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How To Bulletproof Your FULL BODY | FitnessFAQs Podcast #42 - Knees Over Toes Guy
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Ben Patrick's nase over toes method teaches how to bulletproof your body learn how to reach Peak
Performance and move freely without pain find out why everyone's talking about knees over
toes in today's podcast flexibility verse strength training how should we decide whether we should be
stretching or strengthening a muscle well I love both of them and I love however someone wants to
do it I personally like to make sure that I'm getting strong from any position that I stretch
through so a classic example for me in my leg training is doing a split squat but with a full
range of motion that means I'm stretching these hip flexors while training through a full range
of motion here so unlike a passive hip flexor stretch I'm loaded through the hip flexor so I'm
I'm owning this position I can now load this leg I can do pauses I can do slow tempos so there's a
lot that can be done from getting stronger through a stretched position what do you think on that one
okay so it's the idea of using a full range of motion and you're lengthening muscles on one
side of the joint and strengthening the other side so killing two birds with one stone doing both at
the same time instead of just thinking of them as binary things I'm stretching or I'm strengthening
exactly in some cases you can do both you can do a stretch strength and exercise but
ultimately I think that to most protect the body you don't want to have weak or tight
links like you want any area that your body can go into you want to be strong through that area
from your experience some people suggest that I have tight hip flexors it seems to me that you're
doing movements as you just showed through a full range of motion that both stretches and
strengthens is there any room for just purely stretching to fix the tightness absolutely like
I think I think peer stretching is fine but what I've seen is that most people who stay tight in
area they stay tighten area because they're weak in that area so the average person who can just do
a Hip Flex restriction like oh my God Everything feels better like awesome I'm not telling you to
to change that but the person who's like oh I've been stretching my hip flexors for years and they
stay tight well maybe the strength is actually not there maybe we need to be actually like loading
into those tissues and then that seems to open it up and that works for a lot of different areas of
the body you start to do your strength training through that zone and then it starts to open up
for sure that whole idea of an error being notoriously taught and all they have to do
is stretch it makes sense that if you keep doing the same thing over and over not saying different
results that is the definition of insanity yeah sure thing a note on that because some
people will see it and they think it's uh let's say extreme or something like that is I set up
everything here to demonstrate you'll notice that this would require less hip flexor flexibility to
get the same range as then doing it lower so you have a you have a scale of measuring that range
of motion and you would just work at the zone that feels good the idea is not to be working
through something that's not comfortable work through the zone that feels good build strength
and flexibility uh in harmony that's the goal okay what would you say are the most important
knees over toes principles you feel that everyone should know so we can break this down really fast
this allows me to demonstrate right here backward walking people with knee pain have been found that
when they walk forward that vastus medialis muscle that teardrop muscle it doesn't engage the same
way it does for someone without knee pain but when people with knee pain walk backward that muscle
does then engage as it's supposed to so this concept of going backward has been used way way
way longer than any studies on it it's been passed down generation to generation in Chinese elderly
they hold hands and walk backwards to prevent arthritis in the knee so it's actually like to
make the body if I have to go backward you have to train your knees over your toes that doesn't mean
that you could be an Old Pro in a sport and think that just walking around backward is going to
magically fix your knee pain it's based on force and based on strength so that's why we then drag
sleds backward you could get for someone even more advanced you could get more alleviation of knee
pain by dragging a sled backward or that thing's like a resisted treadmill I tried to chauffeur
the calisthenics crowd how minimal of stuff we can use and we'll go down to using literally nothing
so let's say you warmed up even with like just jogging backwards but just backward Locomotion
would be the foundation of knee exercise then and here's showing like at a at a extreme level
then you have the same backward concept the same motion but also handling the way down so now you
have a reverse step up so instead of just reverse walking you have a reverse step up and this scale
so at a three inch step you have a wonderful stability exercise for the knee at a six inch
step you have uh you could probably play most sports nine inches you might have a stronger knee
than most sports would need by the time you're doing like a foot with no knee pain now you
might actually wind up with someone with like more bulletproof knees than the norm for your sport so
really from the backward walking to then handling that pressure that way and you can see how
as we progress this like through more range of motion you're almost then getting into uh
closer to this exercise so now now here we're training full range of motion and someone could
it's like optional for us you could then put that together with full squats so that would be a quick
uh like four steps backward walking to backward step UPS to full split squats then then all that
if someone wants you know the strength effect you can put it together pretty easily with full squat
and then you have some outer stuff like we finished with uh couch stretch or some people
do like more advanced where they do like a I mean there's a lot of different ways you can
call it but let's say a natural leg extension reverse yeah I consider all of that like more
optional actually like in coaching this is this stuff a lot I consider that stuff more optional
and more based on like are you going to be putting your knees through extreme demands so for for an
older person maybe just backward sled and you're like hey this is great I don't have to get a knee
replacement now if you're gonna be in sports though that eccentric pressure of the step up
we find like to me I think that's the number one exercise to jump higher is that reverse step up
you're lifting you're lifting your body one leg at a time but these aren't just like uh things that I
think in my head for myself it's from coaching so many guys so in our gym we have uh a bunch of the
highest jumpers in the world we have the highest jumping weekly basketball game on earth and the
guys who can jump the highest they can lift their own body so easily in this position so when they
when they jump it's super easy to lift the body so so um so yeah the scaling of it from grandparents
to like Elite athletes with what I just showed right there like I'm giving it away like that's
it's a it's a full system then it comes down then it gets really personal within that so you
have a scale from backward walking all the way to like uh let's say the most extreme would be like
literally like a like a [ __ ] Squad is literally like how far the knee can go over the toes
is Grandma like is my mom my mom's 69 does she need that exercise no I never have her do that
exercise she goes backwards she does the step UPS she can do a full split squat on flat ground she
can do sets of split squats on flat ground so for her I'm like that's wonderful for longevity just
to maintain that Mobility then for performance we start to go higher on the step UPS maybe some
loading into the split squats definitely loading into the squats for the performance effect we
actually we had chains on the bar like a lot of chains like 100 pounds so if at the bottom it's
200 it's like 300 at the top because people will argue well don't go all the way down because then
you can't use enough weight for the performance effect well if you control the weight all the way
down then you can get the joint strengthening effect full development but adding chains then
you really can challenge yourself like all the way through so that's that's how we do it it seems as
if you're taking a really holistic and balanced approach to Performance and injury prevention
Etc and it's just nice because we see something like backwards walking so the average person that
hasn't seen it they're thinking how do we scale that and as you've just said you can play with
so many variables that we know from traditional training and apply it to this concept you can
increase your duration you can increase your resistance by using the sled you can also play
around with incline walking backwards walking maybe a vest if you're if you're in bodyweight
training maybe you have a vest already and maybe it's the summer time maybe you go backward with a
vest I mean different variables and then just all the other way in traditional training we do High
Reps low intensity we do low reps fire intensity you can do that same thing for backwards walking
with The Walking itself you can do long duration or you could apply that principle to the step
down and as you said you build up to crazy range of motion added weight the the sky's
the limit yeah yeah yeah I like for um that it's all variables so it's not even saying that this
system is uh better than another system this is a system I found based on specializing in people
with really bad knees so actually like a lot of people from doing those uh reverse step ups and
split squats then something like a pistol squat even without like the practice of the technique
you can just kind of control those positions and do you know a pretty good rep and and oftentimes
with like you know pretty good posture so it's I think that's a wonderful exercise too
um but this is just a smooth scale I found for people with bad knees yeah and as you for a set
so far in our chat there's so many different quad exercises that you can do you've outline them the
atj split squat the reverse Nordic the step down why isn't just squats and normal lunges enough
for Quad strength that's a great question so if we look at a if we look at a squat and we think about
where the load is so already the load is not as much at the extension and when people are trying
to rehabilitate that's often the most pain-free thing they can do is extend so it's something like
backward walking or a sled you can work what we call a short range so even if it's going on a sled
yesterday we're pushing the sled forward and then we're going backward and we ended up we do eight
rounds in here 12 and a half yards each way which adds up to 100 yards each way and I'm going side
by side with a New York Yankees baseball player who has chronic knee pain and by the end I mean he
can't keep up with it backward you're really you can apply full intent to that short range so we
see for like the elasticity for jumping and stuff there is a bit more to be gained from sledding
than just squatting alone now the squat as you go down now you start to get into some really
amazing loading like I would consider the squat you could call it like the king of leg exercises
I think that would be that would be fine but for someone with my knee injury history like I have a
partially artificial kneecap in the left then I had more tears in the right like squatting felt
awful but working that squat one side at a time felt really good not to mention like there's some
added benefits of the hip flexor stretching that you get so for me getting getting better in this
position one side at a time I then was able to kind of like rebuild the ability to squat and have
it feel really good same with as I was showing the the Step Up think how much load by handling
