Timestamps: 00:48 Menno defines "Exercise Selection" 07:04 Eric gives his views on what "Exercise Selection" is 08:22 Mike adds his opinion on these terms 10:55 Menno responds to Mike's points on the bilateral deficit 13:18 Eric jumps in to address the topic around EMG-readings brought up by Menno 15:30 Mike talks about whether or not some exercises are better than others for hypertrophy 20:11 Eric comments on the points being made by Mike that compound lifts should be the bread and butter 21:21 Menno shares his thoughts on deadlifts for hypertrophy? 24:18 Mike appends on deadlifts for hypertrophy and the issue with axial loading 28:00 Eric expands on the topic around deadlifts for hypertrophy 30:07 Furthermore, Eric moves on to talking about how often people should vary exercises 34:08 Menno talks about his principles on exercise variation 36:02 Mike gives his slightly different view on exercise variation 41:59 Eric responds to Mike's theory for the necessity for more frequent variation 48:03 Mike criticises Eric's view and brings up a question for Eric 51:49 Mike replies with his understanding of "Variation" 55:02 Eric follows up with sharing his view on the term "variation" 56:17 Menno finishes with talking about the necessity of variation for hypertrophy 59:42 Mike brings up the important point about common misconceptions and mistakes people make when it comes to exercise selection 1:04:35 Eric shares his thoughts on switching exercises from microcycle to microcycle 1:07:55 Eric follows up with talking about too many exercises in one single session 1:09:42 Mike responds to the issue of exercise rotation from workout to workout and touches on junk volume
Had a thought, what would you guys think about going mostly compound movements on your heavy weeks, but then on Deload weeks just switching the ratio of compound to isolation movements to drop fatigue and provide a novel stimulus?
After several years of consuming 'evidence based' training advice from this channel as well as trying many others, I'm pretty sure this is the best hypertrophy channel on TH-cam. Always great guests, good conversation and tons of information presented through insightful and respectful interactions. Nothing promotes the accumulation of knowledge more than testing, and evaluating, and defending, and when appropriate, changing your point of view. But beyond the simple collection of 'intelligence', I think one of the things that separates wisdom from simple knowledge is the ability to strongly defend your differing opinion while showing respect and consideration for the other side of an argument. These guys have that in spades. And Steve, once again, you do a great job of steering the conversation without getting in the way or having the need to prove how smart you are. Great job. Thanks to all of you.
Young demigod Steve Hall ascends Mount Olympus to seek hypertrophy knowledge from the gods. Zeus (Eric Helms), Poseidon (Menno Henselmans), and Hades (Mike Israetel) share their wisdom with mere mortals.
Menno's principle of having an exercise that limits the ability to cheat (in terms of tracking progress, point A to B) was great to hear because this is a factor that I always took into account but never actually articulated. I also really thought Mike made a great point about the benefit to some exercise variation. Well done Steve!
Don't do that. You will be breaking the most important law of all, the law of consistency. You HAVE to be consistent to get results. If you change things up too often, chances are you'll spin your wheels because progression is hard to measure/induce.
Wau! What an excellent job from all of 4 you, guys! I hope that your TH-cam channel will grow, Steve, since it's one of the best evidence-based fitness sources worldwide.
Have to say that after many years of training, two things made me blow up. The first was 15 - 20 rep squats (as opposed to 12 reps down to 4), which blew up my legs for the first time. But when I added in deadlifts - two warm ups & two working sets of 6 reps - my whole body blew up. Obviously my posterior chain the most, but man I blew up & now when I drop them I always lose size. As with rack pulls - again they work for me, my hams & erectors blow up. But I don't do those 2 inch motion racks - always to the knee & with volume eg 4 sets of 10 - 15, ramping with the last 1/2 sets being rest pause. When I added these people noticed & thought I'd started juicing. What I've written above isn't me arguing with experts - it's just my experience & to me it shows how much we vary as individuals. I've been training 20 years, I've trained with very experienced lifters, I've tried everything from HIT to volume, full body to upper/lower to bro-split. I have also followed a lot of Dr Mike's advice on this channel & on the JTS channel. It's MY experience. Deadlifts do for me what most people claim from squats. Adding in rack pulls thickened me up for the first time to that extreme degree. Trap bar deads also work for me with higher reps than conventional - 2 arm dumbell rows work better than the barbell & also thickened my whole back. Sorry for the essay guys ! I just like to throw my experience into the mix. I've been training on and off for 20 years, almost constantly for the last 10. I know how to train & how to properly evaluate variables (for what it's worth). All I can say is that if I could only do one exercise for hypertrophy it would have to be the deadlift over the squat. One last thought - I am one of these guys who really feels deads in the legs, quads included. Hope I haven't bored anyone shitless with this ! I love your channel man, I haven't watched in a while. Glad to see you've finally reached 10K but you should have waaaay more subs ! :)
What's your definition of "blew up"...are you actually huge? Don't think there is any magical exercise... So long as its a compound movement used to think deadlifts were indispensable but doesn't seem like any powerlifters have backs that resemble anything to a low level bber and few bbers even deadlift at all now...
