 Hello everyone, welcome back to Mind Pump. In this episode we talk about lifting heavy versus lifting light. The pros, the cons, what's better for building muscle, which is better for building strength, you're going to learn all about it right here in this episode. Finally, we have another channel called Mind Pump Clips where we've taken short segments from these longer episodes so that you can easily share them and enjoy them in a much shorter period of time. Go over to Mind Pump Clips and subscribe and enjoy the rest of this show. All right, check this out, there's two main ways to strength train. The first one is to make heavy weights feel light. The second one is to make light weights feel heavy. Both have tremendous value. I love this point and I know you did this as a fitness tip a while back and I think it was our friend Ben Pakolsky I heard say it like you lift like a bodybuilder one way and then you lift like a powerlifter the other way and in learning how to visualize what does that mean or what does that look like is I thought was a really powerful analogy for trying to teach the average lifter what you mean. Those are the two best examples because powerlifters and bodybuilders both lift weights, right? They both strength train, they both build muscle, they both develop their bodies and their intent is completely different. It is and they both do like similar exercises. I mean there's definitely exercises bodybuilders do that powerlifters don't do and there's certain exercises that powerlifters do that bodybuilders don't do much but there's so much crossover, right? So in fact back in the day bodybuilders and powerlifters train quite similarly back in the day and they both develop tremendous physique. They both build lots of muscle, lots of stuff but boy do they lift differently and I don't mean differently as in different exercises and stuff like that necessarily but even when you watch them do the same exercises watch a bodybuilder do a bench press, watch a powerlifter do a bench press, watch a bodybuilder squat versus a powerlifter, watch them do a row, watch them do even curls with powerlifters only a lot of curls but some of them do lots of curls, will do curls to protect the biceps for certain exercises like deadlifts. The intent and the technique are very different and it's literally it can be broken down like this. A powerlifter is always trying to make heavy weight feel as light as possible and a bodybuilder is always trying to make a light weight feel as heavy as possible. It's a very, very different approach to lifting. Well I would also say that bodybuilders very much pay attention to the feel of the muscle versus the powerlifter, the movement in the technique. Yes. But that falls in line with yes they're trying to get if you're a powerlifter you're trying to move the weight as efficiently as possible with the least amount of, well the maximal amount of effort that's necessary. Versus like a bodybuilder you're going to want to make everything extra difficult for your muscle to endure. No, this wasn't in your notes to talk about this but this conversation I've thought about this conversation a lot and curious to what you guys think. Do you think that one of these characters, okay so you have bodybuilder, do you think one of them benefits more from training like the other than the other one does? You understand what I'm asking? Yeah, really good question. Right, like who do you think gets it? When they cross over who has the biggest response. Yes, like you have two different types of ways of training and we obviously we agree that both have carryover both see benefits but do you think that one of them gets a little bit more benefits than the other one? I do, I'm just curious what you guys. Well I'd like to hear what you have to say because if I think super high-level competitors it changes versus the typical like. Yeah, I can make the argument for power lifters actually going to bodybuilding and only from a longevity perspective. So I believe the bodybuilder gets more benefit from learning to train like a power lifter than the power lifter gets from learning to train like a bodybuilder. Why? Because the power lifter does not care how he looks at all like he could have a big old beer belly or whatever like that so getting certain muscles to fire better from them does not matter so much as it does moving the weight as efficiently as possible for their sport. So even though I do believe that they would get benefit from learning how to control specific muscles and to move out of that phase and feel the weight I do like I don't disagree with that I just think that the bodybuilder though would get tremendous benefits from learning how to just move the bar. I think that he will build more muscle. Yeah. He will build more and building more muscle in the game of building an aesthetic physique tends to have more value than maybe the power. That's my I think you can make an argument for that. My argument would be more around in terms of like joint health and longevity and you know power lifters it's just the risk reward goes up like quite substantially especially over time so to shift then into bodybuilding. That's a good point. I feel like they will be able to keep up their training going up into their 60s 70s 80s like much more effectively than they would maintaining this like power lifting. You know what's interesting about this conversation is because I followed both sports quite a bit when I was younger and what's interesting is there's periods of time where bodybuilders will borrow or use more powerlifting techniques and then there's periods of time where power lifters will borrow or use more of the bodybuilding techniques like like I remember there was a period there where bodybuilder excuse me power lifters would talk about how just hypertrophy and growth contributed to their lifts and so you know you should definitely go through kind of these these bodybuilding phases. I remember when power lifters it was a big debate as to whether or not trained the biceps was even important and then power lifters said well yeah look at these bicep tears that a lot of guys are getting you know doing these deadlifts and so then they kind of start incorporating and then there was periods where bodybuilders did lots of powerlifting cycles and I mean it was actually you know bodybuilding had a lot of powerlifting in the early days and then it kind of went away to the point where bodybuilders didn't even do the big three lifts maybe just bench press but nobody deadlifted and squatted and then you had periods of time when they did you know Ronnie