my whole body weight through these positions I can now get like as you approach we tend to do
this one for higher reps like 20 reps so let's say you approach 20 reps and you're like literally at
failure it's kind of hard to take one side of the body like one at a time to failure in such
a safe manner that you can just flow right into like a squat it takes a lot more preparation if
you're gonna be using like heavier loads you want like things have to be balanced in the body so I
think the squat kind of puts it all together and the squat is going to allow um probably more core
strength but as you know from what you do like there's a lot of exercises you can do for the core
so if someone said here's the challenge you can't use squats you have to make someone jump higher
I'd say fine same with if they said here you can't use this extra can't use this they're all
different tools that I can work with that makes so much sense with the quad specific training because
to probably overload that shortened range you need targeted exercises the classic example we can give
is the forbidden leg extension people think of this as the worst exercise for your knees it's
terrible it's sharing stress at the full range would lock out but in order to properly overload
the quads you need to get that terminal knee extension at the end range so exercises like
leg extensions exercises like backwards walking is a phenomenal way to fully fatigue that aspect
because just by doing your regular squats that standing position when your legs are straight
in a squat isn't doing anything that's not the point of failure so I can see how your
knees over toes philosophy here is integrating some of the deficits from traditional training
yeah exactly we're trying to just be strong through all the ranges we're really trying
to use exercise to have balance to the body so if it's only squat you're often going to find
some imbalances and I think one reason that uh if you look at leg extension first let's
say going backward with a sled or doing the reverse step up um oftentimes if someone can
do leg extensions and they feel good then it seems to work out well for them if they can't oftentimes
by doing backward sled something about pushing through the ball of the foot seems to engage a
bit like it I think it seems to make it easier to engage the vastus mean as remember that from
from this study in 2019 people without knee pain when they walk forward the VMO does engage so for
many people there's they would say oh you know lunges are all you need and things like that and
that for them that actually might make them feel fine whereas someone who has knee pain
might make them feel worse and so a lot like a leg extension because the weight is here it's a
bit of a different force on the knee and it seems to engage a bit differently by pushing through the
ball of the foot so I think it's um it's important for someone to realize that even the same exercise
is not going to work identically for different people it doesn't mean the exercise works or
doesn't work it's like when they're going into the exercise are they balanced enough to even do
it properly yeah do you think it's something about the open kinetic chain leg extension versus closed
connect chain step up the the force is a bit different through the quad as well yeah I think so
for sure I think that when you're pushing through the ball of the foot you're engaging differently
um than when it's just there I mean maybe maybe if someone like as a comparison like uh you
have forearm muscles things like that so maybe if someone had um elbow pain maybe someone would find
like differences a lot of people fix elbow pain by like building up the forearms for example and then
the like they people do too much curls they get some kind of tendonitis and then they end up doing
forearm work and it makes the elbow pain go away it's just kind of a an example just to show that
um even in the legs when you're pushing through the ball of the foot it does seem
to engage the knee differently than the pressure being just right there when it
comes to increasing vertical jump earlier you said that the step down is one of the
most effective exercises you found how would you suggest for people that say things like
uh what about claims for increasing vertical by comparison to a step down
we'd have to establish that jumping within itself has tremendous variance so you would have like
like a standstill jump you're just doing triple extension so that the ankle the knee the hip is
all just extending and you you go into the jump so a clean is going to work on Triple extension
um with something like a step down you're going to have a lot more eccentric like way down force that
something like this can cause more adaptation in the VMO and more adaptation in the patellar
tendon than a clean and when you go to actually jump in sport usually you're it's how much force
can you handle so you're running into the jump and then let's say it's a basketball jump like
Michael Jordan two foot jump that means boom all this force is coming through there and can you
handle that if you can handle without pain and jump in the jumping goes up and up and
up even on a one foot jump a ton of force goes into that patellar tendon so it's almost like
it's almost like if you can make a knee that can't hurt no matter how hard you try to jump
it's much easier to jump higher so the clean may look like a good expression but the person may not
be connecting the dots that oh their their knee hurts and so they're not expressing more so that's
what we see is that we haven't seen traditional strength training match what the natural athletes
can do so we train tons of natural athletes who have never they've um they've never trained before
and they can naturally fly what can those guys do that the person who's been working out for
10 years trying to jump higher but can't jump anywhere near the Natural what's the difference
there a young Michael Jordan was already Slam Dunk champion in the NBA back-to-back years flying
before he started lifting weights so the weights he used he got stronger it helped him in the game
but he didn't jump any higher from that so they Usain bolts of the world the Michael Jordan's
you know not every good genetic athlete is a famous athlete so we've we've been fortunate
to train lots of guys who have tremendous genetics and then see like what exercises
can they do that the regular person can't and often it's that like extreme uh joint strength
tendon strength to handle it for example um like like this would be the ultimate the ultimate
separator between the guy who works out and the guy who's a natural freak athlete is the natural
freak athlete can do a Nordic hamstring curl and the guy who maybe has been working 10 years on
his vertical jump drops like a sack of potatoes so this is not a traditional hamstring exercise
it gets much more into the attendance behind the knee so that's just an example that's just
an example that you have power clean would be a tremendous expression of power but not
necessarily testing what can the knee handle what can the hamstrings handle for Speed and jumping
this comes down to the idea of function we're not saying that a power claim isn't functional because
by doing that you would be increasing your power production in triple extension whereas by doing
the step down and other exercises for the muscles involved in jumping such as the Nordic then it's
able to withstand the forces that are specific to jumping and Landing would that be correct
exactly so power clean is a high Force exercise but jumping is also a super high Force exercise
so to make guys who are among the world's highest jumpers we simply haven't found that we have to
use the Olympic lifts I mean it's a matter of result we have five different guys over 45 inch
maximum vertical in our weekly basketball game and none of them are doing Olympic lifts it doesn't
mean could they add Olympic list I mean go for it you could we haven't found the need to and for me
every ounce of the training volume matters and also the Olympic lifting is a lot of it's a lot
of energy so maybe for a sport where you have a more extended off season maybe like Rugby
Football I could see that more to like keep some you know some of that stimulus through the upper
traps keep that explosiveness like it's not like you're in the off season of football you're not
going to just go be hitting people and stuff so I think the Olympic lift has a place as as something
that you could use depending on the athlete for achieving world-class levels of jumping
we haven't found it necessary because jumping itself is tremendous amount of force like when
people measure how much force goes into a jump it's it's thousands of pounds of force so then we
use the training to make the body easier to lift and then and less likely to be able to experience
pain when we do then jump and it comes down to the scalability of the exercises as you've mentioned
earlier everything can be scaled from those nordics to step Downs in tremendous increments
so whether someone is injured and they're trying to return to full health or they're chasing that
Peak Performance trying to supersede that 40-inch vert then they're able to find something that can
really be scaled exactly for me to use an exercise look the the athleticism is really cool but quite
frankly I care more about being able to scale and exercise this is just one example if you lift the
bench enough of a Nordic well then you you change the angle of it you could at least probably fight
down like just about anyone could fight down on a Nordic if it was scaled enough um so for me like
the fact that my mom can run and be mobile that does matter to me more than if Elite athlete jumps
another inch higher so for me to use an exercise in the atg system uh like it has to scale to any
level it has to scale something a grandma could do and for context even with the Nordic like with
the hamstring curl machine you can put it at the lightest plate like you can start working
the hamstring but for calisthenics and body weight like there are certain barriers so realizing that
you could just scale down a Nordic tremendously it would be better than nothing okay yeah
you put you know uh even if you had the doorway thing you could you could have a band and someone
could hold the band and you could you could uh scale it that way I mean there's a lot of ways
you could do it yeah I feel that the raisin body white exercise and calisthenics aren't as popular
as they could be is just people don't understand how to scale them as you said weights you can
incrementally adjust the weight it's pretty straightforward especially on machines whereas
with body weight exercises you have to change intensity in different ways how can people change
the intensity of body weight exercises yeah I mean to show a quick run through like we get into our
body weight system we put a butt against the wall we Flex the quad so the quad's not actually able
to assist we Flex this muscle below the knee if you stand closer most people can do it if
you thought you couldn't even do that you could just lift one side you wouldn't have to lift them
both off at the same time so we start working from the ground up that way that same concept applies
but in the opposite so a calf raise you could do on two legs you could progress to one leg we then
and this this replaces like having a sled we then go into a neover toe calf race so
I'm just isometrically holding whatever level I can do with no pain same thing you could go with
two legs so that's literally the first three steps of like our our body weight training
this muscle front and the shin upper calf lower calf I do those to this day 25 reps each you'll
be smoked I mean you can you can achieve elite athletic results uh with with just your body
so you start there by progressing that isometric you now get able to handle more and more now you
can go find a step or do it somewhere now you can start to get into the step down and then
you can get into the split squat so right there like there's there's literally the first five
steps of my zero system is tibialis upper calf lower calf which progresses you right
