Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 344: How to Build Incredible Quads
Episode Date: August 11, 2016How would you like to build amazing quads? In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin reveal what it takes. ANNOUNCEMENT!: We have just "launched" our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Search "Mind Pump TV" on Y...ouTube & Subscribe. Sal, Adam, Justin & Doug will be posting valuable content there regularly. Get MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic and the Butt Builder Blueprint (The RGB Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get your Kimera Koffee, Mind Pump's first official sponsor, at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts!
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Discussion (0)
If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
Mind, pop, mind, pop with your hosts.
Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews.
Today, in this episode.
Yeah, in this episode coming up, we talk about, um, a specific word talking about quads.
At a build of quads.
Yes.
But we did start to dive in a little bit of what our recent project and what we've been
working on right now.
I'm super excited that we are all finally together full time doing mine pup.
And this is the type of shit that we're going to be able to produce.
So here is just a taste of what's coming right now.
And that's our YouTube channel.
Go on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV or MP TV, I think we'll be branding it, but Mind Pump TV.
And we have videos on there where we can now demonstrate some of the stuff that we talk about on the show,
and a lot more stuff with it in the moment.
And we made sure to put our own flavor in there.
So this is not like just your typical kind of a boring explanation.
I'm glad you said that Justin, I think a lot of the the big
YouTubers out there right now that give really really good information. These are good. Very good at what they do.
Right. It's a little it's a little hard to digest for the average listener, right? I mean for the
average person who is just your average weekend warrior, Jim Goer, you know, didn't have a
kinesiology degree, don't have a personal certification.
They don't, they, they, they are just trying to improve themselves. It's pretty tough to break down
what some of these guys are saying. I mean, for us trainers, we enjoy that stuff. It's good, but
it's kind of dull, it's kind of dry. It's kind of hard to sit through. So...
No, our videos are quality, the sound is quality, the demos are quality, and it's not boring.
It's typical mind-pump fashion. You get great information, a little bit of entertainment.
Check it out. Mind-pump TV.
It's free. Don't forget to subscribe, show your love.
Dude, I can't believe you've never seen Zoubender before.
Zoubender? Yeah.
So it's Zoubender first, the first one.
Oh, you did?
Oh, forget that part completely.
It was such a stupid movie that I don't know.
How many times have you seen it once?
Yeah, it's stupid the first time.
It really is.
Well, here's how it gets even more fun.
Maybe it's because I was sober.
I don't know.
Let me tell you something about Zooletter.
It's subtle.
I watched that movie and there's a handful of movies.
I can think of two right off the top of my head.
Napoleon Dynamite.
That was great the first time.
And Zooletter. Both those movies, I didn't care. I don't know if I'd read it. I did not care for off the top of my head. Napoleon Dynamite. And- That was great the first time.
And Zooleran, both those movies, I did not care for it
the first time.
Yeah.
Didn't care for it.
Thought it was okay.
The second, the third, the fourth.
Oh my God, it got better as you,
because you start picking up on offbeat humor.
It is very offbeat.
So if you know what you're getting into
and you're watching it,
you're kind of like, what the fuck,
where's this going?
Once you get the whole, the whole-
What's this whole gasoline fight?
You know, right?
She like that was so hilarious.
Yeah, the first thing you're like,
what the fuck are they doing with an actor?
She's like, oh my God, this is ridiculous, you know?
Like, hands off.
No, do that.
Yeah, so walk off.
It's a walk off.
Yeah, it's a walk off.
Oh my God.
I'm still gonna have a walk off with you, Sam.
We're gonna do a walk off.
A walk off.
I would love to see that.
Yeah, it's for us to fight. so we're gonna do a walkoff. A walkoff. I would love to see that.
Yeah, it's a throw stuff at you.
If we're talking in old gym terms, you'll definitely win on the walkoff.
You know what I'm talking about?
What's that?
Walking people.
Oh, yeah.
Walks.
So for those you're listening who don't know what we're talking about, when you try to
sign someone up and they leave without buying something, they're walking.
So Adam will win that contest.
Boom.
Boom.
This is a walkoff. Boom. You and I are going to
bro, I'm on fire right now. Are you? I'm on fire. You got your, did you have a
camera? I had a camera coffee this morning. Right. And then I took alongside the
camera coffee. I added a little bit of cannabis. No, a Theobromine, which comes in. So they
have another product in its rock cow with and it's got El Glutamine in there in cinnamon.
So what I did is I got my Cameracoffee,
I blended it with MCT oil,
and I added a bunch of that rock cow powder
that they have.
Really?
Yeah, and so I blended it.
And then you're like,
and I added a little stevia just to make it sweet.
First of all, delicious to sell,
the MCT of course, MCT's medium chain triglycerides
convert to ketones, and you guys know how excited I get on ketones.
Then, of course, the coffee that's got all the neutropics in it, then the
Theobromine, which is in the, I hope I'm pronouncing it right, that's in
Rocca Cal, and I'm on fire.
Yeah, I'm pretty much on fire.
I started my day with your hairs on fire, like lava, like, so you don't
fly. You just do the MCT, you don't actually, I do lava, like, so you don't. So you don't.
You just do the MCT.
You don't actually, I do MCT, and I actually,
I don't even do MCT.
I do coconut oil.
I do coconut oil and I do butter.
You don't do, you're not the butter guy.
I like butter tastes good and everything,
but if I'm looking for the, just the mental boost,
then I'll go medium chain triglycerides
because I want the ketones.
I feel like they're going better because I like the flamethrower.
Yeah, I feel like without the butter,
you don't get that creamy, frappied,
yeah, just straight coconut oil or M.J. T. oil,
but that just makes it all oily on the top and it's too much
to straight to diaries.
But yeah, no, I just do it.
I do have fine line.
Well, here's the thing about me that I noticed
because people will say that,
like if they eat too many of particular fats,
that'll have a laxative effect or whatever,
I respond so well to fats.
Like I can have a, I can eat a lot of fat
and it won't bother me, like I'll drink,
I'll buy a can of full fat coconut milk,
which is a lot of fat, like one can
is like 60 something grams of fat.
And I'll blend that into something
I had peanut butter, so I'll add even more fat.
And sometimes I'll add MCTs to that.
So what's your theory on this thing?
I'm interested to hear what you think.
Because I feel like I'm the same way too,
with like meat fats or stuff like that.
Like if I have, I could have 20 pieces of bacon
and be totally fine.
But if I have two tablespoons of oil in the coffee,
I'm like, Justin, I'm fucking shit myself.
I can only do one.
One tablespoon is just a,
any more than that and it's like I got bubble guts.
What is that?
Everything's all liquid.
What is that?
Because it's not the amount of fat content
that's throwing me over because I can have, I can have,
I just think you're a pussy.
No, here's what it is.
You, I hear it's so serious.
I don't know, it's interesting.
I don't know because on the flip side,
there's things that you can eat that if I eat, you know, I'm a I'm a I'm a reverse dragon, you know what I mean?
