 Power all of you guys want power who watch these videos right you want to look good But you want your muscles to actually not just be all show no go you want to have some go and power is great It's explosive. It's dynamic and if you're powerful you probably look really good So today's episode we talk all about power, but I know why you're watching this intro You're thinking yourself sal get to the free giveaway. That's what I'm here for all right here You go here's the free giveaway maps performance So one of you lucky viewers will get free access to maps performance one of our most popular Maps workout programs ever here's how you can enter to win leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode Helps us with the youtube algorithm Make it a good comment subscribe to the channel and turn on your notifications do all those things if we like your comment We'll notify you and you'll get free access to maps performance. Also. 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We are doing a full episode Dedicated Justin actually Sal and I are not going to talk seem that way Yeah, this is I know I feel like we this is this is a long time coming here Where we actually did an episode that I feel like as well I gave you guys the whole bodybuilder episode specifically to old references a bodybuilder So I'm like there's also other aspects of training. Yeah, we don't highlight a whole lot on the show But do you have massive value? And that revolves around power. No, I did weasel my way into getting you to shape it a little bit around Yeah, I desire that's okay worked out. So I think it's a good one. Well, you know, I think there's a lot of Misunderstanding I know there was for me around explosive style type training. I thought For a long time really it was for athletics and athletic performance and really For the average person there wasn't much value or at least the risk versus reward didn't make any sense for the average person I definitely didn't see potential value in it for aesthetics Muscle growth or fat loss. I thought there were other better ways to accomplish those things and I mean, I'll be the first to admit. I'm totally wrong I think there's definitely explosive training for athletics and sports and in in top-level athletics What you're what you see going on is the you know, they are exemplifying Explosiveness at the top level. Okay, no different than when you watch a world champion powerlifter Demonstrate the top level of strength or a world champion bodybuilder Demonstrate the top level of hypertrophy or muscle growth, right? So it's not fair to say Oh, it's only applicable in that case It would be like saying strength training exercises are not applicable to the average person because they don't want to be a Pro bodybuilder or power, you know strength building is not applicable because nobody wants to you know, deadlift You know 800 pounds. It's just not true And I really took me a long time to figure that out one of the people that really helped Explain that was Joe DeFranco, you know, Joe DeFranco and I mean the point he makes is Obviously, it's one of those situations where somebody makes a point and then you think to yourself. Duh, yeah I don't know why I didn't really get that before But and this is true for all physical pursuits When you stop practicing or training something you lose that ability So and that's true for anything even things that we take for granted like walking like if you didn't walk If you laid in the bed for a long enough period of time You would have to relearn how to walk when you got out of bed it would be very shaky and weird and whatever and Explosive movements train your quickness and your ability to react and that is essential for everyday life Now you might not be on the football field, you know tackling other other players But you may step off a curb or your kid runs out to the street on something Slip or you drop a grocery. That's right your truck. Yeah, or exactly Tell that story. Well, no really I mean, that's your first analogy with people not walking or walking is a little extreme There's probably nobody who's not gonna do that But I there's a very clear moment in my training career and it wasn't that long ago when this happened to me up into that point Explosive training because I did a lot of sport like all the way into my 30s. I I always train I always incorporated a lot of the exercise we're gonna talk about today And I had gone on the streak Specifically after a bodybuilding bodybuilding. I was not doing anything this bodybuilding was all about a look that I was trying to obtain I wasn't doing a lot of explosive movements And then after that I wasn't training nowhere near as frequently and then just add it one day I jumped out of the back of my truck something that I've done a thousand times before the previous 30 something years of my life And I thought my knees were going to explode and it was just you know, my brain said like I've done this so many times I just did it as but because I hadn't trained my body that way. I didn't land properly And I wasn't ready for it and it hurt, you know, and I went whoa That's crazy like it that light bulb went off for me that I never had to like specifically go and go Oh, you know what this coming week I need to make sure I put some of these movements into my routine because I'm losing this ability That I've had my whole life that I didn't think I would lose But I guess it makes total sense when you think about what I've been doing for the last two or three years I've completely eliminated that type of exercise and I wasn't playing sports So of course I lost this ability to you know to decelerate into a squat from a you know Elevated position like that and wow, I mean it's just wild that how that happens It felt like overnight although it was probably, you know The regression over three or four years of not training that movement like that But highlighted for me as somebody who's now in 40 like wow like I got to make sure that if I want to have this ability And not lose that or not get injured doing some pretty basic stuff I need to incorporate in my training I can't and I could totally win Jota Franco brought that up to you didn't even associate because I was always in the athletic mindset of like I'm doing these specifically with the intent to be able to Move better on and perform out on the field and it's relating to this specific sport I'm doing or whatever But going back it's funny because I used to make fun of like some of my dad's friends And they would just pick up a ball and throw it to me and then they would throw their arm out And it was just like one of those kind of ongoing jokes that when you get old All of a sudden like things like that just happen, right? And this is just an adage that is still people will say that as as like this is just part