into step up which then progresses you then into that full range of motion split squat
so someone with with with with literally nothing you could figure out how to do those five steps
because you wouldn't have to have you wouldn't have to have a wedge stuff like like it's they're
all just tools but you can do without the trend I'm noticing is every exercise has a component of
stretching and strengthening so you're integrating in full range of motion movement and it's going to
get the best of both worlds of flexibility and strength which to me seems the most usable in
athletic activities yeah that's what we've seen if you want the lower the chances of injury increase
the chances of long-term result we're seeing it's not a it's not a secret system of flexibility
or strength this exercise or that exercise the calf or the tibialis the quad or the hamstring
you want it all you want all these things to be to be strong and able to go through range
of motion and be protected um yeah with the calves people usually think of the muscle on the back of
the knee so the gastrocnemius you've spoken a lot about the tibialis anterior the muscle on
the front of the Shins what is the importance of this muscle and why should we train it yeah
so every step forward that we take boom we're loading into that tibialis muscle particularly
if you're running and then you stop so if you're a soccer player and you kick let's say with the
right foot without realizing it boom tremendous pressure going through that front tibialis to stop
yourself so if you look at it the stronger that is then the less excess pressure is even going
to go into the knee in the first place so it's not just the backward we also want that tibialis to be
strong and because look even if someone does calf raises the odds that people have done as much for
the tibialis it's almost like um if someone's doing pull-ups bench presses push-ups anything
that builds Mass up above it means that you're if you're not training the calf and the tibialis
you are to whatever degree manufacturing a body that is more likely to have foot pain ankle pain
Achilles pain shin splints knee pain you can you can manufacture shin splints by taking athlete
building upper body mass and not training the calf and the tibialis so I I went through all
those things I I bulked up I was super skinny but didn't do any of those things so then my body was
completely out of balance what progressions or key exercises for tibialis anterior would
you recommend the one I just showed against the wall farther you stand the harder it is just as
it would be hard like just as if you went into a light jump that would be easier than if you went
all out into a jump so the farther it is you'll notice it's harder to raise the toes 25 reps if
you hit failure stand a little bit closer keep going so this is this is a foundation that someone
could definitely get strong with just the wall tibialis race um there's now uh plenty of bars
that people can buy if they want to load it but I've seen a lot of like some of these guys who
are some of the highest jumpers in the world and they as far as the tibialis they just did
the wall version the whole time and for people that are concerned about ankle range of motion
perhaps they want to squat deeply be able to get their knees over their toes nice vertical posture
from my experience and other people I've trained as well that full range of motion calf training
combined with tibialis anterior work seems to be the perfect combination for permanently increasing
ankle range of motion because people think oh my ankles are tight and stiff I can't squat deep I'm
just going to sit in a stretch passively and do it it works temporarily but if they don't integrate
it into full range of motion strength training the results are very short lasting so by doing
your straight leg calf work through a full range of motion your tibialis anterior raises through
the various progressions as Ben just outlined and also integrating in that bent leg calf raise in
the same fashion is the comprehensive approach combined with patients for increasing that ankle
range of motion yeah I mean if someone's doing strength training and then they're only doing
stretching for the ankle and not strength training the ankle in its different ways it does make sense
it's not natural for the body I'm only trying to do things that if you look at it with common sense
it makes sense with the anatomy that you're going to be balancing the body so uh for someone
who wants that that squat Mobility I don't even think someone should arbitrarily be criticizing
themselves if they don't have that squat Mobility but if they want to improve it well we don't want
all this weak down here so we would want the tibialis to be strong so we don't get like when
people have impingement issues they're usually trying to force it but not strong here same with
being strong on the lower calf and the upper calf and it's pretty cool that like you can do that
with just the wall boom 25 tip 25 straight leg 25 bent knee all scaling it and you can get good
results for those areas have you found higher repetitions a more beneficial protocol maybe
only in the sense of just being a beginner at the movement and doing body weight it's like a lot of
25 reps yeah 25 reps allows you to really get the volume in so it's kind of like a one to one to two
sets of 25 reps two to three times times a week is typically how we do the zero but that doesn't mean
that there's not guys loading up on the tibialis doing five sets of five it's not a when it comes
to sets and Reps those are just variables I could make a program of just High Reps or just Low Reps
medium reps I think like across a week we use a we use a variety of reps Tempo sets nice nice and
my from my personal experience I'd like to hear your thoughts Ben when it comes to calf training
specifically Tempo is butchered at large people go way too quick they rely on too much elasticity
from their tendons and they don't actually train the the muscle itself I've found a really
controlled eccentric a pause at the Deep stretch a fast concentric good contraction and a pause
at the top to be a quite good Tempo what's your thoughts on that yeah I think you've nailed it 100
um one of my mentors Charles poliquin he said that every gym it should be written in there it's not
the load on the bar it's a load on the muscle and so for the calf it's very easy with the calf in
particular to kind of Bounce the weight but not really be training it so like what you said a
lot of people start seeing great uh results just by slowing it down pausing going up Contracting
for a moment at the top I agree totally The Hip Flex the muscles uh I poorly understood muscle in
mainstream Fitness what recommendations do you have for train them yeah so in the in the body
weight as you know just progressing people to an l-sit I mean you can get pretty strong with with
literally nothing and and that one scales nicely like you can take um you can take people who are
very weak and just have them sitting there just working one side at a time feeling it contract I
think the disconnect is not in the calisthenics calisthenics Community tends to train the hip
flexors but you go into the sports community and this this thing grew up like oh don't strengthen
your hip flexors because you don't want them to get tight but exactly we can see with the
with the with the full range of motion split squat you can be loading those hip flexors
um well like we like most of us in our system we get either to a split or pretty close to a
split without even really trying to do so just from the training and we like in our gym we have
cable machines set up specifically across from immovable objects so that we lay on our backs we
use straps to the cable on our feet and then we're laying all the way back and having to
drive the knees up so we have a standard of like minimum 20 reps with half your body weight a lot
of people can't eat yeah so we strength train the hip flexors with measure below the fastest guys
I've ever trained are like closer to be able to lift their entire body weight on the cable for 20
reps that's insane and I love the scalability of that too because you're truly working on those hip
flexor muscles without limitation we see people that are doing hanging leg raises great exercise
but you could argue that the grip's going to give out and the hip flexors are a much larger muscle
group than the forearms so I can see there's a lot of thought and science into your system and
it's clear why people are getting such strong hip flexors with movements like that I appreciate that
it's one of the biggest takeaways people have when they visit like the gym in person and they do that
hip flexor exercise hooked up on the cable because like we're taking hip flexion to literal failure
with measurable load um it's quite something people are often sore for like the rest of
the week almost like when you've almost like when you've never trained an area and now you do like
your first strength training session most people have not really strength trained the hip flexors
with overload and going to exhaustion like they have other parts of the body what have you seen
the measurable transfer of getting stronger hip flexors into performance or exercises in the gym
yeah so I started doing it because with the knee people end up with pretty messed up hip issues
often after a knee surgery things get really tight things get weaker you stop spring oftentimes
you're out for six months a year that you're not sprinting so we would see like people after knee
injuries would get really weak in the hip flexors but we started to notice that the fastest people
in the gym had like freakishly strong hip flexors there are guys who had been Lifting for maybe 10
straight years but weren't that fast and then you see someone who's never lifted but it's
like one of the fastest guys and they already have much stronger hip flexors so we started to
notice this speed correlation but realized that the the hip flexor its job when you're running
it's stretching back but then it's it's picking up your leg so it's not that it's not that the
hip flexor makes you run fast it's that if you're training to be able to put Force into the ground
if you're training the calves quads hamstrings glutes the hip flexor is then a finishing touch
that if it if it remains too weak you're not going to be able to keep up with your own stride so it's
like so the hip flexor is like a Finishing Touch on speed it's something that naturally slow people
often miss because they train everything to get stronger oh their squacos up their deadlift goes
up but they're top end speed doesn't change at all sometimes top end speed gets slower over years
of lifting weights but it's only because they've manufactured that by getting stronger at certain
muscles and then not training the hip flexors for example and then for by that same measure of it
giving you that that top end speed effect it's actually amazing for elderly like elderly the
hip flexors get so weak because they're not sprinting anymore so that when when we stop
sprinting the human body the hip flexors start to go down think if you're growing up if you're a kid
you're sprinting you're at least stimulating those hip flexors pretty good but when we stop sprinting
the hip flexors the nordics for the hamstring those things that relate to that that high speed
those start to go really fast so I think the hip flexors is awesome for people as they get older
too and women after having babies actually it's uh it's one of the favorite exercises of women
after babies because they get so weak in that lower core area that was a great explanation on
hip flexors because I feel that it still is an area that's taboo people are afraid of training
them because they have heard certain things from physical therapists or other health professionals
and I can see how that would relate to a better function in life and Sprint performance I'll just
speak to this as well from my personal experience I'm someone because of doing calisthenics these
very upper body dominant that's was a big Focus for the first decade of my training and lower
