Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 351: How to Build Your Chest
Episode Date: August 22, 2016Want to build your chest? In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin tell you exactly what you need to do. Also, go check out Mind Pump TV on YouTube. There you will get some personal chest training instructi...on from Sal, Adam & Justin. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE! 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!
Transcript
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.
Lately, we've been splitting up the muscle groups and going over.
Had to train them properly.
Yes, the do's, the don'ts, and little tips here and there that we've all picked up over
the years of training.
Today's focus is on chest.
And so something that I wanted to let you guys know that a lot of people don't realize
what our Maps Black program was designed for.
This is Maps aesthetic.
Yes.
Maps aesthetic, Maps Black was specifically designed for something like this.
So let's say you have a lagging body part or two of a back at chest, one of these groups
that we're going over, you would actually take, one of these groups that were going over,
you would actually take that and you would implement that into this program.
We show you how to do that through the program to focus on an area that's underdeveloped
and developed that.
We're talking about a lot of body parts.
If you're somebody who is trying to work on a lagging body part, whether it be your
chest, shoulders, it doesn't matter.
That's what maps, black maps, aesthetic was designed for was to help you out with that.
So if you're somebody in need like that, it's a great program.
It's a full body program, but it allows you to target those areas.
So this is really the map.
It doesn't just allow you.
It shows you how.
And it's the map's program that specifically designed for aesthetics for looking symmetrical
balanced. And that's how you do that by designed for aesthetics for looking symmetrical balanced and you know
And that's how you do that by working on those big body parts working it all the way to presentation form exactly
You can find that at mine pump media.com again. That's maps aesthetic mine pump media.com
Adam's getting some gams
What is gams? What is gams stands for? I feel like it's not in
What do you mean you're not in oh your head
But we're all talkies. I'm like why isn't it working? Why can't why can't I hear you guys very well? You know what?
I missed just in a lot
Recorded without them. Yeah, that's everybody does there's definitely no
There's so here's a thing Justin. I'm gonna tell you right now. I just I know exactly what you contribute up
Well, there's specific things that you contribute really well.
You contribute, obviously, to the chemistry of the show.
I mean, it's a mix, it's factual.
But there's definitely no shortage of words,
when it just me and Adam are here.
But there's definitely a shortage of that humor
that Justin brings.
You know what I'm saying?
So many needs to put you guys in check.
Yeah, and it's just what it is.
You know,
don't you agree?
Yeah, no, no, it's just a better mix.
You guys just go off, off, off.
And I like boom, I throw it at you
because just to kind of cut it.
You know, that's my method.
It becomes an ego fast between me and Alex.
Exactly.
So the conversation turns into who's better at this.
So we need Justin to check us.
Well, when I listen to other podcasts now,
I actually, and I'm paying attention
like when there's only one or two on there,
I'm like, man, that's just a lot of radio time
to be talking and talking.
And I like to talk, but I feel pressure to talk
when it's just you and I.
When there's three of us, I feel like there's point,
I mean, I could shut up for 20 minutes
in just the two of you go back and forth
or I can just interject,
that's what I love about having three.
Well, it works perfect because I really don't like
to make long-winded conversation.
You know, I don't want to sit on here
and blather on all day.
So this is actually fun for me
because I was like, oh yeah, yeah.
Oh, wait, he's been talking to you.
Let me fuck with him.
Yeah.
So you feel pressured to talk?
Because I often feel pressured to shut up.
Well, when it's you and I when we're three together
I feel the off well no when there's all three of us
I want to make sure that everybody gives their their opportunity to put their two cents in when it's you and I
I'm like watching you the whole time and waiting for you to stop because I'm like if he stops
There's nobody else to pick up. Yeah, so I
Waiting a long time where if there's when there's three of when there's three of us
I kind of don't really care. I'm not really paid I'm listening more to the conversation and feel like waiting a long time. Where if there's three of us, I kinda don't really care.
I'm not really a pain.
I'm listening more to the conversation
and feel like, oh, put some of the internet on.
I gotta tell you guys what happened to be at Golds yesterday.
Probably the, it's not, I got clowned on pretty hard,
but it was pretty, it was funny at the same time.
So is this the metal?
Okay.
No, dude, so, okay.
I'm at the gym, working out. I hardly ever go to Golds because I still work out at the gym that? No, dude, so I'm at the gym working out.
I hardly ever go to golds
because I still work out at the gym that I used to own,
but I'll be going to gold a lot more soon.
Anyway, so I'm working out and there's this guy
who's just walking back and forth
and he's definitely, you can tell he's not,
what's the, I don't even know what the politically correct word is.
He's mentally disabled.
I should say that.
But not really, he can do shit.
He's very highly functional.
But you can tell he's not 100% right?
And he's walking around, he's got a really big belly, he's got the short shorts on a white
t-shirt that almost covers a short, so it kind of looks like he's naked.
And he's wearing three gold medals.
He's in a gym?
Yeah, like real gold medals around his chest.
Yeah, like there's just gold medals around his chest.
Oh, that's awesome.
You can't even chuckle because you feel like an asshole.
No, like he's obviously a champion.
So he's walking back and forth, and I'm looking at him
because I notice him, because this dude is just
walking back and forth with these fucking gold medals on and I'm just like noticing him.
You got to stop and ask him tell me you did.
No, no, it gets better.
So I make eye contact with him because I wanted to like I wanted to acknowledge him.
I think he's cool in the gym.
I think it's cool that he's in the gym and that he's fucking wearing gold medals.
I want to wear gold medals.
So we kind of give each other the head nod and he's like, hey, and I'm like, okay,
here I go, I'm gonna work out now.
He looked like he was gonna come talk to me,
and I was like, I made the face like, no,
I just wanna say hi, like I'm trying to work out.
I'm just saying, I'm just checking your medals.
No, I like, so head nod.
So later on, he was training with one of the trainers there.
So he must have been waiting for his training appointment,
as probably was walking around.
He was training to be, no.
That one guy, I don't fucking remember his name,
I wanna give him credit because he's actually
probably one of the better trainers.
Jerry. Is his name Jerry?
It's the one that shaved head.
Yeah.
So he's built like he knows how to work out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I can always tell.
He's a cross-fitter guy, but he's a great mechanic.
He is, he's got great mechanics,
one of the better trainers there.
So shout out to Jerry if you're listening.
Anyway, so.
I know Jerry.
Yeah, so he's training this guy.
So I'm doing my exercise.
I've got my wife Peter on and
The dude stops me the guy the metal stops me. He's like hey, so I kind of like take my headphones off
I'm like yeah, and he goes nice wife Peter. He goes no get this to get better this gets better that he goes
You've got a really nice upper body man. I said hey, thanks man. He goes, but your calves look like shit
You need to work on your calf
And he goes, but your calves look like shit. You need to work on your calf.
No way, dude.
No way you said it to you.
He's like, you need to work.
But he didn't say like he was talking shit.
He was just being like, being audited.
He's being objective.
It's very blunt.
Yeah, he's like, but you need to work on your calves, man.
They look like shit.
He goes, but you got a nice, upper body,
like this bump me.
And I'm like, I started laughing, right?
I started laughing.
I'm like, man, I work him out all the time.
I don't know what to do.
And he's like, oh, well, he's kind of walked away.
It was hilarious.
And he said it loud.
So like five people around me.
And he didn't ask him about his medals.
No, dude.
And I think you didn't have them on at this point.
But you know, it's funny because luckily,
I'm pretty self-confident.
I'm like, okay, with myself.
Because if this was like 20 years ago,
it would start crying.
But you've got the special guy comes over
and makes one of your gags.
You got a nice, nice upper body band,
he's like, but you gotta work your calves,
it looked like shit.
Oh, my God, oh, fuck.
There you go.
Geez, thanks.
Bro, that still stings me.
You gonna make some out of that?
It's still, it still stings.
Someone made a comment to me that their day about their,
they said like, oh yeah, no, they were,
they were actually talking about me.
I overheard it from somebody else. No, you weren't, no, that no, they were, they were actually talking about me. I overheard it from somebody else.
No, you weren't.
No, that's worse.
Yes.
Because people were talking shit.
Yeah, they were talking shit about me.
