How to Lift Weights for MAXIMUM Muscle Growth

Foreign.

What's going on, everybody? And welcome back to the Built With Science podcast. You're here with your host, as always, of course, me, myself and I, Max Coleman, AKA Coleman, et al. And as is tradition, sitting directly in front of me is the one, the only Daniel Clockin, AKA dpizzle P, AKA Danny Boy. And today we're going to be talking about technique, form. What is good technique? What are the various components that make an exercise either pretty or ugly, that make it valuable for hypertrophy or not all under the guise of muscle growth. Right, so we're not going to be talking about what is the best technique to lift the most in the big three, but what is the best or most optimal technique that we can use to ensure that what we're doing in the gym is resulting in the most muscle growth possible? Right, so we'll start off as usual with just a definition of what technique is.

Right. The.

It should be important to note from basically what I just said, that depending on the goal that you have, you might have different techniques that you would use to achieve that goal.

Right?

So a power lifter doing a bench press trying to lift the most amount of weight they possibly can is going to look very different than a bodybuilder from a bodybuilder doing a bench press, specifically with the goal of trying to grow their chest and triceps as much as possible.

Right?

So again, under the umbrella of hypertrophy, as always, when Danny Boy and I are talking, we're going to talk specifically about that. So there's really no universal definition for what good technique is. However, I recently had the fortune, the fortune of good luck to be able to help Dr. Pack and Milo Wolf with their recent narrative review looking at what is optimal technique for hypertrophy.

Right?

And we proposed the following definition. And it's a little long and it's a little wordy, so I apologize. Right, but. And I'm. I'm reading off a slide here, and this isn't straight from the dome, but technique pertains to the controlled execution of bodily movements to ensure an exercise effectively targets specific muscle groups while minimizing the risk of injury. This involves the orchestration of body positioning, alignment, range of motion and repetition. Tempo. So before we break down each one of those components, and we're going to go through each one of those and talk very in depth about them and the studies associated with them.

Right?

But Danny Boy, from a, you know, you're the left brained, weird scientist of the two of us, but from your perspective, why is Good technique, good form, valuable from a standardization standpoint.

Yep.

So while I think a lot of people sometimes conflate how important extremely standardized technique and good technique, quote unquote, leads to better muscle gain, I think some semblance of standardization is important for two reasons. One is because some amount of standardization, at least on many or most of your exercises, allows you to know whether you're progressing adequately. So if you go down in weight on an exercise week to week, it's probably not a good sign of good things happening to any, you know, range of muscle growth metrics. And the second reason is that I think respecting the anatomy or the functional anatomy of the muscle and respecting the forces during the exercise and is a good idea. I think there's a lot of wiggle room in the middle where small deviations are unlikely to matter. But if you're making the choice with a good, sound rationale, you're probably going to end up in a situation where it's neutral to positive. So it's not something that I would worry about. But those small tweaks can make a difference in how the individual feels and potentially the amount of stimulus that the muscle actually receives. And that also goes hand in hand with sort of pain and maybe injury, but mostly just comfort during the exercise. If making a small tweak and standardizing that to the extent that you can allows for you to feel better during the exercise, that's an obvious, obvious choice, while also taking into account that standardization is not really standardized. So there's a few studies I'm aware of, and I'm sure many studies that I'm not aware of that tried to look at the actual standardization, rep to rep in an exercise, and they find that there's pretty large deviations in tons of metrics. When you look at even elite lifters, lifters who just using the naked eye look like they're doing the same exact rep over and over again. So sort of how I look at this is you want to standardize to the extent that's visually apparent, but don't be fooled into thinking that you're doing the same exact rep every time. And don't worry about small deviations, particularly as you get closer to failure, the rep is going to look different.

So, yeah, yeah, I think that's. That was really so in the. Just to clarify what Danny boy was saying, in those studies, they have individuals like he said, elite level, whatever there may be powerlifting or weightlifting, athletes perform the exercise respective to their sport, and they have them do so using motion capture. So it's not just them looking at the athlete and saying, oh, they look a little different. It's a computer that's analyzing the degree of elbow flexion or the degree of knee valgus while they're doing various things. And even though it may look to us and the researchers even naked eye, that it looks exactly the same over time, the computer is able to pick up on these very small but meaningful deviations rep to rep.

Right.

