A New Way To Get Unstoppable Conditioning, Maximum Strength, Speed, Power & Muscle...In 3 Hours Per Week (Or Less).

Hey, what's up? It's Ben Greenfield. And today I have a great interview for you with a guy named John Bruni. He created this training style called Neuromass. And lest you run away because you don't want to get swole, listen, because you do not need to want to put on mass to get a lot out of this particular interview. It's really good. I've been using this program in my hotel rooms when I travel. Body weight kettlebell. It's very, very interesting. So we delve into a lot of neuromuscular. In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

And that was my idea with the book is it's up to your creativity, how far you can take this. It can be adapted to whatever you want to do. If you want more bodybuilding, you know, you could do the chest set for five sets if you want overall, just health and fitness. I love what you're doing. I mean, that's going to make you an elite athlete. So this power breathing is something that you can practice all throughout the day. Even, you know, if you want to just work and have a crazy core workout workout, just do these little hisses all throughout the day or long 5 to 10 second long hisses.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. On a few recent podcasts I mentioned that especially when I've been traveling and I've had limited access to a gym or workout equipment. One of my key go to workouts has been this program that I've been using called Neuromass. Neuromass. And I actually consider it to be one of the quickest ways I've found for developing things like power and strength with not much more than my own body weight and sometimes like a kettlebell or two. And it can actually add functional muscle to a lean frame pretty quickly and can build muscle recruitment and explosiveness in what I've found to be a pretty smart and systematic way. So it's a blend of optional kettlebell exercises and body weight exercises and they're all split into These things called neurosets which I'll let my guest describe here in just a second because he. And I'm a little bit obsessed with it right now in terms of it being one of my go to workouts. So this program Neuromass and if you want to check it out, the show notes for today's episode are@BenGreenfieldFitness.com neuro if you don't know how to spell neuro then you need to take out Dr. Google, figure that out, learn how to spell. But John, John is actually a Guinness World Record holding strongman and he's been on Ripley's Believe it or not, ABC's America's Got Talent, the Today show and Guinness World Records Unleashed. He is what I would consider to be a true renaissance man when it comes to the realm of strength development because he's a best selling author, he's a trainer, he's a coach, he's a motivational speaker, he's a strong man and he's a pastor. So he's done a lot of stuff. And John's work with competitive athletes includes pretty high level folks like Olympians and NFL players. So he's got this book, neuromass. He also writes for one of my favorite magazines that I get. A magazine that makes me feel like a weakling every time it arrives in the mail. Milo M I L O which is basically a magazine about how to like lift ungodly amounts of weight, develop grip strength, all sorts of cool stuff. And then he also is the co owner of submit strength equipment so he designs cutting edge training equipment. So I'll link to all that stuff in the show notes again@BenGreenfieldFitness.com neuro but in the meantime, John, welcome to the show ma'. Am.

Hey, thanks for having me. Looking forward to awesome show.

Yeah, dude. And speaking of being a renaissance man, let's start here. One of the pictures that I found of you on the Internet and I'll link or I'll put a photo of this in the show notes is you basically being ripped apart by two Harley Davidson motorcycles attached to your arms. And I'm curious, I think you call it the human link. Can, can you describe what that is and why you attach motorcycles to yourself?

Yeah, actually it's an old time strongman feat, but it's one of the biggest rushes I've ever had in my life. If you want an adrenaline rush, this is what you go after and I kind of chase that a little bit. But what it is and it was actually on television this summer on ABC's To Tell the Truth. They had two, I believe, 800 pound plus Harley Davidson motorcycles. And then we put a strap on each one of my biceps and then so they're hanging opposite directions and we basically tell them just to hit it and try and tear me apart. And I'm getting pelted with pieces of tire and smoke. And I mean, it's crazy. After a while I just kind of disappear into the smoke. It's just an incredible feat. And it's something that has its history. Way back in the old time Strongman, where they used to hook themselves up to horses or different things.

I was gonna say this is like, this is like also what medieval people would have done to kill folks or torture folks. Like, don't you call this quartering to kill people with, with horses attached to your limbs?

Yeah, absolutely. The rack, I guess. But it just has this great history. We used to do it in schools when I travel around and they would hook this up to my hands and just let all kinds of kids grab a rope, big ropes on each side and just pull them back. But there's something about motorcycles that everybody can relate to. The noise, the.

Oh yeah.

Force of the cycles. And like, is this guy gonna die? What's gonna happen? But it comes down to one of the main aspects of it is what we talk about in neuromaths. It's a huge isometric contraction that keeps you from being torn apart.

Oh yeah. Because you're basically, you're not moving. You're just like holding against the resistance of the motorcycles.

Absolutely.

I want to ask you more about isometrics in our discussion as we talk about this whole Neuromass program. But kind of like stepping back, big picture, how did you develop this program in the first place? Like this concept of stringing together three sets in the way that you do in the Neuromas program.