of the process of Getting old and aging and it really doesn't have to be that way if you if you deliberately Program that and you place it into your workouts You will respond appropriately You'll be able to still do these like really normal things in your everyday life without the the worry of being injured I think part of the problem though is is Also the lack of knowing how to do that right like, you know You just reminded me of another thing that happened to me one time We were out in fact This was actually one of the company events that we were doing and I was throwing a frisbee and I felt my lat like cramp up like just I had not thrown something dynamically in in that plane and God knows how long and I felt like I tore something and it's like, you know If I'm not doing exercises in my routine that specifically target Not only that that plane of motion, but also the explosiveness of throwing something like that Then of course, I'm gonna feel like it has nothing to do with that. I'm 35 65 25 the age it's that for an extended period of time. I have not trained my body Dynamically like that and it's just that that light bulb of oh my god That needs to be incorporate and I think a lot of people, you know, you said everything is true They think oh you just as you get older those things happen you get older and you don't throw balls anymore You don't tackle people you don't jump you don't do these things and it's because you're getting old It was like no, it's not because you're getting old it's because for an extended period of time You stopped training the body with those dynamic movements and had you just kept those Intermittently in your routine. It doesn't have to be a main focus just intermittently in your training routine You won't lose those capabilities. Yeah, the whole age thing is funny. Is there some truth to it? Yeah, of course, you know, if you're 70 you're not gonna be as Strong or dynamic as you might have been when you were 30 But people use the age thing way too often and I mean I look I have friends in their 40s who use the age thing as a reason why they're back and their knees hurt Why they can't do things anymore. I knew people in the 30s that would say those things, you know I mean you mentioned jumping like like jumping is a very basic human movement now You don't have to jump high. I'm not talking about jumping out of a pool or jumping up into the back of your truck But what about just jumping off a curb like just a short I mean how long how tall would you say a curb is right? That's like, you know like six inches Yeah, six inches maybe 12 inches, right like take the average 70 year old Could they hop down a six inch curb without falling or hurt themselves? No Would they if they had practiced the skill of jumping? Yeah, it's not a very high height And and now what is the how does that apply to everyday life? Well? I mean your risk of injury goes way down when you can move a little bit dynamic dynamically Now now I think we need to talk about the difference between strength and power because there's typically a lot of confusion between the two right? Strength and power definitely cross over a bit, but they are different right strength is your ability to generate force Power is being able to do that with speed. That's basically it like it's acceleration Yeah, like imagine if I had a cable in my hand and I'm standing and I'm doing a heavy press like how much weight Can I push forward that strength? Power would be could I throw a punch in that direction really fast right same muscles? But very different in terms of the skill involved and what I'm asking my body to do now from an aesthetic Perspective power has tremendous benefits. First of all, yep power activates the fast-twitch muscle fibers better than anything That's what you're calling upon when you're doing explosive power now What's so great about this fast-twitch muscle fibers? Without getting too deep into the weeds fast-twitch muscle fibers that are the ones that are most responsible for Physical growth and change those are the ones that you train when you're working out to get your Butt to grow or your chest to grow or to shape your body right the other most anaerobic Yeah, the other muscle fibers I mean it's more complicated than this but you could loosely break them down into fast twitch and slow twitch Slow twitch muscle fibers have a lot of stamina a lot of endurance But they don't really change that much when you train them So if you're trying to shape and sculpt your body What you want to do is you want to focus on those fast switch fast movements Activate them very very effectively. So when it comes to building muscle Explosive movements are excellent at building muscle now I don't think they should replace traditional controlled strength training But to say that they have no place is totally wrong They have a tremendous role and I mean again, you can look at Certain explosive athlete look at sprinters for example Sprinters they do a little bit of weights, but the vast majority of their training is is sprinting Look at their leg development. Look at their core development. They have tremendous musculature Look at cyclists that sprint right tremendous Musculature look at sprinters that swim versus long-distance swimmers and look at their physiques So that explode that the expression of power Activates the muscle fibers that have the most potential for change for visible change Better than almost anything else. There's also something else and that's that when you train explosively Your body models itself in a way that allows you to move more dynamically So if you just lift heavy You'll build muscle. Could you build a more stiff kind of blocky? I don't know that blocky might not be the right term But kind of a stiff-looking physique Yeah, if you incorporate explosive training, you're probably more likely to build a more fluid looking Muscular physique we've all we all know it when I say it, you know, it's it's a little vague But we all know the guy or girl in the gym that just lifts weights just does traditional strength training And when they walk out of the gym and they move they have that stereotypical, you know, well eat muscle bound Yes, well another example that you could you could see this and this has happened where I have clients like this Who are somebody has incredible strength? They can squat four or five hundred pounds, but they still throw their back out Twisting back behind them to grab something. Yeah, right. So they're incredibly strong They can squat deadlift four hundred five hundred pounds But picking a five pound thing up behind them or pulling a weed in a different plane of motion that they don't ever train in And because they're pulling at it hard, they throw their back out or something even though They're incredibly strong But if you don't train that