Have a lower body.
As gonna have a lower body station and I
think the pieces that I've got are going to be a little bit more of a demand
on managing your Center mastering these
tasks, but I'm also trying to use principles of
my model to be able to build it. So you do
this stuff competently. So the exercise we're
going to be doing is going to be a split squat.
But you know, I'm looking for a range of motion.
I'm looking to get people down to the bottom of that exercise. So,
you know, I'm gonna
demo over here
and and basically what I'm going to be looking to do
with people is get you warmed up on the exercise and
then have you do one set
where you work pretty hard, but it's
still kind of a figure it out set. And then I want you
to be able to do one set where you really push it to the
Limit and really take it as like a training set and approach
failure or hit failure on this exercise. So when
when I'm looking at warming this exercise up,
I really think using these is going to be incredibly helpful.
You know, I'm looking to build in.
Round with this exercise and to just create it
in a favorable manner so that you can really hit a
very vertical split squat. So I've set
this station up over here. I'm going to move this drink so I don't spill it
in the middle of this thing.
but
I've got a rear foot elevated support and I've tried
to make this pretty close to actually a split squat
rather than it being a rear foot elevated
split squat rear foot elevated split squats much more
difficult and
So as I get into this exercise, I've got
to heal wedge, which is going to bias me towards all
the expansion pieces that we've been going over the
past couple of days.
And if I'm able to be in more
of an expansion State I should be able to move vertically up and
down through space with my pelvis.
But I'll get in here.
I'll get my back foot on here. And I'm
gonna use these sticks to really help
ground me give me reference while I'm doing this exercise which is
going to dramatically increase the chances of competency.
I start with being just tall in the position that I'm
in and I want again not to be like I don't
teach this as like a leaning forward kind of
thing. I want this to be as vertical as possible. So
I'm gonna this is as tall and it's vertical as I
can get at the top now. I'm going to try to stay vertical and
descend and really keep
my knee over my foot. I actually
have to move this box a little bit more forward because I'm starting
to run into the box with my
back knee.
But as I descend, I'm really looking to
see like hey, can I really bring my butt
to my front heel how close to
that can I actually get?
This is about the bottom for me. But now that I've done
that I'm gonna try to go straight up.
I'm not going to come down and push back
away from it. I really kind of trap you
with this setup to where you can't do that as much
you can't really escape from this exercise, but it's
up and down instead of
hinging and doing something like
this this to me takes a lot of the burden
away from really loading this foot. I want
as much of me over the
foot at the bottom as I can get and then
once I find this pocket, I don't leave it
as I come up.
Now you might find that.
body weight
being supported by Sticks is going
to be plenty of load with this drill.
Okay.
If it's not enough weight by advice
would be keep one stick.
Add a dumbbell on the ipsilateral side.
That's gonna help load into this side
more and more and more.
So
Excuse me, for those of you just joining
on the virtual. This is the repeat thing of
the weekend where I try to talk and demo something and end
up wildly out of breath after.
With a combination of being sick and an altitude
so welcome to the weekend experience of
everyone else right now.
But what we've got here is three different stations one
two, and three
and I'd love for you guys to set it
up for yourself. So it's the right distance the right
height. There's plenty of dowels over there. So let's
start warming this up.
We're going to do.
A lower body push squatty pattern and then
some sort of hinge or leg curl. Your
options are going to be pendulum pack.
leg press or if you want to if you
want to do it as a squat because you know
You don't have access to equipment you train with just
whatever by all means.
Do something that will have carryover you can try
to squat bar. You can set up with wedges whatever but we're going for the most
quad dominant version of
whatever you do. So let's walk through the machines really
quick. We'll walk through the setup and just kind of how it
would get the most quads out of these different machines.
All right.
so the pendulum
is gonna perhaps be the furthest we
could go in terms of a quad bias, press not just
because we can get the knees forward. But because the
platform itself is gonna like basically shove us forward and
if we're being shoved forward, that means my foot has
to push back this way. So it's not just pushing me up
but it's gonna be pushing me back. So it makes
this motion essentially is much quads
the whole time as possible tax what's
gonna be you know, and the leg press are going
to be fairly similar and that still gonna be a lot of quads. But
because you're not forced to push up into
the platform like you are here. This has
two adjustments one is
forward to back what this
is gonna do is It's Gonna Change where you are in the ark.
So what you want is is this is coming
down.
