TMGP Ep 17 with coach, educator, and Modern Meathead Ben Yanes

oo another white boy with a podcast pronouns Jim bro another white boy with a podcast you want to see the video it went viral hi Gaines gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode 17 I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming Ben yay onto the show Ben yay known as the modern Meathead is a prominent figure in the fitness and lifting community he hosts the popular modern Mead Experience Podcast where he shares his insights and expertise on various topics related to muscle growth and overall well-being with a strong online presence on platforms like YouTube and Instagram Ben has built a significant following and is frequently featured as a guest on other popular fitness podcasts including the key nutrition podcast and now the muscle growth podcast Ben has an excellent grasp on often overlooked key aspects of lifting and uses science and Anatomy to create intelligent courses and communities for people who love to lift in today's episode we can look forward to insights from Ben related to anchoring and anchoring principles and fundamentals what is it examples tips and tricks common Fitness myths fear mongering in Fitness biomechanics injury preven vention debunking functional training improving exercise selection exercise positioning and principle based logic using first principles hey gains gurus before we dive into today's episode we have a special shout out to our sponsor heart and mind essay if you're looking for a delicious way to boost your workouts their creating gummies can be found on te a lot and are the perfect foot they're not just effectors but also a tasty treat you can look forward to every day so fuel your gains with heart and mind essay where your heart mind and muscles come together now let's get back to building muscle with science welcome Ben y to the muscle growth podcast where we explore subjects related to muscle science and hypertrophy I'm thrilled to have you join us for today's conversation let's Jump Right In and dig into some exciting topics together can you briefly introduce yourself and your journey into the world of lifting yeah sure man and first of all thanks for having me on it's a pleasure to be here happy to chat and honor that you'd ask um so in terms of my background I mean I started off lifting probably around the age of I want to say 12 13 years old you know I'm 25 now so a little bit more than a decade of of uh formal and informal experience and I originally started lifting as many people do just because they're playing sports so I played football I played baseball for pretty much my whole life as long as I can remember and uh so I had the typical athlete introduction to weightlifting which was uh pretty uh pretty uh informal in most ways there was never really like a clear you know degree of instruction in in you know all the sports settings that I was in but luckily enough I had an older brother who who sort of had had a little bit of a background or at least some experience in lifting so he was kind of the one to introduce me to things and you know I I never really stopped since that age but I also never really had the chance to sort of dive super deeply into you know the topics that I'm interested in now um I kind of just treated it as this secondary you know thing as aside as an aside from you know the sports that I was playing um and eventually when I stopped playing sports I became more interested in things like personal training strength and conditioning coaching um you know fast forwarding into college I had an internship with a bunch of sports teams so you know I had the opportunity to coach a bunch of athletes at my school athletes of all kind um for a long time I did powerlifting very informally I was I was quite the novice powerlifter but um you know my introduction really to the topic specifically U that you likely uh associate me with which is which is biomechanics and exercise mechanics began uh as a consequence of repeating injury and I think many people find themselves in that position um you know when they're lifting at least the non- gentically elite the non- genetically gifted folks out there uh and so I started you know diving into biomechanics in my later years of lifting you know closer to my um my late teens um you know when I was in college and late high school and so I sort of found a a passion or an interest in biomechanics because of the ways in which it was able to sort of help me navigate injury and navigate the gym uh and so fast forward to now all you know all these years later um I basically work with personal trainers I work with coaches and I work with the average Jim bro you know if you will the average Jim broette uh in better understanding these things for themselves so that they can either you know apply to their clients or apply to themselves uh directly but you know from start to finish that's pretty much the elevator pitch uh failed athlete got hurt a bunch learned a lot of stuff so that I didn't keep getting hurt and uh here we are well fantastic and I'm glad that you're here so what were those sports that you did um growing up I played American football uh and I played from age I want to say seven until 18 you know so a good 11 years of contact football um which is a little bit crazy to think about the fact that I started playing contact football at seven uh nevertheless football accompanied by baseball for the most part so um most people are probably familiar with what baseball is but those are my main two sports I also dabbled in you know uh wrestling basketball informal golf swimming a bunch of other things but you know my main two sports were were baseball and and football uh for most of my uh Youth and football especially American football has a very high impact and big injury rate I'm sure very high yeah what was your worst injury from both uh football and from baseball how did they compare well it's funny because um I think from the perspective of like acute trauma the injury that I had in baseball was worse than the injuries that I ever had in football um and what I mean by that is my worst injury in Baseball was I basically snapped off half of my uh ring finger uh you can kind of see it like here like it's still sort of the top portion of this finger bends like weirdly hyperextending backwards this way um and that was basically just from you know missing a flyball I uh I I basically Flex my uh or I extended my right elbow out a little bit too far when I was trying to catch something the ball basically whiffed my glove and took off half of my ring finger um but luckily it was not entirely detached they could just Stitch it back on and it was no problem that was the worst in baseball um so nothing really you know was more dramatic or longterm than that but in football I would say the the most painful uh injury that I had and this was one that persisted my entire um my entire career was just constant and shoulder subluxation and for those that don't know what sublation is it's not quite dislocation but it's basically this term to describe um the idea of the head of the upper arm sort of Shifting out of the socket of the scapula and sort of back in in a very short period of time so it's basically like a really um you could think of it as as like a really powerful stretching and sort of relaxation of the tendons of the shoulder and basically what that manifested in was was like a very brief dislocation a loss of sensation and then a rapid return to play within like five minutes so what would happen was and this happened to both my shoulders by the way because I also played quarterback so I I was throwing the ball a lot um and so my shoulders would basically dislocate or subluxate I would come off the field in tremendous amounts of pain or numbness and then within about 10 minutes I the sensation would return and I would be able to go back and play so in in a weird sense um the football injuries were worse although they were less acutely traumatic they were just so chronic that they just extended forever and you know it's likely that all of that played a role in my you know injury resilience or lack thereof at least relative to most people because shoulder injuries were basically all that I had leading into you know the informal powerlifting and the lifting alike do you still do any powerlifting or anything like that um I don't I mean at least I haven't in probably a good three to four years now you know the last time that I formerly performed a barbell bench press was probably three or four years ago um not out of like distrust or dislike or or anything like that for the Motions but you know I just did them for so long that I got sick of them and I got sick of navigating the progression on them just because I found that you know and this is typical for I think many powerlifters and people in general is I had