Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1960: Four Different Types of Strength and How to Train for Them
Episode Date: December 5, 2022In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover what you need to know to train for four different types of strength. Strength is the ultimate physical pursuit, but did you know there are different types of... strength that you can train for? (1:41)  The Four Different Types of Strength and How to Train for Them.   #1 - Maximal strength. (6:06) Lots of carryover to other types of strength and the real world. Low reps and lifting heavy. Best example: Powerlifter. Phase 1: MAPS Programs. Produces solid, hard-looking body.  #2 - Explosive strength. (12:47) How fast and hard your muscles can contract. This makes you agile and athletic. Involves proper technique and efficiency. Best examples: Olympic lifters and sprinters. Most misunderstood type of strength. Lift lightweight fast for a few reps, but not to fatigue.  #3 - Strength endurance. (22:52) Muscles exert strength rep after rep (driving a sled, supersets, long high-volume sessions). Best examples: Bodybuilder, running back, and CrossFit athlete. Great for real-world work capacity. Phase 3: MAPS Anabolic and Aesthetic. Best for beginners. Training gives you a great pump.  #4 - Relative strength. (29:48) How strong you are for your size. Allows you to move your body through space. Best examples: Gymnastics, wrestlers, and rock climbers. Lots of skill acquisition. Bodyweight exercises, balance exercises, and keeping body weight low. The recommended order and how long to stick in each phase. (37:35) Related Links/Products Mentioned  Visit Drink LMNT for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! December Promotion: At-Home Holiday Bundle (MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Suspension, MAPS PRIME, and The No BS 6-Pack Formula all for the low price of $99.99!) Mind Pump 1612: Everything You Need To Know About Sets, Reps & Rest Periods How Phasing Your Workouts Leads to Consistent Plateau Free Workouts - Mind Pump Blog  Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Jordan Shallow D.C (@the_muscle_doc) Instagram Sonny Webster (@sonnywebstergb) Instagram Mike Salemi (@mike.salemi)Instagram Kingsley Comins (@calisthenic.kings) Instagram Â
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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts.
Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews.
You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast.
This is Mind Pup, right?
Today's episode we talk about strength in specifics, the four types of strength you can train for
and why they're all awesome and why they'll all help you
produce the physique you're looking for.
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All right, here comes the show.
Strength is the ultimate physical pursuit, but did you know there were different types of strength
that you can train for.
There's four in particular, maximal strength,
explosive strength, strength endurance,
and relative strength.
Training for each one or four each one
will make you better at all of them.
In other words, if you want better overall strength,
you got to train for all of those.
You know, you sent this over to us the other night
as a single topic episode, and I really like this better overall strength, you got to train for all of those. You know, you sent this over to us the other night
as a single topic episode, and I really like this
because one of the most common questions I think
that we get, and admittedly, sometimes I think
we can come off a little bit dismissive,
and I think it's because I think
how much work or effort it would take to explain,
is how do you guys program?
Could you break down how you program?
Like it's like this general question
and it's like a loaded question.
It is a loaded question because there's
for every program, for every phase,
there's a lot of different parts
that go into creating that, right?
But to me, this gives a really good glimpse
into how when we put together a phase,
the adaptation that we're trying to go after,
like the thought process.
So even something as general that you would think is strength,
their subcategories to that category,
and when we're writing exercises or choosing a phase in a program,
that thought process goes into the exercises that we select,
the rep ranges, the rest periods,
and what were the desired outcomes.
That applies best in that direction.
Of that type of strength.
Totally.
A power lifter and a body builder both lift weights,
and they both are strong,
but to anybody who's ever observed
each of them train or observed them in competition
or whatever, there's obvious differences, right?
A shot putter, right?
They train for strength.
Spreender.
A sprinter, transfer strength, a gymnast,, right? They train for strength. A sprinter. A sprinter trains for strength.
The gymnast, but there's obvious differences.
Strength can be very specific and there's a skill component.
And the way that muscles contract can be,
contract can be a bit different.
And you can train for each one.
Now, what is this, what are the applications
for the average person?
Well, unless you're a specific,
because someone may be thinking,
well, I'm not going to be a specific type of athlete
so I really don't care.
Well, you should, because training for all of them is going to give you just kind of this overall better strength for the real world,
and a much more balanced physique and more progress.
Because when you understand this, you can get your body to consistently progress.
You're going to hit less plateaus.
You're going to have less injuries.
You're going to be better, just kind of overall and balanced.
And that translates into a better looking physique.
So understanding this, I think, is really important.
And each one needs to be trained a little differently
to give you the best difference.
Well, wouldn't you agree to that?
Each one has carry over into real life, too.
To.
Yeah, in a different way.
Obviously, the examples you're giving right now
are the extreme examples of each of those
categories, but if you're just an average gym goer who wants to be healthy and fit, pursuing
each one of these adaptations is going to carry over and benefit you in all different aspects.
