 question is from that fly guy. They say if you're tall, you are at a natural disadvantage for squats. Can you discuss different methods to progress and increase range of motion? Will I hit a point where I can't advance any further doing high bar back squats? All right, so I'm going to say something and then I want you to answer this, Adam, because I feel like you have the best experience being a very tall guy who's progressed a squat from terrible to phenomenal in a very short period of time. But before you do that, you know, here's the reason why tall people have been said to have disadvantages when it comes to certain exercises. What you're dealing with are levers. And the longer the lever is, the more force needs to be put on that lever to get it to lift the same amount of weight. So think about it this way. If I grab a shovel with a very, very long handle and I grab the very end of the handle and try and lift the shovel off the ground, it's going to be much more difficult than if I grab the handle closer to where the weight of the shovel is. More gravitational forces that are working against you. It's just leverage. It's just the way leverage works. So when you're tall, you have longer levers. Now that being said, tall people can oftentimes make up for it by having bigger muscles. Tall people have bigger muscles typically because they're taller. So when you look at the records in strength and general strength, look at strong men, they tend to be big dudes. They tend to be tall dudes. They're not typically short people. So yes, there's that leverage advantage, but it doesn't, but it's not the advantage that everybody says it is because the big people typically, maybe not on a pound for pound basis, but generally overall wise, can tend to have higher potentials for strength. Yes and no. For sure. And I think the examples you have of that are more deadlifting. It's advantageous to have long limbs when you're pulling. When you're pulling something, that the leverage is in your favor. Because if you think of how a deadlift works, having long arms is a shorter range of motion. It's a shorter range of motion that I have to lift the bar off the ground. And plus again, also physics understanding that if I have this long lever that you think of where the hips are at to where my arms go, that having that to pull something up is advantageous. So having long limbs for a deadlift is actually, which is why I can deadlift significantly more than what I can squat. So I don't think that we see the greatest squatters that are tall. I don't think that's true. But they're also not the shortest. That's what I mean because taller people have bigger muscles. So if you go to the extremes, it makes perfect sense. You're not going to get a seven foot basketball player and have them squat very effectively, but because of the long levers, but it doesn't go all the way down to like, okay, fine. Yeah, five to five, five guys not squatting the most. And even the strongman you brought up like to you always see their feats being like so much more substantial, like geared towards the deadlift, for instance, and carrying things versus the actual squat mechanics, but they are still putting up quite, you know, impressive numbers squat wise. It does. You know, and the things that have helped me with this is that it's how I've reframed almost everything in my life. I look at adversity and challenge. And I've tried to look at that instead of poor me or that sucks or make excuses. And oh, cool, this is an area that I can work hard at and try and improve. And even though when people look at my squad on my Instagram, I get all the trolls and it's not impressive. And it's like, whatever. To me, it's it's very impressive to what what I've accomplished. I was, I was a terrible back squatter. I had a chronic low back pain. I had bursitis in my hips. I could barely break 90 degrees when I squat. And, you know, three plates was heavy for me. So for me to be able to get to a place now where I can sit in a deep, deep squat and my squat mechanics feel really good. And my hip pain and my bursitis is gone. My low back pain is gone. And I'm pretty strong, relatively strong at squatting. That to me is means everything. But it's taken, you know, you know, Sal alluded to it being a short while, it's felt like a long time for me. It's been a lot of work, you know, I I constantly was focused on this. So when and when you're tall, there's common areas that I think that that you are challenged in. And one of those I think the number one in my opinion, and I did a YouTube video on this recently is the the combat stretch and ankle mobility. Yeah, because because the levers are so long, you need probably more ankle mobility than somebody who's short. For sure. I my knees need to be able to travel over my toes a lot further than what Justin's knees have to go over his toes. Because my shins are so long. And in order to get my ass all the way to the ground, I've got to have that mobility in my ankles to allow the and that was the number one limiting factor for me. As soon as I would get a little bit lower than 90, I would hit that end range of motion for my in my ankle mobility and then the breakdown in the squat would happen. You know, and then I would feel the pain in my hips and in my low back. So ankle mobility first was was everything was addressing that. And then the next thing after that was working on my hip mobility, the ability for me to open up my hips and drop that deep. I just unfamiliar, familiar territory for me. And I had to put a lot of work on internal rotation and external rotation of my hips, which is basically living in the 90 90 and all the transitions in that. So basically focusing on 90 90 and the combat