And they're just like, oh yeah, well, you know, he doesn't train his, if he trained his legs
as much as he trained his upper body, he'd look great.
And I'm just like, oh, no, really?
Really?
Really, motherfucker?
When you're in your legs like eight times a week?
Yeah, I know.
Somebody who says that on this like, that's it.
I'm going to go find that motherfucker and they're working out with me, dude.
I'm gonna make you work out with me.
God.
No, you know, you just, yeah.
It's like, fuck you, man.
Those are just those little ninja seeds.
It's like, make it, make it one of my calves.
Like, make it for someone's forearms, dude.
Like you fucking dick.
Like it's like, you're born with them like that, dude.
I swear to God, they're strong.
But you know what, though, what made my day was,
when we were walking into the bathroom with Juji yesterday and he was walking behind me.
He was like, oh, he's just like,
bro, you got great calves, dude.
I'm like, you fucking with me.
I turn around and I said, fuck with me right now.
I was like, no, that wasn't a cut, dude.
That was being serious.
I'm like, bro, we're best friends.
You might have been lying though.
You never know.
He knows the way to your pants.
Yeah, right.
You never know.
Might not be accurate.
He hadn't listened to the show yet or else he would know that
because I think I've said that on the show.
I keep that up. He told me like heavy metal. I don't know. I think he be accurate. No, he doesn't, he hadn't listened to the show yet, or else he would know that, because I think I've said that on the show, right? He told me like heavy metal.
I don't know, I think he was just trying to, you know.
Come on, of course he does.
Make out with us.
Look at his hair and shit, and it's crazy.
Yeah, I was like, yeah, like you.
And he's strong, you know what, it's true.
If you're strong, you probably listen to heavy metal.
True.
It's science.
It just is that way.
So you go hand in hand.
Today I was working out, and I was by myself
in the studio, and what I do is I told you guys this, I turned the lights off and then I
play some really fucking horrible music. I was playing Sepul Turra. Loud. It's
fuck. Oh, yeah. Old lady came in for massage. I swore to God, dude. She
almost, she probably filled her depends when she opened the door and she's
like, I could have imagined being an old lady good and ready to go to a massage
at your place and walking in with a dark and listening
Dude did I tell you guys who ate breakfast next door? Yes, you did you did you didn't take the fill he and his trainer
Honey honey from Bob honey weak sauce honey honey what what?
What is us honey why do I feel like I know I shouldn't talk shit that's not right
That's not I just but's not what I mean.
But Phil, Phil, you know why?
Because I've trained some of his clients
after he's fucked up their metabolism.
That's why I said,
I have a little chip on my shoulder.
I'm still like that.
Is he chubby?
Yeah.
He looks a little chubby.
Yeah, is isn't he?
Yeah, he's a little bit.
It's interesting.
Yeah, I'm gonna say.
So I'm gonna keep my mouth shut.
Whatever.
Yeah, look at fishing it out right here.
Maybe he's dead, whatever.
So Phil, he, Jesus Christ,
you know, I always forget,
cause I don't see pro bodybuilders in person too often.
He just don't.
They're not very common unless you go to one of these
conventions or whatever,
but Heath was wearing a tank top and it's just,
it's like a mutant, it's like a mutant walking around
outside and it's funny this that looks that they get
from everybody.
Oh yeah.
So the owner of the restaurant.
Because they're on another level of...
It's just, I mean, a mutant is the correct term.
Like, I draw looks sometimes.
And if I, when I walk, I don't look like I'm not human.
He looks like you put the head,
you took the head of a human and put it on a mutant,
you know what I mean?
Even the action figure.
Even the action figure.
But his forums are like, it looks silly.
Like you see his wrist and then you see that these,
it's like he has biceps on both sides of his forums.
Very strange.
But anyway, the owner, I know the owner pretty well.
So he comes inside and he goes,
hey, did you see that dude?
And I'm like, yeah, he's like, you just ate here.
I'm like, I know.
And he goes, and I'm like, what did he order to eat?
And he's like, he got, I think it was a 10 egg white omelet
with chicken and shrimp.
And then he got like oatmeal and pay.
He ordered this massive ass meal.
Crazy.
Lumberjacks, lamb.
Imagine what I know what I have to eat.
You must take a, I mean, those are big shits that you take.
Well, he's got to be consuming eight to 10,000 calories.
Pretty regular.
Eight to 10,000 would be more.
I will say this right now.
Maybe more.
We heard that's all they do is they shit and sleep and then eat and lift and then
lift.
Yeah.
And take the roads.
Yeah.
Here's the thing that trips me out.
Uh, that we that we never talk about.
So we talk about how genes play a tremendous role in how much muscle you build and how these
pro bodybuilders are there's such a small percentage of the world that can even that have
those kind of muscle building genes take all the steroids away and these guys are still,
he would still look like a mutant.
That's what people don't understand is that you could take
all the steroids in the world and you'll never look like him.
No, no, no.
He is literally like,
No, he would still dwarf from me in terms of muscle size
by, by far.
Yeah, if you ever, if you ever seen actually,
when he used to play basketball as a kid in high school,
Yeah, you didn't even lift weights, he looked ridiculous.
Yeah, yeah, he looked like I would like to.
Yeah, like, yeah, exactly.
He's like 15, 20 pounds of what I am right now.
Yeah, looks great. So, high school playing basketball like I would like to like yeah like yeah exactly. He's like 15 20 pounds On what I am right now. Yeah, yeah looks great
So so play basketball so here's something we never touch on you got muscle building jeans
You've also got jeans that can handle the high doses of drugs that they take because not everybody can do that
Some people have fucks up their a lot of people don't fucks up their bodies and I'm sure his body will be messed up later on too
But right now he's fine, but here's the other genes that I even think about. You have to have really good digestive, brother.
Exactly.
To digest it, to be honest.
Because I don't care what you give me.
I couldn't eat that much, it would destroy me.
I don't think I'd be able to utilize it.
And I have gone through this.
So I've tried to push beyond 240.
And this is what normally pushes back.
It's the just cannot eat anymore.
Like physically, my body just starts rejecting the food
and being like, it's miserable.
Dude, it's so weird.
Like even now, as I was gotten older,
I seriously cannot eat as much as I used to be able to eat.
Like I can't even keep it down.
Like I have this reaction where I know when I've eaten too much
where it starts coming up my throat.
It's like, oh God.
Dude, I get like acid reflux or some crazy happens
or there's like this whole bomb goes off. From all them goddamn pizza, dude, I get like acid reflux or some crazy happens or, you know,
there's like this whole bomb goes off.
From all them goddamn pizza.
Hey bro, that's why there's like,
maybe it's what you eat.
No, no, no, no, it doesn't matter what the other thing is.
I understand I had like four of those ballpark dogs
and I had this fucking throw up taste in my mouth.
I like to dip my hot dogs in hot sauce.
You know, so, not you Jesus.
The digestive system is one of the first things to go
as you age for sure.
Oh, is that true?
It is because I know lots of people in the 30s
that have digestive issues now,
but I mean, you talk to people in their early 20s or teens
and shit when I was a kid, I mean, I wasn't like cast iron
stomach, but come on, bro, I used to be able to drink milk
at eight fucking whatever.
Oh, eat anything.
Never bother me at all.
I find it fascinating to how our taste buds and things
all change with that.
You brought it up one time. I didn't know this. I find it fascinating too, how our taste buds and things all change with that.
You brought it up one time.
I didn't know this.
I think you said like our, our, our, the sensitivity to like, for example, like peppers.
Like, I, my dad used to like pour peppers on his pizza when I was a kid.
I was like, oh my God, I can't believe you would do that.
It just ruins the pizza.
It's so hot in your mouth.
Well, now that's how I eat my pizza.
I'm on the spicy shit now.
Yeah, I love that now.
And I couldn't, I couldn't handle it as a kid. One bite of those red peppers on my pizza and my
mouth will be on fire. It would ruin the rest of my pizza.
Well, it could very well be that kids have a hypersensitive, a very sensitive to certain
tastes and they reject it because, for example, bitter. Bitter is a taste that is correlated
or connected to alkaloids found in plants that is correlated or connected to
alkaloids found in plants that many times,
or sometimes maybe poisonous.