Well, it's an awesome question because this is kind of where I like to be sort of a mad scientist individual. My strength training mentor was John Brookfield. And we kind of together learned this whole concept of strength endurance. For instance, John and I originally set a world record by pulling a semi truck for a mile. And so it was huge. You have a semi truck and trailer and basically you're setting this grinding pace for long time endurance. I mean, to pull something for a mile, every step is just excruciating. You're having your whole body, you know, tense up with lactic acid. But so combining. So John kind of pioneered this whole aspect of strength endurance. And then all of my friends, you know, were into the maximum amount of strength you could lift. So it's basically, you know, this whole one rep max, you know, system. Well then I'm also a big proponent because in my shows I do a lot of breaking bricks and boards and all that stuff that requires speed. So I said, you know, you've got to really combine all three of these to really become a total athlete. You can't just be one or the other, you can't just be strength, endurance, you can't just be power and you can't just be isometric. So I wanted to do is to get something that would actually teach the nervous system to recruit more muscle fiber. So that what basically is I wanted to build this smart muscle and where you could kind of have multiple angles of resistance and that would kind of bypass your genetics a little bit. Because I'm not the most genetically gifted guy. I'm just an average Joe who kind of has plugged away at this stuff and tried to develop my mind and body and that's kind of how it came out.

So the idea is that instead of just like building up like slabs and slabs of muscle, or just developing like isometric strength and the ability to resist, or just developing explosive power or even the ability to just like move objects for a long period of time, you're trying to combine all those things into one workout.

Absolutely. And compress it in a time frame that is doable. During my strength training season, show season, because you're prepping all these events, the actual training sessions were going about two hours plus, which is just not good for your cortisol levels. It's not good for your hormones trying to get in all these different aspects of strength training. And so I thought, how can we combine all this into a doable, workable time period also that will still give you the same results, but it's not going to burn your body out. And I also wanted to develop something that, where you didn't have to go extremely heavy all the time, that you could use kettlebells and body weight, especially during deloads and traveling. But this, this will apply to any kind of weight resistance you want. But I wanted to make it, you know, how can everyday Joe have smart muscle without having to go through all the rigmarole of two and three hour workouts?

Yeah, it makes sense. And you certainly do compress a great deal of work into the body in a short period of time. I think I've almost passed out in a hotel room before. Doing like an isometric deadlift using the bath towel in the hotel based on, I mean, you do have this in the book, like some of the isometrics. You literally are just using like a giant bath towel. And maybe we'll get into that later. I have yet to actually rip apart or destroy any towels, but I've been amazed at how much I can exhaust a muscle with a bath towel. So, anyways, your neural sets, let's jump into brass tacks, because the neuromass program, there's three different types of sets that you do, and you kind of string them all together. And the first type of set is called a grind. Can you describe a grind and why you start off with this, that as kind of like the, the first set that you do in a workout?

Well, grind is kind of the bread and butter of most workouts. Again, I'm not talking about your cardiovascular training or specific training, but as far as your overall, you know, you're going to have overall fitness. The grind is a big, you know, exercise that places resistance on the huge muscle groups and you have to require total bowel body tension. So these are your squats and your heavy presses.

Okay.

If your body weight, you know, your body weight, squats, your push ups, handstand, push ups, all these type of things, and they're done in a really slow manner. I had a guy tweet me just, well, what is the tempo on a grind? How slow do you go? And I said, slow enough to make it miserable, because that's what you want to do. You want to exhaust that muscle fiber and work in such a fashion that you can feel it deep, deep, deep into the tissue.

Yeah. When I first started doing the grinds, it reminded me, are you familiar with this guy named Doug McGuff? He's like a, he's a cardiologist, I believe, but he's also written a book called Body by Science.

I'm not familiar with it, but the book name sounds familiar. Not familiar with his name.

Okay, so he works with a lot of seniors, and he developed a program that develops huge amounts of what's called peripheral blood pressure without a lot of central blood pressure and allows you to work out with little to no impact. And in his program, even though I'm not a big fan of like Kaiser and Nautilus and all these exercise machines versus functional things like a kettlebell, for example, or a bath towel, he has this program where you'll do super, super slow sets. So it's all about time under tension, where you'll spend 30 to 60 seconds per rep. Right. And you'll do just one single set of like, you know, five to eight reps or so of like a chest press, a leg press, a pull down and a seated row. And it's only a 12 to 15 minute workout. But I'd tried out that workout a few times because I interviewed him on the show. And it's incredibly hard to actually move in that slow, grinding way that you describe. What's going on, though, from like a muscular level when you're doing that.

Oh, you're engaging these deep muscle fibers. And what I like about that is, again, you mentioned time under tension. This is really what creates hypertrophy. And especially with the older you get, the more you need to engage in these hypertrophic. Probably bad language there, but more you need to engage in those activities that are stimulating muscle growth because you're going through so much muscle wasting. And you know, if you're doing it right, I mean, you'll pour buckets of sweat. I mean, literally, because you're engaging. And this is why I try and tell people, you know, imagine. And this comes back to maybe some of the martial arts that I practice. Like I said in the introduction, you talk about being a Renaissance man. I kind of do a little bit of everything. Learning to go through a movement as if you have £1,000 on your shoulders. And the opening of the book, I show some of the chain lifting that I do. You know, you put thousand pounds plus and you're doing these chain lift squats. Well, even if you're just using your body weight, you want to engage those quads and make them tight enough, create that whole body tension tight enough just as if you had a thousand pounds on your back. So you're kind of imagining mentally. And this is where one of the things I love about neuromas, you've got to engage your mind and your body to go slowly through these movements and engage the muscle fiber, which is counterintuitive for a lot of people because most people just want to get through it as fast as they can. And that's not what you want.

Yeah, that incredible amount of focus when you're going extremely slow. Do you need to breathe a certain way when you're doing grind?