body always took a bit of a aside to to that main focus I always felt like I had tight hip flexors
and weak glutes I felt like I could never activate my glutes and it just felt a little bit funny
down there with you know squats and lunge-based movements after doing movements such as the atg
split squat through a full range of motion finally stretching and strengthening that hip flexor in
addition to other movements that we've popularized such as the reverse Nordic couch stretch I was
able to open up those hip flexors stretching them and strengthening them and finally felt
that I was able to use my glutes in every other exercise and if people can just commit to this
approach of targeting the hip flexors the feeling that you have afterwards when you're moving your
body through gait sprinting gym exercises it just feels awesome and just that transformation for me
personally was all the information I needed to to be aware of hip flexor training man I'm so happy
to hear that and for someone who's at home and doesn't quite unders like isn't able to visualize
what you were just talking about we'll do like a demo so we've probably spent so much time sitting
like we're that the the the hip flexors and then the ability to use the muscles on the other side
can get really limited so yeah if we're told don't train your hip flexors if we never do a full range
of motion split squat but now if we're loading up in this position what happens as we open up
like as this opens up and not by forcing it but by over time getting stronger through here we're
directly increasing how much we can then use all this this backside area so we see if you
want to really use your glutes and hamstrings we want to open up what's on the front side of that
so hopefully it helps someone to understand what you were talking about just theirs is
the more we're in this position we can't then open up and use those glutes and hamstrings so
opening up the hip flexors then those can work as they're supposed to for sure and just trading
the tibialis anterior the hip flexor these other more Fringe muscle groups as you would
every other exercise in your program you've got sets reps intensity and you're progressing it I
feel people lose motivation when it comes to these things because they're not scaling the
movements it's like oh yeah my hip flexors are tight I'm just going to stretch them and they're
just going in doing random stuff it's hard to get motivated whereas if I'm like okay I'm doing
it's you know eight kilos in each hand on my split squat or I'm doing reverse nordics I'm touching
the floor I've increased my range of motion these are all signs and you can correlate symptoms with
progression and that gives you all the motivation you need to train we need that motivation we need
that measurement there has to be a feeling that we're accomplishing something that's why
in calisthenics a lot of the upper body movements it's easier to quickly you can quickly see your
progress compared to when we get into something like mobility and it's like uh I think I'm tight
I don't know but now you start to measure out a split squat okay I can do it a foot high
eight inches high whatever or maybe you're outside two steps down to one step or maybe I'm you go in
a stairwell you're assisting yourself doing it on two steps you gradually work down unassisted so it
gets some measurement going in there and there's no doubt over the last few years like it has sort
of been a ripple effect and way more people are doing this kind of stuff than previously by giving
some measurement to Mobility if you will yeah well said and it's that combination of rotting it
down so you can track it objectively and matching that up with the subjective feelings of how you're
performing and moving and also film yourself I would say that that is the best advice that
I can give people because in the day-to-day week to week month to month you're not going to see a
tremendous amount of change in your flexibility or strength and having that visual feedback
is highly motivating because it's Universe you you can say wow I was starting on this
real regression and now I'm at this point because we often tend to get this sense of dissatisfaction
with our progress we don't think it's quick enough we don't think it's enough and then by
seeing yourself transform that is my biggest advice I can give to people what are the most
common reasons you've seen that people tend to get injured I I would say in training it would be
not understanding that you can scale anything so like see you see something you just instantly try
to go do that not realizing like it is somewhere on a scale so people uh often think I can do
this or like I can't do that exercise you see this like it's like this in or out mentality oh my back
can't do that so what's interesting when you see that oh I hurt my back I can't do that exercise
um usually by jumping in not building up to it and believe it or not if they if they were
actually to then start over the things they think they can't do is what they actually probably need
to be able to do to then not get hurt in life so it's kind of like a two-part question like could
my grandma yeah people are getting hurt in sport and life because of the things they can't do like
it's it's there's a lot of fears oh for the spine don't do this don't do that for the knee no knees
over toes so there's a lot of these don'ts the don'ts are the the reason for injuries out in
life not not just the being told not to but the things people can't do like people's limitations
your weak points that's your biggest vulnerability then when you go play a sport this is why we see
so much results with Oh I thought you weren't supposed to train the knee over Excel oh
oh now I'm actually getting stronger at that position oh wow now I haven't
been able to play basketball for so many years without my knee hurting now when I
play basketball the knee doesn't hurt but think but think to this step down exercise
it's very common that someone starts and they can only do like three inches and any more causes pain
like 40 things gonna happen when you then try to go play a sport so so in the gym biggest reason
for injury would be like trying to start right here in life biggest reason for injury would
be because you can't because you can't do this without pain so maybe that would summarize it best
working through working through pain biggest reason for injury in the gym not building to being
able to handle ability biggest reason for injury in the sport and in life I'm so glad you mentioned
that because the ability to handle these positions requires work people see you doing these n-range
progressions displays of mobility and strength and they Wonder was he always like that could he
do it from the beginning and they haven't seen the year by year progression that you've done to your
body to get to that stage of scalability because had you jumped into that cold you could have got
injured as well and I feel that that takeaway is important for both performance and injury because
then there's almost no exercises off limits when regressed to a point where it can be handled
that's right and I actually think that's when my social media Pages started growing is when
we would put out a video of like montages of like starting at really low level like I thought in the
early days almost that would be like too dorky and boring and unimpressive but by showing by showing
the scalability like I think that's when things start to take off is when people realized oh I
can I can scale that quality so we've done I would say for the last three years now just um almost on
a weekly basis like pretty extensively showing not just a split squat but a split squat elevated with
assistance not just a step up but at a low level assisted backward walking these kind of things um
I I think that's actually like we we tracked the stats and stuff that actually grew things way more
than just showing a feat of what the knees can do because it's reliable because people say the
end stage and they can admire it be motivated by it but they don't know if it's actually realistic
whereas they see something that's challenging but within the Realms of what they could work
up to relatable and engaging yeah yeah and that's why I see like in in body weight training you see
a lot of success when coaches show um their clients like really just step by step how to
get there like it's it's phenomenal to see it and then travel it but for sure on the mobility joint
protection side I think that was like a much less understood area that it it still breaks down to
scalability just as a good coach is going to feel confident to help someone do a chin up I'm going
to feel confident to make the knee more protected for sport or whatever it is yeah yeah and people
should have confidence knowing that even though they're not doing the end stage just say you can't
do a body weight pull up yet and you're working on band stuff or negatives you are still getting
the same benefits and changes to your body as someone that's doing the advanced movement so
once you can humble yourself understand accept and embrace the process of starting at the regression
with something that you can manage you'll see progress you'll transform you'll get all the
changes to your body and that's that's a key key takeaway what advice would you have for people
who are returning from an injury so returning from an injury I like to think of it you might think oh
um we get you back to sport in four months versus eight months in the system no no like I actually
do the opposite I I would say look if you already like had an intro in that sport take your time and
get to the point where you have like more ability than you had then so something like like a Nordic
hamstring curl be able to own yourself better than you could before the injury happened the
step up so I'm not looking for like how quickly can we reach certain bass lines to return to
sport like why is life's not worth living that way like don't take it so seriously don't take
rushing back to sports so seriously try to build beyond the level of abilities you had even before
injury and then you you might completely change the trajectory of the rest of the career or sport
even if it's just for like recreational enjoyment you can enjoy it at a whole different level how
about the mindset because you'd be dealing with a lot of people who have reached huts and they've
had certain strength muscularity range of motion and to be injured requires a different approach
and it's very normal for people to feel a bit depressed and find the journey quite arduous what
what mentality do you advise to people yeah the journey is tough I've learned this with so many
athletes coming to me the journey is tough when you're injured in that recovery period you have
a huge opportunity to change your knowledge think of the videos on your channel and my channel when
you're doing well and you're you're playing good and stuff like you might not really have the time
for that when you're injured you now have a unique opportunity to completely level up your knowledge
I think that's the only thing that can really keep you going because if you're just in the injury it
takes certain injuries take recovery time think of a broken bone or I mean there's so many different
injuries and that is that it is a depressing state by Nature you're not able to be active and do the
things you want to do so that's your chance to level up your knowledge make sure that you come
out of the injury with way more knowledge than you had before and then before going back into
the sport make sure you have way more ability than you had before because if you're just getting back
to the same baselines you had before I remember with my knees I was kind of terrified because
even in rehab I was only getting up to the level I had before and the level I had before wasn't
enough to protect me so it's like it was pretty terrible fine um but then as I start once I got
like way more abilities like oh wow I couldn't do that before with my knee now I can do that in
training that doesn't hurt then it was like oh wow this is feeling different on the court and at that