And then I think I want to highlight one thing you said there at the beginning, which is no form is very technique. Form in general is often touted as the first thing that you need to slam down when you get into the gym. Like, it is the most important function, fundamental, foundational thing that you do for your lifting career.

Right.

It's one of these things where the advice that is often touted in the actual world, the. The world of lifting is not in concordance with the degree of evidence on the subject at all.

Right.

So a big part of this podcast today is going to be us talking about how limited evidence is with respect to what good form is, especially for certain components, right? Now, even with that being said, the old adage of evident absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.

Right.

What Danny boy was saying is that even though there might not be that much research with respect to certain aspects of form, following along with the guidelines given to us from the field of biomechanics, the field of functional anatomy is at the very least a good place to start with respect to both the potential of minimizing injury, but also to ensure that the muscles that we're trying to target are being as stimulated as much as possible. Is that a fair summary of what you were just saying? Basically agreed. Sweet. Also, always nice to be on a. On the same page. Okay, so now let's actually break down the various components of. Of what good form is, and we'll start here with repetition. Tempo.

Yeah.

How quickly we are performing the exercise, both eccentric and concentric. Is there anything you want to start off by saying with respect to repetition tempo? How do you generally go about programming tempo for your athletes? Do you ever mess with tempo specifically? Like, do you ever have athletes specifically do a. A specific tempo, or do you usually just say, you know, control the eccentric, be explosive on the concentric?

Yeah. Pretty rarely have people mess with tempo.

Mm.

There's cases that are within an individual where they'll have pain or some discomfort. And so, for example, many people, if they come out too quickly from the bottom of a squat or particularly the bottom of, like, A Smith machine squat, they, they might have a tiny bit of knee pain. So coming out a tiny bit slower from the bottom and then being explosive is a good idea. So basically what I'm saying is that I don't really have standardized tempos for exercises, but I do manipulate tempo depending on the feedback. But generally speaking, I like a controlled eccentric and a relatively explosive concentric. But even then I don't really do explosive concentrics in the beginning of a set. If it's like a high rep set or else like let's say a leg extension, I'm not like having the pad jump off my foot. I'm doing it relatively explosively, but still so that it's still. Yeah, controlled. So yeah, I think the, the main takeaway there is that tempo really likely doesn't matter that much within normal ranges as long as you're controlling the eccentric to some extent. And the concentric probably matters even less than the eccentric. But if you're going to choose one to default to try to make it an explosive concentric, because there's some evidence that motor unit recruitment is slightly better in explosive concentric.

Yeah. And I think that's generally in concordance with the data that we have. Surprise, surprise. Danny Boy knows his shit. But during this, in this narrative review that Dr. Pack and Milo worked on, they highlighted two meta analyses looking at repetition tempo and its effect on hypertrophy. So one was by Dr. Schoenfeld and one was by Dr. Wilk and colleagues, of course.

Right.

And basically both. Dr. Schoenfeld's takeaway is basically like there's a wide range of repetition tempos. Anywhere from 0.5 seconds to 8 seconds results in similar hypertrophy. And then Dr. Wilk et al, they, they found something very similar, which is to say that generally anywhere from a 3 to 8 second duration of repetition is, is equally effective.

Right.

The evidence in general on this is surprisingly not conclusive with respect to how we should go about breaking those down further like into eccentric and concentric. So the best, the biggest takeaway from this particular section is that as long as your repetitions are lasting somewhere between two and eight seconds, and that's any combination of eccentric and concentric speeds that you'd like, you're probably in the right ballpark.

Right.

But just a good rule of thumb, basically exactly what Danny boy was just saying is as long as you're controlling the eccentric and you're not letting gravity do the down portion of whatever movement it is you're doing, right. You're not dive Bombing the squat, you're not letting the barbell bounce off your chest when you're doing a bench press, then it really doesn't matter. In fact, it's. It's. Interestingly, there was one study where they had individuals do a slow eccentric and a fast concentric, and another. And the other group was doing a fast con or a slow concentric and a fast eccentric.

Or what if.

I don't know if I said that correctly, but you get the point. And they actually found that those doing the slow concentric grew more than those doing the fast concentric, which, you know, is really surprising and just kind of murky. The muddies the water with respect to how we should actually be doing these things. But I agree with Danny Boy. Like, as long as we are lowering the weight in a very controlled fashion, the it doesn't have to be ridiculously slow or anything like that. And we're lifting the weight with intent on the way up, but not necessarily doing so as explosively as possible is probably a good place to be.

