Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 195: Train Like Bruce Lee

Episode Date: December 3, 2015

Old time strongmen and bodybuilders did it, Bruce Lee did it, but today, most muscle builders have completely forgotten about this strength and performance tool that builds up the central nervous system and leads to rock hard muscle. Sal, Adam & Justin reveal and break down how to use this tool in this episode.

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, omite, om with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Adam, you got to smell my mic. It smells like fucking cookies. What? Adam, did you come in here? Did you come in here and just eat chocolate chip cookies over my mind?

No, I didn't have any cookies. Did you guys have any cookies? I Oh, I didn't eat that. I didn't have any cookies. I didn't have any cookies. No, I didn't have any cookies. Cookies? Cookies? I mean, that's what I would eat. You know, before we go into the food, I want to say this. Oh, pie.

I want to say this real quick, before we go into the cookies. We should never not see each other for that long again. Was that like five days? It felt like I was on a desert island. I don't like it. Well, I don't even like what Doug's at a town. I was like, fuck, I can't even ask Doug what's going on. Yeah, Doug.

Like just mind pump still exists. Actually, we forgot to tell you Doug. We all had a meeting when you weren't here and we decided that you can't leave town town never again. No big issues for Doug. Yeah, it's like putting a hole in the ship. So, pie, huh?

You ate a shit ton of pie. I had a first time ever had pecan pie I've never had that my life. Is it good? With some vanilla ice cream over it. Oh, it's also pecan pie is good then sounds good for you or No, I know it's not good for you. No, I you know what first time I ever had it and I don't know if you guys notice this Maybe maybe Sal has some scientific study to back this up as we get older I always does I know right if not if I don't I'll make some I'm sure this is if he doesn't he'll make one up sounds really That sounds great. Uh, well, you know pie is 3.14. Oh Yes

Uh, you know, I've noticed that is as I get older things that I used to like as a kid I don't like anymore my stomach can't handle it just weird and things, I have different cravings and stuff. I like, I would have never ate it, become pie before. And it was phenomenal. Are you pregnant? Are you pregnant? I might be. Yeah, I might be.

Did he come inside? So you know, it's true, your taste buds do change as you get older. They become, they call it becoming more mature. But you notice like little kids like things that are really sweet and they don't like things that are bitter, but then as you get older, you start to like enjoy things that are bitter, like, like, like,

like, smiten when you're a kid, right? So like, all these flavors just start to get a lot. Yeah, like, like, like, like, all of those are like stinky cheeses and stuff like that. Little kids don't like that. Or like, like, now I love, yeah, blue cheese,

and I'm adding like, spicy stuff in the man's head. Especially, I noticed like that, like I love it. I love, yeah, blue cheese. And I'm adding like spicy stuff in the man. Especially I noticed like that, like red peppers. Like I never, I remember watching my step down when I was little, I used to put red peppers on his pizza. I'm like, oh my god, I remember trying to be like, my mouth was on fire. Right.

Like now I drown my pizza with like red peppers. Yeah. Dude, I go red peppers and then a shit ton of parmesan. I do parmesan, yeah, I'll do. When I use the E-Pizza, I can't anymore. Fuck. And then all is for extra salt. So I like gomesan, yeah, I'll do. When I use the E.P. I can't anymore. Fuck. And then all is for extra salt. So I go, you know, super parched up.

Right. We're moving from a fitness radio show to like a, what's food network? Food. Fat bull is united. Did you guys had Turkey, right? Yeah. Is it just me or is Turkey overrated?

Yeah. It's either super dry or undercooked in my families. If it wasn't for the dark meat, Turkey would fucking, I mean, well, okay, so my mom makes my mom makes a pretty bomb turkey and she makes even more amazing gravy. So the gravy over the turkey is, I mean, that's what makes it. It's the combination just plain turkey, unless you're having like turkey sandwiches the next day is kind of over it.

But I don't, I like turkey. I think it's all right. It's Thanksgiving. Okay, this is kind of weird. So check this out. The rest of the year, I'm like one of those weirdos that when I make my plate, I don't like other foods to touch each other.

Like I separate my vegetables, my carb, my favorite. Defense lines. I do. And if someone like, hey, if someone like hey if someone asks a separatist Like if my girl says hey, uh, do you want to try what I ordered? I'd be like no no no I don't I want like when I set my mind to what I'm about to consume I want to taste that I don't want to I don't want to fuck up a palette with anything else. I'm the same way so I'm okay good That makes me feel good that I'm gonna like this and then, but Thanksgiving is the only thing that I just like to pile everything together,

throw some of the gravy over it and just kind of shovel it all down. I like mixing foods in general. Yeah, I do. I look at you and you look like a pie eaten food mixer. Oh, what? A pie eaten food mixer. Food, yeah, well, you look like a fucking pie. That's all in a pie.

Pie eaten food mixer. I can't make, I can't like decide if that's an insult or not. I'm not sure if it was meant to be. You pie and mix. Well, so trip off this, right? Everything's giving, right around Thanksgiving, something weird happens. This, I sort of, I don't know what it is,

but something always happens. Like one year, my dad of all people almost gets in a fist fight on Thanksgiving. Yeah. This like two years ago or something, he was driving and some dude cut him off, and then my dad like high beamed him. So at the stoplight, the guy gets out of his car

and hits my dad's car with his fist. What? So my dad gets out of the car and grabs him, and then the dude's like, oh, I'll sue you. I'll sue you. And then so my dad let go of him. Like he was just a little pussy. He probably felt the fucking grip.