point screw it you know go for it and have fun yeah you really do have to say it as a blessing
in some way otherwise you'll just feel mopey Moody and you'll you'll stagnate and you might
even make the same mistakes once again and I've realized from my own injuries in the past whether
it's overuse from tendonitis tendinopathy in the elbows it it absolutely forces you to take stock
of what you're doing maybe I'm my volumes too much my frequencies too much my excellent exercise
selection isn't optimal and you come out of it better because I don't think anyone watching or
listening lacks motivation I think we have quite driven audiences that that want to improve and
that can also be to your detriment so an injury from my experience and seeing other people is
a Shining Light if you're willing to as you said learn from it and direct your energy to optimizing
areas that weren't I know for myself I improved my sleep and Recovery I started tweaking my nutrition
when I was Upper Limb injury I could focus on learning all this stuff about legs so there's
there's always something that you can do after you overcome that initial grief that you should
feel when you when you do get injured and move on this episode is sponsored by Fitness FAQs become
a body weight Beast with our cow snakes workouts use the coupon code podcast 10 at checkout to save
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enjoy the gains for the lower back this is an area that can have issues for some people whether they
have acute pain or chronic pain when it comes to bulletproofing the back how can we go about this
all right I've been working at this one a lot because of people doing the knee ability zero
and then saying that it fixed their chronic back issues so I've worked with them in person Tracked
Down the clues and here's the best I've got for the back it won't be as smooth but we're getting
somewhere with this first off the back seems to be really mysterious for people like it'll it'll
get injured in such random times that it's so mysterious of why they hurt the back theory on
that is that the back is right here so let's say let's say the hip flexor is shortened all right
that's one strike against you now let's say uh you grew up playing a sport where you're
always turning a certain way you might have a total imbalance in the ql the ql is a muscle
that attaches it's it's deep it's like one of the deepest muscles by the lower spine so you
may have an imbalance you might not even see it you may have a strength in mobility and balance
in one side tight hip flexors then add in you know uh that that mid spine up here is often
pulled forward all the sitting people who sit more have a spine that they can't extend as much so
you have all these things now fast forward all the way to sometimes I'll see like an old lady get up
they're sitting down and they get up and they walk out and it's like oh that's why the back is such
a problem for I mean it's literally it's like this Center bursting point of the body so we're already
starting with the center bursting point so even if you were doing the best supplements to reduce
inflammation or whatever and getting injections into the back and and even exercises for the back
the number one exercise the the top exercise so even if you think you're doing everything right
for the back but if everything around it is jacked up and out of the Natural Balance like your back
is taking more of a beating to begin with so the average the average human walking out and about
simply has a back that has more stress on it than it's supposed to have so so let's go over
this Foundation lengthening the hip flexor so split squat is there we then do a seated good
morning exercise so we're using loads to stretch into the adductors think like like children have
that the crazy addict or Mobility so now as those addicts are stiffen up that means like
in life if you even go to squat down split squats tight seated good morning is tight more pressure
on the back so you see someone you see someone squat like this that is directly opening up the
adductors with the seated good morning plus the split squat the and the ankle work that equals
like well now I could I could pick up that item without being in this position so you start there
with hip flexors of the full range split squat open up the adductors with seated good morning
you can progress dumbbells someone may need a bar to stretch even more now you get up and you
have you have the lower abs so we we think hip flexors like we don't want to just be strong in
a six-pack and weaken the lower ab and then we do exercises we get on the the back extension we
we lift weights to stretch the ql that's one that people often get really sore on or have
differences between sides so we train the ql and we do then train the ability notice with the seat
of good morning I'm trying not to round the back so see a good morning is is how good is everything
below the back so the back doesn't have to round then we do exercises where we now are trying to
round the back so we want to we want to have in moderation ability with the back rounded so so
far we've done hip flexors adductors meaning we've done what's under the back then we did low AB ql
low backs we did what's around the back and then we finish with we now have we have the upper back
we have that that thoracic spine so the ability of the back to go that way and to be strong
in that position so for people that are listening and watching I'm just watching Ben uh explain
everything while doing a full back bridge and it's fantastic thank you so so there's eight
things that's our like I just showed you our back program there's our back ability program
because we're addressing all these things that would relate to the back so only one of those
eight was the lower back so that's I think that's why the back oven doesn't solve because it's the
center point of the body so every single thing that's connecting to the back it's even more
variables than the knee like the knee okay we also do the Nordic the tibialis the calves so there's
some variables with the back if there's even more variables than the a little bit more variables
it's that whole idea of not just looking at the lower back as the main cause and the main thing
to fix it's looking at the body as a kinetic chain which I feel you've just outlined in a
really excellent way of looking okay what's around the lower back we've got the core muscles we've
got the hip flexors we have the uh lower back itself to address as a final piece but there's so
many things you can look at trying to improve and address before even going to the most obvious one
with the sated good morning why are we doing that for adductors instead of say standing
well I think I think um say a standing good morning I think it's totally fine
standing good morning I think would go in a category of back exercises seated good morning
the reasons I like this one is that number one you could start with dumbbell so it's like it's easier
to start grooving in and start training the back we're just starting from a stand like starting
from a standing good morning position you're going to experience like a lot of force on the back even
just to get into it so I've seen I've seen more injury with the standing good morning to see a
good morning it doesn't mean that standing where is not a fantastic exercise it also stretches
the hamstring but the seat of good morning we can start with dumbbells and it's easier to find other
tools to strengthen the hamstrings through stretch positions it's harder to find tools to strengthen
those adductors through stretch positions so with this we can accomplish two and one and it's just
a bit more foundational so if you look at like if you look at the Torso and the thigh this is
the closest like that the Torso and the thigh come together so we're strengthening the back it's what
we've seen is like you get stronger on a c good morning stronger more mobile like you get better
in that position than every other position out from that gets easier so a c to good morning we
then see a nice carryover if someone then like for even stronger back and stronger hamstrings like
standing good morning will be fine in our system we would use Romanian deadlift because again we
could kind of start with dumbbells easier and get into it so we would use a seated good morning and
a standing Romanian deadlift to accomplish those purposes but it doesn't mean that like
like I love the standing good morning I think the standing good morning is awesome but you
all you will notice a difference between standing good morning and Romanian deadlift where you feel
it more in the hamstring and then with the seated good morning you'll feel it more in the adductors
and it all comes back to once again no right or wrong exercises it's down to scalability
regressions and progressions and I say that the sated good morning as a great exercise because
you've constrained the movement pattern there's a little bit less skill a little bit less complexity
and coordination because you're glutes are fixed you're seated it allows you to set your shin angle
and then move as a fulcrum from the back there there's just a little bit less room for error
as an initial starting point because we're having this discussion about the lower back people that
have low back pain problems or weakness tend to not have the best movement strategies by default
so starting with that seated good morning seems like a really sound choice I love when something
like the tibialis race you can just start against the wall unfortunately some movements take a bit
more equipment than others but I will show you like a lot of gyms thank you sir a lot of gyms
have a a bench that inclines so I want to show you I was training like a really tall athlete
one time and super stiff in the adductors and working on CD good morning I was like
sometimes with the regression you're almost like is it okay to regress that law and so it's like
wait like so I had him so like holding holding dumbbells we'd put the bench 45 degree and he
just started here so start the bench for like what do you have to lose if you do this like
we do it twice a week in the back program like what do you have to lose if you just take your
time and six weeks from now try like there's you have nothing to lose by just starting a bit
more regress so take dumbbells you're feeling the stretch then as you get a little bit more
mobile now you can go down to 30 degree you'll notice based on this angle my ankle is just in
front of the knee that tends to make sure that you're not like trying to with this one you're
actually trying to lock in the stretch on the posterior and the adductor so we go ankle just
in front of me so ankle just in front of me and your truck your intent is actually getting the
abdomen to the bench not rounding the chest to the bench so you're here feeling that stretch
okay 30 degree then 15 degree so even getting if you're a taller person even getting to 15 degrees
is phenomenal because your leg is in a tougher position so guys who are six seven six eight
whatever they're I'm like this is phenomenal if they can even get to 15 degrees and then someone
more moderate height then maybe maybe they could get down like to flat bench without rounding the
spine so if you think see to good morning flat bench bar on back well you could start that at
45 degrees with dumbbells in your hands and be building up all these areas and tissues but yeah
like it comes back to movement quality as well because you could get someone that's really tall
wake or lacks flexibility and I could get quite deep range in a state of good morning but they're
not using the right movement strategy they're bending so much from the lumbar spine which
isn't the purpose of the movement your whole idea here is don't be ashamed to regress it to a point
where you can use that proper hinging motion and a upright posture now you spoke about the core
traditionally people think of the anterior ABS or the back extensors you were talking about the
ql slash oblique area why is this important for the lower back there you have so you have these
muscles on either side of the spine quadratus lumborum so it's like a quad think like four-sided