Yeah, I teach power breathing and it's always come out of my background of being a musician, having voice lessons from, as a young student. So I kind of learned this before I got into the weightlifting game. But basically you're breathing into the diaphragm and then creating a hiss. Now you can actually hold your breath. But for most people that are just wanting regular gains, you're not into the hyper level of powerlifting, you shouldn't hold your breath. So what you're going to do is we call it power breathing, where you're inhaling through the diaphragm and then you're actually hissing out and creating this huge tension. And I'll describe it while we're talking here. If you just would put your tongue against your teeth and just all of a sudden make that hissing noise, you'll notice how hard your abdominals contract and how hard your entire midsection contracts. Well, that's what you want because that's creating that tension all the way through the movement. And as you hiss out on the way up, you're still having that tension. What a lot of people teach is just inhale and breathe out on the way up. Well, you're losing tension, you're losing power. And if you're using weights in that system, you're actually going to put yourself in a dangerous position. So this power breathing is something that you can practice all throughout the day. Even if you want to just work and have a crazy core workout, just do these little hisses all throughout the day, or longer 5 to 10 second long hisses where you're doing it and it's just like a compressed hose, you know, where the air can barely come out and you're going to find your abs, your whole core sore for days.

And yeah, like that type of breathing, like what you mentioned, that you can, you can create your own resistance with your tongue. But like in my car, in my glove box, I keep one of these power lung devices that resist the air going in and the air coming out. I know one you mentioned, mma, there's another called Boss Rutin. I know he has like a, like some kind of like a lung training device as well. But it's all based around inspiratory and expiratory muscle training. And I think there probably is a lot of crossover behind like using a device like that and then using that same type of feeling of resisting the breath when you're doing one of these grind sets. But you're right, I mean, it can like, if I go for a two hour drive, I gotta like drive down to, you know, let's say like Moscow, Idaho is a place I'll drive to. Sometimes it takes me about an hour and a half to get to. And like every time I pass a mile marker, right, I'll do like three sets of 10 seconds in, 10 seconds out. On that power lung and your abs are just, they're exhausted by the time you get to where you're going, man.

Dude, power lung, just a little props to that. I get. No, I'm not getting any kickback for this statement. I use the power lung every day. It's one of my favorite things. I mean, I have a boss root and trainer, I have an elevation mask, but they're limited in their scope of use. The power lung. What I love is I can dial up and do resistance breathing in both directions anytime I want. And yeah, you know, that's why I treat in my new book that's coming out, Commando Cardio, that's one of the things we actually talk about is this whole idea of rare air. When you're using something like the power lung or you're using resistance, what they call elevation mask, you're not really doing elevation training because the same amount of oxygen is still in the air. You're just taking in less air. And so what I like to do is combine that power lung with breathing into a paper bag, breathing in some carbon dioxide right after those sets. And man, the training effect is crazy. I realize we're going down the rabbit hole here, but that's a fantastic combo, is to keep a paper bag with you along with your power lung. So you get the power breathing, resistance breathing, so you're training those diaphragm muscles, but then you're also getting the elevation training by just doing a set right after that for 30 seconds with the paper bag.

There's going to be Ben Greenfield fitness listeners all over the globe dying with paper bags over their head. Now, we might have to put a medical disclaimer on this podcast. Well, that's interesting. So you use the power lung and the paper bag, or you could to a limited extent use some like the elevation mask. But as far as the actual grinds themselves, what would be an example of a few exercises that would be like a good grind based exercise, like a super slow grind?

Well, I love all manner of squats. I just think the exercise cannot be improved on if you're doing it right, doing it low enough. Of course, you know, you've got to make sure your hip flexors are stretched out enough to get deep into it. But any kind of grind or, you know, the deadlift is another fantastic exercise, whether you're using a sandbag, whether you're using kettlebells, whether you're using a barbell, whether you're using your own body weight. What we try to teach, though, is make the exercise Harder on the grind by changing the leverage. So if you're doing, you know, if you're using body weight, you know, do one legged squats, you know, if you're in a hotel room, put one of those legs up on, onto the bed, you know, change the leverage to make it difficult. But it ought to be a really challenging grind. So I think you can't be any kind of squat lift, any kind of press, whether it's, you know, just simple push ups or whether you use the neural grips which are an amazing tool, you know that.

What are the neuro grips?

Okay, in the book you'll see their, their handles and they actually have been selling like crazy. It's a play on what we used to call spike handle push ups or T handle push ups. I did not come up with the concept but what I did was try to develop it to where it's very user friendly. Basically I had made my own by taking like a 2 1/2 inch piece of pipe and having a welder weld it onto a spike. And what that causes you have to balance. And here's one of the things we talk about. And again, these are available from lots of different companies. But I feel like the way that we have developed it and improved it is the best out there. Basically you'll find that your mind, a huge portion of your brain is dedicated to the use of the hands and the fingers. So when we bring the hands or increase the grip strength of an exercise, you're bringing the mind and the neuromuscular efficiency even harder. So in the book you'll see there's just a couple exercises because I've written a whole book that's going to be coming out hopefully this year about how to use those. A lot of people say, well, I love doing pushups, but they're just not intense enough for me. I need to increase that leverage. And so by trying to balance on these two spikes with these thick handles, it increases the difficulty of the grind by a thousand percent.

Okay, I know what you're talking about now. They're basically like two, like T shaped objects that when you're doing a push up you're, you're holding onto these handles, but they're different than those, those ones at the gym that are like more of like a platform that you do a push up on under each hand. They're instead almost like something that force you to balance and grip really intensively as you're doing a push up.