Let me tell you my dad grabs you. You know you're gonna go flying And arm is gonna break so so so that was one year. So this is what happened to me right so I'm driving and Fucking dude cuts me off. So I'm like what a mother fucking hell. Thanks to him. What an asshole? So I drive around him and I cut I cut him off This is is super mature. So I cut him off and he starts to pull up next to me. So I'm like, all right, this is gonna go down. So I'm gonna say some shit.

Like we're gonna, that's cool. You're gonna get it. So I'm like fully prepared. You know when you get that like, that that amped up feeling like I'm gonna, I'm gonna journal and start. Yeah, I might have to reach out and grab him, pull him out of his car while I was driving.

So he's pulling up and I'm waiting to look over to see if he comes out. It sticks his head out of his car like driving. So he's pulling up and I'm waiting to look over to see, he comes out, sticks his head out of the window. As it real, he looked like a chameleon and I don't mean he blended into his car. I mean, he had Googley eyes. And went to different directions. He's like, man, I just can't see the road.

So he sticks his head out. He's like, cussing at me, right? And I just started laughing. I saw, which is pissing him off because he's thinking this guy's laughing at me. I'm just busting up and you know, finally He's yelling at me. I'm like listen. I'm it's all good, bro. It's all good. Yeah, I don't mean I don't know what I'm gonna do I don't know you were special bro But they both we have an hard enough time with

They pointed it left and right yeah, you can't you know, although I mean his lateral vision is spectacular fucking amazing. So it's peripheral. Do you guys do you guys go around the left and right. Yeah, you can't, you know, although, although his lateral vision is spectacular. Fucking amazing. So it's peripheral. Do you guys go around the table and say what you're thankful about? When were you Thanksgiving dinner? Yeah, that's always awkward.

Wow, none of you guys do that. No, we're not, we're not, we're not. You guys are bad people. We're not super religious. And here's another thing. Do you guys have to hold hands when you guys do grace? We hold hands and pray. So it's not strange holding a man's hand like if I'm standing if I'm next to you

You're holding my hand and Justin's on his side. No, there's a way. There's a man holding like insecure with your I don't I'll lace my fingers with you. Yeah, I just can't it's you don't like the finger hair Right, I think it is I mean I could kiss you on the cheek no problem. Okay, uh, you know, we can you know Pat my ass. I'll reach other no pro handing I mean, I could kiss you on the cheek, no problem. Okay. We know, we can, you know, we can shower each other, no problem. Handing, shhower, holding hands is weird. Okay, so I wanna back up here. It's too intimate, it's too intimate. Yeah.

Saying what you're thankful for, you can treat me great, so I'm still gonna be head off. Saying what you're thankful for for the year has nothing to do with it. So it's not a prayer thing, you just say what you do. No, you just, everyone goes around the table, it says we all share with each other something, something or the things that we're most thankful for.

And this past year, yeah, everyone kind of goes around and says, Hey, I'm thankful for this. Adam, he's like the sentimental guy. You know, yeah, because you're a bunch of dicks. No, what are you thankful for this year? What am I? I did it. I'm saying, okay, you did. Okay, see, I knew you're a good person. No, we didn't do that. You know, we did, we have morals. Can you do this? Well first of all can you do this? Can I do what can you do that? Do what think of what's thankful for I'm thankful for a lot of things? Well, let's narrow it down. Huh?

Let's do it. Let's let's narrow it down to Justin. We'll do this. Let's talk about something else while we're doing that Think of me's our time with this right science everything with this with this, right? Science, everything. With this, this is out of reach. The obvious things, I'm extremely thankful for my family being healthy. I'm thankful for. Those are all generic answers.

You know, meeting you guys, I'm very thankful for meeting you guys. Okay, that's why I wanted to hear. That's pretty much how I was searching for that. I was waiting for that. I'm very, very thankful for that. But here's a, let me ask you guys this question. How many people were at your Thanksgiving party?

15, 15, How many two? 15? So, yeah. So, we're at two? Yeah, when my family and I was at two, they said two people were there. I was like, what'd you do with your kids? You and your wife?

I was like, so we could take care of them. I thought a low profile. No, we have always a minimum of like 40 people. There isn't one table that we're always, I got a big family, so we don't sit around, like we can't really sit around a table, it would be in different rooms because everybody's sitting everywhere.

So the way we serve our food is, you know, my mom or whoever's like, food's ready, we get in line, I'm usually first because I'm usually waiting. I'm like the guy that waits outside Walmart before Black Friday, except for the food. I'm hanging out, that's where I hang out because when she says, let's go boom, I'm there.

Boom, you die. And we all line up and we get our food and then we go sit somewhere you can find a place to sit cause there's 40 people in a fucking small house. Damn. Yeah, so. So we don't have time to say thanks for shit. It's like, get your food and eat.

No time. No purpose, we get to get it. We're gonna show you what we did. Whatever, get your food. Let's food my face. I heard you ate a lot of cheesecake too. Someone told me, dude, who ran it me out right now? You did yourself, it was on text.

It was your girl, right? Oh, right now, oh, I can't meet the gym. I'm eating cheesecake. No, I ran into your girl at Golds. So that's what I'm like, oh, where's Adam? And she's like, oh, he's at home eating cheesecake. So, I'm like, I, where's Adam? And she's like, oh, he's at home eating cheesecake. So So after we murdered Turkey and stuffing and macaroni and cheese and all this other crazy stuff that was on our table,

we had the Pocon pie, the apple pie. So I had my Pocon pie and apple pie, all the mode, which I was a must. And then I was like, okay, I'm gonna go, I fasted up to that. So I fasted up to that. We played basketball. And so I actually came out of Thanksgiving, like a pound lighter than whened up to that. So I fasted up to that. We played basketball. And so I actually came out of Thanksgiving like a pound lighter than when I went into it.