Totally.
Yeah, you're going to encounter a lot of those different aspects of like movement and stresses
and challenges throughout your day, whether you need
to move really fast, you need to grind your way through picking something up that's
heavy, you're going to need to endure something for a substantial amount of time and be able
to have that access to that.
And so to train on all those different levels is very important for.
Right away, I think of stories. Sal, you talked about scaling up your stairs to save your
kid one time.
You talk about mixing cement all day for eight to ten hour days, like, or you deadlifting,
you know, 600 pounds, like each one of those are different types of strength.
Totally.
That I think that you can train specifically for in your daily routine.
Yeah, and training for all of them for the average person
results in a better looking body
and a better performing body over time.
Because if you plan on doing this
for a long period of time,
like if you stay in one aspect of training
or one aspect of strength for too long,
then what ends up happening is the positive start to diminish
and the negative start to amplify. So the risks start to get worse and you get these kind of diminishing returns versus
training in each one of these phases, if you will, maximizing the benefits, minimizing the risk
and the result is just like a better looking body. So for the average person, he's like,
well, I don't care about competing in anything that you guys are talking about,
it doesn't matter. It's going to give you a better looking body, a better moving body.
So it's important to understand.
The first type of strength that I think we should talk about
is the one that I would consider the foundational strength,
the one that translates the most to all the other types
of strength, and it's the one that I think most people think
about when we say strong, okay, and that's maximal strength.
So what is maximal strength?
That's your one rep max.
I'd say how much can you squat?
How much can you bench press?
How much can you deadlift?
It's this kind of slow, low gear grinding type of strength
that we would all think of if we saw someone
lift something really heavy,
we'd say, wow, that person is really strong.
Now, in your opinion, does this carry over the most
to all the other pursuits?
It does, because you build maximal strength,
you get a lot of the other stuff.
Now, all of the types of strength
that we're gonna talk about carry over
to each other one, but when you're talking about,
if I'm training like a young athlete,
and this is more true for young athletes,
when you have to kind of train generally
before you get more specific, maximal strength,
this low grinding strength tends to help
with all the other ones more.
Well, and I think too, focusing on this really stretches
your capacity to generate force, which then you have access
to. Now, in other directions, in other pursuits
for endurance, for explosive movements,
like otherwise, not focusing on that, you're not gonna be able
to generate that loud of a signal,
you're not gonna be able to produce
that substantial amount of force
to apply towards strength.
So to that point, is your guys just thought or theory
that what's going on here
in these four different ways of training for strength
is actually less about your muscles
and more about your central nervous system.
Oh, totally.
Totally.
100%.
The muscles themselves really just build, right?
Your muscle fibers grow.
Growers shrink, right?
Growers shrink.
Now you can get down to the details and the weeds
and there's type one A, type one B, muscle fibers type two A,
type two B, and some contract harder,
some have more stamina, more endurance and yes muscles
muscles can can kind of mold themselves to what you're doing
But it's largely due to the central nervous system and how it fires muscles
How it controls muscles?
The way that uses the muscles in unison
Right to work together like this is all CNS. So that's why we say strength is a skill because
That's the skill aspect right? It's the CNS. So that's why we say strength is a skill, because that's the skill aspect,
right? The CNS is like the master programmer writing the program and the muscles are kind of
following the directions. Yeah, and can you get all these muscles to be organized efficiently and
quickly to produce, you know, more strength in that direction? And that's all part of that process
is, you know, how effective we are
at being able to have access to all these muscles at once.
Yeah, now maximal strength, that would be in the real world like lifting something heavy.
You got to lift a heavy couch, you got to, you know, move a motorcycle or just anytime you have to lift something really, really heavy,
a heavy, you know, suitcase above your head, like that's maximal strength.
It's slow, it's grinding, it's the kind of strength
that looks like you're grinding through
and having to really exert yourself
in kind of a slow fashion.
Yeah, and because it's also,
it's that isometric component of being able to stabilize,
joints, spine, and being able to maintain that kind of muscle tension
while also doing work with your major muscles.
And so it's really like it's considering all of that at once.
And this is low rep training.
It's heavy training.
It's controlled form.
And what you're doing is you're practicing
these kind of gross motor movements
often. So it's like, you know, instead of doing like a leg workout where I'm doing 10 different
exercises, I'm doing 10 sets of squats. And I'm doing two or three reps of the squat. Not
maxing out, but it's at a high intensity, maybe 90 years long, long, resp. I'm trying to build
this low gear of strength.
The best example of athletes in this category
would be a power lifter.
Power lifters are all about maximal strength.
I mean, you watch them train and it's like they have
this first gear that's got crazy amount,
you know, just like a torque.
It's all a torque, right?
It's like if it was a car, it'd be a tractor.
Like a tractor doesn't go very fast.
It's not gonna take turns and corners very quickly.
It's going to move the most way, though.