Yeah it's really funny because you have the super sensitive tummy and stuff and you don't
say tummy.
I just I don't know I feel molested with
the stress dragon.
How's your speaking of molested me and Adam were in the
molested me and Adam were in the bathroom right And I'm taking a piss at the urinal.
He's in the stall because there's only one urinal
in this bathroom.
And I'm still peeing.
He comes out and he's talking about his appointment yesterday
with this guy who did an assessment on him.
And he's showing me,
there's a while I peen while you're peeing.
While I'm peeing.
So I'm facing the stall, I'm holding my dirty,
I'm taking it.
And you pee with your pants all the way down.
Yeah, I got my dick in my hand, I'm peeing.
Okay.
Adam is like touching my back and showing me my arm.
I'm in this kind of like area right here.
I'm just like, I'm going to completely ignore that this is weird.
He's focused on the information.
He's thinking we've gotten control of each other.
I'm all, I'm grabbing his, I'm like, dude, he had me in this position.
He's retracting my shoulders.
I feel that's right.
He's doing this all over up try to pee
Yeah, many grand my elbow and he starts shaking it. He starts doing swirls
So you since you you see P. L over the floor. Yeah, you know why I see brought it up
I want to plug our boy because and I'm very excited for the two of you Doug and I got a chance to go and
See him so I I met Justin. Justin
is a doctor, chiropractor, ex-mobility, flow, everything, specialist, the guys got all kinds
of certification at the walls. What's the name of this place?
Premier Sports.
Sports.
Sports.
Yeah.
Premier Sports.
Yeah. Premier Sports. Sporten Spine. Sporten Spine and San Jose. Yeah, premieres, Sporten Spine, his name's Justin. That's on Chery and, uh,
An Al Maden for you, San Jose listeners.
Yes.
Uh, the Ilnana, bro.
He's, so I'm like,
What?
Ilnana.
Ilnana.
The shit, bro.
He's the, he's the, he's the, he's the What does that mean?
I don't even know what it is.
I don't know, but it's cool.
Yeah.
I love that.
Ilnana.
Ilnana.
Ilnana.
Look at, was you looked at a duck with it? Ilnana. I've been saying that for years. Il Nana. Would you look at that up dug with it is?
Il Nana.
I've been saying that for years, I mean, you fucking know where this is.
We're the originists.
It's just the thing.
No, it's probably got some really funny origin.
I've been saying that for all these years.
I hope it's racist because then I'll laugh.
Oh, my God.
All right, so anyways, he's, he's, he's, and here's, and I tell, this is something to,
I love to start my, anytime I'm conversing with a chiropractor, I like to start off,
introduce myself, and I say, just so you know'm conversing with a chiropractor I like to start off for introduce myself let's
say just so you know I don't like chiropractors.
I put a mojana. Yeah, right? He in the situation right away.
Right away. It's long right and what is it good?
I just looked it up. What is it? Urban Dictionary. So first of all,
it's based off of a song and Foxy Brown, I think was the one that
did it back in 96. And Il means tight, and Nana means vagina.
Yes, even better.
So accurate.
It is so accurate.
All right, so he's like a type of vagina.
So he's a type of vagina continue.
I just made it that much better.
It means we really like you.
Yeah, that's right.
That's all.
So I started off with that.
He laughs right away and says, good, so do I.
And, you know, I said, here's the thing I said,
I feel like that industry hasn't evolved.
And it was the thing that attracted me to his business
and what he was doing because he doesn't just have a,
I mean, he has a huge office.
And the major centerpiece of his office
is a workout floor.
And it's got everything.
It's got a little squat rack in there.
He's got a macebells.
He's got all kinds of tools to utilize inside there.
And as a chiropractor, what do you know miss?
You're gonna get on there.
He's gonna assess you and then adjust you.
And then you're gonna go back every week for the rest of life.
First of all, we didn't even do any adjustments.
You didn't even get me on the table,
we didn't even talk about literally,
we took my shoes off, we get barefoot,
and we just, we broke me down from the toes up.
And it was super enlightening.
And that's what I want.
When I go to see a doctor or a chiropractor,
I expect you to be able to either be able to tell me something
I don't know about my body or help point me in the direction of fixing what I already
know is going on with me, right?
And there's nothing more frustrating to me when I go to a professional and they don't.
And I'm, and the reason why is that I know I'm not super, super smart.
Like I have enough knowledge and experience to get to get by and to have an
Understanding and I'm very aware of my body. So to me, I don't think it takes that much to know that much more than me in that field
So when I go to these guys and they're just like they're lost for like words on what my or it could be this or could be that versus
Someone like him was like well, let's let's totally break you down all the way from how you walk.
Let's just look at your walk and like I said, taking my shoes off, assessing that and
down to my toe to my big toe.
Like, here's what here's by the way, for those you listening thinking, oh, that doesn't
have that much of an influence over your body moves.
No, this is actually false.
If you were to amputate your big toe, you would have severe issues with walking, running,
and balance.
Well, your big toe, especially, right?
Correct.
That holds a lot of your balance
and your weight and support.
It does, and the body is all connected.
They call it a chain because everything's connected.
And knowing this, the thing that always gets on my nerves going to people like higher
practice is that many of them, the many that I've encountered, don't address that.
They don't see that.
What they see is that we're going to adjust this one.
Exactly.
And then they don't fix or work on what's causing that poor recruitment pattern or that
the structure to be what they would say off or out,
they don't correct it.
So then what do you do is you go back to your regular life
and it goes back to where it was.
And so you end up seeing this person
every single week, weekend and week out.
His idea, I mean, when he said the first time we met him was,
I don't want, I want to get you out of here.
Like I want you to come see me for X amount of time
and then you're gone, never see me again.
Yeah, so his average client, he sees four to six visits. You know, that's his goal. His goal is to get you out of here. Like, I want you to come see me for X amount of time and then you're gone, never see me again. Yeah, so his average client, he sees four to six visits.
That's his goal.
His goal is to get you out of there.
Now, if you guys think about this,
does this not reflect what we're battling with,
the supplement industry and having these quick fixes
and quick protocol for getting fit and getting in shape
and all these kinds of things.
It's like people want that like immediate fix
but guess what, you're not addressing the root problem
and you know, long-term success is not something
that you're gonna experience.
It's always gonna be interrupted with that same thing
that's been you know, taking you and detracting you
from the product.
It's just worth fucking lazy.
Yeah.
We're fucking lazy is what the issue is.
I mean, and I'll be the first one to admit,
so I come in and there, right?
And I've got the hip flexor issue going on
and I've got my shoulder back stuff going on.
And what sounds great is, yeah, put me on the table,
just let me lay down and pop me into place
and make me feel better.
Like even I want that.
Like there's a part of me that wants to go in
and just make me feel better right now, you want that. Like there's a part of me that wants to go in and just make me feel better right now.
You know, like, but what he did was,
let's, there's obviously a neurological issue
that's going on.
I have a poor connection somewhere.
We talk about this already on the show.