So that's why bitter doesn't taste good to us,
but as you get older, I think your taste buds
start to hone a little bit,
and then they can kind of decipher,
whereas when you're child,
it's probably better saved and sorry.
Does that make sense?
So it's better to just fucking not like anything that's bitter.
And now I don't like things, like I used to like,
you know, when you're a kid, you liked, you know,
mint chip and bubble gum ice cream
and all the weird crea- sherbert and all these crazy flavors.
Now I like, and Katrina was teasing me the other day,
I got frozen yogurt and I was,
pistachio and coconutchi.
Like you like all the old people flavors.
Yeah, pistachio.
Fucking nid flander.
Yeah, pistachio.
That's a weird flavor.
I did not like those as a kid.
And I would, and I used to think that was discussing who would want pistachio and their ice cream like this
But it's I love it now. It's so weird. It's it's there's this one. What's the one?
This is a tie and ice cream and it's got like fucking a bunch of shit in it
I can't remember the name of it. So I don't know. I said that I can't make sure of all right
I was just guess Spamoney. Oh, Spamoney. How did you know that Doug?
He's like I'm just a big cheer of all kinds of things. All right, I will just guess. Spamoney. Spamoney. How did you know that, Doug?
I know, I know.
He's like, no.
If I had to take one of you on Jeopardy,
I might take Doug.
Doug on Jeopardy?
Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't.
My shit's random, dude.
It's not so in conversation, I sound like I remember a lot of shit,
but if you directly ask me specific things,
just pull.
I don't know.
I have no idea.
It just doesn't work that way.
What is, fuck.
It just, exactly.
Yeah.
You guys have a good weekend this weekend?
What'd you guys do?
I went and saw the new Star Trek.
I did too.
Is it, are you good?
It was good.
It wasn't as good as the first one.
Yeah.
I like the second one actually best.
Oh really?
Into the darkness.
Yeah, I like the first one the best.
I thought their storyline,
tell building the storyline of...
Yeah, I thought the storyline,
the second one because it played off of their characters way more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is probably my least favorite album.
It entertained me.
It was cool.
Yeah.
And I'm into it.
I'm into the Star Trek, so I like them.
Cool facts, but I felt like it was slow.
Yeah.
A little slow for me.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, yeah, the premise, I mean, they're out in space for like years or whatever.
So it's like, you know, and did you notice that like,
they all looked like shitty.
Everybody like, you know, like, they're all good looking people.
Yeah.
And like, this whole movie, like, they did not,
you know, play into that.
I made them look shitty.
They made them look like shit.
But they're all wore down.
Yeah, I'll wore down and like, you know,
hair is all fucked up and yeah, it's like, whoa.
Yeah, she looks a lot better than normal.
I don't like this one.
You guys look like shit.
Yeah.
Do you do you watch me?
Those are making me watch.
Did you finally get a chance or have we all caught up and watch the Netflix?
And you're Robin.
Yeah, I watched the first 40 minutes and that's it.
I haven't watched more because I had my kids all weekend.
So I'm going to look at I'm'm gonna probably watch it tonight or tomorrow.
Did you watch the intervention on the girl?
Yeah, I did.
You know, here's the thing, did you cry or no?
Huh? Did you cry?
No, I don't fucking cry.
Wow, you're soft.
Because that's for babies.
You know how I'm you are?
You're soulless.
Yeah, you're right.
I am actually pretty easy cryer to be honest with you.
Yeah, we know that.
I have a pretty life.
That's probably why you don't cry.
I cry, I cry. It all comes out Yeah, we know that. I am a pretty like, that's probably why you don't cry. I cry.
I cry.
It all come out on something like really small.
I cried tears of joy very easily with my children.
I remember my son was three or four, played soccer for the first time, and he was like
run around and shit and I had my sunglasses on and I was like, oh fuck.
I'm a crime for all these people.
He's playing soccer.
No, here's the thing with Tony Robbins, like he, it's not what he says.
It isn't what he says.
He doesn't say anything that you're gonna,
that you've never heard before.
It's how he says it.
He is a master of the 70% of communication
that we all forget about, which is the non-verbal,
you know, inflections and intensity and conviction.
That's what it is.
That's what, that's what,
that part where he's talking to her,
or she's sharing the story and it zooms into his face. Like, I start crying just looking at his eyes. You know, you can see it in
it. You can see like his how much he cares and like him listening to her like that's what
exactly what you're talking about. And that's exactly what he is so great is like he's
like so in you can see that he's looking into her soul.
Nobody else is in there. Yes. Exactly. It's like the two of them. He is genuinely like
all about what you and you could just see it in his eyes
And it's like that has to be part of the talent the talent is for him to really hone in
You know on that one person in that moment
You know, I think he was probably he was probably a guy. There's a few things here when you look at really effective motivational speakers
Here's what you see
They've always got a very interesting story every single one of them some kind of challenge that
a very interesting story, every single one of them. Some kind of challenge that,
most times when you have horrible challenges,
you're raised by horrible parents,
or you've had a horrible accident or whatever,
it'll break people,
but sometimes the person actually turns them into something
amazing and they've all got that story
and he's got that story.
He's probably gifted.
He's always probably been an absolutely gifted communicator,
but then he's honed in that skill because he's done this now for 30 years
100% you can 100% tell that because
Even the way like at which I really and this was the stuff I enjoy is
You know listening to him getting ready for it and like the way he all the team of people he has working from and he and he's just
He's asking these questions tell me how many why how many red flags do I have who do I have this what's going on here? What are we dealing with this this day? I want to make sure and he's just, he's asking these questions. Tell me how many, how many red flags do I have? Who do I have this? What's going on here?
What are we dealing with this?
This day I want to make sure, and he's like, so there's a lot of preparation that goes
into that.
Like he knows, he knows what he's doing, you know, and he's definitely, you know, mastered
that skill, but it's cool because it's still so genuine.
You know, there's a difference between people that like master things because they've seen
somebody else do it and they want to emulate it
and then they want to say, okay, I want to try it.
It's like, we've already seen this happen
with what we're doing, right?
We've seen a lot of people like,
and we knew this would happen.
We knew that once we kind of started this
and it started to grow like it has,
that others would start to kind of fall on.
And we've seen other podcasts trying to emulate,
we've seen other people on social media
starting to emulate and kind of get the same message,
which we're all for.
I mean, because it's about the message,
it's not about us, but they're trying to use the same formula,
right?
Pick three guys, they're like this and do that
and try and talk with the same thing
or create the same type of, and you just can't
because it's genuine.
It's real what we do, everything's real about it.
You can't do it.
Yeah, you just can't.
You can't, you can't, you gotta be't. You can't. You got to be you.
You got to be your own flavor.
You know, and he's it.
And what's spamoney?
He's is a spamoney.
Is that what it's spamoney?
It's spamoney.
Does it sound like a slang term for giz?
You know what I mean?
And that's what you just referred us to.
Oh, got some spamoney on your shirt, I say.
Let's, let's.
So I was in, I was in a say something about Tony Robbins does he have I don't know if I'm pronouncing right acro mal
Acro the condition where they have a big yeah too much growth hormone the pituitary
Tutor Terry did you have to have it removed?
Really because he's a giant and he sounds like a giant when he puts his hands on their head
He should look at wrap his hands all the way around and touch me of a Lenny.
Was that his name Lenny from of Mice and Med?
Dude, he's a big dude. It looks like it looks like it.
It's met him grabbing someone's head.
It looks like me wrapping my hands around a softball.
If I grab my hands around a softball, it's what he looks like when he grabs it.
Doug's actually met him. Yes, I want you to.
Yeah, Doug and I talked all about his.
Yeah, yeah, it's I want to help Tully is.
I'm looking. Oh, Acro Megali, Acro Megali.
I'm hoping to help you right hand.
Did you like look up to see if he even has it?
Or were just like putting shit out there?
We don't even know.
I can tell you right now, he's got it.
I bet you, because.
Yeah, I believe he did.
Yeah, so he did, I told you.
Because it's, there's, there's specific,
it's like, there's specific traits you can see in someone.
You can see it in some ribcage.
It's just cavity, it's just like it's. The ribcage in someone. You can see it in some ribcage. It's just cavity.
