EVERYTHING You Want to Know About How to Build Muscle - Mark Ottobre

In this week's episode of the Enterprise Fitness Podcast, we take you behind the scenes of a live event that we had, the Elite Results Bootcamp. We present on a number of different topics from training, nutrition, but more importantly, how we get the elite results we do here at Enterprise Fitness. So check it out and let's jump in. All right, so this presentation we're going to be talking about hypertrophy and building muscle. What are we going to be talking about? Exactly. So this is in two parts. Part one is we're going to go into the theory and principles. In part two, we're going to go into the program technique and intensifiers and spend some time on the floor. So firstly, what is a principle? A principle is a proven rule or idea that guides. And what I see— well, what is a technique? All right, this difference between principles and techniques. A technique is a way of carrying out or performing a task. What I see happens 99% of the time with trainers, the problem being is most trainers look at techniques rather than understanding the principle. So for example, if we take something like a drop set, does everyone know what a drop set is? Yeah. Right, so a drop set, people go, okay, I'm gonna give my client a drop set. And then I come along and I do something a little bit different, but I achieve a better outcome. It's like, well, I didn't use the technique exactly the way a drop set was, I put my own spin on it because I understand the principle. So rather than just going, okay, we're on the floor, and you, you experience this today with the guys on the floor, we'll be doing workouts, whether it's heavy, light, death sets, whatever it is today that we've got in store. I don't even know, it's a mystery box. But the guys, if they pull you away, if Tyrone says come with me, he's going to use the principle, but he's not just going to use the technique, if that makes sense. Like, a death set is a very long drop set, right? So we're not just going to be showing you, okay, this is the technique of a death set. Yes, that's on a surface level what you want to understand, but below the surface you want to understand the principle behind it. One of the principles behind it is to bring you as close to proximal failure as possible in a safe way. So you don't just want to understand techniques in everything, in all learning. You want to understand the principle behind the technique that gets the result. So principles can be scaled up and down. Understanding the technique behind the principle. Techniques can't really be scaled in a sense. You either do the technique the way it was intended or you don't. Whereas if you understand the principle, you can scale it up and down. Techniques without principle, understanding principles, you know those bouncy balls that you buy at like Timezone and stuff or kids stores that just bounce everywhere? You know the ones I'm talking about? Techniques without principles makes you like a bouncy ball. Is you're gonna bounce from technique to technique to technique to technique and not really understand. So you're going to do 8x8, you're going to do drop sets, you're going to do mechanical drop sets, you're going to do 6-1 method, you're going to do German volume training, you're going to do, you know, back to 8x8, whatever it may be. You're going to go technique, technique, technique, and your programming is going to be indicated by the flavor of the month of Instagram. And I've seen this as well, is whoever's the most popular person on Instagram, that's probably going to be your program that you're going to do because you don't understand the principles. And you see trainers who do this all the time. I'm doing this this month, why? Because your favorite Instagrammer is doing it that this month, right? You're smiling 'cause you know exactly what I'm talking about, right? It's true. So understand the principles 'cause then it gets rid of all the needless jumping from technique to technique. So like yesterday, I'm gonna lay everything out and then we're gonna go deep. So there are 5 principles in building muscle. Stability, tension, volume, load. And the fifth, which is kind of that big circle, which is intensity, which is different when we talk about intensity in strength. In strength, when we talk about intensity, we're talking about load intensity. When we talk about in hypertrophy, we're talking about as, uh, I'm defining it as proximity to failure. And when I define proximity to failure, how close can you get if we're doing bicep curls where you cannot do another rep, right? Where you involuntary completely fail. So what is your proximity to failure? There you— your 5 things. Now again, I want you to imagine there's a big machine, and the outcome of this machine is to produce hypertrophy. I have 5 levers, right? I need to pull each lever, and depending on how I pull the levers is going to dictate my outcome. If I'm pulling the lever of stability really hard, then I might be able to pull volume really hard, but then I might not be able to pull load as hard, if that makes sense. So all the levers need to be pulled at different levels. Now, what do you— what I want you to understand about hypertrophy is that all paths lead to Rome, so long as you have guiding principles. And again, it's like the levers, right? So on this side, we have, you know, back in, you know, predates the '80s, the Mike Mentzer style of training. For those who don't know Mike Mentzer, he was popularized for the one set to failure, the absolute balls-to-the-wall intensity. Doreen Yates was the same, so was Ronnie Coleman. And more recently, most of you probably know or have seen Ronnie Coleman. Ronnie Coleman's favorite catchphrase was what? Lightweight baby, woo! And there's that infamous clip where, you know, he puts 800 pounds on the barbell squat and he's like, woo, nothing but a peanut, woo! And he does his reps, right? And he does 2 reps and people be like, this is insane. He's a bodybuilder, why is he stronger than most powerlifters? Right, he's stronger than most powerlifters, he's a bodybuilder, why is he able to lift so heavy? But he, you know, 2 reps, he was able to obviously get a great deal of hypertrophy in his training. He trained very, very, very heavy and very, very hard. The guy, absolute like one in a million, right? One in probably a billion, a freak. Dorian Yates was the same. So on this side, you have the guys who just did incredible, incredibly strong, incredibly big, great physiques, but they would represent your load lever and intensity, right? Still getting the proximity to failure, but they're indicative of really using load and lower volume. On this side, we have Jay Cutler, Phil Heath, Arnold Schwarzenegger, these guys were more on the side of high volume. So these guys aren't known for lifting heavy weights. Like, Arnie was a strong guy, but he wasn't that strong. Like, I'm not saying anything against Arnie, I love Arnie, he's great, one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time. But if you compare an Arnold Schwarzenegger to a Dorian Yates or to a Ronnie Coleman, they're nowhere near as strong. If you compare Jay Cutler to Ronnie Coleman, it's nowhere near as strong. Like, I think Jay Cutler would do like 20 sets for chest. Like, he would do a very, very high amount of volume, whereas Ronnie would do much less volume but lift much heavier weight. So you start to see this in real time where, if I go back to this slide, you see these levers that are being used in bodybuilding and in difference. So look, there isn't one path to Rome, and there were stories where, you know, Arnie would go out into the woods and train for 4 hours twice a day, and just all he would do is train, whereas Mike Mentzer would be more efficient with his training and just train really, really hard. And then I've put in between there, who I was fortunate enough to do a seminar with, Tom Platz. And Tom Platz was known as Quadzilla, and he was kind of like interesting. He's very interesting in the way he trained because he kind of was that in-between. Because for his upper body, you know, he did volume, he's crazy strong in his lower body. So with his legs, he said he trained legs every 14 days. Now I don't know if you guys know what Tom Platz did, but He would do things like 240 kilos, 230 kilos squat for 25 reps, 23 reps. That was his kind of deal. So he was lifting incredibly heavy loads but at incredibly high volume, but usually it'd be like that one absolute set. Yes. The guys on the left, they're all fucked now. As in their bodies are— Yeah, Ronnie's had, you know, well, but if you look at Dorian Yates, Dorian Yates is, I wouldn't say he's, I mean, they've, look, they, there's no, what was it Bruce Lee who said something, I'm going to paraphrase, but you don't want to go to your grave with a pristine body. You want to have bruises, wounds, cuts, scars. You want to make the most out of your body. So Ronnie, I mean, look, you know, he went on the record as saying in his documentary about Do you have any regrets? And he goes, yeah, I probably had 3 reps that day. I keep thinking about I should have done 3 reps, not 2. And I'm like, that's what I