So which was awesome. So I actually lost weight going with Thanksgiving. How did you feel after basketball? Oh, I was gonna fucking die. Yeah. Yeah. You didn't pull a hammy? Okay, this is what had us went down.

So my girls, this is your reason for not coming to the post Thanksgiving week of order. Yes. So my girl, okay, my girls family, there's no room for us. All ball players, right? Yes. Always room. So all ball players, everyone's basketball players and all the way from and there's the youngest who's, uh, 20 years old, all the way up to the oldest brother who's in his 40s. And everybody played ball growing up, uh, some like Katrina played at collegial level. And it's me, her brother Larry and her on a team

versus the other three, which is Andy and his two kids. So he has the two that are in their 20s and then he's the oldest at 40 something. And then I have Larry, who's like 37 and 38ish. And then you have Katrina at 35, I mean 34. And Katrina tells me the team's the night before. And I'm like, and she's like, you know, I want, she's like giving me the lecture. I want you to wear your knee brace his and I want you to make like shit like you do give me fucking break right now

Make me feel like I'm a hell of old and shit. I'm like first of all Okay, if you and I are at the pre you and I are on a team. Okay, we're gonna run game on any of the rest of your family So I'm gonna even worry about playing I'm gonna play hard She's like listen, you haven't played basketball with my family normally. There's a fight So be ready that there's good chance you're gonna fight all my brothers. Yeah, no way. Oh, yeah She's like every year somebody gets go gets into a fight. She goes it's the worst shit talking so and it on the court No rules apply so they could they will so it's a rule of law. Oh, they're gonna be dirty Yeah, but they're all ball players. So they don't want to play right play right basketball

It's not like it's just unorganized. It's organized. No organized Nobody's called fouls. Yeah, it was it was we call fouls, but it was aggressive very aggressive You don't want to be that guy You're right. You're right. You know, you don't want to call a little sissy fouls At the game came all the way down the final point and we lost by one point Oh, yeah, I cannot believe we lost and I and at one point at one point. I was like We were up by six points. It was 11 in which I told Katrina, we should have played to 11. What were you thinking playing to 15? So we played to 15.

We were winning 11 to six. They came back and ended up winning by one point. And but every time I jump and landed on the concrete out there, it literally felt like somebody was taking a sludge hammer to my knees. And I was like, oh my God, am I low back? And after the gate. So what was felt funny is, you know, we used to play ball like that all the time and very, very competitive.

If I were to lose the first game we played, there's no way we're ending in one game. Like, it's like, run it back. Run it back. That was too close. You know, we're going to be best. See you wait again. No. No.

That's how you know, like how de-conditioned everybody's. It literally felt like I had smoked two packs of cigarettes like my lungs were burning that much It was like man. I guess you hack you start hacking a bile. Yeah, maybe I got to stop this whole competing thing Maybe I need to get back into a little bit of like cardiovascular shape I thought maybe that was like kind of because before before you won't I know you're right before competing I was doing a men's league So I played in a men's league all the way into my thirties Where I you know, I played ball at least three times a week or more,

and they kept me in good, cardiovascular condition, and getting into competing, where I'm all about aesthetics and not caring about that anymore. Well, yeah, I can get up and run like for a spurt, if I need to, so like 40 hours. You can get away from physical.

Yeah, yeah. 40 hour dash, I can catch the average guy. So I can get a lot of different adaptations. Totally, right? But ask me to play for 30 to 40 minutes up and down a court jumping up and down And like I literally thought I was gonna die I know if that's how it is if basketball consisted of elliptical trainers going back and forth I could do a total 30 minute Isn't that why those silly

Yeah, the little butt swivel I was bummed out that we missed out on the Guido workout though. I really wanted it. It's always fun. It's always fun. It's a seventh year in a row. So we do this every year. All the boys came down. We all lifted, put on some evil music and just talked a lot of shit and it was a lot of fun. It's good time. And then afterwards we ate a super duper burger. It's a new burger place in Los Cados. I wasn't. Is that the one that's like right near Phil's? Yes, yeah, amazing. I'm not that place, yeah.

It's amazing. Oh, wow. Right, so I put that on the list. So I went into Thanksgiving thinking I'm gonna fast, like you did, but I had a big ass breakfast. I, you know what it is? I went into, my mentality was already there. Like I'm gonna fucking go nuts.

So I just had a big breakfast. Big ass dinner. Then the next day I had all those burgers. And I think I had two burgers, a chicken sandwich and fries. Yeah, that was one meal. Just, Justin, you have a magic bullet at your house that the little shakes shake. Oh my God, I thought you were talking with a sex bullet.

No, I knew it. That's why I clarified it because I knew right away a thousand say that. If I did, I wouldn't tell you You know the little blender the little magic bullet blender. Yeah, it's neutral bullet Drink free bro. I told we made up this concoction day before yesterday Yeah, so I took I French press my fills coffee so I grounded up my things. I made my I told him made up this concoction, day before yesterday. Concoction. Yeah, so I took, I French pressed my Phil's coffee,

so I grounded up my things. I made my, you know, Dave Aspery fucking coffee, what's he called, the bulletproof coffee. So I've got one tablespoon of organic butter, one tablespoon of coconut, and then my coffee. So that's my base. Then I take two shots of Kaluah, two shots of Irish cream, put it in there.

Then I take a, take a nice little shot of whipped cream. Does that have sugar in it, yeah? Huh? The cream? Is it sweetened? Yes. Of course it is. Yeah.