Right.

So again, a big portion of this podcast is just going to be us saying not really a whole lot of conclusive data on the matter, but this is what is. Is generally a good rule of thumb.

Right.

So lift quickly, lower slowly, as simple as it gets. I will say one last thing here on this section. Pauses can be a really valuable thing for individuals. So if you ever have clients or you find yourself that it's hard for you to kind of lift in a more controlled fashion, I find that doing pauses at the bottom of repetitions makes it a lot easier for people to control the eccentric. I don't know if you found this, Danny Boy, but, like, for something like a bench press, if I have someone do a paused bench press or a paused push up or like an rdl, I have them pause kind of in the lengthened position of the rdl, the bottom position. That makes it easier for them to kind of lower themselves down into that position a little bit more in a little bit more of a controlled fashion rather than kind of dropping into it. I don't know if you've found anything similar or if you want to say anything further about repetition tempo before we move on to the next portion.

Yeah, so, I mean, it makes sense because if you're planning to pause as opposed to utilize the stretch shortening cycle at the bottom, you're going to limit the amount of momentum into that position. So, yeah, I definitely use that as a tool for basically creating constraints to get people to control the eccentric. The one Thing I'll add is just to underline what you were saying about intent. I think a lot of people get really angry when you say to do an explosive concentric. For some reason, they're like, that's not what the evidence shows. But I think because we're saying it's a good rule of thumb, that's the part that I want people to sort of remember here or take away here. Intent is probably a very good idea. And it's hard to have the same level of intent when you're purposefully slowing the concentric portion of the movement. Just try it out for yourself. And I've just noticed with myself and clients, the variation in the amount of reps you actually achieve is kind of odd because of the fact that you can't put maximal. It's hard to ma. Put maximal intent into a. A deliberately slow concentric. So that's just something I want to underline really quick.

No, I think. Yeah, I think it's worth. I think it's worth pointing out being like telling someone to lift, especially, like you said, not on higher rep sets. Like, if you're doing anything under, like a 12, having someone lift as. As quickly as they can out of the bottom, again, still in a controlled fashion is probably a good idea to, just because it ensures that towards the end, they're not kind of sluggishly going through their concentric phase, which ultimately limits the amount of reps they're able to get on the set entirely, which theoretically would limit how much stimulus they're getting from that particular set.

Right, okay.

So moving on to the next component of form. So touched on repetition speed, we're now going to talk about range of motion, which probably has the most evidence on the topic as a whole.

Right.

So basically, I won't. I won't belabor the point here because we have an entire podcast on muscle length training, and we talk about range of motion and long muscle length training ad nauseam in that episode. So be sure to check that out. But basically, the big takeaway here is that we really do not want to avoid the stretched position when the muscle is in a lengthened position. We really want to emphasize that portion of the lift, regardless of the range of motion as a whole. And one way of achieving that is, is by doing things called lengthened partials.

Right.

Where you're purposefully not doing the entire range of motion of the exercise.

Right.

So like in a dumbbell curl, that would be going from full elbow extension to full elbow flexion, but instead you're cutting that to anywhere from one third to two thirds of what the original range of motion be. So again, for a bicep curl, that would be curling right to 90 degrees and then going right back down.

Right.

And we now have five published studies. One study that is not in preprint, but not in preprint, but was proposed at a conference in the form of an abstract comparing full range of motion training to length and partial training.

Right.

Five of the six, again, once not published, so take it with a grain of salt. But five of the six show a benefit to doing a length and partial training over full range of motion, with one of them saying that there's no difference between the two at all.

Right.

So we don't have to do lengthened partials to achieve this. We just want to be sure, and this kind of goes in with repetition tempo as well, that we are not skipping the stretch position. And with respect to tempo and range of motion, it's probably a really good idea to not try and speed through that area either. So especially on the eccentric, we want to really be controlled when we're getting towards, like, let's say, the bottom of a squat right before we explode up on the concentric.

Right.

So with respect to range of motion, again, last thing I'll say, don't skip the stretch. Regardless of which exercise it is or how you're performing it, Just make sure that we're taking the muscle into not it's necessarily most lengthened position, but the most lengthened position allowed by that exercise itself. Is there anything you want to touch on with respect to range of motion, Danny boy?

We could probably touch on what we were talking about before with certain exercises sort of lending themselves to a lack of kind of standardization, Creating a position where you're sort of biasing the length and partial if you want to. Unless you want to cover that later.