We have a butt guide for sleepy butts
and teaching people how to activate
and reestablish that neurological connection.
We talked about already on this episode,
when we got into abs,
how a lot of people have a
Poor connection to their abdominals. They don't know how to actually flex at the spine. So there's these things that we already talk
Well, fuck dude. This guy I have I don't have the right connection to my feet. I can't even do some of that so your feet your toes when you think about this
And this is something that he explained to me. Yes, it's such a great point. Your toes
We should be able to do the same shit
with your toes as you came with your fucking fingers.
Of course, have you ever seen pictures of people's feet,
like modern societies that are like this together?
They're like, yeah, their toes are all spread out.
And you look at modern societies, Western societies,
where we were born, you know, basically put in shoes
as soon as you could walk, our toes are all scrunched
and crushed together. It's not, it's not the walk, our toes are all scrunched and crushed together.
It's not the same.
Your toes are supposed to spread out and you're right.
You are supposed to be able to move them
like you move your fingers.
Yes, and so he'd give me a simple drill
and I would be able to, and you would see
a significant difference from the right to the left.
All my issues are coming from my left side,
runs all the way up into my left hip flexor.
Guess where, then guess where my shoulder
and all my other pain is on the opposite side, right?
Which is once you get to the upper body,
it crosses over the other side.
So everything is coming from this area,
all of them, and I don't have a connection.
I literally could not lift my toes up.
Like he's like, just lift your big toe up.
I'm like, everything in me.
And he's like, it's not that you can't do it,
because look at that, he gets his finger
and he can lift it up.
You have the flexibility, you have the mobility to do that.
You just don't have the connection.
You haven't done it.
You haven't done it.
And so the exercises I have to do are just lame and tedious.
I mean, I literally need to do these movements
with my toes and re-establish.
I'm so frustrated, I'm just thinking about it.
Oh, it is.
I just think they're trying to move me in the process.
Oh, bro, that's why I can't wait for you
to do your assessment with them.
Because I know. I'm kind of pissed we're talking about this right now, that's why I can't wait for you to do your assessment with them because I know
kind of pissed we're talking about this right now because I haven't gone through it.
Did he give you a grade?
No, you don't get a score.
I didn't want it.
Well, I see you would be good.
I just want to beat Adam.
You motherfuckers guy.
I like, well, Adam, apparently, my score is better than yours.
We, you know, and I really feel like we barely even scratched the surface.
I mean, he had me sweating bullets.
We never touched anything.
I'll just my body, just telling me to take things
through full range of motion.
Yes, yes, yes.
You have to take me to the wall and I take my fist
about an inch away from the wall and then he wanted to see me
protract as hard as I possibly could without moving.
Yeah, moving my body and just making those little connections
like that.
And then I would stop and I was like,
oh my god, damn it.
Such a hard movement.
And then just like we laid face down,
worked on my shoulder mobility,
just to see where I was at.
And then to show me like,
this is how much range you have.
Like he'd grab me and be like,
you've got all this range.
But when I let go and I ask you to do it,
I'm like this much, you know, like that's all I can do.
And so, yeah, it was very enlightening,
very exciting, I'm really excited about the relationship
that we're forging with him right now,
because, well, this is good because I wanna learn
from people like this who are so,
I mean, they go down to the fine, fine detail
because it's gonna help us present the larger,
the big picture, because what we do really well
is we take information, we put it together,
and process it, and we present it in a way
that's digestible understanding.
Yeah, it can take it and run with it.
Exactly, so I'm excited about,
you know, in this particular sense.
Yeah.
And looking ahead in the future,
there are some courses that the three of us have agreed.
I don't wanna talk about it yet,
because we haven't signed up for anything yet.
But we are looking to sign up for courses
and education programs that are out of our realm
to do a few things, number one, increase
or improve the quality of the show
because it always gives us great things to talk about.
But B, I mean, never stop learning.
You know what I mean?
And there's always epiphany.
You know, you go in and you learn something new and it's like, boom, all of a sudden I
have an epiphany with my deadlift, even though we were just talking about, you know, my
toe.
Well, I see someone like this and I can't help but stress to people that it is so worth
the money just to learn this about your body.
Whether you go on and apply it and put it to practice
and make the effort to move better
and learn to move, right?
That's up to you, that's on you.
But at least to get that knowledge of what is going on,
I mean, it's just, to me, it's invaluable.
It's invaluable and there's not a lot of people out there
I feel like that do this because in America,
we really are in this business of, you know, fix it
or like after you have the problem,
you know, giving you this temporary fix
or temporary pill to solve whatever the issue is
but not really addressing the root cause of things
and to have somebody totally flip that business model
on its head, very exciting.
And I really believe this is the future
of like your chiropractic work,
your physical therapy, really getting into
diving into these root causes
and helping people with just the way they move.
And identifying and actually having an action plan
instead of just come see me.
I agree, I agree.
That's one of the reasons why as a personal trainer,
one of the reasons why I did so well
was because of that,
because I would actually address issues,
train people accordingly, I didn't just hammer them.
Same thing with you guys.
Thanks for including us.
Yeah, no, no, actually, no, I mean, I just speak for myself,
but you guys do the same thing.
Yeah, for sure.
One of the reasons why we were so successful,
here's a thing is a trainer,
one of the best metrics you can use to judge
whether or not you're an excellent trainer,
is how long a client will stay with you. Not just how many you can use to judge whether or not you're an excellent trainer is how long a client will stay with you.
Not just how many you can get, but how long they will stay with you.
If you're a trainer and you've been a trainer for five years and you've got clients
with you that have been with you for five years or longer, you're kicking ass because the
average client doesn't train with a trainer for very long.
It's usually three to six months and that's because trainers focus so heavily on beating
the crap out of people that they couldn't stay with you if they wanted to.
Well, you brought up something one time that I think is is a really good indicator. And
I feel like it's something that it's taken me years in my career to get to this level
where literally your client calls you for anything to do with their body. Right. I could
be from a headache to an ache of pain to a not nauseous to dizzy.
Lies can't sleep.
Yes.
Anything going on with them, they believe and trust in your ability to help them solve
this or know someone who can.
Exactly.
You know, because of course a lot of times I have to refer out.
I have to say, you know what, you know, it could be this could be that, but if it's still
getting worse, it could be something more serious.
And so you need to go see this guy and like,
trust me.
Just know, yeah, he's gonna take care.
Exactly.
You wanna be a maven.
Yes.
Yeah, cause you know, a lot of clients will call their trainers
and be like, oh, I hurt my shoulder yesterday
moving some boxes.
I think I need to take today off.
Whereas one of my clients would call me and say,
oh, I hurt my shoulder yesterday moving some boxes.
Can you come in and see you?
I'm gonna come, I wanna come see you, can we work on it?
And so they don't miss workouts number one.
And number two, they know that,
the longevity becomes the goal.
And it becomes their goal too.
And so it becomes something that they look
on the long term.
So it's good stuff.