So, why do you do that then? What's the point of what? It's making a delicious drink. Why are you ruining a story? Just saying. I drink the, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, no, no, yeah, no, it's this is not healthy whatsoever. But what I liked was I liked how I'm with you now now deliciousness. Yeah, well, and it also you what I like about the bullproof coffee with the cream and the butter so that it creates

a little froth over there. That's what I was searching for that without call. So then I then I added a little extra course, a little extra cream by squirting a little bit of whipped cream in there, right? And I swear you're so creative. I put whip cream on my metacoola too. Okay, so then I whip this thing up. I poured out and then I shaved, I shaved dark chocolate and then I sprinkled dark chocolate. You thought I was gonna say ass. Bro, one of the best alcoholic coffee drinks I've ever had.

Wow, yeah, I'm doing that. I think you make that for me as we can. I got you, let's do this. I got you, I've ever had. Wow. Yeah. I'm doing that. I know. I think you can make that for me. I got you. Let's do this. I got you. I'll bring it up. I would have done what do you call it? I don't know. Well, maybe it's something. Yeah. I feel like I should name it after Justin

because I know he's a coffee alcohol. Yeah. Okay. So and I was thinking of him when I was making a spree. I'll take it because nobody else didn't know. Nobody else in my house. Coffee. The Cindy Cankel. Yeah. Can else in my house office the Cindy cankel yeah Cankel the cankel the cankel coffee cankel coffee. I love it sprinkle some weed in it. We'll have it'll be perfect I have it all that's the South sprinkle alcohol. Yeah, it's a salvo cannabis

Yeah, I feel like because our listeners we did we did we rolled What the trans gate what was it called? What was crags business? Whoa? our listeners, we did, we rolled what the Transgate, what was it called? What was Trage's business? Whoa. Transgate. Oh, Transgate. Where is he going tonight?

I got the magic bullet in the Transgate. You should have heard me teaching classes. You know, just making up exercise. Oh, bro, I was a bit of mess today. You know, let's go now with me. I, you know, it's like the hangover from all the food though. No, I think we should give our listeners maybe some good information

and something related with fitness today. What do you guys think? Yeah, what do you think? Let's do it. Yeah, I have an idea. Tom, we should talk about because we've been, without giving away too many details, we have some secrets we can't tell you,

but we're working on some stuff. And something came up, you know, Justin sent us a text and he's been doing a lot of isometric training or isometric type exercises lately. Right. And there's a lot, you know, we have not covered this topic because we don't talk about isometric at all.

And there's some incredible benefits utilizing isometric type training. Well, I would like to clarify too, like as far as like the definition and what it is that actually we're talking about. So there's isotonic, there's isometric, and there's also isokinetic. So these are all different muscle contractions. So the easy way to sort of remember all these three iso-meaning equal, right?

So equal force. So when you break it down isometric if you think of metrics you're thinking of Basically like a time length, right? And so you have iso kinetic is more focused on energy and now What's the first time is a tonic so now? We're thinking about tension. So now you got tension energy And it length okay, energy, and length. Okay. Okay, so I ask you this, it's length.

So it's a length of the muscle. So if you can kind of break that down, like isotonic, meaning like what you guys would regularly think of when you're thinking of like lifting weights, right? So you get that contraction, lift in the weight. So say you're doing a bicep curl, right? So your muscle is going to account for that force by overcoming that force and shortening the muscle. Right. For the

concentric for the concentric phase. Right. And so then as you go down and you're decelerating your lower your lower and that you're lengthening out, that's the eccentric phase. Right. Basically what I'm doing is I'm focusing on isometric. So I'm trying to keep tension in the muscle and the actual length of the muscle is gonna remain the same. Right. So it would be like, a good example would be like flexing my bicep really hard.

Right. Like that's an isometric contraction. Or pushing against the wall. Pushing against the wall. And not moving you or the wall. Is it something that remains constant? Yes. Yes.

Some interesting science behind that, by the way, it's funny because I have not visited isometric training since I stopped grappling. I used to do it a lot when I'd grapple because it's a very sport-specific type of contraction when you grapple, when you're getting in a hole and you're holding someone. It's a very different type of strength versus pushing forward or pulling back. Well, talk about a great way to build a central nervous system. I mean, that's probably the number one out of everything. There was one study that they did,

a big study that they did, and they found that you are able to activate more neural, more of a neural response with isometric than both concentric and eccentric contractions. Over 5% more. That's. So it's a great way to stimulate% more. So it's a great way to stimulate, yeah. So it's a great way to stimulate or to get that maximal exertion adaptation to apply towards your regular lip.

Now that's funny when you say that because I think about rehabilitation and when I went through my knee surgery and went through my rehab, I wouldn't even have thought to do that, and they didn't do that. They didn't do isometric stuff with me whatsoever. Everything was obviously you got to take the muscle through full range of motion because you're trying to keep it lengthened and you don't want to get shortened and you don't want all these imbalances, but I would think it would also be beneficial then if you say

that to have incorporated some isometric. Well, isometric in general is a very effective tool to be added to other tools. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. To be done by itself. And here's the other thing too. To get really anything out of an isometric contraction, you have to be able to generate a lot of force. And typically when you're injured, you can barely move the muscle, let alone sit there and concentrate

the shit out of it and really contract it apart. Okay, that's a good point. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, that's a good point. Well, not a lot of people really know intrinsically how to, you know, generate that tension. Right. And so that's something that, you know, has to be taught on some level. But also, that that's why it's so crucial in the corrective phase, I feel, to establish this, this neural connection again. And so you're opening up that path. There's a lot of muscles that may remain dormant in a movement, right?