It's just like it's.
The ribcage, their features are very big on their face.
Their teeth are typically kind of spaced out.
They have really, really low voices
and they just look different than a big dude with look.
You know what I'm saying?
So I think he has it.
I'm gonna look it up and see if he does.
Yeah, I think you did.
Yeah, you did.
He did.
What do you mean he did? Like you get that and then you can get rid of it by Yeah, you did. He did. Mm-hmm.
What do you mean he did?
Like, you get that and then you can get rid of it
by pulling the gland out, is that what you said?
Yeah, I think they, I think what they do is,
it's typically caused by a tumor,
like a benign tumor on the pituitary gland,
and the pituitary gland then just gives you
shit tons of growth hormone.
And so, because you do this, you're as a child.
Because I imagine if he chose to go the body building
world instead of the...
Well, no, here's a thing.
When you get that, if you get a lot of growth hormone
now as an adult, then it can contribute
to muscle gain, fat loss, all that stuff.
If you take it as a child, or excuse me,
if you have it as a kid, especially when you're going
through adolescence, it's like organ development.
It's just making, yeah, it's gonna make your bones big,
it's gonna make everything big.
Plus think of the amount of time that he's been on.
I'm like, you look, a bodybuilder's
been on a growth hormone for a long time,
and you can start to see it in them too.
And they're joined in here.
It's their voice too.
Yeah, they just don't look exactly.
Exactly.
It's not like chewbacca.
Well, okay, so,
I've been getting a lot of great feedback.
Probably the most feedback I've gotten a while on episodes
with the body parts.
Yeah, people like that. Yeah, I know that was, I think that was Sal, who's, whose idea was it?
I think that was pretty, pretty clever. So when are we on the crowd? You know, and you made
a point, we talked about this off air about how, you know, it seems so simple and basic, but it's
really getting into the, the nuts and bolts of all this, right? Well, I think we forget. Here's
the thing, what, here's what happens when you've been? So, well, I think we forget, here's the thing,
here's what happens when you've been
in the industry for as long as we have,
and you've been personal trainers for as long.
Or tainted.
Well, no, you start to,
you know, we wanna talk about things
that are interesting to us right now.
Like, working out body parts is not interesting anymore
because we've been doing this for so long,
we've explained this to so many clients,
we know it, and it's cool and stuff,
but we end up talking about, you know, new things because that's what we're excited about.
But we forget that there's a lot of listeners, most of our listeners, who learn from, you
know, our back training episode where we told them to, you know, focus on retraction,
depression, the scapula or the butt episode about, you know, how your glutes can, you know,
not be activating properly and how to fix that.
So we got a lot of feedback, those episodes have had lots of downloads.
And so I think we should just keep going, man.
We should just cover the whole body.
So what do you guys want to talk about?
Legs?
Face.
No, face.
Well, we haven't covered either one of those, so we can pick one of those.
Legs is a big one.
There's two chests first.
Do you want to do chest first?
Yes, two chest first.
There's two rock paper scissors.
Okay. Ready? Wait, wait, wait, wait, you're going for legs. I'm going for chest. Yeah, I'm not involved in this
Well, because you want chest, too, so he's got to represent both you guys. Oh
Okay, I'm do this
All right, you're really ready one two three
Oh Ready? One, two, three, two, three. Oh, yeah!
What did I tell you?
What did I tell you?
All right, all right.
Shut the fuck up.
I didn't doubt you, brother.
You know, it's funny.
That's rock beats scissors.
And there's ever anything that like,
Katrina and I are like, you know, go,
oh, I forgot the lock.
You put it on, don't worry.
Yeah, we put it on.
Yeah, we put it on.
Yeah, we put it on.
So funny, I was the same with my brother and flipping a coin.
Yeah.
And like, I want every fucking time.
And he got so, yeah.
So he's really good.
I fucking out. That's why I knew I could get a sound. I can't so bad. She's really good, I fucking out.
That's why I knew I could get a cell.
I can't do that.
I've been playing Katrina for like six years.
Like it's 50-50.
You're really good at a game of chance.
But I would every single time.
He's the guy that rolls the dice and he's like,
oh, there's the odds of another number hitting now
much higher because of, so anyway.
Let's talk about chess.
Chess, it is, sir.
Yeah, chess, it is.
Chessicles.
The do's that don't send the what ifs. Yes, well, here's a talk about chess. Chess, it is, sir. Yeah, chess, the dues that don't send the what-ifs.
Yes, well, here's a thing with chess.
I think we should talk about just because it's one of the,
it's considered one of the king of all exercises.
It's one of those top movements.
Is the bench press and the bench press works the chest, right?
I've heard it be called the squat for the upper body.
I kind of disagree.
I don't know what I see that.
I've heard people say that before.
How can you say that when you're lying down on a bench? It's only half your body. Yeah, for the upper body, I kind of disagree. I don't know, I see that. I've heard people say that before. How could you say that when you're lying down on a bench?
It's only half your body.
Yeah.
For the upper body.
Well, and you're lying down, too.
It's not even going close.
I do, I do, I said that, we're gonna come out and say that's wrong.
I do think that as a, I would argue overhead press.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Overhead press.
Yes, for sure that would be over.
I agree.
Yes.
But, you know, bench press, one of the most popular exercises
in gyms, it's been associated with
measuring your strength.
And chest has to be one of the top three most popular things for people to work out, or
for guys to work out in the gym.
It's also up there with one of the ones that are more challenging for people to do correctly.
Correct.
You know, I see a lot of people pressing a lot with their shoulders and their tricep and not really
learning how to engage their chest.
It's probably one of the more difficult.
It's really difficult to take somebody who, let's say, you're 30 plus years old and you've
never really trained consistently.
You've never really benched press and you're just now starting because that person has probably
got some serious rounded shoulders and you're going to work because that person has probably got some serious rounded shoulders
and you're going to work on some, you know, postural deviations before. You can really get them
to activate the chest crack. Well, if you want to look at the masters of bench press and therefore,
the people I'm about to talk about, their form is very extreme because it's a sport. But if you
want to look at the masters of maximizing,
force in the bench press and maximizing total recruitment, you look at power lifters,
and there's a lot to be learned
from watching power lifters bench press.
Now I'm not saying you should completely emulate it.
You don't always want to emulate it.
But you want to learn from them because power lifters,
their goal is to lift as much as possible
and do it all the time and not hurt themselves.
And so they're able to master leverage,
but in a safe manner.
And you wanna kind of take apart
what it is that they're doing specifically.
How are they gaining more support in this positioning
of their body where they're like,
retracting their shoulders so far back
and elevating and getting that arch in their back,
what they're actually doing with this.
It's not promoting this very specific type of help
that they're allowing.
I'm glad you brought that up first
because, and I always like to admit things
that we did wrong as trainers for many years.
For many years, I would actually tell my clients
not to do that. Oh yeah. Because you're not a power lifter. I would say that you feed
up on the bench. Yes. So yeah, you're elevated or elevate your legs. Everything was about
neutral spine. What is that? Yes. Come on. Yes. So I'm glad you went that route with discussing
power lifters first because that is the extreme of what most people think. Like, well, I don't
want to, I'm not a power lifter, so I shouldn't lift that way.
Well, absolutely wrong.
Like, you know, that's exactly how I teach people how to lift at first because it is,
it's very difficult to lay flat on a bench, press a bar off your chest without letting
your shoulders protract.
That's fucking challenging.
And when you say protract, what you mean is round four?
Yes, roll forward.
So, and because it's, if you just, you do that at the end of the bench press all the time
Always, yeah, always it is and it's the only way I can and this is also why too
I lean towards an incline versus a flat bench
Because at the incline angle it helps retract and depress the shoulders
It's a lot easier to keep those people in that more manageable angle very much
So it's a lot easier to keep them in that in the position that I need them
in to in order to really be able to fill and work the chest. I wait to go now, which is
totally different than how I used to teach. I mean, I used to teach a flat bench and just like
Justin would say, put their feet up on the bench like an idiot, or you know, you want to challenge
your core a little bit, put your legs up and do shit like that, like that's awful. That's not a good
idea. That's not how you should learn how to bend.
