 All right guys welcome to day four the 21 convention 2010 This is it and it's gonna go by faster that you can ever imagine and we'll be out of here and I'll see in the year So I think you guys are coming appreciate a big time Our first speaker today is Bill de Simone. I got it, right? Yes always screws name up Very very important speaker that I'm very honored to have here everything that Mark Doug and Drew have talked about is gonna be further intensified and amplified by Bill in a very interesting way and the Bill is basically I think in my opinion the world's leader in biomechanics as it relates to exercise What he's gonna talk to you about today. No one else is talking about hence Doug really have to sky up with good reason You're at a book also called momentum exercise excellent book That I highly recommend. I have a copy myself. It's my backpack. I need to get assigned awesome book And he has a new one coming out. That will also be really really good So here from New Jersey bill to Simone. Thank you for coming. Thank you, man. I Will thank you Anthony Just to be clear though. I have no academic background in biomechanics So not a surgeon not a physical therapist not an exercise physiologist. I'm a trainer I've been training myself since 1970 I've been training clients since 1983 I've been certified by NSCA and ace a few times But around 1998 I ruptured my own biceps and triceps training and that led me to biomechanics books So for the last dozen years or so, I've been working on Taking the biomechanics material and relating it to what we do in a workout so This is what I hope we get out of today Basically why the biomechanics matter as opposed to just whaling way on yourself in the course of a workout First though, let me let me just show you some of the stuff I learned from before the biomechanics All right, this is Muscular Development magazine 1973 First magazine I bought off the newsstand first article. I read in it talked about a Pennsylvania man Found dead in his basement on his bench press He obviously missed the lift hit his chest the ball rolled onto his throat choked in the death. All right. Well, welcome to weight training So later on when I talk about rare catastrophic injuries, that's the type of thing I'm talking about this was a trade one of the first trade paperbacks on exercise and if you note the Groovy mustache and the exquisite form displayed in the squat exercise So that's a kind of a caliber of instruction that was out there then of course Please tell me you know who this is Okay All right. Thank you. Thank you. I did this at an nsca conference once and people had no idea who this was This was you know, the beginning of what muscle and fitness came from muscle builder power and As you can tell from the picture on the right Mind-blowing calves and calves are certainly the first thing that jumped out at you in that picture, right? All right, and then one of his contemporaries Please tell me you know who this is Okay, thank you Again, I did this at an nsca conference once it was guys It was you know chiropractors and therapists and they said oh what happened to his skin and I'm like this night, it's you know the The Eric Banner Hulk movie had just come out. I said are you serious? So that was Lou Ferrigno at 25 years apart and he still looks pretty close aside from the green He still looks like in that kind of shape today the other thing we had you had the magazines on the newsstand and Then you had the the courses that they would sell in the back of the magazines so this was like a comic book and we had a staple in it and was just folded over and You know, that's not the printing. That's not font That's typewriting because if you ran your finger across it it would smudge So this was Frank Zane Another guy in pretty good shape still today and near and dear to hit guys. This is Mike Menser From 76 and a little bit later in the the area of exercise He had he had his own niche at the end, but his real his real role was to kind of bridge the bodybuilders with Arthur Jones So Jones wasn't really bodybuilding minded, but he developed nautilus and medx machines the On the right is the original nautilus machine From the land, Florida, and then this is some of the mainstream stuff that came out education of a bodybuilder and three more reps and If you notice in the top this is this is from a George Butler book on Arnold and if you notice Above his head in the reflections as Menser is coming because at the time Even though even though Arnold obviously went on to much bigger things and Menser didn't at the time Arnold thought Menser was his top competition not only in The sport but in terms of his appeal to the general public. That's why the Menser is coming sign up on top of the mirror Now one thing about this material the bodybuilder the bodybuilding material at the time There was absolutely no biomechanics in it whatsoever. I mean it wasn't even wrong. It was so far off It might have reflected what they actually did so it wasn't quite fiction But the rationale behind it was somewhere between wishful thinking and magic But it was it is very it was very inspiring at the time So this is the best shape I could get in around 1996 Notice the intact biceps and triceps This was after rupturing the biceps notice the divot Well but subtly indicated by the fluorescent green circle and The left triceps is intact the right side. There's no medial head So the the head of