So you're thinking of a gross motor movement. There's gonna be muscles that just based off of imbalances, which we had talked about in a previous podcast like that are not contributing and they should be contributing. And so these are, these are things we need to address and identify. And isometrics is a great way to

Reestablish that connection so that way, you know, you have greater amplification of this You know from the central nervous system. It also produces When you want to think of a hard body when you just feel hard and dense Ice training isometrically tends to produce and this is anecdotes But it does tend to produce that type of body. I'll give you an example of somebody who's famous, who's no longer with us, but who was known for his Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee was known for his isometric strength. He couldn't bench press a lot or lift a lot above his head, but he could take a hundred pound dumbbell and extend it out and hold it out at arm's length for a length of period of time. He had incredible, like ridiculous isometric strength and it makes you solid and hard and think about the stability that you get from that kind of training. And every day life when I'm lifting something heavier, I'm holding something or someone bumps into me or I fall down or whatever, where I can brace myself and generate that isometric

that hard screen. You can get immediate tension. One thing that he used to do, well, basically one of his philosophies was to remain tense within all of his movements so that he would really practice and the repetition of that on a daily basis where he's going through specific types of movements, but he's remaining tense intrinsically the whole time through the movement So they kind of coined a term for that. I think it was dynamic tension. And I mean, it's pretty similar to

Basically like if you're thinking of iso kinetics They have to have specific machines to be able to even make that happen So what does that mean that means that your energy has to remain constant. As far as the energy, it requires you to produce in order to go through the entire contraction. Both it could be a concentric. It could be eccentric, right? Well, it's funny because back in the day, strong men, the old strong men, this was part of the routine. Isometric training was always part of the routine, where they would either hold something heavy or stand with a really heavy weight

or hold themselves in a position and then people will place weight on it and they would do this for periods of anywhere between six to 20 seconds or even 30 seconds to hold these type of contraction. This was a regular part of strongman competition, a strong man, excuse me, strong man training. And what we find, if you look at studies, is isometrics or training alone will produce muscle growth. It does not compare to regular concentric

and eccentric contraction type training. It won't build as much muscle as those. However, if you're smart and you add it strategically and use it appropriately, and add it to a routine that is traditional that uses the concentric and eccentric contractions, you will get more growth, more muscle, more strength, more performance than if you never added it in the first place. And one of the big, I think one of the big downfalls is one of the things that people like to point out about isometric training is that muscles

are relatively specific in how they adapt. So if I train my muscle within a particular range of motion, a lot of or most of my strength will be in that particular range of motion. So when I'm doing isometric contraction, I'm not getting much carryover to the rest of the rest of the range of motion. But however, it's actually not quite that bad.

They've done specific studies on this, But however, it's actually not quite that bad. They've done specific studies on this. They found that if you increase your isometric contraction, let's say I increase my isometric contraction at 90 degrees with my bicep, it will apply to 20 degrees in either direction as well. So you actually get a lot more carryover than you think. And you can also change the positions of the isometric so that you can get that range of motion. Yeah, because, okay, so I'm not going to give

everything away, but like I have been adopting a lot of isometrics and also dynamic tension in what I've been crafting as far as like programming goes. And it has done like crazy things as far as like PRing and utilizing it at proper timing, you know, incorporating it in certain stages of, you know, the phases that I'm approaching, especially with like Olympic lifts and power lifts and things like that. But basically, like the concept of like isometrically gaining more of this like neuromuscular recruitment pattern. So if I'm focused in one part of a movement, so if I'm gonna break down a movement,

I'm gonna break it down in components. So I'm gonna start with like the first part of the movement. So now if I take that first part of the movement, and then I do like, and I do a nice metric, yeah. Exercise just in that one position. I'm basically communicating with my body like this is one of the patterns that I'm going to need to replicate. So you're teaching your body how to go through each one of these components of the movement. And so now you take that into pieces,

now you place the total movement pattern, your body's gonna respond to it because I've woken up and turned on that communication. And you know, like I'll give you an example of what Justin's talking about, and I'll make it real basic. Let's say your squat weakness is at the bottom, which like most people, most people,

when they do a squat, they're the weakest at the bottom part of the rep. One way you could use isometrics to strengthen that is to get under a bar that you can't move, get in that bottom position and just drive, not trying to lift the weight, so you got to be careful, you got to drive into the way and then really activate all your muscles and contract the shit out of them and do that for sets of 10 seconds. That would be one way to give you increased strength in that position. Here's the thing with isometric training. It doesn't damage muscle very much.

Once you start to adapt, you really don't damage muscle. However, you adapt too quickly. You adapt quickly and you can fry the shit at your central nervous system if you're a very advanced lifter. Like guys like us who've been working out for a long time, you adapt to quickly. You adapt quickly and you can fry the shit at your central nervous system. Right. If you're a very advanced lifter, like, you know, guys like us who've been working out for a long time, we can generate a strong, forceful contraction.

Well, if you're giving max exertion. Right. And so that's, and basically that is a component of isometric you do want to focus on, like really going for that max exertion within that position. So yeah, there's definitely ways that you can use it for that max exertion within that position. So yeah, there's definitely ways that you can use it and ways that aren't gonna benefit you using it. So, you know, these are sort of things

that I'm trying to articulate as I'm writing them out, you know, programming wise. So a couple of things, and I wanted to let you guys go, as long as you went right now, because I think that was fucking some of the best information we've given on here in a long time. And it's going to definitely appeal to a lot of trainers. I think to get the mass audience, I want to kind of dumb it down and break it down a little bit to what we're talking about.