to kind of let go of powerlifting to let go of an attachment to certain numbers like lifting certain amounts of load that was something that I felt like um in retrospect really helping back in a lot of uh ways just not intelligently progressing constantly trying to you know do more than I should have tried to do which is you know it's it's kind of just a part of the human condition um but I'll still do things that are sort of deadlift equivalents you know rdls things motions that are similar to those barbell related motions but I've stayed away from the formal lifts for about three to four years now just because of enjoyment factors do you think that maybe one day you'll get back into those three big lifts or maybe not it's a good question um because I think that the answer is yes because I've thought about this before I do think that eventually I will become bored with all the things that I'm doing now and purely out of the sake of novelty perhaps a midlife crisis I will return to to powerlifting at some point when I find that my uh my eagerness to to lift has has decreased and maybe I'll do it in a way which is more integrated you know maybe I won't go like totally balls deep I'll just go like a little bit in that direction but I do think that at some point I will encounter an existential crisis which will drive me back toward where powerlifting yes I get you I get you well I I hope that it doesn't require a life crisis to do that but I do hope to see you back on back on the platform at at some stage what were your best um your best numbers um so in pounds my and again keep in mind this was all these were all gym related you know so not formal power lifting competition which for those people are not really powerlifters um it doesn't seem like a big distinction but it probably is a big distinction that the settings are very different the rules are very different so my best um squat in pounds was um 565 um my best and that was low bar um my best bench press paused was 375 um again in pounds and then my best uh deadlift was 605 although that was with uh straps those are very impressive lifts and what way yeah and I I I did most of those lifts between um about 185 and 195 pounds body weight so I was like I was like reasonably strong I would say that's very strong I'd say more than more than reasonable that's prob yeah and I I would actually say the the number that I was most proud of and this was and I have a I do have a video video evidence of this okay so so maybe I'll post it if if there are questions um my my strongest feet I would say of powerlifting was my 225 bench press um uh record and I I think I managed 22 reps at like full full full lock but it was a touch and go scenario um I am one of those people who has an unusually mobile um thoracic spine and lumbar spine from the perspective of creating spinal extension so I'm one of those people who can sort of fold themselves up into a little bit of a pretzel so you know normal people would look at it and be like that doesn't count uh but under powerlifting rules you know it certainly did and so so so it counts in my head which is what matters exactly that's the only perspective that that matters um in terms of uh that uh spinal flexion so you mean you don't have a spine like a pig uh no no I don't no well at least not in so far as I'm aware uh I've never had an MRI or X-ray done on my spine so I can't be positive but I can be reasonably sure that um I I do not have a pixel do you know the the kind of meme that I'm referring to with with that with what I'm saying yeah yeah yeah of course of course and you know I I do think it I do think that we should leave it at that which is that it is a meme and that it can be I think extrapolated out to create false perspectives on like what that research is actually good for and what it tells us and and for those who are not particularly familiar um you're referring to a study in which uh Pig spines were repeatedly manipulated past normal physiological ranges to you know prove certain things conclude certain things about dis health and and its relationship to spinal forces um but I do think that from the perspective of actually understanding spines that seminal that is a study that could be considered a seminal study just in the in from the perspective of understanding the spine as a whole um because we don't really have the opportunity to do that with human spines even in cadaver based set things you know uh I'm yet to uh see a study which would do something similar in terms of like extracting a human spine out of a body that would be much more uh of a of a difficult process than you know a pig spine no absolutely but it's uh like the likes of squ University and uh those kind of fear mongering there's a lot of fearmongering in the fitness community that basically says that uh if you bend your spine you're going to break your spine automatically it it just it just is it's just how it is like spinal it's going to you it's break your SP even chiropractors and things um they're very against lifting which is strange uh not all of them obviously but a lot of doctors a lot of medical professionals uh think that lifting is going to injure you which which it probably will but you could also get injured slipping in the shower so it's like yeah what's your what's your opinion on uh lifting and strength being uh fantastic for injury prevention what or what's your how do you feel about that that statement yeah so I mean the the concept of injury prevention just to sort of nip it in the bud first off is is it's a little bit of a misnomer right because you know it's not as if we can see into the future and predict injury and be able to to sort of prevent injury as it might arrive it's more like what we mean to say is is how can we be more resilient and how can we lower the potential ramifications of engaging in physical activity because just like you said to your point um any physical activity has some degree of risk associated with it right and and lifting is no different but you know relative to all of the injury uh related data that we have in terms of you know Sports specific related injuries like um at least again in so far as the data that we do have uh lifting is fairly like low-risk relative to most activities especially sports like Biometrics related uh sporting activities so um from a relative standpoint injury is very you know low risk but that doesn't mean that it's that it's zero risk and there are plenty of people who will take that little you know snippet of information and sort of use it to justify all manner of like crazy exercise selections and and potentially um nonsensical exercise selections and executions so I think that's just the first point to be to be made um the next point to be made is just that I I generally take the perspective that um injur injury is really this consequence of you know overall of course we could refer to specific stresses specific kinds of forces and we could try to sort of mathematically model those forces out to say you know this is more dangerous than that but at the end of the day every position should sort of be taken within the context of itself right so you mentioned like spinal bending right uh and and people fearing spinal bending spinal bending much like bending your elbow is not something that we should consider as a a good or a bad thing it simply is just a description of relationships between bones and how joints move right and so much in the same way that bending your elbow can't necessarily be injurious or not injurious right it's like how we actually manage the position and then our exposure to the forces within that position that will determine whether or not we have an outcome that we want or whether or not we have an outcome you know that that we don't want so when it comes to injury I I look at this sort of more as an equation of preparation and more as a conversation around how prepared are we for particular activities and if you are completely unprepared for an activity uh a good example that I hear very often is when people will say something like you know I haven't played basketball in 10 years and I went out to play with my boys and uh you know I tore my achilles or I rolled my ankle right and therefore basketball you know is looked at as this dangerous thing in the eyes of that person right rather than taking the the more reasonable perspective or what I think is the more reasonable perspective which is hey I was clearly not not prepared to handle the amount that I did in the time frame that I that I did it in and so regardless of the activity the position the force description the loading scenario I think that it all ultimately come backs comes back to that fundamental you know premise of okay injury is just moving beyond a certain point of my capacity to tolerate and that can happen in any scenario can literally happen you know um you