Yeah, you have to engage your entire core and upper body. It's Funny, because, you know, I'm a pretty heavy bench presser. But I'll put guys on here who can bench quite a bit of weight, and they'll struggle with 5 to 10 reps on these things because of the balance factor. It's kind of like the bamboo ball.

Yeah, it's really. It's really cool. Those are interesting. I actually haven't. I saw those in the book. I forgot what they were called, but, yeah, I haven't. Haven't pulled the trigger and gotten any yet, but they actually look like they'd be pretty tough to use, so I may have to add those to my regimen. So we've got the grind as the first exercise that you do, the first type of exercise that you do, you have, like, this slow grind. And how many reps are you doing of the grind typically?

Well, for me, and this is where it's very personal. I should have delved more into the book, into this issue. For me, it's a very personal thing, but for me, it could be anywhere from 6 to 8, and some people can even go to 12. But it's all based on how much you can push your body. You know, some people may be able to do three or four reps of a grind, and they have taxed everything. Some people, you know, because it's on how you learn to engage those things. It's like the first time when I talk about muscle engagement, it's like the first time somebody uses a muscle stimulator on their legs, and they think, whoa, that's the amount of tension I should have, you know, so some people can recruit a lot more with 3 or 4 reps. Some people, it takes 8 to 12 reps to get that. The magic number, for me personally, is right around 6. But again, the lower the number, the better if you can keep that much tension.

Gotcha. You mean like an electrical muscle stimulator? When you're talking about, like, people actually realizing how hard to contract a muscle?

Yeah. I mean, the first time my family watched me do a use the Compex unit, and, man, my muscles are just popping out everywhere. That's the feeling, though. You want to go after that deep stimulation. You know, that's one of the things I love about muscle stims, is it takes all the fibers. You can see them just pop out. That's the goal mentally, what you want to do when you do a grind.

Yeah. Have you ever heard of this guy named Jay Schroeder?

I'm not sure.

Okay. I had him on before. No, he uses he uses a different machine that the Compex is, the one that I own for electrical muscle stimulation to get a whole bunch of muscle fibers recruited all at once. And like you said, you don't realize how many muscle fibers that you can actually recruit until you slap the electrodes on your quads and just jack that thing all the way up. But he uses one that's even more powerful. It's called the ARP Wave. It's like, based on some kind of, like, Russian E STEM technology. It's the same one that, like, Dave Asprey, the bulletproof exec, uses this one. And, and I've seen it at a lot of conferences. It's getting more popular, but it's. It's like a high, high level electrical stimulation device that can simulate, like, close to, I guess, like a thousand pound squat when you put it on your quads and hamstrings. But it's called the ARP wave. I think that one's like a $10,000 unit.

Well, that's awesome. That's out of my price range right now.

Yeah, yeah. The complex is enough for most mere mortals. All right, so we've got the grind. And then after the grind, you move into this isometric hold, Right?

Well, we're gonna go into dynamic power. Grill.

Oh, so the power comes after the grind. That's right. I should know this. So the dynamic power comes after the grind. And how's the dynamic power go?

Well, it's some kind of speed movement. Power movement. So it's going to look different based on the exercise or the muscle group that you're choosing to work. But the goal is to have maximum speed and maximum velocity and be able to keep that up for 15 all the way to 60 seconds, depending on how hard you can work. And we have things like the neuroburner, any of those type of things, those explosive movements. My MMA guys love these movements. They include any kinds of jumps, anything that. Where you just have to explode. Sprinting. One of my favorite exercises is the anchor sprint. And that's where you're going to take a yoga block and put it out in front of you, extend your arms, and try to push the yoga block in as hard as you can while you're sprinting. I use this exercise on so many people, in the first reaction, they almost want to fall over, because you're teaching your body to do an isometric contraction with the top while the bottom is doing this dynamic power drill. But any kind of speed movement when you do these things. So you've gone from the grind. Now you're immediately going into explosive movement. And this is what I love about this workout is most athletes are in one or the other camps. They're either in I'm all power, like a sprinter, or I'm all, you know, into the grinding movements. And by combining these, again, you're forcing the nervous system to recruit more fibers.

So you are working the same muscle with the power movement as you work with the grind. Right. So if I do like a super slow grind for like, let's just say I'm doing bodyweight, right, And I do really, really slow squat, let's say like, you know, whatever. 15 seconds down, 15 seconds up, maintaining as much tension as possible for six reps. I would then move into a series of explosives, say like jump squats for 15 to 60 seconds, jump squats, box.

Jumps, long jumps, any kind of jump for 15 to 60 seconds. And the reason I put the 60 seconds in there, some movements you can maintain for a lot longer. Generally when and how I gauge it is after that 15 to 30 seconds. If you're starting to slow down and you're not able to produce that velocity, it's immediately time for that part of the set to be done and to move into isometrics.

Okay, got it. Now that actually surprised me that you said 60 seconds, because don't you kind of exhaust like your creatine phosphate stores after a maximum of about 30 seconds? So wouldn't like true power training be 30 seconds or less?

Yes, but when you do something like the neuroburner, which is just upper body, it's a lot less. It's fatiguing like crazy. It'll get you breathing hard. But it's different than a sprint. A sprint, if you're doing longer than a 30 second sprint, you're probably not sprinting anymore. But some of the upper body drills, you could actually go 60 seconds because they're just far less taxing. You're not engaging as much power as you do with the legs.

So why do you, why do you choose to do the power set right after the grind?