Kind of pulling your butt to your heels. Okay, if it
feels like your butt's being pulled through your calf. Then
you might have the foot plate offset for your
height. So the shorter you are the further forward or
the more towards you you're going to bring the foot plate the tall
you are the further away, you will move the footplate
so that you're basically in the same part of
the arc regardless of how tall you are the
other adjustment that this has
Is the plantar flexion dorsiflexion setting which
you can adjust under here, but for the
most part I'm just going to suggest that you guys leave it on
the full plantar flexion setting unless for
whatever reason you feel that that's too much for you and you feel
unstable and you're like coming up on your toes. But before you would adjust
the plantar flexion, I would play around with your foot plate
and Smith first, so me.
Me somewhat average height.
Best compliment I can give myself there. I'm gonna
go in the middle. Okay, and what I'm going to try and do
is I'm going to try and pick a foot position where
my butt is gonna be coming towards my
heels at the bottom and I'm gonna still feel like
I can push through my whole foot not being up on my toe. So
as I'm coming through here my butt if it could
keep going with basically and right at the bottom of my heels. I'm not
feeling like I'm pushed up here, right? And so when I
press through the platform I'm able to press through my whole
foot and push my pelvis.
Into the backpack, okay.
If you haven't used a pendulum before right this
thing has a big long Arc.
You don't want to nose dive it regardless of what you see him do
right like control in the way down because
that weight behind me is going to pick up momentum fast if I
am coming down, okay.
The other thing with this is because it moves in an arcing motion.
It really isn't suitable for using
any sort of open stance where the needs would move
this way because the machine is moving in this plane on leg
presses and hack squats that move in a linear plane. We can
do those in multiple degrees of hip internal and
external rotation because they move straight up and down anything that
moves in an arc with it be like this machine or that
blue press machine right anything like that.
You pretty much want to keep everything lined up in
the sagittal plane because you don't
want your knee moving sideways to the force of the
machine. Okay, so that's the pendulum.
We're going to do a leg press.
If my goal is to make this is quad
dominant as possible. What I'm gonna
do is I'm going to use the lowest foot position that I can.
And still get full knee flexion.
For a lot of you guys you might have a leg press or ankle
Mobility becomes a limiting factor.
There's nothing wrong with Sissy.
A leg press meaning that if I'm pressed through
the balls of my foot here. I can come down like
this and now I can get full knee flexion and drive
through that. Okay, you have plenty.
Of stability the things not moving anywhere.
And who here can calf raise more than they can squat.
Everybody right? So you're here. Your plantar
flexion is not going to be the strength limiter on your knee on
your leg, press especially with this long of
a lever for your quads, right? You will not set a leg, press
PR down there compared to what you could do.
Up here. Okay, because this moves in a
linear path
If I'm in a little bit more narrow stance like this, this is
going to be quads and what's
the best synergist is going to be the glutes as I
start to open? It's going to move through the divisions of the glutes and
eventually become more adductor Magnus like
the vertical fibers are going to be the main things that are assisting and
that hip extension right if you don't believe me.
Has come down here. You guys should feel a
nice stretch in there. If you did anything on that drill that Pat
put you through yesterday. You should be easily be able to feel an
adductor stretch today. Okay?
questions on
the leg press okay.
both of these movements
put you in a severe mechanical disadvantage at the
bottom.
So a little bit of reverse banding might actually
make that profile a lot smoother while still
being hard at the bottom. So the pendulum there
you can set up the band on the counterbalance to
help that for this one as well as the hack squat.
The bands go over these rollers.
And attach here and then you pull them down on this little
hook here, right? So
he said I'm here.
over the top
and then come down. So what I
would do is as you're going through your warm-up.
Right get to a weight where you like? Okay, that might
be kind of challenging.
Bro a band on.
And a little bit more weight than the otherwise would have chosen.
See how that feels and then you can see if like well.
That's pretty good. Or maybe I would like a little bit more or less load
a little bit more or less band, right? The bands are
meant to change the ratio of where it's
hard.
but if you add the band you should also add the
appropriate amount of load right don't get
to your working set wait, then add the band and then
do 60 reps, right and no
30s on any of these not that any of you guys would choose that
option right on any of these that just be probably
miserable, right, but I would aim for
Somewhere and like that 8 to 12 range today
on these things both from a time and degree of
suffering, you know level, okay.
questions on
The leg press okay on both of
these Atlantis machines the red handle.
is the safety
this will fall automatically when you unwrack the machine.
And then you just got to pull it up when you're done. Okay, but don't
hold on to it when you're doing the exercise or you're just gonna pull right
down back into the safety. So just let that fall pull it
up and you're done the hack squat here. Okay.
Going for quads. So we're going to do is I'm going
to set this.
And the most plantarflex option so
that dorsiflexion likely is not going to be a Mobility.
