TMGP Ep 36 with Emanuel Pescari: Austria’s Strongest Man, MULTIPLE WORLD RECORD TITLE HOLDER & INTERNATIONAL STRONGMAN SUPERSTAR Competitor part 2

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 gains gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode 36 I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming Emanuel pesari onto the show for part two of his two-part series Emanuel pesari is a highly accomplished Austrian strongman widely regarded as one of the top competitors in the under 105 kgr category born on June 12th 1990 he has made an indelible Mark in the world of strength Sports since beginning his competitive career in 2017 his exceptional Feats of Strength have earned him numerous titles including Austria's strongest man in the open class in 202 22 and 2023 as well as Europe's strongest man in the under 105 kg class in 2023 he has also claimed three consecutive Austria strongest man in the under 105 kgam titles from 2017 to 2019 and secured silver at the 2023 official strongman games in the under 105 kg World Championship Beyond his National and Continental victories pesari has demonstrated his dominance on the world stage he secured third place at the world log lift championship in Lithuania and holds the European under 105 kg log lift record with an astounding 180 kg lift later becoming the first in his class to press 190 kg log a world record his ability to compete against athletes in the open weight class despite being in the under 105 kg category underscores his incredible power and versatility additionally he set the under 105 kg European at the stone record with a 200 kg lift and has achieved a 350 kg deadlift with a suit and straps in com competition in addition to his competitive success Emanuel pesari is also a strength coach and a movement and performance therapy specialist his expertise extend beyond lifting as he is dedicated to helping others optimize their strength and movement through specialized therapy his participation in team events like the Germany vers Austria team competition where he secured a second place finish further highlights his ability to excel in diverse strongman challenges pescar remarkable strength technical skill and dedication to the sport make him a standout figure in the strength and fitness Community whether dominating the competition floor or coaching others to achieve Peak Performance he continues to inspire and redefine the limits of strength in today's episode we dive into a wide range of insights some of the top ICS include genetics including myostatin ftin the superhero Gene and Eddie Hall the slat of stone Emanuel being the only one to lift the 200 kg and the 220 kg at that gym with the big Stones the importance of neck training spine training the best posture or position being the next one neck muscles being armor for accidents and for being strong to be able to absorb Force at the neck area strength and muscle is the best protection more muscles is the same as being more prepared spinal flexion extension the infamous dead pig study spine flexibility the spine having lots of muscles muscle functions Contracting and lengthening motion is lotion bracing examples other than the traditional bracing they'll V Sala maneuver power breathing blacking out and bursting blood vessels from heavy lifts gradual progression including after an injury tips to regress certain movements the goal being able to get full range of motion painfree emanuel's gem split isometric training exploring your physical capabilities having fun learning a skill and dominating and so much more get ready for a truly informative episode quick Shameless self-plug I am starting to upload consistently on reps with Rosco on YouTube so check that out for some epic Fitness edutainment content a little disclaimer this show does not contain medical advice the views and opinions expressed by guests on the muscle growth podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect my beliefs or the stance of the podcast while we aim to provide valuable insights and information it's important to approach all topics with critical thinking I encourage you to do your own research consider multiple perspectives and form your own conclusions healthy discussion is always welcome and I'm happy to engage with listeners in the YouTube comment section to continue the conversation lastly don't forget to follow us on all major social media platforms including Instagram YouTube Tik Tok and X find us atth muscle growth podcast and myself at reps with Rosco have you ever gotten your gymnastics tested not I think you should because you'd probably you probably uh find some interesting things there like for example uh depending on your genetics it could tell you uh what you were like naturally born to do like with your genetics whether you born to be a longdistance runner or strength athlete and I think yours would probably say yeah strength athlete I know Eddie Hall has the genetic mutation apparently it's called the Superhuman Gene where he puts on muscle very easily because he has a low levels of ftin I think something something like that and so he can gain myostatin that's the one F Statin is um yes okay okay that's the one myostatin and um thanks for correcting me that and basically he has low levels of that so he can easily ACR muscle tissue apparently and that's the genetic a genetic aspect of it interesting I I have to to look for that yeah definitely you you you might have the same thing which is really really which is really cool I mean to be the strongest man in Austria and uh probably and worldwide in some things you definitely got to have some kind of some kind of edge that's so cool sorry and excuse exuse my ignorance or what's the Slater Stone ah the Slater stone is um a special kind of stone of Atlas Stone where usually Atlas stones are around you can say 19 to 22 in that's already quite wide you know in diameters so that's around 22 is roughly 50 cm in diameter if I'm not mistaken so 20 is around 40 or almost 40 and the slatter stones are 24 in so they're 60 cm in diameter so they're huge and so far in we have in Austria uh in in that gym in Vienna we have slatter Stones um from 160 already so 160 180 100 and 220 are slatter stones and so far I was the only one who lifted the 200 and the 220 and I don't even know if there are many even open weights who did the slatter stones above 200 now you're incredibly strong so well well done on that yeah thank you what what's the uh sorry to jump around a little bit here but what's the importance of neck training yeah so neck training is a is