Well, again, we're trying to recruit more neuromuscular, efficient workouts. And so as you do that, you've exhausted the muscle through time under tension, and now you want to exhaust it even further, almost creating a little bit of trauma to the muscle, what I call controlled trauma, by pushing it through the power exercises. And these would be any kind of sprints, any kind of jumping. For instance, if you go from body weight squats, you might want to go into Box jumps, long jumps, as we talked about earlier, anchor sprints, and then we're talking about the time factor. So you want to do this from 15 to 60 seconds, and again the 15 seconds to 30 seconds, you're usually starting to slow down. And once the velocity starts to come down, that's when you want to end the set. Now, there are some dynamic power drills that are not very metabolically cost, you know, as far as they're not very demanding. For instance, if you're doing a lateral shuffle, that's one of the exercises to work the lateral muscles, you could work that up to 60 seconds without taxing, you know, your levels. So, yeah, it really depends on the exercise. I said earlier, if you're trying to do jumps for more than 30 seconds, I guarantee you're not putting a lot of power into it anymore. Yeah, the goal is to keep that power going, sustained power and velocity.

That's generally the rule with most plyometrics and power based exercises anyways, is once you've lost the ability to create maximum velocity, it's a good idea to just stop. Because at that point, I mean, I, I guess like there's kind of that idea. And I don't know what you think about this, John, where, you know, if I were going to do, let's say lunge jumps, I can create maximum velocity. I could tell you right now I could maybe get maximum velocity for like 15 seconds worth of lunge jumps. But if I kept going to 60 seconds, you know, you use that term controlled trauma, there's obviously a great deal of lactic acid that begins to build up. I think you still get more of like a metabolic conditioning effect once you, once you get to a certain point. But it sounds to me like for the purpose of getting what you're going after with the neuroset, once folks get to the point where they're not able to move as quickly during that set as they were at the beginning of that set, that's when you say, okay, that's the number of reps that I'm doing for the power set.

Yeah, because the goal is we're trying to create smart muscle. And the goal is to stimulate those power fibers, those type 2A. And so once you drop that off, you go into some kind of endurance training or almost cardio. And that's how you can adapt this program. We can talk about that later. You could adapt this program for endurance too, if you wanted to. It's all what your training goals are.

Yeah, that's a good point. So you could do A grind and maybe do more reps of a grind and just like a longer period of time with the power training and get a little bit more metabolic conditioning or endurance effect.

Absolutely.

Cool. I like it. And by the way, I'm going to be running up and down my driveway holding a yoga block. Now, I've jotted that. I've jotted that down as something to guinea pig, so I'll let you know how that goes. A new use for the yoga block that sits gathering dust in my closet. Okay, cool. So we've got the grind as the first neuroset. And then you move on to do the power working the same muscle group for that next part of the neuroset. And then you finish with this isometric hold. Why do you finish with the isometrics? And what are some examples of how somebody does that?

Well, you're basically moving against a force that cannot be moved. So the idea is it goes back to, I don't know who said the quote, but what's the heaviest weight that you can lift? It's the one that you can't. And so you are moving against an irresistible resistance. And so basically, what you might want to do here, the easiest form of this or idea, is to do a wall squat. After you've done regular squats, if you're dynamic power drill. So you're putting that back into there and you're stimulating the quads by pushing with your heels as hard as you can into the floor, pushing your back into the wall, you're going to find this huge stimulation and you want to hold that and you want to keep it for 7 to 12 seconds. And as you do that, your muscles should start to shake a little bit. That's how you know. So your body's not moving, but the muscles are still contracting in that state. And now there is a way to do and take us to another level. I've done it. I've done isometrics, but the goal is different to where you basically almost kill yourself. I've gotten in a power rack and set the pins to a certain height so it's like mid level of a squat. Then put the bar underneath it so you can't move. You're going. You're locked in that position, but you're still pushing against that, that locked position. And I've done that for time. Just as long as you can possibly hold it. And your legs are jello.

Yeah.

For the regular isometric, I say 7 to 12 seconds. And if you're doing all three of these types of exercises, Back to back to back. Your, your muscles should be stimulated to the core. I mean, it should be. Those fibers should be traumatized.

Yeah, I agree, because I kind of laughed when I was reading your book and I saw you said like, you know, 7 to 12 seconds for holding the isometric. But then I actually did the set right. Like I did the grind first and then I did the power set and then I finished with this isometric hold. And you're not just sitting there when you do the isometric hold. Like, I think a lot of people are used to a wall squat being just like, you know, put your back and your ass against the wall for as long as you can sit there. But you actually, like, you just talked about like for the, for to stimulate the quadriceps, for example, you are pressing your heels as freaking hard as you can into the ground for those seven to 12 seconds. And it becomes extremely difficult. Like when you're talking about like the minimum effective dose of exercise for me, going for those really, really short isometric holds where I'm just recruiting as many muscle fibers as possible and squeezing the muscle as hard as I can. I had learned how to do that a little bit from. You probably know who Pablo Zatolin is, right?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. Like his plank hold. You know, you're doing a plank, but rather than holding a front plank for five minutes, you're just like doing a full on hardcore isometric plank contraction for like 10 seconds. And it's kind of like that same concept. It's a, there's, there's like a passive isometric hold versus I don't even know what you would call it, but like kind of more an active, aware, concentrated isometric hold where you're contracting all the.