mean, he's one in a billion where the surgery that he had where I think they had to go through his stomach because he was so big, they cut it open, they had to move his organs out the way, then fuse his spine, then put his organs back in. And then like, it was like big surgery that he had. There's no regrets. I mean, these guys are on, you know, drugs, everything, their whole lifestyle, the amount of food they eat. I mean, I'm not going to say that their training was the only thing because you got to remember that Ronnie Coleman's walking around at 140 kilos at like 2% body fat most of the year. So all of these guys would have sleep apnea to some degree. They're not normal humans. So their whole lifestyle, to say there's one variable, and most people do when they go, oh well, there's one variable, it just must be the drugs, or it must have been their training, or it must have been how much food they ate, it must have been how big they were. Well, it's one variable. Like, there are a lot of people who are nowhere near as strong or as big as these guys, or train as hard, and their lifestyles are fucked as well. So I wouldn't put it on one variable to say it was only their training. Ronnie, like, Ed Coan, who I had the pleasure of interviewing, Greatest powerlifter of all time. Imagine putting 20 plates, 20, 25, or is it 20 plates on each side of the bar? 400 kilos, yeah? And squatting at once. Now if you did that, you still wouldn't break his record. That's how strong Ed Coan was. Fucking ridiculous. Greatest powerlifter of all time. He's, you know, he's not too bad. Like he's not beat up, he's not in a wheelchair, he's not anything like this. He's still able to go. Like I think recently he squatted like 200, 300 kilos, something like this. To just to support some charity, he was saying when I interviewed him. This is a couple years back. So you can't say, oh well, just because he lifted heavy, that's why his body's fucked. No, you can take care of your joints. There's a lot of other things that was happening with Ronnie. You got to remember that if you look at— this is kind of a side tangent— if you look at these physiques, the drugs of bodybuilding, which a lot of people, I don't know why, kind of shy away from, and like, oh, there's drugs in bodybuilding. Yes, there's drugs in bodybuilding, of course there is. But if you look at these physiques, say from Arnie, Arnie's day was very open. They were using testosterone, they're using Deca, but what they weren't using is insulin and growth hormone. Growth hormone came in the '90s. So if you look at Sean Ray, he's probably the best example. But if you look at, I mean, Ronnie was an example of, yes, they're using testosterone, but they're also using insulin. They're also using growth hormone. And people think they use growth hormone to get big. They don't, they use growth hormone to get lean. So you have a chemical cocktail of drugs and, you know, and the reality is some bodies are able to take that to a very, very high level and continue to get big and other bodies just aren't. Their liver's gonna fail, their heart's gonna fail. I interviewed Shawn Ray. Flex Wheeler is another example that he had a kidney disease, a preexisting kidney disease. Everyone's like, oh, it's the drugs. But his family members had the same thing. Arnie, His mother died from a congenital heart disease. Arnie's doing pretty well, but he realizes he needs to do so, I mean, he took drugs. So to put it on one variable and say, oh, it's this, is it that? Or is it the fact that this guy was walking around at 140 kilos at 2% for most of his life, trying to live a quote unquote ordinary life, eating, I don't know, 8,000 calories a day to sustain, and also then training at weights that no one's ever seen. You know, it's a lot of things. Tom Platz, he squatted, you know, as I said, 230 kilos for 23 reps. When I met the guy, he was like, he looked great, you know. That's how you want to look at 65 or 70. The guy was vibrant, uh, full of energy, one of the strongest guys I would say in the world. Like, the feats that he performed were They're amazing. Ed Coan. So again, single variable, I wouldn't put it down to that. Point of this slide is understanding the variables of hypertrophy. We have intensity methods, we have volume methods, and there's been success on both sides. And what the internet is very good at doing is polarizing to get you into their camp. Again, if you understand the principles behind these things, then you'll understand how to apply those techniques. Because I will phase through super heavy and also do high volume. If I want to kind of rest up my joints, I'm going to do higher volume. I'm definitely, as like my preferred style of training is on this side, right? I'm definitely more of an advocate of heavy, hard strength, right? Um, you know, that's where I'd rather train, but I see a lot of value in high volume in terms of restorative being gentler on the joints, getting a pump, hypertrophy, helping manipulate my food, getting up kind of lagging body parts as well. So it's not an either/or conversation, which is what the internet always wants you to do. Instagram wants you to make things either/or, but that's because it's a low intellect, it's a low frequency who's trying to get you to be either/or, black and white. Intelligence is understanding that there is a spectrum of and. This and this can coexist in a training phase that makes sense. All right, so let's look at this deeper. We said it yesterday, I'm not gonna spend too much time 'cause we did it in the first presentation and we did a lot of activities on the floor. Thank you for the example of the deadlift where what I did was I increased stability yesterday on the deadlift and you saw the outcome. Well, in hypertrophy that doesn't change. Stability overrides everything and it is an element to hypertrophy. Because if you're not able to stabilize through any movement, you're leaving load on the table that's ultimately gonna stimulate. So you might say, oh well, it's just hypertrophy, I don't need to stabilize as much. I would disagree. Person who's had a lot of success in bodybuilding, Ben Pakowski, doing one of his courses and seminars and also interviewing him on the podcast, it's kind of like, the guy is so big on stability. Like I didn't realize how, like it was the first thing and he kept every workout harped on stability, even to the point where we were doing bicep curls We're doing incline bicep curls, he's like, "Push your feet into the floor." I was like, "Push it back into the bench." I was like, "That does make me feel more stable." So, even in all of his setups that we did together, the commonality of getting more stable was throughout. And that's a guy who's achieved, you know, he went to an Olympia. He's been, you know, the best in the world. And hearing him talk about how much of an emphasis he puts on stability was really quite eye-opening. So again, stability is a huge factor, not just to strength but also to hypertrophy. And again, if you are doing a bicep curl, think about those cues, think about pushing your heels. If you're doing a shoulder press, think about pushing your back into the bench to get more stable, to get that biofeedback. The more stable you are, the more you're going to push, the more reps you're going to be able to push as well, right? And again, we did some things with breathing yesterday as well, uh, where Tom, we got him to breathe more, he got more stable, he's going to be able to get more reps. He's going to be able to get more out of his legs. So stability overrides everything. We have here stability equals mobility because proximal stability equals distal output. Strength, performance, or in this case, because we're training for a perch feet, it's going to equal proximity to failure. What is it going to equal? Everyone now, what is it going to equal? Right, so performance and proximity to failure in this case is always the goal. All right, the next element is load slash overload. Now I know I spoke before about levers, right? And this is where taking the example to the extreme, you're not going to be able to pick up the pink kilo dumbbells and just do 100 reps every day and expect growth. So load does have to be factored in. You do need enough load where there's enough challenge and growth because you can't just say I'm going to make it up with volume. Yes, if you're injured you need to start very, very low. But let's say, for example, let's say you're injured, you've injured your knee, and you just keep doing the same weight over and over and over again. That's not going to build capacity in the tendon, that's not going to build capacity in, in the quad, that's not going to build capacity in the muscle. You need to push that progressively to be able to get it to recoup, to be able to push it forward. So load has— I mean, it goes without saying. The reason why I say that is because a lot of guys, especially there's one person in Australia who's just all about load with hypertrophy and will tell you that you don't need to worry about volume as long as you lift as heavy as possible and that's all you need, that's all the science there is, just lift as heavy, and it's not true. He obviously takes it