Training Principles and Movement Indexes

Yeah, so, all right. The first thing is when you're writing a training program, you have to look at things from both a balanced and imbalanced perspective. So if somebody's balanced, you can write a balanced program. If somebody's not balanced, you may need an imbalanced program to fix an imbalanced issue. So that's one of the things to be realistic with what you're trying to do. Like you said, guys, you know, international bench press and biceps day on every Monday or guys I seen guys when they start I did this when I started bench press and barbell curl like Monday Wednesday and Friday and hardly train your legs So it like you need to prioritize what needs to grow or what needs to get stronger That the first thing And then everything else comes down to exercise selection So making sure that you're pre-qualified to do a movement and you can do it. And if you're not, find a regressive, progressive model or an index. It's like we use Matt Max, one of my coaches, came up with this idea of creating all these indexes and then we've expanded them. So like, for example, if I had a brand new client, I'm probably not going to have them squat up front. I'm probably going to have them split squat first, and we're going to pre-qualify them through the split squats. And when they can do a normal split squat on the ground really well, then we're going to start thinking about moving into a squat. Or we may even think about a Bulgarian split squat first and then move them into a squat. Because to me, a Bulgarian split squat doesn't belong in the split squat index. It belongs in the single leg squat index because that's basically what it is, right? Split squat is more forward and backwards and Bulgarians more vertical. Right. So it makes sense to put it in there. So it's like. Let's see what you can do on split squat and we do it on the ground and they don't have the range of motion. OK, let's put this on a range of motion index. That's five foot elevated split squat is a regression from the split squat on the range of motion index. Right. Because it reduces the amount of range of motion you need. And it also reduces some of the loading on the front leg. So we start with front foot elevated. And when we clear that and we can get to the ground, that looks good. We might go to a slight hill elevate or slight real leg elevation. And we might go to a Bulgarian. And then cool. We've done, say, four to six months of split squats. Everything feels good. Everything looks good. Let's start squatting now. So don't think you need to jump into these big movements, because if you can't do the big movement correctly, there's always a unilateral or a machine or something else that you can use to prep you for that big movement. Now you look at like loadability indexes, the split squat, the regression of loadability is a rear foot elevated. The progression is a front foot elevated. So it's backwards because you can load a front foot elevated way more than a split squat. So you have to be very direct with your programming of what is the outcome of what we're doing? What are we trying to get out of this workout? What are we trying to get out of this week? What are we trying to get out of this training block and how does that match with the next thing we have planned and the next thing so that we get compounded interest through all of these training phases. So in a lot of cases, like I teach program design, go to the end first. What's your end goal? Because if you know your end goal, let's say it's peaking for powerlifting meet. You already know what you're going to do in that last block of training. You're going to have a deload. You're going to have a recovery. You're going to get meat prep. And now what do you need to do in the phase before that? Probably want to some maximal strength. What do you want to do in the phase before that? And you work your way back through all the strength qualities. So the thing that kills me is people going and they just wing it at the gym. Like I tell people you can exercise or you can train and they go, well, isn't training exercise? No, no exercise. You're just, you've got no plan. You have no outcome. Training is outcome based. I have a goal in mind or multiple goals, and I'm going to program and train to hit those goals. So even before you start writing a program, you have to have that insight. Like if you're going to go into the gym and spend four or five hours a week, and you're also going to tidy up your nutrition and your lifestyle, what are you trying to get out of it? Like, if you don't have a goal, why are you, why are you exercising? Like you can do any exercise after that, go run a fucking marathon, do whatever you want. Like it doesn't make any sense. If we're going to train, we're going to train, right? Yeah. Another one is don't get married. But it's like you, you, you're on a roll. On a roll. Another thing is don't get married to exercises. Like there are, there are times where there are exercises that you have to do. If it's sports, there are certain exercises you're going to have to do, especially if it's a barbell type of sport, you're in a CrossFit, you know, you're going to have barbells. If you're in a powerlifting meet, if you're in a weightlifting meet, you know, you're going to have that. It's like a high rocks. You know, you're going to have to get on the rower and you know, you're going to have to run. You know, you're going to have to do wall balls. You know, you're going to have to do farmer's carry. So you're going to have, you have to do those exercises because you don't want to try to work around those exercises and then go to a high-rex competition and find out you got a shitty grip and can't finish the farmer's walk, you know, or gas out on the wall balls. It doesn't make sense. So there is specificity. Sometimes you have to do certain exercises. Now for general health and fitness, there are no rules of that. Like if you feel more comfortable on machines and you feel a better connection to the movement and you like the external stability, cool. That's your choice. I would encourage people to try to do some three-dimensional movement because you cannot strengthen three-dimensional movement on a two-dimensional machine. So there are things you're going to get out of free weight exercises that you can't get on the machine. Just like there's stuff you can get on the machine that you can't get out of free weight exercises. If you do a back squat...

how much work is your rec fem doing? Not much. But if you do a leg extension, you're hammering the rec fem. So it's like, okay, if I want to work the rec fem, it makes sense to do knee extension. So either leg extension or I guess we used to call it natural leg extension. They call it now reverse Nordics, you know, people renaming shit. This is fine. But people get the idea, like you're going to have to focus on the extension. So be clear on what you're trying to do and what the intent of the workout is. And even with Gen Pop and general fitness stuff, their opportunities and their training menu is really broad. They could basically do anything and it's going to help them. But some things are better for certain things, like machines are better to have muscle-centric movement and to have external stability. But you don't really always want to have external stability if you're trying to use those exercises outside of the gym because you're not going to have that external stability outside of the gym. If you stumble on a set of stairs, you probably don't have anything you're going to catch yourself on. So you better be able to move in three dimension or you're going to roll your ankle. You're going to blow your knee. You're going to blow out your back. So make sure you keep some of those free weight movements in.