stretch those two mobility drills and doing them, I'm talking two, three times a day every day. And that sounds like a lot, but I'm not spending 20 30 minutes. I anytime I have an opportunity to jump down on the carpet and get into a 90 90 position I would anytime that I could get down into the combat stretch and I would and I would spend two to three minutes doing this to improve that and constantly and what's awesome now and why I do like to share this because it was so life changing for me when we talk about the low back pain and hip pain that I had is it's cool that I don't have to put that work in anymore. Like it's super all I have to do now is do things that promote that mobility, which is squatting really deep. So now when I when I get ready all the work and effort that I used to have to put into the 90 90 and the combat stretch, I can get now right down into that deep really deep position and I can connect to my feet connect to my hips and actually just kind of get and intensify that position real quick for a minute before I get into my squats and I'm ready to roll. Oh yeah, if you want to get good at at the best exercises maps prime pro is your program 100% because that's what it's designed for you go through the different joints work on your areas of mobility and then watch yourself improve that being said there's going to be exercises that you're going to be better at naturally and there's going to be exercises that you're not going to be as good at naturally regardless of how much mobility work for example Adam does on a squat he's naturally built to deadlift so he's probably always going to be a much better you say this a lot Sal that I think it's it's important that everybody pay attention to this and and you know you are you're going to find areas that you're you're not good at but that's where the most room for improvement is so and we get out carry over we just got asked a question recently like you know how do you guys stay motivated with training and exercise after 20 years of doing it well part of the way that I stay motivated is finding the areas and aspects of my training that I suck at and putting a lot of energy and focus into it it's it's the reason why it's fun is not because I'm good and impressive I can't post any cool Instagram post or I don't look impressive in the gym next to everybody else but what's what's fun and interesting for me is that there's lots of room for improvement and when you've been training for as long as we have it's hard to get those those leaps and bounds still I mean this question to me there's no real secret hacks to that I mean it's really the same rules apply to anybody like in terms of like where you're stable and where you you know lack mobility that's what you need to address and it might take you a bit longer based off of you know the levers and the mechanics you're dealing with but it's worth it so like going through that process is you know may seem like it's daunting and it may take you a bit longer than somebody else it just comes more naturally towards but you just get so much more pay out when it is more difficult yeah the progress of going from not being able to do something well to be able to do something well is phenomenal yes but then the progress from now that you could do something well you can unlock all of its potential value so if we're talking about an exercise like a squat the potential value of a squat is tremendous it's one of the best possible exercises that most people can do so to get yourself from not squatting well to be able to squat well amazing amazing progress you get great results but now that you could do it well now you can unlock the potential of one of the most powerful effective exercises in resistance training known to man this is true from for other very effective exercises that we've talked about on the podcast so if you find yourself not being able to do some of them get to the point where you can do them because then when you can do them boy the results are phenomenal and that's part the major process is getting there and uh I think this this message gets uh misunderstood sometime on our show because you know we've got people that oh they hear us talking about deep squatting and then they just go out there and they start deep squatting because you hear us talk about the benefits of that and they get hurt yeah and then you get hurt or it bothers your low back or whatever and it's like no the idea is that you put in all the work so you can get to that point and that is you know that's the hard shit that's the shit that it's that's the practice right that's the the stuff that is is boring and laborious right to do and you you've got to do those things to get to the place to where you can but when you do and then and like Sal said man man it what it unlocks for you it's it's changed my life like a for anybody who suffers from uh bursitis to know what that feels like it's a fucking it's like someone's sticking a knife in your in your joint it's a awful feeling it's like a video game when you're playing and then you have those characters that you can't use but then you unlock them and then all of a sudden you've got you know the wizard or whatever like you know it's like I was thinking of a voodoo doll that you're just like stabbing yeah well that's what it feels like when you when you have something like that and and me for having chronic low back pain uh to eliminate those things uh because I put the work and yeah it was a year and a half or so of a lot of mobility drills and working towards gone yeah but now it's gone completely you don't have to live with it anymore yeah and and all I now all I need to do is to is to keep squatting deep and I know that I'll keep that healthy so