Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast! I'm your host, Dr. Mike Nelson. Today, we're diving deep into hypertrophy training with my buddy from down under, Ben Mayfield Smith. We cover a wide range of topics, including his contest prep, hypertrophy techniques, volume and frequency, stretch-based hypertrophy, and even the underrated belt squat for building muscle. Ben shares insights on how to apply different training methods effectively to client coaching. We also discuss the importance of psychological preparation in bodybuilding and sustainable training practices. Whether you're curious about aerobic capacity's role in hypertrophy or looking for tips on evidence-based muscle growth strategies, this podcast has it all. Make sure to check out Ben's work at Matter Athletica and his Instagram for more amazing content.
Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast! I'm your host, Dr. Mike Nelson. Today, we're diving deep into hypertrophy training with my buddy from down under, Ben Mayfield Smith. We cover a wide range of topics, including his contest prep, hypertrophy techniques, volume and frequency, stretch-based hypertrophy, and even the underrated belt squat for building muscle.
Ben shares insights on how to apply different training methods effectively to client coaching. We also discuss the importance of psychological preparation in bodybuilding and sustainable training practices.
Whether you're curious about aerobic capacity's role in hypertrophy or looking for tips on evidence-based muscle growth strategies, this podcast has it all. Make sure to check out Ben's work at Matter Athletica and his Instagram for more amazing content.
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things to increase performance, add muscle, improve body composition, do all of it, a flexible framework without destroying your health. Today on the podcast, we've got a good buddy from down under Mr.
Ben Mayfield Smith, and today we're talking primarily about. Hypertrophy. Like most podcasts here, it does wander all across that topic. So we started off in the very beginning about his contest prep and progress, some of the kite boarding stuff I was doing in fall. Then we get into a discussion of hypertrophy training.
What are different types of training techniques you can use in client coaching? Even specifics on volume and frequency. Understanding muscle group responses. Can you do stretch based [00:01:00] hypertrophy? Uh, one of my favorite pieces of equipment I think is highly underrated, especially for hypertrophy, is the belt squat.
Different training techniques, secondary factors and hypertrophy, single leg stability, and a whole lot more. You might've heard this podcast already. If you listen to myself, coach Phil Stevens and Dr. Lonnie Lowry on Iron Radio we had it, uh, broadcast on there also. And I wanted to put it on on my show too 'cause it was a great discussion and I think you'll learn a lot from it.
So Ben is an Australian physique coach, competitive bodybuilder co-founder of Matter Athletica, where he works with athletes and coaches on hypertrophy, training, execution, and long-term physique development. Um, what I really like about Ben is he's using a very evidence based approach, but he is looking at all of the things that go into [00:02:00] prep, especially.
On the physical and especially on the mental side to make it a sustainable endeavor, which I think has gotten a lot better in bodybuilding. But there's still a lot of the old school coaching bros that are just like for women you just need to eat tilapia and broccoli and for dudes it's chicken and rice and we'll just adjust how much chicken and rice you get per week.
So. It's nice to have a discussion well beyond, um, all of that. Make sure to check out all of his great stuff at Matter, Athletica and on Instagram at Ben Mayfield Smith. We'll put links down to both of those here. So you can check out all the amazing content, all the wonderful stuff that he has put out.
I've been able to chat with him and hang out with him in person, uh, a couple times that he has been to the us which is amazing. Sponsors today, uh, primary sponsor is myself. Uh, you can join the [00:03:00] insider newsletter. Go to mike t nelson.com. Go to the newsletter tab, or we'll put a direct link down below in the show notes.
You'll have daily information, totally free, goes to your inbox. Try to make these as extremely useful evidence-based, make them practical, and I also try to make them entertaining as best that I can. So it's been described as not a really boring newsletter. I love a lot of my friends who do hardcore research stuff for newsletters, but man, some of their stuff even bores me, even if it's good info.
So try to make this as entertaining as possible in addition to great information. Also, check out my friends over at Rogue Fitness. They've got bars, racks, training equipment. You even pick up an Echo bike or a concept two rower if you're looking for cardiovascular development Also. And they make super high quality stuff and it is an affiliate link.
So I do make a few bucks if you pick up anything [00:04:00] from them, and they've always made high quality stuff. So check them out. Check out our friends over at LMT, electrolytes, support, hydration training, volume and recovery. Again, I was talking to another friend last week about. How man, I seem to have five years ago missed the boat.
That just adding more fluid and electrolytes to just day-to-day living and training my energy levels of myself and my clients. Are all much more consistent and it's super easy to do. Very tasty. No funky stuff in 'em. I've been using 'em literally every day since they came out. So check out the link below.
Uh, heads up that, uh, both the rogue fitness and l and t Link are. Affiliate links. So I do earn a commission if you choose to purchase through them, so it helps support the show and it's at no extra cost to you. So without further ado, here's my buddy Ben Mayfield Smith.
[00:05:00]
Dr MIke T Nelson: welcome back to the show, Mr. Ben or soon to be Dr. Ben at some point. How's it going?
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: We get a little bit ahead of ourselves. We'll we'll take the undergrad first.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Oh, well, that's at some point.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: At some point. At some point it's on the cards. At some point. On the cards. We'll see. We'll see when that one is. But no, I'm going good. Like we're just talking about, I'm I'm four weeks into prep. This was the end of week four.
Body's in a good spot. Just enjoying the process at this point. It's the best prep I've ever had. I don't wanna say I'm early. I'm on track for what the coach wants. I'll get my feedback today for check-in and see what he says, but I'm very confident to, we're on track with where we need to be.
And I don't feel like a ton of shit right now, which is nice. So
Dr MIke T Nelson: That's nice.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah, it's it's always good at 15. I think we're 15 weeks out from show one as of Sunday. Yeah, it's just right now it's moving smoothly and nicely and no real complaints yet. I'll probably get Christmas off and have a diet break or a refeed and then go harder from there again in the new year.
So, no, I'm good. Finished uni for the semester. [00:06:00] It's all happening.
Dr MIke T Nelson: What do you think was the main difference with this prep? Did you do something different, more in the off season or any words of wisdom?
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah, the biggest thing I think for me, there's probably two things in this offseason particularly, was I wasn't trying to chase fullness with food.
And we kept body we kept body composition in my growth block relatively stress free. So. What I mean by that is like blood pressure didn't go up too high, faster blood glucose was in a good spot. I remained insulin sensitive. Aerobic capacity was nice. We got into a good position after I pulled outta my last show.
I still kept dieting for a little bit, trying to get a little bit more Sens tires and lean. So it just gave us this really good runway of almost like a rebound effect where, there was a good rate of growth. We stayed inside that three to 500 grams per week without trying to just force food and force fat gain.
Which then once we started prep, allowed time for, we're coming into a pre-prep phase, I was able to tidy up pretty quickly, pretty easily. And now I'm on the highest amount of [00:07:00] food I've ever had in a prep. So it was kinda like. And I've been guilty of it before. A lot of people will chase food and just simply put up food and calories because that's what the off season dictates.
And you just end up obviously just creating all the inflammation and downregulation markers that we wanna see in a healthy spot for prep. Or for conducive growth kind of gets shut down and then you end up this sluggish mess that can't really train hard or, build good tissue. So those factors were probably the biggest contributors this time.
I only really had about 17 weeks of this new coaching off season. This will be our first prep we've done together. And so I was actually very happy with how it all went. And I'm actually more, probably more excited for our next growth block. Looking at what we did in 17 weeks, I think we put on eight kilos with probably
Dr MIke T Nelson: wow.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Two or two or 3% body fat gain. It was re like,
Dr MIke T Nelson: oh,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: that's incredibly, that's good. Yeah, it was nothing. I was, it was the first time I was over a hundred kilos with ab veins, with, striations and lines. And so for me it was like. Yeah, it was a very good spot to be in for only a 17 week off season.
[00:08:00] So very keen to see what we do the next time when I've got 12 months off with him directly. But yeah, we'll get through this season first.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Do you think that was pushing more volume or intensity? Did you do any different on the training side? 'cause it sounds like you were not in as much of a caloric surplus, correct?
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah, no, I was I think yeah, we would've been, three to 500 grand calories a day into a surplus. Really. It was nothing drastic. Like I was saying, I was very leaned into being hungry this off season. It was like if you can handle the hunger or the food noise this off season, it will set us up for a very lean and productive prep, which will then reverse us out for a very lean and productive next off season, which is where I get more food, fuller, bigger, really start the growth block for the heavyweight division.
Training wise, like I think more so I've been really trying to refine technical proficiency. So just trying to really maximize and leverage tension control under load, making sure that I'm actually moving in the place I need to move and like my coach gets [00:09:00] inundated with videos of me training. He gets, constant feedback from me.