Because Iso-tonic, Iso-canetic, Iso-metric. We're talking about concentric, eccentric motions. I mean, we're talking about a lot of technical terms. Right, right. Let's just dumb down isometric. So a couple of things. I think I think, I think, I'll give one of the best analogies I've ever heard anyone give

with understanding the importance of the central nervous system. So let's first talk about that. Then we'll get into how to train it. Because I think that's, I think we can all agree. It's probably the most beneficial thing that you're going to get from isometric movements. Wouldn't you agree would be that. So the whole concept of the central nervous system, and like I said, I think it said this

best out of all of us, was giving the example of it, I can amplify our for speakers. And we all know that if you have these great big 15 inch woofers that are bad ass speakers and you're running only 200 watts to that. It's almost worthless because those speakers are nowhere near. Pretty weak. Yeah, doing the capacity, which we've all seen this before. How many times have you ever walked in the gym and you've seen the big fucking meathead guy with huge muscles and he's over there, a curl and 30 pound dumbbells or he can barely

squat two plates. Perfect example of somebody who's got the big woofers, but hasn't learned to train his, train his central nervous system. So he has this really strong effort. And how many times have we walked in the gym and seen that guy who's very unassuming? He's the only way is 150 pounds. He looks like a little scrawny fuck. And the guy's ripping 400 pounds off on his deadlift or squatting 400 pounds and he's

strong. So that shows you somebody who's getting almost maximum output on his speakers. He's done a really good job of building his central nervous system, building that amplifier to get the most out of his speakers. So that all being said, now isometrics is out. And it's not the only way, but it's another great tool that we haven't talked about

on how to build this central nervous system up, which is, you know, and we won't give a lot away, but I will tell you that's where I know Justin is working on some stuff and building some cool shit. Well, I mean, to be clear, the reason why we won't give a lot away is not because we're, I mean, I said it was a secret. I was joking. The reality is it's quite complex.

Yeah. And how you apply it, you can't just throw it into a routine which is why I wanted to do. Why I wanted to bring this back down so people understand how, what is this really doing for me? How do I incorporate this into my work? So I understand how what is this really doing for me? How do I incorporate this in a while ago? So I hope everyone understands that this is this is what it does, you know, by incorporating that you are strengthening your amplifier so you can get the maximum output of your speakers now. So that's the whole concept. I love that analogy that Sal is

given before now getting into how did we incorporate this? So I have a question for you Justin and Salas. Now getting into how do we incorporate this? So I have a question for you, Justin and Salis, you know, if I'm gonna do an isometric hold, is there a protocol for the time that I do an isometric hold? Typically, so I mean, anything over, well, five, 10 seconds, I mean, you kind of mentioned it. It's at that point, like, you know,

you're gonna, you're gonna over-exert and you're gonna over-do, you know, if you get, you think, you start to lose. You get dimin're gonna overdo, you know, if you get, you start to lose. You start to lose. You're diminishing return. Right, you start, what happens if you go too long is you start to lose, because you're trying to train the central nervous system

to really push out maximally. If you go too long, central nervous system dampens down and you start to train endurance, which is fine if you want endurance. Like if you want to be able to, you know, I'm looking, we're looking for a maximum output. We're trying to build that amp up. So then you want to think of to, you know, oh, I'm looking, we're looking for a maximum output. We're trying to build that amp up. So then you want to think of it.

Probably five to eight seconds. Well, it should last as long as a set of, you know, eight reps in an exercise. So if an exercise that does, you do eight reps, last you 20 seconds, then that, you want to go, and that's about as high as you want to go. Yeah, you want the same response as you would if you're lifting a weight.

Right. So it has to be about the same timing with that. But yeah, you could, you could do it for conditioning if you go in excess of that. And also if you really was just, you know, you have no communication. Like sometimes it takes people in the very beginning like longer than that to really start to feel

an action that'd be established. So that's a great point, Justin, because right now all of us could flex a muscle real hard if we wanted to. And there's a lot of people out there who would probably have to concentrate on flexing it for flex, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and then all of a sudden they're getting that muscle fire. How many times have we had a client like that?

You know, we like squeeze this and they're squeezing it and then after about five or ten seconds, it's finally starting to really fire. The way because the most effective way to use it is intrinsically, so you're producing this force as opposed to like with loading a weight. So I think some people also think of isometrics is something weighing you down and then are you're overcoming gravitational forces, right? No, necessarily.

Not necessarily. Like the way that I feel is most effective is the way that you're applying these forces. So you're actually like like the only way to establish that connection is to squeeze, to brace, to get that muscle to contract on your own. Okay, so if I'm just clenching my fists and I'm trying to tense my whole body up, that's an isometric hold. Right?

So that's just a little bit of a difference. Don't think of it as I'm just holding this way at the bottom of my left. No, let's use that as an example. Would you just say, because I think it's great. If you were to stand up right and clench your, your, tense your body up, trying to tense the entire body up by clenching your fist, here's, here's when you know you're doing it right or wrong. If you're clenching and you feel it in your hands, because you're clenching so hard versus inside your center, that's when you know you feel it in your hands, because you're clenching so hard, versus inside your center. That's when you know you hit it right,

like that's how I explain. When I'm doing an eye-smatch hole with a client, I'm explaining, we wanna feel this from the center, right from the center of your body, your abdominal kind of core region, and then outward, not the other way around, where you're focusing, which is, I think that's the mental connection piece

that you're really training and that people have a hard time with is, you look at your limbs and you're whatever you're grabbing, holding or pushing against. It's just biceps or whatever, yeah, it's gonna stop in the chain right there. Whereas we're trying to amplify the entire body. So I want leg tension.

Yeah, right. So a lot of people, you know, and that's where that separation has occurred a lot, especially with the split training mentality, which I have, that's why, one of the reason I know Sal brings up through the benefits of total body training all the time as far as an overall strength and muscle building effect is superior. However, it's also because I'm getting that, you know, your body wants to move in these gross motor movement patterns first. And that's

how it prioritizes. It doesn't want to work in isolation. It doesn't want to work in isolation. Actually training in isolation for too long trains your body to work in isolation. And you actually get problems. Then you start to... Then you get dysfunction. Yeah, if I'm walking in my knee, you know, I'm raising my knee and I'm moving

and I'm twisting my body, you know, like, and my upper body isn't involved with this. Like, this is where like, you're literally breaking it down into different places. I mean, you're 100% great. You'll never use your biceps to pick something up in a preacher's grow position.