a is a strange one because if you're looking back into the history neck training was like pretty normal for most of the for the guys you know they did hardcore stunts with neck Brides loaded neck Bridges there was the Schwartz lift a Schwartz Schwartz lift is basically nothing else than uh getting into a NE getting actively into a Neck Bridge through your neck or with your head and holding a weight in your hand for example you know so not already getting into position because most of the time it was alsoo down you got first into position into a Neck Bridge or into a rest Bridge how it's called and after you did some kind of pullover where you pulled the bar and after you did some kind of presses or something like that or just hold the bar or the weight or made some other kind of stunts there was there is now some video going on from I think a Russian again from the 80s or 70s where he like going into a Neck Bridge and holding 1,000 lb on his feet as well so on his knees there're stacked some kind of stuff many people are coming so there is a crazy video going around now on social media and he's just holding that in a Neck Bridge plus he's holding even a a weight on his hands and I think even someone is coming in sitting there so it's crazy and back then so more than 100 years ago it was kind of normal you know because strength training or many looked at strength training more to like a means for helping their other stuff you know like we are doing today with our Sports strength training is helping to get you actually better for the sport with which you are doing and many wrestler and and because wrestling was very popular back then like uh GRE Roman wrestling and stuff like that they knew okay but we need a strong neck to not get any injuries not get any conscious not any um lose Consciousness and stuff like that and so neck training was really important and there was a lot of books and articles back then written about the neck training and somewhere throughout history we lost this this idea and this thought to training our neck and uh if you're looking now there's more and more evidence coming especially like for team sport athletes for rugby or football and stuff like that that if you are training your neck you can reduce a lot of injuries um you can reduce the the risk of getting um how is this called when you're losing your sub your Consciousness concussion yeah concussion and just also like if you're looking because I'm working sometimes also with people who are in pain people who who are struggling with uh with niggles and stuff like that and um yeah with like a lot of tension in in somewhere in their body and many people have like a lot of headache a lot of of uh here are pretty tight pretty pretty tensed up and everything many times if you are training a bit your neck it doesn't have to be a Neck Bridge you know and I'm not suggesting or recommending you to jump straight into a Neck Bridge if you are not used to this kind of of training you know but you can also train with a neck harness or you can just start simply with your head or on the wall and stuff there are a lot of regressions progressions you can back then in in the past they also did for like for beginners to just start with isometric contractions so to push against your head in front uh on the side behind or with a towel a towel is also a good option how you can can do a isometric contraction for for your neck and many people who have like a tensed up traps and shoulder area neck area or getting headache they most of the time are just tensed up because their neck is just too weak basically and they're not even using their neck either you know most of the time they're just in one certain position and you don't want to be always in one certain position because there is not one good posture I know um um some one fusio from Germany I really like his quote he's always saying the next the best poster posture is always the next and that's also the same principle for basically everything you know so you there is no certain position and you want always to move and even your neck your neck has like the spine so many possibilities of movement that's why you should train it you know maybe at the beginning not with weight maybe s maybe later with weight you know because Progressive overload and stuff but um movement definitely helps to get rid of certain things especially stuff like headed headaches or or tensed up necks and shoulders absolutely I completely agree so I've recently because of people like yourself and Alex sterer recently just added uh neck training as one of my exercises to one of my one of my days so I'm just playing around with it trying like you said some having the wake on the head and then just going side to side and I look ridiculous but I don't really care how I look cuz I think like you said it's probably probably quite a useful one that's neglected by I I I'm just putting out a random number but I think 90 to 99% of of people training I don't see neck training all that often I I'm the only one who does it at my gym which is pretty big um well at least I'm the only one I see doing it maybe people do it at home uh or something but yeah if if you're looking at it you know from even from an accident perspective if you if you're getting into accident and I don't wish anyone an accident or something like that but um just think about your most vulner vulner vulnerable part vulnerable part thank you is pretty much your neck you know because you have here not really a lot of muscles your spine your cervix is quite your cervicle spine is quite open and it's like really easily getting injured especially in a car accident or stuff like that you know and um wouldn't you want to to get some kind of armor around this vulnerable spot and this armor is just your muscles you know so if you're building your neck muscles if you're building here a bit everything you will be a lot safer and it it doesn't even have to be acent you know maybe you are you're slipping and you are um falling and somehow your your head is tilting or maybe someone is coming and and punching you if you're doing some kind of sport or whatever you know you you never know and never know yeah muscles can or your kids you know where sometimes when I'm playing with my kid and he's jumping around and stuff you want to be prepared you know and the the more muscles you have and the stronger these muscles are and the more you train certain movements doesn't matter regardless how they look the better you will prepared you will be prepared for anything more muscles Less Problems