In this instructional workout video, the host guides viewers through a 10‑by‑10 decline dumbbell press and row routine designed to build volume, tension tolerance, and athletic strength. Using a skinny decline bench for increased range of motion, he emphasizes the importance of training strength across all positions rather than focusing on a single “magical” angle. The session alternates presses and rows on a minute‑by‑minute basis, with optional drop‑ladder or down‑set variations for time efficiency. Throughout, he discusses the role of load, tempo, and range—contrasting short‑range, muscle‑dominant rows with long‑range, stretch‑focused movements, and cites research on connective‑tissue length and muscle growth. Programming advice includes progressing by reps before weight, using different dumbbell sizes (10 kg vs 20 kg), and integrating chin‑up volume for back work. The host also shares personal reflections on his lifestyle, work balance, and motivation, inviting viewers to share their own training take‑aways.
Chapters
Okay, so we're going to go for decline press 10 by 10 and row 10 by 10. I'm going to talk you through it as we go. Yeah, you keep counting them for me. So I've got this, uh, skinny bench. I think, uh, Ben Pakulski might popularize. Does take away from stability, but it gives you a bit of extra range of motion. With the scapulas, which I'm a big fan of. Okay, so going to work through this volume. Goal is to accumulate some work, build build some capacity for volume. Now we can work on speed still. This sort of weight can do speed development. You can work on different positions. I'm a big fan of changing the exercise, slight variations. You should have your testing movements, but then if the goal is to be athletic, then you want to be strong in every position. There's no benefit to being really weak out here, strong in here, choosing one position above the others. It doesn't really work like that in the real world. There are coaches out there who think there are magical positions, and 90 degrees has something magical about it. Um, you know, Jay Schroeder kind of popularized that idea. I'm not sure who else before that, maybe some Russian stuff, but it doesn't instinctively make sense. 10 again. 10 again. Easy 10. All right, so I've done my heavy work. These aren't meant to be hard, they're meant to be accumulating tolerance in the tissue. Building metabolic capacity, building some muscle, so they're going to help when I go back to doing heavy work. You can go strictly on the minute with each of the movements. I'm just going back to back, so it gives me a little bit more time to talk to you guys in between. I don't think it's going to make any difference whether I rest a little bit longer after the presses before I go into the rows or not. If I wanted to be more time efficient, I could just do this as kind of like a drop set or a down ladder, so maybe go like 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. But I've got no time pressure and, uh, it's 20 minutes easy done. So I'm a huge fan of being on the clock, being accountable, being measurable. You could progress the weight on these, but probably makes more sense to progress with reps. Maybe once you're doing 12s, go heavier for 5s or 6s or 8s, depending on how big the jump is in the dumbbells. So yeah, I've done the heavy work. I did 20 minutes of standing press on the minute and then 20 minutes of chin-ups. Maya's building a castle here in the background.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Did you? Wow, it's looking good.
10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10. I did 10 again this time.
Yeah, thank you for helping with the counting.
You were counting first, then you were watching me, huh?
Counting as well. You can see working harder with the 20kg dumbbells than with the 10kg ones. So those ones are 10kg, these ones are 20kg. So these are double, twice as heavy as those ones. Now It's also an opportunity to play with tempos, play with positions. Reversal strength, we know, is the key. Tension, we know, is the key. We're talking about athletic ability, so it's not so much about reps, it's more about the accumulation of tension, building our tolerance to tension in terms of volume, in terms of speed, and in terms of load. So how fast Can you receive tension? How much load can you use for tension? And how much total work can you get done? It also matters which positions you receive that tension into. And then we want to zoom out and look at the balance of tension across the body. Couple bonus reps there. You get the idea. I'm doing 10 sets decline bench, 10 sets of decline bench on the minute, well, on the second minute with rows as well. It doesn't really matter to me too much exactly how I get them done.
Okay.