Muscles you've gotta engage. And that, that's why when people ask a lot of questions about these things, it's like if you're doing it right, you can't go longer than 15 seconds. You know, if you've done the whole set together correct, that's the key. You know, it's not a passive movement. You are pushing. And isometrics is the great secret behind all great strongmen, whether it's bending, no matter what it is. And so for instance, if you wanted to change the leverage, so people say, well, how do I get that same effect on my hamstrings? Well, instead of pushing the wall away with your heels, now you take the heels and try and pull them against the wall. And you are engaging, you know, you're grinding your heels into the ground, pull them towards you now you're getting your hamstrings toasted. So it's all a matter of leverage. But if you're not engaging, if you can't, what I call. And it sounds kind of, you know, different for a lot of people that aren't used to engaging this way. But you ought to be able to feel the muscle. You have to think, use your mind, think into those muscles that you're trying to work to engage them, and you're going to have a powerful thing. There's the mind, body connection is such a powerful thing.

Yeah. And you even mentioned in the book, I talked about this earlier how you can use, for example, for an isometric hold for the hamstrings, you can literally just plant a giant bath towel under your feet and grasp either end of the towel as though you were going to do a deadlift. And just do a deadlift where you're pulling as hard as you can against that towel without allowing your body to move, and you get an extremely intense, almost like full body isometric contraction.

Yeah, it's so intense. We went on a cruise one time and I just. The weight facilities were not that great, and we did some running and different things, but it was like, how can you do a whole workout with just a towel? And so some of those exercises came out of that. We did a whole video on that somewhere. It's buried on YouTube. How you can get a whole workout with just a beach towel. And. But when you do that, I mean, your grip is toasted. You've engaged your biceps, your triceps, your shoulders, your traps, your core, everything down to your calves. And again, you can't always gauge the work level on sweat, but if you are doing a great towel isometric, you will be pouring buckets of sweat because of the tension.

Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. And you said this was something that strongmen used to do as, like one of their secret training methods was they use isometrics.

Yes. All great strongmen have always used this. And one of the most famous of all, the Alexander Zas, he became strong in prison, you know, holding back these bars and. And just pulling against them all the time, using what you had, pulling against the chains that were on his body and intense isometric strength. When I was learning to bend nails, one of the things I would do is get a nail three or four sizes bigger than what I could bend and just try and bend it. Of course, it wasn't going to move, but I was generating so much tension in that that the lighter nails just became Easy and cake. And you could just fold them over like nothing.

Yeah, that's. That's awesome. You're probably familiar with, like, the captains of crush hand grip strengthening device, right?

Absolutely.

In addition to all sorts of goodies and toys in my glove box, but in addition to the power lung. And I. And I keep these in my bags, too. So when I'm on an airplane or, you know, I'm at a conference standing in the back and not able to exercise, I do isometric contractions with these captains of crush devices. I mean, you can just squeeze it as hard as you can 10 times in a row or whatever, but I'll hold it just as hard as I can for as long as I can. And it's just this intense hand grip strengthening device. But isometrics, when you. It's really interesting. And I don't know if you feel this way, John, but even something like as simple as a hand grip, sitting in the car, you start to feel your entire body working. I mean, like, your little, like your Kegel muscles are working and your deep pelvis and your core, and you'll feel the other hand kind of working a little bit as you're squeezing with the, say, like the right hand, you feel the left hand working a little bit because you get a little bit of a contralateral effect, and it's pretty powerful. Like, a lot of people don't realize how much of a workout you can get literally, by just squeezing a muscle.

Yeah. Because if you're doing it well, you know, that hyper irritation factor takes over. And, like, you're talking about everything. Even your guts get engaged. You know, I love doing negatives, like, with the number four and isometrically resisting it as it's open, forcing itself open. And you're not just engaging your hands there. I mean, it's the entire body.

So that would be. So a number four is. Is. That's the term that you give to one of these captains of crush hand grip strengthening devices. That's. That's what, like, several hundred pounds.

I believe that one is £365 resistance or more. That one. The number four is the biggest one.

Okay. You're closing that with, like, two hands and then using one hand to resist it from opening.

Yeah. Or forcing it shut on your leg, which takes a lot of tension in itself.

Oh, yeah.

And pushing down with your body and then letting go, pulling it away from your leg and just holding it shut with your hand and letting it force your hand open.

That makes sense. It also sounds like a really good way to get bruises up and down your leg. Yes, but it does, does make sense. So during the isometric, one thing that I've found, John, is you described the breathing, right, like hissing breathing that you're doing during the isometric. I've found that for me, rather than watching the clock, I'll just do two or three of those long hiss, power breathing type of breaths rather than say, looking at the clock, counting, 7 seconds, 8 seconds, 12 seconds, whatever. Do you count time? Do you count breaths? Is there something that you really focus on during that isometric hold to engage the muscle as much as possible for the period of time?

Well, I do two things. I count the time as well as how much fatigue I'm feeling. I want to feel that muscle, I want to force that muscle to really feel that inner trauma. But with my clients, one of the things we do is exactly what you've said. When I'm training them with neuromass, especially on any kind of leg isometric, any lower body, they do the power breathing just like that. They'll do three to four power breaths, will take at least 12 seconds. And that's how they do it. We'll have inhale because they can keep that tension, you know, ex the teeth as hard as you can again and again and again. And that usually, you know, has reached their threshold by doing that. And it's an excellent technique.