It's not functional for any part of you. You'll never be in a preacher's grow position and curl something up to your shoulder with your bicep ever in your life, but you will pick something up off the floor and bring it up to your shoulders and do some of that with a movement like that or a dead lift. You were talking about how you were talking about how getting the whole

central nervous system to fire, but it's also someone working in isolation all the time might be able to get a really hard contraction in their bicep, but then when they try to activate their rest of their body with their bicep, like you said, lifting a box or something, then things don't communicate well. So there's so much, and this is just the thing, this is a very complex thing, and the way you apply it has to be done in a very appropriate scientific way.

Otherwise, you're not gonna get out a lot out of it or you'll fry yourself. But if you apply it properly, you can get some amazing benefits. You know, one of the things that reminds me of is a martial artist or are huge in isometric. You see all those kung fu guys who stand and they're freaking tense,

and then they'll break up two by four over their back. They're able to reach an isometric contraction that's cement. You know what I mean? Where they get punched in the stomach, they're so, you know, they're things like a freaking solid. It's also like animals. So if you think of why a chimp is really so strong.

And yeah, granted they do have like really dense, you know, massive muscle, leverage, all that stuff, right, all that kind of stuff. But really, there's central nervous system, like, uh, instantaneous firing ability. It's not just like if they're grabbing something, it's not just like at their limb. It's all the way through their shoulder. It's all the way through there. Shoulder, it's all the way through their cords, all the way through their legs. And they do instantaneously without any break

in or kink in that communication. So, you know, it's like we said before, it's like having governing, like we govern ourselves based off of like, you know, we have a lot of little things that we try to make more efficient because we're less active now. Whereas, you know, we have a lot of little things that we try to make more efficient because we're less active now. Whereas, you know, with them, it's like, you know,

there's no little like nimble deck, you know, things that are going on a daily basis. It's all like these major movement things that okay, I need to just get that instantaneous help for my central nervous system to get like 100% effort there. You know, I just remember too, the old-school bodybuilders used to preach flexing

really hard in between sets. Yeah. And doing posing every week, because they would say it brings out the definition and the hardness and the muscle. Short-sinate was big on this. Yeah. He used to always talk about like that.

There's some guys that still do that. In fact, I still do that once more, but it's funny when you, I see other people doing their, their mentality of it is what you just said versus what they're really doing is, is training that essential nervous system really well. I would say if you wanted to start taking advantage

of something like this now is, um, I would throw in a set here or there after you're trained a particular body part like chest or back or, um, you know, throw in a set and or there after you train a particular body part like chest or back or you know throw in a set and start to feel your body out. But we're gonna we're gonna try and put things together and it's not just focused on isometric. We're putting something big together but isometric training is something that is number one. There's two reasons why we want it. We want to incorporate that. Number one, nobody fucking does it anymore. It's like this huge incorporate that number one, nobody fucking does it anymore. It's like this huge, it's this gem

that can produce great results. It's not a trick, you know, like a klugen training, it gives you results, but it's kind of a trick. It's not something that's a huge crazy boost to your training, isometric training is one of those things. Utilize it properly, it can become a very big party routine and nobody's talking about it. You know, it's party routine. And nobody's talking about it. Yeah.

It's just crazy that nobody's talking about. It's a lost art. Fuck, I love that. It's exactly what it is. No, that's how I felt about, you know, kettlebells and, you know, old strong man lifts. And the same thing, why CrossFit, we always come back to it.

It's like they brought, you know, the old way of doing, like nobody was dead lifting. Nobody's doing back loaded squats, you know, to the capacity that, you know, people, you know, playing sports and going through programs we're doing. So this is another law start that has been effective. And I mean, shallow in monks, like I immediately think of things like that. Like, you know, it's, it, they're getting that strength. And it's not, you know, necessarily you don't strength and it's not necessarily,

you don't look at them as a physical specimen, but man, they're strong. And they're strong because of discipline, utilizing this dynamic tension, this isometric style training, that if we could tap into that on a some level, it's gonna benefit the overall. You guys ever meet someone,

or you know, I don't know, because you guys have been in sports and stuff You guys ever meet someone, or, you know, I don't know, because you guys have been in sports and stuff. You ever meet someone or compete against someone who had really, who was just, they were, besides being big and awesome, they were just hard, like they were immovable. Like you, you could tell once they tense things up. Yeah, once they tense up, it's like,

they're not going anywhere. Yeah. You ever know what I mean? I mean, it's your hand do this, like you're holding the cock. What is it? Yes. It immediately makes sense. To the day squeeze that bastard. You ever know what you're doing? I mean, what's your hand do this, like you're holding a cock? What is this? Yes. Immediately.

I start to call hard. To the day squeeze that bastard. The day that I feel like Mind Pump has really, has really penetrated the industry. It's when we can walk into the gym and I start to see like, you isometric holds, you see people do BFR. You start seeing like, good ass fucking techniques

instead of the guy on the side. Do you know what, off the nose in this band? It's driving you know. What the sideways leg press? No, that was yesterday. Yesterday, I saw both the sideways leg press and the sideways fucking hammer strength machine press with one arm, this bullshit.

I just, and I just want, I want to walk up and slap them and be like, dude, really? You like just part of a pump army? Fuck, it drives me crazy. Yeah. You know what? And it's getting worse though. That's why I'm like, dude, we got to hurry up. There Fuck, it drives me crazy. Yeah. You know what? And it's getting worse though. That's why I'm like, dude, we got to hurry up.