yeah yeah exactly so that actually takes us really nicely from the neck into the spine so spinal flexion and spinal extension and all the other kinds of spinal movements that 90 again I'm putting out numbers I don't know what they actually are but most people say oh you can't bend your spine the dead pig study all that kind of stuff can you please uh shed some light on that I know you've got a very flexible spine and it's very capable of you you do huge amounts of extension and uh flexion and your spine looks fine so well done I guess you're not a dead pig so that's that's crazy no thank you yeah it's exactly the same principle like I said like I mentioned before with being always in the same posture you know it's always the it's also the same for doing always the same movement why do you think people who are who are having a desk jop do they have problems with their shoulders and maybe with the upper back or even lower back it's because they're always stuck in this one movement and in this one position maybe they are moving here in this position but over a time if you're doing this and you have to think about each Movement Like a repetition because maybe this will bring some people getting a light bulb a moment you know that every mov every movement you are doing is one repetition now think how many repetition you are acquiring of one certain movement over the day and now think how many repetitions you are acquiring over a week over one month over a year of course there is an accumulation effect you know or an accumulative effect because everything is stacking together and the problem with this there is I forgot the exact name how it was but there is some kind of Acron and it's I think called Kaizen or something like that that everything what accumulates is getting more at the end so every day accumulating one rep at the end of the week is not seven it will be eight because it accumulates you know you know what I mean I know what you mean yeah so this this kind of accumulation effect will just get worse with time if you're just stuck in that one position or in that one movement and our spine is not a dead pig or or dead Corp or something you know so our spine is a living organism and our spine can adapt and if you're looking at our spine there are so many muscles around that spine and many thing many people are just also only focused on the on the back of the spine so only on on the Erectors on the ql on the multid and all the other muscles around there so there are really a ton of muscles and they're forgetting all the the the lats for example the the uh even the PCS the core muscles like like your um abdominals obliques the transverse and this is they're all part of your of your spine even your glutes even your fascia which is like a um in in your lower back so everything is somehow connected so you can't just say now this is bad for your spine in contrary your spine needs movement because every muscle has the same function you know every muscle is Contracting so it's shortening and it's lengthening why it should be different for for half of the muscles which you have in all your body to to not be that that rude you and your spine so if we're looking at the function of the spine in general you have flexion you have extension you also have lateral flexion so to to uh to grab something from the floor when you're sitting basically and you have rotation rotation is really important because you want to be able to whip your ass and when you're going to the toilet and I know from from uh colleagues of mine power he was a power lifter I'm not saying powerlifting is bad you know but it's a pretty in one plane of motion and one day he wanted to whip his ass and he got stuck in that position because he got some kind of lbo or something you know so he he couldn't move after anymore and it took him like one week or so to get back again into into movement so yeah you want to be able to have a smooth rotation and to not get stuck in any position and your spine needs all these movements because they are just like they're just like oiling everything if you're not moving you know like in in German we have this word like it it yeah we have there's an English too you have motion is lotion and it's basically like that you know and you why if you have so many motions why do you not do you want to avoid everything and just do one motion because maybe that's it's not even emotion because everyone is recommending you should have a neutral spine and it should be braced as braced as possible and just walk all the time like that no that's one option of the or one function of the spine as well to be able to brace but you can also brace not only in a neutral position you can brace in extension you can brace in flexion you can brace in rotation there are many ways to brace it's not only in neutral you know so that's really important to understand on that uh bracing note can you please explain proper bracing and how to do it I think you've made a really important uh like statement there about bracing not only being on your heavy squat on your heavy deadlift on your heavy bench but you mentioned that in our prein uh kind of video you mentioned about um like heavy carries and stuff and you got to brace the entire kind of time and that actually opened me up a little bit about the whole bracing uh technique cuz I thought you have to do it and you have to rebrace every time you go down for a squat that kind of thing um and then there's also people saying you need to hold your breath like you're going underwater that kind of stuff but I actually like popped the vessels in my eyes the one time uh doing that for a few reps and and literally had like U it was quite bad and a nose bleed and it was quite quite bad actually um so can you maybe help me not do that again but still make sure that I'm braced properly and the listeners as well cuz I think bracing like you said is so important important and it's not just when you're in neutral whatever neutral is um it's you can brace when you do a a big uh anything when you're doing a carry when you're doing all kinds of different movements it's not just in your deadlift position now you brace or in your squat position now you brace can you elaborate on that and explain how to do it properly yeah so the different bra in modalities if you want to say so you know there is of course and we have to to think about okay what exactly and here again it's like with strength training what exactly do we want to achieve and what exactly do we want to do if it's if it's for some Max effort from s for some Max effort