If Stacy was in here last you get it, put it out of the child setting.
right
Okay.
So similar to there, I want to use the lowest
foot position that I
can to get the most quad bias. So for
me.
If I'm going flat-footed, it's gonna be somewhere about
in here right where I can come down. Basically what
I want to I want to be able to get to like
only flexion without my hips
getting too far below. Well, this would
be parallel if I was standing but basically perpendicular to
my torso as soon as
as soon as my femur starts coming this way.
I now start having to push that way similar to the
pendulum.
The difference is pushing backwards helps me move the pendulum pushing
backwards in here does not
really help me move this very much. So what ends up happening is it
actually makes me kind of fight the machine a little
bit at the bottom. So if I can get my feet nice and low, so basically
in my bottom position, my femur is 90
degrees in the plane of the machine. That means as
soon as I'm doing the extension it's shoving the machine that way
very efficiently if I'm like, if I were to do
you'll see sometimes people use a higher footstance and
still be able to get all the way low, but now
right here right? I'm actually pushing down in
the machines with my quad.
right
How do I standardize?
How much I'm fighting the Machine versus how
much I'm moving the weight.
Okay to me you're gonna set this
up.
I would rather set myself up to be efficiently working with
the machine and add the appropriate load then have
part of the lift being some ambiguous amount of me
pushing Against the Machine right so uses
low foot position as possible.
If you had a machine that didn't have a good foot plate
or whatever. You could Sissy a hack squat too.
I don't think anybody will need that with the amount
of plantar flexion that you can get in this machine. Okay
bands work the same way. Okay red
handle safety, right?
questions on the hack squash
Okay.
For a heel elevated squat. I don't think I
need to.
Go over that. We kind of you guys.
Went over that this weekend, but if you would like to use the
super squat bar or any of those and you
would rather set up a healing squat.
Use a heel elevation that is gonna allow you to get
your knees far as a it's not just about being able
to squat to full knee flexion. It's about being able to
have your knees further away from your center of mass then your ass.
Right, so I need to be able to be out like
this. I don't have to be straight up and down right? I could still
be like this right but my knees need to be forward, right?
Otherwise more of the resistance is gonna
be placed back here on the hips. I want to make sure that the
thing that fails
is quads
Okay.
cool
questions
All right for a hinge.
We can do RDL.
straight leg deadlift
Stiff, whatever you want to call it hinge you can do
the 45 right or if you would prefer to do a
knee flexion option today.
Either of the leg curl machines, right?
Does anybody need me to show them how to do a leg curl?
Okay, just checking.
Yeah.
Just here.
So we have two options.
Seated lying, okay.
her pivot base machines whether to be
arm curls leg curls leg extensions
the most important setup queue. Is that the axis
of your joint?
Is set up with the axis of the machine? Okay, that's going
to make sure that the pad stays in the same place on you
right that the torque that's being applied to you is similar
to the machine and the shear force from the machine is limited in
terms of like how much stress it's putting on the joint so that
you're really just loading the tissue. Okay and kick this
key Austin.
So for this one here, all of
these have the cam. I guess we you guys haven't
used any of these yet. So what this does, is it adjusts?
It accommodates the resistance. That's what it
does. Right? So if I have this on five
or three moving towards loading more
of the lengthened if I bring this onto the two side here,
it's moving more of the shortened. If you forget that really simple
put it on one side see where it's hard. You'll it'll
be very clear which end is hard in the short and which
hand is hard and the lengthen. Okay the hamstrings okay
from a strength perspective or just
knee flexion in general. So it's gonna include your calves or Sartorius
your dracilis your hamstrings all of those guys
together.
Is going to be stronger in the length of position. It's gonna
get weaker in the short position. So we're likely going to
choose like the five or the three setting on these
two machines, right if we're focusing on more of a
hypertrophy goal or even in most cases of strength goal,
okay?
The seated option here if I have this set.
So that it lines up with me. Okay, I'm gonna come in
here like so
one back here.
And then I'm going to pull this and then this
is going to come back to lock me.
All of the knee extension right? So then from there
this pad adjusts. So if I wanted even more
of a stretch, I could actually kind of hip hinge forward
and really maximize that if that's a
little too gruesome. I could sit a little bit more narrow. Okay,
and then from there basically I just
keep myself locked in.
pull in
to knee flexion, okay, but
these machines
Are set up?
To give you more of a stretch than pretty
much most of your commercial gym equipment right some
of them.
Are custom modification this one is actually what Prime's
new setting is and so just be aware
of that. So if something is taking you to a more extreme length
and range.