I wanted to talk about, we've been running episodes
and they're popular episodes on, you know,
how to train particular
body parts and the pitfalls that you need to look out for and the training techniques you should apply.
And I think a lot of times as, you know, we've been trained for a very long period of time, we've now
had this show for about a year and a half. We forget that those basic things are what people, a lot of
people need to hear. You know what I mean? Like we talked about abs and we talked about shoulders
and so I think the next body part we should talk about,
I'll pick this one because you picked the last one.
What do you guys pick the last one?
I'd like to include, I think.
Of course you did.
Quads, let's talk about quad training.
I'd like to get, I'm glad you separated the legs too.
Because a lot of people want one or the other more.
I'd like to.
You know hamstrings are quads.
No, I think we'll do a separate episode on hamstrings.
Cause I mean, when I think about the two,
there's so much information on either one.
Yeah.
We should devote a whole episode.
I agree.
I agree.
Quad training.
So before we get into, I guess, exercises and stuff,
what are some issues you guys see with people
in terms of developing good quads
or things that prevent people from developing?
Well, I think depth is something that I see quite a bit, especially with the squat.
I mean, getting proper connectivity from getting the muscle in a position where you're
actually going to fire at its full length.
A lot of times, knees or pains or past injuries, a lot of times prevent proper range of motion, but
that's one of the biggest thing that I see. I don't see them getting proper depth, even
if it's in a lunge, you know, just dropping into proper depth.
Yeah, I get to get a full range of motion. It's very, very important with every single
muscle. I would actually say that's probably the biggest thing, I think, with quads. It's
probably one of the very few people I just had somebody. So this is kind of cool, because it's indirectly answering a question.
I saw it this morning that somebody posted on the picture
I took of my squat where I was really deep
and I wrote a post about, this was a big deal for me
that not weight wise, I mean, 275 pounds is not like
a max squat for me, but the ability to take my body
through full range of motion, get that deep into a squat.
And they were like, well, what's the, why would you do that? Or why would you go beyond squat. And they were like, well, why would you do that?
Or why would you go beyond 90?
And it's like, well, why wouldn't you?
If you can move your body through a greater range of motion,
you want to, especially if you can do it without hurting yourself.
And so I think the thing to understand, though,
that's important is that you work up to that.
It's a goal.
My goal was to be able to ask to the grass squat.
Does it mean that you have to do that?
I mean, you don't go from your squatting.
If you have poor range of motion right now
and you're a quarter squatter, and then you think,
oh, your goal is to go down a little further.
Yeah, exactly.
It's not like, oh, I saw Adam squatting, I asked the grass.
Now, and he said that's really good for me.
I'm gonna squat, ask grass.
Like, no, what you didn't see is me working up to.
Right, because you press too fast,
you're going to put too much stress on the ligaments.
And this is where a lot of the safety protocols
are in place for like, you know, 90 degrees
and in these certain specifics that they try and limit
that because if you do increase too quickly,
you're going to put a lot of strain on the supports.
Well, here's the thing.
If you do partial rep squats
or you don't go even down to 90 degrees,
which most people who squat just do it that way,
you're actually putting more stress on the knee
than you would if you were to able to do a proper full squat.
If you look at the anatomy of a squat
and you look at someone stopping halfway down,
you'll notice they're getting more knee extension
and less hip extension.
And it's going, when they stop and reverse their weight, remember this, when you're taking away if I take a hundred pounds and I'm squatting down with it in order for me to
Reverse the way I have to stop it and reverse it which means momentarily because this is just momentum
Momentarily I'm that weight is more than a hundred pounds and it's stressed at the levers right and it's stressed at the knees
If I can do a full a full 90 or full squat below 90,
more of that stress is gonna go to my hips
and my hips are designed or we evolve
to be able to handle much more load,
even though the knee is a massive joint
and it can handle lots of load,
the hips can handle more, they're more mobile,
and they can just handle more weight
and you want to be able to transfer that load
more of the hips than the knees.
And so believe it or not,
and I'm talking proper form now,
I'm not talking shitty form.
Proper form, a full squat will actually take less stress
off of the knees than a even half or quarter squat.
Here's the second thing I want people to understand.
To Adam was talking about full range of motion,
we talk about this all the time on the show
where if you train a muscle with a full range of motion,
you're gonna get better gains, okay?
But here's the thing, that comes from treating squats and lunges like a skill, not like
an exercise.
There's a big difference.
The difference is this, if I'm treating squats and lunges like an exercise, I'm trying
to get a hard burn.
I'm trying to get really fatigued and I'm trying to sweat hard, you know, sweat a lot.
I'm trying to push more weight. If I'm treating it like a skill, I'm practicing it. I'm in the gym.
And I've got enough weight to where I feel resistance, but I'm practicing my squats. I'm practicing my
lunges. I'm constantly getting better range of motion. I'm constantly trying to make it the
form much better. Make my joints feel more mobile. Each rep is very intentional. Very intentional.
I'm just practicing like if I was learning to, you know to ride a bike, you know, you don't get on a bike and ride away,
I'm going to sprint as hard as I can.
I'm practicing every single day getting better and better and what will end up happening
naturally is you're going to get stronger and you'll be able to challenge yourself more
and you're going to get better muscle development.
But for argument six, let's just pretend for a second that a full squat will build the
same amount of muscle as a half squat.
Let's just say that they're equal in terms of how much muscle they're gonna build.
Which they're not, but let's just say that it's just pretend and say, which is not true, but let's just pretend.
If that's the case, you still want to do a front, a full squat because the full squat is gonna give you
more strength in a longer, in a longer range of motion. So that strength that you're going to gain from that exercise is going to transfer to
the lower depths, which I promise you in life, there is going to be a moment in time when
you're going to be at a lower depth, whether you're picking up a kid or you're coming up
off the floor, or you're going to want that extra strength.
So it's just, it's just full range of motion is so important with every single body part,
but this is the biggest limiting factor that I see too with quads because squatting and lunging fully is a challenge and it's
a skill.
It takes practice.
And frequency is king.
Frequency is king with everything, but God with legs big time.
Oh, and with something like increasing mobility.
So even when I'm not squatting, even when I'm not doing my mobility drills, you'll find
me.
So in the morning, this happens today.
Okay, so for three hours,
I'm standing on my feet,
I'm teaching a class,
I'm up and down, I'm moving around.
And I have these moments where I've got a couple of minutes
where I don't have to be doing anything.
So what am I doing?
I'm getting all the way sitting down.
I'm sitting my ass down on my guess.
I'm squatting down and I'm messing with my my stance really wide
squatting down.
I feel the time and then I push my knees out, open my hips up and a little rotation for
my foot out.
Totally.
So, and just being aware of that and incorporating that all the time, like whenever I can has made
a huge difference.
Yeah.
You know, it's funny.
You go to some of these, some foreign countries.
I believe some of the countries in the East and you'll see old people sitting in a squat
on the sides of the road, like just relaxing, smoking a cigarette around.
These are people who are in their 60s and 70s.