Nice. I like it. So we talked about body weight a little bit. So like an example neuroset, for example, let's say like the chest because I know that you can, you can work like, you know, you could choose a few different neurosets, like work the chest back, the quads and hamstrings in one workout and just do one of these, these three different sets for each of those muscle groups to, to kind of like string them together into a full workout. So like for the, for the neuro set, for let's say like your chest or upper body, you could do a super slow grind of push ups or even like use these neuroset grips that you talked about and do a super, super slow set of push ups with these handles. And then you do let's say like clap pushups or plyometric pushups for 15 to 60 seconds. And then you'd finish up with just like. I think one of the examples that you give in the book is the crossover chest contraction where you're almost like a bodybuilder on stage, like, you know, contracting the chest as hard as possible for 7 to 12 seconds. And that's your upper body body weight set, but then you also have kettlebell sets in there. Can you give an example of how you could. Well, let's use the same example. Like, how could we do like a chest or an upper body neuroset, but use a kettlebell instead of body weight?

Well, with a kettlebell, you want to roll down. You can either do the floor press or you could do it on a bench, just sticking with the chest, for example. So you're going to do that and you're going to grind it out, and it's going to give you a different feel than you would have by doing that with dumbbells or a barbell, because you're actually going to be pulling backwards a little bit, so the leverage is a little trickier. So you would do that for your required number of reps on the grind. And then one of my favorite dynamic drills, it's kind of like this hidden gem of the kettlebell world is the rolling speed press. And that's where you're on your back and you roll to one side and punch up, roll the other side and punch up. So you're punching and rolling your body side to side. And it's a tremendous engager of awareness, you know, kinesthetic awareness by doing that, because your body is making contact and rolling and punching. And you want to do that for 15 to 30 seconds. And then I would grab that kettlebell and then put the horn down or the handle down on the ground and then grasp the kettlebell on the sides. So you're having to crush with your chest and balance on the handle for the isometric.

Gotcha. And then so the power exercise is the rolling speed press.

Yes.

And then you're proceeding that with like your basic grind, which is almost like a bench press or a floor press with a kettlebell. And then you finish that up with just like flipping the kettlebell over and holding it in like that Crush grip for 7 to 12 seconds.

Well, from a push up position.

From a push up position, yeah. Or the other one I've noticed is you can like hold the kettlebell up to your chest and just like try and crush the kettlebell like you would like a soda can for. For 7 to 12 seconds.

Yeah, that would be the easiest. That would be the beginner, like, where you can do it. Start right there, crush it. And as you get stronger, you keep that same crushing position, but you're holding your whole body weight on top of it and putting that on the, on the floor. And that really torches the chest.

Yeah, I like it. I mean, I've done this before. I've taken a yoga mat and a kettlebell in my driveway and done neuromass workouts where I'll. What I do generally is I bought your book on Kindle, so I just flip open to, I choose a quad set, usually a hamstring set, a chest set and a back set. Right. So I'm doing like a push, pull, push, pull. And that's the way I kind of string them together. I don't know if I'm totally blaspheming your program by arranging them in that way, but I try and do a full body neuromass workout and for stuff like that, I've gone three days a week where I'll just do the same thing, push, pull, push, pull, push, pull. And just have each of those four different neuromass sets that I'll go through. And it takes 30, 40 minutes. Usually I'll finish up by going out and hammering on my mountain bike for another 15, 20 minutes to round it out to have a good hour long workout. And it's a, it's a cool way to train. It's also cool, really good for hotel rooms where you've always got bath towels and your own body weight.

Yeah, And I love that, and that was my idea with the book is, you know, it's, it's only, it's up to your creativity how far you can take this. You know, it can be adapted to whatever you want to do. And you know, if you want more bodybuilding, you know, you could do the chess set for five sets if you want. Overall, just health and fitness. I love what you're doing. I mean, that's going to make you an elite athlete. Doing that for guys that want size, like I said, they stick with one body part and do it for as many sets as they can possibly do it, you know, and then call it a day, you know.

Yeah, that, that actually makes sense. So if I wanted hypertrophy instead of what I'm doing, which is more athleticism, I could just take like, like three different neurosets or. Yeah, three different neurosets, I guess it would be. So a total of nine different exercises for say like the chest and just blast the chest in a day and then let that recover for a week.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's why this program is just so adaptable for what you want to do. And that's my goal, is to say, hey, there are very few people who want to be a professional strongman. But what is your goal? And then take these principles and apply it, because the principles are principles. You know, truth is truth, but you can use it for how you want to use it. And that's, that's one of the things as coach I've always tried to say is that, you know, take what you can from me and use it and adapt it. You know, it's like eating fish. You know, you eat the meat and you leave the bones. You know, take what you can take out of it. And, you know, I certainly don't think, you know, I'm the only person who knows anything. I try and take from everybody I can out there and gain some kind of knowledge. And that's the idea. Take this stuff and make it your own, you know, that's what I love.

Yeah, I like it. I like it. And one other question that I had about the actual programming would be number of weeks. Do you generally do this as like a cycle and then move on to something else, like, you know, like a 12 week cycle of NeuroMass for, you know, three or four days a week? Or do you do it as like a four week cycle? Or what would you say is the best way to put these together into like a programming cycle for fitness?