know bending over to pick up a pencil it could happen uh you know uh stand Standing Up from or getting out of a pool right doesn't matter what the activity is and so um you know there are many more layers to that conversation in terms of like what leads people to maybe injure themselves when they're picking up a pencil clearly like people who can deadlift you know hundreds and hundreds of pounds um don't necessarily think that they might get hurt picking up a pencil but that's because that there are a lot of inputs into the system that you can't necessarily see or take into account just in that sort of isolated incident so you know the takeaway there just being injury is a matter of how prepared we are for something and number two we have to consider all the things that surround that particular injury and and the context of the stress around that injury to actually have like a clear picture on on how we can make sort of reasonable choices in the gym and also sort of outside the gym alike exactly and you make a great point about being prepared and about um yeah being reasonable and I think that that's one of the main reasons probably that a lot of doctors and chiropractors strongly or at least in my experience strongly recommend not lifting heavy is because that they' have seen a lot of injuries from lifting heavy and a lot of those injuries were probably from people uh that weren't prepared to lift heavy and then they went and lifted heavy and got injured and then they said well therefore lifting heavy is bad and that's kind of the extrapolation that they they got to from from all these injuries that happened from all these people that said they were lifting too heavy and they probably were lifting too heavy for them doesn't mean that they were lifting uh too before someone like are you familiar with um Andre SM I think I'm not not not look him up he's a he's a um a Phenom uh he he's got the heaviest uh pullup in the world like he adds he has like 150 kilograms to his pullup for reps which is in what's his body what's his body with pounds no he's a he's absolute God unit must check him out he's really uh he so he did um 200 kilogram uh bench press for like reps reps and Reps yeah crazy yeah and the other the other thing too just to sort of um piggy back off of a point that you made there uh I think that like doctors and physical therapists at least a lot of them in my experience they will make these conclusions reasonably based off of their own experience right so like if you are a physical therapist or a doctor and you are frequently hearing people coming into your office saying I was doing squats and I pushed my knees over my toes and I got hurt if you hear a hundred of those people come into your office right and and say the same thing it is a completely reasonable takeaway as that doctor to say hey this is something that is dangerous but that is what we call a selection bias yes right which is kind of like saying you know uh every time that I go for a walk outside of my apartment uh I see this guy running right so he's there's this old guy who's probably like in his 70s or 80s uh who I whenever I go on walks like in the morning I see him going for a jog it would be like me concluding that that person is always jogging all the time 100% of the time even when I'm inside because the only time that I see him is when I'm going on a walking he and he is running right it would be like me you know go walking into the hallway seeing person seeing someone sweeping and every time then you know I I I see that person they happen to be sweeping then I assume that they're doing that all the time so I I understand why these things are included on a general sort of blanket level but I think it's just important to understand that so much of the the conclusions that we have about the experiences that we're involved in are based on what our exposure to those things um you know is and and who they're related to and so I think that you know much in the same way that someone might conclude knee over toe is bad right what you didn't see was all the people who did that exact same squat that exact same way for 10 years and who also didn't get hurt or better yet you didn't see all the times that that person who came into your office you know did that squat in that particular way for that many years and also you know didn't get hurt it was just the one time that they happened to do this that they you know incurred an injury so that's just like an example I think to uh illustrate my earlier points around like some additional context it's like where you know it's a conversation not just of where is someone right now but where have they been and what is the data and what is the evidence that you know we can draw from not just based off of this one incident but on all the prior data and the entire sort of timeline of their experience lifting absolutely and you make some amazing analogies which is which is just fantastic that's perfect an allergy right there so just to reiterate that fact um guys if your knees go over your toes naturally that's fine that if it feels good that's probably the best um kind of squat technique for you if it feels good that's probably going to be good or get a coach and they can they can decide for you MH yeah and I think another thing too to consider is that what might be good for you now you know may not be good for you in five years and I think that's okay and I think that's a normal part of the process right like when people get stronger their technique more than likely will change and uh just being a sort of willing to accept the fact that things can change and inevitably will change over time I think is another thing to contribute to this process of you know injury M risk mitigation or or or injury risk reduction right is just being able ble to sort of see the forest not just for a single tree it's to be able to observe sort of what works well for you uh as a sort of iteration over time and not just in a particular you know scenario absolutely and I totally agree with you about being willing to change your um your program being willing to change your Technique those are all things that come with time and I think a lot of people are scared to to change and then some people have the opposite problem where they change every week which is maybe also not not OP not optim for for getting those benefits of lifting yeah and I think you know a lot of people will find benefits and and uh you know may adhere better to programs where they are a little bit more willing to give themselves you know a squishy structure if you will a structure that is capable of adapting with their desires and and enjoyments but I certainly agree that sort of you know a program and an effective program is really what you're able to sort of repeat and sustain you know for a long periods of time absolutely while on that topic of um exercise selection I saw today you posted a video about a guy doing push-ups and in the push-up video he basically said if you flare your elbows out you're going to get an injury and it's guaranteed no matter who you are or your body mechanics or biome mechanics anything if you flare your elbows out like at 90 degrees you're going to get an injury therefore do like a 45 degree angle or something he he said what do you so your take your take on that do you mind just elaborating on that and maybe extrapolating that kind of scenario to lifting in general yeah for sure so just to sort of speak more generally I think that those kinds of pieces of content do well on on social media because they present very simple stories and Simple Solutions to inherently very complex problems right so people are drawn to it and the reality is that anyone who sees that piece of content who has injured themselves with a wider arm path feels very justified in what that person is saying they're like oh my god this is my experience holy crap this is my Guru right uh and then everyone who has only experience comfort with the wider arm path Position will be like what the [ __ ] is this guy talking about I literally only get pain when I do a push-up the way that he's saying is is is good right and to me that is like proof enough in the pudding of of of just how complex these things are and not only that just how you know for a single person how that as we were just discussing how that can change for someone over time right so I someone personally who historically used to injure my shoulders only when I was using wider wider grip bench presses right um but over over the years uh as I have exposed myself more and more to those positions that I maybe wasn't as well adapted to or wasn't as used to um I have seen a tremendous reduction of injury in that position to you know now at this point zero injuries in that position over the last you know five years or six years um simply because I was willing to sort of uh uh expose