repetition or attempt yeah maybe you want to have some kind of neutral spine or maybe a flex spine depends of the movement and to brace as hard as as possibly to to use the vava maneuver and that's where it's interesting to understand and to get somehow the the disassociation basically of bracing is bracing is basically nothing else than an isometric contraction but what we can do and what for example the valva maneuver is is breathing because the Vala maneuver is breathing and isometric contraction in once what you can also do is not only do the V maneuver but you can also do power breathing and power breathing is nothing else than just put your your tongue against the the um uh roof the rooftop of your mouth yeah the rooftop of your mouth and just exhale just quickly just shortly so just like that you will feel okay you are actually now bracing a bit you know your your core is getting engaged this is also some kind of bracing this is It's called Power breathing and you can do this quickly you know and that's what we have to to to learn and to to see okay bracing is not actually just V of the V of a maneuver because everyone is talking about that and everyone is thinks about okay that's actually bracing but it's not it's just one part of bracing and you can combine this this this methods as well like for example we we talked about that and what I like to do for like carries if it's like really heavy carry I really at the beginning I want to to fully brace and to do the vava maneuver to to start like really in the most compact and stable way as possible and once I have this position and I raced for example a yoke and I'm I'm standing with the Yol I'm actually decreasing or or letting my breath out and I'm starting to to use a more power breathing style of breathing so I'm I'm doing I'm inhaling in this position and I'm exhaling and this allows me to still stay con uh as stable as possible maybe not as stable as with the vva maneuver but I don't need that because I need movement and so I'm trying to actually keep the isometric contraction as high as possible while I'm also breathing because the problem like you had also with the popping whistle in your eye why after a while if you're just doing the V maneuver and you are doing like five repetitions six repetitions you will be like exhausted not because the weight is so heavy but just because you don't have don't have any Oxygen more and it's not it's not even the problem of oxygen it's the problem of getting rid of the CO2 so which is actually accumulating in your body and you to get rid of that CO2 you need to to breathe but you're actually not breathing because you're all the time that's what you're doing all the time you know how do you want to to get the the um proper oxygen in if you can't even get uh rid of the CO2 what you're accumulating in your body and what uh all the waste products are getting um produced in your body from all your cells you know so this is something what you have to think about and of course the blood pressure will go through the roof with power breathing it's not that high because it still allows you to breathe a bit more and it still allows you to be a bit more adjustable and the the good thing is also in any position in which you are going like even for example if we are taking a sandbag pickup or a stone pickup I'm in a very flexed and bent of so flexed spine position so bent over position but I still have to to brace somehow of course I will kind of brace keep my breath and go down but I when I will be lifting I'm I will be again doing the same of starting to Exhale and starting to somehow get more uh breath Cycles in maybe in a more power breathing style but I will not be as rigid because you rigidity and stability they are important but you want to have them on a spectrum of movement and not only um on one end of the extreme to be as rigid as possible because after you not you're not able to move anymore you know and the problem also with that is and that's that's a topic which I'm thinking now the the last two days and I want to even make a post about that is even your Technique is changing all the time uh maybe you are not you are not feeling it maybe you're not really realizing it but how your body weight fluctu fluctuates from day to day that's also how your Technique fluctuates from day to day because leverages and Joint positions will get will be different maybe not to a huge extent you know but just if it's 1 2 millimet just if it's just a bit you know it's still another position which you are maybe not used to it and if that position is getting a bit out a bit too far out of hand you know you still want to be able to brace and to be to be strong in that position and not to to always Force you in one certain position and and avoid breathing basically you know because especially if you have to carry something you need to breathe after a while and you still want to be able to still be as stable as possible so that's why I like to think about bracing more about like okay that's actually an isometric contraction but with my breathing and with the diaphragm I helping my stability and my core and my my my rigidity rigidity to to be still somewhat smooth and and to be able to move with that uh added and stability and rigidity I hope this makes sense so far that makes perfect sense um so do you breathe through your mouth when you're doing the carries for example the power breathing is that your mouth okay that's interesting and then for for myself when I want to go squat heavy again or heavy for me um should I do a big breath in and try and expand as much as possible and then go down this is what my doctor told me um so you never know what they whether they're correct or not and then as I come up then I as I'm coming up start letting the breath out is that what you'd say or is that not good advice yeah usually most of the time typical Vala maneuver is you are getting as much inhale as possible you're trying to expand your not only your belly but your whole core so you don't want to yeah you don't want only your your your belly but you also want to feel like your backside of your of your of your core is getting like full you know you are keeping the tension this tension you have to have to hold actively so this is also part of the bracing you know so it's it's actually a contraction or an isometric contraction basically so you are just Contracting your your core and you can do that even so bracing is even you can brace now you know you're just trying to contract your your core but you're you're actually not Contracting