Then you need to be more cautious and
make sure you own that position. Especially if it's not a position
you are accustomed to right. So when
you first start this be nice and control to those
reps and really understand where that ranges. If you don't need
to use the most extreme range on here don't just
use it because that's what the machine goes to use. What you safely
have available.
Okay.
so for
The line here same setup. This
will auto adjust to the back of your ankle. This
one you'll want to adjust. So the pad
is basically on your Soleus right now on your
foot not on your gas truck, right? So
we got this set up again. This goes extra deep
right factory settings.
And one settings, okay.
How many of you guys?
struggle with stability in a lying leg curl
Right, like here feel like your pelvis is moving or whatever simple
a solution.
Do them single like right because now you have
to manage half the forces at the pelvis, right?
So both lats can be helping constrict contribute
to pelic stability all of your abs. Everything can
be helping with that. Right? Even your bottom leg being
able to like just kind of flex that leg can also
help the stability right? You shouldn't have to really try
hard to stabilize a single
leg one. And if your Technique is
good, it shouldn't be that hard to stabilize bilateral either
as long as you're intent is to flex
the knee and not just Ambiguously move this weight towards
your head because then you're gonna move every joint possible that gets here,
you know foot closer to the back of your head. So when
I'm setting up in here same thing my knee joints
gonna be lined up here. So from a tactile perspective, my knee
cap is gonna be just off the pad. Okay. Once
I'm in here these handles
down here, they're really well placed because all I'm
gonna do is I'm just gonna pull a little just enough.
That I feel my lats and my abs engage, right? So once
I have that I should be able to curl this. Well
not doing any of this s***.
Okay now
It doesn't have to be.
Zero motion. Somebody else want to come in
here and just do a leg curl for me, right?
So
From an internal stability standpoint his hamstrings
are gonna be being pulled down this way by
the load, right? They're Contracting. They're trying to pull these two joints together
what that means is it's going to want to rotate his pelvis
that way so from an internal
stability standpoint, that means his Erectors lats
everything on this side is gonna want to
pull this way. So what you're gonna see is the coordination
of the internal stability trying to Anchor
the hamstrings by pulling this way as he's
applying Force to do the leg curl. So if I
see a little bit of movement in here,
That's perfectly fine. Right but if
I actually see him coming off and his ass is going to heaven, right? That's
a problem. Right? That means you know,
something is going on with his technique where he's spoke.
Like he's intentionally hyperextending his
back or
His body is so unstable that it's just you
know, it's just completely freaking out in
that situation and like attracting all the stuff and then I would
like okay, let's go to single leg and all the sudden you'll see
all that stuff just disappear. Okay, and usually in
that instance.
You do single leg for a while.
Do some quality training with your other stuff. You'll be
able to come back here and without any further coaching all the sudden they'll be
competent bilaterally.
Okay questions on leg cross. Does that
help booster?
Yeah a nice good stretch while
you're down there. Yeah. Okay nice machine. This was
asking. Yeah, like when I don't really feel like that. So
yeah, so
Okay. All right. Let's go over to the 45.
Okay, so I'm gonna be quick because
we went to this before but first thing I need to do
is set the height of this so that my pelvis will clear
it. Okay.
And then essentially when I want to do is I'm going over the edge
here is I want to remember this is where I'm pivoting. I'm not lowering
my torque. So just like falling forward. I'm hinging.
So me going down should be my tailbone
going up right so literally
By the flashlight sticking out of my ass, right? I
should be pointing it at the ceiling here, right? Okay think
of Pat's gorilla technique, right? You know, that's kind
of what we're going for, right? Yeah the baboon
right? Well baboon with the f****** with a scope.
All right, so then from here, I'm reversing that
right? I'm not picking this up. I'm pulling my
hips down.
That's basically that's should be the only
verbal instruction that we need to give with
this
After that, as somebody needs cues on here tactile cues
are going to work a lot better because they can't see what's going on back here. So if
you if that did verbally didn't connect then
get hands on like, you know, give people
some Taps on the hamstring right give them some reference
for you know, kind of moving the pelvis or whatnot.
Just be professional about it, right you shouldn't be digging in people's
cracks and whatnot or whatever. There's plenty of there's plenty of non.
Suitable real estate to work with
on there, right? You don't have to get the whole
adjacent to teach this exercise. Okay,
regardless of what you may see on Instagram, okay.
questions on the hinge
right
Okay, this is a gonna be a butter smooth place.
if you do this
Feel free to challenge yourself.