the tricep closest to my body is pretty much gone at this point so So in between those two pictures I had ruptured my own biceps and triceps and When I looked into the injury What came out of the the not the muscle material, but the medical material is That that was a very common injury for people who are 60 years old for males around 60 years old But I was 40 at the time So my conclusion was the only thing I had done to accelerate the wear and tear on my shoulders Was weight training in general, but specifically using a really extreme range of motion so When they healed and I went back to working out I noticed that in some exercises. I lost no strength whatsoever. I could bench press I could chin up I could do a standing curl with the same weight same intensity as before Some exercises I couldn't even get into position I would try to do a concentration curl I would try to do a one-arm triceps and I couldn't even my arm would be shaking all over the place I had no control over it. So I put all the exercise books aside and Rob the physical therapist friend of mine's biomechanics textbooks. So these are the the academic Definitions of biomechanics For for me I look at it as Looking at how the bones and muscles of the spine handle load How the shapes and connections at your joints affect movement and How the muscles apply and resist force through the limbs But in the context of working out over a lifetime You know in fairness to the bodybuilding material if you take it at phase value The point of that stuff was to train for a photo shoot or for a contest It was never intended to be something you did for 20 30 40 50 years So 35 years or so ago as the mainstream Population became more interesting exercise The bodybuilders were the ones who knew the way around a weight room So everyone tried to train like a bodybuilder and now obviously if you're an executive or a homemaker or a student athlete That level of time and effort and discomfort is completely inappropriate so You know we call the personal training but the idea came up of tailoring the exercise program to the person Or what the person need the exercise program for nowadays they call that functional training So even though functional training as a whole has kind of gone off the rails a little bit as has personal training the idea of Training for a purpose not just not just spending hours in the gym Did took took you know took hold So this leads to our first our first question Just a quick show of hands here Who thinks a barbell squat is more functional than a leg press who would a barbell squat fans? I said what do we got here? So about half. So I guess everybody else thinks the leg press is more functional On the side get out of here quick quick quick a quick snap judgment, which is more functional squad or bench press leg press Good Lots of good question, which is a better exercise? That's okay. It's okay because that's I'm not going to answer that. We're just going to explore it. Okay so What does functional mean that's a good question and that right now in the exercise arena The finding functional training is an issue because it's used so broadly. It's used so broadly it covers bodyweight exercises apparatus vibration machines cable machines that kettlebells That's right. It's become almost almost meaningless, but but in more terms function is relating to its purpose relating to its design Really quickly I played rugby back in college and for us functional was what was going to help us play our sport better and be better at it And for us the big two were always Squats clean and jerks like we preach those and I mean we're probably wrong I'm guessing but I'm looking forward to the exploration of it, but that's what functional meant for our purposes. Okay Fair enough So here we go. All right, so We're gonna look at the bones and muscles involved here. Okay, so we're gonna start We're gonna start the midsection with the pelvis and work our way down So Pelvis is obviously fairly solid and thick right One immovable joint, but it's a solid block of bone on top of femurs strongest bones in the body right thick strong beams Which are on top of more beams the tibia and the fibula? Okay Which form with with the feet form a tripod? Okay, so you have basically below the knee you have a tripod you have the two shin bones plus the foot Above the knee you have the long beam of the femur resting on top of a solid block of bone the pelvis And when we look at the muscles Involved in moving those bones you've got the glutes connecting the pelvis to the femur right obviously a big muscle We've got three three hamstrings a decent sized muscle connecting the pelvis to the lower leg and Then another big set of muscles the quads connecting pelvis and the femur to the lower leg So below the waist we've got big bones big muscles Few relatively few attachments Pulling in few directions basically straighten the hip and straighten the knee. All right now. We're gonna look above the waist So we have three sections of vertebrae you have the lumbar thoracic and cervical Five lumbar vertebrae. Okay. These are the biggest thickest vertebrae at the bottom of your spine and They interlock so they don't rotate or bend to the side well and The function of that stability and of that size is to support all the weight above it Sitting on top of the the lumbar or the thoracic And if you look carefully you can see that the lower the most The lower most bones of the