your core know that's also some kind of bracing and when you're going into the into the hole you're when you're are coming approximately halfway up yeah halfway up you are starting to slightly breathe against your they're saying against your Clos uh closed um tra Bas you know like your um where you're breathing through you know like you don't want to fully exhale in once but you want to let it slowly out so yeah yeah what I mean I think there's a lot of practice that I need to do with with that but I'm excited for it and if you want if you're doing just one uh uh or some advice if you want to do like more repetitions just take your time in between the repetitions if you need like full stability and want to use the Val valava maneuver you know because you you need the oxygen you if not you will just black out or you will pop again something so maybe you still will pop again something you know because the blood pressure uh but at least you will not black out and it will not uh you will be able to continue a bit longer so have you blacked out and have you uh popped something before in your training or in a competition so again have you blacked out before or have you popped something in a competition or in training oh yeah um okay okay I I think I blacked out twice I didn't fall I just uh everything got black and it was twice on a log so I cleaned the log I had the log on my chest up and out of a sudden everything got black so I dropped after the lock and uh I regained my Consciousness back basically and I popped like two or three times Oro something in my eye so that's normal and I had two twice or so nose bleeding a bit but not much yeah yeah and did you also see stars oh yeah okay okay cool yeah it's oh it's crazy like you hear see it in the movies and stuff I like a it's nonsense but I I was like okay I see I see now now sometimes even after a really heavy deadlift or so it's like everything is turning okay good so so I'm I am training hard enough maybe yeah I'm getting okay cool cool that's good okay and then um I know we're running out of time but just some of the last few things about gradual exposure to weight like after injury and then also gradual exposure to increasing weight a gradual load progression that kind of thing can you just briefly touch on the importance of doing it gradually and then I assume you do it gradually even though you get to world record levels but you probably don't go from an injury directly to I mean you did it in six weeks but maybe most people shouldn't do that yeah so as I mentioned you know I had already quite a few injuries unfortunately and [Music] um I got myself into this also with help and I learned everything from uh this guy his name is Andreas s he one guy from Germany we are working actually now together so he has some education going on where he's educating he's calling them expert of healing movements and I also did his education and he introduced me to a lot of these things and I also learned after myself this of course personal experience you know so um the thing is if you are getting injured most of the time you want to get as fast back into training and moving as possible you know it depends of the movement it depends of the injury of course but some kind and this is important to understand some kind of movement is still possible the thing is just okay you have to think about what is possible and what is still painfree because you want to work in a painfree area you don't want to get get into pain you don't want to make everything worse of course you know but movement is that very one thing which helps you heal faster you know and it doesn't have to be something hotcore you know no one is saying you need to some no one is even saying you have you need to do something special you know because there are many people claiming on social media yeah you have to do this special method to get blood flow and stuff like that actually no it's enough if you're moving just a bit if you have some kind of injury here it's enough if you're moving here B your your arm for example you know uh you can Target specific muscles or areas a bit more of course but there's nothing special what is special is you want to and this is important to understand you want to if you can't squat down let's say you know because you have some or let let's take my hamstring injuries you know so I injured my hamstrings I couldn't deadlift the thing is I had deadlift leather coming up and I had power stairs coming up in uh at Europe's strongest man in six weeks so I was like okay what can I do so I tried to to bend down to see okay how far can I get so I could get with my hands with straight legs only to not even to my knees so um this was a bit difficult but this range was painfree until I got to my knees so what I started with a Jefferson curl just a half Jefferson curl just light to get a bit of of stretching into the hamstrings and to get again a bit more uh flexion usually I knew okay the hamstring is a kind of weird one because when I'm squatting down so when I'm standing straight the length of the muscle doesn't change when I'm squatting down the length of the muscle doesn't change you know know because the hamstring when the hip is extended on that side it's shortened but when the the knees is extended on that side it's stretched but when I'm squatting down now on the H at the hip it's stretched and at the knee the hamstring is uh flexed so that the length the actual length of the hamstring doesn't change so I try to squat three days later or four days later or not yeah I think three four days later I I squatted 180 for for eight or 10 reps or something like that I had no problem I tried to deadlift I knew okay I can deadlift from the floor so what can I do I will do from blocks but the beginning I had to use kind of high blocks so it was somewhere above the knees but it was no problem so I could go up to 200 or 220 I had to be careful because you have to control the weight this is also something really important at the beginning you don't want to have any like explosive movements everything has to be controlled especially the Ecentric and the Ecentric turnover so or turnar around so I did block pulls and for power stairs I knew okay I can because I didn't have power stairs back then or a handle to do power stairs um that's and I'm coming now to that one alternative is a Sumo deadlift maybe not a complete Sumo deadlift but just a semi Sumo so where my legs are a bit closer I knew okay that should be actually possible because my hamstrings it's again Sumo isn't isn't that much of a hamstring