so it's like these blocky muscles one on either side of your spine and so when your body goes
this way that muscle stretches and when it goes this way it contracts most of us have grown up
playing a sport where we were without realizing it working one side differently than the other so
you think baseball throwing kicking so it could be imbalanced it's also just a thing that in
the body if we're doing all these rigid motions building squats deadlifts things of that nature
and not training that muscle so okay if we're if we're if the ABS are getting stronger if the
lower back muscles are getting stronger but now if those qls are not getting stronger it's just
creating an imbalance so it may seem tedious to do something like that it's not like I force that in
every program but if someone is trying to overcome something with the back it's an important Stone to
overturn because it's right there it's probably really weak when people start doing it they often
get that that newbie soreness as if they've never trained it I think it works pretty well
like the version where you hold something in your hand and you twist I like to have people reach as
high as they can to make sure they're really like stretching here so if the weight was in this hand
they're reaching as high as they can oftentimes a right hand in person doesn't realize they're like
two inches shorter reach with the left arm so just from a lifetime of like if it's basketball most
basketball players can't reach as high with the with the left arm and so you load it and you start
you start strengthening so you would go from here reach so you could start this with just a dumbbell
you then get on a 45 degree back extension machine and you really feel it in there so we like um like
for my mom we would set up the 45 degree back extension machine and then we set up the bench
there so she can actually like put the hands until she can handle her own body weight so you still
have this scalability some of these things though like you walk into a gym machine scale but like
Mobility where's the mobility machine like there's not there's not like scalable Mobility equipment
so some of the stuff you do have to get a bit inventive but once you get the hang of it uh then
it's not too bad so we can play around with range of motion we can increase weight is there anything
else you'd recommend concerning core training to keep it fun or make it even more effective I mean
the the most consistent weak points I find in in the core are the qls those ones on the side
and then like the lower ab hip flexor area and some people say oh you can't isolate the low AB
or something I don't think with any exercise I'm trying to isolate anything I'm trying to be strong
everywhere but when you start resisting from the feet for your your core training like something
like that low cable exercise we do um people end up sore in the lower abdomen for like days after
so okay so you're playing around with different resistance methods whether using external weights
or body weight to do the same type of movement pen yeah I mean if someone's never done hanging leg
raises before or something and they do a bunch of reps they might notice that they might be sore in
some of the lower ab area we definitely notice that when we're lying on our backs holding on
to something hooked up to a cable and and having to drive both the knees to the chest you really
feeling that lower so it's almost like the most common weak point is from the belly button Below
in the in the abdomen area below the belly button and in those qls and I'm trying to do even though
it seems like a lot of things I'm still trying to keep it as few as I can so like what I explained
there with the eight different exercises um relating to the back like that is that is what
we do for the core like someone could add more if they want to but I don't force more than that I'm
really glad you mentioned that point there because people will hear this chat they'll
hear your enthusiasm and energy you're spitting all these facts and lots of different exercises
but it's not actually a lot when you think about it because you're saying regressions and
progressions for a movement so all those seated good morning movements are hinges so it's not as
if you're randomly doing some different exercise you've got a goal for an area of the body you're
choosing an exercise which suits that based on your level goals Etc and going with that I really
am glad you mentioned that because I feel a lot of people get insecure with how many exercise options
there are and variation and changing things all the time you're not doing that you're progressing
a movement pattern and that's why you're seeing growth I appreciate that yeah I personally and
do the same movements year after year um lots of intention on them and then I think for someone
else out there who has other movements they like to do if you explore them learn them keep what
you know keep what you like in your routine reject what you don't it's not like someone has to start
doing all of them maybe someone for example uses the seated good morning to enhance let's
say they like deep squatting with a barbell to see the good morning could enhance that Mobility
at which point the simply by squatting they would probably then maintain whatever Mobility they had
gained from the seat of good morning so it's not like you have to do every single movement forever
I've kind of fallen in love with just being able to play basketball and not have aches and pains
and be athletic and so almost all my training like the things I've described for me are not accessory
like that this is my exercise like all the things I described is how I burn the calories one little
difference is we start every workout with Sleds on the turf and over our weekly volume we do at least
as much backward as like you walk in the gym the first thing is sledding every session why because
the moment you start to lean against the sled the sled will move so regardless of someone's
Fitness level overweight this that the other we can get them sledding we can get any age sledding
if someone thinks they can't even sled they can usually hold on and start spinning like if someone
if someone didn't think they could walk backward with a sled just from the like the balance of it
like someone in their 70s 80s they can get on the the treadmill hold on and then they find they can
start to like they can actually start to get a burn in those muscles but and with the forward
sled and like anyone can do it because literally you start to lean on it so actually if someone's
overweight the sled is easier because of their weight and every other cardio method go for a run
and then your knee hurts and you look up on Google and it's like what do I do about knee pain the
only thing Google says you can do is lose weight but then like wait a second I hurt my knees trying
to lose weight so the sled is cool and it's like like everyone can win on the sled also every step
whether forward or backward you're pushing through your toes so most people have much weaker feet and
ankles they haven't gone all right if you went to the gym and you did a bodybuilders leg day let's
say you did squat leg press leg extension leg curl uh you just did you didn't load through your feet
through any of those things so the moment you're pushing a sled forward or going backward with it
you're strengthening through the feet so we find the feet make soap so many people overcome plantar
fasciitis and heel pains and big toe pains and chronic foot pains because of the sledding you
also end up getting cardio you get conditioning effect you get the knee rehab effect of going
backward so in a single movement we're able to gently get so much circulation going and with that
crazy amount of circulation we now see smoother results from getting into the mobilizing so the
first thing we do is sled and that does add to the overall Fitness effect it does make it easier for
me the rest of my training I can be focusing on these detailed uh movements and abilities I want
my body to have I don't have to do as much like General cardio and general strengthening because
the legs the lungs get the legs and lungs both get like really unbelievable off all the sledding
I can see all those benefits of backwards walking and the sledding in particular thanks to the the
bracing and stability which allows you to really get that terminal knee extension all those foot
benefits you've just described what about the people that lack equipment that don't
have anything fancy mate can they still get these benefits on a treadmill then number one question
what do I do without a sled that was the original impetus behind 25 tibialis race 25 scales one or
two legs straight leg calf raise 25 scales one or two leg bent knee calf raise we see a
tremendous amount of foot and ankle strengthening tremendous amount of circulation particularly if
you have somewhere that you can be backward walking or running or dragging something or
using like this is this is much cheaper than a treadmill because this doesn't have electricity
but if you are at a hotel gym or any gym with a treadmill you can often go up to it not turn
it on it may have a little bit of resistance and so you could now go we find like if you go five
minutes of that resistance like a lot of people have fixed chronic knee pain off just their the
basic treadmill that's there not turning it on spinning the belt backward for five minutes so
those would be the most common Solutions is okay you don't have a sled use the treadmill not turned
on spin it backward five minutes do your your first three exercises for the ankle you're now
improving at those qualities that you would get from a sled fantastic thanks for outlining that
no equipment minimalist approach I really like having options where anyone can do it regardless
of age uh being able to afford certain things or just access to a facility but the concern that I
can see people thinking is won't that ruin my treadmill if I have the the power off is that
a common thing you get to well hopefully by this point explaining everything I know about
everything with nothing held back hopefully by this point people will understand the context you
can see like this is lightweight it has variable resistance it folds up like that's why eventually
it's like we literally have to make a solution for it so this is it's not thousands of dollars
it's hundreds of dollars to make and I'm sure the price will come down as time goes so the variable
resistance I mean you can crank this to where like to where like you can oh like barely move it like
this like this is intense amount of resistance but then you can also go lighter to where like
grandmas are coming in and totally winning on this backward treadmill and it's way cheaper than one
with electricity because yeah like the ones with electricity sometimes the gym owners are pissed
um because I guess if you spin it backward when it's not turned on it can mess it up so
my my answer used to be look I'm for the human not the machine I'd rather I'd rather break a
treadmill and IT service is someone to train their knees you could even go on Craigslist
you might find a broken treadmill so I used to like go on Craigslist and I would just find for
home like a treadmill that no longer works and I would use that um but eventually it's like it is
the number one question by far many gyms do have sleds uh some treadmill some gym owners
will use the treadmill but think about even from home uh it's like it's the number one barrier is
not having a sled or some method of doing that so honestly I think depending on when someone
sees this like if someone sees this a year after we release it I'll bet like a dozen companies
are making something like this by that point just an affordable no electricity as cheap as you can
make it internal resistance backward treadmill so you can get backward sledding from anywhere
so upper back stiffness in the thoracic spine is a really common problem what have you found
the most effective ways for increasing range of motion in that area so I love um I love holding
a dumbbell and working on a pullover where you're using the bench as sort of a to create a tug point