Steve you have the best interviews/podcasts on all things fitness on TH-cam. I soak up these guys combined knowledge and opinions like a sponge...Good shit Hall. Keep doing what you do.
Man, this was really great. I would like Menno and Mike discuss rows though. I think they disagree on that one. Also, they seem pretty polarized on carbs vs fat for performance so I think that would be a good topic too. Thanks for the quality content as always!
Great round table as always. As someone that used to hit chest twice a week each session with 3 sets of each incline db, pec deck, decline press and flat bb I’m now doing only two exercises each session but double the sets and it’s been a great bloody change! Keep it up guys
steve: excellent work moderating and contributing as always. thank you. my bias falls heavily towards mike & eric. they combine years and years of on-the-ground experience with clients + academic research + applying the research to clients.
Thanks and there's nothing wrong with having biases. We all do, however, acknowledging them and not letting them dictate our beliefs is the way to go :)
Mike going on the attack on rack pulls! I've found no bigger builder for superior and transverse trapezius than 90%+ 1RM rack pull in a rest-pause scheme. I hold no delusion regarding it compared to a full RoM deadlift from the floor for strength gains; I program it purely for hypertrophy of the yoke.
I side with Mike on it, sorry. In our group I've written extensively on my reasons why I don't see any validity for hypertrophy in rack pulls...however, I don't know if you're a member of our group thus I'll leave this here because the post and the comment section represents my stance on it quite nicely facebook.com/michael.israetel/posts/10110073115966673
Can you tell me why rack pulls are better than upright rows/shrugs for yoke gains? They yield similar gains but add massively more amounts of fatigue/spinal loading. I think they are a gimmick used by some TH-camrs to gain a niche on the fitness industry.
Harold Bauer It is definitely a personal preference to have the higher absolute load for a rack pull when compared to a lighter one in a shrug pattern. Certainly they accumulate fatigue and I program to compensate. After reading Mike Israetel's post; the benefits have outweighed the deficits during my personal training. If I have one takeaway from his analysis, it would be that I can't reasonably expect everyone to handle that movement as smoothly as I have.
I don't understand anything from your post and I read it 3 times. Here is my opinion again, rack pulls offer the same amount of gains compared to shrugs/upright rows but they add a lot more fatigue for no added benefit (plus they make your waist bigger). Where exactly do you disagree with that making you think that they are better compared to shrugs/upright rows?
Harold Bauer I must avoid upright rows as I'm working around a work-related shoulder injury so I cannot comment on those. Regarding the waist size issue; that seems like a matter of aesthetics and proportion. If your waist is killing your v-taper, I would not recommend the movement. I am not satisfied with my overall size so I have kept them in.
Hi Steve, my name is Harrison and an an exercise physiologist in Sydney Australia. I’m currently writing a lecture series to teach students about periodization and I’m including a component on exercise selection. With your permission, would you mind if used the section of this video between 2:40 and 7:00 in my lecture? Unfortunately I can’t really afford to pay you right now as I’m quite low on work, however I would of course be happy to attribute the video to your channel and promote your channel to my students. Thank you again for all your amazing content.
Oh this will be dam nice! Im realy excited and love the roundtables, instant like! Question: Did you plan any nutrition roundtable with mike, eric and menno?
Hans Pumper74 That's exacly what I want to see too: Prioritizing Carbs vs. Fats for performance. Alan Aragon would be interesting on this topic as well.
This was really great!! I struggle with this every week. I always feel like I should be doing a lot of different workouts, I believe I need to not worry about it so much. The gym is supposed to be fun and tough and I’ll try to focus on the same stuff and just get better at them. Back is a strange muscle though, I think a lot of variation can be more beneficial.
When Mike talks about the number of sets preformed per exercise, he brings up the term “downsets” when performing around 8 sets. Would a pyramid set scheme be useful as well? Also Eric mentions switching out isolation movements every microcycle, doesn’t this limit the ability to overload a particular exercise/muscle? Though it is already challenging enough to add weight to let’s say your dumbbell curl every week.
I don't get it. Usually it's the first one who rates. I assume, there's one who absolutely despises us and dislikes just because...maybe he's on holiday?