exercise as it's more like quartz and glutes so I tried it and it was possible I couldn't go that heavy because I still had to pay attention but I could do the movement and that's how I worked and I progressed after with time to from Jefferson curs to to um stiff leg deadlifts and I progressed the height on the Block pools and yeah I just did some some movements I was walking I tried to to get a bit more stretch every day to get range of motion back and everything and I just loaded the movement in the in still um Toler tolerable um um Range yeah for my hamstrings so I'm not getting injured more and I'm letting myself heal so you of course you need to do something but you also need to rest somewhere but you don't want you don't want to only rest or to exceed all the work which you are doing so that was my Approach and that's one of the approaches I'm using quite a lot but what I also like to do is if I can do a movement like for example when I tore my pecs I could still bench press and I could still go up to like almost 100 kilo with like to not fully torn I never fully tore something but it always was partial sometimes more sometimes less um but regardless I could bench press and I knew okay how could I could I make the bench press more difficult but I I'm still getting a good stimulus so I added bands on uh on the on the bble with hanging weights which made it quite difficult because there was a lot of instability but this allowed me to focus like really on a good Tempo and on a on a good um technique to work like really slowly and good out of my chest and because of the added instability there were also all the time different muscle fibers working so it was really nice to progress that so there are quite a few possibilities how you can get back into uh into normal lifting again you know you just have to think about okay how can I regress certain movements so I can still kind of load them and the first thing so the the most important thing what you want to achieve is full range of motion without pain you know and after to start to load that range of motion slowly again you know absolutely I think like you said being smart about it is super important doing things gradually seeing what you can do and then doing that and a little bit more of that and that and that rather than stopping everything doing no no movement no gym I think that's probably the wrong way to do it um and like you said movement is or lotion is motion movement is key I love all those things and I advocate for for all that same stuff and then finally on the whole I I think you do whole body training where you incorporate hinge squat Push Pull core and remedial can we talk a little bit about that and then just prehab rehab isolation and then I think we'll finish off with the just talking a little bit about isometrics and then that'll be that'll be done sure sure no problem yes so you want to know something specifically about this um um scheme or yes so is this the training program that you use like uh the hinge Push Pull full body is that kind of your training or do you have what is that your split full body five days a week or um some I have different kinds of of uh splits how I'm working but the the whole body split is pretty much one of my favorites which I'm if I'm coaching myself I'm like to use a lot or I'm using quite a lot with many of my clients because it's it's just so versatile you know you can with with basically this four movements like if you have a a them how the the movements are structured doesn't really matter you know some are preferring to start with the deadlift first to go to a squat and after to a press and after to a pull some are are preferring because it's like easier for them to start maybe with the squat to go after into the press and to go after into deadlifts you know just because some people some individuals it's easier for them or it's more tolerable for them the deadlift at the beginning and for others it's just destroying them you know so you have to play there around a bit with the structure but usually if you have some kind of hinge squat press and some pull you are basically covering all the bases what you need you know so depending of the volume you can either do I'm most of the time I'm planning four days a week sometimes maybe a bit more but four times is pretty optimal for most with a bit of medium volume so three two or let's say two to five sets per exercise you know so in the end at the end of the week you are getting somewhere to around 8 to to maybe 20 sets total per exercise so you are covering quite a lot of muscle groups with that you know so there should be enough hypertrophic stimulus and there should be also enough um for the strength gains the cool thing also about this style is you can after in the micro cycle which you have so one week you can alter and focus each day on something else for example what I like to use a lot is um omn contraction style of training so this means we have one day focused on Ecentric one day focused on isometric and one day focused on on concentric and the last day is some kind of um structural balance day where maybe the structure doesn't look like that so we don't really have a hinge squat pull press Etc but we have maybe some kind of isolation exercises or we have maybe some kind of what I also like to do is like a spinal motion or spinal movements basically or like really lengthened biased work like um flat bench curls where really focusing on uh um extending our arms as possible or stuff like that like cax squats or or something like Copenhagen planks something where we are focusing a bit more on structural balance so like the joints are like getting enough stability and enough range as well you know so that's one possibility another possibility what I also like is to focus to have like one strength day one power day and one hyper tropy day with the whole body uh uh system you know so on the strength TR it's just normal strength based with like fre times 5 or three times three or something like that on the hypertrophy maybe we're not doing so much free movements so free weight movements but we are doing a bit more uh machine work or maybe some lower demanding exercising exercises where we can do maybe a bit more so we can actually work on um Vertical Press and horizontal presses on vertical pushes and uh uh and or vertical pulls and horizontal pulls so we can play a bit more with that and on the power day we have more like something into Olympic lifting style of training where it's more something like uh maybe cleans or push presses or I what I like to