Yeah, so when you're bench pressing,
you know, one of the fundamental exercises
for the upper body and it considered a chest exercise,
although the shoulders and triceps are quite involved,
you're on your back, you want your feet on the floor,
so Justin alluded to this earlier, like,
you know, we even taught some people taking their feet
off the floor in the past.
No, never do that.
Always put your feet on the floor and ground yourself into the floor.
On ground forces.
You want ground forces, you want, your butt needs to be on the bench.
Don't take your butt off the bench, but there should be a arch in your back and natural arch.
And as a matter of fact, if you lay on a bench and relax, you're going to have space
underneath your lower back.
It should not be flat.
And then the last thing is,
you know, when you un-rack the bar,
take your shoulder blades, pinch them back and down.
Just like we teach you with the end of a back exercise.
In fact, to really get a good activation of the pecs,
you need to be able to activate your mid-back pretty well.
And that's something to think about.
Because a lot of, if you have mid-back issues, then you're probably're probably going to end up limited. You're limited and you're not going to get
good chest activation and you will probably hurt your shoulder.
I'll give you a gym right here. So somebody before like before they go do a bench press flat
or incline either one, although I encourage incline first, is grab some bands, or if you
don't have bands, you can use a seated rail machine, and real light, three sets, 15,
20 reps, retract squeeze depress shoulders, retract squeeze depress shoulders, do three
sets of that 15, 20 reps, then go start your bench press.
I feel much better.
A huge difference.
Much better.
Huge difference, because you've made that connection. You've made better. A huge difference. Much better. Huge difference.
You've made that connection.
You've made that connection of retracting, depressing down.
You've just did three sets of that exercise.
Then go do it.
And I encourage this for someone who's even advanced.
This is how I start.
But so I normally carry my bands with me.
So I'll do like my shoulder dislocates.
I'll do my band pull-aparts, which also kind of activates it in that manner.
And then I'll do some band rows real quick,
and then I'll get under a bench press,
and it's like, I'm ready to go.
Ready to go, I'm ready to fire,
and I'm in that right position.
I so I do that still, even as advanced,
and as long as I've been doing this,
so I'm telling everybody to try that,
if you've never tried that before,
band pull apart, shoulder dislocates,
do some rows with a band or a seated row.
And this could easily turn into, let's just talk about bench press,
because bench press is actually quite complex.
I think a lot of people, think of the squat as being very complex,
they think of the deadlift as being complex,
but all of these compound movements overhead press, a row, a bench press, they're pretty complex and the bench press is
actually one of the more complex exercises because believe it or not, there's a lot of parts that
you need to be, that you need to have right, it is not simply laying on your back a press in the bar.
Well, first of all, it starts with where you grip the bar. Right, right. I mean, there's multiple
ways you can grip the bar,
and each serve a different purpose
if you're doing it with purpose.
If you're grabbing with a narrow grip,
if you're grabbing with a medium grip,
but nice and wide grip,
and some people even do it, it's super-nated.
So, right.
So, most people will do well
with what they consider a medium grip,
but you gotta test it out for yourself.
I know, guys, Adam's got long arms, he typically grabs you wide. I'm probably right inside consider a medium grip, but you gotta test it out for yourself. I know guys, like Adam's got long arms,
he typically grabs really wide.
I'm probably right inside of a narrow grip
because I found that to be best for him.
I'm pretty narrow for how wide I am.
Maybe compared to mine, let's probably what I'm.
Yes, yeah, no, of course I probably grabbed it.
But I mean, where do you grab on the lines?
Oh, I'm, I'm, I go off the inside lines,
not the outside lines.
That's what I'm saying, the inside lines.
Oh, so I go thumb distance away.
Yeah, so my, my pinkies are on it. Oh, okay. Yeah, so I'm not lines. Oh, do you? Yeah, yeah. Oh, so I go thumb distance away.
Yeah, so my pinkies are on it.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so I'm not pinkies on it, too.
Yeah, I'm not that wide.
No, no, no, no, you're talking about this out.
No, I'm further in from there.
I'm probably this far from those, from those outside lines.
Okay.
Yeah, so the outside lines, my pinkies are just hitting them.
So I'm probably got about three inches wide or something.
So you got your grip, feet on the floor.
Here's why you want your feet on the floor.
This is something I learned about six years ago,
when I was bench pressing. I always heard powerlifters
talk about leg drive, leg drive, leg drive when you bench press on them. I kept thinking
of myself like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. How are you driving with your
legs? First of all, your butt has to stay on the bench. Your legs aren't involved in
the bench press. This has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I would always think
that until I started understanding how the central nervous system fires. And what they
mean by leg drive is what they're doing is they're literally grounding their legs hard into the floor and
tensing their lower body.
And what that does in turn is it tells the central nervous system to fire harder.
This is no different than when I tell people to deadlift.
Grip the bar.
To squeeze this shit out of the bar.
Yeah, same thing.
And so it's the same thing.
So yes, you want to ground in the floor.
You want to drive into the floor.
You want to push, pull the shoulders down and back.
You want to slight tuck in your elbows. You want to activate the l in the floor, you want to drive into the floor, you want to push, pull the shoulders down and back, you want to slight tuck in your elbows, you want to activate
the lats as you're coming down.
That pulling the, not pulling with the lats, but you want to feel them being tense, come
down with a full range of motion, touch your chest and press it all the way up and there's
your bench press.
But here's, there's some, there's more that goes the chest besides the presses and that
has to do with the flies and I think flies people fuck up a lot.
Bro, I don't know if I'm ready to move on from the chest with a bench press.
I know. Or yeah. You got more? Well, just because you just made a comment about you just set it all naturally and shit about well first
I want to next progression is to like, you know, bringing the bar down to full range of motion, right?
Yeah, that's right. I was gonna get to that was like you skimmed over that.
We've also said compound a billion times in the show and we don't always break that down to people.
We think that's just common knowledge.
But a compound move, it means there's multiple joints
that are involved.
Most like a bicep curl or tricep push down single joint.
So when there's only one joint that's having to move,
there's not a lot of moving parts and a lot of risk.
As soon as you have multiple joints that are involved,
the squat, the dead lift, the bench press, overhead press, As soon as you have multiple joints that are involved, the squad,
the dead left the bench press, overhead press, you know, there's multiple joints that are
having to move together. That's where this gets really complex.
Yeah, I was thinking one tip that I would throw out there that I've been experimenting
with just with all this like isometric tension and trying to create more tension and
a louder signal. I've been experimenting
with the bar pulling outwardly. So pulling outwardly to create more tension in the eccentric
part of the lift and then compressing inwardly on the way up.
Oh, so on the way down, on the way down, you pull apart, you pull apart, you get down
in the isometric, you come in and you hold, you're pressing inwardly is you're pressing
it up. Well, I could definitely see how the inward tension would probably get more peck involvement.
Yeah. The outward pull is interesting to me. Yeah, because I'd get back.
Right. It's stabilizing. It sounds very stabilizing actually.
But I'm trying to create more tension to support that, you know, so that so,
you know, in the eccentric left, I'm still. No, that makes a lot of support.
It but now I'm exploding. Well, so then when you think of that and what you're playing with there, what's your
thought, you see those new bars that are out having to.
The sliding grips.
Yes.
So you haven't seen those?
That's the new thing right now.
They have these bars now that have these sliding grips.
I don't like that.
I want it fixed.
Yeah.
You want to push against tension.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Here's the thing with all those moving parts, I think it would be probably cool to add
to your repertoire, but I don't see that ever being a bench press.
You know what I mean?
But what Justin's saying makes perfect sense,
because if you think about overhead pressing,
like when people go with a snatch or whatever,
they're creating outward tension on the bar.
Yeah.
At the top of the bar, that's how they're able
to swing that bar and be so stable.
Is they're literally creating outward tension.
And if you ever do like,
when you do your shoulder dislocates,
you ever experiment,
Adam with pushing a part on the bar
and then doing shoulder dislocates?
Well, that's why I do bands.
I do shoulder dislocates with bands.
Oh, there you go.
So I have to, I have to watch this.