Do you want to cover it? Because I'm a little lost on, like, what specifically you mean by that.

Yeah, so basically, when. When it comes down to range of motion, many people will stop and exercise when they can't do a full rep anymore. So this sort of goes into a combination of standardization and range of motion, where it kind of makes sense for some exercises to do that, but it makes a little bit less sense for other exercises where we start getting into lengthened partial territory. So when you're weaker in that short position, then you might stop an exercise. Like a row is a really good example of this. You'll stop an exercise where you can't hit your body on the row. Pretty quickly. But you probably have, you know, five or six more length and partial reps in you. So here's a situation where now you're sort of breaking the rules of, or potentially breaking the rules of what some might consider to be standardization and range of motion. And, and you may actually get more benefit, but definitely neutral to positive. So just something I wanted to throw in there and a consideration where you take into account the strength at the strength curve of the exercise when you're considering the range of motion and standardization and honestly even tempo because tempo and momentum will affect where things are more difficult.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's really beautifully said. Like for instance, if you are doing an exercise where the most lengthened, so most exercises we do, squats, push ups, bench press, other exercises that I for some really like RDLs, most hamstring. Yeah. Generally speaking, those exercises are going to be the most challenging in the most lengthened position already. Right. But we do have some movements that are like what Danny boy is saying, where they're actually, you're much stronger when the muscle is in a more lengthened position and the exercise gets much harder when the muscle is a shortened position. So things like rows, things like dumbbell lateral raises, these are things where if you fail the exercise, it's because you can no longer do the exercise in a full range of motion to the shortened position of that muscle. Right. So you'll fail a lateral raise at the top, you'll fail a, a bent over row and, and that you won't be able to bring it to your chest anymore. And for exercises like that, it might be worth kind of breaking the, the rule, so to speak, of standardization, which means that it's okay for you to, let's say, do a set of bent over rows all the way to your chest. And let's say you get 10 reps at 135 pounds and then you do, let's say five more. So you get to 15 reps of lengthen partials at 135 pounds.

Right.

That would just be an example of where it's to break the necess like the standardization rule, so to speak. But even within that umbrella, so to speak, it's still better to try your best. It's not necessarily, it's not necessary, but it's probably a good idea to try your best to standardize the length and partial reps as well. So maybe we're doing bent over rows to our knees, maybe we're doing lateral raises. That one's so hard to, to quantify.

Right.

But you kind of have to use your eye test. And like kind of Danny boy was saying earlier, with respect to standardization, we don't need this to pass the mo, the mocap test. We don't need to, we don't need a Vicon to tell us that we're working in the exact same degree of range of motion every single rep that we do.

Right.

But we want to make sure that our training partner, or even just looking at ourselves in the mirror, things are looking pretty similar rep to rep.

Right.

But last thing I'll say here, with respect to range of motion, just kind of like tie this together. Don't skip the stretch. You don't have to do lengthened partials. But if you're going to do a full range of motion, make sure that you are controlling especially the eccentric and concentric close to the most stretched position. You're not bouncing out of the bottom of anything and that you, you know, you, you aren't using momentum to kind of avoid the, the stretch position at all.

Right?

So I think that's good with respect to range of motion. Yeah.

Cool.

Okay.

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We'll move on to the last one, which potentially has the least amount of research. Actually, not even potentially. This has the least amount of research on it by far with respect to technique in general.

Right.

And this is exercise specific kinematics. Right. And there's kind of two major takeaways here or two major components within exercise specific kinematics.

Right?

And these are guidelines that are just meant to delineate the correct performance for a given exercise.

Right?

So one aspect of this is things like posture and the position of different segments, meaning like your arms and legs.

Right.

During the exercise itself. So these are things like hand grip placement, like where you're putting your feet on a leg press. Are they higher, are they lower, are they closer, are they further apart? Are you doing a wide grip bench press or a close grip bench press? These are examples of exercise specific kinematics.

Right.

And most of the advice that you'll hear with respect to stuff like this comes from things theoretical, functional anatomy or biomechanical models.

Right.

Rather than actual applied research comparing two long term exercise techniques to see which one results in more muscle growth.

Right.

The purpose of these specific cues, right. Knees in, knees out, whatever it may be, are to make an exercise biomechanically efficient and effective, but also safe for the target muscles that we're trying to target.

Right.