I see Doug nodding his head because he's traveled to a lot of these countries.
I think in Japan, that's even common, right, where people will just sit on their heels
or whatever.
This, and they don't work out,
it's not like they exercise that way.
It's just frequency.
They've since children have learned to sit in that position.
And when they're old, I mean,
how many seven-year-olds do you personally know
that can sit in a squat?
Not very many.
How many 30-year-olds do you know
that can personally sit in a squat?
Or 20-year-olds? And it's not because they work out. It's part of their culture
to sit in that position and it's just frequency. So so Adam was pointing to is very sure and if you treat the squat in the dead in the
excuse me in the lunge
as skills and you go in the gym and find today's chest air today's whatever day
But I'm gonna go and get under the bar, go real light and just practice my skill.
You start to treat it that way.
Oh, you just wait to see the gains you get
in your legs, especially.
Well, and this is what's happened to me in the last year
is I've been telling you guys that I squat almost
every day right now.
But people hear that and they go like,
oh, shit, he's crushing,
no, I'm not crushing legs every day.
Hell no, I'm not stupid.
But I am getting under a bar or I am just taking
my body weight through full range of motion and in some sort of a squad or a lunge position,
just to keep that frequency of that mobility of taking myself through full range of motion.
And it's, you'll think of a baby. You guys ever, most babies sit like that. Most babies sit when
they can, once they can start to walk. Toddlers. Yeah, right? They'll get the toddlers right.
They're not, a baby isn't going to be walking right?
Look at that baby squatting.
You're getting sitting in a walk. As soon as a baby, as soon as a baby, as soon as a toddler
can walk, and they're sitting and they're going to playing 90% of the time, they're not,
they're not, they're like a perfect Olympic squad. They do. They, they, they open up, you
see, they open their feet up a little bit, they sit all the way down. They're all the way
asked to the grass,
and they're playing with toilet,
and they can sit there for half hour out.
It's so funny you point that out
because it's like we have the range of motion
when we're children.
We just don't have the neuromuscular connection
to have the strength within that range of motion,
which is what we learn through movement.
And instead we learn movements
that erase that range of motion.
Or a legend.
Such a great point right there is,
and this is something that we talked about yesterday with me, is that you lose that range of motion or a legend. Such a great point right there is, and this is something that we talked about yesterday
with me is that you lose that connection.
If you were to lay on a table on your back
and I took almost anybody, I could take you
all the way into and ask to grasp what with your leg,
I could drive your knee up into your chest
and most people will be able to do that.
That's right.
Your body will maybe deviate a little bit
but you have the, you've tied yourself out of that. Yes, exactly, but you may not be able to do that. That's right. Your body will maybe deviate a little bit, but you have the,
you've tied yourself out of that.
Yes, exactly,
but you may not be able to pull yourself
into that position because you don't have
that connection anymore.
And you've got this short and range motion.
And then to add to that a lot,
because we're talking to a fitness audience,
you've got this short and range motion,
you become very hip flexor, quad dominant,
that you've, and you've totally stopped taking the
body. Then you go and you run on a treadmill and you just concrete that fucking bad connection.
Reinforcing.
Reinforcing.
Bad connection and continue to do these quarter squats.
It's like, oh my god, you have no idea what you're setting yourself up for.
Here's the thing too.
There's lots of people's favorite machine in the gym
for quads is leg extensions.
And I really can't stress this enough.
If you're gonna do an isolation movement for your quads,
which by the way, isolation movement,
if you wanna add volume, great, great way to add volume
to isolate the quads, it's definitely not a muscle builder.
But I will say this, if you can, if your knees are healthy
and you can do this,
a Sissy squat performed properly
will shit on a leg extension.
If you want to build quads
and you want to add volume with an isolation movement,
like I said, if you have healthy knees,
Sissy squats, destroy leg extensions.
And what's funny is I've been talking about Sissy squats now
for a while, in fact,
I did an old video on YouTube maybe three, four years ago, everybody's like, what's this movement? I've been talking about CC squats now for a while. In fact, I did an old video on YouTube, maybe three,
four years ago, everybody's like,
what's this movement?
I've never seen this movement.
It was a very popular movement in the 60s and 70s.
Nope, everybody stopped doing them
when Lake Extension machines got popular.
But you're starting to see people do them now
because I think people start to realize
that CC squats are a great variation of a squat
and that'll build the quads up.
Two things.
One, because you're saying that,
I think it's important that we do this.
I think that's the next thing that we put on you too, is the Sissy squat.
And two, to show people how to do it.
To show people how to do this correctly.
And this is now going to become almost and every time I train my legs exercise because
I was talking to Justin yesterday when we were doing my sets.
We're part of training to strengthen my feet
and connection to my feet is actually getting up
into full, full plant to our flexion as hard as I can,
and squatting down and moving down.
Very similar to that movement you had.
It's a squat, like a sissy squat.
You know what's funny?
So it's gonna benefit me in two huge ways.
And you know what's interesting.
You showed me a while ago, you showed me
how you did a sissy squat.
I don't know if you remember it.
And I tried to help correct your form a little bit.
Yeah.
Because you were sitting down into it
where you should have the hips elevated.
When we film it, we'll demo.
And I wonder if that was coming from your toes.
100% I'm sure.
Because I just, just you making that connection right now
that you noticed that.
And I know what I had a hard time yesterday doing
was getting all the way up on my toes.
And Hinky kept trying to reinforce
plantar flexion harder. Harder, harder. You know, get yourself all the way up as high as way up on my toes. And Hinky kept trying to reinforce plantar flexion harder, harder.
You know, get yourself all the way up as high
as you can on those toes.
When you do that, that automatically throws the hips back, right?
So my legs, my quads in particular respond super easily
to exercise, always have.
I wasn't born with big legs or big quads.
I had very skinny legs.
I think my knees were probably bigger than my legs.
But there was a summer, I wanna say it was my freshman,
it was my summer going into my sophomore year of high school
and I really learned how to squat properly.
And I think I gained like 15 pounds that year
and it was from squats and deadlifts.
And my legs exploded.
I remember my mom had to buy me all new pants and jeans
and it was from the heavy squatting.
My legs were spun real well.
It wasn't because you're making a mess. No, yeah were spawning real well. It was because you're, you know, making a mess.
Yeah, shit, my pants.
Which is crotch.
No, it was my, it was my log, my legs were spawning.
And so I had this unique ability to really observe
what makes my legs grow fast and what doesn't.
So it's like I can almost apply something
and I can tell right away like, okay, this is really effective.
And one technique that I find that works very well for the quads, and believe it out,
there are some people listening right now that have a poor connection to the quads.
I know it's more common to have, you know, be quad dominant, but there are some people,
you'll see them do a squat and it just looks like a good morning because they can't sit
into the squat, is to try to do a, what's called a pre-exhaust superset.
And what a pre-exhaust superset does is it takes a muscle
that's involved in many compound movements,
like let's say a quadricep that's involved
in your quadriceps that are involved in squats,
pre-exhaust them with an isolation movement
and then going to squats.