between the hip and and the shoulder now a lot of people um feel uncomfortable in that position
like they feel they feel unstable and by a lot I mean I'd say the majority of people still have
no issue with it but I'll even even 10 is still a lot of people so I love a dumbbell pullover
um someone at really low levels could just get in against a wall and actually just start like
building up like literally just working out of that position you can get in on a cable machine a
cable machine to get into like a standing pullover can feel a lot better but ultimately I'm trying to
progress people into being able to do a dumbbell pullover quite frankly I want to study that one
more in terms of calisthenics on getting into a bridge because I think to understand that
more Philly I think if someone looks at every regression option for example we can get people
um with the pullover we've seen that we can get people they often will feel more comfortable here
like here they can they can conference bench yeah so they can they can often get into it better that
way than just going cross bed so in line with bench is going to be less tough like less uh
intense than cross bench cross bench will be more intense like I want people to to wind up where
they feel comfortable working on a bridge but I don't I haven't put the time into that one like
I have in Denise so I think to fully understand it like with knees how I understand like the machine
side the free weight side the body weight side I think I need to understand the body weight side
better do you have any tips on that I'd be happy to jump in because I invested a ton of time into
improving the back bridge because with with calisthenics we tend to get quite Catholic
through the thoracic we're doing a ton of vertical pull-ups we're doing a lot of rows that the lats
get so tight and they really pull us pull us down we don't get as much spine extension so I've also
found the pullover movement phenomenal and I'm glad that you've you phrased that point the key
thing is comfort as you said because by nature of us being steer for weak through that thoracic
we're going to be quite apprehensive well there's normal to feel a lot of like breath holding
limited range when we're moving and I've found that getting the right shoulder set up is key
so sometimes dumbbell is too narrow of a grip for holding overhead especially in bigger guys such as
myself I'm six foot tall and quite wider shoulders so I've found that using a dowel or a stick with
a weight in the middle allows me to choose a comfortable grip to actually get enough range
of motion and weight going backwards so I'm I'm all for the way to pull over with external weight
as a gentle way to to open up and the progression I try and get people on Ace up is actually a body
weight pullover so if you can picture this you've got the same setup on the bench as a fulcrum for
your spine you've got your hands fixed behind you on something like a Smith machine or a barbell in
a rack so that the hands aren't moving they're fixed overhead and you're doing the pull over
motion by letting your hips and lumbar spine Arch so you're getting that Global extension
through the thoracic and the way I like to scale this Bend is for beginners doing isometrics is
really safe so you're in the position it's it's deep but it's tolerable you do it for a set of
say 15 to 30 seconds you're yielding a bit deeper with each breath not going so far that you can't
pull out and that's that's the starting point over time you're doing reps where you're going
deep and deep into range of motion and this ties in everything we've said with the lower body where
stretching what's tight strengthening what's weak and doing that through a full range of motion yep
beautiful I'm going to work on that one um and yeah I mean for me like basketball is my sport
pullover's my favorite upper body exercise it gives me the it gives me like for for jumping
like we for jumping we want upper body Mobility we want to be able to move the shoulders very easily
so so so pullovers and like body weight training like being proficient at dips and chins is kind
of The Sweet Spot I find for someone who wants to be in like like maximum speed and jumping is
Matt is trying to master your body weight and and also having that pullover for the mobility
100 and tying this in with something more local to the spine itself and the erector
muscles would be just something standard like a a back bent like a standing backbend you would
be surprised how challenging this is for the anterior core so as you're stretching
and strengthening through those anterior abs and also your spinal Erectors they're not used
to extending the back to that deep range of motion so by doing a combination of pullovers
whether body weight or with a external weight dumbbells Etc plus standing extensions that is
the two-fold approach I found for really getting uh thoracic extension on point and as you've said
throughout this podcast Ben it's not not a ton of exercise there's there's two movements it's
just regress to progress be consistent and apply a normal strength training principles
and actually I nearly forgot um so anywhere in the in the 35 range where 30 to 45 range wherever
is comfortable or even on a back extension machine and just holding the body straight
um we do pullovers in conjunction with training the opposite of a pullover so yeah so
imagine I should have for the demo I should have had dumbbells out here but if you imagine
having dumbbells you want to grab a couple so it might not seem like much but if you if you
use at least 10 of what your body weighs and then you're actually trying to hold your arms straight
and control it down someone could start as light as they want you could start with just your arms
and actually fighting the the eccentrics you're you're getting yourself the traditional exercise
is you're raising like this but most people will feel limited through the shoulder that they can't
really engage you're actually trying to train those lower traps but if you get yourself if you
so if you do it as eccentric training if you get yourself into position and then fight fight fight
fight fight fight you can get super strong between uh right there that those lower track so it's not
exactly lower back and it's not actually like scapular retractors it's it's that right there
it's your actual lower trap so when we do when we do pull over we do it always in superset with
that trap 3 race meaning uh the like you have the Trap muscles here you have three rows of
traps that third row is the one right above so we wanna we wanna not just stretch with the pullover
we then want to be super strong on the other side so we do and we've seen that doing it as
eccentric training people often then really feel it working so think like think like five reps but
five seconds down on each rep something like that they can often feel more than just like a set of
ten or something and trying to raise the arms not that that wouldn't work but when you get yourself
into position and then you're fighting fighting fighting you can often feel it love it that's
that whole Agonist antagonist approach where he's comprehensive from both sides of the body
and just supersetting it is a great way to Mac H subsequent set feel better I'm sure that you
found that when you do a trap raise eccentric with a pullover as you get to that second or
third set that's when you truly get your full range lack of apprehension everything's firing
correctly and I'm really happy that you mentioned that two-sided approach to training because if you
just do one you're missing out an important piece of the puzzle yep yeah it's not an either or it's
not strength or stretch and it's not one side of the body or the other so that's a little detail
it's taken us a while from like really working with people to find that the pullover when you
then do the opposite and you're actually trying to be strong that way not just strong that way but
strong that way it seems to go really smoothly and this is the complexity of training which keeps us
always trying to find out what's optimal even though that's something it's like a dragon you're
trying to chase you'll never get there but people will always have one area that needs more work
than the other it's not often where someone needs to do pullovers and trap raises to the exact same
extent you'll find that if you put more work into one it's going to improve your body as a whole so
just keep that in mind the the main takeaway here is unfortunately the thing that you're weak at the
thing that feels the most uncomfortable it's going to have generally the biggest impact on
your your body as a result and that's the thing that the probably the majority of people haven't
realized how much magic there is an exercise there that the the things that they feel they can't do
is actually like where they have the most room to gain and so maybe you know maybe eight maybe eight
different things for the lower back seems like a lot but if you balance that out over a schedule
and if you weigh the fact that many people are saving tens of thousands of dollars on physical
therapy not to mention surgeries like if you add up some people are taking a dozen supplements and
seeing this person on this day so so the level of complexity to me it's cool that with the exercise
you're trying to create a body that is actually built to have less chance of pain and issue like
to me that's cool that's like that's exponential investment so that's what I see is that the
time on these Concepts that we're covering is is literally I think of it like investing in the body
it gets easier it gets easier and easier over it's so easy for me now to maintain all these different
abilities yes um yes exactly and it's the idea of being proactive and seeing those first signs of
success or winning is what matters so much because the instant approach is taking a drug or seeing
someone to to fix your body but once you get that affirmation in yourself that you have the ability
to transform your own body through exercise alone wow that's powerful stuff and it's just a matter
of educating yourself and having the discipline to do the work I found a very similar finding
with the side splits I spent a couple years trying to increase my range of motion doing
the side splits doing all the stuff around it such as horse stance and Butterfly stretch to open up
the groin once you build that base and you're doing exercises that involve the adductors you
can just pop into a cult and without even having to go into the side splits itself so just drilling
this home that although this stuff to some people might seem a little bit unusual unconventional and
it seems like a lot of work which which it is I mean it's easier to just go to the gym jump on a
machine pump out exercises on various different things and call it a day but by transforming
your body that hard work doesn't require much to maintain you through life yeah that's amazing and
even to give someone some optimism on that quite literally close to a hundred years ago they were
making machines in gyms that that were rounded and so you would get in and it would actually like you
would unwind the spine so just because the machine culture has built up a certain way and makes it
very easy to train strength but tougher to train Mobility it there's actually like there's actually
a bright future for these things um I think over the next decade we'll see where where people who
it seems like these concepts are tough to get into where they actually could go get into a machine
and start working on strength through stretch positions let's talk a little bit about shoulder
strengths what rotator cuff or scapular exercises have you found most effective for upper body yeah
so our foundational one you can do it sitting on a bench or sitting on the floor the elbow rests
on the vast medialis everything in the body is trying to be like a statue as you rotate down and
then you're rotating up by facing that leg it's much tougher than as you turn the body this way
I actually like all of those positions so we start here and as you start to get to failure to do it