But you're going to attach that tractor to 10,000 pounds
and it's going to just keep trucking along
and be able to pull crazy amounts away.
But it's that low-wrap, heavy,
this is like the phase one that you'll find
in a lot of our programs.
Maps and a ball like phase one
really does focus a lot on maximal strength to give an example of,
you know, for people who follow our programs
kind of what this looks like.
This by the way is my favorite kind of training.
Just because I think as a kid,
I always connected strength with this,
like how much weight can I lift?
So I just, this is one that I,
I think I enjoy the most.
Well, you just, you just shed a little bit of light
on why that's typically what a phase one looks
like in our program, too, is that you just said that it's in the base.
Yeah, this is probably the most the best way to build foundational strength that has the
most carryover into all other pursuits, because we get asked that a lot.
You know, why, why this rep range?
In fact, it's popular a lot of people like to start, start in a higher rep range and we
don't do that. And so this is part of the the reasoning behind why now that doesn't mean we don't have some programs where we disrupt that
Yes, but when you talk about our foundational program and the first phase of most of those programs
starts in a in a maximal strength type of phase now someone maybe wonder what kind of
Look does this produce in the body? This is going to be speculative. So there's no data to support what I'm about to say, but there's lots of anecdote. And in my experience,
training for maximal strength produces a really solid, hard looking body. Bodybuilders would say,
it produces a granite look to your physique. I have found this to be true. When I train like this,
to your physique. I have found this to be true.
When I train like this often, I just feel hard and solid
in comparison to other types of training
that make my muscles look more round and full
or might make me move differently.
Now I tend to move more stiffly when I train this way
because I think my body's kind of turned on
to lift something heavy.
So I probably move more robotically
when I'm in this phase for too long. but it does produce this really hard granite look.
Well, I think too, if you're comparing it to a more hypertrophy style, you just know that there's
more blood, more fluid to be considered with that type of a training, which then produces that
type of a look where there's that kind of layer over that. So it does sort of like physically,
you can see the difference of it, I guess.
Now the next one is explosive strength.
And this one is probably the most responsible
for athletic performance.
I don't know if you guys would agree.
That explosive, the ability to generate.
Well, again, though, to your point, though,
still even when training an athlete,
the foundation is still building the maximal strength first, to Justin's, though, still, even when training an athlete, the foundation
is still building the maximal strength first, to Justin's point earlier about the central
nervous system and teaching the muscles to fire, that way, when you go to explosive training,
you're getting the most out of that explosive training.
Yes.
This is how fast and how hard your muscles can contract.
We talked about maximal strength earlier.
That would be lifting a heavy weight like my max, and it would typically be slow moving. Like I go pull 600 pounds off the ground.
I'm not moving it very quickly. Explosive strength would be like me taking 100 pounds,
and deadlifting it so fast I throw in the air, you know, 50 feet. Like wow, how did you generate
such crazy power in such a short period of time? This is like a sprinter or an Olympic lifter. Like the amount of force that they can generate
in a short period of time is insane.
This makes you agile.
Like this is like you see someone jump super high.
This is their muscle's ability to contract so hard,
so quickly that it launches them into the air.
Yeah, and inevitably a lot of it,
you're going to see triple extension
because of the fact that you're
so explosively moving through it that your whole body just like gets involved with, you know, from head to toe, just because of the momentum of it. And really it's about its efficiency. So,
you know, you're going to produce a ton of force, but it's going to be at the right moments. And
then your body's got to move into it and catch, and talking specifically to like
Olympic lifts or sprinting or it's a lot of technique with it.
Once you get to that level, but really it's about being very intentional and direct at
what point do you throttle down the hardest?
Would you guys also categorize this as like reactive strength?
Yeah. So explosive or reactive strength. Yeah, that's categorize this as like reactive strength? Yeah.
Explosive or reactive strength?
Yeah, that's what they would call in the certifications, too.
Right.
The ability for your body to respond, right?
You call upon it to go left or right,
and it can respond quickly or jump as high you can
and respond to active.
I will never, I just remember this.
I'll never forget.
I have never really worked out a lot with Olympic lifters
and they're just not common to find in gyms,
but I remember one time there was an Olympic lifter
that came to work out at one of the gyms that I managed.
And then I watched him play basketball,
and he was not a basketball player.
It was like recreational, just having fun.
This dude could jump like I'd never seen before.
And I remember one of my trainers told me,
he says Olympic lifters usually have crazy ability
to jump high and move quickly
because that's how they train.
They're so explosive.
I'm like, oh, that's so true.
That's the same thing.
I'll never forget that.
It was like this, this kind of like small muscular dude and I some jump and I was like,
oh my god, he's like a, it's like a, yeah, the weights are slowing them down.
I mean, wait, I wish I understood all of this when I was a kid in high school playing
basketball because I didn't get any of this.