So we just talked about Sissy squats.
Here's a great combination, ladies and gentlemen,
you could try this on your own.
Proceed with caution, It is very difficult.
Your legs will catch on fire, but you do a set of Cicci squats
and then go immediately into a barbell squat
and you will get the most intense pump of your entire life.
I love that super set.
Oh, that's a go-to move from your first.
Oh, your quads will just...
Well, I used to use that so, and it was you who got me into
the Cicci squat, because I'll be honest,
before we all met, like, a Sissy squat was not something I did. And I used to do leg extensions
into that. Leg extensions in the squat, and it would give me this massive pump for that exact
reason. But I mean, the Sissy. Yeah, I would do the, like pulling the sled backwards, like we
also, you know, I would do that and then bring it right into the squat and get a massive pump
from that, which is another great way.
And that would be like you could even do that even explosively, right?
So getting into your firing your central nervous system.
Let's talk about that.
There's two.
Okay, that's a good point.
There's two different things we're kind of talking about right there.
There's a pre-exhaust technique, which is more a sarco plasma hypertrophy.
Exactly.
More trying to maximize the pose. There's a way more to produce more performance in that very specific lift right right
right because the way at so the way Justin was talking about it is kind of
you know the term is post post activation potential I believe and basically
what you're trying to do is you're priming the central nervous system to fire
better so it's like you you go up to the amplifier and
you boost it before you turn the speakers on, which are the muscles. And it recruits
more muscle fibers. And this is actually a very, you know, backed theory. It's been tested
many, many times. Athletes will do this. Advanced athletes will use this technique. And what
you're doing is you're trying to call upon the central nervous system to fire rapidly and strongly,
then you go to your slower grinding movement.
So what Justin was talking about would be like a,
like you could do it with sled pulling,
or you could even get, like let's say I got my squat rack ready,
I've got my barbell ready with my weights.
I do three or four really explosive hard jumps off the ground,
then I move right into my squat.
The goal is to not fatigue my legs with those jumps.
I'm just trying to get them to fire hard.
Spark, priming that neutral, essential nervous system.
Yeah, you just want to fire really, really hard.
Like a lightning bolt.
You're not trying to get tired.
God, people fucked that up all the time man.
I see them doing the plios and it's like,
they do them to fatigue.
We took those long time.
That's one of my biggest pet peeves is watching people do plyometrics
just for fatigue purposes.
When, you know, in fact, like if you're using them properly,
there's so much better use for them as well.
It's like getting everything to respond.
Well, that's what it's supposed to do.
With a quickness.
All you're doing is getting endurance.
It accelerates everything.
Yeah, you use it properly.
You're just building endurance
when you're jumping to fatigue.
Yeah.
Don't jump.
This is one of those things too
that I think this is what annoys me about CrossFit
and programs like that that are so fatigue based programs
that they're taking moves, they're taking exercises
that we've been having a particular purpose.
They do, they have a purpose
and to maximize that purpose,
you don't do it to exhaustion like that. I mean, and this is so funny, you brought that up, Justin, because yesterday I was sharing
our YouTube video, and I was showing my buddy, I was like, check this out, this is a, you
know, this is what we're going to be doing with our YouTube to be giving out all this helping
people out with like small tips like this, real short videos that are great information
to help them, you know, boost their workouts.
And I give, I showed him the sled pull going into the going into the squat.
And I was telling explaining to him the sound.
And before I get even finished, I really explained he was like, oh, that, and that's really cool.
You know what? I want to do that. And then I'll do the, and then he like, he starts rambling off
all the things that he wants to add just to exhaust the fuck out of himself.
So like, oh, then I'll do a walk. I'm like, whoa, bro, no, what you don't get is, that's not the idea.
I'm not showing you that because this is gonna kill you
or that's the, I'm trying to show you
how to fire something at optimal
and you will feel it and you will notice a difference.
It's not, I'm trying to just fatigue you
by giving you some crazy two things together back to back,
which I feel like when people see this shit,
that's how they think, oh, this will kill you,
do this and do that. It's like, no, the difference is we're gonna explain it so people can see, that's how they think they're like, oh, this will kill you, do this and do that.
It's like,
No, the difference is we're gonna explain it
so people can see, here's the thing,
if you use tools for their purpose
and you train them properly for their purpose,
my god, the results you're gonna get,
or phenomenal, if you use these tools
and you take all these tools, you have your explosive tools,
you have your tools for your maximal strength,
you have your tools and techniques for maximizing, sarcop, circle plasmech hypertrophy and endurance and all those things.
If you take all those and just do them to fatigue, you're only aiming for one form of adaptation.
I mean, if I do pliode jumps properly, I'm increasing my connectivity to my muscles
and I'm making myself fire faster and harder.
If I take pliode boxes, pliode box jumps and do them to fatigue,
I'm just training endurance.
It's the same thing I'm doing cardio.
You're doing fucking cardio.
Yeah, that's the difference.
I annoys the shit I mean when I see them,
I'm back to picking on CrossFit again when I see these box jumps they do,
because it's exactly that.
They're exhausted and they got 20 box jumps and they're just like
barely getting up on top of the box.
There's no hardcore central nervous system firing right there.
No, you're too fatigued. Just so fucking gas gas right now, your body is just trying to get up there.
It doesn't even know where it's recruiting.
Yeah, exactly.
Whatever you're firing everywhere.
You're well, what ended with their training?
Bill, you're stamina, dude.
That's all you're getting really good at being able to jump on a box while they're
really tired.
What ends up happening?
But the video that you were talking about me doing the sled and the squat, the way I
did that, particular one, the way I piece that together was,
I did, I drove a sled down both ends of the track
or whatever.
Long slow strides.
Long slow strides, I didn't put a shit ton away.
I think I had 345s on there,
and my goal was just to get deep, hard squeezes and pushes,
and then I walked over the squat rack.
I didn't run over there, like I need to,
oh, I gotta get over there real quick,
so I don't get too much rest.
Now I walked over there, I got under the bar,
I had sub-maximal load on it, so I think I had 275.
And my goal was just to go down real control,
come up nice and hard, and put it up, and that's it.
There was no fatigue involved.
I wasn't hammered.
I had done eight reps of that, maybe even,
you know what I'm saying, like no point.
No, I was just getting really good at it
and my legs feel really good today.
And I've been, you know, when you incorporate
these tools properly, you just progress.
I don't know how else to put it.
You know, I don't know any better way to put it
than the fact that you'll end up progressing pretty regularly.
And so really treat, if you treat your squats
and lunges like a skill,
a lot of you will not have problem
developing your quads.
And if you really want to get those quads,
if you really want to tear them down,
which is another technique, try the pre-exhaust, man.
And that's when you go to fatigue.
If you do the Sissy squats to squats,
then go for the fatigue, go for the reps.
Because you were talking about Sissy squats
and squatting and lunging.