Coleman famously squatted and deadlifted was also a powerlifter before he was ever a bodybuilder and today you're seeing more bodybuilders high-level bodybuilders start to incorporate those movements because they're getting these these huge results there's just a lot of there's a lot of carry over and there's pros and cons to both now I think of the average lifter when I think of the average lifter I think it's pretty even because I think of the average lifter yeah that adopts mainly bodybuilding stuff or the average lifter that adopts mainly powerlifting type techniques and ideologies they're both missing out I would say quite equally on what they could accomplish with their body even if your goal is just to be I don't think there's any debate there I don't think there's any debate around the general population getting equal value from both I mean you could throw in mobility and sports performance training in there right with that too and make the same case sure if you're just an average gym goer who is just trying to be healthy and strong and fit and mobile and active and you know minimal to no joint pain then cycling through all those modalities is ideal for that person and miss in not doing one of them you're you're you're missing out on tremendous benefits but I'm thinking at the highest level who is who would get the the most benefit for the carryover so like if you took a top level bodybuilder versus a top level power right and say they can see that argument right and they both neglected that you know not training like the other one who gets the most benefit from that and I guess I'm also speaking from personal experience because you were in that you were in the bodybuilding space right I was always in that even when I was not like competing yeah I was always in the the business of sculpting my physique or that's what I cared about the most it's it is interesting how both spaces can almost sometimes show disdain or make fun of the other space sure right like your bodybuilders look at the power look you're fat or you're not you know developing this or I don't care how much you lift or whatever and the power lifts look at bodybuilders you guys are weak you know oh that's nice you look good but yeah can you do this yeah can you do this or that it's um it's really interesting I do want to be clear because someone might get confused and think this is about exercises oh power lifters do these exercise body was to some extent that's true but that's how we're talking about no what we're talking about is take the same exercises how they move the weight that's it I don't care what the exercise is in fact there is a heavy make heavy weight feel light mentality and there's a make lightweight feel heavy mentality that you can apply to any exercise that you can do in strength training I don't care what the exercise you could be a curl you can make a heavy weight feel light with a curl or you can make a lightweight feel heavy with a curl and that's what we're talking about so because I think we've made the case enough on our podcast that the all these all exercise have value and that the big compound lifts probably have the most value but man can you do a squat a dead lift bench press and overhead press which we consider like the big four right can you do them with completely different intent make them feel and look completely different based on what we're talking about yes absolutely 100 yes and so that's what we're talking about and so what you could do with your workout is without even changing the exercises you could go in there with one type of mentality or another type of mentality and what you'll get out of both are pros and cons and it's important to know what the strengths and weaknesses are because then what happens is you could take your programming and knowing the strengths and weaknesses you can phase your training you can mold your training so that you and this is what this is always the goal with exercise program is what makes really good coaches this is what makes great coaches great coaches is they know how to maximize the pros and minimize the cons shitty programming does the opposite minimizes the pros maximizes the cons right so that's what we're really talking about because I know people are going to think oh well it's the exercises no it's the intent no no I mean this really to me highlights a seasoned lifter one that has this ability and I know we're mainly talking about you know the the power lifter and bodybuilder mindset but I would throw athletic training in there also totally because I think that you know learning to come in with that you could do and again with athletic training if we were to add that to this this group you you could do all the same exercises but they end up being completely different with the mindset you go into it simply how you go about the in fact I would compare heavy and light to what we're saying with athletic training to maximum performance to correctional exercise because maximum performance is very much like making heavy weight feel light correctional exercise is very much like making lightweight feel heavy so it's a very very similar that's a similar comparison that's why this is such a good general category that applies to all strength training pursuits and depending on what your goal is and how you're working towards that goal you'll spend more time in one versus the other but everybody should spend some time in both well and this is important because I I'm realizing that we get more calls of people that will apply the same type of mindset going into other programs that have a very similar structure of exercises and they're looking at it from the way that they would approach those same reps with that heavy mindset right like they're trying to move the weight as effectively as possible when in fact we've increased the number of reps when in fact the whole protocol is different and more geared towards you know that lighter mindset making the lightweight heavy so it's it's an important concept to bring into your workouts totally what's up everybody here's a giveaway for today's episode maps aesthetic this is the bodybuilding style maps program and it's free for you if you do this and if you win leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode subscribe to this channel turn on notifications if we do if you do all three of those things and we like your comment we'll notify you only in the comment section we'll tell you that you won though that program for free now of everybody else we got a sale going on right now check this out maps symmetry 50 off and maps strong 50 off so both real popular