Love the podcast and love these guys, as always alot of knowledge. But I do think the arguments for injury risk in different exercises sometimes gets a little weak. Especially when Eric talks about the squat for a specific body type being "high risk", I totally agree with him that other exercises might do the job just as good or better, but the body adapts to stimuli so if you progressively overload an exercise over time you adapt and become stronger, the body is not like a car but more like and eco system. I think talking about an exercise being harmfull just because of a specific bodytype is problematic due to the research on nocebo.
Mmh, maybe I misinterpret what you're saying but I don't fully agree. We aren't speaking about nocebos and there are exercises that have a higher risk of injury than others. When you're squatting little weight as you see with many recreational lifters, the risk is quite low because technique flaws are still kind of acceptable. However, if you just slightly misgroove a heavy squat then the likelihood is much higher than if you misgroove a say cable extension for example. It doesn't even need to be misgrooved, sometimes it even happens on good days and with perfect technique. And leverages definitely play a role in it as well, just take a look at well-suited deadlifters vs. deadlifters with unfavourable leverages.
I agree in the risk of injury being higher in squats, deads etc. but what I disagree on is the leverages for the indvidual lifter is putting somone at greater risk for an injury in the future. And maybe i misinterpret what Eric said, but as i heard it, it was that some people wasn't build for specific movement (which definently have som merit in terms of hypertrophy) but then goes on to say that it is a back injury waiting to happen, which I think is a problematic statement. My english is a bit rusty, hope I got the information across :D
I was watching old podcasts and on number 22 you and mike discuss drop sets. How would you program that weekly? Would you just add weight to the rep range every week getting to a lower RIR? add reps, sets?
Great conversation! Question: For hypertrophy of biceps and triceps, should one have a dedicated 'Arm day' or is it better (more time-efficient, better for recovery) to tack on Bis and Tris onto the end of an upper body (chest, back, shoulders) session? Your recommendations would be most appreciated!
I don't see much value in a dedicated arm day. It's never that taxing and arms recover quite quickly. I'd start playing with increased frequency first, Ie. maybe going up to 2-4 days per week. - Pascal
Thanks for the reply Pascal. Perhaps the drawback in putting the arm isolation exercises at the end of an upper body workout, instead of on their own day, would be that less weight can be lifted, fewer reps performed, as the bis and tris would already be fatigued to some extent. I don't know if this would make an appreciable difference in hypertrophy over the long term, however.
i currently do 3 day/week full body. let's take pulling compounds: chin ups (mon), rows (wed), pull ups wide grip (fri). legs: front squats (mon), walking lunges (wed), leg press and leg curls (fri). would that be considered as too much variation? should i narrow it down to two or even one exercise and stick with that for one or more mesocycles?
00:48 Menno defines "Exercise Selection" 07:04 Eric gives his views on what "Exercise Selection" is 08:22 Mike adds his opinion on these terms 10:55 Menno responds to Mike's points on the bilateral deficit 13:18 Eric jumps in to address the topic around EMG-readings brought up by Menno 15:30 Mike talks about whether or not some exercises are better than others for hypertrophy 20:11 Eric comments on the points being made by Mike that compound lifts should be the bread and butter 21:21 Menno shares his thoughts on deadlifts for hypertrophy? 24:18 Mike appends on deadlifts for hypertrophy and the issue with axial loading 28:00 Eric expands on the topic around deadlifts for hypertrophy 30:07 Furthermore, Eric moves on to talking about how often people should vary exercises 34:08 Menno talks about his principles on exercise variation 36:02 Mike gives his slightly different view on exercise variation 41:59 Eric responds to Mike's theory for the necessity for more frequent variation 48:03 Mike criticises Eric's view and brings up a question for Eric 51:49 Mike replies with his understanding of "Variation" 55:02 Eric follows up with sharing his view on the term "variation" 56:17 Menno finishes with talking about the necessity of variation for hypertrophy 59:42 Mike brings up the important point about common misconceptions and mistakes people make when it comes to exercise selection 1:04:35 Eric shares his thoughts on switching exercises from microcycle to microcycle 1:07:55 Eric follows up with talking about too many exercises in one single session 1:09:42 Mike responds to the issue of exercise rotation from workout to workout and touches on junk volume
im confused. can someone clear this up for me?.. they say don't vary up primary exercises more than once every 3-4 mesocycles. If a mesocycle is, say 2 months, they are saying do the same kind of pullup for 6 months? lets say your week has 4 back exercises: pullup, barbell row, chinup, narrow cable pull... that means you will only do those 4 exercises for 6 months, and only vary up sets/reps/rest, tempo etc every mesocycle?