So, for example, the knees not caving in during the squat theoretically places more tension on the quads and takes tension away from the MCL and the ACL when we're doing something like a squat.

Right.

However, it's not like we've ever had a study comparing one group that does squats with their knees caved in, and one study where we have the other sorry, and the other group does squats with their knees pointed outwards.

Right.

We can't be sure based on any longitudinal research that squatting with your knees over your toes is better for quad growth.

Right.

But before we kind of go into some more concrete examples, do you want to say anything about that, Danny boy?

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of like a lot of these are sort of hypotheses that are based on functional anatomy and really sometimes even shoddy functional anatomy.

So.

Sometimes just not realizing how much variation there is between individuals in actual anatomy is really interesting too. So it's all going to be guesswork to some extent, even if we had sort of average differences for differences in form. But I think there's some pretty decent rules of thumb that are kind of obvious based on not even functional anatomy, but just torques like actual forces being applied in an exercise. So if you're doing a squat that looks like a good morning, like you're probably not hitting the quad as much as if you were doing a super upright Smith machine knees forward type deal. But once you get into that middle ground where it's much less obvious, you could still lean toward where you feel it more in the target muscle and what makes more sense. But you're just more skeptical whether that's going to be an actual meaningful difference over time. I still lean heavily toward choosing whatever I think is best in that instance, but I'm just always wearing that sort of skeptical hat as to making really strong statements in that regard. The same probably goes for like things like grip width, where if you go way too, way too far out or way too far in, it's fairly obvious. Like if you're doing a close grip or your hands are literally touching each other. Probably not the best chest exercise and so on, but in that middle ground, it's. It's more of a, you know, comfort slash. Are your joints ending up in around the right position thing. So, yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head in that once you sort of go away from the fringes and get to that middle ground, it's a lot of guesswork as it relates to functional anatomy.

Yeah.

And I think that oftentimes people will speak on this. This particular topic is really interesting to me because I think people will often talk about it with. With like, a high degree of confidence and oftentimes are basing it off of biomechanical models or even like EMG research. For instance, like, most people will tell you that your brachioradialis is hit more when you do bicep curls with a pronated grip as opposed to a supinated grip.

Right.

So your hands facing downwards versus upwards.

Right.

But that's based off of EMG data, and there's really no reason for us to think that that's necessarily the case. Right. So it's. It may even be possible that you're stretching the biceps more with a pronated grip so they get hit even better than they would if you were doing it supinated. I don't actually think that. It's certainly a possibility, but I also don't want it to be to sound like this is completely pointless because we actually do have some concrete examples of how different body positioning, different foot positioning can affect muscle growth. So there's one study by Nunes et al. I'm sure I'm butching the pronunciation of that. I do apologize, where they had individuals do calf raises with their feet either pointed inwards, outwards, or directly forward. And they did find differential growth of the calves based on where their forward feet were pointing.

Right.

So if you pointed your feet inwards, you saw a little bit more lateral gastroc growth. If you pointed them outwards, you saw a little bit more medial growth with, I think, relatively even distribution as far as feet pointed forward. So we're not saying that different hand positions, different feet positions, stuff like that won't result in a difference with respect to, you know, grow like growth of a muscle. We just can't say anything super confidently because there's a severe lack of research with respect to this type of thing. So that Nunes study where they're pointing the feet inward or outward is like the only study that I know of where they're changing the kinematics of the movement while being the same exact movement. And you're seeing some Difference. Actually one is coming to mind right now. I think we talked about this one, Danny boy. There was one where there was a study where they had individuals doing seated. No, sorry, hamstring curls. And they were either pointing their toes or flexing their toes to see if they. That affected hamstring growth at all. And it didn't. As far as memory serves, I don't think it made a difference. And they didn't measure calf growth, which we both were a little disappointed in. But that's just to say that these differences likely are minimal because even in that calf paper, the differences between toes pointed outward and inward were not like drastically different from one another or anything like that.

Right.

So it's just important to keep that in mind. So these differences that you'll see with like a wide grip versus a close grip bench press probably aren't going to be that drastic. But it's still something, you know, worth toying with. And more research is needed before we can say anything about confidently about with how manipulating body posture can affect muscle growth over the course of. Of a training career.

Right.

Anything you want to say on that before we move on to the next portion of Kinematics?