programs both half off if you want to sign up or learn more click on the link at the top of the description below to get started all right here comes a show all right so let's talk about heavy for a second so what makes a heavy weight feel light it's maximizing efficiency maximizing efficiency so when i'm lifting away by the way i'll again i want to be clear in both scenarios i am not talking about crappy form in fact good form is important for both of them so again i don't want people get confused but oh maximizing efficiency i'm going to make this shitty form so i can move the way no that doesn't work in fact if you have shitty form with heavy weight you're going to hurt yourself so it's always good form but the intense different you're maximizing efficiency of the lift when you're trying to make a heavy weight feel light so what does that mean that means you're moving the bar in a way that allows you to max to lift as much weight as possible with this minimal effort as possible with your body you're looking for no leaks in energy you're not looking for feeling a muscle squeeze like when you're bench pressing a heavy weight and you're trying to make it feel light what you're not doing is saying let me feel this in this part of my pack or in my triceps or my shoulder you don't care about that no the goal is how can i lift this weight feeling tight controlled and efficient how do i move how do i make this movement uh in a way to where i can move as much weight as possible with this minimal injury of risk that's what i think by maximizing efficiency and you are trying to organize your entire body from head to toe in effort in that effort yes which is the opposite of the other category right you are within when you are lifting like this you are literally thinking from your toes all the way up to your neck yes how everything is engaged to now move this bench press this squat this snatch whatever yeah well it's my orchestra versus single uh instrument sort of analogy thing like you have to like make sure that everything is is together and it's in unison versus you know really isolating and trying to find that one instrument that's yeah what's funny so we'll get to the the the other side here for a second but just to use a simple example i was thinking about if you're doing like a row i say you're doing a barbell row or dumbbell row and you're trying to make heavy weight feel light you've got a i'll just use one example you've got a hard grip on that dumbbell or that bar you are squeezing the shit out of it and you're moving that weight you'll often see bodybuilders who are trying to make a lightweight feel heavy use a grip like this where the bar is at the ends of their fingertips or they'll do a curl sometimes like this with the wrist cock back with barely where you're not going to be able to lift nearly as much weight with that but what they're trying to do is disengage certain muscles to feel other muscles whereas if you're making heavy weight feel light you're like turn everything on let's go i want all the muscles i can't help me move this yeah i mean you're considering when you're moving heavy weight to how you have to anchor your body and how you have to create these ground forces and and create basically make sure that no rotation happens within any joint yes for certain types of movements and so it's like becoming as rigid as possible throughout your whole body so that way now we can perform a very vertical line as effectively and efficiently as possible totally so what's the focus feel like for this well if you've ever watched a powerlifting meet it can actually be kind of weird if you've never done powerlifting maybe even intimidating lots of face slapping and smelling ammonia and you know angry music and you are psyching yourself piping up you are going in and you are like because you're trying to do is you're trying to get your cns as fired up as possible and then when you get under the bar or you you grab the dumbbells it's like turn everything on and let's go right and lift the weight it's a very different focus from you know when you lift a lighter weight to try to make it feel heavy you are going in there and you are like go through this weight make it happen and make it happen in a very efficient possible way possible this is important to understand because the focus that goes into your lift will contribute greatly to to the type of lift that you do and the kind of results that you get from it oh i think that the rituals that people like to do before lifts uh bode themselves well here as yes in in comparison to the other group like in fact i didn't even ever really get into that until i started like powerlifting until i started trying to lift singles and doubles and did i ever get into this like little how i walk up to the bar right how i position my feet my hips when i do my arms like you need that to replicate oh yeah i never did that i trained for over 10 years uh of just getting on the bar and actually thinking like what sal said relaxing a lot of parts of my body yeah like oh opening the wrist up relaxing okay just just think about the chest and not trying to tense up anything so there wasn't this like ritual to get under the bench like so i benched so different today because it is this kind of combination of a powerlifter and a bodybuilder yeah so i have this like get out of there get wedged under get ground my feet real tight but then pull off like a bodybuilder relax so it's it's really so if someone were to pick me apart like that they would totally make fun of me because i i don't really identify as one or the other it's that i've taken some things that i really like from what i learned from training like a powerlifter and then things that i've learned from training like a bodybuilder and i've combined and it makes it and it makes it work out so much more for sure what are some of the pros of lifting like this again we're talking about the average person here okay lifting like this really does a great job of building overall muscle you're gonna build more general overall muscle in your body because of the sheer tension that's involved when you're moving maximal weight it's not just that it's and it's something that you said and i used to repeat it all the time after you said it because it was like the first time i'd ever heard anybody say it this way and i haven't repeated in a long time is when you used to give the the amplifier analogy to the speakers i love that analogy and i never thought about powerlifting and training like you know where you're trying to really fire the cns and and basically i'm investing in building