Most of the time I'll probably assess my own feedback before I send it to him and then see what he thinks and then let him have his unbiased opinion in response depending on what he wants to see out of a movement. So that's probably one of the bigger factors. This gap was an accumulation of skill over years and just still trying to refine it and just whilst doing that, pushing intensity like crazy.
Like it's how much load can I maintain on the target tissue without form collapsing and push as close to failure as I can. And I think that's probably been the two biggest factors in training difference this year.
Dr MIke T Nelson: And are you using still compound exercises or a mix of compound machines? Isolation?
All the above.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah. Generally I'll like, Chris program is very similar to myself, but I'll use all the above. Or he'll use all the above. In some exercises, he'll have simply like a choose convergence, press of choice or incline press of choice and then just look for what's the most stable available exercise in the gym that I wanna use.
Sometimes it'll be like, I want this [00:10:00] exercise in here at this order. Other times it's if there's, like you said, then machines available, isolations just try to get the best bar path or mechanical tension on the target area. So it can be a mixture of, some of my exercises will have a Smith Machin incline versus a dumbbell incline.
Just really trying to focus on what's gonna generate the most stability and be able to allow me to leverage as much load as possible while controlling it. So I'm very much the same. I'm big on making sure that. We have a variety of tools for the client and making sure there's a lot of ways to, skin the cat.
And a lot of time it's like there's no, I know you're probably very similar to yourself, but there's no one rule for me of I don't do these movements, or I don't do bar barbells, or I don't do dumbbells, or I don't do machines. It all has its time and place inside the program depending on what we're trying to achieve.
Right.
Dr MIke T Nelson: And you're from Australia, so you don't say skin, the wombat. It's still skin, the cat.
I just had to check. These are important questions. We wanna know. They are,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: they are very important questions. Unfortunately, no skinny wombats. I don't even know what that would happen if you did that.
Dr MIke T Nelson: I don't know. I don't think I'd
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: wanna [00:11:00] be doing
Dr MIke T Nelson: that. Imagine,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: I imagine there's some sort of federal crime to that.
Yeah, they're not quite an, they're not national species, but they're pretty close.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Ah, okay. Do you use a, like a rep cadence? Are you thinking so one of the things I do is in general. It's mixed, but I'd say in general control centric and actually want a faster concentric, as long as it's controlled, if at all possible.
Obviously under heavier loads, it's not gonna happen. But do you do anything similar like that with or do you do old school time inter tension type stuff or do you play with any of that?
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: So I try to teach like it's very early on, especially with new clients. And for myself is I'll try and use a three to four second ecentric skill development phase.
Sure. So if it's a, if it's a client that doesn't really have, neuromotor control, they don't really have skill acquisition yet, they're not really training proficient, I'll really drive a three, maybe four second eccentric as purely just a way to feel and stretch and load the muscle and just get [00:12:00] familiar with what control feels like.
Obviously we get clients that might come to us from just their own bro training or previous training, and they'll just pump out a lot of different loads and they'll just, every rep has a different speed, tempo, control range of motion. So most of the time I'm really just trying to standardize cadence in all areas and make sure that, the range is similar, the control similar, they're loading the length and the length the end position the same way, elbow position or bar path runs the same direction.
And then with that, the time of the reps. So a three to four second eccentric. And then, like you said, I'll try and have them remove a little bit of momentum at the bottom of that three seconds. So I don't just want that spring reflex straight away. I want that sort of three to four seconds a very quick one second pause, but I wanna take it away and just almost stall the movement.
And then, as you said, from there is where you want that explosive lift out of the hole, if you will. And try and use that to dry force. Because like you said, as the load gets heavier and they get better at moving, that speed goes away and really just becomes an ability to generate force and try and get the load up.
It's not gonna be a one [00:13:00] second rep when they're doing, a hundred kilo bench press or, depend relative to the person's size. But if we're getting close to failure inside a 10 to 12 rep scheme, you're probably not gonna get a one second, rep. You want to be looking at the contractile position's probably gonna be a little bit slower than that.
So the contraction phase is gonna be a little bit slower than that. So for me that's like you said, I use that to try and teach rep execution and try and make sure that everything is standardized. So then we know as we get closer to failure, that velocity and that speed of the rep then becomes a dictating factor as to how close to failure we are.
So I use a very similar like system as yourself.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Do you find some exercise or maybe muscle groups are different for that? So for example, one thing I found in more. I'd say experienced lifters, and even myself, if I'm doing one arm dumbbell row, which I like doing from a split stance, I do not know why people put their knee on a bench just for Christ's sake.
Put your hand on the bench to a split stance. That is the most unstable position, but everyone in their brother [00:14:00] does it and it, I've never understood it. It drives me absolutely insane. Especially under heavy loads. Yeah, it's what's more stable? Three points of support or one foot your hand and your knee on a, anyway, but beside that I find with that and even, pull-ups, I don't know if it's just the lat or those types of movements, but I've gotten better results by doing a slightly faster eccentric, but still very controlled versus.
A dumbbell, incline, bench rest, I may actually purposely slow the eccentric down a little bit more. Any thoughts to that or any other exercises you find in general? I don't wanna say out the exception to the rule or something you may modify a bit.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: That's an interesting one.
Dr MIke T Nelson: And I don't know why it's only really those movements because if I just decide to do like a seated cable roll, I love doing long eccentrics on that. Yeah. I've got a ultra one device where I'll jack up the eccentric to, by [00:15:00] 5% a week, or an experienced people like 10% a week.
So you might be pulling at a hundred pounds, your eccentrics like 140 pounds for four to six seconds. So I don't know. I just noticed that on one arm, dumbbell rose, chin-ups, pull-ups, and I mean for upper body movements, lower body I guess just varies a lot more. But I don't know why. I've just gone towards that with those movements.
I don't have any good rationale though.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Do you think that's a gravity based response for you? If we look at those exercises? I think it is. They're all yeah, it feels like if you look at those exercises the line of force and gravity from that it, it makes sense that's like the faster execution.
How do you find at the bottom then, when you get to the contraction, are you more of a fast what would be the word? A speed of contraction there is fast as well, or are you is that where it's slowest for you?
Dr MIke T Nelson: Ideally I like it a little bit faster, but again, this is more advanced and I like the scapula to come all the way out, so I'm getting [00:16:00] everything cold at the end range of motion.
Now granted that's after many months or many years of doing that, a lot of people still feel this weird thing to keep their arm in and they're doing rows like this, which makes no sense to me either. But. Yeah. Relatively faster, but yet controlled. If you
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah,
Dr MIke T Nelson: if you watch it from the side, it's not jerky or there's not a lot of
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Tissue hopping. You're not impulse loading. Yeah, I don't know. And again, I think of it as if you watch someone who's really good at squatting, I'd say it's probably more for performance and bodybuilding. They tend to drop into the hole faster than slower, I would say overall.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: But they, they're very controlled.
Like they can stop the load at the bottom under control and come back up. Yeah. But you watch it and it just, it looks controlled and looks nice, where if you watch someone who's inexperienced do that, it's oh my God, your knees are gonna blow outta your kneecaps. Don't do that. Even though the speed may be the same, yeah, there's a, I've never quite been able to figure it out, but I think it's just, it just [00:17:00] looks more controlled even though if we do velocity based training the velocity on the speed of the movement may be the same.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah, I've seen that very similar on the, on squat patterns. You would think going by the exercise we just described that a hinge or like an RDL would make more sense in terms of of the fast centric. But I think the, yeah. I've seen on squats many times with clients I call it cannon balling, where they'll cannonball into the hole.
Mm-hmm. And like a lot of the time I'll try especially on a hack squad, if there's a safety, I'll try and the first few times, if they're hearing that bang of the carriage the safety, I'll use that as the, Hey, we don't wanna hear that sound, and I wanna hear that like a, I just wanna like a pitter patter on that safety.
So if you are hearing a bang every single rep, then we're coming in too fast. You're not controlling the eccentric and the bottom position, which is obviously where we wanna be controlled. Yeah. So I'll use that same sort of I guess without even realizing identifying that same sort of marker that you're talking about and use that as like a, Hey we're coming in too quickly here.
We can literally hear it. I want to take that away and have you actually come down slower. So [00:18:00] I'll try and load to something like a hack squat quite consistently and still aim for a three seconds. But it's again, the velocity and the speed is roughly the same, but it looks quicker, like
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: It might get like that bottom, like as you first come down, it's like one, and then it's two, three, hold back up. It's like that first initial third to half of the exercise is that the first second is so quick and then those bottom two seconds, it's yeah, let's just slow it down there, just that little bit more and hold the rep and then come back up.
So I see the exact same thing in hack squats, pendulums and squat patterns for sure.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. And that's the same cue I used too, is just, this is probably the cue I've used caught over and over is All right, do the same thing. But make it quieter or I don't want to hear this, like for kettlebell stuff.
That's great. I remember years ago, my buddy Adam Glass was here and Guy was training at the time, we were teaching him how to do a kettlebell snatch and he's doing pretty good, but you could hear that he wasn't timing how you [00:19:00] open your grip a little bit to let the kettlebell, come back over your hand.