I've told you before that, when I was older,
heavier and was not playing as much basketball,
when I was able to dunk the basketball,
after I started to build power.
Yeah, I never trained heavy squats before,
until I got into my 20s when I started to do things like that.
Not even playing basketball that much more,
I was able to go grab the basketball
and two hand throw the ball down.
It was like, oh my God, I had been doing all these calf raises
and exercises inside the gym,
all through high school playing basketball.
It wasn't until way later when I wasn't even playing ball
anymore that I got the most explosive.
And that wasn't even me doing it in this order
where we're talking about building maximal strength first
and then going over and doing explosive
a reactive type training to express that new strength that I just simply built some more strength to you guys's point earlier
about how that carries over into sport so much and all said now I can throw the ball down.
I mean it was a dramatic difference just from learning how to heavy squad. It's like to when you
guys told me that the story about the 49er players who you guys played basketball with. Yeah,
and they weren't even basketball players, but they're just so explosive,
the way they moved, which is carried.
Now, this has got to be the most,
I would love to hear you guys' opinion on this.
I think this is probably the most misunderstood way of training.
Like, when people think they're training for explosive strength,
many times it creeps into endurance.
It's always endurance.
I almost never seen anybody train explosive strength
the right way.
So, how you train is how your body is going to express itself.
So, what do I mean by that is, let's say you want to train explosively for jumping.
Jumping up and down as many times you can until you're super tired is not going to do it.
Jumping a few times as hard and as fast as you can is training the explosivity.
So, when you see people do plios in the gym, 99% of the time,
it's just a way to get tired.
Nobody's really training for power.
Well, you're either training good habits or bad habits,
and especially in that direction,
explosive training is not good to incorporate any kind of fatigue.
That's completely going to defeat the effectiveness
of what you're trying to do with that.
And so your job is to really just focus on
how effectively I can pull this off
when my body is fully recovered.
Yeah, and I'm only going to be able to generate
that maximal amount of force
if there's no fatigue in the way.
Yeah. You know, I blame us for this.
I mean, I really think that trainers, the one that fucked this up.
Totally. I mean, we found a way.
We make things hard.
Yeah, we found a way to make things hard for clients, make them sweat,
challenge them. Oh, let's throw a pile of...
It's like part of a circuit.
Yeah, so let's throw a pile of metrics in there,
and this is gonna really get them sweating and burning and struggling and
If we are the the thought leaders the ones they're coaching and teaching others had exercise
I really blame us for the ones that that did this and it's still prevalent today if you go in a gym
I don't know how it's rare. I actually see somebody
Training explosive strength correctly. Yes, it's rare
It's rare and I when you do I always think it's like a really high level athlete.
I can tell by the way they're like, okay, they've either been taught or they have the
training to know how to train this way because normally when I see someone doing it, they're
doing it in a circuit style.
And the other mistake people make is they use to have you have a weight.
You have to be able to move the weight fast in order for it to be explosive in this sense.
Now that doesn't mean when you're training for maximal strength, you don't try to explode,
but in order to train for explosive strength, like if my max is 300 pounds in the bench press
and I want to train explosive in that range of motion, then I'll put 150 pounds on the
bar or 100 pounds.
And the goal is to take the bar and throw it off my chest.
That's explosive.
I think people get confused because they'll watch Olympic lifters and they have a substantial
amount of weight that they're moving.
But the way that they got to get there was like barely any weight possible and they're
able to move really quickly and get into that position at the most effective technique
possible.
But then it was a gradual process of now adding load,
adding load and still being able to have that kind of speed.
I think that was one of the most fascinating things
that I ever learned as a trainer,
because I wasn't around a lot of Olympic lifters,
and so I didn't get introduced into that world
until much later.
And I remember being so fascinated by,
wow, these dudes rarely ever lift heavy weight.
Yet when they get on stage and they go compete,
they're lifting the most weight
then we ever see people lift.
But leading up to that,
they're rarely ever flirting with that,
that maximal strength level.
They're always moving at a much lower percentage
of what they can lift.
Even when you see them do heavy squats,
because Olympic lifters will sometimes
you just straight up back squats, really heavy. You ever seen them do heavy squats, because Olympic lifters will sometimes you just straight up back squats, really heavy.
You ever seen them do heavy squats?
They go down and up.
They don't look like a power lifter
where that's grinding through a heavy weight.
And it's because they're training
that strength speed, that explosive power.
It's like a sprinter, right?
Like a sprinter is not gonna be able to squat as much
as his counterpart that weighs the same
that competes in powerlifting,
but he's gonna run way faster.
Well, such great example.
We have two good friends that I think of right away.
It's like, go look at Jordan Shallow squat,
and then go look at sunny websters squat.
Oh, yeah, there you go.
You know, you have an Olympic lift
or there, then you have a power lift right there,
and they're like dramatically different
when you see the squat.
And by the way, both are right.
Both, yeah.
And both are training very here for a specific type of strength.