I see some contradiction in what Mike uses to say about for example 6 sets of squats on Monday and 6 sets of leg presses on Thursday it's supposed to that you want to be as "expert" /motor pattern used to to a certain exercise to let those neural adaptations aside and really progress "muscularly" might be a better idea to perform each big compound movement multiple times per week, so if you want to pick up those two perform 3 of each the 2 leg sessions or at least the most important one, for example squat 6 sets the first day, 3 the second (as a motor pattern reminder and overloading movement) and then 3 more sets of other movement like leg Press. If anyone wants to give his/her opinion I'll be happy to hear it
Mmh, it really depends on the context. There are many ways to set up a proper routine. You need to consider, that when you're not a powerlifter, neural adaptations are nearly not as important. Furthermore, once you nailed your squat form, once per week can be more than enough to still increase your squat. Also, keep in mind that the stronger you get, the more likely it becomes that you need to reduce the frequency of squatting when hypertrophy is your main goal. Simply because the higher the load gets, the more taxing it gets for your entire system. I wouldn't deem myself as particularly strong but currently, I'm squatting 170kg for 10 reps for only 3-4 sets per week and I couldn't do that twice per week and still get an insufficient amount of volume for my quads to grow. This brings me to another point, exercise selection is mostly being used to get in a different stimulus or/and accumulate more volume for a particular body part. Hope that helps but this was only touching the surface :)
Revive Stronger thank you so much! That first part of your answer made me realize that not being Powerlifter, once per week on a movement could be enough, thanks for your answer en your time!
Steve, those guys clearly know nothing, seeing as the biggest people at my gym are all bald, have fits of rage at the reception lady, super set rack pulls with halfway-down bench presses and frequently get stung by bees when coming out of the changing rooms.
Rack pulls above the knees are awesome for upper traps. To claim people do them to solely look like they lift heavy or are lazy is retarded. It literally blows up your tarps. If your enhanced and are deadlifting over 700 pounds then yeah don’t do them but for everyone they’re great. Obviously farmers walks and shrugs are good tools but rpak help you over load the traps. I suggest 3x5 rpak followed by farmers walks and shrugs
I know people love the rack pulls bc of the overload but I’m actually more of a fan of power shrugs for traps. There’s still a lot of overload but when done for high reps you can really punish the traps in addition to not having to load up a ridiculous amount of weight and ruin barbells.
Timestamps:
00:48 Menno defines "Exercise Selection"
07:04 Eric gives his views on what "Exercise Selection" is
08:22 Mike adds his opinion on these terms
10:55 Menno responds to Mike's points on the bilateral deficit
13:18 Eric jumps in to address the topic around EMG-readings brought up by Menno
15:30 Mike talks about whether or not some exercises are better than others for hypertrophy
20:11 Eric comments on the points being made by Mike that compound lifts should be the bread and butter
21:21 Menno shares his thoughts on deadlifts for hypertrophy?
24:18 Mike appends on deadlifts for hypertrophy and the issue with axial loading
28:00 Eric expands on the topic around deadlifts for hypertrophy
30:07 Furthermore, Eric moves on to talking about how often people should vary exercises
34:08 Menno talks about his principles on exercise variation
36:02 Mike gives his slightly different view on exercise variation
41:59 Eric responds to Mike's theory for the necessity for more frequent variation
48:03 Mike criticises Eric's view and brings up a question for Eric
51:49 Mike replies with his understanding of "Variation"
55:02 Eric follows up with sharing his view on the term "variation"
56:17 Menno finishes with talking about the necessity of variation for hypertrophy
59:42 Mike brings up the important point about common misconceptions and mistakes people make when it comes to exercise selection
1:04:35 Eric shares his thoughts on switching exercises from microcycle to microcycle
1:07:55 Eric follows up with talking about too many exercises in one single session
1:09:42 Mike responds to the issue of exercise rotation from workout to workout and touches on junk volume
These timestamps are really great for when you revisit these talks and want to listen to a specific part again. Much appreciated.
Had a thought, what would you guys think about going mostly compound movements on your heavy weeks, but then on Deload weeks just switching the ratio of compound to isolation movements to drop fatigue and provide a novel stimulus?
After several years of consuming 'evidence based' training advice from this channel as well as trying many others, I'm pretty sure this is the best hypertrophy channel on TH-cam. Always great guests, good conversation and tons of information presented through insightful and respectful interactions.
Nothing promotes the accumulation of knowledge more than testing, and evaluating, and defending, and when appropriate, changing your point of view. But beyond the simple collection of 'intelligence', I think one of the things that separates wisdom from simple knowledge is the ability to strongly defend your differing opinion while showing respect and consideration for the other side of an argument. These guys have that in spades.