And the two things you would hear was the grinding and shear stress on his hand of just screeching noise and the flap on the back of his forearm. Yeah. And so Adam stops him and he looks at him and he goes, Dave, I don't want to hear any of that shit. And he looks at him. He is like, what? That's your cue?
He is yep, go. And it was crazy after a few reps he figured it out, but he couldn't articulate what he had figured out, and that to me was like, oh, external cues for a lot of things are so much more faster and effective. Again, there's a time and a place for maybe other stuff. But that's when I really went deep down the rabbit hole of, oh, that was cool.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: It's funny how, it's funny how simplistic coaching cues can be, like nowadays when we see like content on social media, oh God, we've gotta be at this position. And particularly this angle and degree of execution, the bar path has to follow this. [00:20:00] And you're hitting a client with 20 different points of correction before they even get under a rep versus, Hey, I don't wanna hear that noise.
There's so many, like the, that sort of as we're talking about before where the skill acquisition phase, you give like a cue of Hey, I want this to take three to four seconds. You don't have to tell them why, but they start to feel why when they go, Hey, suddenly I feel my hamstrings load better when it's, and it's suddenly the weight is heavier and I'm closer to failure because I'm taking three to four seconds to come down on this hinge as opposed to one.
And it's it's so easily recognizable in the client without any training knowledge, but all you had to say was, Hey, I want this to take three to four seconds right now. You're doing one.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. And that's what I've also noticed too, like R dls, the two Qs they use all the time is, your eccentric is gonna be three to six seconds and just push your butt to that wall.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Oh, and I'm like,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: yeah,
Dr MIke T Nelson: go. And I'm like,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: yep.
Dr MIke T Nelson: And then usually I'll just tell, I'll tell you when to stop. And I just watch 'em on the side when their knee and their hip angle don't [00:21:00] go anymore and they're just flexing at their back. I'm like, okay, stop. So they don't, that way they don't have to worry about how far they have to go or anything else.
They just, or give 'em a target behind 'em, all that kind of stuff. But it's. Yeah. It's funny how just simple stuff can clean up complex movements. And it's not that the analysis a lot of times even online is wrong. But my challenge to a lot of those people is, okay, I wanna watch you coach someone then.
Yeah. Yeah. You may be a hundred percent right on your breakdown, but can you translate that to make a human move better? And a lot of times it's a hot trashman fire.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yes. It's, that's the thing that I think is is most missing in these context is or in these areas of nuance on social media is how many of you can translate that from the articles that you've read and the research pieces and what you've seen in studies and the textbook, and give that to people that have no training knowledge whatsoever.
Yeah. Or have very minimal training knowledge because that's gonna be more of a indicative to me of [00:22:00] your knowledge and your coaching capacity than whether or not. You can tell a new client that the lat loses leverage after 120 degrees of the shoulder. I dunno what person needs to hear that, or what benefit they get from stopping their lap pull down because, hey, no, we've gone past 120 degrees.
I'm not gonna do this for my lat anymore. Just let that person train, tell 'em what they should be feeling or what's gonna happen or how they should feel it. I guarantee they get a better result. But yeah, that's where that nuance lies right now in the social media rage bait, clickbait world, which is, how can I call this person's content out and challenge their coaching style and blah, blah, blah.
But reality is most of them can't translate it to a client in the real world.
Dr MIke T Nelson: And even the LA thing, I have some serious disagreements with that. I don't, I should say I don't disagree with the biomechanics of it. I sometimes. Or all the time, I do disagree about that being the only thing you're gonna do for your lat.
I'm like, okay. Mm-hmm. So you're telling me, how about this, bro? You go hang [00:23:00] from a pull up bar with one hand and tell me you don't feel your lat.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: I'm like,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yep.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Oh, but that's a horrible I'm not saying that's the best angle to pull, and I'm not saying this is the best, exercise for hypertrophy, but I just sometimes feel like we've extended the research a little bit too long.
And again, I use that movement all the time. Shout out to Chasm and N one and all that stuff. I like it. I think it's cool. I think. Mm-hmm. It is a lot of times an improvement on what was done before. My argument is that I think people have taken that information as, yeah. Well, this is the only way, now I'm like, last time I looked, your lat attaches way down to a whole bunch of shit.
Mm-hmm. It's normally stuck to your fucking rib cage. And so any movement to drag that scapula above at a time, I think is actually beneficial. But everyone's oh, but you don't train for hypertrophy. I'm like, no, I don't really, per se, but I turn a lot of clients even trade for hypertrophy
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: even with that statement.
Right. Like the thing that, and I know, appeal to [00:24:00] authority or appeal to size is a logical fallacy, but there's been so many bodybuilders that are 250, 300 pounds on stage. That have done chin-ups, lap pull downs. Oh yeah. Over the head. Behind the head. Like for your statement to be factual, you'll be implying that drug load is the only causer of hypertrophy in the back.
Otherwise, those exercises are irrelevant. But we know that drug load is not the only stimulator of hypertrophy, because then everyone taking drugs would be 120 kilos and then, right. So then there has to be a contributing factor, which is the movement, which means that those exercises for their back are working.
So at some degree here, if you look at the research, you've taken a causality, or sorry, a correlative, and said, this is now the direct causality. This is the thing that, it's irrelevant. You shouldn't be doing it for back training. But again, you just have to look at these big guys. I know it's a logical fallacy and someone will probably say that, but if that were to be the case, we wouldn't be seeing these monsters doing chin ups and vertical lap pull downs with these monumental backs.
But they have them [00:25:00] and they do those exercises. So something here has gotta give. And I think one of the things that, correct me if you if you disagree, but when we look at research or when I say we, when people are looking at research. They misconstrue what might be a loss of leverage as an absolute reduction and Correct.
This is no longer, like at this angle, absolutely nothing here happens. Yeah. And it's like the
Dr MIke T Nelson: muscle goes away and just says, ah, fuck it, I'm done.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Right. Like in what world does the back completely shut off? Because I've gone here like, all you have to do is jump on a lap, pull down or a chin up or like a high row, do the exercise and tell me you don't feel your lap do something.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: It's like it might not be optimal. And this is where I think the world's got weigh in terms of the hypertrophy research and training. We've looked at optimal as the only way, and if it isn't optimal, it isn't effective.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: And we both know that's not true, but when you get to that sort of researched such nuance complexity, it then just becomes this, well, my thing is the best thing.
And if it if it's not [00:26:00] optimal in the research, then it has no place in a program. And that's where I think a lot of this kind of comes undone.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. And it's, again, I don't. Really participate in any of these arguments online? Partially because I don't really care all that much to be honest. And you have
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: your own clients?
Dr MIke T Nelson: I have my own clients and yeah, I did a master's in biomechanics, so I have a pretty good idea of vectors and force and all that kinda stuff. But the onic part is, a lot of times it is very scientific. I think it's an over extrapolation of the research, but many times it then ironically comes back down to, oh, well my lats are a lot bigger than yours, so you don't know anything.
Like you, you're trying to invalidate my scientific statement and my lats are way bigger. And I'm like, okay. But you were just arguing that this is the science and this is the only thing that matters. And then, five paragraphs down, you're doing the direct argument of the thing you said you hate.
And I don't [00:27:00] know.
Yeah. And then by the way, if you point that out, they hate you more, so, that didn't go over well. So, yeah.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah. I think I got into one of those arguments and I was like, oh, this isn't conducive to anything at all. This literally no. That this person has no intention of looking at my position.
They just want to argue for. Right. And we both know in good faith, that is the worst way to construct an argument. And it's completely redundant.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. And I feel like it's just not all of 'em, but a lot of 'em just want more followers and it's oh they're literally just making you consciously incompetent.
Whether that's true or not, because then they'll be like, oh, you must have all the answers. Then if I didn't know how to do the optimal lat pull down with my left side with, adding flexion at the bottom to hit the fibers, here and there again, I think that can be useful. I do use that movement.
I like it.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Mm-hmm.
Dr MIke T Nelson: But. I don't know. It just, it seems like it's a circle with, no one wants to think outside of the box Again, a lot of it is just parody [00:28:00] in one thing versus the next. Someone will come up with something that is, semi useful and then everyone will either love it or hate it. I don't think Doreen Yates ever did that exercise and he had some pretty big lats and you could argue,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Could be wrong.
Dr MIke T Nelson: They weren't genetic. Like you look at his earlier shows and his later shows whatever he did seemed to freaking work pretty darn good.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's like it's, and I know people dismiss, the appeal to size but at some point you have to look at them and go, well, what were these guys doing?
'cause it worked. Yeah. At some point it worked.
Dr MIke T Nelson: So do you think, my argument has been for many years that. With strength stuff, we've got pretty good data. Said principle works, right? Specific adaptation and opposed demand. If you wanna get better at a deadlift, you probably should freaking deadlift. You probably should freaking deadlift as much as you can get away doing and recover and keep good form and not get injured, et cetera.