myself to that position that I had maybe prior uh injury uh exposing myself to within so you know for me it's it's kind of just this um I think the principle based takeaway from from that conversation and from uh any conversation which is similar you know we see the same thing you know with knees over toes we see the same thing with rounded spines and deadlifts or hinge based motions I think ultimately you can all sort of you you can Trace all these conversations back to that fundamental principle of you know what is your level of preparedness for the activity rather than saying that in in absolute now and forever for anyone you know who ever exercises uh you know this thing will be bad and this thing will be good it's just it's just too convenient it's too reductionistic it's too oversimplified to be to be useful um and it falls apart very quickly even uh in my experience in the people that are saying these things because they'll say these things in one particular context where for example you know wide push-ups are bad but then all of a sudden you see them on a different exercise doing a cable fly you know in the exact same position and all of a sudden you know the same you know it's it's sort of like a logic falls apart it's not consistent you know and sort of that's how you know that it's not really like a fundamental principle based thing is it's changing across scenarios so I think the best takeaway from like a viewer perspective excuse me is anytime that you see strong claims like that made like these false dichotomies these really strong sort of x's and checks made uh anytime you see that you should at least just bring caution to your approach and how you interpret that information and most of the time whenever you see a sort of black and white absolute statement you should choose to um you know not just discount the information because it could be potentially useful for some people and if you're a trainer maybe some of your clients but just to understand that it is reduced down to a a very low resolution that often doesn't hold up in in real practice uh especially not over like I said sort of iterations over time for you for your clients or whoever you're working with absolutely uh so to sum that up be very careful of fallacies and uh confirmation bias especially black and white fallacies where there's probably a whole spectrum of different gray at least uh in terms of in terms of that um in terms of uh fundamental uh principles I think one of the favorite content uh that some of my favorite cont cont from yourself is anchoring let let's chat about that and I think anchoring something that I've actually never really heard of too much um which is really surprising and you were the first person to really bring me big into anchoring principles and I would love if you could uh give like a kind of overview on anchoring how you got into it and some fundamental practices for for anchoring yeah so the first thing I'll say is that people have been using or applying these principles for a very long time whether unconsciously or or consciously right so like a good example is the first time that you go into the gym you know you see a bench with a with a barbell and you lie down on the bench to do the barbell press right now most people and this was my experience as well you don't really think about like why you're lying down on a bench to to do a bench press right um but it becomes very obvious why you're lying down on a bench to do a bench press if you just simply imagine imine yourself to be uh doing a bench press without some sort of support behind your body right it would basically be like doing some sort of isometric acrobatic circus based activity uh if you didn't actually have something behind you to sort of support you so the principle of anchoring really came about as as just a way to um put into words a concept that people were already using and and applying just as a sort of more more of like a catchy phrase that people could associate with that was not lifting related right and everyone kind of I think maybe not everyone but most people understand like what an anchor is in relationship to to you know like something like a boat right like if you're on a boat or if you're going fishing uh you know you you put something into the water or you attach the boat to some sort of buoy so that the boat as you're doing activities doesn't start to float away needlessly or doesn't start to move in directions that would otherwise require your attention right um and so in the same way an anchor that we can use in the gym is really just an immovable external object right against which we can sort of you know place our bodies push our bodies pull our bodies so that we can fix certain parts of our bodies and move other parts of our bodies and this kind of connects to the fundamental principle of like motion and I think this is something that is definitely underd discussed like in in in the broad lifting space which is that if you are going to create motion anywhere in my hands right now as speaking uh you know in a bench press as I'm doing a barbell press the prerequisite for motion is somewhere else to not be moving right so for example um for me to be moving my you know my arms all over the place here and my wrists all over the place to be talking like my fingers can articulate and my wrist can articulate simply because my forearms are are fixed in a position my upper arms are fixed in a position my upper arms are connected to my trunk which is not moving right so in order to move any segment I need for something else to not be moving or else everything is moving simultaneously or you're just falling through space and you're you know you're you're in a Skydive for example like you're just freef falling so the fundamental principle is really like we we utilize these anchors these external objects in exercise so that we can move the bones that we want to be moving to train the muscles that we want to train and simultaneously so that we can fix or not move other bones that we don't want to be moving so that we don't train muscles that we're not trying to train and just to give some concrete examples a bench is an obvious example um you know to lie down on a bench and to do a bench press is to Anchor yourself with that bench um you know to get under a thigh pad to do a lat pull down motion is to Anchor your entire lower body and your entire trunk so that you can just perform the pull down um you know sitting down on a leg extension to move the leg extension pad uh is a form of anchoring where you're you're in a seated position so that you can just isolate for motion at the sh and at the knee um doing a seated leg curl excuse me so that you can um you know put a put a thigh pad down on your on your quads to be able to actually perform the light curl all these things are basically just different ways to say the same thing which is we are using external things to limit motion so that we can create motion around the joints that we actually do do want to train um and and I I do think that this is a lot more consequential than people realize um in a lot of in a lot of instances um mostly just because like our it sounds kind of obvious but every part of our body is in some way connected to other parts of our body like we are one thing and although there are many different systems within the body whenever you impose force on a single section of the body you are also imposing Force elsewhere there's no like free lunch so to speak whenever you're moving something right in the Wai room so even for example if you're doing a standing dumbbell curl where it doesn't look like you're you're doing anything the prerequisite to do do a dumbbell curl is the fact that your feet are on the floor and that you're not going to fall through the floor when you initiate you know the dumbbell curl upward um you know if you were standing on a very unstable surface like a trampoline for example and you went to do a curl your entire body would actually be moved uh uh downward you know as you're doing that curl and the weight would therefore be distributed not just to your biceps but to all these other structures that that can deal with it so you know the takea away from that is basically that you know anchors are just these objects that we use to restrict motion so that we can be more precise um about our goals in the gym and as a consequence we can be more specific to the muscles that we're trying to train the structures that we're trying to train and then the Motions that we're trying to train that are associated with those structures and with those muscles and on the anchoring um what can I give you examples of the benefits that I that I could think of as well as maybe some cons that I could also um get your opinion on whether you think that they are real benefits and real real cons to to doing anchoring yeah so these are just