And Steve, once again, you do a great job of steering the conversation without getting in the way or having the need to prove how smart you are.
Great job. Thanks to all of you.
Nothing more to add except for a massive thanks!
I totally agree. I used to only watch Scott Herman and Athlean-x thinking there was no better. xD
Seeing a new podcast posted is like waking up on Christmas as a kid. Time to get learned and more smarter
Every Saturday the same procedure ;)
Young demigod Steve Hall ascends Mount Olympus to seek hypertrophy knowledge from the gods. Zeus (Eric Helms), Poseidon (Menno Henselmans), and Hades (Mike Israetel) share their wisdom with mere mortals.
and I hope the mortals did appreciate the knowledge of the gods
With that beard Menno is definitely Hephaestus.
Menno's principle of having an exercise that limits the ability to cheat (in terms of tracking progress, point A to B) was great to hear because this is a factor that I always took into account but never actually articulated. I also really thought Mike made a great point about the benefit to some exercise variation. Well done Steve!
Agree and happy to hear that you've enjoyed the episode
The level of respect they show while in disagreement is admirable.
That's what intellectual people like they do :)
- Pascal
Damn. I have to tweak my program every time I watch this podcast. Thanks for all the information, guys!
Don't do that. You will be breaking the most important law of all, the law of consistency. You HAVE to be consistent to get results. If you change things up too often, chances are you'll spin your wheels because progression is hard to measure/induce.
You can tweak without an overhaul of the entire program, but it is good to remind ourselves of the important focus points.
Well said guys and yeah: Slowly change one variant at a time to see whether something works for you or not.
Wau! What an excellent job from all of 4 you, guys! I hope that your TH-cam channel will grow, Steve, since it's one of the best evidence-based fitness sources worldwide.
Thanks a lot Standa!
Have to say that after many years of training, two things made me blow up. The first was 15 - 20 rep squats (as opposed to 12 reps down to 4), which blew up my legs for the first time. But when I added in deadlifts - two warm ups & two working sets of 6 reps - my whole body blew up. Obviously my posterior chain the most, but man I blew up & now when I drop them I always lose size. As with rack pulls - again they work for me, my hams & erectors blow up. But I don't do those 2 inch motion racks - always to the knee & with volume eg 4 sets of 10 - 15, ramping with the last 1/2 sets being rest pause. When I added these people noticed & thought I'd started juicing.
What I've written above isn't me arguing with experts - it's just my experience & to me it shows how much we vary as individuals. I've been training 20 years, I've trained with very experienced lifters, I've tried everything from HIT to volume, full body to upper/lower to bro-split. I have also followed a lot of Dr Mike's advice on this channel & on the JTS channel.
It's MY experience. Deadlifts do for me what most people claim from squats. Adding in rack pulls thickened me up for the first time to that extreme degree. Trap bar deads also work for me with higher reps than conventional - 2 arm dumbell rows work better than the barbell & also thickened my whole back.
Sorry for the essay guys ! I just like to throw my experience into the mix. I've been training on and off for 20 years, almost constantly for the last 10. I know how to train & how to properly evaluate variables (for what it's worth). All I can say is that if I could only do one exercise for hypertrophy it would have to be the deadlift over the squat. One last thought - I am one of these guys who really feels deads in the legs, quads included. Hope I haven't bored anyone shitless with this !
I love your channel man, I haven't watched in a while. Glad to see you've finally reached 10K but you should have waaaay more subs ! :)
If it works for you, it works for you :)
What's your definition of "blew up"...are you actually huge? Don't think there is any magical exercise... So long as its a compound movement used to think deadlifts were indispensable but doesn't seem like any powerlifters have backs that resemble anything to a low level bber and few bbers even deadlift at all now...
Steve you have the best interviews/podcasts on all things fitness on TH-cam. I soak up these guys combined knowledge and opinions like a sponge...Good shit Hall. Keep doing what you do.
Thanks a lot T!!
- Pascal
Man, this was really great. I would like Menno and Mike discuss rows though. I think they disagree on that one. Also, they seem pretty polarized on carbs vs fat for performance so I think that would be a good topic too. Thanks for the quality content as always!
This so much!
Great round table as always. As someone that used to hit chest twice a week each session with 3 sets of each incline db, pec deck, decline press and flat bb I’m now doing only two exercises each session but double the sets and it’s been a great bloody change! Keep it up guys
Thanks for tuning in ;)
- Pascal
Can it even possibly become better than that :D ? Thanks a lot Steve !
I can't think of anything :D
These roundtables are pure gold.
Happy you enjoyed it
Oh no, all three again. Must be a bomb. Thanks a lot, Steve.
I needed this podcast, was wondering when to do variations.