But hypertrophy seems there's literature showing as low as 30% of one rm, which is originally nick Bird's stuff. [00:29:00] Not even blood flow restriction just flat out 30% of one rm as long as you went to pretty darn close to failure, all the way up to, the Brad Schoenfeld study where you did 85%, I think of one RM and tried to volume match it.
Mm-hmm. All of it seems to work. So do you think hypertrophy is not even air quotes, a direct effect? I think it's actually more of a side effect, but a quote side effect that we're chasing as a primary effect.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah. It's almost like a, a byproduct of layout. Next
Dr MIke T Nelson: byproduct would probably be better.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: It's like a byproduct of layout and execution, but it's the primary mechanism we're chasing to happen.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Right.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: But I, it's an interesting one because I think, again, when we look at it, like the research does, as you stated, it shows 30%, but let's look at the execution, right? To get 30% of one RM and try and chase hypertrophy, you're probably pushing 30, 40 reps in a set, right?
Yeah. Or you're chasing volume and then there use
Dr MIke T Nelson: Extensions on that, so, yeah,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: [00:30:00] exactly. Right. And you're not gonna be doing that with, a back squat or like a loaded RDL trying to do 40 reps in a set and doing 10 sets over your workout. It's just, it starts to look at and this is where I think the research is or people aren't extrapolating the research correctly when we look at.
The signaling for hypertrophy, it is present, but then the question becomes, can you sustain that level of volume across a session, across a workout, across a block, across a year, and use that to continually generate hypertrophy. And my challenge becomes no, because you are, whilst the load on the bar or the machine is not directly heavy in causing that level of aggravation, the repetition of contraction is going to, at a certain point, start to cause that level of aggravation and inflammation and fatigue and tiredness.
That just comes with doing 40 reps. That comes with doing 50 reps. That comes with doing, I think it was God, correct me if I'm wrong, it was Wolf and was it Schoenfeld that got up to the 52 sets on [00:31:00] quads?
Dr MIke T Nelson: I can't remember. It's probably a Schofield. If you just say hypertrophy study and you go Schoenfeld, you're probably right.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Feld. Yeah. It's not a dig at them by any means. I don't wanna, oh, no,
Dr MIke T Nelson: I love Brad. He is awesome.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: I don't wanna get, I don't wanna get it wrong and give credit to the wrong person, but I would argue for if we're taking proximity to failure inside a 10 to 12 rep scheme, I don't think I have a single client in my program that could handle my workout at 52 sets or 50 sets for quads.
It's just not feasible. Right. So to me it's those things are possible, but then it becomes what's logical mm-hmm. And what's actually feasible for an individual. So, yeah. In the data as you said, these numbers and these ranges are possible, but the next question then becomes, is it logical?
Is it logical to give someone 52 sets in a week for quads? When I could probably give them 20 to 25 and make that a very. Close proximity to failure and continue to assess the [00:32:00] recoverability landmarks and see how they're actually adapting. And if it's worth that volume, you might also find that there's that inverted U hypothesis and we start to see that too much, which we do too much volume in that high degree of intensity.
Close proximity to failure is not gonna have any more of a net positive effect. It's still stimulus. Sure, but it's like the cost of that over a four week block. I'm probably not getting the recovery metrics from a client that I wanna see when I could pull that back. Drive up. Intensity. Now they have that recovery and we're continuing to progress week to week.
So this is where I think. Application of research becomes the next thing to understand hypertrophy, like we have the data showing what hypertrophy is or what causes hypertrophy. What creates hypertrophy. Then as coaches, we have to look at that data and say, well, what is the actual application?
How do I put that into a program that will then lead to that signal occurring for my client? How do I allow cell growth to take place in what they're doing and allow that to run for, 20, 24, 30 weeks before I have to pull 'em back for, a diet break [00:33:00] or refeed or, I. I'm not sure about you, but I'm not a big believer in proactive deloading.
I like to use, especially for gen, pop, more lifestyle clients. I find that life is a, is an auto regulator. Most people will probably get four to five weeks before interruption takes place. Work got in the way, family got in the way. Kids were sick. I've got CEOs and executives I work with where every third or fourth week the wife is away on their job versus the kids are, need to be here for this job and they've gotta be here in this part of the country for their job.
And I'd be lucky if they get four straight weeks of a training block. I'm not gonna go, Hey, every fourth week, let's pull up here when I know that every third to six week, they're probably gonna have a deload anyway. So, it all becomes about managing those variables that allows the byproduct to happen, which we're talking about obviously that byproduct being hypertrophy.
And how do we construct that into a program? I think that's the next step of hypertrophy that we miss out on. When people breed the abstract and the conclusion, they go, this is hypertrophy that has to go into a program. No, you're looking at one driver of hypertrophy. You're looking at one [00:34:00] execution that causes hypertrophy, but does it have a place in the program your client needs?
I think that's the next step. And I'm, curious how you see that. But to me that's what I think lacks in a lot of those sort of nuance discussions then becomes to me, well, even if what you're saying is true, where does it fit in the program for this client who doesn't have the time availability or, doesn't need a mesocycle like you've laid out Who doesn't need these factors that the research is showing.
I don't have a single client where I'm thinking, Hey, their shoulders need 52 sets this week.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: It's just not happening.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. And I don't think people understand how much work that is until you actually try to do it and make it somewhat high quality like
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yep.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Probably two years ago I ended up doing a lot more lower body quad based work.
'cause I. Was having some knee pain and was trying to get ready for skiing and snowboarding and kite boarding and, and kite boarding. I was probably just getting, I was probably trying to land too many jumps at too fast of a speed too hot that [00:35:00] I probably should not have been, but that was probably my biggest mistake.
But I thought, okay, I'm gonna go to the gym like I've done, squats and done this and all this other stuff, but what if I just focus, do you know, air quotes, more bodybuilding, power building, whatever on quads. This should be a pretty good, and I remember the first day I did the belt squat and so I'm basically going all the way down to the bottom because if I get squished off a kiteboarding jump, my ass is gonna end up by my ankles.
Anyway, sense, I might as well train that range of motion. Makes sense. And I'm gonna push my knees as far forward as I can to shift more load to my quads. I can flex forward at the waist a little bit because it's a belt squat. And I remember being ungodly shocked at how weak I was in that position. I think it was like 50 pounds or something I had on the thing and did like a set of eight.
And I'm like, oh my God, this is horrible. I'm like, well, I'm like, oh. 'cause I've rarely put myself in that position. Posterior was fine, et cetera. So anyway, I ended up doing this thing where I worked [00:36:00] up to, took six months and worked up to I think eight or nine sets of belt squats.
And I do three to six sets of hack squat, a little bit of single leg stuff and some leg extensions, like curls. So I think the total came out to be United Wears between 25 to 35 sets. Mm-hmm. And that would routinely take me to do, moderate quality, about two hours. And then the thought of even, and I actually had to cut back from that volume over time.
But the thought of even doing that twice a week is just just completely not exciting. Could I maybe pull it off? Maybe, but like you said, I couldn't do hardly anything else then, like my total of what I was doing on other things would have to be like, well below or well at maintenance, so I think that's the thing that people forget that yeah, if you have a very specialized case, that might be useful, but
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: mm-hmm.
Dr MIke T Nelson: People try to do that in addition to what they [00:37:00] were doing before and what they were doing for everything else. And I think that just, it's the old question of can you versus should you like, yeah, if someone put a gun to my head, I could probably get through it, but I guarantee my knees are gonna be pissy.
I'm not gonna be happy. Yeah. I'm probably not gonna make progress. 'cause strength is more my goal than was hypertrophy per se. If I get some hypertrophy that's great. But again, back to. What is the goal? What does it cost? What are you trying to do? Mm-hmm. And again, we don't have, maybe for volume, we've got enough meta-analyses and stuff for dose response, but on more of a single muscle group thing, I am, maybe you're of a different opinion.
I, I don't think we still even have a good idea of the dose response for it. I know there's a fair amount of people who have tried to look at it, but I don't know. I would, I still feel like we're very early days in that type of stuff.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: No, I agree. I think, again, the other side is what we're extrapolating from certain studies and [00:38:00] they're trying to generalize it to every muscle group.
The quad vol, the quad volume range was crazy, right? But imagine trying to do 52 sets on your pecs, or imagine trying to do 52 sets on biceps. Like you'll tear, you'll just straight up tear the insertion at some point. You just, it's not gonna happen. Like you're, there's no way you're finishing the week with your arms going, I did 52 sets of biceps.
It's too small a muscle group. The way that they load best in length and range the way that they feel when you're starting to cramp up and your body's getting, it's just not happening. So for me, like you said, I just don't think we have the wide array of literature yet on every muscle group, which, and we know there are, it's hard to get certain muscle groups to show up.