So I just feel more connected
because otherwise I'm just,
I'm allowing that load to really dictate, you know,
like I'm trying to succumb to the load,
like I'm trying to overcome that by,
you know, retracting my shoulders
and decelerate the force. Why not be a little bit more involved with that by creating more
tension? That's a very good point. All right. Anything else on the bench press? Yeah.
Then we started. I touched the motion. Yeah. Getting down to your chest. Like, so the
reason why we were taught, we only go down 90 degrees. And the reason for that is because
a lot of people going back to what I said
at the very beginning,
about 30 years old or older,
and you never worked out before,
more than likely you're suffering from,
their mild or serious upper cross syndrome
where the shoulders are protracted and rounded forward.
So if that's that person and they get under there
and they try and go all the way down to their chest,
that's where injuries can happen.
So we always, always, always say, you know, light, light weight,
you know, full range of motion work on that first before you even try and add a bunch
of weight.
Well, here's the thing. When you're looking at the shoulder joint, when you look at the
humerus, right, that's the top, the top part of the bone of the arm, and you look at the
top of the humerus and that joint that fits in the shoulder socket. When the shoulder blade is shrugged,
so when it's up and when it's rolled forward,
that you have severely limited the movement of the humerus.
It doesn't, it can't go up as high,
it can't go back as far,
and you can test this out yourself at home
if you're listening right now,
shrug your shoulders and round them forward,
and then keep them that way,
and see how high you can raise your arm above your head.
You end up looking like you're saluting Hitler.
Like you can't come up any further than that
because the scapula has to move
to allow more range of motion.
So if you pull the shoulder blades down and back,
that position opens up the shoulder joint,
allows the humorous to move in all kinds
of different directions, forward back, you know,
rotate whatever, it's just better and more open in that position. Now that doesn't mean you should always walk around the shoulder joint allows the humerus to move in all kinds of different directions, forward, back, rotate, whatever.
It's just better and more open in that position.
Now that doesn't mean you should always walk around
with this weird pinch shoulder blade position
because there is reasons why the shoulder blade
needs to roll forward.
But when you're doing a bench press,
if the shoulder blade is rolled forward,
you have severely limited the movement of the humerus.
And if you force it or push it,
what'll end up happening is your stabilizer muscles,
your internal external stabilizers, do a lot of fucking work
to try to keep that humerus from doing bad things,
okay, from grinding into the joint or pulling out of the joint
or moving a certain way.
So now you've got these small muscles really trying
to stabilize this shit out of your humerus
because your scapulas roll forward.
You don't have as much range of motion.
You're putting weight on it and this is where people hurt their shoulders, bench pressing.
This is why a lot of people over the years bench pressing and getting shoulder impingement
or they'll get a chromoclavicular joint issues.
That's the AC joint or they'll get bicep tendon inflammation.
It all goes back to that forward shoulder that Adam's talking about.
So in order to get a full range of motion and to utilize a full range of motion, you
want to have shoulders pinned down and back when you're bench pressing.
And what ends up happening is you get a greater range of motion through the chest.
And as we've discussed a million times in this podcast, a full range of motion in a muscle
under control, of course, with good biomechanics and good recruitment patterns,
will result in more muscle being built, will result in strength that transfers along a longer range of motion,
a longer strength band, more functional, more functional, better perform, basically better, 100% all the way around,
you want to be able to work in a full range of motion.
So your goal should always be to figure out how to do that
in a way that's safe and strengthening.
And with the bench press, that's one of the main things.
Keep those shoulders down and back.
Then it's easy to bring the bar all the way down
to your chest and press it up.
And now you're getting more activation across the zone.
The things that we talked about,
the whole, the shoulder dislocates,
that'll all help with that for sure.
So making sure that you do that. Like I said, I recommend it
to even the advanced people, but most certainly if you're and that's why I said, like it
to have to have good a well developed chest or to really maximize your chest development,
you need to have good mid back strength. This also goes to like the importance of why you
need to prime your workouts to why you need to focus on, you know, hey, I have bench press going in today
and, you know, I know that I already have this issue.
So setting yourself up for success
by doing proper exercises, move horse,
before you head into it.
Absolutely.
You were sure.
And think about how much more effective,
because now that, okay, so here's the thing too,
think about this.
What Adam's talking about, about doing things to prime
his body for the bench press,
some of you may be thinking, oh, you know, it's going to prevent injury or it'll make them
feel better. That's the least that it's going to do. What's going to happen is it's going
to build more muscle from his bench press. So it's not just, oh, I do this because it makes
my shoulders feel better. I don't care how great your shoulders feel. If you prime
things properly, you're going to get more out of the exercise.
And I've had clients who were in advance,
that's all I did.
That's all they were showing the most stronger response.
That's it, and more muscle.
You were getting ready to move over to...
Flies.
Yes, the fly, which technically is the best way
to actually isolate the chest, right?
I mean, no exercise can isolate the chest better
than a fly, some better than a fly.
Some sort of a fly.
So that is a stretch, you know,
it's really like opening you up there, you know.
You're gonna get a really good full range,
you want a really good full range of motion with flies.
Your goal with flies should not be to add weight all the time.
Whereas with a bench press, if you have good form,
you want to get, you should just get stronger.
This is not a short range movement.
No.
It pisses me off when I see people do that.
Yeah.
Go in.
I would say go light. Bend your elbows a little bit. You don't want straight elbows because
that puts your elbow joint at risk. You want to bend elbow. And you want to, you know,
think you're a bird, man.
Yeah.
I mean, slight bend in the elbow.
I got to, you retract your shoulder blades.
I got another gym freak. It's probably good that we did these.
The more I think about all these little small tips
of training that I've done over years.
So here's a gym for this one.
So get a foam roll, lie a foam roll straight down
and you're gonna lie on the foam roll
where it's lined up with your spine,
right away from your tailbone to the back of your head.
So your head is supported on it all the way down
to your tailbone, you're lying on the foam lying on the foam roll, and then do a fly lying on
that foam roll. It will naturally because the foam roll is dead, the tube is
down your spine like that. It'll open up that scapula as you come down. It'll
put you in the most beautiful gravitational forces everything. Yes, it works
perfectly. When I'll sti- what I'll do is I'll start clients on the foam roll
like you're saying, Adam, and I'll have them bring their arms a little closer to the sides with their palms
supinated, focus on bringing their shoulder blades down
while they're in that position. And then I let them open up.
And as they open up their arms, I have them pronate their
hands a little bit. So now the thumbs are pointing up.
You're getting wide. Yeah, this really wide-wrapping
your motion. Which, which just reminded me of a little trick
with, with flies in particular incline flies.
So here's a thing.
The internal rotation versus the external like most like most meathead body village.
I'm a I'm well.
I'm a.
Well, I'm a.
So here's the thing like any chance the job.
Well, well, there's there's a jab and in that only is a jab, but there's some merit to what they're doing.
They're just doing it completely backwards and I'll explain.
Yeah, no, I know They're doing it totally backwards.
So, so first off, when it comes to chest training, I know so many of the intricate details,
because my chest is one of my worst responding body parts.
It just doesn't respond like the rest of me.
Whatever chest I have, believe me, I have built from absolute scratch, and it's been a struggle.
And that's probably the one body part I've never, ever missed or skimped on
when it comes to training.
So I've picked up a lot of these,
these little tips and stuff.
And I remember one thing that bodybuilders used to tell
that teach people with flies was to bring the pinkies together
at the top of the fly, right?
Where you supinate the hands.
Now, and they say, if you do that,
you get a better squeeze in their chest.
Now, if you examine the anatomy of the pecs
and you look at the muscle fibers
and where they attach on the humerus,
you're actually doing the opposite of what you should be doing.
The reason why bodybuilders are feeling that squeeze
is because they're just-
The squeeze their chest together.
Yeah, they're just, they're biceps
or squeezing their chest together.
Yeah, they're just squeezing their chest together.
The reality is, on an incline fly,
you shouldn't bring the pinkies together,
you should come out wide and then come together, bring the thumbs together, especially at an incline
because the upper most fibers of the pack.
So internally rotates.
Yeah, they pronate the humerus or they rotate it internally, not externally.
And so if you want to really hit those upper muscle fibers and it's very small, this
is a very, very small tip, then you want to slightly pronate your hands and squeeze there and
you'll hit more of the upper chest.