Perfect timing then. Now you have it all ;)
steve: excellent work moderating and contributing as always. thank you.
my bias falls heavily towards mike & eric. they combine years and years of on-the-ground experience with clients + academic research + applying the research to clients.
Thanks and there's nothing wrong with having biases. We all do, however, acknowledging them and not letting them dictate our beliefs is the way to go :)
best episode yet
It's definitely top 5...maybe top 3...or top 2 ;P
This is awesome, world class content, I love you Steve!!!
Only for you guys
Mike going on the attack on rack pulls! I've found no bigger builder for superior and transverse trapezius than 90%+ 1RM rack pull in a rest-pause scheme. I hold no delusion regarding it compared to a full RoM deadlift from the floor for strength gains; I program it purely for hypertrophy of the yoke.
I side with Mike on it, sorry.
In our group I've written extensively on my reasons why I don't see any validity for hypertrophy in rack pulls...however, I don't know if you're a member of our group thus I'll leave this here because the post and the comment section represents my stance on it quite nicely
facebook.com/michael.israetel/posts/10110073115966673
Can you tell me why rack pulls are better than upright rows/shrugs for yoke gains? They yield similar gains but add massively more amounts of fatigue/spinal loading. I think they are a gimmick used by some TH-camrs to gain a niche on the fitness industry.
Harold Bauer It is definitely a personal preference to have the higher absolute load for a rack pull when compared to a lighter one in a shrug pattern. Certainly they accumulate fatigue and I program to compensate.
After reading Mike Israetel's post; the benefits have outweighed the deficits during my personal training. If I have one takeaway from his analysis, it would be that I can't reasonably expect everyone to handle that movement as smoothly as I have.
I don't understand anything from your post and I read it 3 times. Here is my opinion again, rack pulls offer the same amount of gains compared to shrugs/upright rows but they add a lot more fatigue for no added benefit (plus they make your waist bigger).
Where exactly do you disagree with that making you think that they are better compared to shrugs/upright rows?
Harold Bauer I must avoid upright rows as I'm working around a work-related shoulder injury so I cannot comment on those.
Regarding the waist size issue; that seems like a matter of aesthetics and proportion. If your waist is killing your v-taper, I would not recommend the movement. I am not satisfied with my overall size so I have kept them in.
Hi Steve, my name is Harrison and an an exercise physiologist in Sydney Australia. I’m currently writing a lecture series to teach students about periodization and I’m including a component on exercise selection. With your permission, would you mind if used the section of this video between 2:40 and 7:00 in my lecture? Unfortunately I can’t really afford to pay you right now as I’m quite low on work, however I would of course be happy to attribute the video to your channel and promote your channel to my students. Thank you again for all your amazing content.
Oh this will be dam nice! Im realy excited and love the roundtables, instant like!
Question: Did you plan any nutrition roundtable with mike, eric and menno?
Hans Pumper74 That's exacly what I want to see too: Prioritizing Carbs vs. Fats for performance. Alan Aragon would be interesting on this topic as well.
We're trying to get Alan on since a long long time already...:(
Yes, more Roundtables are in the pipeline
it would be pretty short roundtable, since noone in their right mind will prioritize fats over carbs for athlete.
This was really great!! I struggle with this every week. I always feel like I should be doing a lot of different workouts, I believe I need to not worry about it so much. The gym is supposed to be fun and tough and I’ll try to focus on the same stuff and just get better at them. Back is a strange muscle though, I think a lot of variation can be more beneficial.
2 to 3 slots of exercise variation for compound exercises to hit the muscle as a whole. And change it up every 12weeks.
Thanks for watching :)
- Coach Jess
very , very interesting talk, thank you for sharing the knowledge
Thanks for listening Ced!
"What part of your body does that grow?
- everything brother.
- that's not faking part of your body" ;D;D good one haha!
Hahaha, and I immediately know what we're talking about, haha.
- Coach Pascal
When Mike talks about the number of sets preformed per exercise, he brings up the term “downsets” when performing around 8 sets. Would a pyramid set scheme be useful as well? Also Eric mentions switching out isolation movements every microcycle, doesn’t this limit the ability to overload a particular exercise/muscle? Though it is already challenging enough to add weight to let’s say your dumbbell curl every week.
Switching out every microcycle?? That means every week.
Pyramid isn't the best way to go really.
Wowowowowowow didn't expect that! I'm starting a (mini)cut next week, maybe this will give me some last #posttraining benefits :)
Thank you Steve for bringing so much experts on
Thanks to you for always supporting us David
0 Dislikes! WOW
I don't get it. Usually it's the first one who rates. I assume, there's one who absolutely despises us and dislikes just because...maybe he's on holiday?