And we know that, ECGs only C show certain things and people are ah, this is, explaining this. And it's nah. Is it ECG
Dr MIke T Nelson: volume did is messy too.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: It's not oh, this muscle's on or off. It's have you ever seen a really ECG, or, and I'm not an ECG expert, but I've did a little bit of it.
It's fuzzy as hell. Like it, it's still good. It's still useful. Yes, [00:39:00] you can make conclusions from it, but again, I think people think, oh, look at the muscle. It's completely on and it's completely off here. It's like that doesn't quite work that way. Yeah,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: exactly. And that's where I think the literature is, for those that know it.
And I'm not, by no means am I, my, my degree is clinical psych. I'm just a, evidence-based coach, I would say. Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: You're a good educated meathead.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah, exactly.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: I'm a, I'm an intelligent bro.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: And but the understanding is like, how do I take the research and apply it?
Whereas some people, because they don't have that analytical background, will take the research as absolute and we end up misconstruing what the data is actually trying to say, which is, hey, in this particular muscle group, it's like when we got to the position of stretch based hypertrophy and everyone was like, I've gotta train every movement in the length and range, because that's my other pet
Dr MIke T Nelson: peeve I was gonna ask you about,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: because the calf was most responsive in the stretch position.
It's okay, cool. Does every muscle group respond the same way to as what the calf does and what the joints do with the calf inserts and originates? Probably not. Where's the
Dr MIke T Nelson: biggest tendon in your body?
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Exactly.
Ben-533_Recording_640x360: [00:40:00] Achilles
Dr MIke T Nelson: at the other end of your fucking calf.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Exactly. So you're getting these kind of like these studies where you know these things are being shown and you're then going, okay, well that must be every muscle group.
And I think that's where we get so caught up and it gets misunderstood or blurred by people who perhaps, and it's not even an insult to them. I don't know anything about air conditioning mechanics. I don't know anything about physics as an engineer. I don't then read physics studies and go, Hey, engineer, you're wrong.
But because we have this, situation now where everyone's trying to be evidence-based or we're trying to move up the research, people are reading things that they don't quite understand how to read the research. And from that we get these misunderstood extrapolations. We get these misunderstood conclusions.
And then it's like every muscle has to be a stretch position. And we saw for how many years, over the last couple years, every single exercise had to be in a stretch position length, and partials had to be this is where the most hypertrophy is induced. But we keep coming back to train the exercise through full range of motion, under a heavy load.
Make sure you load the length of position, make sure you [00:41:00] load the shortened position. Mid-range is probably gonna be pretty tough as well. Control it with an eccentric cadence of roughly three seconds and just make sure that you are not losing control along the lift and put yourself in a compromised position.
You're probably going to train the muscle effectively. That's generally after all the research I've done and dug into and seen that's coming out and in and is in trend and outer trend. That still seems to come back to the basis of training for most people in most muscle groups. That's where I sit with the stretch base hypertrophy and LinkedIn position hypertrophy conversations like Yeah, train the LinkedIn position.
'cause that's part of the full range.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. I just see too many, and again, who knows if these programs put online, if they're actually real programs or whatever, but really you're gonna start, you're, we're back to the pre-ex exhaustion days, so you, oh, length and partials are the best. I'm gonna start my chest workout by doing flies with just the bottom, one third range of motion.
And I'm like, okay, [00:42:00] but how heavy could you go on like a basic exercise, like a dumbbell bench press after that? Oh bro, I gotta go lighter because the pecs are pretty exhausted. Okay.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: So if volume is one of the big drivers of hypertrophy, which I think you'd probably agree.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Mm-hmm.
Dr MIke T Nelson: If I do that exercise later, I can do a lot more volume by not doing it first.
I think I'm not gonna do it first or have this be like, half of my freaking program. Because by definition on those, partial lengthens, you can't go as heavy of a load. Mm-hmm. So my bias is, yeah, if you wanna do 'em, Adam, do 'em towards the later, but don't let that replace like just. I sound like a, an old school meathead.
Just old school. Like volume, like you said, high quality movement. Use some heavier loads, make sure they're controlled. Yes, by all means, control rep speed. Have a slight pause, don't bounce it off your chest. Don't do bench press form like you see in [00:43:00] 99.9% of gyms, at least in the us Maybe Australia's better.
And I think you'll make a lot more progress and then push overload on those exercises. Shocker. You should get stronger on them. Like even all, if you throw drugs aside, all the top level, maybe those male and female natural bodybuilders, I know mm-hmm. They're pretty freaking strong.
Like they're not power lifter, elite level strong. But I don't, I actually can't even name an exception of who I would say. Yeah. That person is pretty weak for being at that high level. I don't really even know an exception. I'm sure they exist. Like some of the guys I've trained, they were doing.
Trap our deadlifts with over 500 pounds for eight clean reps, mm-hmm. They're, when they, if they would do bench rest, which they didn't always do, 2 25 for reps, 2 35 for reps, and again, their goal is not to be performance at all. If you said, Hey I'll have you trap our deadlift 1 35 and we'll add five pounds of lean mass, they would start doing it the next day.
Right. Yeah. They're not chasing [00:44:00] performance per se. They're chasing hypertrophy, but it, I just, it just seems like we've gone so far the other direction. And again, you go back in time, look at the weights. Arnold was lifting, Franco and all those guys, like they could move a fair amount of load, right.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: I just feel like that basic as it is, principle sometimes gets lost in the, oh, I'll just do more length and partials. That's my little soapbox. Tyrant.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: The only, I love it. I love it. That's exactly what we're here to talk about. The only time I see, and you touched on it very early in the chat, which was the said principle, right?
The only time like. Where we, I look at specificity early in the program like that is if I'm trying to literally drive a volume towards a particular target area
Dr MIke T Nelson: mm-hmm.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: I might look at, so before we do on my my upper day for example, on Mondays really trying to round out my shoulders more to try and complete my look and make sure that I, they, they're nice and full by the time I get on stage, have that sort of like more 3D rounded [00:45:00] shoulder in most of my poses.
I start my, my I start my primary push day with cable crucifix raises. It's only two to three sets, and then I go into my incline cable pressing. But it's where energy's highest. It's not highly taxing of the chest itself. I'm not pre-ex exhausting the chest by doing flies. Then, incline cable press.
Yeah. I'm doing a shoulder movement. 'cause specificity for what we're trying to work on is width and shoulders. So when it comes to the kind of accessory movements early in the program, that's where we use, again it's exercise order. It's old school co coaching and programming.
What are we trying to get most out of for this block? Well, I wanna get bigger shoulders, so where I'm freshest and have the most available energy, let's put it towards my shoulders.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Mm-hmm.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: And then I'll drive up my, my, my pec volume and then I'll do another shoulder exercise, and then I'll do a little bit more chest and then I might do some accessories.
So it's time and place and kind of location and program for a reason. And using that logic for a reason as opposed to just it's gotta be a length and partial, I'm gonna do [00:46:00] this. Arbitrary, stretched based or lengthened position, partial rep. I get it, I get what you're trying to put in.
But to me it's like the said principle we're trying to work with here is I'm trying to grow my shoulders. I'll put a lap movement a lateral raise movement in the program that's low fatiguing. It's not going to impact recoverability. I can replenish oxygen pretty quickly from that, then go into my pec movements and gonna have next to no impact from it.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Now, if I was to do like heavy incline shoulder press and then go to a heavy incline cable press, there would be conflicting I guess you would say like overlap in muscle area that we're trying to work. And so you'd probably have an impact. I wouldn't program it that way, but when it's something like that's where it's like you said, principle and programming mechanics or layout becomes important and trying to justify your phasing for hypertrophy.
That's the stuff where it it makes sense to put it first in the program, as you were saying. Like I, one of the ways I've used length and partials to get that. Additional stretch position out is, using things like length and partials on the last set of a leg extension or leg day.[00:47:00]
Dr MIke T Nelson: Mm-hmm.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: And just using that as an either an absolute drop set or an absolute failure set and just take it to sheer brutal pain. But that like you would know as well going back, say 15, 20 years, that was the basic approach to most training back then. It was like, mm-hmm. A lot of the bros meat heads, the meat and potatoes was like finish on a drop set or finish on a failure set.
And it was realistically, you look at the leg extension, where is the length and partial at that failure position, you're going to basically get harder to get full peak traction. So you were getting half reps anyway. You were getting that sort of that failure half rep at the backend when it came to execution.
So it's not, when it's applied, it's realistically no different to what we're doing or people were doing 20 years ago. But it's just where does it fit in the program and why? That's the thing, the biggest question people don't really asking. Hypertrophy program at the moment is why it doesn't have to be a complex answer, but can you answer why and then match your decision making for what the intention of the program is?
And that's where I [00:48:00] think, yeah, this complexity is trumped logic and just become this showcase of who can have the most com complex program and complicated execution and, crazy movement creations just to get the same signal that I can get from an incline cable press or an incline Smith machine, or a back squat or a hack squat.