The easiest way to tell them is just if you've seen bodybuilders do this where they rotate
their wrist, do it the opposite of what they're doing.
Because I don't think I don't do it for cleavage.
I don't know if I've ever seen anybody do that.
I don't think I've ever been in the gym.
If I did, I probably would walk up and talk to him, like, hey, motherfucker, you know what
you're doing.
I saw one. I forgot whose page it was, Instagram page.
It might have been the muscle professor.
It was, no, it was the high-purchase because.
Oh, there you go.
Because he's very, very slow.
He was the first person I'd ever seen do that
on social media.
I was like, I think I even commented on his page,
like fucking solid tip, bro.
I've never seen anything.
Because you don't see people do that, too.
No, no, no.
And we are spitting hairs by getting into the point
where we would tell someone to internally rotate like that.
I think that's getting a little crazy.
It's not kind of...
It's a small tip.
It is.
I definitely think that what we both talked about,
the foam roll.
It's not an important enough exercise to get that crazy.
Exactly.
The laying on the foam roll though,
because people have a really hard time
with opening their scapula.
I find that, and obviously, if you did it too,
I mean, that's a money move to help somebody out with opening up their scapula and
laying on there. I love to do that. Here's something else with your chest. If you're doing three
exercises in your workout, in one workout or let's say you work out your chest multiple times a
week and so you have more exercises to pick from. The chest responds very, very well to this combination of exercises.
For this, saying that, there's a lot of body parts that I respond well to this and I mean,
go into a little more detail.
You want to pick your mid-range heavy movements.
You also want to have a movement that puts a lot of load in the stretch position and then you might want to try a movement that puts a lot of load in the stretch position. And then you might want to try a movement that has a lot of load in the contracted position.
So for the chest, here would be your examples. If I'm doing three exercises, I do my bench press,
which is my mid-range movement. I'm not getting a big stretch in my chest. I'm not getting
a big squeeze in my chest, but I'm lifting a lot of weight. The stretch movement would
be my fly, my free weight fly, and my squeeze movement would be a cable fly where a lot of weight. The stretch movement would be my free weight fly and my squeeze movement would be a cable fly where a lot of the
resistances in the middle, the squeeze part. And the reason why
that's important and why that works for so many body parts when you
can do it is because muscle fibers or muscles, I should say, they
get stronger in relatively specific ways. And so if I'm doing an
exercise where most of the load is in the stretch, then lots
of my strength adaptations going to be in the stretch. If I do lots of exercises where
lots of the resistances in the squeeze, then a lot of my strength adaptations going to be
in the squeeze. And then mid-range is, you know, the same thing. So it's important to
have those three different things elements into your workout. And you'll find you're
going to get better development.
Well, there's also an importance to the order of that too. Oh, yeah.
Always do the big movement.
I just had this conversation with my brother and I.
Or not always, but most of the time.
Yeah, exactly.
But so I just, I worked out with my brother and I for the first time on Sunday and he was
kind of asking me a few questions and he was sharing with me like we were doing some chest
stuff.
And it was like, oh, I normally do these do this machine, that machine, this machine like this,
and sometimes I go into this, I said,
and he actually was intentionally starting on the machine.
And it's just because most people feel comfortable
to warm up, like using a machine, I said, no, dude,
you wanna, your compound, your barbell,
go do your barbell or dumbbell movements first.
That's your biggest bang for the buck.
If you're gonna do any machine, cable, cable work or light dumbbell fly work, save that for when you've already exerted all your
energy out on the big movement that's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck.
Otherwise, you burn out all your secondary muscles or you burn out a little bit of the
chest and then you go to a compound movement and you're your your your gas. You're you're
not going to have enough oomph in there to actually move some heavy weight and get maximal growth from it.
Now there's not to say that there isn't something to be said to the pre exhausting,
you know, most with a nice pre exhausting that out or changing that up, but you know,
for the most part, you know, your ideal your ideal way to start a chest workout.
If you are if your body parts split or even if you're, you know,
yeah, full body is to start off with the big comp. Yeah and I'll say in those
there are exceptions um supersets uh is one extension when I when I do
uh exception when I do uh supersets I love to do pre-exhaust supersets
because number one the reason why I'm doing a superset is I'm trying to get more
blood into the muscle.
I'm not gonna go super heavy anyway
because it's a super set.
So I'm not gonna be as strong
and going from one exercise to another.
So this is the point that I like to do
these isolation movements first.
And what it does is it pre-exhaust the muscle.
So example it with chest again,
this would be an incline fly straight to a bench press or straight to an incline press
or a fly to a press. You get a massive pump. So you pre-exhaust to the chest, then you go now,
you're incorporating a lot of shoulders and triceps. You're not going to be nearly as strong. So
if you do this, make sure your bench press is ready with a lot less weight and you're going to get
a silly, silly pump. And don't gas out on the fly. If you use this tip that he just said,
don't gas out on the fly.
You're not trying to like max out on your fly
and go as high as heavy as you can.
You're just trying to pump blood in there
like you're saying really activate the chest,
get it pumped up, then go hop on that compound movement.
Oh.
Yeah, you can do this with so many muscles quads,
lats, you know, chest, shoulders.
Yeah, no, that's a money maker though, for sure.
I actually love to do the foam roll fly.
So I'll bring it, because you can bring the foam roll.
See now you use it much differently than me.
So you're using the fly to really activate the muscle,
then to go to the heavy bench press.
I go fatigue to both of them.
I go heavy, I'll aim for eight reps on the fly
and then I'll aim for four or five reps
with the bench press.
But what you're talking about sounds interesting.
I wanna try that.
Well, try it, you'll like it. Yeah. It makes me think of two like using plyometrics. Like we're
talking about with the squat, you know, where we used to do like squat jump and then we go do the squat.
Yes. So we do the same thing. I would do that with like a clapping push up and then go, you know,
straight to the bench. Yeah, that's called post-activation.
Post-activation. Potentiation. Thank you. Yeah. so what you do, and what Justin's talking about,
you would do some explosive pushups off the floor
where you're jumping off the floor,
and then you go to bench press.
Now in that case, you definitely don't want to fatigue.
Not at all.
All you want to do is like a few reps to explode,
and then go to the bench press.
Yeah, and you get a great response though.
Super good.
They actually recommend only like one to three.
You're not trying to get that at all.
It is literally just to get that sense
in their system.
It's just boom and then go.
You need your lightning.
Yeah, and that's a great tip there.
So for chest again,
pull the shoulder blades down and back,
aim for a full range of motion.
Here's a thing with flies that I see a lot of times too
with people where they make mistakes.
And flies are hard to teach.
I don't know about you guys, but when I'm training clients,
I really ever have them fly.
Mostly because my clients only come to see me,
you know, one or two days a week.
Nothing, I don't have a lot of hardcore clients.
But when I do the fly, people tend to screw up.
And this is where I see a lot of the people,
the screw ups, is when they come down
at the bottom of the fly, they externally rotate their humorous.
You know, where the hand comes out
wider than over the elbow.
That's asking for trouble too.
You want your elbow and your hand to line up
with your shoulder.
It's just stress right on my elbow.
Yeah, you don't want that outward twist
that you see a lot of times.
Is it gonna be hard for you to like mention
that you don't have clients?
I know.
I was just saying that.
Yeah, my clients, yeah. You know what though I think? I almost don't have clients. Well, I I was just saying that. Yeah, my clients are, yeah.
You know what though, I almost don't have clients.
Well, I kind of don't and I still talk like I do.
You know what I mean, right?
I mean, you still.
I mean, you've had so many that it's part of our,
it's ingrained in us and I think that I know it
always will be, but yeah, it'll be on a bigger level now.
Yeah, no, I agree for sure.
You know, what do you guys,
what do you, what did you take on the decline bench?
What do you think? I would, I the thing it's fine. It's a it's a you know
I don't I don't never done a lot of them because I never liked the way it fell and then since my AC joint
Surgery I definitely have an issue with it because it's like pressing right on my AC joint
I would say dips are superior though if you want to press in that kind of plane
I think I would have I would have one of the dips,
you know, than a decline press.