my central nervous system it's efficiency turning up that amplitude and anybody who understands how speakers work knows that you can have the most expensive baddest hugest subwoofers in the world but if you have some cheap ass you know 200 watt amplifier you ain't gonna get shit out of those speakers and in fact most people that really understand stereosis it would argue that the amplifier and tuner is the most valuable part of the speaker system and so i and that's why i love that analogy because i think like when you when you get into training like a powerlifter you are really learning how to build an efficient central nervous system and and that's what i felt i got out of training this way was i now learned how to call upon my muscles like i never have before because i had never put a lot of effort towards the amplifier i'd always put this effort towards the speakers right then you get so much more effective and efficient and energy management so when you're moving around you are able to apply that instant the the maximum amount of force that you need but not no more right and you're able to relax your body and move fluidly so it definitely applies to athletics as well as it does powerlifting so i mean that's just something that will apply to a lot more real world situations too because you have to organize your entire body a lot of times to lift something off the ground to put something overhead so a lot more real world kind of functional strength that yes i feel like what do you mean by functional strength i've heard people say it's all functional yeah okay technically that's true however in the real world when you're moving couches and boxes and your tv and whatever you're not trying to make those things feel heavier you want to make them feel lighter so this kind of training lee it it it lends itself better to real world applicable strength because if you've ever worked with a blue collar worker and you've ever done hard labor with them what you see with them i mean you i've worked with men in their 60s doing stuff like this and what you see is incredible efficiency like they can do things that i can't because they've learned how to become so efficient not to mention they don't give a shit how good your chest looks they want to make sure you can pick up that you're lifting your couch i don't give a shit your pecs look good if you can't help help with your end yeah exactly i say you lift the couch you're not thinking like lads you're not like hey your chest looks really good bro nobody care they pick up the couch and let's move it let's make this happen it builds a very solid body i have no no like i don't think there's any studies that support this but this is this has been you know i don't know strength training anecdote or wisdom for decades which is training in this way tends to produce this very granite hard solid feeling body now bodybuilders in the 60s and 70s they would go through power lifting cycles because they would say the same thing like arnold would say it gives me a granite look to my body so it does tend to build this really solid tight strong dense looking body from a visual standpoint i remember adam when you were bodybuilding and you switched over to the style of training just for a short period of time you even commented that it made your body feel that way or look that way so it's really interesting i would i would argue to the death of me that there's a huge difference yes and i and i don't know if it's more about the heavy lifting or it's more about training for the pump is more about fluid that you're teaching your body to be able to hold in cells and so that gives you this temporary temporary temporary inflation or look to the muscle versus lifting really heavy weight gives you kind of this permanent look that's and that's how i would describe it to somebody on like what i notice a difference like when i trained like a bodybuilder for so many years i used to always have this feeling of when i drank all the fluid and got in there and i lifted i looked i looked twice my size but then 20 minutes later that would all kind of air out and then i feel like i did you could barely tell i really lifted that much that's how i felt right and it wasn't until i started power lifting that i get this look where i built muscle and maybe i didn't look as filled out as the pump look gave me but it looked like i built legitimate muscle that didn't need to be aired up to look bigger right that makes sense like that that was the way and and so i don't know if that's more that's the theory the theory is that the the actual contractual tissue the muscle fibers grow more with this kind of training versus the other style which also grows muscle fiber but also adds to all of the non muscle fiber structures and muscle glycogen fluid capillaries all the which also makes up the size i mean 70 percent of your muscle is not muscle fiber it's all that other stuff so that's the theory we don't have any evidence like scientific evidence to support it but we've got decades of strength athletes talking about you know this particular well i think too that besides the back that's definitely an obvious one to see you know different style of training you could see somebody who's probably doing more power lifting or compound lifts you know what that does to their back but really their core is very much something that stands out and just seeing somebody that's you know more a little more focused on the heavy end you can see what that does to their obliques you could see what that does to everything you know in their back and their rectors like it's just it's one of those things that if you don't do it you just don't see a pronounced visual representation of that right now so talk about the cons now so what it's everybody's oh this is great this is how i want to train all the time ah not so fast there's some cons one of them is a higher injury risk for sure yeah this style of training risk reward is far more prone to injury far more prone to injury because with this style of training you're always pushing the limits of how much weight you can lift and yes you are trying to maximize efficiency but as the weight gets heavier and heavier the smallest of inefficiencies in your lift can produce high risks of injury i mean if you're squatting 500 pounds and your technique is off by a half a degree um that could hurt you right away i mean you could totally get hurt you're pushing heavy weight you're pulling heavy weight you're you're firing your cns you're psyching yourself off you're and so the risk of injury just because the weight the sheer weight even with