It's what are we trying to achieve here? And can I do it simply? Can my client do it simply?
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. And I think it, it goes back to what is the priority of movement? If you have a weak part, and let's say it's just purely bodybuilding, like you're probably gonna wanna train it more often, you're probably gonna wanna train it earlier.
When you have more energy, you probably wanna train it on a higher calorie day if you're cycling calories or something like that. Like some of the strong men I train like. We may do bench once a week. They're not really rewarded in competition for it, but they better be pretty good at overhead pressing different objects, so if we're doing more an overhead pressing phase, they might be doing some, usually I just have 'em do two a day, but sometimes three a day.
The third day is just, [00:49:00] if they're really far behind, it's just a blood flow day. It's not anything heavy or anything like that. And again, their goal is not necessarily hypertrophy, but in virtually every single case. Like their shoulders got a lot bigger. Shocker,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: shocker. Do doing the thing more frequently to hide the proximity to failure and inside certain rep schemes you get muscle growth.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. Crazy stuff. Do you think there's still the magical rep scheme? Like I've gone away from this, so I probably will get this wrong, but is it still like the 10 to 12 rep range? Is that sort of the deal or. I don't think so. I think it just depends on how much volume you're willing to drive with it.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: I think, again, this is where this is where I struggle with clickbait and like hook content, because my answer always becomes, it depends, or like it's nuanced and you Right. You can't catch that in three seconds. Right. And I know you're exactly the same. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to be that sort of like our developmental [00:50:00] brains are like, no, there's so much more complexity to this answer or so many variables that need to come into play.
But for me, it's like when I look at rep schemes, like I, I, again, I think a schofield's data, but it's five to 30 shows the ability to generate hypertrophy or is in a good proximity of stimulating hypertrophy. Yes. It's where in the program is that rep scheme? What exercise are you choosing? How many sets are you hoping to achieve?
Is it what range of the movement do you wanna get in it? Like, all these things start to come into play. Where you start to see it impact volume. And I even find some muscle groups respond better to different rep ranges.
Dr MIke T Nelson: So that was my next question.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: For me, I find the dealts respond to higher volume in some aspects.
So for me at the moment, I, in one of my workout days, I have with my coaches and asshole four sets of 20 on chest supported lateral raises. And that the load that I can get up for that with control, like he's putting me under a three second eccentric with 20 rep counts for four sets. Like it responds like [00:51:00] crazy.
The pump I have, the volume, the fullness I feel in my deltas. Crazy. It feels like it feels insane. It hurts like hell when I do it. So we find, I find that even different muscle groups or maybe even exercises have rep schemes that are more logical. I'm not going to do a four to six rep count on a leg extension, but I am gonna do it the back end of the program, probably 12 to 15 or 15 to 20, maybe even 20 to 25.
Because it's a low impact exercise. It's externally stabilized. I'm able to generate high degrees of load, and if it's the back end of a program where I know the client isn't gonna be strong anyway, I can get a pretty decent volume out for the rest of the session and protect their joints and still get a good degree of intensity.
Everyone can take a leg extension safely to failure. So I know that I can go 15 to 25 in there and say, Hey, balls to the walls. Don't stop until it, it's like you can't do another rep. I want rep velocity to be like a seven second count before you finish the rep. That's when you know you failed. That's very easy guidance to give someone a very safe, to give someone, and [00:52:00] it's gonna drive a shit ton of stimulus.
So I think the magical rep scheme, like I tend to stick inside six to 15 depending on the block and some exercise outliers. I'll probably go from 15 to 25, but it's, there's some exercise where it's like, what is the average, like it might be eight to 12, so I guess the average is like that old school number of 10, right?
Three sets of 10, but it might be two sets of eight to 12 with a back offset. So, you still get inside that range. But again, it's such a nuanced answer of where. In the program, what exercise are you choosing? What's the set specifier? Is this trying to be a, a top set back off?
Is it trying to be an intensifier, a giant set, drop set, cluster set? What are we hoping to achieve out of it? Where you then start to look at what your rep scheme actually is. But at the same time I'm not gonna have someone try to do an RAR of or an RP load of eight and then give them an incline bench press of 30 reps.
I'm just not gonna do it. I could give them 12 to 15 on a fly to get that volume up, have them do six to 10 or eight to 12 or [00:53:00] something like that on the actual pressing movement. Just had a, the sheer demand that load starts to place on the shoulders, on the clavicle, on the pecs. I'm just it doesn't make sense.
So can the volume be done? Sure. But the question becomes why.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. I iPhone. Least for myself. And I would say most clients, although it's hit or miss, like dumbbell bench press, I think you get better results by going heavier. The caveat is how many people I trust to do it with good form and all that.
All that kind of stuff. Yeah, I much prefer a slight incline, even 15 degrees if I'm not able to watch 'em, that kind of stuff. It just seems like you get better performance from it and then Yeah, I would agree. I, lower body, I've just noticed more variability from one person to the next upper body.
I think similar to you, I would say you triceps, biceps, delts, probably higher reps, although,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: mm-hmm.
Dr MIke T Nelson: I have played with heavier loads on the [00:54:00] biceps with slow eccentrics and that seems to work pretty good. I can't say that about triceps per se. Again, that's just, this is an anecdotal handful of experience type thing.
Lower body, again, I think it's all across the map. I think I think the belt squat is highly underappreciated depending on how you use it. Like most people, it should not be an upper body row with a belt around your waist, which it seems like everyone in the gym does it. Like I get it. Like you, you pull on that thing, man, you can do a lot more weight I get it.
But and then the biggest range of motion you can get with a semi close stance on a hack squat, I think with a bottom pause. I don't know why. I think that is the most hideous lower body machine. That and probably pendulum squat. Pendulum squat feels a little bit better than the heck squat. But
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: yeah,
Dr MIke T Nelson: I don't know that, I have a love-hate relationship with the he squat of you start a little bit fast, but I don't want to hear it hit the bottom.
I want it to still absorb that impact. Yeah, [00:55:00] pause for about two seconds, three seconds. Four seconds. If you're feeling really hideous, take a few breaths and then literally try to come up as fast as you can. If you're doing a six day rep range or 10 it's not gonna be fast, but that is just absolutely miserable.
But it, it seems to work.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I'm not, well, I've not found anyone, not to say not responsive, I haven't really pushed him to that degree, but I've yet to find someone where it's necessary to take the hack to a 15 to 20 rep count.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Oh I,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: I think that's
Dr MIke T Nelson: borderline stupid.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. It just becomes illogical. There's no rationale for it. It doesn't make sense when I can get the same, a better quality stimulus. 'cause I'm curious what you think. At a certain point, I find with those compound movements, the high rep scheme, I start to see. Almost like a boredom kick into the client and a form breakdown because they've lost proprioception, they've lost awareness.
And something like a leg extension. It's [00:56:00] really easy. 'cause I will drill them. I want you to be locked in. Pull yourself into the seat. Yep. And you are just going at it. And they know, oh, all I've gotta do is flail my knees basically with control. And I get the rep when it's under a heavy load it's a hack squat.
It's a back squat. It's a bench press, it's an RDL. There's so many internal variables and cues to stabilize and going on that at a, even if the weight isn't that heavy at rep 25, 26, 27, 28, we're generally seen a loss of awareness or care. And I find that they just, the disinterest kicks in. It's I'm just doing it because, but then those quality effective reps stop being present.
So it was like what was the point? What was the point when I could have just got you under a high degree of tension and load at rep eight and then you're like. I'm working here, I need to be present and aware because if I don't, this will kill me. There's a certain degree of that safety, self-preservation mechanism that kicks in where it's oh, if I'm not present in this movement, I'm gonna die and I should probably be aware of that.
So I need to be right where my feet are. Whereas, you get to rep 25 for the average Joe Blow and it's [00:57:00] oh, what's for dinner? What have I got for lunch? Or, what's what did my wife want me to talk to about today? It just, perception just starts to or I guess awareness starts to to flake and they just lose that presence in the lift.
And I just find that compromises form.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah, I have my little self rule probably should have explained this more to clients too, is that you have two reps you can space out a little bit. It's if I'm doing a hack squat, for example, and I get rep one. Okay. Two. Yep. Three, four, oh. What's for dinner?
Did I let the dog out? Did I leave the stove on? Oh shit. Okay. And then rep five, if I space out again on rep six, like for me, like that's it. I'm done. Like I may add another set, but I just feel like the risk to reward for me personally isn't there. Mm-hmm. Would I probably be okay? Probably, but I don't, 'cause to me it is just not worth the risk if it's [00:58:00] happened twice already.