like off the top of my head right now I didn't I didn't give it too much thought so please tell me if I'm completely off track okay so uh benefits or Pros more focused on a specific muscle for example if you're doing a bicep uh maybe a Scot Cur and it's got the pad or preal then you're not it's more focused on the actual bicep rather than your whole body body kind of trying to stabilize it and then maybe again like you said this could go back to um the preparedness maybe uh less risk of injury especially other muscles I think maybe it increases maybe it decreases the risk of injuring a different muscle since you're more focused on the specific muscle and then in terms of cons maybe it's not as functional as everyday life and then maybe uh there's less use of stabilizing muscles that again might consequentially mean it's less functional um what are your thoughts on those benefits and cons so benefits I would absolutely say you know the number one is basically just our ability and I'm agreeing with this uh is our ability just to be specific to a tissue or or a group of tissues right because it's not always necessarily one yeah it could be a whole subsection um in terms of benefits uh related to risk or risk reduction um I would just refer back to our earlier conversation about I wouldn't necessarily say it makes you less injury prone it's more just like it changes the forces of the exercise so that as we mentioned the forces can be more precise to what you're trying to do whether or not that impacts injury relates more to your preparedness for that activity as opposed to the the fact that you're doing something different but what I would say on that note is that because these things are uh or or these anchored VAR ations are more precise or can be more precise generally speaking they uh their technique or the technique that you use within anchored exercise is a lot easier to standardize right because you're dealing with fewer moving Parts there's there's lower amounts of coordination that you need to um to deal with and so other tissues as a product of Bones being restricted literally do not have the ability to contribute right so a good example of this would be like if you were doing a uh laat pull down right A lot of people on on a lat pull down or maybe a better example a more clear example would be like doing some kind of row like if you if you looked at like the bent over row versus a chest supported row it would be a lot easier to standardize a rowing motion with a chest support because you don't have to actually start to manage motion through your spine uh or and or your hips whereas in a bent over row it's like as soon as your back tissues start to fatigue right your pulling muscles start to fatigue you can start to S sort of cheat the motion a little bit more easily right with your spinal extensors you can start to bend your knees more to launch the weight so I would say that it leads to an easier ability to actually teach something especially in my experience people who are less um Advanced lifters have a much easier time learning motions when they're more constrained and more stabilized and then as to the the potential cons um 100% I see the argument to be made about um you know the potential for what we would describe or what most people would describe as like less functional less you know fewer stabilizer muscles contributing um but what I would say is that that mostly needs to come down to the conversation around like what functional is and why in the in the first place we're comparing um you know lifting weights to any sort of daily task right so for example um if you were doing a pull down motion with a with a thigh pad that was holding you down all that the thigh pad is doing is restricting your body from flying all over the place right so in essence what that is doing for you is it's just allow you to drain your pulling tissues to a greater extent than it is like let's say your hip flexors or just the fact that your body weight may be suspending upward and downward right um and sort of contributing to that motion so you know the pull down uh which is like sort of partially anchored or not anchored at all you may argue that that could just turn into a pullup right which would be in some ways it would be fine but let's imagine that you're doing like a half pull down type of motion where you're not really secure by the Pat and then your body weight is sort of going upward and downward that's just a less effective less precise version of the thing that you were that you were trying to do and so most of the time I don't find that the whole functional you know stability thing uh applies uh if if you sort of see that line of thought through to its logical end because most of the time what's happening between these anchored and non-anchored variations is the non-anchored variations tend to just um create rate limiters which are not associated with the actual goal of the exercise um so to use the bent over row example if your goal with the bent over row is is to train your spinal extensors and um your lats and your upper back your traps all those things but then all of a sudden you start to launch the weight with your quads or launch the weight with your glutes you're just you're just moving away from the goal it's not like you're getting more and more equals more it's like more in this case equals equals less for what you're trying to do so in some sense you could make the argument that per the lifting related goal it's actually less functional for the goal but that doesn't always mean that using more external objects appropriate for the goal so for example if you were doing a row like a chest supportive row like I mentioned earlier versus a bent over row and your goals were related to trying to Target the lats the upper back the Erectors the the the glutes and the quads to some extent then the bent over row accomplishes all those things whereas the chest supported row is a little bit more specific but it doesn't train the spinal extensors to the same extent and it doesn't challenge your ability of your of your hip extensors and your quads um to to any meaningful degree right and so so in one instance right uh you are accomplishing the goal that you're trying to and in another instance you may just be sort of accomplishing most of the goal but then there are all these other Associated rate limiters so to me whether or not something is functional uh is based upon what you're trying to do and many people who have the goal of you know training function whatever the hell that means uh are just not really being specific enough or precise enough about what they're trying to do and so in their minds it's kind of like oh well if I'm doing more then more is more and more is better and what I would say is more is not better if it's not associated with the end sort of sort of outcome right and so then the the sort of final piece to that and these two things are are closely related is the argument around like stabilize our muscles and and to be honest um to me this conversation of of stability uh from a joint perspective and from a muscular perspective really I think is confusing to people because it's very difficult sometimes for people to understand how uh joint stability actually works and how joint stability actually functions so for example um let's just what would a good example be uh so a good example of like a shoulder stability exercise that people do is a kettle bell bottoms up uh press where the kettle bell is actually upside down so the kettle bell is like up here the handle is here and people are like you know balancing the kettle bell uh over top of their forearm and elbow versus let's say a traditional dumbbell press where the dumbbell is just in your hand people will make the argument right that um the kettle bell bottoms up under press is more challenging to stabilizers without actually specifying like what stabilizers they're talking about because from a force analysis perspective the only thing that really needs to work harder in the kettle bell bottoms up under press are the tissues in the uh the wrist the forearm and the hand right as compared to the tissues in the shoulder because if you looked at someone doing a dumbbell press what you would see is a lot of stability through the hand no challenge to any of the forearm wrist muscles right in the finger muscles what you would see is a lot of stress applied to the shoulder and then potentially the elbow and if a lot of stress is applied to the shoulder and applied to the Elbow then all of the muscles that stabilize the shoulder have to work harder and all of the muscles that work to stabilize the wrist have to work less hard so again this comes back to just what are you trying to do if you're doing a kettle bell bottoms up under press are you doing it to train your shoulder stabilizer because if you were doing it to