It it bottoms out. I wish
it went longer. But that means it's a pretty
safe place because it's not going to pull you into too much
flexion. Okay, and you're really gonna be able to like
get some output here. Okay. It is a hell of
a hamstring stretch though. Okay, so only Centric
on it, right? Okay questions
on this.
All right. So if you choose to do an
RDL type hinge.
what's the difference between a
hamstring dominant
Or versus a glute dominant.
RDL
amount of knee flexion. Okay, I don't care which one you guys do.
As long as it's one of those two, right and neither
of those do the knees really go forward. So
even in the gluteus version
of this right where I'm
really letting my knees bend my knees are not going forward like
my ass is going back but my knees
are staying still over my feet. I'm not turning it into
a trap bar squat. So
The best way to think about this is your hips
go back until you feel like you need to
start sitting back right instead of hinging and that's
where we pick up the extra length and the glue if it's hamstrings,
right? Well then I'm just focusing on back as much
as I can right and you will hear sometimes
people say that
Once your hips can't go any further back.
That's the end of the range.
That's only true.
If you don't go below parallel, so
in people with a ton of
Mobility.
Their hips will stop going back and they will be able to continue to fold
when their butt won't still be going back.
But most of you guys probably have s******* your Mobility, so
it's not something you need to work about because you're gonna end like yeah, that's
what I got. Like, okay, that's not even really I'm not in any
danger of getting parallel, right? Okay, but
if you have if you are working with people that have tremendous
hit Mobility that may not necessarily be
a good cue or A good rule for them. Right
because they're just going to need to continue the flexion if you
keep that tell them to keep going back they're going to be limiting themselves
because they're gonna feel like they're gonna fall over because you're trying to force them
to leave their like leave their place
of balance, okay?
All right, so I don't care.
what you guys do but
You can't all do the same thing. Right? And
so no fighting. What I would like is you guys
should be decently warm to the point where maybe you
know one or two sets to just
bring up your load and then same thing one.
Decent work set and then one let's take
it to failure and when I say failure.
Raise your hand if you've never been here before for practical, okay, but
you guys saw you saw the video this morning, right? Like
that's failure is failure. Right?
Not like okay. I'm done failure is
yeah like that was f****** it and six
people were f****** helping me lifted at the end. Right? So you
don't know what failure is if you
never go all the way there. Okay, there's never
gonna be a better time for you to learn that that are room
full of like-minded coaches. Okay. So
on Amazing safe equipment, right
so find that spot here, right?
Just one just one you'll live,
right? Okay go one of
each.
this
All right, so everybody's coming
back over to my station again. And
you know, I kind of look at like the way
we're doing. This is I'm taking the flea market
and he gets the the expensive stuff,
you know, so
what we're gonna do over here for an upper body
exercise is going to be a push-up.
And what I've done is I've arranged it
so that I can still use some of the concepts from
the model that I've got which is going to be, you know,
just adding more ground like a push-up is
A sagittal plane bilateral stance horizontal
push and with sagittal plane,
you know, my go-to is
always just more heels that's you know,
the the cue that I return to over and over and
over again. And the reason that I'm going
to be going with more heels is it should set
people up so that it brings their
Center of mass back.
You know a push-up is one of the most challenging exercises
you could possibly do.
In terms of preventing your center of Mass from
falling forward you're in a as prone to
position as you could possibly be.
So the challenge is can you
prevent the mass of your thorax from just
Falling Towards the ground? Can you prevent your
thorax your guts your pelvis all
of this Central Main mainframes stuff
that usually weighs a lot. Can
you own it and control it?
And if you can own this and control this
now, can you start to move on top of
it?
So
I think I'm going to assist people in the
ability to manage this Center of mass by giving
them a very strong heel reference.
So the way that I set this up is I
put these boxes behind me so that I'm going
to be able to push my heels into them now trying
to talk now before I demo this thing to save
myself from being completely out of breath while doing
it talking it and and the whole thing so,
Those are the big hater pieces that I'm
looking for conceptually is number one manager Center
of Mass from a forwards backwards perspective. I'm
putting you in a super challenging position to
accomplish that task because literally
gravity is just trying to drag all of your
insides straight down and it's
up to you to now use muscular effort
to hold all of that back
and I want to use muscles of the pelvis
to assist with that so that the pelvis doesn't fall
forward towards the ground and basically cause your guts
to fall towards the ground and I want to use muscles of
the abdomen to be able to do that so that
I prevent your thorax from just Falling Towards
the ground as well.
So the keys here and and you
know people that were here yesterday as I'm teaching hinging.
When I'm teaching hinging when I'm teaching almost anything, I am
after the concept of teaching people to
try to be a pusher rather than a puller.