Yeah.
So this would be like, if it was a car, it'd be like a drag car, you know, like at the
line, light turns green and it's go and in quarter mile and boom, you hit, you know,
seven seconds or something crazy like that.
It's be able to just generate so much force and such a short period of time.
Another example would be like a heavy deadlift versus taking a 20 pound medicine ball,
putting it in a deadlift position
and then throwing it as far as you can.
That's the way that you train for explosivity.
So you gave the kind of lifting protocol
for maximal strength.
What is the kind of the lifting protocol
as far as sets, reps and rest periods?
Lightweight for a few reps,
explosively, not to fatigue.
In other words, take a weight that, you know,
take 50% of your max or less, probably less,
lift it as fast as you can and do that,
and then rest for 30 seconds,
and then do it again, rest for 30 seconds,
do it again, rest for,
and then rest for like three minutes, four minutes,
and then repeat.
The goal is to lift as quickly as you possible,
as possible with that lift.
Now, I do wanna say with explosive strength training,
if you can't do something slow perfectly,
then don't even try to do it fast.
This is where injury comes in.
Like, if your squat isn't perfect,
and then you're gonna try and do a squat jump,
like you're gonna hurt yourself.
Any imperfection is exaggerates.
Totally exaggerates.
So, explosive strength is something that you train
with perfect technique and form,
because you're training exert yourself.
In fact, what I tell people is,
do your first couple sets at 50% maximal speed,
70% maximal speed, you still feel good and comfortable
than go ahead and train with the one.
Well, technically, if we were actually,
if we didn't order this, otherwise,
this would have been the last one.
Yes.
So, technically, if we were,
if we ordered this episode in the order of how we would train,
so when the first one was correct,
we would have done maximal strength,
but we would not have done explosive or reactive one was correct, we would have done maximal strength, but we would not have done explosive
or reactive strength second.
It would be the penalty.
Yeah, it's after you've gone through the other types of strength.
Yes, yes.
All right, so this next one is strength endurance.
So what is that?
That is can your body,
now we're not talking about endurance endurance, right?
Regular endurance is like running,
like over and over and over again, right?
That's not what we're talking about. Strength endurance is can I exert strength and then can I do it again?
And then can I do it again, right? It would be like a sprinter who's running a fast sprint and then he rests for four minutes
and then he does it again and he does this 20 times in a row and each time
minimal
loss in performance, right? This is like a football player. If you ever watch football players,
football players have a tremendous amount
of maximal strength, explosive strength,
but they actually have damn good strength endurance
because it's play after play after play.
Each play is explosive, each play requires
a ridiculous amount of strength,
and then the play is over, then they go back,
get to their line, or their huddle, or whatever,
get back and then do it again,
and they have to be able to do this throughout the whole game.
How long can you continuously exert yourself
at that level?
And there's a way to train for that.
And so, you know, and that, I guess,
you could also kind of relate it to work capacity.
So it's the ability to, you know, produce that kind of work
for an elongated period of time.
So I mean, there's ways I'll do this, in terms of just farmer carries and moving with weight.
So I'm still really working through the strength aspect
of holding the weights, pressing the weights,
but I'm also moving with it,
and I'm trying to stabilize it, sustain it.
And so there's just all of that's incorporated with,
how can I produce this kind of work demand
as long as I possible?
So this one seems a little more nuanced to me
as far as the programming.
So give me an example, like we just talked about
the last one of what you just said with the,
30 second rest, go again for three reps.
Like what would the lifting protocol be,
or give me an exercise and give me
with the protocol.
Honestly, the easiest way
because there's lots of different ways of program this,
but honestly, this would be traditional high volume
bodybuilding.
Traditional high volume bodybuilding
is a lot of strength endurance.
You take a power lifter,
so like you have a super set, super set,
super set, high reputation.
High reps, 45 second rest, right?
In between sets, like you take a body builder
and you have them train with a power lifter, and in the beginning of the workout,
the power lifter will outlift the bodybuilder.
Towards the end of the workout, the bodybuilder's lifting more
than the power lifter because they can go set after set,
after set, 20 sets for legs, 20 sets for back.
So then would you actually categorize this as almost
like a subcategory of hypertrophy?
So there's hypertrophy, it would be like,
would be a general type of training,
and then within that, you have strength endurance in that and then standard.
You're a great, that's, that's a great question because all the ones that we're talking about
contribute to hypertrophy, explosive training, contribute to hypertrophy, maximal strength,
contribute to hypertrophy. So does strength endurance. In fact, all the ones we're going to talk about
build muscle. That's why it's important to, to train all of them. But this is good, like, real world workload or work capacity.
Can I go dig ditches or build a fence or do some roofing or go do yard work and I could
still swing the hammer as hard, you know, four hours later as I did when I first started.
So this looks like in one of our programs
would be like phase three of Mapsesthetic.
Yes, or Mapsentabolic, right?