good form i mean a perfect form with the same lifter right a perfect form 500 pound squat has a higher injury risk than a perfect form 200 pound squat obviously with the same lifter even if they make the 200 pound squat feel heavy with what we're about to talk about so the risk of injury is much higher the other part is training this way tends to definitely definitely stresses the connective tissue the ligaments and the tendons much more because those are things that the muscle anchors to and so what you'll find if you train like this all the time all the time all the time is you just start to get sore joints and you start to get sore at the insertion point i would i would add another con to this um i find uh this one feeds the ego more therefore it's tougher for me to move away from it after i'm in it if that makes sense because when i when i'm hitting PRs and i'm i'm seeing weight on the bar more than i ever have i like that and i'm not even a power lifting guy i'm a bodybuilder guy and yet when i see like oh man this is the most weight i've ever squatted oh this is the most i did live i want to keep going i want to stay in that it's difficult for me to tell myself like i need to move away from this i would you know what this is a good point yeah this is interesting yeah but i'll say this i'm gonna agree but i'm also gonna bring on to the point because i think it could be both sides yeah i think when you're bulking this is great when you're cutting now i've messed with the ego if i'm trying to get if i'm trying to get leaner and i'm trying to lift heavy now my ego is getting hurt if i'm trying to bulk with the make the lightweight feel heavy thing and i'm all interested in body sculpting that's what it messes with my ego so i think they both can mess with your ego depending on the way of your training and maybe even the i do see the big ego attachment there of prs uh because it is a big focus is the loading of the weight and then but on the other end of it i've obviously you'll see the ego come out through the size of your muscle and the visual of it right so it's it's interesting to think about it but that's definitely there i mean obviously i'm speaking from personal experience right so everyone has probably their their own journey um but i've i've lived in both spaces i would think that i actually identify as a bodybuilder type of person more than i do a powerlifter yeah no doubt it's hard to see the weight go down yeah it is and and and even for a guy who doesn't care about that as much it's it you can get you can get uh uh in that race to keep putting more and more when you start seeing numbers go up or seeing numbers that you've never seen before even though i know better it's time for me to move out so personally i would list that as an added con i never have that problem with bodybuilding when i'm lifting like a bodybuilder and i'm trying to make a lightweight feel heavy weight becomes arbitrary to me yeah so moving to low reps high reps being low carb high carb oh i'm weak it doesn't it doesn't matter i'm all in my mind i'm always weak like i'm always trying to make myself feel weak no matter what is on the bar when i'm when i'm in full bodybuilder mode but when i'm in powerlifting mode strength guy i am looking at the weight and that's actually one of my best indicators of like oh i'm moving the weight good because i'm getting stronger and stronger so i find that one of the cons is that it's hard to move away from it because the the chasing the weight on the bar can become very yeah i could see that all right so let's talk about making lightweight feel heavy all right so now what you're trying to do okay in the context of good form rather than maximizing efficiency you're actually trying to maximize inefficiency i'm trying to make the weight feel heavy as heavy as possible can i make these 20 pound dumbbells with this overhead press fry my shoulders like if i was lifting 60 pound dumbbells and and you can do this if you get really good at this bodybuilders are the best at this a really really good bodybuilder could work out with weight that you would look at and be like why are they using such lightweight and yet they'd get a phenomenal workout and a crazy pump it's all about maximizing the inefficiency of the exercise so that example like you could see one way to achieve that is to not fully lock out so they maintain this muscle tension that's why they'll start doing that so they'll start doing things like that that will show up to really stress the muscle even more the entire set of reps that you're doing and then also like tempo it will show up in angles lots and lots of angles well i like the tempo is a big one yeah that to me that that's like like again going back to what i was saying before about like weight is it doesn't matter anymore to me because it doesn't matter what exercise i'm doing it's going to be heavy so like like what i love about this is that when i'm training with this mindset and i come to gym and i put weight on the bar it actually doesn't matter if i got good sleep or bad sleep with that i can and i can start with a what could be or maybe i got great sleep but i feel really doesn't matter i put 135 on the bar and 135 i'm gonna make heavy yes no matter what whether i had great sleep not good sleep or is it naturally already heavy because i didn't get those things or maybe i got great sleep and fully fed and so it feels like it doesn't matter it's gonna end up feeling heavy because i'll mess with tempo which is how i used to teach people with form like i would always when a client would ask me oh let's go up and wait this is easy for me i say oh then we'll just slow down the last three to four reps let's make it heavy let's take those last ones slow and and i would manipulate tempo all the time to make these weights actually good two things i want to point out one is i forgot to mention this con with the heavy making heavy weight feel light which is it's hard to bring up a lagging body parts with this because your because you're making an exercise as efficient as possible if that means when you squat you engage your quads more than your glutes so be it that's what's going to end up happening right so then you may under develop your glutes and that's what ends up happening and if you continue to train by making heavy weight feel light well you're going to continue to use this pattern that works best for your body meaning you're not going to bring up the slagging body part well now we get to the lightweight the goal is to focus on the target muscle this is so when we talk about tempo and we talk about you know maximizing