, you know, so just keep that in mind, you know, like we're putting our a lot of time into this. And well, I mean, we're time into this. And we're almost convinced Adam to let us horror him out. And I think we can make some of this creative. Is what we're trying to say. Yeah, I think we can make some of this reminds me. I just hear about this documentary. It's like trophy kids.

And they're talking about these crazy ass parents that were we're taking like athletes who had like genetically awesome calves or whatever Like so they get them to like go to the sperm bank and donate if you will And then they you know take that and inseminate Wow, yeah, like that's that's like the crazy. Wow parent that exists now. How much how much would you need? How much would you pay you? Listen, I'm available. I got some rock and calves. You know, like it's like 900 bucks. They're paying these people. See, when I hear that, there's only one thing that pops in my head. It is my pump fund. It's how much money I could have made just last week. It's just a lot of wasted.

It is a lot of wasted materials, right? It's valuable. I didn't even know it was valuable. I'd be, let me think. Let me do the math carry the zero, carry the one. I'd be worth a couple trillion dollars by now. If I start back when I was 13. It depends on, and then if you take that supplement,

you mentioned a long time ago the volume iser Seminole was the other one. Oh, I don't remember my ball fill ball refill Probably my favorite supplement. Yeah, no one balanced there. No muscle imbalance there. No, why is my right forearm so much bigger than that? Repetitive motion. Yeah, I did motion all day. So, so I know what you need to do. We'll go back up. Give me your stranger involved. Get the stranger. The stranger that you're doing.

Is that one the hand falls asleep? Yeah, well, no, that's, yeah, I guess so. It's just a surprise. We can't stay serious for too long. No. All right, so I guess just to leave off, I would say focus one to three workouts every four or five weeks on just correctional exercise lightweight perfect your form and

You will build more muscle you'll definitely you know look better, but more than that you'll avoid get your avoid injury Yeah, establish those you know recruitment patterns and see what it does for your days where you want to really press it. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. For more information about this show and to get valuable free resources from Sal, Adam and Justin, visit us at www.mindpumpradio.com. Until next time, this is Mind Pump. Until next time, this is MindPump.