Absolutely, or the work sessions in store.
Yeah, work sessions, yeah.
Absolutely.
So it's high volume, it's supersets, it's lighter weight.
A good example of this for athletes would be like
a running back, a bodybuilder, crossfit athlete,
you're looking at lots of strength endurance,
just the ability to continue to
Generate strength over and over again. I guess as a car. This would be like a rally car, right?
You know how they they have to have speed
But also continue to travel through the whole I would also consider this of the the three we've talked about so far
One of the more safer ones to train. Yeah, which is it by the way why sometimes
You might see somebody program this on the front.
Yes.
Because of the safety reasons, you may not, let's say, the last load a demand because you
know of all the the sets and the amount of work that you do.
Even though I know I'm going to get more bang for my buck by going to maximal strength
for the average person, let's say I've got a 70 year old lady who's never lifted weights
before, I may lean towards training like this initially,
just for form and technique and safety.
Even though I know that I getting her to do a five by five,
routine or something like that,
would give me the most bang for my buck or carry.
But because now I'm starting to consider,
oh, safety, oh, maybe I might go this route.
Yeah, by the way, this is all relative, right?
So how you would train the 70 year old for strength endurance is not gonna be like how you by the way, this is all relative, right? So how you would train the seven-year-old
for strength endurance is not gonna be like
how you would train.
Like it's all relative to your current fitness level.
It's just like maximal strength,
just like explosive strength.
By the way, with explosive strength,
I forgot to mention, in the real world,
it's valuable to have some explosive strength
because if you step off of a curb
or need to catch something that's falling
or your kid is gonna go down the stairs.
Go down the stairs. Like this is your ability to move quickly with strength. But yeah, with what
you're saying here, Adam, it is a very safe because it's set after set, after set, perfect form,
good technique and stability. And to your point about beginners and this might be something that
to consider too, it's like in order to sustain certain positions
and have good technique in those
and not have fatigue be a factor that sneaks in
and interrupts that,
this would definitely directly address that.
So you would be working on the ability
to have the stamina to have good form
for a longer amount of time.
This kind of training gives you a really good pump.
This is the traditional high volume, high rep,
supersets, like you get crazy, crazy pumps.
Bodybuilders would say it gives you
that kind of round, full look to your muscles.
Adam, you probably trained like this most consistently
out of all of this because you did compete.
Absolutely.
And when you trained, I love the story when you talk about
when you first worked out with Justin
because he was such an athlete.
Did it train like a bodybuilder with those workouts look like in the beginning versus the yeah, yeah, no, he would always he would always be kicking my ass at the front half of the workout.
And then I'd catch up and get him towards the back half because he did.
Yeah, very me in the back. Yeah, he definitely would have
not
I would say that out.
Not how I would say it.
But yes, you're right.
So he just came out really easy. Yeah, that out. But not how I would say it, but yes, you're right.
So it just came out really easy for audience slipkicks.
So yeah, no, it was a great example of you have two types of, you know, training modalities
that each of us are attracted to, Justin, very much.
So it was maximal explosive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I was more of the hypertrophy and endurance right so that's definitely the direction that I train and then you would see that
Express when we get into the the gym and workout and both had tremendous carryover for us to train that way because I needed more of what he had
He probably need a little bit more of what I had and so that's what I love about this is that you if you stick with one for a long time
And then you move into a new one boom gains. Yeah. Boom, your body responds and you get better results.
All right, the last one is relative strength.
And really this is just about how strong are you for your size,
right?
Like how strong you are relative to your body weight.
I've trained, I'll never forget the first time
this was became super apparent to me.
I trained, I'll never forget, I trained it for a very short period of time, but it was
phenomenal.
She was this young female gymnast.
So she probably weighed, she had to be under 90 pounds.
She was tiny.
She was like 14 years old when I was 18.
I trained her dad, her dad said, hey, I'd like you to train my daughter.
And this little kid, she was this petite little, she was like kind of built, look like a little
gymnast. And she did pull-ups. I said, hey she was like kind of built, look at her little gymnast.
And she did pull-ups, I said, hey, can you do pull-ups?
You know, stupidly, I'm asking a gymnast
if she could do pull-ups.
I was like, yeah, I could do pull-up.
I said, oh, let me watch your form.
And she grabbed the bar, put her legs out
straight in front of her.
And she does, this is like the speed of pull-ups
that she was doing.
While she had a straight face, everything, oh my God.
Like, I'm definitely stronger than her, maximally,
but relative to body weight, she kicked my ass all over the place.
Because her relative strength was incredible.
And this really is what allows you to move your body
through space.
Like if you're, if you have the strength
of a 200 pound power lifter, but you weigh 100 pounds,
how do you think you're gonna move in the real world?
Like, how are you gonna manipulate your body
over objects or climb things?
It's gonna feel like nothing.