to the extreme, but the other extreme is just using peak dumbbells and trying to make it up with volume. There is a kind of a Venn diagram where these things overlap, where you need to respect load. So load is definitely an important factor and you are gonna need load. And again, the thing is, You need to get to proximity to failure. The muscle needs to fail. That is from all the research, all the meta-analysis, which I'll talk about soon, shows that proximity to failure is one of the key elements. And again, you're not going to get there with pink dumbbells. So you do need to lift. And if you're not hitting that, when— so when we set rep schemes, if we say 6 reps, it's 6 reps, not 7. If we say 8 reps, it's 8 reps, not 9. So get to 8 reps, right? But we don't want 9. If you get 9, then go heavier. Go half a kilo heavier, kilo heavier. So there is an inverse relationship between sets and reps and a relationship between sets and intensity. So what that means is the more sets you do, the less reps you're going to do. The more reps you're going to do, less sets you're going to do. Again, levers pulling these things up and down. The inverse relationship between sets and intensity, well, it kind of goes without saying, the more you output, you're going to start to see a negative decline because that top set, if your top set is 100 kilos, maybe you can maintain that for, I don't know, maybe 3 sets, but you're going to start to get into this peak valley where neurally you're not going to be able to perform the same way. And you want to look at these markers as well because you can train for volume and build that base, but you want to see that drop off. I think acceptable, acceptable is around 1 to 2 reps. If I'm aiming for 8, I start to miss sets. That's why I like a range like 6 to 8. So I'm aiming for 8 and I start to get 6 6, and then like the last set is 5. Like I was training today, and what was I doing, Hugh? I was doing, um, Hugh, I was training today and we were doing 10 reps, and my second set we went up by 2.5 kilos and I went to 7 reps, I think it was. So that's an example of unacceptable failure. So we had to drop the weight because it was 8 to 10, the rep range wasn't 5 to 7, right? So you need to manage these variables as well in terms of what you're trying to achieve. Next element is tension or time under tension. This is one that's brushed over, but again, this is going to have a very different effect on what is happening inside of the muscle and what you're training for. So again, I said this yesterday, but if I'm training for fat loss, I want there to be 40 seconds to 60 seconds of tension in the muscle. If I'm training the alactic energy system, I want there to be at least 40 seconds of tension inside the muscle. If I'm giving you 8 reps and you get it done in 20 seconds, it's gonna be a very different training effect than if I give you 8 reps and get it done in 50 seconds. So tension needs to be a forethought. From an hypertrophy point of view, again, it standardizes the lift, it keeps you safe. Intention. When you start to understand lever points and leverage, you can get a lot more out of the exercises that you're doing. Simply by changing the body position. We had the example yesterday with Mary. She kept shifting her hips forward on the leg extension. All I did was get her hips back, pushed her hips back, and got her to stay there. It changed the lever point of where she pulled up. It changed the tension inside the muscle. As a byproduct, she felt it a lot more in her quads. It wasn't magic, it's just understanding levers. Same thing when guys come to me and they say, I do bench press and I only feel it in my shoulders. Well, again, when we get people to retract, get into thoracic extension, and they're able to push up through their chest, all of a sudden they're not using their shoulders, they're using their chest. So understanding both the lever points and tension, these relationships, and keeping tension inside the muscle is a very, very important element to hypertrophy and also will greatly impact the proximity to failure point. So one way to say that, if we're doing— like, taking to the extreme, cluster sets. A cluster set is you do one rep, you rest, you do one rep, you rest, you do one rep, you rest. That's a very different training effect, that's a neural training effect, whereas if we're doing hypertrophy and you've gotta string the sets together, you're not gonna get as many reps because there's lactic acid that's building up during that. [NOISE] And the other element is intensity, which is your proximity to failure. Now, to talk about this one, I'm gonna— actually, I've got it in the future slides, so we're gonna park that one because we're gonna look at a study that was done that shows the overlap of rep schemes and intensity proximity to failure. So it is one of the most important things. I'll kind of introduce it now, but the intensity proximity to failure is what's been found is you can have hypertrophy from anywhere from 2 to 20 reps as long as you get to that proximity to failure. Nutrition and recovery is hugely important, obviously, when it comes to hypertrophy. So don't expect you're going to get massive if you're not nourishing your body, resting and recovering. Think of it as like bricks. If you want to build a 10,000-brick home, what do you need? What do you need? How many bricks? 10,000 bricks, right? If you're not going to give yourself 10,000 bricks, then you're not going to bring it— you can't build a 10,000-brick home. So the thing about hypertrophy is that as we— the more we train like a beast, the more our muscles get conditioned to training like a beast, and therefore hypertrophy is actually harder to achieve. So the better trained you are, the— as you train harder and harder and harder, the more conditioned you are to train harder So therefore you need to train harder and harder and harder to get the same adaptative stimulus. This is where doing things like a deload can be very, very helpful in terms of resetting those fibers to become more sensitive to that training stimulus. Because if we're always going at 100%, our body registers that as normal. So deloads for hypertrophy can be very, very helpful. Now here's the thing with deloads is most don't train hard enough, right? So I'm not a huge advocate of, I'm not a huge advocate of a deload for most people, but I am a huge advocate of a deload for people who train hard. Show me how you train and I'll tell you whether you deserve a deload or not. So I'm going to push you to the edge, and for me, for you to earn a deload is I actually want to see your performance start going down. When I see performance and mood start going— performance, mood, sex drive— as that starts to plummet, it shows me yes, you've earned your deload. And then I'm going to pull you back from the edge, you're going to get your deload and then we go again. If you're not getting there, you're probably not training hard enough, right? You want to expect these things. So nutrition, protein goals as a general— Tyrone's going to get into this today, but protein goals as a general output, I've got a very detailed explanation in my book, but protein goals can be anywhere from 1.6 up to 3 times body weight per gram of kilo for your protein goal, right? That's a big range, and that's going to be dependent on whether you're in a calorie surplus, calorie deficit, or calorie maintenance. Clients, generally starting out as a recompositioning phase. I like that 2 to 2.4 range. So if you're 60 kilos times it by 2, it's 120 kilos, 120 grams of protein per day divided by say 4 or 5 meals. That's a general kind of starting point that I like to use clients, but then it also is gonna be dependent upon what you're doing with your carbs and your fats as well. So you can make up, but protein obviously is hugely important and recovery. So this is where looking at your HRV, resting heart rate, that ability to tap into that, recover from your workouts. It's not just about smashing yourself, although it's very important. You need to recover from smashing yourself as well. So to recap, elements to hypertrophy is stability, load, volume, tension/time under tension, proximity to failure, nutrition, and recovery. We need all these elements to build as much muscle as possible. So if you look at it like this now, we've got our 5 levers that we're going to use, and the pillars to hold up those levers and to really push those are nutrition and recovery. So it's a more complete picture because if we don't have the nutrition recovery element, we're not going to get where we want to go. So other modalities and elements— so a powerlifter will prioritize load over volume, right, because that's the goal. But with that said, volume for a powerlifter can be very, very helpful when, say, reeducating a movement pattern. So let's say, for example, you say to me you want to do a powerlifting comp and you want to work on the deadlift. I'm going to use the lever of volume to reteach you the movement pattern. Once you learn that movement pattern, then we can start to introduce higher loads and bring down the volume. So volume can be a very, very helpful tool, especially in the beginning. And I generally, if