thoracic the ones just on top of the lumbar are Bigger and as you move towards the head the bones gets gets smaller All right That's because as you move towards the head. It's supporting less and less of a load also Notice the the process is sticking out the back of the thoracic The the literally the spines They're sticking out because the thoracic isn't as locked together as lumbar The thoracic is designed to rotate and those spines basically stop the rotation after about five degrees each or so the Now not not shown here is the cervical vertebrae Okay, but as you might guess they're they're smaller than the thoracic and have less restrictions on rotation Because again, they're only supporting the weight of the head So if we're just looking at the bones Bigger bones on the bottom a descending load at the top you're looking at a pyramid You're looking at a structure that's designed to support less weight as you move towards the top. All right, so Now starting from the bones we're going to work our way out muscle-wise the deepest level layer Connecting the spine or the rotator is which connect each vertebrae to the next horizontally and Each one is very short as is the The next layer above that the multifidus which connects each vertebrae diagonally to the one above it So, but so this is the shortest the multifidus is slightly longer, but the short length suggests Their function is to hold together hold statically not to twist the spine which would which would go with The thoracic you do need to be able to twist because the ribs are attached to the thoracic So you do need more general mobility up around the ribs, but the lumbar has to support the weight of your upper body The next layer is up semi-spinalis and rectus spinae. They're a little bit longer more superficial semi-spinalis connects the thoracic to the points above it Rectus spinae connects the lumbar and lower thoracic with the points above that So now the the most superficial muscles which are longer do account for more of the range of motion around the spine All right, so let's get back to the original question here below the waist Big bones, big muscles, few attachments, few directions Above the waist many bones in a pyramid structure Many small muscles Okay, so you have you have basically a mobile pyramid What happens when you put a barbell on top of your shoulders? What happens to that pyramid structure? Nobody nobody would design a tabletop with a pyramid base and put the tabletop on top of the pyramid If your structure is designed to support less load towards the top You wouldn't do that and then be shocked when it when the tabletop when it didn't work Okay The leg press on the other hand Has you move? Big weight with the big bones and big muscles of your body Also with the squat now to a degree your back muscles will get stronger as If you chain with the barbell on your back, all right But don't forget there's also discs in between the vertebrae and there are nerves coming through there So you're by adding as your leg hips and as your hips and legs get stronger And you're adding more weight to that bar. You're loading the spine and a bunch of different ways not just musculatively Are you with me so far? Do you see do you see where I'm going with this? Somehow barbell squats in the muscle media are considered more functional than a leg press But the question is functional for what? If you're if you're a power lifter and you have to squat if that's your your competition Yes, you have to squat you have to use a barbell squat because it's very specific But if you're an athlete and you're trying to train the muscles of your lower body The the the bar on the shoulders completely inverts the function of the spine Questions complaints. Yes, sir. What if you're training for a vertical jump? Is this is still more functional to use a leg press? Whether you're training for a vertical jump rugby MMA your spine is your spine right, so You know a vertical jump your Think about what's happening here The muscle of your spine are just supporting Descent you know descending weight as it moves up so Matching a barbell squat with that particular sport Again, you've inverted the demands you've inverted what the body has to do I Realize what I'm saying goes completely counter to sports conduct sports coaching muscle media. What have you? Okay, but your spine is your spine. I mean regardless of your sport so As far as a barbell squat goes, okay, some of the negatives would be the strain on the back muscles and the discs of the actual spine a Regular squat getting getting to what you getting to the point you make though is without the barbell The squatting motion does is more functional Your spine muscles can support the lighter. We're loaded the top of the head the Let me get here mechanically The bar the sticking point of a barbell squat happens at about the joint angle for peak torque for your glutes and your quads So I'll explain more about peak torque peak torque in a minute, but it does vary the resistance appropriately a regular freehand squat So the issue becomes How do you make it more challenging with a freehand squat? Now some some other joint issues with the squat Well, we'll go into the squat a little bit more if you notice if you squat down too low You're you're you look the curve in your lower back flattens out even though the spine is curved overall With the normal spine curves the discs in between or the pressure is