And the topic is damn interesting :-)
Love the podcast and love these guys, as always alot of knowledge. But I do think the arguments for injury risk in different exercises sometimes gets a little weak. Especially when Eric talks about the squat for a specific body type being "high risk", I totally agree with him that other exercises might do the job just as good or better, but the body adapts to stimuli so if you progressively overload an exercise over time you adapt and become stronger, the body is not like a car but more like and eco system. I think talking about an exercise being harmfull just because of a specific bodytype is problematic due to the research on nocebo.
Mmh, maybe I misinterpret what you're saying but I don't fully agree. We aren't speaking about nocebos and there are exercises that have a higher risk of injury than others. When you're squatting little weight as you see with many recreational lifters, the risk is quite low because technique flaws are still kind of acceptable. However, if you just slightly misgroove a heavy squat then the likelihood is much higher than if you misgroove a say cable extension for example. It doesn't even need to be misgrooved, sometimes it even happens on good days and with perfect technique. And leverages definitely play a role in it as well, just take a look at well-suited deadlifters vs. deadlifters with unfavourable leverages.
I agree in the risk of injury being higher in squats, deads etc. but what I disagree on is the leverages for the indvidual lifter is putting somone at greater risk for an injury in the future. And maybe i misinterpret what Eric said, but as i heard it, it was that some people wasn't build for specific movement (which definently have som merit in terms of hypertrophy) but then goes on to say that it is a back injury waiting to happen, which I think is a problematic statement.
My english is a bit rusty, hope I got the information across :D
I was watching old podcasts and on number 22 you and mike discuss drop sets. How would you program that weekly? Would you just add weight to the rep range every week getting to a lower RIR? add reps, sets?
So many ways to go about it. Drop sets are nothing else than sets with less weight. Nothing more, all other things still apply
We are waiting here in Greece, someone for a seminar here too
Mike or eric ?
I mean, there are flights going to London if you want to participate at the upcoming seminar ;)
Great conversation! Question: For hypertrophy of biceps and triceps, should one have a dedicated 'Arm day' or is it better (more time-efficient, better for recovery) to tack on Bis and Tris onto the end of an upper body (chest, back, shoulders) session? Your recommendations would be most appreciated!
I don't see much value in a dedicated arm day. It's never that taxing and arms recover quite quickly. I'd start playing with increased frequency first, Ie. maybe going up to 2-4 days per week.
- Pascal
Thanks for the reply Pascal. Perhaps the drawback in putting the arm isolation exercises at the end of an upper body workout, instead of on their own day, would be that less weight can be lifted, fewer reps performed, as the bis and tris would already be fatigued to some extent. I don't know if this would make an appreciable difference in hypertrophy over the long term, however.
i currently do 3 day/week full body. let's take pulling compounds: chin ups (mon), rows (wed), pull ups wide grip (fri).
legs: front squats (mon), walking lunges (wed), leg press and leg curls (fri).
would that be considered as too much variation? should i narrow it down to two or even one exercise and stick with that for one or more mesocycles?
That could be just fine and I wouldn't sweat it :)
- Coach Pascal
Guess it's time to stop doing rack pulls for grip strength. I have noticed that my waist has grown larger since I started doing them.
Oups, haha
- Pascal
Timestamps in the comments is better because listeners can jump to that time by clicking on the timestamp
You can do so with the timestamps in the description as well
Revive Stronger - ohh ok. That must be true for desktops because it doesn't work on my phone (android)
00:48 Menno defines "Exercise Selection"
07:04 Eric gives his views on what "Exercise Selection" is
08:22 Mike adds his opinion on these terms
10:55 Menno responds to Mike's points on the bilateral deficit
13:18 Eric jumps in to address the topic around EMG-readings brought up by Menno
15:30 Mike talks about whether or not some exercises are better than others for hypertrophy
20:11 Eric comments on the points being made by Mike that compound lifts should be the bread and butter
21:21 Menno shares his thoughts on deadlifts for hypertrophy?