train your shoulder stabilizers then doing something that would actually load your shoulder proportionately more would actually be the thing in a more stabil environment um that that would do that and so the point of clarity there around stability and stabilizers is that stability inside of the body is just synonymous with contraction and anytime that we are in a potentially more anchored scenario the contraction response to that more stable scenario has to be or is required to be higher than if we are encountering other rate limiters like we're falling off balance in a squat or our wrists are sort of you know turning left and right as we're trying to do the Press so you know fundamentally that concept of of functionality and stability is just as a general discussion that people have it's too broad it's too vague um and then as soon as that conversation whittles down to a more specific context um that whole argument around you know an anchored variation being less functional just starts to fall apart right right because it always needs to be relative or defined by what ultimately you're trying to accomplish with that thing so did all those threads sort of uh make sense or can I clarify any of the points there individually no that they all make sense to me hopefully they Mak sense to the listeners too um I like the way that you you bring things down like a big scope and you you make a a very specific scope that is more definable I think that's an excellent way to do things and so ultimately and yeah can I just add one more example that might provide uh Clarity here too um a a good example so I get this one a lot just in response to things that I post um so take the example of like a faceaway curl otherwise I think it's people refer Asian basian curl yeah something like that um and they'll say like okay well if you do the regular curl where you're sort of stepped out in front of the cable stack versus you know an anchored variation where maybe you have a pad behind your arm right to prevent your shoulder from having to do a lot of work so compare those two variations right the the basan curl where we have our support and then the version where we don't in the version where nothing is behind the upper arm okay let's assume that we're standing far in front of the cable stack so the cable is angled like 90 degrees backward from the arm there is twice the amount of force on the shoulder in that particular case as the elbow why because the shoulder is twice the distance from the cable as the elbow is right so the question then becomes are you trying to do a shoulder exercise are you trying to load your anterior delts your pecs with a curl or are you trying to challenge your biceps and your brachialis and your break your radials right and people usually will conclude like no I'm trying to challenge like my biceps so then my question becomes why would you be doing an exercise which doubles the force really doubles the torque on a non-target joint or a non-target muscle group right and then there's also the consideration of the fact that no exercise exists in an isolated setting like no exercise exists in a vacuum and so what that means is that even if you're not checking the box of challenging shoulder stuff with the curl you can simply do a front raise you know at some other point in your program or uh you know a lateral raise or a chest press or an incline press right there are all these other things that people are already doing and then to try to just accomplish you know three different goals with the same exercise usually just means that people are accomplishing nothing sort of all all at the same time so that face away curl is a good example because it's one that I see a lot where people's curls end up turning into like front raise motions instead of like biceps exercises uh and and maybe that is a particular experience that people are familiar with uh just in terms of the physical Sensations and the differences that that people feel you know in the anchored variation versus the the non-anchored variation so you know that's sort of the principle based takeaway but I would also say that you know more anchoring is not necessarily like better A lot of people will just try to touch their body with more St stuff like arbitrarily uh it always just needs to be specific to what you're actually trying to do and so it's not that more is better in some cases less can be better especially when the goal is is specified to a greater degree but that's kind of the the 30,000 foot you know overview of of anchoring absolutely so to bring it all back make your exercise selection goal focused for example if you want to Trend your biceps do it in such a way that your uh arm is anchored that you can easily do a bicep call rather than having to focus on stretching a whole bunch of other muscle groups that might not even be related to to Growing your bicep right it's like set an aim and then base what you do off of that aim like work backwards from the aim right absolutely would you call that first principles sure sure uh first principle of uh knowing what the [ __ ] you're trying to do and then working backwards from there yeah there we go made your exercise selection smart I guess sure more difficult than it than it seems so back um finishing with anchoring do you have any further examples and or tips and tricks um it's it's difficult on a specific level because it is so exercise specific it is but most of it just comes back to understanding like what what the desired motions are and an exercise and then what the undesired motions are and most people can work backward from there right so um let's just use a different example instead of like a curling um example let's say something like a uh a seated leg curl uh I challenge anyone listening to this podcast to do a set of seated leg curls where you anchor the pad down on your thighs you know count your reps count the load do as many as you can and then just you know take enough rest to where you're not you're not really feeling the fatigue of that first set and then do a set where you're not using the pad and just see if you can get a single rep because I guarantee that unless you're doing like 50 reps on the first set like if you're doing between like eight and 12 or 15 hard reps that it will be unlikely that you will be able to perform a single rep of that seated leg curl if the pad is actually not on your thighs right and so in that particular case it's like the motion you were trying to create is knee bending and the motion that you are trying not to create is hip bending or spinal bending and so what removing the pad does is it allows your hip to start to move upward right and if the pad is twice the distance to your hip as it is to your knee then your hip is going to be the thing that lifts instead of your knee actually pushing the pad downward so it's like step one identify what motion you're trying to create step two identify what motions you're trying not to create and then set up some kind of external immovable object to prevent you from moving in the ways which you don't want to move absolutely and I think you made an excellent point about uh that I actually hadn't thought of myself is about for example on the bench press you mentioned how anchoring is already built in same with maybe a lot of um ex like uh machine based exercises like the anchoring like for like the thigh pad on the lap p on is already there you don't have to think too much and over complicated it's it's already there it's maybe more for um for maybe dumbbell or exercises or Cable cable based exercises where you got to start thinking of the different biomechanics that play exactly and that's a really good point to be made which is that most machines have most machines have been built a particular way and the question is well why is this thing build the way that it is right like it sounds kind of stupid right um but why does a leg extension machine have a backpad the it's like why again it sounds kind of silly for most people to to ask themselves this question but why does a leg extension machine have a back pad that you rest your back on right it's so that you don't have to hold your spine up in space as you're as you're doing the exercise right and so like you're saying so many of these things are built in and sort of baked into the cake and I think it's very easy for people to take it for granted because you don't have to understand it in a lot of cases like you're saying like with using machines you don't have to understand you know why there's a thigh Pad but you know as an exercise for for fun for most people to try is like see what happens you know when you don't use the things that are there for you to use like there's a there's a very clear reason you know why those thigh pads are there or why those back rest are are there to begin with absolutely so let's uh go through some do