Pullers to me use their back for everything and
you know, I don't
mind if you use your back for some things but I
would like you to be able to diversify what you use now
and again because to me
it's amazing how much people do pretty much
every exercise by compressing right
above their sacrum boom to accomplish
things or where their neck meets
their thoracic spine to be able to drive and accomplish
things and you see that neck meeting the thoracic spine
piece a lot with push-ups and it kind of
looks like somebody took a pigeon and angled It Forward they
kind of Peck at the ground like that. So I'm trying to
unping you and I'm trying to get you to really learn
how to keep everything back. So you're gonna
be a pusher rather than a puller. So
you're gonna push the boxes behind you
with your heels. And when I
push those boxes behind me with my heels
It just makes the whole back side of
my body push down towards my heels. It's like
starts the Cascade and starts to Landslide. I
pushed through my heels and it just makes everything from
the back pockets down slide down and I'm
also going to push with my hands and
when I push with my hands, it pushes
the back between the shoulder blades
back. I don't want to see a mountain
range in between. I don't want to see the valley in between
the shoulder blades. I want to see somebody put a Fresh coat
of snow in there and fill in that space.
So you should see me when I push
the boxes. You should see the way that
the glutes kick in and the way that the glutes bring the
pelvis down towards the backs of the knees.
And you should see when I push the boxes that
I fill in that space between my shoulder blades
and when I go to lower myself on
the push-up I am taking care to not
lose those starting positions that I acquired in
the beginning. So let me Demo a couple
of reps and hopefully what I just talked about
kind of comes across with this.
So my first push is going to be into the box.
And you can hopefully see the way that that cinch is in the pelvis now
the second push is going to go through the
hands and I push my back towards
the ceiling and I should have a tremendous
amount of fill in between my shoulder blades. Now.
I'm going to lower and not lose those
two pushes. I never stop pushing
even when I'm going down. How far
can I manage on the way down?
Hopefully pretty good and back up.
So if we really start working some pretty High Reps
and some challenging sets on this.
You should feel these tissues work very very
hard on these sets. There's nowhere
to hide. I can't really cheat and use
other muscles to be able to do these push-ups at this
point in time. It kind of dummy proves the
push-up.
I'd say this even if the person does a fairly
bad job of pushing the Box behind them
with their feet and a fairly bad job of pushing
their their back between their shoulder blades. This is
what I call a pizza exercise, even when
it's bad. It's still pretty good. So I
set up a couple of stations around here.
Set yourself up move boxes or wall
space into position and let's rock these.
We're going to do some sort of pull and some sort
of push.
Great, we have two of these.
That's just an earlier version of this one here, but they
pretty much function in the same way. Okay?
If we're focusing on a pole.
The best thing I can do is limit.
How much of my trunks gonna have to resist the load so that
if I'm trying to focus on my lats they can me
be the main thing that you know, it's actually pulling
back. So my lats are gonna pull my shoulder
around my ribs.
They
They aren't the thing, that turns me.
They're the thing that turns the arm now if I'm doing
this is that mean it I'm not gonna feel that or that they
won't be participating. No, but they do this
not the same thing if I
was stretching them up this way. They're not gonna be the thing that
side bends me. They're gonna be the thing that pulls my arm back
down from that position. So if you
guys are doing a pull around exercise
We're trying to find a way to get the rib
cage in the position we want and then stabilize it.
for Times Sake today
We're just going to do these things bilateral which isn't going
to be.
as much of a stretch
but it's also going to be a real easy and familiar place
for you to progress. So these are already probably gonna
take you into deeper range than you're used to getting with a regular
pulldown or whatnot. So I have a couple adjustments. I
can adjust the height of this so that I can
get my knees under and have stability. I can adjust this forward
and back and then I can just the angle of this
essentially what I want to do.
Is I want to take my hands so that they're
the width of those handles.
Then I'm gonna reach forward.
And then I'm gonna Flex in that plane
and you'll find like a like a stopping point and that'll be like, okay.
This is the maximum flexion that I can get while I'm
coming around the rib cage in that plane right
in order for me to go up. I actually end up having to come
back. So then I'm no longer stretching around the ribs
that way. So if I'm gonna use one of these angled pulls, I
want to base my setup based
off of how wide I'm pulling from and then I want to
maximize the amount of shoulder flexion I can get at that width. And
then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna set myself up.
To be in that position. So for me.
That's going to be bringing this.
About back here like this, right, you know.
And something like this. So now if I was like sitting here
and I would do that same drill. I should be aiming not at the
handles but where they where they attach right see the Pivot Point up
there. That's the thing that I'm actually reaching for not the handles
because the handles are gonna turn into a line.