I think of Mike Sulemi right away
with a few of our friends that are good representations
of the avatar who represents this.
Like he just, very unassuming you would never guess
that guy is as strong as he is.
He is an incredible relative.
These are gymnasts.
My favorite example.
So are wrestlers because wrestlers often have to wrestle in a weight class.
Yeah.
So they're just really good at maximizing their strength for their body weight because they
don't want to go up to another weight class.
Yeah.
And I kind of would put in rock climbing just because I've seen some insane strength
the weight ratio and all the way directed to their fingertips.
You know, so it's just also like a directional strength, I think, and being able to access certain parts
of their body, I think a lot of people don't really have strength in.
Yeah, you've ever seen those calisthenics, like what do they call them?
Barmen, where there's certain prisons in California that eliminated weights, but they allowed
like pull up bars.
They'll just keep pull up bars. So these inmates just learned how to do allowed that like pull up bars. They'll just keep pull up bars.
So these inmates just learned how to do crazy stuff on pull up bars and they'd call them barman.
Yeah.
And they would manipulate their bodies with these on these bars and ways that were just
insane doing pull ups, almost like a straight arm pull up with their whole body.
It's just crazy.
Is there is there a popular group in New York?
They're all standing at kings, I think is one.
I don't know.
That's the one that gets bar or something. I think they look at up that I'm pretty sure there's like a really popular group in New York. The Austin Kings, I think, is one. That's the one.
That's the one.
That's the one.
I think it's bar or something.
Look at that.
I'm pretty sure there's a really popular group in New York.
I don't know if it originated in prison or not.
I do know that it's popular.
They're also, but I know these guys made it really popular and they had, there's a name
to them.
I went down the rabbit hole.
Yeah, you can Google Callestanic Barman.
They'll do like the New York flags. They do crazy crazy stuff where they
explosively pull up and spin in the air catch some I mean you got and the dudes
are jacked and that's all they do is just all bars. Yeah, so now the way you
train for something like this is you do because a lot of this is skill also for
example. Yep. You know I weigh about 210 pounds.
I get overhead press 225,
but I probably couldn't do a handstand pushup
because I don't have the balance or the skill.
So a lot of this has to do with also your ability
to move your body.
So the way you train for this is using your body.
So instead of doing bench press,
you do pushups and variations of pushups.
Instead of doing shoulder presses,
you do handstand pushups. Instead of doing shoulder presses, you do handstand pushups.
Instead of doing pull downs, you do pull ups, for example,
it's the skill acquisition.
Lots of balance and stability exercises.
And then there's one other component, which is keeping your body weight low.
If you want a really good relative strength, it makes sense to not let yourself get too heavy.
So what is, so break down this protocol for me?
So what does the protocol look like,
give me an exercise and then the reps and rest periods,
what does it look like in the technique?
You are doing, you're picking bodyweight exercises,
you're not trained to failure,
you're doing a lot of sets
and you're practicing your form and technique.
So it's like doing pull ups to get my last pumped
versus doing pull ups for 30 minutes to feel like I get really good at pull-ups.
It's like practicing lifts or training exercises.
So would you say like German volume training would be an example of that?
Some like that with body weight. So if I were to do like, you know, 10 sets of 10 on pull-ups.
Yeah. Yeah, but you could do like, let's say, 15 or 20 reps.
Yeah. But you're just doing over and over and over again.
You're practicing.
And then, rest periods relatively short, or would I still give myself rest periods of
like three minutes?
You're long, long.
Long, because you're, yeah, you're still trying to build strength, right?
You're still trying to build lots of strength.
This would be kind of like a formula one car.
It would be my example of, you know, what kind of car this would be like, where it's just
light and very, very maneuverable.
And my, I mean, look, I think all of these are impressive,
but the one that tends to blow my mind the most
is this one right here.
And maybe because it's the one that you see the least of
in the real world, but you ever see someone who's small
who could just do crazy circus.
It looks like circus strength.
Yes, you know, it's like, it's, yeah,
it looks unbelievable because, yeah,
because they can just do these sort of anti-gravitational
moves that you're just baffled by. It's really just manipulating their body weight.
In fact, Justin, you probably have the most experience with this because you did a whole
year of just body weight ring training.
Yeah, so I was going to kind of add to that. You can progressively overload, but you just
want to do that through angles
and gravitational forces and manipulate that
with like suspension trainers
and progress your way up to like Olympic rings.
Things that'll challenge the stability
and you know, intensify the angles a lot more.
And you kind of find yourself into these new moves.
So like an example of that is like taking your body weight dips
and then being able to then kind of turn that into a muscle up.
And so the whole process of getting there,
it takes a lot of emphasis on the very low part of the dip
and really getting strong, you know,
at that lowest position.
That's what I'm talking about.
Is this where you guys would apply isometrics?
Oh yeah.
I think so because you have to stabilize your body
with a lot of these bodyweight type movements.