Yeah, I think just realizing that being in that middle ground where it makes sense is probably a good idea. So I think the two things from like a functional anatomy standpoint that I always want to consider are one, two joint muscles that cross two joints. So making sure you're not doing lengthening and shortening the muscle at the same time in the exercise. And two, does the muscle have a broad origin? So like the chest you're. It makes a whole. Even though we don't have actually we have some evidence on this. With flat bench versus inclined bench, the incline actually grew more overall. So basically more upper same lower versus less in the upper in the flat bench. So we actually have some evidence on this and it makes sense in terms of how the chest is structured. So it's a fanning muscle. So it makes sense that different regions will be hit depending on what's happening at the humerus and where at the direction in which it's going to. But beyond the super obvious broad origin, slash crossing a muscle, crossing two joints, I'm hesitant to make really strong claims even though you can still play around with things as we mentioned. So yeah, just wanted to cover those two things real quick.

Yeah, the, the, the bench press is a great example. I disappointed that I didn't think of that because it's a little different because it's two different exercises. A Little bit, you know what I mean? But I, I think it's a, I think it's a really good example of how we can manipulate positions to affect muscles differentially.

Right.

Here's another thing for my d. Danny boy, don't answer this. The chest is a fanning muscle, but it is not a penate muscle. Explain that to me, not you. Someone smart in the comments. I know you can probably answer that, but I, I, you know, I'm increasing Engagement. Engagement.

Yeah.

Yeah. Give me a raise.

All right.

Beautiful. Yeah. So not much more to talk about with respect to body positioning, but let's talk about the next portion of kinematics.

Right.

Which you even might take issue with as being in the kinematic section. But we'll talk about momentum.

Right.

The degree of strictness or laxity that you're able to have during a movement.

Right.

And this kind of encompasses the use of ancillary muscles in a set.

Right.

So it basically boils down to how strict are you being during the lift. With strict technique, we are at least theoretically ensuring that we are maximally stimulating the intended muscle while minimizing the involvement of unintended muscles. So think of the fact like, or think of an example like doing barbell bicep curls where you are standing like a board and the only thing that we can see moving from the outside is your elbow joint. That's the only place where we see any movement occurring. That would be like a very strict bicep curl as opposed to someone who's using their hips and kind of using momentum to get the barbell up to the top position and then lowering it down.

Right.

That would be an example of less strict Right. Data here is the most limited of anything we've talked about so far.

Right.

There's. Sorry, lost my, my plate of thought here. But based on the theory alone, for the most part, some movements may actually be better suited for the use of momentum. So like if momentum is not interfering with the most lengthened position, so you look at something like a bicep curl like we were talking about, if you use your hips to get the barbell up, you are taking away tension on the biceps when they're in the most lengthened position. That is when they have the most potential, when the, when the hypertrophic stimuli is the greatest.

Right.

However, there are certain instances where momentum might not be as bad as people often talk about it as, or, or as bad as people often think it is.

Right.

So if you look at something like a bent over barbell row, the use of momentum might actually allow you to target the muscle in a lengthened position because you're not wasting a lot of energy in the short getting the barbell all the way up to your chest.

Right.

So momentum generally probably a good thing to avoid. Kind of just if you just want to throw a blanket statement out there. As a general rule of thumb, it's probably best to avoid the use of momentum or the use of other muscles when we're trying to target another muscle. So like we don't want to try and use our hips and glutes, hamstrings to extend the hip when we're trying to target our biceps.

Right.

However, it's not necessarily the case that all momentums are created equal.

Right.

So if momentum is interfering with the lengthened position, definitely good to avoid. If momentum might actually allow you to get more reps in that length of position, it might actually be a good idea. However, there are ways to target that lengthened position without doing. Without using momentum at all.

Right.

So I don't really see the benefit of using momentum in a bent over row if we can just do lengthened partials to kind of get as much area under the curve in a lengthened position as we possibly can. Right, Danny boy, anything you want to say about the use of momentum for lifts?

That was good. I liked it. And I agree with the last point. I think it's probably more of an ego thing where people start to use momentum and sort of justify it with, yeah, you know, like I can get more rows and accentuate the length and position if I use some momentum, but really they just want to do a full range of motion. I think it comes from the need to sort of touch your whatever, belly button on each rep as opposed to actually being an extremely sound rationale. Not to say that there's anything super wrong with that. I've done it in, in the past and like I basically, I do strict form until I can't do strict form and then I allow some momentum in order to get more, more reps that are standardized to actually touching. I think that was more a combination of like strength and hypertrophy goals. If hypertrophy is the only goal, you probably are stretching logic a little bit in order to get yourself to do those, you know, momentum esque type rows and in order to accentuate the length of position.