Mm-hmm. Where I do think that's less likely to happen on, or happen on heavier loads because you, it's a weird paradox. It's, there probably is more risk because of the load, but I think your body's ability to pay attention is higher because of it. How many power lifters have gotten injured with their warmup weights because they just weren't fucking paying attention to shit.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: So I, I do think there is some truth to that.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah. It's a degree of I would call almost like a neuromuscular awareness. Yeah. Your body you have this whole body awareness because every especially if it's a very heavy lift, like you're doing a heavy hinge, heavy squat heavy overhead press, generally we wanna see force generation from the ground up right through the, like from the floor pushing to the floor, generating that kind of like kinetic chain and line of force.
So the whole body needs to be locked in. If there's a slight icon of there's a kink in the chain, at some point I often refer to it as the way I describe it as like the body will pretty [00:59:00] much break at the weakest point. So if you are, if you have a, if you have a weakness where it's not, if it's not paying attention, you're not paying attention, it's not turned on, for lack of better words, we are probably gonna find that's where you slip up and you lift.
So if you're not, if you're not whole body aware of the exercise under load, it's going to show and you won't be able to do it. So to me it's like there's that kind of that almost neuromuscular awareness where the body's Hey, everything needs to be on for this. And it it just forces you to be present because once you get under the load, if you're not, it's very quickly gonna make you, and then it you decide from there whether you're actually paying attention to the set or not.
And like you said, if you're a rep two or three in, and you're already like you're drifting, there's probably no point continuing because it's gonna be, at some point it's gonna be detrimental. But I find that for most people, that heavier range, force you to be a lot more present in the ex and more intentional.
And that is more pre preservational than if I go heavier rep schemes. And you just like fla on around. Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. Awesome.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: I'm curious I'm curious before we wrap up, I'm curious. Yeah. I'm [01:00:00] curious what your thoughts are like. I know we have, we're kinda talking about hypertrophy here and we know that, mechanical tension's, the key driver to hypertrophy and what we tend to find in the research given, met and the way you guys teach things, which I love guys do it if you haven't done it yet is how do you view, like secondary factors that lead to the byproduct of hypertrophy? So when I say secondary factors, the thing I consider is you get most people in the arguing, and again, we don't really bother with it 'cause of what's the point.
But me, mechanical tension's the only way to drive hypertrophy. And that's correct. If we're looking at the direct signaling of hypertrophy, that is what causes it, right? But then we get to what I would call secondary or tertiary factors, which is what leads the ability to train to that position to get, the stimulus of hypertrophy.
So things like, aerobic capacity and training. I think this is a big one that people miss in their off season, which I alluded to at the start of the chat. Something as simple as aerobic capacity, my ability to replenish oxygen between sets or even drew my set between reps.
If I have a very poor ceiling of aerobic function [01:01:00] and I can't get oxygen in, I'm not gonna be able to get to that threshold of stimulus of effective reps that then allows me to signal hypertrophy to grow tissue. So I'm curious how you view, I guess that realm or term of secondary like secondary variables to hypertrophy the things that kind of, it's kinda like looking at micronutrient nutrients to macros, right?
It's what are those secondary, tertiary factors that allow the signal of hypertrophy to take place within the realm of training or recoverability, those things where it's not directly the causality of hypertrophy, but it is absolutely part of the equation to make it possible.
Dr MIke T Nelson: No, that's great.
That's gonna be a whole freaking podcast, but I give it super simple. Number one, I do think aerobic base is limiting more often than what people realize. Both from ability to do volume in training, to the ability to accumulate volume over the course of a week to the ability to just recover. Right?
Because most of, as your baseline metabolism is your aerobic system. Mm-hmm. The faster develop your aerobic system is [01:02:00] a faster you can get back to baseline. If you get back to baseline, you can go train again. You've probably added more muscle, you've recovered your strength, et cetera. If you believe volume is a primary driver that allows you the capacity to add mm-hmm.
More volume. It's just if hypertrophy is how much fluid is in this container, I'm making a bigger container. Yeah. Right. Also, by adding muscular strength, I do think can be a rate limiter. So adding strength increases the size of that container to put more water in. The other one I think, which is highly underrated, is.
Is the right muscle doing what the right muscle should be doing?
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Mm-hmm.
Dr MIke T Nelson: It's amazing how often I muscle test clients and their glute max doesn't even know what the hell it's supposed to be doing. Their lat is not working, they're running their bicep flexors instead, and they've got tendinosis in their elbow and they can't figure out why and their lats are so small and they can't figure out what's going on.
I'm like, do you ever really feel them during exercise? No. They just feel bad. They feel crampy. You do a manual muscle test on their lat and you can just pull their arm out of their side [01:03:00] all the time. It's well, until we get the right muscle to neurologically fire again, it's not saying it's off, not saying it's not working, but if we can get that signal to the muscle to be better, then your're again, potential to use that muscle is a lot higher.
I can give you
Ben-533_Recording_640x360: mm-hmm.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Tons of case stories where we've been able to do this with hands on stuff and a quick, one guy came over to dead lows three 15. He is it's slow. His knees were very forward. He is I still can't get back behind the bar. It was more of a power lifting stance. I brought him in, did a bunch of stuff on the table.
Hamstrings don't work well. Glu Max doesn't work well. Lats are okay at best. Get everything working the way that it should. 45 minutes later, back to the gym. Had a warm up. Hit the same way, three 15 for three, but it was much faster and I didn't give him a single cue. I just said, okay, deadlift, feel comfortable.
Work your way back up to three 15. And his shins were actually vertical and he was way behind the bar. So it looked completely different. It [01:04:00] looked like more of a clean stance, power lifting, or, I'm sorry, clean deadlift stance to more of power lifting stance. Even though his goal was to. Power lifting style calls back the next day.
He is oh my God, bro, I only did like a few sets. My hamstrings and glutes are so sore. Right. Because now he's getting more mechanical tension through that. Yeah. Muscle group again, just by changing the input of the nervous system obviously nutrition, make sure you have enough fuel to, fuel your training, protein, all that kinda stuff.
I do think there is something to high dose essential amino acids, even though I'd say the literature on that is extremely mixed, but we have seen in very high stress situations, especially dieting. I think there is something there even in, was it military people? I think it was from Arnie's lab.
40% caloric restriction. I think they beat the shit out of him. Like I think it was 15 grams of essential amino acids, basically was able to save muscle protein [01:05:00] synthesis. So even in very harsh conditions now you could argue maybe the amount of protein might've been able to do a tube possibly. But that's something I think we'll find a lot more research on.
And if I were to bet money, I think might be useful in and above, moderate to high levels of protein. And obviously sleep recovery. And I would throw into their just your ability to down-regulate. Strength athletes in general are very poor with this. Bodybuilders are also like, once you're done.
Like this could be between set. This could be between, again, training days, one day to the next. Like just have the ability to downregulate turn off, increase para sympathetic tone, it'll help your recovery. Whether that's central or peripheral or probably both. Helps your sleep, helps everything else helps digestion.
'cause you're not diverting blood flow from your gut all the time. A lot of, self-reported IBS stuff just is just digestion. Without a formal physician's diagnosis, we've gotten pretty good results by just getting 'em to chill [01:06:00] out, do some specific stuff again. Mm-hmm. What also helps chronic parasympathetic tone, vagal tone, aerobic training, so
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: mm-hmm.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Anyones you would add to that?
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: No, I no I think that pretty that pretty much covers it. Like you'd then, God, you could write articles and break down
Dr MIke T Nelson: of those. You could argue micronutrition, fish oil, you, that there's tons of rabbit holes you can go down for sure.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Exactly.
Like you could get lost in it. But I think it was kinda like my, my. The premise of my main point was that when we look at hypertrophy, it's like hypertrophy is the overall arching thing that we are trying to achieve. But where people get it so wrong is like that, that nuanced argument of mt is the only way.
It's yes, but what allows mechanical tension? What maximizes mechanical tension to allow for hypertrophy to occur. That's where all these, it's like when someone says that a low carb diet or or paleo was the reason why I lost weight. It's no, no calories in and out was still the main driver of that.
This was just a the mechanism through which you did it. These factors don't dismiss mechanical tension, it's just in [01:07:00] regards to hypertrophy. It allows them to take place and I think that's where a lot of people get caught up in or miss, if we get lost in the wrong nuances I think a lot of the time and like to me those big bricks, those big blocks you just talked about are like the key factors I get clients to focus on so that even if they don't understand hypertrophy, I can get them to signal and stimulate hypertrophy.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah, a hundred percent. Last question. What is one exercise or maybe an exercise that's common with a rep scheme that you believe can result in a fair amount of hypertrophy but everybody else thinks is bad? Shit. Crazy. So an example I'll give you for me would be, I think on a pec deck you can go, very heavy caveat would be it has to be very controlled.
You have to slowly work your way into it. For God's sakes. Do not go out this and try this on Monday, just 'cause you heard it on this freaking podcast. And then three, you drastically [01:08:00] limit the range of motion to only the pectoralis. And I think I stole this from Ben Koski. So if you're sitting with your chest pressed against the pad, I'll actually watch.