I mean, if you're doing a handstand pushup,
it's not just the pushing the way.
And I know that's true with a barbell to an extent,
but stabilizing your body is a whole other ball game.
Becoming as rigid as possible.
Do you know what I did,
day before yesterday at my back is so lit up,
so it's the only thing I did for my back.
I did literally four sets of pullups for three reps,
but I did a isometric hold top and then slowly
resisted the way down.
I hadn't done something like that in so long.
Three pull ups, that's all I could do.
Three pull ups like that.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, do you guys remember those,
I don't know if there were brothers,
they used to perform like bodybuilding events,
but they were also a Cirque du Soleil act.
There was just two brothers that could lift each other.
Is that the other ones that were on Oprah?
Then they go, yeah.
I think they were.
Like that's the one where the guy was like,
his head was on the other hand.
Yes, head and they walked upstairs.
I think they don't kinds of crazy stuff.
I just saw Joe and my wife post that.
I don't know, that's the same.
I think it's different.
Different guy.
The pair you're talking about are two brothers.
Yes.
I can picture them in like all white gymnastics stuff.
Yes, yes, yes, they came on Oprah before.
Yes, they used to do, they did a performance
at one of the Arnold classics that I attended.
They came out in the beginning, and I couldn't believe what they could do with their bodies
It was insane now. Okay, even though there's going to be obviously
Exceptions to every rule and it and it doesn't mean that this is the way you always would have to do this
but generally speaking
How would we order this in programs and how long would we stick in each phase?
Will we stay the same amount time?
We'll four to six weeks in each phase and how would we order these in the ideal world?
That's a generally speaking. That's a good question. Yeah, it has to be general because yeah, there's gonna be such.
If I consider like if you consider me, I have a favorite.
So and I want to consider that as well. So I'm gonna train more in
maximal strength than I will in the others,
just because that's my favorite, right?
If you're a bodybuilder,
you're probably going to train in the high volume,
superset, phase, than the other ones.
But for the average person,
it's probably a good idea to spend like a few weeks in each one,
you know, to kind of be just general,
a few weeks here, a few weeks there,
a few weeks here, a few weeks there,
and then cycle back through.
And what's cool about this is if you,
and I did this with some clients,
is I would have them track what they did
so that when they came back around,
they could see if they did made any improvements
because they went through the other phases.
So I say three to five weeks in each one of these phases.
The first one, Doug, I know you're watching videos,
is the first one maximal strength.
Yes, right.
Then what would you go at? And I already know that we would for sure do
Explosive a reactive last so then how you order the other two in the middle? Do you have a preference? Yeah, I think
You're probably gonna go maximal strength. I think relative strength can actually be also be first or second
Because that's I mean anything that's body weight. It could be very basic right or advanced
So you could actually plug that in anywhere,
but maximal strength, strength endurance,
and then you could put relative strength
in there anywhere, and I think the end is explosive,
just because that's the most risky, I would say.
Yeah, I feel like the ends are solid.
For sure, maximal strength, I feel like it would be,
generally speaking, again, there's exceptions to the rule.
I think that's almost always gonna be the first
and then the last would be explosive
and then how you order the other two,
you could probably flip flop.
I agree.
I think everybody's gonna have a preference
going through and they're gonna know what
training style like fits them best.
And it's not the wrong with repeating one of them,
like the majority of the time,
but trying your best to incorporate those other styles
of strength training is gonna fill a lot of holes.
So what mine looked like in bodybuilding was ice
for like six weeks I would move in like the strength
endurance or slash like super set hypertrophy type of world
and then I would use all these other ones to interrupt
that for three to four weeks.
And then jump back in.
Then I'd interrupt it again with another one for three to four weeks. And then jump back in. Then I jump back in. Then I'd interrupt it again with another one for three to four weeks.
So obviously there is going to be an exception rule for every type of person.
That's a very specific goal as I would have as a bodybuilder.
But generally speaking for the average listener who just wants to be fit, wants to be strong,
wants to look good, wants to be healthy, like rotating through all of these, I think,
is the most ideal and then ordering them kind of how we should. Now last thing I'll add is someone may wonder, well, why don't I through all of these, I think is the most I move ideal and then ordering them kind of how.
Yeah. Now last thing I'll add is someone may wonder, well, why don't I do all of them in a workout?
Or why don't I do all of them in a week? Okay. Technically, yeah, technically you could,
but the reason why it's typically not a good idea is because the mindset
that you go into each of these is very different. Like it's like learning four sports.
Basketball, football, tennis, hockey.
And would you go do three hockey shots and then throw a ball?
It's like, no, you'd spend a whole block in session
of getting good at that sport,
and then you move on to the next sport.
And yes, they all have carry over a little bit
to each other in the pursuit of being athletic,
but they're so different.
Totally different.
That you would want to stay hyper focused, at least,
for a period of time to allow yourself to progress.
Totally, right?
100%.
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