And those are the primary sources
that you're gonna go to for your quadriceps to really build and lunging. And those are the primary sources that you're gonna go to
for your quadriceps to really build and develop that.
But I mean, how do you guys feel also about like stepups
and heavy loaded stepups and that kind of a thing?
Heavy loaded stepups are amazing.
So are so is using a box and doing a one-legged squat
on a box.
If you're not flexible enough to do a pistol squat,
pistol squat by the way, very hardcore
plot.
Plus, I feel there's a way to incrementally increase that.
So, as far as you're talking about cross with the box, box jumps, people like see all
these boxes and these step-ups, there's a way that you can then incrementally, if you
don't have range of motion that's supported to get you up to a higher position, don't do it.
You have to incrementally make your way up to position.
But think about that in terms of life, like when you're trying to move and maybe you have
to climb over something or something that's a little bit taller.
If you're not going to actively do these things while carrying weight or maybe have a backpack
or it's very a functional strength move everybody should work out.
Here's a little tip too for step ups on a box which is great leg exercise.
So it's just what it sounds like.
I put my leg up on it and I step up and then step back down is to control the descent.
So when you step down, get more vertical in your approach.
Yes.
So when you step down, and also get more vertical in your approach. Yes, so when you step down, slow that down.
Practice going down real slow
so that you're not just stepping down
the floor of the leg.
You're gonna get more knee extension there.
You're gonna get more quad than you will on the way up
when you're pushing up with a hip.
And then I think what Justin was referring to is
if you kind of stay close to the box,
so if I step down but stay close to the box,
I'm gonna get more quad. box, so if I step down but stay close to the box, I'm going to get more quad.
Yes.
Then if I step back away from the box where I'm going to get more hip, so one is more knee
extension, one is more hip extension.
If you're trying to really get the quads to work, what you want to do is stay close to
the box.
But try that.
Try getting up on a box.
Here's a fun technique.
You can do this for single for sets of one or two is get a heavy weight.
So step up on a box without the weight. Pick up the weight while you're on the box, hold
it in a stable position. So maybe one dumbbell, you know, where you're holding it at your chest.
And then just step down real slow. Put the dumbbell back on the box, step up without the
dumbbell, pick up the dumbbell and go down again. You're kind of doing this kind of very
issue. and go down again, you're kind of doing this kind of very issue of forced murder. Yeah, the eccentric portion.
Yeah, resisting it on the way down.
Resisting on the way down, landing hard on your heel.
You're trying to go as slow as you can and resist that weight
as you drop down.
You want to get, you want to talk about soreness, holy shit, man.
Accentuating the eccentric on a lift, really,
I mean, strength.
That's a whole lot of damage.
That's a whole other topic, but it's probably the most
neglected part of a movement because people don't realize
we can actually build more strength and muscle
in the eccentric motion than we can't concentrically.
So if you or somebody who's always just kind of pumping
out the reps and you're not really paying attention
on that, on that deceleration of a movement,
you're missing out on a big piece of actually really
being able to grow or or or add gains.
Notice too, you didn't hear us say anything. We're trying to build quads.
There's not one fucking Smith machine or leg press variation that we brought up.
You literally could take the step up.
You can add the step up, the lunge, the squat and enough variations for those things to your
fucking bloat and sissy squat. Like what's another squat?
Those are all fathers like five variations of each.
Yeah, there's loaded kettlebell squats.
Yeah, whatever.
All kind exactly.
We need to talk about front squats.
That's probably the biggest one.
We gotta go into that.
Yeah, front squats is probably one of the biggest money.
That's the biggest bang for, yeah.
For quads, right?
Quads is probably front squatting,
whether it's loaded with kettlebells or the barbell.
If you have the shoulder mobility to be able to do that.
Right.
For which you can do multiple different types of grips,
which should also help with your wrists,
but that's usually the limitation there.
For the front squat, yeah, and personally,
I need to practice.
I don't have the wrist flexibility like you do Justin.
So I do the cross grip on the bar with the front squat,
which is the body builder form.
Just as effective.
Yeah, for legs.
For legs.
Here's a great super set.
God, I haven't done this in a long time.
Yes, but I'm gonna do in Monday next week.
I'm doing this, the super set.
Front squats to back squats.
You guys ever do that before?
Oh.
You don't have to change the weight.
So normally with the front squat,
I'm not as strong.
You know, most people are not gonna be able to lift
as much on the front squat as they are on the back squat.
So you get under the bar with the front squat.
So it's gonna be light for back squats anyway, right?
So I might have, let's say, 225 on there.
Do my reps there, rack it up, get underneath it now
so that it's on my back and go straight into my back squat.
So you're already lit up your quads.
Little my front squat.
Now you're just,
now I'm incorporating more, little more glutes
and hamstrings, but I'm still getting full range of motion.
They're still involved.
Oh man, I did those back in the day.
That was a gnarly combat bed combo.
I've actually not done that.
I'm gonna have to do that.
Yeah, because I'm curious to say that.
Yeah, because the other way around is,
you can't go back squat to front squat.
Because you're strong on the back squat.
No, yeah, that would be a mistake.
That would be a mistake.
That would be not good.
It would exhaust this going into, yeah, no thanks.
Not a good, you know, hey, that brings up,
you know, people always ask our program design.
That's a simple little thing.
Oh, there's a little idea. Yeah, there's a small little thing. Oh, there's a little, there's a little idea.
There's, there's a small little thing that we would do that it's important that their
order is important.
Right.
You know, you can't reverse that.
Yeah, I know we're, but it wouldn't be ideal.
It wouldn't be a good, it wouldn't be a safe, good idea to do that.
And you'll get more benefits from going the other direction.
But I, I want a cringe every time I come to Jim now, because it's, there's always
at least one or two people that are doing this they're doing some
goofy fucking Smith machine
variation for you know their quads or legs or they're doing some leg press variation turning on their fucking side and
Turnily rotating their hips and like leg pressing on their side, you know to leg press to try and develop the sweep in their
Quad, you know, or yeah, I. Yeah, I just, it's like.
I'm so removed from that stuff.
I see it every day, man.
I see it every day.
And it's like if you just,
there's so many different variations of the squat
that you could do that are going to benefit you
so much more than that move right now.
Here's what's funny too.
We were just talking about building squats as a skill.
If you got a beginner or whatever, average person,
put them on a leg press, biomechanics are pretty easy
to learn on a leg press.
It's far less of a skill involved than a leg press
than there is in a squat,
which is probably one of the reasons why people do it.
You're kind of reacting more than you're really
like a participant.
Yeah, so you do your leg press.
You got a guy doing his leg press.
He's new.
It's a neat way to actually say that.
It's true.
They're doing 100 pounds. They add 100 pounds to a leg press. You take another guy doing his leg press. He's new. That's a kneeweight. Yeah, actually say that. It's true. They're doing a hundred pounds.
They add a hundred pounds to their leg press.
You take another guy, his twin brother,
and you have him do a squat.
Doesn't add any weight because he needs to perfect it.