you have any common Fitness myths that you'd like to debunk on this podcast I mean there are so many um I would say there's two major categories the first category is one that we have kind of already discussed a little bit which is related to the injury concept um something that really gets my goat in general is the pathologization or the the pathology that is created around very normal human motions and human positions for example um the whole conversation around posture gives me a headache the whole conversation around uh flare ribs rounded shoulders posterior till anterior till pronated feet supinated feet knees in knees out it's like all these things are just um reductionistic claims about hypers specific positions without context to a person a population a timeline a force scenario but there's just no there's nothing that is specific even to the slightest degree about most of these claims that you can't even begin to break any of the claims apart without actually talking to a person right and every single time I talk to someone about a particular posture like oh why is it good to have your shoulders you know back and down and why is it bad to have your shoulders round and forward most people will respond with something like because it is or you know it was just like something that's it's a it's a non-starter so my my number one Fitness myth qualm is just pathologizing normal positions and positions to begin with right I think that's something that we really as time goes on I think we're all going to move away from as we start to better understand mechanisms of pain and injury and so forth um and it's not that there aren't important tidbits to be drawn from these kinds of things um but I just find that the conversation is too generalized Almost 100% of the time to be useful uh to anyone and to be truthful really in any particular context so that's number one is just pathologizing basic human function uh and then number two oh and and one more thing about that which I just want to make clear is you know it it could because some people may be skeptical in hearing me describe these things and my sort of stance against pathologizing these things you know that all of these things are sort of self-defeating because most people who have an opinion on one thing have a contradictory opinion on something that is very similar in principle so for example um if someone has the stance that shoulders back and down is good but that anterior pelvic tilt is bad uh those two things occur in tandem with one another meaning that if you take your shoulders back and down and you extend your spine by definition if you're let's say in a standing position or even in a seated position you are moving into an anterior Tilt at least more so than you were if you were in a neutral or posterior pelvic T right and so those two claims on some level are the same and yet people have these contradictory opinions right in either case which which sort of conflict with with themselves so that's the biggest thing I would say another thing of equal importance is just this framework around um contraction and specifically the concepts around like stability that we were sort of alluding to earlier um I think a lot of people view exercise as resistance with Anatomy as a sort of secondary feature right so we look at bench press and we think about like bench press is the important thing rather than uh what is happening to us as a consequence of the force of a bench press so my framework here and my maybe myth busting or or or sort of course correcting objective with this is just to say that uh muscle contraction occurs as a response to the different kinds of resistance that we are imposing on our bodies it is not random uh it is not some sort of like arbitrary response it is not something that is not predictable uh at least in large part it is something that per the per the sort of fundamental principles of physics is uh predictable at least in a generalized sense right so I know that if I go to do a bench press that my chest will contract my front delts will contract my triceps will contract but the question is why does that happen and the answer is that it's because my muscles are responding to the external forces that I've imposed on it so just sort of the overall framework being I like to think about exercise as anatomy and anatomy's interaction with external Force rather than just prioritizing the [ __ ] out of the external force Pit and sort of thinking that like the anatomy is something mystical or magical that can only be you know guessed at in any given scenario it's much more I think um rooted in just understanding the relationship of of um of tension and how tension relates to dealing with external forces and so contraction as a framework for me is like contraction is a response it's not something that we like internally uh uh psychologically manifest just because we want to right it's like these things happen uh because we follow the same rules of physics that every other object in the world also follows so I I don't know if that last bit sort of makes sense but just kind of viewing contraction as following the same principles that every other object in the universe at least to our understanding uh does it's it's it's not something mythical magical that we need to like really make into this um you know sort of nebulous uh not understandable process absolutely no and I I it makes sense to me so hope it makes sense to to the listeners and what would the category two um kind of Fitness myths be so the the first category was basically me talking about the pathologizing normal positions and normal motions and then the second category was just trying to shift the framework around how we understand contraction to mean that contraction is a response to external Force versus this thing that we just sort of magically create arbitrarily so those are the sort of two categories is just our framework around contraction and then our framework around injury and pathologizing particular postures and positions those are the main two so so so the first one being to be aware of cookie cutter programs cookie cutter advice that's just the same standardized for every single person regardless of of all the different factors that they have and and maybe being individual or person specific is is far more useful to to every individual yeah at least from the standpoint of you know the discussion around um things like posture and pain absolutely yeah and maybe technique and things yeah for sure fantastic that was a very very cool response that I really appreciate let's go over top 10 exercises okay so the scenario imagine you're on a space mission to Mars and due to limited memory space in your space suits workout module you can only select 10 exact exercises to maintain your muscle size it can be any exercise but you have to be specific with your instructions for example you can choose overhand wide grip pull-ups as a single exercise and then close grip skull crushes on an easy bar as another exercise yeah so I'll just start by saying that from a a principle based standpoint I would be remiss if I did not say that the the framing of this kind of question I think is harmful to a lot of people from the perspective of their own ability to think about exercise uh and what I mean by that is just and I'll answer the question don't trust me I'll answer the question um but I just I just mean that a lot of times when people answer this question what the takeaway is is like oh these are the exercises that I should do and I'm simply just making a point of this is kind kind of like saying um that there could be you know 10 best foods for everyone for forever right this is like no no no these are the 10 foods that I prefer given the constraints of the scenario that you have created for me okay so that's the first thing that I'll say but I will answer the question um uh uh straightforwardly so the first thing that I would say is I would probably pick um a single arm pull down okay a single arm pull down which is done you know comfortably doesn't have to be too narrow too wide single arm pull down is probably one number two would probably be um some kind of machine chess press I'm just going to say machine chess press just because um you know there are a lot of different kinds and I'll generalize that but you know I would want I would like it to be some sort of machine converging chest breast however the machine is set up um you know there are a lot of different kinds but um from a principle based standpoint I think I'm machine converging is a great way to go um then I would say some kind of uh um cable lateral Rays um for the the middle delts um I would say some kind of uh cable preacher curl just because I love preacher curls and I think they're fun to do uh I would say some kind of overhead triceps extension done with a cable so that would be five and covered