Yeah, basically the use of momentum is generally, if, if you were to ask me, probably worth avoiding all the time. I don't think there's really there, there are some rationale, like there are Some arguments, like what we were just saying, like, oh, it'll allow you to spend more time in the length of position. But it's a weak argument considering that we now know that you don't have to do the full range of motion. So if you really want to improve or increase how much tension the muscle is producing in a length position, just do lengthen partials, don't do. Don't use momentum and say that you're doing it for the purposes of blah, blah, blah, blah, circumference, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, and to be clear here, we're talking about momentum that's gained from other body segments, not specifically within an exercise.

Yeah, I mean, like, if you're doing a perfectly strict rdl, right, you can use the momentum of, like, the hamstrings and glutes can produce a momentum in the lengthened position that makes it easier to get out of a less lengthened. So that's still momentum. But what we wouldn't want to see is the use of, like, it's hard to use the rdl, but like a barbell row, using the momentum of the glutes and hamstrings to kind of like pull back to make it easier for your humerus to pull back as well. That would be an example of momentum we definitely don't want.

Right?

Yeah. So don't conflate being explosive out of the bottom concentrically with using momentum from other muscles, because it's obviously two very different things. Okay. Anything else you want to say about that before we move on? Sweet stability. Daddy boy, why don't you take this one? Tell us about the last component here. With respect to form in general, but specifically to kinematics. Why should we care about stability when doing an exercise?

Yeah, so no surprise here, but stability sort of exists on a spectrum where you can have very, very, very stable exercises where pretty much only one body segment is moving. So something like pretty much any machine where you're sitting down.

So especially like a hamstring curl where you're, like, locked into that thing and you're.

Yeah, exactly. Yep, for sure. And then you have exercises where there's a bit less stability, but probably more than enough stability to get the requisite stimulus, like an RDL or any sort of compound lift that you're not doing on a Bosu ball. And then you sort of get into the territory where you likely want to avoid these exercises where, if it's anything on a ball or anything, maybe single leg stuff. I don't put into this category. I think you can get a whole lot out of them. But single leg stuff on your tippy toes, you might have it in there. But be the minority of your program. It might be something that's a super set, or it might be a finisher or something along those lines. I wouldn't use those exercises that are on the cusp of that stability spectrum as the meat and potatoes of your program, if that makes sense. So I think stability is really important, but once you've reached a threshold of stability, it becomes precipitously less important. So make sure you hit that threshold on most of your exercises and you'll likely be golden. I think another thing that ties in with stability is standardization. So when there's a higher amount of stability, there's generally a higher amount of standardization. So it also allows you to hit sort of that requisite standardization. I've tried doing even things that I would consider to be stable enough, so certain leg presses don't really allow you to get like really deep into that sort of stretchy quad position. And I've done heels up leg presses and I like them. But I've noticed that the consistency week to week of reps achieved is nowhere near as consistent as some of my other exercises, which I just chalked it up to, like, as long as the average is going up, I'm fine. But like, little differences in how my foot was placed really sort of changed things. So it's not something that I took out for that reason, but it's something that I sort of noted in my head that, all right, this is not going to be the meat and potatoes of my program. So. Yeah. Any thoughts on that?

Absolutely. So I think that I like talking about stability because it's funny, you know, like, without knowing it, I'm sure just directly quoted me from another podcast where someone asked me a question about stability That's. It's always nice when you and I are on the same page, rare though it may be. Basically, he asked me, like, how important is stability for growth, for hypertrophy? And I was like, look man, like, stability is very important for growth. But I think that the optimal crowd, kind of the, the, the too far on the spectrum evidence based crowd took it way too far where they, they say that more stability equals more growth every single time.

Right?

But I think that the threshold by which Danny Boy is talking about where it's, it's now it's, it's almost like binary, where now it's a stable exercise as opposed to an unstable one. It's, it's pretty simple. In that regard, and trying to increase stability beyond that threshold is kind of moot and, and, and not really going to aid in any growth, in my opinion. So, like, for instance, if you look at a squat on a Basu ball versus a squat on a, with a barbell and a squat on a Smith machine, once you get to the barbell, I like, it's really. I don't think that the Smith machine, even though it is more stable, is really going to do a whole lot for quad growth. Assuming that, you know, you're still someone who's able to squat with an adequate depth. Assuming your femurs aren't like six feet long.