But there's good stuff too. I went to work out today and every rack was full. I had to wait 15 minutes to use a rack. No, thanks to CrossFit. We figured out we need a squat. Yeah. Thank you CrossFit. You did one thing right.

You know what I'm saying? Okay, so that you're right. That has changed in the last 10 years. But for that changing, that's a good thing, but I still see this overwhelming amount of people that are now following these social media fit tards that are preaching all these ways. Oh, hashtag fit tards.

That's a new one. No, that's crazy. I still have from Craig. Yeah, Craig did that. I thought that was pretty clever. hashtag fit tards. Yeah, fit tards. Yeah, I mean, for me personally,

I talk a lot about squeezing the bar really hard in my exercises, and that's a form of an isometric training. I did it the other day. Yeah, it is. How'd you feel? That's a fact to do. I went heavy on bench the other day, and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna really focus on that.

I don't hear really the last time I tried that, and see if it makes a difference. And it did. It did. Isn't it weird? You think you're crushing the bar. Well, it's exactly what we're talking about. Now, it fires that central nervous system.

You know what I'm saying? Drive those legs in super hard and get leg connection intense. It just, it helps the overall. It does. You know, it's, because I trained in, you know, in grappling, there were a lot of guys with, especially in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with ridiculous isometric strength. Like you, they get you in a position and you'd try to move them. And they were really smart with their leverage, but they were also like,

and these are guys that I was way bigger and stronger than them. And they were just lock on to you like a fricking crab. Like, you can't take that claw off your hand, off your, off your knee or whatever. And it's so impressive to have that kind of strength. Yeah, the one thing I think about it, like, remember when we talked about the basketball game We played against those nine or guys. Yeah, and

Was it pop what was his name the the big Simone guy that I was Oh, yeah, I I I saw a walk up. Yeah, I saw a walk. So the one thing that was a great compliment to me like he made Cuz I'm obviously not that big This guy was like throwing around 500 pound bench press like it was like his warm up compliment to me like he made, uh, cause I'm obviously not that big person. And this guy was like throwing around 500 pound bench press like it was like his warm up. Anyway, so he's, he's going to drive into the hoop. And it's like I had to hold my

ground. Well, guess what? I needed to get immediately tense all over 100% my fingertips to my toes. Kind of strength, right? And I held my ground. He couldn't, you know, muscle me in. And he was like, whoa, what, you know, he was like impressed by that and like told you. He's got like 150 pounds on you. So it's easily.

Yeah, he's a big boy. A strong as fuck. So anyway, but that's what that we're talking about. Like is being able to, you know, tap into that. Well, how about how about the other extreme, you know, like new clients or people that have never wait trained before and they do have no mind muscle connection and they get in there like how poor they're like central nervous system connection is it's crazy when they can't even they it's you no matter how many times you show them the form right in front of you,

they can't even make that connection. Oh, you tell them to, they can't even lift, they can't lift near their capacity for strength. They just can't fire like that. I can't tell you how many times I guarantee you guys have done this too. Can't tell you how many times I'll have some, a new person do an exercise and they'll feel it somewhere else because they can't, they've so disconnected from their fucking body. They'll feel it in some odd stabilizer muscle. Like we'll be doing a tricep press down, be like, ooh, I feel this in my abs.

You're at my shoulders. Yeah, it's like you feel in your abs, you're so disconnected and so weak that you're feeling it, your abs crunching through it. Yeah, so you don't fold in half, fly backwards off of this cable. It's such a, oh, we'll do a back exercise

and like squeeze back here, feel, like I can't feel anything back there. What's this for? Yeah. It's literally any trainers. It's like a paralyzed muscle. It's kind of scary. Yeah. You know, another sign of that, when you take time off and then you go do an exercise, you haven't done for a while or work a body part. You haven't worked for a while and you get that shaky. You know, I'm talking about where you start to push away and it's like, da da da da da da da da da da da da. That's your central nervous system trying to figure out what's going on.

Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. I always, anytime I take off for a while and then go back to a movement. Get that shaking ass. And it's a weight you know you can get up. You know your muscles are strong enough to do it. But even like bench presses are one of those common ones.

Like if I hadn't done bench press in a long time and I come back to it, it's like, you hit the plate and you're like, wait, this is light, I know I got this, but it's... Exactly. But what ends up happening after a couple sets is you start to feel stronger, especially if you're coming back, right? That's your central nervous system.

You know, putting it in a play. And here's another example. Someone was telling me about brought this up the other day, and I thought this would be a great example. How strong are you when you're laughing really hard? I've never even thought that. You're weak, right? If you're laughing and you ask off your weakest shit, your muscles have it.

I'm getting tickled. Yeah, I'm like, that's like my one thing. I was like, I told my wife, I was like, you better not tell anybody this ever. It's like, kryptonite for me. I have like no strength ever. Adam, so many tickles. Let's tickle them. I'm done. Let's tickle them this weekend. Bro, you're getting tickled. This weekend on our getaway, I mentioned that. We're gonna, we're gonna pin them and Doug Let's tickle them. I'm done. Let's tickle them this weekend. This weekend, bro, you're getting tickled. This weekend on our getaway. I mentioned that.

We're gonna pin them in Doug's gonna tickle them. Yeah. But yeah, when you laugh, your central nervous system essentially shuts off. Yeah. And your muscles haven't changed. You're just weak because that amplifier was turned down. Hell yeah. Uh, thanks for listening to Mind Pump.

Please subscribe to our awesome podcast and leave us a five star rating and review. 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. You