Once I grab them, okay, so grab those.
Anchor yourself underneath here, right and the chest pad is here
to be used. Right. So if I'm pulling around
like this, I kind of defeating the whole purpose of using
the chest pad. What I want to do is let the chest pad
hold my ribs and use my lats to pull my
clavicle around like and
back so my clavicle my scapula should be
getting pulled around the ribs and I should be doing the shoulder extension.
Through this motion. I'm not at all concerned about extending right.
So if you're thinking about just pulling the handles back, you're gonna
do everything that can get back.
But I want to think about actually almost like I was trying to pull
myself like if I could break through the chest pad
that way I'm pulling
My lats back which in a sense is kind of pushing my
ribs forward.
that makes sense Okay, so
This one that one.
Those are gonna be your best options for a poll here. Okay?
Anybody not want to do one of these?
All right, then. I'm just gonna let I'm not gonna give you any more stations of
that. I just assumed everybody's gonna want to do these okay?
For the pressing options. Okay, we'll
choose.
one of our
Presses here. Okay.
This hybrid press here.
This is going to be suitable for basically anything
in the sternal or costal plane.
And then the incline is going to be external to
clavicular more inclined plane.
Okay, so lower presses lower back higher presses
higher back. You reach a point where once you
start pressing higher than the clavicle.
We're probably using a lot more deltoid
and a lot less Peck because essentially once I
get to about here these fibers are pulling
the arm across that's like that's why we have the pull of
rounds. If I'm trying to shorten the pack. I've never gonna be able to shorten it
this way or this way. It's all got to come
towards this stuff where it attaches right? So if
I was working on clavicular Peck, it would have to come up here. So
when you're setting up a press That's not going to get you there.
You should still keep in mind what the end destination
would be because even from one not only doing half the rep I
should know which direction I would be pushing towards. Okay,
so some people set up an incline press and
they set it up like they were like they were
going to be way over here and I'm like, well, no, you're only getting the arm to hear so
set it up. So the muscle is still under tension in
the range of motion that the exercise provides don't set
it up for a range of motion that you can't even get in that exercise. So
a lot of people use too much incline. So most
people like 45 is gonna be rare a lot
of people it's gonna be 30, you know, maybe people you know
that are really, you know, kind of flat chested or
whatever. They might even be as low as like 20 degrees when they're
doing an upper back press that's
why you see like the research is just all over the place. I'm
well, there's any time work up our pecs are not or whatever like,
you know, what will it be this month? Right? It's because you
have to standardize that to a person, you know, rib cage
structure and then also the path of your
arms.
Is going to be a big difference, right? So these guys
here okay, if I want to stretch this
it's not going to be a straight transverse plane. It's going
to be something down and in right and if
I want to stretch these guys, well, I got to come even further back. So it's
gonna be even a little bit more narrow. I want to
stretch these guys. It's got to be a narrow path. But it then it's gonna
start arcing like up and back kind of like a wider
version of a dick. Okay, that's what we're
looking at. So
If you wanted to press for lower pack what
I like about a seated machine.
instead of an actual decline press
As I can position myself in here.
so that I can essentially have
my upper back.
I'll wait till you guys are over here because I can't see you. I know
you can't see me.
right
so
in a decline machine
the cat the back cut is usually parallel to you.
Meaning that when you push down it pushes you up. So that's why they
have the seat belts.
If I'm in here, I can actually kind of push my traps
into this. So now
I'm here and I don't need a seat belt. I'm just nice and
locked in to this decline press right. So,
you know, my butt is off.
Right got all this Freedom here. It doesn't matter because I
have stability exactly where I need it
for the pack, right? So this is where
I look at. Hey, let's just make
Center of mass and all that other stuff as a relevant
as possible by getting me the stability in the closest
possible spot that I need. So then everything else
from out there. It's like it's only depending on right here.
It's not depending on a stability point or a ground Point that's you
know, six joints away. It's as close.
To where that force is being applied as possible. Okay,
if I was going a little bit more for Middle pack,
right? Then I'm actually gonna set
up more so like this machine is naturally aligned
right? And now you see I'm pressing closer towards
the middle of my sternum or when I was here. I'm pressing
more online costal pack middle my
sternum.
Fossil effect. So this is where that thinking about
where you'd be going because if I was doing this sternal Peck,
I'd have to finish all the way over here, but knowing that
that Arc starts back here.
I'm not going to do my press all the way up over here because I'm
only getting this far around so it's going to be about here. Same thing
for this. I would be coming all the way down in
here, but I'm only gonna get to here. So I'm
gonna stop right here. I'm not gonna press out here, right?