inefficiency really what this is it's all about the feel it's all about the feel so if i'm doing a squat heavy to make it feel light i don't give i don't care if i feel my quads hamstrings or my glutes or whatever let's just move it in the way that moves the weight the best yeah okay when i'm bodybuilding where i'm doing this make lightweight feel heavy i'm thinking what muscle i'm trying to work i'm trying to work my glutes all right let's make the squat let's put this lightweight on the bar and let's move in a way with a slow tempo but also this is the most important part because you could do slow tempo and still do this wrong you could go slow tempo and still train without targeting what you're trying to target it's all about the feel 100 about the feel not the feel like how do i make this weight feel light but rather how do i feel the muscles that i'm trying to work by the way studies show this studies show this quite clearly that when people do this they do activate target quote unquote target muscles even better so this is all about feeling the muscle versus heavy weight where it's not about feeling the muscle at all it's all about feeling the movement so this allows you to target and squeeze specific parts of your body this is when you can take an exercise like a row and i can make it hit my lats i can make it hit my rhomboids or metropesias or if i want to i can even make a row of my biceps more than my than all those other muscles yeah i mean this is one of those things they talk about is the mind muscle connection this is where i always got the most value from this especially like introducing it to clients as well as just yeah you slow the tempo down but really you do have a lot of control as to how many muscle fibers you recruit based on how much you're focused on that muscle group and how much squeeze and feel that you can produce so it's very valuable in a sense to figure out you know if there are you know maybe some weak areas maybe some muscle groups that are underdeveloped that we can then direct all our focus there and we can really like make a massive impact by focusing mind muscle uh to that area well this is why to bring us to the second point why the focus is so different getting up to lift right so i'm getting ready to power lift i have this ritual you know the way i step up the way i grip the floor what i do with my arms like this whole ritual to come in the bar when i'm thinking a bodybuilder i'm actually already thinking i'm already before i even get to the bar i'm flexing the muscles that i'm going to go hit yeah because i want to make sure i'm i'm i'm i'm so i'm climbing them for yeah i'm already connected so well that i can i can i can activate my back just thinking about it yeah so i'm gonna get ready i'm gonna go do a bit over row right now and i'm already i'm already starting to fire my back without any resistance because i know when i get under that bar that's i want to think about that the entire time so the the thought process and the even the the walk up to the bar is a different process than what it is when i'm getting ready to just rip the most weight i'm trying to do it's calm focus yeah whereas with the heavy weight it's like angry you know psych up it's totally different you're watching videos of lifters like ah and they yell and ah and that's like let's go move some heavy weight when it goes to like bodybuilding style it's like quiet and it's calm and it's focused i'm not trying to get oversight in fact over psyching myself up with making lightweight feel heavy ruins the exercise if i go to do a squat and i want to just feel it in my glutes if i over psych myself up i'm going to not feel it in the target muscles i'm just going to move the weight hell easy and i'm going to have to add weight to it versus i got to go in there calm it's just still focused but you're calm focused and i'm visualizing the muscle i'm visualizing the action of the muscle okay the glutes extend at the hips that's the movement that i'm trying to really focus on even though i'm doing the extension with the squat too i'm focusing more on hip extension right or when i'm benching right okay i want to feel it in the chest what was the chest do right that's that's this what's called adduction of humerus it's bringing the humerus closer to the center of my body so i'm getting under the bar calm focused and when i push the bar it's almost like i'm trying to disengage the triceps i'm trying to just make the chest do the work i'm literally like we're saying in this episode making the lightweight feel as heavy as possible i also focus way more on the eccentric portion than i do totally because yeah there's like no eccentric right well i mean still eccentric but it's all i mean they are but stay in tight control that's just not yeah it's less it's less it's less important when you're trying to move as much way as possible you you're not you're not necessarily trying to resist it as low as you can and activate that muscle on the way down if anything you're trying to conserve energy on the in eccentric what you're trying to do what's called stay in the groove yeah with your eccentric right with this i'm resisting it can i still feel the target muscle i'm trying to resist it which there is an art to that like it's it's relatively easy for the average lifter to fill a muscle on the concentric portion because there you're contracting that muscle so it's like oh okay yeah i feel the bicep but when you let it go down can you resist it with the bicep or it's real easy to press with your chest because you need those muscles to press it off but then can you resist it with the chest on the way down and not allow all those other muscles to kick in there's the art to this and there's where that focus comes in so when you come into a lift and i'm thinking like a body builder a lot of my focus is on the eccentric portion of the exercise and staying connected to that muscle during that entire and to me that is one of the the biggest glaring differences when i look at like my powerlifter friends standing next to a bodybuilder when if you if you pick apart their eccentric portion of the exercise you go oh it's you can tell it's and it's you got to use comp using use compound list for this example because i think it's easier to visualize because everybody's like well with the curl i could feel okay uh try doing a row and on the way down can you feel the lats on the way down or do you just lower the so what up with us when you're making heavy weight feel light what you're trying to do is you're trying to lower the bar in the efficient groove get into the groove