Well, I would try it for no longer, no less than six weeks. I mean, you got to give something about six weeks to really allow the body to adapt. You can even probably go as little as four weeks, but you're not going to get the results that you will with six weeks. But it really depends again on what your goals are. You can take this, and I use a lot of times for, you know, I'll do body weight, but even when I'm working with the extreme strength weights, I still try and apply these principles. I may not do it as a neuroset itself, but I will make sure all three of these things are involved in my workout, if that makes sense, that I'm doing something and that's the big thing. So try it for six weeks as a standalone program. But then as you adapt and you say, hey, I want to make this more specific for what I'm involved in, still take those principles, still make sure every workout you're doing a grind, you're doing dynamic power and you're doing isometric. And so you may choose not to do that all in one set. But if you're getting all three of those things in the workout, you're still creating yourself into a superior athlete. It's, it's like John Brookfield and I used to joke around with, you know, Somebody comes up to you and says, well, what's the best exercise for kicking field goals? Well, the best exercise for kicking field goals is kicking field goals. You know, if. If you're a triathlete, it's not.

It's not attaching electrical muscle stimulation to your quad and imagining a football.

Absolutely.

As most biohackers would think.

Yeah. Because it's like, you know, if you're a triathlete, use this as an assistance to what you're doing. You know, if you're an endurance athlete, do, you know, practice your sport and plug some of these things in even at the end of practice or what you're doing on your off days.

Yeah.

I will say that this one of the benefits for those that are into endurance, if you do this and you just raise the numbers a little bit, it actually improves your recovery rate. You know, for guys that are doing big time endurance work, you know, you're able to recover quicker because the body is learning to take resistance from different levels. Yeah, it's a powerful thing.

We're gonna find out if it's powerful, man, because I've been traveling a ton lately. I've been on the road, speaking, going to conferences, living on airplane airplanes that I've been is basically, I've got my Kindle in my bag and I pull it out and I open up your book and just flip to a few neurosets, circle them, and go to town. When I get to my hotel room, or even just in the crappy hotel gym, I'll even sometimes substitute a dumbbell instead of a kettlebell and do the same exercises. But I've got the Spartan Ultra Beast, the Spartan World Championships in a couple of weeks. And basically my workouts have been very brief forays into heavy sprinting, some long hikes, and then this Neuromass program with a little bit of powerlifting thr. So we'll find out if it really does work. Man, if I find myself stranded on the slopes of Tahoe being pulled off the course after the time cut off, I'll. I'll blame you.

Yes, please do. Dude, I love that. That's a great combo, man. You put sprints with anything, it's just gonna be killer.

Oh, dude, you do like a Neuromass set, like in a, in a hotel room that's got a treadmill and just put the, put the treadmill on max incline or like 15% and as fast as you can get it going. Let's say that like 10 miles an hour. And I'll finish up A neuromass set with, like, there's another guy named Martin Rooney who wrote a book called Cardio Workouts for Warriors, and I lifted this from that book. But you do 10 sets of 30 seconds on the treadmill, Just max speed, max incline. Every time you get to 30 seconds, you hop off and just walk around the room till you don't want to vomit anymore, and then you jump back on the treadmill. And that's kind of like the finisher. He calls it a hurricane. So you finish up like a. Like a neuroset with a hurricane. And, man, I mean, you know, when it. When it comes to getting the minimum effective dose of exercise or building endurance with a minimum amount of time, you do have to go into the pain cave. But you can save yourself a ton of time, you know, using strategies like that, dude.

Sprint intervals, whether you're doing them on a treadmill, whether you're doing them with the battling ropes, I mean, they cannot be beat for your conditioning factor. I mean, I just. I absolutely love them. You know, finishers are a whole. Great. Talk about sometimes I have friends that use neuromass as a finisher, sometimes with a lightweight.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah, I could see that. Like, just go through a neuro set as a finisher after you've done a full workout.

Yeah. With a light barbell, you know, and go through it, because that's the thing you can apply. You know, plug in barbells, dumbbells, body weight, whatever you want to plug in that. That's the beauty of the system. But I love those sprint intervals. That's. I'm a big guy, and so that's one of my favorite workouts just for fat loss, is to get on and do sprint intervals on the treadmill because it forces you to go a certain speed that you set it as. You know, it's forcing me to stretch out. You know, if I put the treadmill on, I've got one at home that goes up to 12, and I. I don't do too well at 12, but about 11 mph for short sprints that my body's moving, my legs are pumping, you know.

Yeah. Especially once you toss the incline on there, man. Makes sense.

And I love it. I love it.

Yeah. Well, cool. I'm gonna link to everything that we talked about, from, of course, your book Neuromass, to the magazine that you write for Milo, which I like and subscribe to, the Compex Electrostim, these neuro grips that you talked about. I gotta remember to pick some of those up later on today, the power lung everything just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com neuro that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com n e u R O there. Thank you. I spelled it for you. And you'll be able to grab John's book, throw it on your Kindle or I think is there like a hard book or a paper book version available?

John yes, you can get the paperback on my website on submit strength or on Amazon or at Dragon Door.

Cool. Sweet. I'll link to that too. Oh, and by the way, if any of you are listening and you're into strength and you don't subscribe to the Dragon Door catalog, you got to get on that bandwagon too. It's got like all those guys I mentioned like Martin Rooney and Pavel Zetzelin and and other guys who have been on the show before, like Dan, John. And John, of course, is on there. So check that out too. John, thanks for coming on the show, man, and for writing this book.

Dude, it was killer, man. You're awesome.

Yeah, well, thank you. I'll take that. You just made my Monday. Well, folks, if you're listening in, check out BenGreenfieldFitness.com Noro until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield and John Bruni signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

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