use also a lot on that day like are like unconventional movements which like one hand snatches or one hand jerks one hand deadlifts uh hack deadlifts or something like really odd basically so we're just preparing the body for like really different positions and different stimuli and getting overall ready for basically everything you know so I really like love the whole body approach I also have like a bit more like where it's like like normal strength and hypertrophy and after it's like a more conditioning based uh approach and a more like um running based approach or jumping based approach so there are many different ways but it's a really really awesome tool if you're playing a bit more with the variables and you know how to structure them absolutely I also really like the full body uh training and I just wanted to check the remedial stuff that you mentioned previously um um is that to do with the prehab rehab and isolation or is that different yeah so that's sometimes I'm calling it remedial stuff sometimes I'm calling it structural balance stuff so that's just something what we are lacking like for example what I like to use many times in the whole body days as well is to put somewhere something like um a sight band in there or some kind of windmill or something like that where having a bit more basis maybe also going a bit again into more spinal function work or stuff like Turkish get up or so where we're just implementing a bit more um whole body coordination and stiffness you know so just depends what is needed sometimes maybe a bit more tricep work like because the strong men need a bit more overhead power and many are lacking the tricep strength basically and size and so a bit more tricep work there for example is good and of course like structural balance work is all this stuff which is like really not fancy and no one wants to do but that's really important like your your U external rotations your trap free Rises um maybe your your Cuban rotation yeah so stuff like that Halbert Rises or Copenhagen planks like I said so all this stuff which is maybe not so fancy for most of the people but which are really important just for overall development and the these things are like really important for joint for joint stability and for General the structure balance sounds maybe a bit odd but it's exactly that you know you want to have some kind of uh different movements here also again like if we're working a lot into flexion you know like if we're pressing a lot overhead if we're bench pressing and stuff like that you we want also to go to get a lot more into extension and to bring our hands be behind our back and to open up our chest more so all this stuff um I'm taking into consideration and I'm looking what is what is needed basically absolutely that makes perfect sense and then to finish off um to talk about the isometric you mentioned the static holds why do you think that isometric can give muscle stimulus like muscle growth or do you think it's only Ecentric and concentric that does it and why don't they study isometric that much in the literature why is it all to do about the Ecentric the lengthening why don't they have stuff on the or at least stuff that I've seen recently on the isometric so much do you think it's just people don't know about the benefits of isometric and like you mentioned about the GTO being you able to better them doing the heavy static holds um why do you think that is so I think I think if you're looking back into history like around the the 50s and 60s if I'm not wrong now there came the this method of isometric training got like really popular you know and that's also the time when power racks developed and with and many more things you know and many people experimented with stuff and after that period And even like in Russian literature they found isometric training to be like really powerful and back then they did quite a lot of studies and they quite they found quite a lot of results and even nowadays they're still doing a lot of studies but they're just not so maybe not so published or not so much talked about thought because um it's more of a performance enhancer rather than a muscle growth method of course like we saw this I'm sure you know this study where they um put the the the leg into maximal dorsy flexion forced dorsy flexion for one hour per day every day like in a real hotcore isometric stretch and they found like a huge muscle growth for that cough you know so it's not like isometric training doesn't grow muscles it does but not to that extent how how normal repetitions are doing it like Dynamic repetitions with Ecentric and Contra and concentric and even now there is a lot of debate about okay which phase actually builds muscle you know because some are arguing about yeah it's now actually the concentric and the E centring is just a um producing a lot of muscle damage you know which of course is true but we saw also in in Ecentric studies that even just pure I Ecentric training produces hypertrophy you know without missing without missing concentric so it's a bit tricky with all the research to to follow them but so far there's a lot of evidence about isometric training but it's more like for performance enhancing for performance enhancements and most of the things are like short based um isometric contractions maximal isometric contractions like overcoming isometrics if this is telling you something that's where you're basically pulling or pushing against an unmovable weight or resistance or whatever you know that's you could let's let's say a block pool you are loading that bar as heavy as possible and you're trying to to raise it you're doing that for six seconds so for 6 seconds you want to produce as ma as much force as possible that's a huge neurolog neurological potentiation method you know and even strengthens to some part that very range and with isometrics you have to pay attention because isometrics are strengthening not only that range but even 15% above and underneath that very range so around roughly a 30% of rate of motion strength increase so it's a pretty powerful you know but it's just that range so you also have to and especially with overcoming isometrics you also want to pair it always with something else like with a either a dynamic movement uh something explosive or something heavy because you want to use that potentiation effect you know uh with longer duration isometrics like holding a position 30 seconds or something like that it's a bit more tricky because there's a a lot of of um accumulation going on of lactate and this burning