Right.

But I think that a lot of people are like, no. If not every other segment of your body is hinged down, it's no longer a stable exercise and you can't do it. And the last thing I'll say here is with respect to single leg movements, like most single leg movements I'm totally fine with. I think they pass the, the, the, the threshold of stability, but not. So it's, it's. It's. I need to be very specific here. When I say single leg movements, I'm referring to things like lunges, Bulgarian split squats, reverse lunges, those types of things. Right. Step ups. The reason that those are okay is because they're not. They are single leg movements where one of the legs is doing the majority of the work. However, your base of support is still two feet. It's not, it's not like a. So for instance, I would never program a single leg rdl. Not, not like an. A truly single leg RDL for somebody. I think that there are ways to bias one leg over the other, where you still have two feet on the ground for the rdl, but that, like, anytime you are truly standing on one foot, it's not usually a movement that I would personally use.

Right.

Just because I don't think it. I think that for a lot of people, you're focusing way more on standing rather than you are actually completing the movement itself.

Right.

So, yeah, assuming that the movement is quote unquote stable and you're standing on two feet and are not standing on a Basu ball of some kind or some unstable surface of some kind, you're probably fine.

Right.

Anything you want to touch on from there?

Yeah, two things. One is that. Have I been saying Bosu ball wrong my whole life? Is it a Basu ball, bro?

I have no idea, dude. I'm from Alabama, so don't, don't take my pronunciations. As oak by anything.

I was just making sure because I've literally I've been saying it for a long time and if I've maybe it's like you know, a UK versus US thing where they're both correct depending on where you're from. So.

And you're from. You're from the United Kingdom. So that. That actually makes a lot of sense.

I meant Alabama versus New York type deal. But what was I gonna say? Oh yeah, I agree with you on the RDL front but I do like some RDLs on the Smith where you can kind of like lean back and.

Use the most like single like one legged rdls.

Yeah, exactly.

But then your base of support even still is more than just one foot because of how stable a Smith for sure.

Yeah. So I completely agree. I'm just like adding some potential exercise selection stuff for. For people who I think the utility of it is that you can do less load. So which is a good thing sometimes if you don't have like let's say you didn't have straps that sometimes helpful. And also just some variation at the row in. And obviously the muscles are actually slightly differently. Single leg position where just kind of annoying because it's hard to design studies where you're really trying to compare things as if they were sort of bilateral movements because you're like all right now we have to consider all these other components.

So that's why we need way more data on unilateral versus bilateral work. In my opinion. I think that that is one really good reason for that. Okay. Beautiful. I'm going to wrap things up. Unless you have anything final to say.

Good man. Go for it.

All right, so practical takeaways from this episode.

Yeah.

Technique with the goal of hypertrophy should include the following.

Right.

It should conclude a range of motion that emphasizes the length into position.

Right.

So it doesn't have to be a length in partial but just something where we're not skipping the bottom proportion portion or the portion where the muscle is its most most lengthened position.

Right.

It should include a repetition tempo that lasts somewhere between two to eight seconds with a controlled but not necessarily slow eccentric and a intentful or intentioned concentric. Doesn't necessarily have to be explosive but you want to be moving the weight the best that you possibly can. Right now with respect to body position, you should choose postures and segment positions that are both biomechanically sound but also postures and positions that allow you to sense the target muscle is working without any pain from surrounding structures and finally, strictness is probably not as crucial as we once thought, especially if we're still reaching failure in the target muscle, but it still should be avoided, especially if it lessens tension in the muscles in the lengthened position. But just as a good general rule of thumb, probably a good idea to avoid using momentum just in general, right? And then I said lastly, but now truly lastly, you generally want to perform exercises on a stable surface or in general with a high degree of stability, right? So both feet on the ground, not using some sort of unstable surface like a Basu ball or a balanced Bart. Right? Or a bosu ball or whatever. 1h John Bosu or boss who's going to get really pissed off when he finds out that where one of us is pronouncing this unbelievably incorrectly. Anyway, anything you want to say for practical takeaways?

Sounds good to me.

Beautiful. As always, thank you all so much for listening to the Built With Science podcast. If you have anything that we haven't covered that you would like for us to do to cover, please reach out to us at Built With Science on Instagram. And as always, thank you so much for listening. Peace.