This isn't really the main movement, and I don't have heavier dumbbells. So yeah, I could do seated, you know, press or make it harder in a different way. Could do sets of 20, but goal is not really to tax myself too much with these after I've done the heavy work. And then this afternoon I'll do arms work, biceps and triceps. Didn't know you're going to make it pretty by throwing things on me while I'm lifting. Probably shouldn't do that, just in case I drop the weights or something. So if you're standing close to me, it's not too dangerous with this one, but probably not a good habit, good idea to keep doing. So if you wanted to go for a short-range variation of the row, you would go face down. Obviously you can't get the long range here because the ground's in the way. So that's a very muscle-dominant movement. Meaning, uh, it's going to increase the neurological connection to the muscle. It's not so connective tissue dominant because the connective tissue isn't under tension. So the essence of the short range training is to increase muscle activation, and obviously there are certain positions that we really need to have, and so sometimes short range is the only option. For specificity, but to keep a muscle healthy, we should have strength in the short range and strength in the long range. And you see, with children or animals in nature, they won't have those imbalances. But when we strength train, we know that we develop most strength around the part of the movement where we work the hardest. So even if you're training full range of motion, most strength development is around the sticking point, which means it's in the middle which means you're creating an imbalance in the muscle where the long and the short range aren't well developed. So that's sort of when a push becomes a pull. Yes, it's bringing the biceps into it, but it's also challenging the, the chest. As I get out there, really feel the chest as well as the biceps. So chest and biceps do kind of work together in these sorts of movements. You notice in the flies, but then flies, we don't tend to go as heavy relative to what you can press. Some people do flies with more weight than this. So I go for short range with the lighter dumbbells. Going to be able to get up significantly higher. So you can see, if I'm doing those shorter reps, kind of makes sense to go for a bit longer. Time under tension makes sense. But obviously there's a lot more tension in that. If I do 4-0 X-0 reps with this, you know, up, pause at the top, slowly down, this kind of movement, there's a lot less work being done in 10 seconds than if I'm up the top, you're banging out those partials, drop catching the weight. So time under tension is a really poor measure of the quality of tension and therefore the training effect. The training effect is going to be mainly dictated by the quality of the tension. I'm playing around probably a little bit more than I usually would if I wasn't on camera, just showing you a rep is not a rep. Every one of these repetitions has its place and could be used in a certain circumstance, partly to build resilience and to build athletic ability, or to to solve a specific problem with the orange car here. We've got my favorite, the green car, and there are some more over here as well. You can see with those ones getting to a bit more long range, the blue car. So long range, meaning I'm getting a stretch in the posterior deltoids, in the rhomboids, purple car. If I'm getting a stretch in the muscles, then we now know from the latest research and stuff that Charles Poliquin was doing 20 years ago, that if there's more stretch, then there's going to be more muscle mass added. Okay, so it matters about the connective tissue length at the time that you're creating muscular tension. Yes.
I can send it to one of your friends?
Yep.
Do you have to name the hijacked kid or the car?
Yep, I will now.
Well, once they look at the video. Yeah.
It's nice and warm out here, sun's out, getting some reps done, kids are playing, life's good. Worked hard to get to this position for a long time where I own my own time and I can dedicate my learning to things that I'm passionate about, where I think I can make the most positive impact in the world. Somewhere, yes, you could say I'm retired, but yeah, often do 60 or 80 hours of work a week as well, but not every week. And a lot of it doesn't feel like work, even though it is my job. It is what people pay me for. So that's probably the best case scenario, you know, where you do have responsibility and you are making contribution. You also love what you do as well, and you get the time with the people that you want to have the time with. Just, uh, sneaking out of my intensity guide there. They're pretty intense. Start to lower it down. More of a planche position, something like the first part of the back lever strength, and a lot of tension to the biceps and the chest. Nearly finished. So yeah, I'm starting to get to some fatigue there. Those last few styles of reps and longer sets taking a little bit out. There's a lot of total tension with this work, but it's still time efficient. 60 minutes on the clock. Probably been out here for 80 minutes, did a little bit before that. I could definitely go, uh, I could definitely shorten the time that it takes to do this and I'd get 90% of the result. So, you know, I quite like it like this. For a lot of people, these would already be short rests and probably be a short workout for a lot of elite lifters, powerlifters, weightlifters. So the astute amongst you might recognize that the relative intensity of this It's really significantly higher on the presses because I used a lot of the sets on tens, but I'm not too worried about it. Get a lot of back work done, um, with the pull-up chin-up volume. And when you really lock off those reps at the top, you do work hard on the retractors. So I don't tend to do as many rows as, say, a lot of powerlifters who don't necessarily do the chin-up volume or get the strict chest-to-bar. So I hope you got something out of that. I'd love to hear your biggest take-home, something that you're working on in your training. Drop me a line and let's get stronger together.