you look at my programs, after a general preparatory phase, So I'll screen someone, I'll look at all their kind of discrepancies and dysfunctions, I'll write a program that addresses discrepancies and dysfunctions. Once they're addressed, I'm moving— and usually in that phase as well, I'm moving someone into a very, very high volume phase almost straight away. Like, that's my next phase is high volume. So it's an accumulation phase. What will follow that, I might do 2 phases of accumulation, then do an intensification phase. It depends on how fast they pick up the movements. If they move well, then I'm going to move them into intensification phase faster. But I am going to use that first phase, I'm going to use it as accumulation, because most of the time when I'm using that accumulation phase and volume is to get them to move better. And I'm going to do that with volume because I'm not going to fix someone's squat at their max. When I get— when I test you, you know, when you're doing 3 reps, it's too late. I might use 3 reps in a volume phase but get you to do 8 sets but still getting you to lift a weight that is, you know, if you don't get it right, you'll know, if that makes sense. Weightlifter, they're going to prioritize load. Tension in a weightlifter, we don't want tension for a weightlifter, right? We don't want tension for a weightlifter, we want power for a weightlifter. So on a clean and jerk, when we're doing a clean, we all know what a clean is, right? Snatch. Is there any tension? Well, there is in the setup, but there isn't any eccentric forces. It's all concentric. So a weightlifter doesn't want tension. So we're prioritizing load. Tension's the least important thing. Cardio. Cardio's all volume. It's zero load, right? We don't want load when we're doing cardio. It's really volume. Or traditional cardio, that is. Obviously you can do cardiovascular work with weights, but generally it's based on volume, not load. Circus training. Is based on stability, not load. Although you can improve your stability through getting someone stronger. And I say circus training is people doing like handstands and like just different kind of bodyweight type of things. That is a skill that requires stability and practice of the movement. And general preparation is stability and we're staying away from proximity to failure for general preparation work, right? So that's one of the phases where If I'm introducing you to new exercises, I don't want you to go to— generally don't want you to go to prox— I don't want you to get to that failure on too many sets because I want to keep the movement patterns really, really clean. I want you to learn the movement patterns. So I give this example, I've used this example in internship as well, but this is an example of when we look at training for hypertrophy versus training for strength, right, to really kind of solidify it. So on this side we have a weightlifter, on this side we have Flex Wheeler, who's obviously one of the greatest bodybuilders. So on this side we have high skill, high central nervous system involvement, very, very low time under tension, and no proximity to failure. Again, we don't take a clean or jerk to failure, because if she took this to failure, what would happen? She'd have 145 kilos crashing down on her neck and she would probably be severely injured or die. We're not taking it to proximity to failure. On this side, it's low skill. Varied central nervous system involvement depending on how the bodybuilder trains. Again, we use the example of a Dorian Yates. He's gonna have a very, very high central nervous system involvement versus an Arnold Schwarzenegger who does lots of volume. It's gonna be lower central nervous system involvement. Not no central nervous system, but just lower because he's not using as high loads, he's using volume. This is medium to high time under tension depending on how the bodybuilder trains and very, very high proximity to failure. Whether you're Dorian Yates or whether you're Arnold Schwarzenegger in terms of training styles, you're going to failure, right? And they're the differences between the two is this bodybuilding in general is way more forgiving as a training style. This is not as forgiving. You can really fuck up on a— you got to be planned in your schedule of when you're going to do your high days, low days, understanding recovery. The reason why I say this is more forgiving is because there's more levers that you can pull on. There's other ways to make it up. If you've got beat-up joints, you can, you can do machine work, you can do isolation work. If you've got beat-up joints, well, you still got to practice your clean and jerk, right? Too bad. You still got to lift the max weight. That's the goal. So it's less forgiving in that regard in terms of training. So bodybuilding and building hypertrophy, there isn't one universal path. It's understanding why it works and what levers to pull. And as a trainer, what you don't want to be is a one-trick pony. That's a pony with one trick. Yeah, don't be a one-trick pony. Understand the range, because you'll be able to work with way more clients and you'll be able to pick, yep, this guy's at this level, this girl's at this level, I'm going to use volume this phase, this phase, and plan things out. So hypertrophy is basic maths. It's a game of plus and minus. Which factors will you plus? Which factors will you minus? That's the easiest way. And again, if you look at those 5 principles, Just look at those 5 principles. Which ones are you gonna add to this program? Which ones are you gonna subtract? Super, super simple. So the modern take on hypertrophy and neural typing, and we spoke about this a little bit yesterday, fire the elements, the Chinese elements, which is fire, earth, wood. Another way to look at it is intensity, intensity, volume, variation. And again, fire, we have the example of Dorian Yates. Volume, we have the example of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Variation is more of that in-between where we're looking at someone like Tom Platz who is changing the exercises more frequently. The thing is, if you do a lot of volume, usually you'll get really strong, and if you get really strong, you're probably more susceptible to injuries, which means that you need to vary the exercises more. So if we go back to this, in other words, if you start with volume, generally from volume You'll build strength. From building strength, you're gonna be more susceptible to injuries, which means that you need to vary the program. So the way I look at it is I'm actually gonna cycle through intensification phase, volume phase, variation phase. And when I say variation phases, it's changing the exercises, doing things that I wouldn't normally do. So 3, if I'm always training with dumbbells and barbells, which usually I am, I'm gonna do a phase of just training with machines, doing slow tempo work. As the variation of the exercise to let my joints recover. Because again, if I go back to building volume, I'm building a really big base, which is gonna, which I didn't cover yesterday, but in any physical preparation, in physical preparation, we wanna think of it as a pyramid, that the wider the base, the higher the peak. Now this base, that's your volume work, right? This peak is your intensification work, as in going for a max. When you get to that max, that's when you're more susceptible to injuries. To prevent injuries, we need to go back to variation or volume. So think of it like this, and you have some really good structure in terms of long-term periodization with your programs, especially for hypertrophy. If you look at Janet's programs, who I coached for over 10 years, you can really see how we go from intensification— oh, sorry, accumulation, super high volume, super heavy, and variation all throughout. Now, types of hypertrophy. This is more technical aspects of things. The types of hypertrophy, we have sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar. Both increase muscle size, but for different reasons. And important to note on this is this isn't like a black and white switch. You're not just training for myofibrillar and you're not just training for sarcoplasmic. It occurs on a spectrum, like most things in physiology. Again, to give opposite examples, Janet, Janet's goal, she won 4 Australian titles, 3 Olympia titles, 3 Arnold Classic titles, all natural. And she competed against girls who were half her age taking who knows what. And she smashed them. She's amazing. One of the best athletes I've ever met. Her goal was to build as much muscle as possible. Andrew Maloney, he fought at 52.5 kilos as a super flyweight in the Commonwealth Games and professional 53 kilos. So this guy, I needed to get super strong, but I couldn't get him big, which is a challenge, right? 