I'm gonna figure out where along this Arch does that
machine end and I'm good there right because the difference
between me if I fully shorten my cost effect.
You see the degree of flexion. I'm in the sagittal paint. So
if I set that here.
that press
it looked really weird right? I'd have to be like
You know it would be.
You know, it'd be something like this.
Right if I was setting it up for when my arm would actually be all the
way over here, but I can't get that.
This is actually a better line for how far
I can get around the Press. So when you set up these presses.
Set them up for the range of motion that
you're actually training in which is gonna be.
The length in two thirds, right? Okay. Let's
come over to this one here. So if you're using this one.
we could use this one for
publicular which is kind of where it's set right
now.
So
the nice thing about an arc over a dumbbell as
as I'm pressing this.
It's Moon naturally moving up with me. Okay, when
I'm using a dumbbell or a bar that only
happens when I'm having a very narrow grip.
So if I'm doing this one here, which is
a little bit more transverse. I'm doing a dumbbell.
The Arc is now straight here. But this machine is
going to allow me to kind of have kind of this scooping motion that
matches the line of those fibers a
little bit more so I'll come in
here.
This should essentially I'm thinking like stretching these
guys here. It's basically if I were to pull
back and then come up to basically whatever would be
a little bit more transverse there. So,
We're still utilizing the ribcage but we're utilizing the
ribcage relative to these fibers not
relative to these fibers, right? And then
as I'm pushing this is going to start going back that
way, right so in a
machine like this
This isn't where I would do dumbbells because dumbbells don't
press.
That way they I would be pressing them straight up. So I
would have to use a slightly higher incline with a
dumbbell then a machine that I'm marking like
this.
Now you notice this machine has.
Some accessories on it, right?
So it's not just any machine that's arcs it's individual because
this machine could be like it could
be arking this way at the bottom like actually going forward and then
that would be the opposite situation. So you got to look at when I start doing this movement,
right? So this is going forward to about right
there. And then from there now, it's moving backwards,
right? So basically by the
time I get my
self in here almost like 95% of
my range. The machine is moving up towards my
head, but you can imagine the bench
of this thing used to be lower so that when you would start the
press it would actually go down and then up. So depending on the
machine that you have look at what part of
that Arc. You're actually utilizing.
And then you may adjust the bench angle. You might use some
pads. You might limit your rip range of motion, whatever
so that you're actually utilizing that Arc relative to
what your goals are because if you have to start the
exercise with emotion that's in direct
for what you want. Right? That's an
extremely hard thing to coordinate. It's like you're trying to
change the goal mid rep. That's
not gonna happen in any reasonably High effort set.
Okay. So if I wanted to do this a little bit more sternal,
okay.
I could lower the incline here a bit.
And now I'm gonna be a little less transverse and
a little bit more tight to the ribs. Okay, and
so my grip here is going to become a little
more narrow. And now as I finish again where
that Arc should be coming as if it were gonna come
towards these sternal PEC Origins
as I'm going through the motion.
Yeah.
right
questions on
the two press options
Here's our wrist wasted pronations that my pronation you
ever use that for chest. What are the nuances between different handles
more if you're available?
Usually the simplest thing is is going
to be having the risk like parallel with the humor. So that
would be that would be what would be could that would be neutral relative to
the humerus is really what I what
I'm going for, right? You see I'm trying like I'm
trying to use this thing that cranks it a little
bit more right? So I mean I am begging for
better handles on pressing machines. I just begging somebody
to do it so but I mean
it just seems like
they either like oh you want it here. You can either have
it here here. That's the 40 now can't be
he.
Just like I don't know. It's like the whole industry got together is
like look you can either have really neutral or really pronated.
That's those are your options like we
decided like like ideally if
I could put like
the perfect push-up thing on here something like that.
This isn't an equipment lecture or whatever, but if I
could be able to adjust it, so it was always neutral relative
to the form of the individual. That would be awesome. The other
thing is is if it could rotate this way so that
basically like if I'm using a handle like this this is
directing my wrist because it's changing angle, right?
So if it could rotate on this axis, that
would be another way that I could be just pushing through. So I'd
be I'd be in line with my forearm this way the wrist
act over the forearm, right? And then if I could choose that angle,
you know, it'd be there. Okay, it's possible that
nobody wants to pay for that. So just me apparently just
me, okay.
Optimal expensive it's very
expensive, but everybody hates it. Okay question on
any of these two presses here.
All right, so same thing right so get one.
Good set one go set on a pole one on
a push, right? All right, let's go.