Wait a dip, yeah, I love,
and I love really pressing myself
to get as much range of motions possible.
It makes people uncomfortable, you know,
sometimes when I go that low, but, you know,
it's all about your capacity.
I love dips, I've never loved a decline press.
I don't know, have you ever? You know, when I was young, I'm not even doing anymore. I don't, I haven't love dips. I've never loved a decline press. I don't know. Have you ever? You know when I was young, I don't even do anymore. I don't I haven't done I haven't laid on a decline bench and probably
five five six years plus
I
Just I've never I never felt the the added benefits to it when in comparison to
Doing a flat and incline
or adding a dip like you said in there, I feel like.
It's a shortened range of motion,
less of a range of motion than even a bench press.
It's your hanging upside down.
It's the opposite angle that I want you to be at
for retraction and depression.
You're hanging upside down, you're pressing away.
That alone feels kind of interesting,
especially if you're trying to build tension
by tensing everything.
Now your head wants to explode.
It's really easy to fucking cheat
and add shit tons of weight on.
That's why I think most people do it
is because you can, most people can
decline bench press more than it is easier than flat.
And that's why I did this as a kid.
As a kid, I could put more weight on.
And I want, yeah, I wanted to be able to say.
And it's a short range of motion.
Like if you're gonna press in that plane,
kind of downward, a dip, I mean,
a dip like the range of motion destroys a decline. It's a much short range of motion. Like if you're gonna press in that plane kind of downward, a dip, I mean, a dip, like the range of motion
destroys a decline.
It's a much greater range of motion
than the shoulder.
It's kind of like the leg press versus a squad.
I would, I would say.
That's a good analogy.
It is a good analogy, because I,
well, I mean, I actually think the leg press
is a little more superior.
Yeah, the leg press is even really.
Yeah, it's home.
And maybe more like,
yeah, there's use for that.
If you're doing like single leg and you rehab.
Yeah, yeah, no, I had, man, for a long time, I lived off of leg press and lunges.
You know, like that was, that was a staple for me.
What about, what about dumbbell presses versus the bar?
You know, I love dumbbell press.
In fact, what I do, this is kind of,
I think it's good to vary it up.
Yeah, this is kind of my thing.
Like all, I, when I'm following our maps,
I'll be running like a lot of barbell stuff.
And if I notice that the last few times
that I've gotten in and I've done chess,
it's been three, four times straight,
where I've grabbed barbells to,
I go dumbbells that workout, you know?
And sometimes it's gonna expose a lot of your stabilization
in your shoulders.
Yes, you know, maybe something needs to be worked on and cleaned up a bit.
So it's tough.
I mean, it's a totally different monster.
I'm so much stronger with a barbell than I am with dumbbells.
And that's because I know why.
It's because I do a really fucking good job of applying tension to a bar.
And that's necessarily to dumbbells.
Well, the body is really smart, right?
If you have any sort of small, intricate,
little weakness within your mechanics,
like if you have both together,
it's gonna just naturally take that force
and apply it where it's necessary,
where it's gonna help you the most.
Versus I have two weights that are the same weight
that I'm relying on, you know,
each arm movement to have their own independent movement.
It's going to expose all that.
So when I do dumbbells now, because I do a lot more dumbbell presses now, back in the day,
I would just do barbells, but I like to utilize dumbbells for things that I can't do with
a barbell.
What I mean by that is, if I'm doing a press, I will exaggerate the range of motion,
because you know, a bar gets, you know, when you're doing your bench press,
you're inclined,
you can only go down as far as the bar,
we'll let you eventually hit your chest.
But with dumbbells, you can go down real far.
And sometimes what I do is I even,
you know, my hands are pronated as I'm going down
and I'll rotate my hands with other neutral.
So I can come way the fuck down and then press up.
The other thing I like to do with dumbbells is I will either
A, bring them both down and hold one real tense and press the other one and alternate. So
I'm working on that bottom tension or I'll do the same thing at the top. I'll hold them
both at the top lower one at a time. See, I'll do, I'll do kind of like when we're talking
about flies to like sometimes I'll go a little bit heavier on the flies, but my, you know,
I'm going to be bending my arms significantly more.
That's how I like to do what I do when I do one. So I love dumbbells, and I make sure that like I just said,
I always incorporate if I catch myself, and I've noticed a huge difference in stabilization in my form.
If I'm doing good work on my dumbbells, I see the carryover end even in the barbell bench press,
which is not normal, right?
Normally we talk about, you know,
your barbell movements have all the carryovers
and the other movements.
I actually see really good carryover
when I start increasing weight from the dumbbells
to going back to the barbell
because having to stabilize and do all that,
then you get a hold of a bar,
you haven't had a hold of a bar for a month.
And it's like, oh, this is nice.
This is easy.
Now there's definite, definite advantages to both. And if you're pressing regularly, hopefully,
if you're listening to the show, you do some kind of a full body split or a full body routine.
You'll have an opportunity to do a lot of frequency. And you should do a barbell press one day
and a dumbbell press another day. Let's address to a lot of talk about, you know, working the inner chest, the bottom of my chest, the wide part of my chest, the top of your chest.
There's no. Yeah, you can't, you so if you look at, we've talked about this before, again,
if you look at muscle, you know, how muscles attach, there's usually two attachments.
You can't work the muscle from one, from one attachment to the middle of the muscle where there is
no attachment.
If it's pulling from one end, it's pulling from both.
And I know I've heard arguments, you know, I got, we got into that little feud with what's
his name, where he said you could work the lower biceps.
But because he's saying muscle fibers, we even do the muscle here.
And others attack, look, it still needs a fucking anchor to the other attachment.
So you're working the whole muscle.
However, when you look, when you break it up within the attachments, then you can work
more, you know, parts of one muscle more or less than the others.
And so when you look at the chest, you look at the sternum, which is the middle of the
chest, that's all attachments for the chest.
It's like all the way down the sternum.
And then it all comes together into kind of one attachment at the arms.
That's why it kind of fans over.
Because of that, the way the muscle is shaped,
you can work more of your upper chest
and more of your lower chest.
If you change the angle of lift,
and we all know incline presses work,
you know, more upper chest and, you know,
a decline will work more lower chest.
But one press that very complicated, very technical,
but if you learn it, it's fantastic,
is the reverse grip bench press,
and the reverse grip bench press
works the upper chest quite a bit,
and that's because of the angle of pull
when you're pushing out,
even though you're on a flat bench,
you're still pressing it as if you were pressing
with an incline because the way the bar travels.
So also where your place for elbows, I guess,
would be able to.
But I think it's important to note this,
because this is what I see a lot,
is it's so far down the list,
as far as priorities of like trying to focus on parts
of the chest, like, oh, today,
I'll see like bodybuilder guys do this, right?
You know, like we're working the inner chest today,
you know, we're working on the lower part of the chest,
even if they're doing things that actually make sense, like lower upper, right? Let's say they're
doing all upper stuff, you know, and the, but then they're like, they're doing like a sideways
hammer-strength machine, you know, and they're pressing at this angle, and then they go to the next,
you know, fly, and they're doing like an alternate cable fly that up or incline, like, and they're
doing all these like, weak ass movements to focus on a small
part of area.
People don't realize that's like, you gave the analogy about digging a hole with a spoon
when you'd rather just have a big fucking shovel.
It's like, what you're doing right now.
What they're doing with those small movements is they're trying to add volume.
Because they're doing body parts splits, they're fatigue to fuck, they can't really
get any effectiveness doing anything else. So they're just filling time with these,
they're not worthless exercises,
but the way that they're using them is pretty worthless.
You know what those exercises are good for?
Like I said, adding volume and adding frequency,
which is why if you look at some of our programs
like like maps black, maps aesthetic.
That's a focus session.
That's a focus session exercise
because you did your big movements.
You expended your energy and your big movements.
You worked your chest heavy.
Now you're just reinforcing the signal.
Now you're reinforcing the signal and you're adding volume and you're already kind of beat
up and so you can't do these heavy movements.
That's the time that you use those exercises.
That's the time.
Listen, if you like Mind Pump, leave us a five star rating review on ITU.
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at mind pump media.com and look for us on Instagram at mind pump radio. I'm at mind pump
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