so that i can push it up right when you're trying to feel the muscle you're like can i lower this while still feeling the target muscle this is a very this is a skill by the way both of these are skills i want to i want to be very clear both of what we're talking about are skills that you develop through practice and when you develop them and okay here's your evidence right here take an athlete that always trains heavy put them in a bodybuilding workout and watch them do lifts and you and bodybuilders will be like man that guy is not targeting the rear delt that guy's not hitting his lats that guy's not then take a bodybuilder have him do powerlifting and you watch them do a squat or a deadlift and it's like what are they doing they're they're individual either make the moving each muscle individually why don't they maximize in the lift or whatever it's a skill so practicing both of these gets you good at both of them by the way this makes you a master at strength training essentially yeah if you can if you can do that in a compound lift you are you are getting close to mastery i think of lifting i actually used to teach it with an an isolation exercise tricep push downs are my favorite try and i know you guys have had so many clients that do a tricep push down everybody fills it on the way down yeah but resisting it on the way back they let the cable yeah take it take it up or they tense their bicep up or they tense their shoulders up and they're like they don't feel it in their tricep at all so it's one of my favorite ways to teach what i'm trying to communicate right now on what we're trying to do in every exercise so if we are doing chest right now all the checks are to do i want you thinking on the way down resisting with the chest when we're doing these tricep push downs resisting it with the triceps and if you've never trained this way and you apply this i swear you get massive benefits from i mean research has already shown that the eccentric portion is one of the most valuable portions as far as building muscle yes but part of that research is is taking into consideration you're doing it properly if you're not if you're not resisting properly with with your triceps on a tricep extension then that you you're not going to make the case that's the key right there is yeah you're you're doing a negative with heavy weight but are you building the target muscle or are you just getting better at that exercise right right because here's here's the pros of making lightweight feel heavy this is how you bring up lagging body parts it you know by the way people who have lagging body parts and they work out regularly now sometimes it's because they don't train that body part so sometimes it's like yeah my calves aren't developed but and you're like well do you work out your calves well no barely but oftentimes it's like man i can't build my glutes but i squat and i deadlift and i do single leg deadlifts and i do this and you know oh but i can't develop my my lats but i do pull ups and rows and whatever i can't build my chest i do all these different chest presses and that's because they're not doing this very well which is making that lightweight feel heavy and changing the focus this kind of lifting is great for being in up lagging body parts as opposed to what we talked about earlier which can be terrible for bringing up lagging body parts like if you could bench press a lot of weight but you don't have a well-developed chest just continuing to bench press heavy weight means your body's going to lift it the best way it knows how which is not use the chest very much right if you could squat really well but your glutes aren't developed um and going heavy isn't going to make your glutes grow anymore because you're just going to do it the way you've always done it so going light and focusing on those areas and the feel now allows you to really create that tension in that target body part so this kind of lifting is great this is when you want to bring up a lagging body part this is exactly what you do as you lighten the load and then you focus on the feel and here's another pro this is much lower injury risk much lower injury risk like the peak like the bodybuilders who are still training in their 60s and 70s and whatever and with no injuries this is how they always train they always train by making lightweight feel heavy they always trained with this type of mentality and they tend to not get injuries the bodybuilders with all the injuries you know I hate to say it the ones that really went super heavy all the time talking extreme because you can do both and keep them relatively safe but to be quite honest the injury risk is much lower with this kind of well this is the most appealing part of training this way in my opinion it means that I could virtually sculpt the the physique that I want with the least amount of risk that's what makes it so appealing that's what made it so appealing to me forever so training this way puts me at the least amount of risk and I also have the capability to build the best body I could I possibly get sculpting my physique which it is way more difficult to do that with a power lifters as I get older because I like heavy lifting I've always liked heavy lifting as I get older I appreciate this style of training more because of that right there because at some point you start to reach certain levels of strength where the injury risk just gets higher if your form isn't absolutely perfect or whatever and so this type of training because more appealing as I get older where you know now I'm more focused on this style of training versus when I was in my 20s and 30s yeah well to your earlier point like you just start to feel that that stress intention on your ligaments and your joints doing the heavy lifting over you know a long course of time it just adds up and and stresses it out versus this type of mentality it's just it's one of those things like because you're getting more blood circulation too and you're doing more reps like there's there's a bit of a healing element there as well that I've noticed like you know switching it over from doing that heavy you know a high risk style training versus this right now let's talk about some cons right so it's great you can hit those target body parts and those that's injury risk but here's a deal it's true and this is you know more so for people who are beginner intermediate like once you get super advanced um then then this is less of a con but this is in the beginning it's you're just not going to build as much muscle it's just total muscle right so if I take two lifters who are