sensation you know and maybe there is some kind of um hypoxia there and it's a bit more difficult because you have to gain a lot of time and attention in that certain position which after time is just not really possible you know if you H like a wall squad for 2 minutes if you try to do that three times you will not be able to do it you know because your legs are just so fright so that's a bit tricky with why you can't really load that you because you need some kind of mechanical tension of course but you can also get that with a longer duration of isometric it's just longer duration isometrics are are u a bit hardcore to do over time because the muscle is fatiguing so fast another method which is which does increase uh hypertrophy and orom Mobility are loaded stretches for example which are basically nothing else than isometric contractions in end ranges or in length and positions like if you're taking a a bench press with dumbles you can bring the dumbles here into as much stretch as possible you are Contracting your your chest and you're holding that as long as possible and that weight should be quite quite heavy so this position and this kind of loaded stretching which is more like a Ecentric quasi isometric you know because while you are holding after a time you will increase your range of motion um but this method also in does uh help for hypertrophy you know it's just not very popular you know because it's not so fun like uh lifting weights around but isometric is is really powerful so for strength and for potentiation and U all this stuff it's even like an analgesic like if you have knee pain or if you have some kind of pain somewhere just do an isometric contraction for like 30 to 60 seconds and you will see okay that pain is going slightly away you know and you will be able to perform the movement with less pain or without pain at all it won't heal it completely but it's just like if you would swallow a painkiller you know so isometric contractions are awesome that's very interesting I didn't know that so thank you so much for that and then second last question who's your favorite character in Dragon Ball Z say again uh who's your favorite character in Dragon Ball Z uh it's really difficult because usually I was a Goku guy but Vegeta is especially after in Z like really not in Z it's actually more in super he got really cool and Goku got a bit more uh B for some reason I don't know but in in Z Goku was like really awesome fair enough and then finally um what parting words of wisdom do you have for our listeners who are looking to embark on their own own journey of strength and muscle gain so we so I have my own company which is called omnipotence and um I have this slogan of explore conquer and dominate so these four things are exactly what my philosophy is and what I'm also teaching in my education or in my coaching and stuff like that or what I'm trying to promote on social media is is you have so many physical capacities you have so many abilities which you can develop and you can explore you know you you also have the the possibilities to conquer these things so if you're just playing around if you're just exploring new things it doesn't matter what it is you know like for example I'm learning now rope flow rope flow maybe seems a bit funny because it's just it's it's it's a rope which you are turning around your body in some strange way you know but and it's not like jumping rope because you're not jumping uh above that rope or with that rope you're just turning the Rope around your bunny but in many different ways and it's it's why I like it for example is because you have a lot of spinal movement a lot of rotation and flexion and extension and it's um it's it's going also a bit more into this martial arts type of stuff and or with kettlebell flips or yeah kettlebell juggling and stuff like that that's also something what I'm what I'm doing just to to learn the skill and to play around you know and there are so many things what you can do with your body you know just start somewhere slowly so explore the things you know do them on a regular basis it doesn't have to be a lot or or long you know just if you're doing that for like one to two three minutes per day if you're doing that every day or if you're doing that for 5 to 10 minutes every second day that accumulates again you know and after a while you will conquer this this uh thing so you will get used to it you will have fun you know you will be able to to play a bit more around with it you will have some kind of skill and at the end you can dominate it you know you can maybe load it you can maybe do some really crazy stuff you know some I don't know some handstands or or backflips or whatever you know sprinting U there there's a lot of stuff it's just you have to be open about all the things you don't have to be [Music] too too dogmatic about certain things and just especially about your body you know you want to have a long and healthy life and for this you want also to be able to sustain all the physical attributes which your body has so you have actually to use them as well you know that's where omnipotence come comes into play you want to be good at everything you know it doesn't have to excel at everything but you certainly have the capacity to to do pretty much everything what you want maybe there is a cap somewhere to how much you can really do that you know or how many things you can really do but you can certainly build muscle you can certainly build strength you can certainly be able to run a certain amount of of kilometers or distance or time you know you can be able to jump and to play around you know and to do many different things you can you are a able to to learn new skills you know it doesn't matter if it's kettell juggling or if it's like um um calisthenics or or whatever you know you have the ability and you just have to to play around with it and to stick with it you know I love that and I think the ultimate message there like you said is you are so capable and I think that means a lot to everyone listening thank you to yourself one of the most capable people on the planet maybe of all time that's a really fantastic message what a fantastic way to wrap up thank you Emanuel yeah thanks for having me it was really fun and a pleasure Cheers Cheers thank you for tuning in to the muscle growth podcast if you found value in today's episode we'd really appreciate it if you could leave us a five-star rating and a quick review it helps us grow and reach more people just 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