facing your arm you turn a little bit and then a little bit as the set goes so in one mechanical
drop set you can get really strong in the external rotators most people the external rotators
um are a weak point like in the upper body so we try to make people really really strong in those
external rotators a dumbbell is is great I think a dumbbell is all you need to get really strong
external rotators there's there's further stuff that people could do but once someone realizes
that there's no wrong position in the external rotation and that you could start you can go from
here and as you hit failure gradually turn working through that full uh little you know rotation
there I find builds them well we could discuss and debate different external rotation exercises
until the cows come home some people say dumbbells aren't effective you should use machines don't use
bands because the resistance profile the takeaway is training the external rotators is an important
aspect what have you found the benefits of doing external rotation is for upper body strength or
flexibility well I got into it because uh with myself from in my position in basketball I was
trying to be really good at passing the ball and I would pass against a wall like as hard as I
could over and over and I wound up with shoulder tendonitis I found external rotation was all I
needed to get rid of the shoulder 10 ice that was it now then working with baseball players just his
knees were like ruining my life I started working with some baseball players that shoulders were
ruining their lives and having overcome my knees I'm like okay it's similar principles here and so
between external rotation and then I was showing that trap 3 race that that we were looking at
I mean even with those two alone and you could add more to that you're getting a lot of the opposite
of throwing a baseball so throwing is one of the most shoulder surgery producing activities so it's
almost like a math equation of how strong are you in Reverse of the the impact they're putting into
the shoulder so it what I find usually with the shoulder is a gross underestimation of how strong
you need to be and how strong you could get in the opposite of your throwing motion or whatever
whatever motion is hurting in the opposite of that so the external rotation the Trap three Rays there
almost never trained growing up in when you start lifting weights and things like that so again
it's it's sort of by looking just at the main bodybuilding exercises you could be manufacturing
imbalances of your ability to actually hold your shoulder in place or Express things without your
shoulder being in pain so those are are the big two and and someone could do more but
again fundamentally you made me think of this a couple times the stuff you're saying like I
I don't believe in any wrong exercise so those are ones I found to work well but you're never
going to catch me in the debates of you're never going to see a video says don't do this or don't
do that look it's all exercise and the more I learn about it the more I come to understand that
you can use exercise to balance the body so it's almost like you want to be you want
to be capable everywhere that's to me that's the secret is to realize that it's not about
debating things it's about having no weak or tight links that's one of the main principles I've taken
away from speaking to you is this idea of moving towards balance training both sides trying to
adjust address weak links as we know tons of up body exercises are internal rotation internal
rotation push-ups bench press pulling movements it's notoriously very dominant our daily postures
internally rotated although there's not a ton of research saying that yes external rotation
is the is the cure-all if you do that you'll never have problems it's just diversifying what you're
doing and just making sure that you've got a comprehensive body so it makes sense to train
the external rotators on the back of that rotator cuff for that very reason and I've just found
from working with overhead athletes or people working on overhead press handstand push-ups
the rotator cuff particularly the external rotators are a dynamic stabilizer of the
shoulder when we're doing these movements overhead we can keep grinding away at the
compound lifts and that's a good way to get stronger and improve but
Time and Time Again by just doing some rotator cuff work through external rotation improves the
structural integrity and balance of your shoulder and it just allows you to achieve your greater
potential or your strength potential because we know that the body is very smart it tries
to protect us from Pain and injury and it does that by reducing Force so by working on that I've
found time and time again people's overhead press improves the handstand push-ups improve because
they're more stable and their body doesn't have apprehension so it's able to produce more Force
yeah there it's so fun when when you find some of these things and you experience that and it's
like that it is one it's like it's kind of like a cheat code in the upper body of being able to push
yourself and make upper body improvements without breakdown is being really strong in those external
rotators another one if someone um so so we do that one we also imagine if you're sitting across
from a cable machine we we hold a rope and as we as we bring it in um we not only pull it back we
rip the Rope apart so I'm actually trying to get uh like the the metal part of the of the Rope on a
Facebook like all the way to the upper neck right there so so some people they'll they'll even think
at first they'll be like oh I don't go that far but if you lighten the load all of a sudden those
those everything starts working areas they haven't really worked and they can get that far so we use
a few measurements the external rotation trying to have trying to be able to handle a minimum
of 10 of your body weight strictly on external rotation is a minimum and then we actually get
people like we see for uh really athletic guys they're actually handling half body weight no
problem ripping that rope apart on a Facebook then you see often the guys who've been working out but
have shoulder pains like the non-natural freak athlete who's been working out really hard often
is like super weak and tight on a on a measurable face pull like that so some people enjoy the face
pull because it's a bit less tedious than the dumbbell having to do one side at a time we we
do both for good measure but yes like like here with a dumbbell this is more tedious working that
eccentric staying on the way up then you have to go and train the other side so we do in in
our shoulder ability we do this and we do the face pull but depending on like someone's goals
um the face pull might suit like a bodybuilding goal more because you can get in there you can
pump it out a bit more that's exactly what I was going to say and that's one of the downsides of
these more re-happy based exercises that's generally where people put them in that camp
even though you're saying build up your strength get to 10 of your body weight people just for
some reason don't like doing rehab stuff their adherence and consistency long term just isn't
there so a smart way of integrating that is with the face pull granted it's not as localized in
that pure external rotation but hey at the end of the day I'm about people doing their homework and
the face pull is an exercise where you can sell it better it's okay you're you're going to mitigate
injury risk because you're strengthening external rotators but you're also doing an exercise that's
going to help with muscle mass hypertrophy in the posterior adults upper back it's easier to
sell that in a routine and still get those fringe benefits so this is always something we need to
consider when we're going through these exercise discussions yeah it's it's nice to have a nice
toolbox so for the person who wants maximum you you know how to deliver that but then also you're
delivering the idea is to just be like uplifting exercise as a whole not creating factions or
problems for people but giving people Solutions so it's nice to have like a variety of solutions
so from the sled from the backwards sledding to the face pulls like a variety of solutions
that someone can get in get a pump add it to any routine smoothly I think it's I think that matters
versus just saying oh no you can't you know this isn't for you definitely last question for you
Ben I'm gonna give you a a curveball here mate let's let's see what you got here so what do what
are some of the common myths or misconceptions when it comes to knees over Toes or atg system
is there anything that you'd like to clear up well the the first myth of needs over toes I don't know
if that's you know too obvious but the the idea is it was found that um that when the knee goes over
the toe there's more there's more pressure on the knee so knee over toe more pressure on the knee
that was in 1978 that that was found this create a pretty big ripple effect like I grew up here in
America and it was like you go to a strength I was like don't let your knees over your toes in
training and so uh but then from the moment we go backward and we start to find out that that
position actually provides a way to be able to handle that pressure so yeah if you're talking
about the basic knees over toe Smith the finding that knee over chose more pressure on the knee
should have been used in order to figure out how to protect that position not avoid that
position so it's just a the finding was correct but what to do about it running running from a
problem we're seeing is maybe not as good as uh you know in most areas I'm saying it works out
better to master and understand how to face a problem rather than running from a problem and
it's the same with a I made atg yeah it's called athletic truth group that was just a name to make
up I was just trying to find an acronym with atg because atg is is like ass to grasp meaning full
range of motion so it's the same thing of course if if full range of motion hurts we're not saying
to do that but there's long-term Studies have been done now and it's found that actually full range
of motion doesn't wear down the knee actually it prevents breakdown of the knee compared to
avoiding full range of motion so uh it's similar knees over toes and atg astrograst full range
knees over toes full range of motion these areas of pressure the idea is to build toward
you can handle those so if you have someone who forces into it or avoids it completely I don't see
those work out as well as just taking your time to be able to handle those positions that whole
notion of this or that right or wrong without any elaboration on Nuance or context is something that
once you understand that as a fitness consumer geez that that liberates you from a lot of gurus
or misinformation and you nailed it there with uh debunking some of those most popular myths
yeah yeah having gone through that now I can see a lot of different areas of life and you
can see the these intents this or that and you can actually see oftentimes like above those
arguments I encourage people not to get into the sides but to like see above that the answer is
usually going to be something like above what people are fighting on Ben Patrick it was an
absolute pleasure change you mate I think you've done tremendous things for the fitness industry
you've really pushed the needle in a positive direction if people want to keep learning more
about your work where can they find out more you're here on YouTube we do our best job on
on YouTube to put out you know something something that's really helpful each week we're really not
chasing the views so I would say head on over to that YouTube channel if you want to then do
programs and coaching go to atg onlinecoaching.com I think within a few months someone can Master the
forms and we we coach your form every single session no long-term contract so you can use
it for what you need and then use that data the rest of your life awesome thank you all right
thank you brother if you enjoyed that click here for another value-packed Fitness FAQs video peace
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