24:18 Mike appends on deadlifts for hypertrophy and the issue with axial loading
28:00 Eric expands on the topic around deadlifts for hypertrophy
30:07 Furthermore, Eric moves on to talking about how often people should vary exercises
34:08 Menno talks about his principles on exercise variation
36:02 Mike gives his slightly different view on exercise variation
41:59 Eric responds to Mike's theory for the necessity for more frequent variation
48:03 Mike criticises Eric's view and brings up a question for Eric
51:49 Mike replies with his understanding of "Variation"
55:02 Eric follows up with sharing his view on the term "variation"
56:17 Menno finishes with talking about the necessity of variation for hypertrophy
59:42 Mike brings up the important point about common misconceptions and mistakes people make when it comes to exercise selection
1:04:35 Eric shares his thoughts on switching exercises from microcycle to microcycle
1:07:55 Eric follows up with talking about too many exercises in one single session
1:09:42 Mike responds to the issue of exercise rotation from workout to workout and touches on junk volume
Harold Bauer - my duuuude! Thank you!
im confused. can someone clear this up for me?.. they say don't vary up primary exercises more than once every 3-4 mesocycles. If a mesocycle is, say 2 months, they are saying do the same kind of pullup for 6 months? lets say your week has 4 back exercises: pullup, barbell row, chinup, narrow cable pull... that means you will only do those 4 exercises for 6 months, and only vary up sets/reps/rest, tempo etc every mesocycle?
A meso of 2 month? That's quite a long meso actually.
But yeah, that's correct
- Pascal
Who tf out here believes RDLs don’t hit your hamstrings? Those things blow my hamstrings up
I don't know. Killer exercise
- Coach Pascal
I understand that DOMS and muscle damage have no causative relationship, but I have to say, RDL got me sore every single time lmao
Yeah 😎👌🏼
Ouw yeah
Will this be released on itunes aswell?
Yes, Itunes is always out on Tuesdays. Sorry, it's Itunes :S
💪💪❤️❤️‼️
Thank you!
- Coach Jess
How many cups of coffee did Mike drink before this panel?
Not enough or too many haha?
Thanks for watching!
- Coach Jess
19:00 When the dog steals the show...
Oh My.... Fucking GODDD
Ouw yes!
Revive Stronger really enjoyed it. Thank you Steve!!!
OH FUCK YES. #HypeTrainForGain(z)
With da Z!
I see some contradiction in what Mike uses to say about for example 6 sets of squats on Monday and 6 sets of leg presses on Thursday it's supposed to that you want to be as "expert" /motor pattern used to to a certain exercise to let those neural adaptations aside and really progress "muscularly" might be a better idea to perform each big compound movement multiple times per week, so if you want to pick up those two perform 3 of each the 2 leg sessions or at least the most important one, for example squat 6 sets the first day, 3 the second (as a motor pattern reminder and overloading movement) and then 3 more sets of other movement like leg Press. If anyone wants to give his/her opinion I'll be happy to hear it
Mmh, it really depends on the context.
There are many ways to set up a proper routine. You need to consider, that when you're not a powerlifter, neural adaptations are nearly not as important. Furthermore, once you nailed your squat form, once per week can be more than enough to still increase your squat.
Also, keep in mind that the stronger you get, the more likely it becomes that you need to reduce the frequency of squatting when hypertrophy is your main goal. Simply because the higher the load gets, the more taxing it gets for your entire system.
I wouldn't deem myself as particularly strong but currently, I'm squatting 170kg for 10 reps for only 3-4 sets per week and I couldn't do that twice per week and still get an insufficient amount of volume for my quads to grow. This brings me to another point, exercise selection is mostly being used to get in a different stimulus or/and accumulate more volume for a particular body part.
Hope that helps but this was only touching the surface :)
Revive Stronger thank you so much! That first part of your answer made me realize that not being Powerlifter, once per week on a movement could be enough, thanks for your answer en your time!
No worries at all buddy :)
Lol,Mike is just so much bigger than Menno or Eric. Anecdote? Genetics? Is it the shake he's drinkin? Nope, it's RP baby!
And now imagine if they were to do a fusion
- Pascal
Aren't Menno and Eric natural?
Steve, those guys clearly know nothing, seeing as the biggest people at my gym are all bald, have fits of rage at the reception lady, super set rack pulls with halfway-down bench presses and frequently get stung by bees when coming out of the changing rooms.
The real highlight 0:21
The real highlight is your name
Rack pulls above the knees are awesome for upper traps. To claim people do them to solely look like they lift heavy or are lazy is retarded. It literally blows up your tarps. If your enhanced and are deadlifting over 700 pounds then yeah don’t do them but for everyone they’re great. Obviously farmers walks and shrugs are good tools but rpak help you over load the traps. I suggest 3x5 rpak followed by farmers walks and shrugs
I wholeheartedly disagree but I said my piece many times in that regard already.
I know people love the rack pulls bc of the overload but I’m actually more of a fan of power shrugs for traps. There’s still a lot of overload but when done for high reps you can really punish the traps in addition to not having to load up a ridiculous amount of weight and ruin barbells.
No
Rack pulls build the traps yo. Weighted stretch.
But is it the *most* efficient?
- Coach Jess
@@ReviveStronger For targeting trap hypertrophy? Absolutely. High pin rack pull is the squat of traps.