getting you know who only have maybe six months of lifting experience and one person I talked I teach them just to feel the muscle and squeeze the muscle with every single lift and the other one I'm like let's maximize your your your exercise efficiency and really learn how to lift as much weight as possible the person lifting most weights going to build the most total muscle it's just the fact it just does that so it's this this isn't as much of a big muscle builder which is probably why Adam you said the bodybuilders in the beginning would benefit a lot from power lifting style training because they would just gain new muscle from training in this particular way yeah I and I also think that it's it's kind of compounding right if you get to for example like if I've never squatted over 225 trying to focus on let's say building my glutes because I trained always like a bodybuilder and I never went through a power lifting phase that pushed me over 400 I could never go back and do 315 and control and focus on my squats good point you understand what I'm saying like if you always train with the oh wait doesn't matter like I did for so long you never really pushed those boundaries to new limits on your body I'm always floating around let's say with the 225 squats just slowing the tempo down just point and so what what it opened for me was and I know you squats and glutes which was not really a focus mine probably would have been better for me was my back analogy right like it really opened up the amount of mass that I could build on my back because I had never pushed weights like four or five hundred pounds in a dead lift so all of a sudden now I could it took me forever and I can't remember the exact numbers but for this for making my point I let's say I was rowing like on a seated row where I could really activate my lats and think about the muscles you know with you know 150 let's say I would say that was like a heavy heavy weight but light enough that I could really control rolling the shoulders feeling in my lats and that was probably at my peak strength after I stopped rowing did nothing but deadlifting got really strong I got up to 550 pounds deadlifting then I come back I could do that same controlled rowing with like 225 pounds and so it now allows me to train like a bodybuilder connecting to these muscles with a higher stress than I ever could before and it opened that for me where I don't think that bodybuilding would have done the same for the power lift yeah I think I mean it's it's that systemic effect right versus sort of a localized approach and and there's a lot of muscle groups and and stabilizer type muscles that you probably aren't stressing enough doing you know a more bodybuilder style training whereas like you every everything it gets affected because it's it's all up the kinetic chain you have to ground yourself you have to brace your spine like there's just more demand going in that direction which you do get sort of that carryover of of more muscle mass as a result I think I definitely think it's that and I think a big portion of it is going back to the amplifier analogy yeah yeah I upgraded my amplifier like I never had before I've had the I built the big you know 12 inch or whatever subwoofers forever that were top of the line that were awesome because I put years and years and years into making those but I had been running off the same amp for forever and for the first time in my life I upgraded my amp and I didn't just kind of upgraded I upgraded it to a whole another level and and and now that amp could could blow those speakers out the water now it gives me the opportunity to go build 18 inch subwoofers or 20 it's a very good point you know I'm saying like that's what's so amazing about that so I think a lot of that goes back to the the cns morning if I had to attribute what I think it was the probably the most value I would agree and lastly the strength that you build training this way is just less applicable to the real world because as I said earlier in the real world the last thing you want to do when you're using strength when you have to use strength is make something like feel heavy you don't want to make light things feel heavy in the real world because in the real world I'm not trying to develop my biceps and my rear delts and my rhomboids and my traps when I'm moving a table or a couch or you know doing something that requires some strength I'm trying to do the opposite it but if I always train my body to feel heavy light weight feel heavy then when I go try to move heavy things in the real world I don't have the skill have the skill to do so and this is where sometimes bodybuilders get a bad rap where bodybuilders will go and and they'll go do something physical or whatever and people will like my guy that guy's 250 pounds and he's not he's not you know he looks like he's way stronger than he really is really what it is is they got the muscle they just don't have the the ability they don't have the skill of of doing what we're you know what we're kind of talking about so if you want to build applicable strength then the other style of training is going to give you more of that than this but I think the big point to make is this is if you plan on making strength training something that you do for long for a long period of time or or hopefully for the rest of your life these both of these are equally important both of them have pros and cons and again the key is to maximize the pros minimize the cons in plain speak what does that look like well it looks like phasing in and phasing out of each one of these styles of training three to six weeks in one three to six weeks in another one and what do you get with that more consistent progress less injury and a better looking physique look if you like mine pump you got to check out mine pump free dot com that's where we have all of our free guides that can help with lots of health and fitness goals you can also find all of us on social media so justin is on instagram at mine pump justin adam is on instagram mine pump adam and you can find me on twitter at mine pumps out this one's really important and that is to phase your training if somebody trains for a full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps if you compared that person to a person who did bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and three or four weeks of let's say 15 to 20 reps and then they'll throw in some supersets at the end of that year you're going to see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out and less injury that's another thing you'll see less injury as well