'Cause 53 kilos on weigh-in day is pretty light. So he'd walk around about 60, 58, 60 kilos. So again, you can see the opposite examples of these two. One is about getting them as big as possible, looking a certain way. It's not necessarily as big as possible, we need it to look a certain way for stage. The other one is we want to get him as strong as possible without actually getting him big and putting on muscle mass whatsoever. So with knowing that sarcoplasmic, say for Janet, so for Andrew, if I cut to the point, we didn't do any sarcoplasmic work. Like we didn't do any high, we didn't try and get him bigger. There's no sarcoplasmic, where for a bodybuilder, we are gonna do sarcoplasmic type of training. So sarcoplasmic, more commonly associated with accumulation phases where reps in excess of 10 or 10 plus, that's your traditional bodybuilding. This increases the muscle with minimal strength gain, increases the liquid part of the muscle and the ability to store glucose, increases sarcoplasms and organelles. So I think of this type of hypertrophy training as bigger, but weaker. I don't mean they're weak, it's just you're going to get bigger without necessarily getting stronger. Whereas your myofibrilla, more commonly associated with intensification phases, lower reps, overload, and powerlifting strength, the physical components of the muscle of the myofibrilla, so the actual fibers, overloading the muscle fibers causing them to adapt. So this is kind of what you'd call your bigger, your big and strong. So your sarcoplasmic, they're generally getting kind of that bigger puffy look, but not as strong, whereas your myofibrillar, they're getting strong and also big. Again, you can use both. What is the best rep range for hypertrophy? So all that being said, what is the definitive best rep range for hypertrophy? Well, the best rep range for hypertrophy is 2 to 8, 6 to 8, and 8 to 20. Which is another way to say do whatever the fuck you want as long as you train fucking hard, right? Now this is where some of the research, you know, a strength approach for your adaptations between low and high resistance training, a systematic review meta-analysis. So a meta-analysis is where they look at a whole like collective of studies that have happened over several years and they analyze what are the commonalities, and that's essentially what they found. So gains in 1RM strength were significantly greater in favor of high versus low load training, whereas no significant differences found for isometric training between conditions. Changes in measures of muscle hypertrophy were similar between conditions. The findings indicate that maximal strength benefits are obtained from the use of heavy loads, while muscle hypertrophy can be equally achieved across the spectrum of loading ranges. So this is where you have a great, I suppose, conundrum of what is the ideal rep range, because you can achieve both of those things. And I would also say genetics and personal preference also play a part in this. So if you have a client like me, for example, who gets g'd up about lifting heavy weights and gets fucking bored at the idea of doing 20 reps, well, I'm probably going to get more out of doing low reps because mentally I'm g'd up about doing low reps. Whereas you have a client who's like g'd up about doing high volume, then you're probably gonna get more out of them doing high volume. So I think personality and psychology needs to be managed as well. As well as what phase of training are they in? Are they walking in, they're super busy in life and their bodies are beat up and you know, the novel stimulus of doing high volume, managing the client's expectation. The point here is, and that's why if we go back to that slide where I had the 4 pillars and the big pillar, the big circle, was what? What was the big circle that contained all the other 4? Intensity, proximity to failure, right? Proximity to failure. That is going to be the overarching— whether you're using 2 to 4, whether you're using 2 to 8, whether you're using 6 to 8, or whether you're using 15 to 20— are we getting proximity to failure? That is the question that we're constantly asking. And that's why I think you see in these meta-analysis such a discrepancy because there's a big difference between doing 2 reps and 20 reps. And again, the studies are saying, well, you can do 2 reps or 20 reps, you're gonna get the same growth. Well, what's the commonality factor? Proximity to failure, right? How hard you train. I'm sorry, would another factor be lifestyle? Like you said, time, like the shift work, stuff like that? Yeah, so the question is, is another factor lifestyle? So this is my take on hypertrophy. So if someone's lifestyle, if they're quite busy, this is where I really like the functional hypertrophy rep ranges of 6 to 8. So for most people who are time poor and they want to get a bit of strength and a bit of muscle, I'm going to go for the 6 to 8 rep range because it's going to get them both strong and get them big, but also be very, very time efficient. Because I don't want to sit there and do 20 reps. 6 to 8 is pretty good. I can do like 4 sets of 6 to 8, no problems. I can do that 4 times a week. That's pretty easy to do. Whereas I don't have to spend too much time doing those things. So yeah, lifestyle. Definitely can be factored in. So main thing, proximity to failure. So this is the first time I presented this, but this is my hot take after— what are we, 19 years, 20 years, 2 decades on rep range. I'm going to give you— I've got but first here. Yes, but first I'm going to give you some fundamentals of rep range before I outline. So I'm going to present to you— there's no studies on what I'm going to present to you right now. There's zero studies. This is all through my personal observation of what I found is the optimal rep scheme to body part specific. Before I present that, I'm just going to give you some 101 lessons in, in muscle fiber typing, right? This is a very, very remedial lesson. So fiber typing, there are over 40 muscle fiber types, right? There's over 40. So generally when we have conversations like this, we're talking about the main 3. Again, it occurs on a spectrum. We have our fast twitch fibers, we have our intermediate twitch fibers, and we have our slow twitch fibers. Another fancy way to say is one is oxygenated and one is not oxygenated. What does that mean? Is our slow twitch are going to be oxygenated, so when we're going for a run, it's more your slow twitch fiber, it's twitching slow, whereas your fast twitch fiber is that power focus where you're sprinting. It's that 100-meter, 10-meter dash. That's your fast twitch fiber, right? So generally, when we speak about fiber typing, we're talking about the 3 types of fibres, but you should note from a technical aspect, there has been discovered over 40 different fibre types, which is quite interesting. And we spoke about this yesterday as well, which was the level of nervous system involvement. So my hot take, observation only, my ideal rep range for body part. Here it is. Shoulders. If we're working the side delts, I have found the best rep range for hypertrophy, 12 to 25. Reason being is, it is very, very hard to load the side delts at 6 to 8 reps, even 10 reps, because the limiting factor is the elbow. And I've seen particularly females, but even males, females where they, their elbow bends because the leverage point of them going too heavy, they're not able to maintain. So if I want to put as maximal tension on my side delt, if I go, if I aim for like, you know, 6 reps and go super heavy, usually they have to swing to get it up and their elbows are bending. So from a leverage point of view, there's too many things that are going wrong. So we need to make this up with volume. So side delt, I like 12 to 25 reps for hypertrophy. Rear delt, I like 8 to 25 reps depending on the exercise. And the reason why I like 8 to 25 reps is because again, if we go to 6 reps, that end range and maintaining that end range, which is super important for that rear delt in terms of that stability factor as well, people just aren't able to get as high. So this is where we need to make up that with volume because when I'm doing rear delts, I want them to get that full extension. Yes, there is a time and a place where they can do that partial work. But again, if I'm even doing partial work, I get them to do 8 reps at a partial range heavy and then pair that with another 20 reps at a full range in that end range where I want them to get to, particularly for the rear delt. So yes, you can do things like this, which is a bit more forgiving. So you could do that in, uh, like on a bench where you're rowing, just really focusing on the rear delt. So basically you're on a bench leaning over, um, we'd call them supported rear delt raises. Yeah, you can do rear delt flies, rear delt raises. That's gonna be a bit more, I suppose, forgiving for the 8 reps. But again, I'm not looking at 4 reps for this or 6 reps because I usually find if we start going 4 to 6 reps, it's just too heavy for people to get end range. So from a practical point of view, I found 8 to 25 reps the best. Anterior delt, your front delt, 4 to 8 reps. That can be trained pretty heavy. Military press, front raises, it can be trained. The positions that you can train the front delt on, do support a much heavier load. So you can get the job done without as high reps. And also I've found that doing higher reps than that, say for example, in military press, people start to shift. So I like to keep the reps a little bit lower, keep people's stability. I find that