triceps biceps middle delts chest and lats then I would say some kind of chest supported row um with a wide arm path for the upper back then I would say a leg extension for the quad so one two three four five six seven then I would say some kind of 45 degree leg press uh for the glutes and the quads so that's we have eight now about um and then these last two I think would be I would probably pick a seated calf raise because I love seated calf raises uh people who don't understand research will be upset about me saying seated cafres instead of standing cafes but uh I will make that claim nonetheless and then the last box that we can fill because we kind of cover most of the boxes I'll probably say uh that I would pick a seated leg curl um you know so we got hamstring calf gluten quad another quad upper back uh triceps biceps middle D chest and and lats so that's pretty much the shtick um and again for each of those 10 different things I probably could have picked three other options to fill the exact same slot but the first ones that came to mind were the ones that I'm currently enjoying doing the most in my program and so that's how I landed on them purely subjective standpoint uh but at least some objective you know um constraint just for for The Listener I I selected 10 options which each basically covered some sort of major muscle group or set of muscles and I could have confidently filled either one of those 10 buckets with probably three to five other options but the reason that I chose the ones that I did is because I'm currently um enjoying those options the most just from a purely subjective standpoint um but I do want to reiterate what I started with there which was that I don't think that people should ever limit themselves to you know choosing one or two variations unless for whatever example they absolutely have to in a particular uh context so that's what I would say uh would be my T absolutely and I totally agree with you it's a completely arbitrary question that hopefully you'll never have to fulfill but it's more it's more just to to see as you mentioned what your favorite exercises are and it's just a weird and funny kind of uh way to put it in a box I guess yeah and I think it's funny because if you ask me this question in a year uh this answer might be completely different so who knows exactly and that that's the power of being able to having the ability to change and not being like you know stuck in in a specific way of doing things which is very powerful absolutely so onto the some of the last um little questions we got for you who are your favorite uh researchers in in your field do you mean actual researchers or like people who are science communicators so let let's start with a few researchers and then in the kind of like influencers um we'll go then we go to like influencers scientific communicators next okay um I would say my number one like one of the people that I appreciate most on this front is um at least on the mechanics front is a man named Andrew vigotsky um he is a highly intelligent researcher in the um realm of biomechanics he's very well known for the seminal study on EMG and emg's relationship to force production and how EMG is not necessarily a long-term proxy for hypertrophy so from the research perspective I would say Andrew voty is a great um name and then from a science communication perspective I would say that um two major names come to mind and these are just these guys are absolutely huge hitters uh number one would probably be Eric Helms uh Eric Helms is an absolute Beast has been in the game for well over a decade and has been you know a I think he's he's you could definitely consider him a researcher as well like he's contributed to a fair number of um actual studies and he does a lot of oversight when it comes to um like students of his so he's he's mentoring people in their PHD programs and those kinds of things so I would still say that Erica is someone who has his feet equally in both cases both science communication and the actual research stuff so he can kind of fit into both and then the last person I would say is is Greg Knuckles Greg Knuckles is a is a writer he owns a company called Stronger by science and um Greg does deep Dives like no one else uh on the internet for sure and he's not as popular from the perspective of like subscribers and Views and he's not really on social media a ton but stronger by science is his website and I would definitely recommend that people check that out if they haven't before absolutely um both Eric Helms and Greg knck were recommended by Dr Miler wolf who who works at Stronger by science he was on to on the podcast yeah yeah yeah absolutely do do you have um uh any favorite uh icons or Role Models uh in the fitness space yes and and not just out of interest but yes specifically in the fitness space um at this point in time I do not and the reason I say that is because um when I was younger I used to put people on pedestals and I used to look at people as role models and or Idols um and the more that I got to understand myself and just the landscape of learning and intelligence the less and less that I started to prioritize other people in a not not necessarily in like a narcissistic or self-absorbed way but just more in the sense that like every person that you learn from and that you see Talking you know myself included has strengths and has and has weaknesses and I just think that every person can kind of at least in the sense that like you're getting information out of them can be just looked at as um as you know a human trade-off right this is a person who is probably really good at understanding explaining certain things and really bad or or awful at explaining other things or understanding other things and so just that sort of like pulling back the veil or the guys of people being sort of Idols or or models I think is important but to maybe not sort of Dodge the question more specifically I would say that the person who has most influenced my understanding of this stuff is the guy whose name is Tom pervis uh I'm not sure if you've heard of Tom but Tom um has been teaching this stuff and um lecturing about this stuff for God I think like close to four decades now um you know he's in his 60s now he lives in Oklahoma he does the occasional seminar now but he's been teaching this stuff for longer than I've been you know alive and um you know he has taught me more uh than than just about anyone in the exercise specific field and a lot of the you know principle based takeaways that I have and the understanding that I have in my ability to sort of filter things through the lens that I have I I definitely owe to to Tom in many ways so Tom is someone that I would highly recommend that if people are interested in this stuff that that people check out so I have heard of Tom through you um through your community and your channels and as well as uh your course as well that's I've heard of Tom so yeah yeah who who would you recommend reaching out to to have on this podcast and could you put me in touch with them uh I think that you could reach out to Alec blenis who I actually recently talked to on on my podcast um you know you could probably reach out to him and and get an an invite but I would be happy to do that for you um Alec is is a unique voice I think in the space and I think that you would have a great conversation with him thank you I'd really appreciate that so then uh closing thoughts what advice or parting words of wisdom do you have for our listeners who are looking to embark on their own journey of muscle growth and health I think the main thing is you know without saying anything to tr or um or cliche is that you should always try to um follow and prioritize what you're curious about because uh I think people get the sense that there is a sort of single road to Ram when it comes to to learning and understanding and if there's anything that I've learned in the span of the last like seven years uh it's that the sense of curiosity and the intuition that your curiosity breeds is probably the most important thing not only from an acute standpoint but also a long-term standpoint in your ability to learn information assimilate information and start to form opinions of your own that are actually you know unique to your own um beliefs opinions and and what you're good and you're bad at so I would say that's the most important thing probably and uh any anyone that tells you that there is a single pathway and that their pathway is their products or their program I think should be looked at with with caution so you know follow your curiosity and and uh and try to get more in tune with your curiosity if if you're not already brilliant thank you so much for your time really appreciate it yeah man thanks for out goodbye Gaines gurus thank you for listening and see you on the next episode of tmgp