All he's doing is perfecting a squat,
learning the skill, getting better depth.
Over the course of six weeks,
his squat goes from shitty form, bad skill too.
Now he's got an excellent squat,
and really has an added weight on it.
He's still built more muscle. He's built more muscle than the guy doing the leg press who added
a hundred pounds because he hadn't had to learn a skill so he added a hundred pounds
to his leg press. Guaranteed. Oh, Guaranteed. We've talked about the crazy things that's
happened to me when I stopped using all those machines, the leg curls, the leg extensions,
the leg presses. The carryover, right? Oh, fall back to that.
I'll get on a leg press.
Please.
Right now, single leg press, six plates on each side
for reps, no problem.
And I haven't done a leg press in probably six plus months,
but I've been squatting like crazy.
And any time I go back and just imagine
if I actually leg pressed for three or four workouts
in a row, what I would see an increase,
but I don't give a shit.
Well, you two, the emotive unit recruitment
has increased like 10 fold
once you start really connecting to these multi chain,
like like bigger gross movement patterns,
like you've established, like you're just connected to that.
So now going back into isolation movements, please,
you know, you already have a louder signal.
And no, don't, and don't forget you can add lots of frequency to training your legs by doing, we're talking
shit about all these machines, like the leg press and the Smith machine, but there is,
there is one use for them that I would program into someone's workout, and that is if they
need to add more and more frequency.
So if this person's in the gym squatting, three days a week and learning lunging and doing
those things, and that's the foundation of the routine. But now they go on on a weekend and they're going in
for a light workout and they're kind of sore or whatever, and you know, they don't need to,
they don't want to go through a full range of motion squat because they just did yesterday.
That would be the time I would say is okay to go in and go real light on some of these machines
and just add more volume to your total week. That's where you can
see some benefit of that because it's not going to damage your muscle as much, but it's
going to add a little bit more of a stimulus.
100% that's why when you're doing moves like that's when you'll see us using machines.
That's why I think it's silly to see somebody doing a you'll and white one when I get on a
leg press part of the reason why I never put both feet on the leg press and I do single
leg is because I don't want to have to put 12 plates on there.
Because I'm, and I'm not trying to like max out my leg press.
I give a fuck if I do 12 plates or 30 plates.
Because when I'm doing a leg press, it is.
It's on the opposite day that I was
be doing squatting or doing a real move
that's really going to benefit me.
It's just trying to increase volume, get a pump maybe.
And so I don't need super, super heavy weight
or low to do that, and that would be silly.
If I'm really trying to get my legs doing 15 to 20 plates
on the leg press,
it's not gonna come close to me going over
and doing three 15 deep squats.
Like, or a variant, if you just did squats
and do a variation of the squat, you know what I'm saying?
Or do tempo, pause squats, do some other shit right at that.
And you're gonna get twice the benefit
that you will on that leg press.
But if you want to increase volume, you don't want to do as much damage.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Go lighter on there, get a little pump from it.
But to me, I'm like, I don't want to do two legs because then I got a little more
place.
I can just do one leg and put a few plates on there and get exactly what I'm trying to
accomplish.
Yeah, machines are frequency and volume matters.
This is the way I look at them.
It's funny too because bodybuilders will call them finishing exercises.
They're just applying it wrong.
They're doing it at the end of a fully fatiguing workout.
It's better off on different days, I would say, just to add more of that frequency of stimulus.
Just in that signal, another time that you wouldn't be seeing that signal, right? You've
already sent that signal to the legs after squatting. So you've sent that loud signal. You've
done your good work for the day for legs. So the next day when you come, and you just
to keep that signal up
Yeah, fire that signal again
Just you know that's when you would do it versus waiting seven. Here's another thing too for you more advanced lifters
Once you've kind of mastered your squat if you really want to keep the tension on your quads
And you really want to develop your quads lighten the load a little bit do your full range of motion squat at the top of the rep
This is an old school bodybuilding technique, but it's squat at the top of the rep, this is an old school body building technique, but it's effective.
At the top of the rep, squeeze this shit at your quads.
Just tense that hell out of your quads
for five to 10 seconds,
and then lower back down into your squat.
So you're pausing at the top,
but you're not resting, you're not standing there
with the weight, you're just flexing the hell out of your quads,
and then going back down.
So like a combo of a loaded squat
with attention squat.
With attention squat. With a tension squat.
You're, and trust me when I say this, go light
because you will, this is fire.
You fatigue very, very quickly.
Very, very, very much with that that we could experiment with.
Oh, dude, in the future.
The funny thing too, Justin, is you talk a lot
about tension, tension techniques.
Yeah.
And I don't see, you know, the modern muscle building world
doesn't do this anymore.
I think that's, I think drugs have ruined everything because they've forgotten. Totally away from it. They forget all these techniques. But dude, the modern muscle building world doesn't do this anymore. I think drugs have ruined everything
because they just have forgotten
totally away from it.
They forget all these techniques.
But dude, the pump, dude, we're chasing the pump.
The pump is so, it's so much sexier.
That's why.
And holding an isometric hole like a wall sit
or pressing against the wall
or any sort of like what you're saying,
flexing your, there's nothing sexy about.
It's not as sexy as getting the pump.
The pump you feel, the pump you feel,
the pump you see, the bodybuilders have chased that so hard
that if we've got it agrain to everybody's head
that you're not getting good work
unless you've just flooded your muscles
with as much blood as possible in water
to get this massive pump
because that must correlate with you.
Because that's a temporary bigger.
It goes away, you don't say it like.
Very, very.
I mean, there's some benefit to it. But if you, you know,
of course, I'm not saying there's not benefit. I'm just saying that it's become the focus.
That's it. That's it. That everyone's chasing the point. That's all I do. And that's how you
describe a good, like a guy tells you a good workout. It's based off of his pump. But you would use
that only, yeah, you would use that specifically for a phase where that was a focus, right? Exactly.
Whereas, you know, they stayed in that
pretty much the entire time
because that's what they want.
It is every time.
Like I said, I think the drugs really have,
just, they've muddied the water
and there's a lot of these techniques
that bodybuilders and strength athletes used
in the past, nobody really does them anymore,
maybe because they don't feel like they have to.
But look, we're talking about quads right now,
but apply that to any body part.
I don't give a shit what you're doing.
Try it to, you know, on your bench press.
You know, go at the very top,
keep a tight grip on the bar,
and try to squeeze your hands together.
Get your pecs to fire really fucking hard at the top
for three to five seconds,
and then go back down into your bench press
and press up again.
This is an excellent technique for almost any body part.
It's very body builder-esque because it's more isolated in terms of what muscle you're
focusing on.
But it reinforces that signal which then boosts your power.
Yeah, and flip that, by the way.
If you want the squats to really hit your glutes at the top of the squat instead of tensing
the shit at your quads, tens the shit at your ass, and then do the same thing.
Go back down and into your squat.
And by me, we can experiment,
we can have a whole list of those things.
And see what happens, exactly.
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