exercise, like any anterior delt work, I really find that can be done at a lower, much lower rep range because of that stability piece. And if I'm asking people to stay stable for say 25 reps, it's harder. Side delt and rear delt, a lot of the exercises, stability isn't gonna be the main piece or as an important piece perhaps. Okay, legs. So hamstring in knee flexion, I like 2 to 6 reps. Why? The hamstring is predominantly a fast twitch muscle fiber. What is it? Fast twitch muscle fiber. Right, so I like 4 to 6 reps Oh, sorry, 2 to 6 reps is because hamstrings, predominantly knee flexion, is responsible for that fast explosive power. So I want to train it heavy but with controlled tempos. So the tempo I'd usually use for this is explode up, 4 seconds down, or 5 seconds down depending. But I do like to get as much load through the hamstrings, particularly knee flexion, as possible. The— probably the, the one that has the biggest variance Because you've got to remember, your lower body is built for locomotion, right? It's built for moving, it's built for moving forward or backwards. Our upper body, our arms and hands, are built for manipulation. So the lower body, by way and virtue, because we can jump, but we can also— we can jump very, very explosively, or we can walk a marathon or run a marathon in some cases. There's a huge variance between how the actual lower body can function. So quads particularly, I've found anywhere from 2 to 20 reps, you're good for hypertrophy. The biggest thing is train fucking hard. Yeah, train hard. And actually, for quads, I would say if you're really serious about hypertrophy, do 2 reps, rest, and then do another 2, then rest, then do another 2. Like, your quads can push a lot of volume out, so they're one of the ones that you like We go on today, the leg extension, are you doing squats, you're doing supersets, quads respond really well. They're actually pretty, pretty easy to train because they're forgiving. You just need to train hard. That's why most people don't have big legs. Yes. It's going to be dependent somewhat genetically, but how you train. So the thing about fiber typing is that thing of, are you born with a fast-twitch base? Yes, some people I would say are. They're built more explosively. Or are you born more— and some people are built more endurance, but for mere mortals, most of us are gonna be able to influence that through our training. So meaning that if we train like a fast-twitch person, explosively, we will become explosive. If we train slow-twitch, we're gonna— obviously genetics are gonna play a factor. There are tests that you can do to see what type of fiber typing you are. So one of the tests that you can do is— so what we do is, let's say we're doing a squat. Oh, I don't like a squat so much because it's— let's use a squat as an example, but I like to do it more isolated to figure out what the exact muscle is, right? So let's say you take a squat, you do 100, you do your max. Let's say your max is 100 kilos. That's your absolute max, one rep, 100 kilos. Then we put— we get you to rest for 5 minutes, 5 to 7 minutes. Then we're going to put 85% on the bar, then we're going to ask you to do as many reps as possible. If you usually do under 3, that would be indicative of that you're starting to push more towards fast twitch orientation. With that said, if your max was 100 kilos and you're a dude at 80 kilos, then you're not fucking fast twitch, you're just fucking weak, right? So it should be respectable in terms of how much you lift. As well, that needs to be considered because a true fast twitch, the numbers are going to be very high, right? If you do over 3 reps, say like 4 to 6, kind of like intermediate, if you do like 8, 12 reps, slow twitch for sure. So you see this with rowers. So rowers, the example always, like the kind of go-to example is rowers, their 1 rep max will be 100 kilos, their 12 rep max would be 97 kilos. They're slow, they're just oxidized. There's not much difference between their 1 rep max and their 12 rep max, which indicates that they're not very— they're built for continual movement. They're not built for maximal, which obviously makes sense. Whereas if you do the same experiment with an Olympic weightlifter, there's going to be a 20% variance between their 1 rep max and their 2 rep max and their 3 rep max because they're finely tuned to that 1 rep. There's going to be a lot, a big difference between what they can do for 1 rep to 2 reps to 3 reps, whereas rowers and athletes of this nature, very, very small difference because of the way they train. And again, that's not, that's not genetics, so to speak. Maybe genetically they went to those sports because they enjoyed it and they were good at it naturally, maybe. But also the way they train greatly influenced the muscle fiber typing. So that's just more on how much you can lift rather than how quick you recover? Sorry, I don't understand the question. So you're saying like if you lifted 100 kg for the one rep and then you're lifting your 85% for like if you've gone below 2 reps, your fast twitch obviously over that your slow twitch. Is that just on how quickly you can recover to lift as much weight, or is it just based on how quick you can Well, no, you've got 7 minutes to recover. So whether you're fast twitch or slow twitch, you're gonna have the recovery set. So nervous system's recovered. So we're controlling the pace of recovery. Yeah, so the recovery is aside. If I give you 7 minutes, you're gonna be recovered. If I gave you 60 seconds, then you might say I'm not fully recovered. But if I give you 7 minutes, you're fully recovered, right? So we control the pace of recovery. So for an Olympic weightlifter, for example, 7 minutes is a long, like it's substantial time for their nervous system to recover. Like if they're really strong, we'll give them the upper limit of 7 minutes. If they're kind of strong, then maybe 5 minutes is enough. But either way, 5 to 7 minutes, slow twitch and fast twitch, that's enough time to recover from the set. They shouldn't be, if they're trained, they're not going to be completely fucked and fatigued from that, if that makes sense. Yeah, so they're definitely going to be able to recover from that. All right, glutes lying. 8 to 15. The reason why I like 8 to 15 and not say 4 or 2 is because loading, I think sacrum, you do want to just kind of watch that. Overloading, especially through that position, don't like it. Super heavy, like loading in that position. And also the full extension, you do want to make sure that people are getting that full extension on the glute drive. So I found that kind of sweet spot is 8 to 15. Glutes standing, 2 to 10 generally is a good range. So you could achieve that, say, with a good morning, a low bar squat as well. Calves, gastrocnemius, again, that's more predominantly a fast-twitch type of fiber. We're going to look at 6 to 10. And calves, your soleus, which is more of your endurance fiber of the calf, 15 to 25. I really like to train that. So soleus, So gastrocnemius, that's your standing calf raise. I'll train that really, really heavy at a much lower rep range. If I'm doing soleus and the guys will see me, I'll put weight on, I'll do my reps, I'll hit failure, I'll take like 20 seconds, 10 seconds, I'll do— I'll keep going again. I'll take an— I'm drop setting my soleus like all the time. I'm trying to take it to failure because it's a very, very resilient muscle fiber. It's slow twitch and it's able to take— because you're on it all day, right? You're using your carbs all day. So, but where it comes to the gastrocnemius, I really want to power out of the hole. Back, lats, I have found anywhere depending on how you train it, again, this is another fiber, another muscle group that can have great variance in terms of how you train it, but 2 to 15. So anywhere from 2 to 15 reps. If you're getting a full stretch on that chin-up, again, if you're training lats, you're going to go wide grip chin-up, you want to make sure you can come all the way in. So, over, say for example, someone's doing a true wide grip chin-up, people can get sloppy, but you can use it on a lat pulldown. Again, it's a fairly, and again, also with lats, if you're doing things like depressing in and doing deadlifts, your lats are gonna be involved as well, which can definitely respond quite well as well as your rows. So lats have a huge variance. Lower back, I go with lower back, I don't like a rep range for lower back, I like a time under tension range. So the time under tension range I like for lower back is 40 seconds plus. Plus, reason being is what is the number one quality to protect your lower back from injury? Is it relative strength, hypertrophy, as in muscle mass, or strength endurance? Say it louder for me. Strength endurance. So as a precautionary for all kind of like lower back rehab and training lower back, like whatever the reps— so I'll give people pauses It might be like 6 reps, but they're doing 5-second pauses, let's say for example, or 6-second pauses. I'm gonna be aiming that they hit 40 seconds. So whatever they're doing, at least they're doing 40 seconds of work based on the rep range. So I can scale that up. I can give them 20 reps