And as soon as the front part of my chest starts to come forward, that's my range of motion. Because in order for me to get further out as my scapula come back in, my chest is moving forward. And for me, that's too much motion of what I want to do with that. I will do 'em very lighter for a full range of motion as more of a mobility weighted thing.
But that way you're keeping it within a shorter range of motion. You're keeping the tension mostly on the pectoralis. What I've noticed is you can do a six rep range on that and progressively go rather heavy, pretty, pretty safely. And I think there is some benefit to it with those caveats. Everyone else will say that's batshit crazy.
And you're gonna destroy your pec though.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah, everyone else is. Everyone else they're not talking
Dr MIke T Nelson: about. Yeah. Yeah.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: For me I like heavy single leg stability stuff. So, like a lot of the time [01:09:00] you'll see someone throw in a single leg press and. Oh, I
Dr MIke T Nelson: love that exercise.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: For some, they might say that's, duh, like that's a duh thing. But a lot of the time it's like you do two legs for your six to eight or like four by six, something like that. And then you go to a single leg later in the program or a different day, and you might do your more increased volume of 10 to 15, 12 to 15, whatever it might be.
I actually really like taking the single leg press with proximate failure to, a eight to 10, six to 10 inside there where it's like we're ch we're challenging single leg stability. As long as the hip is aligned with the knees aligned with the load. 'cause for some in leg press, I don't mind an external rotation, feet a little bit wider.
Yep. If it allows you to get the gate open a bit more and get the range down. But when it comes to single leg, I want that nice line to be, a straight line of force and you can generally load it pretty heavy or at least to that individual, relatively start to get it pretty heavy for that leg.
Of course then we know that we know transferable. If single leg is getting really [01:10:00] strong and stability is increasing because of what you're forcing it to do, that's probably gonna transfer to double leg and you're getting both legs to work even more effectively. You could make the same argument for Bulgarian.
There's that video of the German elite Olympic cyclist and he's got 300 pounds doing single leg Bulgarian and it's four reps. And everyone's this is crazy. I'm like, but it kinda makes sense like. I would love to be able to do that. I can't do that, but I would love to be able to do that.
I think the issue then, obviously the caveat becomes control under range and making sure that you're loading effectively and you're not trying to just bounce out of it. You're not trying to just like bottom the rep. But that's the same with every movement. And of course you build up to it over time, you get stronger and stronger.
It improves leg stability, improves internal stability, improves hip stability, your knee tends to track better. You can then load that on a bilateral exercise and get better results from that as well. So for me, I think that's probably like single leg stability stuff where it's genuinely under heavy load is not a bad way to go where I think some people would be heavily against it because it's so unstable.[01:11:00]
But, specificity in demand, you don't get it stable by not doing it.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah, I would, I would agree with that. I love heavy ish without reason, single leg stuff. I don't like press. I'll even sometimes do 'em if it's external rotated. Again, depending on the athlete, how they feel, that kind of stuff too.
I do the rear foot elevated back squat. The only argument I would have is that if you start going heavy on that, what I've seen is you can end up with a lot of SI joint issues.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson: So the caveat to that I agree with it depending upon where you're at, but there's a bunch of people, this is years ago when Mike Boyle told everyone not to back squat and do this instead.
And so they, being good followers took it to the extreme and we're doing very low reps, probably under prepared. So I'd be like counter argument to that. But, I think you can get away with it by, if you have access to a safety squat bar like the Cal Dietz, do a high.
Split stance [01:12:00] on a safety squad bar. Yeah. Hold on there for external support. And you can go very heavy on that and get a lot of single leg load without worrying as much about that because anyone who's done rear foot elevated things, at some point your balance is gonna be the limiter. And I think it's that balance component that kind of fucks with your SI joint.
But I agree with that on all the other principles. If
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: you find, like I've found that people tend to wanna then like obviously to try and stabilize and get that balance. They'll sit into their hip more. They'll try and rotate slightly. They'll try and turn out slightly.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yep yep,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: yep. They'll try and do all these things to compromise, which then my argument becomes, well, you stop trying to do the exercise itself and you've started to try and compromise balance, which then starts recruiting other movements, which then requires other muscle groups to then stabilize and help the execution.
So technically you're not really loading the target muscle. We're trying to work,
Dr MIke T Nelson: which you're not doing the thing.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: You're not doing the thing which in the point of hypertrophy. So I guess the caveat nuance would be load it where you're able to stabilize and execute the movement effectively, not where you're [01:13:00] compromising form which any good coach who I guess would say for any exercise.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I love it. That's awesome. So where can people find you in your in your little island down there with the kangaroos and the ones
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: without chlamydia? Koalas.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Oh, like koalas. I gotta send you more koala videos.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Oh, koala. The ai. It's
Dr MIke T Nelson: God know.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Oh God, it's so good.
Watching them sound like bogan drunk Australians is hilarious.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Any Australian videos that I find funny? I just send a band. I,
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: yeah,
Dr MIke T Nelson: because I, it's even more funny that he lives there.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: It's funny to me. So I have to assume it's funny to everyone else because if I'm here seen, it's hilarious. Where to find us matter athletica.com, everything's on there.
You got the matter athletic of YouTube matter mentality podcast. And Instagram is just Ben Mayfield Smith. And there is about a trillion hours worth of stuff, free content downloadables and resources for everyone to go play around with.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Awesome. You guys have a newsletter too, correct?
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: We do make sure you subscribe to that.
That comes I think we have a [01:14:00] monthly EDM and we have a biweekly education piece that comes out as well. So yeah we're pumping out stuff on every platform we get our hands on.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Cool. And that's on the website is where they sign up for that.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Absolutely.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Awesome. Yeah, all of all your stuff, I would highly recommend people check it out.
I know you've got a ton of stuff on all matters of bodybuilding, lifestyle, muscle strength, especially a lot on the psychology side, which we didn't even touch on today. So highly recommend everyone check out all your stuff and yeah. You guys will be back in the US next August? Possibly.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: I think June actually.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Oh, June. Oh, okay.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Yeah. So, we'll look when the calendar is, but 'cause August will be my last semester for my undergrad, but it's a very heavy workload. Three very intense subjects, so I'll be. Try not to interrupt that. I think June is the mid-semester break here, so we'll try and get over there for June seeing what CV and Kane have going on.
And then probably one in December as well, we'll try and make the December Mastermind as well. [01:15:00] So we're gonna try two next year.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Awesome. Well, depending on the time, you could come to International Sports Nutrition Conference, depending upon when you're here in June. If you're in Florida, are you
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: see we gotta come to Florida.
We haven't been down there yet.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah, it's not bad. I love visiting Florida. I, no offense to people who live in Florida, I would not wanna live there, but it's fun to visit.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Ally Florida's great.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Ally, no
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Ally.
Florida's great.
Dr MIke T Nelson: We'll visit you at some point, but no, we're not moving.
Cool. Awesome buddy. Thanks
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: for having me, sir. I appreciate it.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And I'll let you know once this is out, we'll send it out to Iron Radio and I'll send it out on my podcast at some point too. So.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Awesome.
Dr MIke T Nelson: Cool. See you buddy.
=Ben Mayfield-Smith: Thanks guys. See ya.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Really appreciate it. Huge thanks to Ben for coming on the podcast, talking about all things hypertrophy. Make sure to check out all of his great stuff. I think he's even got a newsletter up and going now. Tons of stuff on YouTube, [01:16:00] Instagram, uh, really, really great stuff.
I think you'll enjoy it quite a. Uh, so big thanks to him. Always wonderful to chat with him. And thank you for listening to the podcast. We really appreciate it. If you could drive us a little, review some stars, download, share all the great stuff to help the old algorithms to help promote the show.
Again, just really, really appreciated. And if you wanna show more appreciation, you're looking to pick up some electrolytes. Check out our friends over at Element. I'll have a link down below. I've been drinking the lemon one lately. It's my favorite, although I'm drinking the Raspberry one right now. And then if you're looking for training equipment, check out our friends over at Rogue.
You can get everything from the Echo Assault bike to a concept two rower. They've got literally whatever you need for lifting bars bumpers. I really love the high tempo [01:17:00] bumpers. If you're looking for. Something for, uh, your gym, especially for strongman training. They're not quite the best for Olympic liftings.
They do bounce a little bit, but I've had those for man six years now and I beat the crap out of 'em and they still work real good. So check out our friends over at Rogue. Uh, both of those are affiliate lengths, so do make a little bit of dinero from them. When you pick anything up via the affiliate link, also my newsletter.
You want daily information on this topic and many others. Uh, go to the newsletter link below. You'll be able to get on there completely free and we'll send you a free gift. Thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate it. Talk to all of you next week.
Speaker 3: Hey, what are you doing? I dropped my gum. Hey lady, would you toss my gum up?
You could have taken it out of the wig first.
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