and they can do 40 seconds, but I want 40 seconds of work when I'm doing lower back work. Mid-back, rhomboids, mid-traps, I like 4 to 8. The reason why I like 4 to 8 is 'cause most people get really, really lazy with the retraction over 8 reps. So I like that quality work where people are really retracting, pulling back, depressing the scap down, and rowing. If I give them more than that, I usually start to see this, right? And they start to use their arms rather than their back. So it's more of a— how do you say— mitigation against the skill and concentration. So you could go higher, but most people fuck it up after 8 reps. So that's why I like it, that 4 to 6 range, because I can achieve what I want to achieve in that range. Arms, triceps in a flexion position, 12 to 15. That means in the stretch position overhead, I like a 12 to 15 range. Triceps in the lengthened position where we're like doing a tricep pushdown, for example, I like 4 to 6. I think they're really, really heavy. It's in a stretch position because we're in a stretch position taking it a full full range of motion, I want to be careful of putting, say, doing it 6 reps in this position. It's not that it's bad, but there is a bit more tension on the elbow. You're taking it, you're taking it through a full range of position, which it may not be stable. I mean, you theoretically over time you could lower the reps, but I find in that stretched position I really want to get that end position. So I like a higher rep range for that. For the lengthened position, I like a lower rep range because you can really get into it and really overload it. It's a strong position to overload. Biceps pronated, meaning it's going to hit more of the bicep brachialis, I like 4 to 6, and my preferred is 4 to 6 with a pause. Biceps supinated, I like 6 to 12. Biceps is one of those things where depending on how you train it is how you'll see the fibers, how it will respond. Um, I like heavy work for biceps. Particularly, again, particularly pronated because it's going to have a direct correlation to your grip. Funny, I trained a girl in— where was she? She was in Helsinki, Finland. This was years ago, and her goal was to do a chin-up, and I gave her arm work twice a week, and she was a bit like, why are we doing so much arms? I was like, just trust the process. We did a lot of pronated curls, we did a lot of hammer curls. Anyway, like, I was thinking, it was like 6 weeks later, she She was able to do chin-ups, and in the 12 weeks, I think she got 10 chin-ups. So we had got quite a good result. One of the reasons, her arms were too weak. So her forearm flexors were too weak. We did a lot more arm training. She was able to do, get her chin-up goal. So it is important because grip strength, you know, differences between training males and females, hand size, wrist size, the mechanics. And again, if you look at, say, like a strongman athlete, they're kind of another breed of human. The axles on the vehicle, so to speak, of a strongman, thick axle, they're going to get away with a lot more. So if you're using a smaller frame, you need to get these kind of auxiliary muscles stronger that otherwise you take for granted. So specifically bicep brachialis. So when you're doing your forearm work, because females are going to have a lot smaller forearms, a lot smaller wrist size, you do need to get them stronger. That is going to assist with your elbow flexion and helping in that initial chin-up position to get through. So try— I like— that's why I like training it for strength, male or female. Uh, abs, tension that I shoot for is 40 seconds, in excess of 40 seconds. What I like and the way I like to train abs is the ability to resist and stabilize. So that's my focus. So when I say resist and stabilize, if we're doing a stabilization exercise would be example of a plank. A resisting force exercise would be doing the same plank but stirring the pot. So I'm resisting those forces, maybe even someone's hitting the ball as well. So resisting forces. Also the, the Palloff presses where someone is pushing out with the cable. That's another example of resisting forces and stabilizing the abs. So the way I like to train abs in excess of 40 seconds, resisting and also stabilizing. And usually using a combination of both. So exercise execution variables now. So the variables that I'm going to use— now this is when I'm coaching, and you'll see me at the end of today, we're going to do like we did yesterday, go on the floor, and I'm going to have some fun with some of you and coach you and, you know, get you to work pretty hard. But when I'm coaching hypertrophy, the variables that I'm working with, what I'm looking at is one, time under tension. The load and the distance slash the strength curve. So distance and strength curve are slightly different. So if I'm doing a bicep curl, right, I can do a bicep curl like this, I can do a bicep curl like this, right? I can changing the lever, but then inside of that I can also change the strength curve. So if I put, say, a bicep, a dumbbell in your hand, you're going to have least tension at the top. But then what I could do is I could put the hybrid hooks on that dumbbell, now I've got maximal tension at the top. So I'm able to change and modify the strength curve depending on how you're doing the exercise. So if you're someone who, you know, does a bicep curl and you kind of like rest at the top with a dumbbell, if I put a hybrid hook on that, now I've changed the strength curve. So I'm looking at these 4 variables and looking at, well, how's this person doing the exercise? Because what I want to achieve from doing that is create more tension in the muscle and more load. So when we're using, say, 5 kilos or 10 kilos, we're getting that 10 kilos right through the muscle belly. So this is how I want you to start looking at your exercises. What is the distance traveled when I do it, and where is the strength curve? When I say strength curve, does anyone know what I mean? Does anyone not know what I mean? Resistance profiling is another way to say it. Some of you aren't going to put your hand up no matter what I say. Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm going to explain it. So a strength curve basically is essentially where, where is the maximal resistance in that movement. So I'll use the bicep curl 'cause I can stand up and do that. But if I'm using, say, a cable, right? A cable bicep curl, say I'm stretched back. As I move forward, there's less resistance, but when I move at the top, because the cable is now at the top, it's gonna be pulling me down. So the strength curve of a cable machine, the maximal resistance is at the— the resistance profile, maximum is at the top, less is at the bottom. If I use a dumbbell, you've got more at the bottom, but less at the top because I can, I can kind of cheat. So when we talk about these things variably or interchangeably, we just want to understand that when we're doing an exercise, where in the movement is there going to be the most amount of tension, where is it going to be the least amount of tension, and then changing that and manipulating that. And then if we can create something where there's maximal tension throughout— this is where if you look at some of the machines like Nautilus machines, um, they actually have created machines— oh, and also the, um, Prime, Prime, Prime machines, where they— you can manipulate the strength curve. Say on a leg curl, they've got— the machines have kind of 3 cams, and you can position them where you can make the resistance curve higher at the start, higher at the mid, or higher at the end, depending on how— what you want to work. Really good for rehab. A little bit hard to, to manage load because depending— you could have 60 kilos but 60 kilos could feel different every week if you don't have a machine set up correctly, right? So they're good because you can manipulate the strength profile and the strength curve throughout it and create different training effects. But you can also do the same thing in just terms of positioning people's bodies. If you know how to position people's bodies, you can do the same thing. If you can change variations, like a preacher curl is a good example of that. So if you look at an incline curl versus a preacher curl, One is elbows are back, the other one's elbows are forward. It changes the resistance profile of the exercise. Then on a preacher curl, we can add things like hybrid hooks, we can do with dumbbells, we can do with barbells, we can do with a cable. These are all gonna change the resistance profile of how we do it. It's still a bicep curl, but it changes the effect inside the muscle. And again, we're gonna play with all these things today. So we'll have some fun. So the tension relationship of load to muscle is the easiest way to define strength curve. The tension relationship of load to muscle. Range of motion, the thing with this, you always want to consider safety considerations, particularly like on a preacher curl bicep. You know, you can tear your bicep on a preacher curl if you're not careful. So on anything you want to have always safety considerations and resistance profiles of free weights, machines, and cables are all going to be different. So just, I'm going to give kind of a big, just some tools that you can start to think about these things with, right? And we, you've already used some of them. So a cambered bar shifts the weight forward. It's kind of that center of gravity. It's going to hit more glutes and kind of more of an even spread of load. Whereas if you put the bar on your— on the back, it's going to be more quads, particularly if it's a high bar. If you position that low, you're going to use more glutes again and hamstrings. So you can already see like on a squat how these things interchange. An earthquake bar, tsunami bar, we might get that out today. Tyrone, Amy, Maybe we'll get the earthquake bar so you guys can have some fun with that. These bars shake, they wobble. It changes the complete dynamics of the exercise because you can't move them slow. And like the earthquake bar particularly, you're going to have to increase the amount of stability. It's great movement for injuries, but increases the degree of stability that you have to create. The tsunami bar, you have to move it fast. It's fun. Dr. Tom Combo Bar, it allows greater range of motion. Poliquin kettlebells, it changes the resistance profile. So basically, if you're using it like lat raises, for example, and use a dumbbell, what the Poliquin kettlebells does is the plate, the weight sits directly under your hand. So as you come up, the resistance profile changes. So the dumbbell, you're here. If you've got the Poliquin kettlebell, it's the force gravity is pulling you down further. So the lever point of the arm, which you'll feel, you'll see today. I'm kind of explaining these in theory now, but when you see them, you'll be like, aha, and you feel them, you'll feel the difference of the exercise. It makes a big difference. So there's much more tension using a kettlebell at the top compared to using a dumbbell, which you'll see today. Fat grips obviously change the dynamics of the exercise as well. Then we have machines, cables, chains. Chains are really great to use. You can use them to increase the amount of stability that you get from a movement. So for example, on a squat, if you put a chain on, it's not just that it creates an accommodating resistance, it also forces you to stabilize on a chain because there's a movement factor when you, you set up the chains. Hand and foot positions do make a big difference. Hybrid hooks, which we'll probably use today as well, I like to use them on the cable. You do attach them to a dumbbell or a barbell, and they do change the resistance profile again of the exercise. And bands, bands aren't really used so much for hypertrophy unless you're using them on like, let's say, the glute drive, like a machine. You can use them on machines, but bands, when it comes to barbell work, we're really looking at that as power. So we don't use it as much for hypertrophy. If we are using bands on like a squat, a deadlift, we're looking at moving them fast. We're not looking at it for hypertrophy unless of course we're doing like a glute drive where you do like maybe 6 reps and then we'll take off the bands and you do another 6 reps. So for machines, it's kind of a little bit different because it's a bit more forgiving. And the stability— the thing with machines is stability is factored in inside of the machine. That's why some people get like, they're a lot stronger on machines. There's a bunch of people who are a lot stronger on machines because it takes out the stability factor. If you are stable and you use a machine, it's a joke, like a lot of the time. So strong guys use machines, they're really fucking strong on machines and they get that ego boost. But people who are kind of weak and they like using machines because they don't have to stabilize, if that makes sense. So get strong on using barbells and dumbbells and you'll be a beast on machines. Hypertrophy requires load and tension. Stimulating muscle fibers from different angles and degrees of tension is both, I think, obvious and optimal also. So it's not, again, this is not an "or" conversation, it's an "and" conversation. Spoke briefly before about deloading and the importance of deloading. So the body adapts to intensity, so you have to train harder and harder and harder, but you need intensity to grow and proximity to failure. So again, you need to earn your deload. So summary: hypertrophy, you have a wide margin for error so long as you apply what? Can't hear you guys. So long as you apply what? Everyone now, what do you need to apply? Intensity. What's another word for intensity? Everyone, what is it? Proximity to failure. One more time, what is it? Proximity to failure. So if I don't see you guys training proximity to failure today, I'm gonna call a friend of mine who's gonna be up very soon. He'll make sure you get the job done. Program and plan to progress intensity with deloads. Many methods can work, some are better than others. Depending on the period that you're in. Apply different stimulus, tension angles, techniques, loads, methods, so long as it causes the muscles to adapt to the stimulus. And the best way to train is to train— one more time— proximity to failure, like a beast, right? So exactly on time. Let's do a summary. What did we learn? What did we learn? What did we learn? There's many different ways to achieve hypertrophy. Yes, what else did we learn? Proximity to failure. Myofibrillar hypertrophy versus sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Myofibrillar versus sarcoplasmic, it happens on a spectrum. Training fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscles as well. Sorry? Fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscles. Yes, the rep range is based off reps for fast-twitch and slow-twitch. Were there any questions? Yeah, go for it. Yes. So traditionally, deloads are done every— like traditionally, if you spoke to like textbook deloads, it's done every 4 weeks. So you would train, and on the 4th week you would deload. And deload usually is never an intensity, it's always based on volume. So meaning if you're doing 5 sets, you deload week, you'd keep the intensity the same. So if you're lifting 100 kilos, you'd still lift 100 kilos, but you'd deload the volume. So instead of doing 5 sets, you'd do 2 sets, but you'd keep the intensity the same. So the killer of fatigue is not intensity, it's volume. Volume is what brings performance down. So deloads traditionally, you're gonna keep intensity the same, but less sets, less sets. Sets is what you're going to do, but keeping the load the same. So what I have found is I don't do— like, if I'm training someone, like, that's good. If I wrote an online program and, you know, never saw you, then that's a good general base kind of thing. It's a little assumptive that people train hard. Most people aren't training 100%. So if I witnessed you train, I would be able to say, yes, this person's— this is appropriate for them, or it's not appropriate for them. When I'm personally training someone, I'm checking in, and again, I'm pushing them to the edge more and more. And I want to see— I want to see the performance decrease. I want to see their mood decrease. I want to, you know, I want to hear things. I want to see the check-in forms, uh, you know, sex drive, is it going down? Is their hunger— are they feeling a little bit down? These are actually good signs. Means that they're training hard and we're achieving what we're— then I'll give the deload. So I want people to earn their deload. I don't just give them out willy-nilly because most of the time people can handle a bit more because they don't train hard enough. But then look, there are people who train like beasts, and I've seen some of you in this class. You guys, you know, some of you do earn your deloads. Like Emma, she's a fucking beast when you train. Train really, really hard. Like every single time I've seen you train, bar none, you train fucking hard. So I'd have no— like, I'd be like, yeah, you would be someone who 100% I'd be like, yeah, probably every 4 weeks, she probably does need a deload because every session she does, she puts 100% in. So that would be appropriate in that scenario, whereas some of you look like Care Bears on Valium. Yeah, if you train like Care Bear on Valium, no deload. Any other questions? Yeah, go for it. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there are genetic discrepancies, and depending on how well people recover as well. So, and you'll see that inside of the sets, will people's performance start to tank as they train? So, you know, from their first set to— so if we're doing 5 sets, by the 5th set, are you at your top weight, or by the 5th set, are you starting to miss reps? So when I started training, the more volume I did, the stronger I would get. Now that I've built a base of strength, that's not true because I start to tank. So I'm not able to do as much volume because, because I'm stronger, I'm not able to do as much volume. Does that make sense? Because my intensity, my capacity to be intense is much, much higher than when I started training. So I can't get away with as much volume because I just dig myself into a hole faster. Makes sense? Other questions? All right.