way I had a buddy who years ago he was I mean he trained like a bodybuilder had an incredible look in physique and He was with his kid his kid was in one of those wagons. No, it's like those what I call a red wagons Yeah, and he had his kid sitting in the wagon he was standing talking to I think it was his wife and The wagon he had like a break engaged on it But apparently didn't was it on engage and the wagon started going down the driveway into the road He turned and grabbed it really quick, right now This is a guy that could I mean he could curl 50 pound dumbbells and bench press over 300 pounds, right? But because this was fast and explosive He tore a bicep, right just reaching back and grabbing and generating force in a way that his body He's just never trying right tore a frickin bicep And then there's this like I you know and I get this right the the majority of people's motivations when the exercise is to look good But you know, I don't know How would you feel driving a car that looked like a Ferrari that had a you know two-cylinder engine and sudden under the hood, right? It's it's kind of it's kind of silly, right? You want you want you still want all of us still at our route although we want to look good We still want to be able to perform a little bit at least match somewhat to what we look like if you don't train This you lose it even though you're getting strong you lose a great deal of this ability well And also to the point of of having that type of strength that you've really been honing in on improving There's a lot of really strong You know people I go to the gym and they the accomplices lifts which then promotes this type of like mass acceleration You know, so they maybe they do have the ability to do something really fast But can they slow down can they decelerate or stabilize properly? And this is where a lot of times you see that being a you know, a big problem because You know, if you don't know how to stabilize in and be able to kind of slow yourself down and gather yourself You know, this is where injuries happen and you know muscles actually tear well This is what happened with me with a Frisbee I had all the right muscles developed and strong that are capable of that movement, right? So I'm training all my muscles when I lift, but I have not trained them Dynamically like that and so I've got all this extra and that I think that's half of the problem So you see this with the throwing the football or the baseball is like you have some some dad or guy Who's been lifting weights for the last decade or longer in the gym? And so thinks he's got I got the strength to throw the ball all the way the outfield no problem but because you don't do that motion with that expression like that that speed and You have that strength. Yeah, that's where you do get something That's tore all the time is because it's not you haven't trained in that that fashion and this is like sort of brings up the point of the intent And this is why you know the the way that you set it up is so important. Oh, yeah You know in terms of like not incorporating fatigue being able to you know really hyper focus into not just on the acceleration but the deceleration portion and the being able to gather yourself in control and composure and then replicate that and and be able to You know rep that out the same way over and over so your body actually responds that way instead of You know overdoing it where you have no limiters No, you get okay. What you practice is what you get so people trained the vast majority of people I see in gyms right now that train with any kind of dynamic explosive movement are not training For to improve they do it like cardio. Yeah, they're using explosive movements to For fatigue or to accelerate the heart rate or trainers use it as a fun way to burn calories So rather than telling the clients to run in place They tell them to do all these explosive movements so the clients like oh my god I'm doing all these exercises, but really they're getting the same benefit as if they were just running in place If you want to gain power all of your reps need to exemplify power Okay, so if you're doing box jumps and we'll get to exercises and body parts But let's say you're doing box jumps if you're doing them and you're tired and you oh my god I got to keep doing I got to keep jumping you're no longer training power You're doing cardio with the box so you have to do them and exemplify power in your reps That's how you get what we're talking about out of that particular exercise By the way for the average person who's watching this who's just interested in Changing the way their body looks You don't have to do much you could take your current routine and inject a few key Explosive movements into routine and here's what you'll get out of it more fast-twitch muscle activation more fast-twitch muscle fiber activation your body will build more muscle Simply because you're activating more fast-twitch muscle fibers by including a power component So even if your goal is just to change how you look Incorporating a little bit of explosiveness into your current routine will actually get you to look better faster You can always tell a really good coach By the way they coach this right here because this is a more technical thing to teach right? It's very just like a trend you when you see someone teaching like Ali lifting like They the coaching cues that come with explosive training are very very high And you'll see a good coach because a good coach well Let's say let's use box jumps for your example and let's say they're doing in this this set They're gonna do three to five or whatever number doesn't matter and you see them do a box jump and then they're literally Coaching that after that one rep listen you rocked two forward on the front of your heels keep your chest up a little bit more I want you to see me while the rest sweet. Yeah, they're resting right now, right? They did one box jump they come back down the coaches Critiquing everything they just did the way they were shifting their way It was much noise and yes the position their head the sound when they left when they landed and it's like and then It's okay next one focus on this boom And they do another one and then they're again coaching every bit of that and so each rep There's this these kind of long rest periods and it's all Critiquing the way you express all that power. You're trying to get power Look, it's like you're throwing a medicine ball in your let's say your goal is to do ten reps Your goal is to throw the ball further with each rep It's not gonna happen if you just throw and throw and throw and get fatigued You do whatever it takes to gather yourself weight form out You know get your technique generate more force faster to throw the medicine ball further That's the goal with each of your reps when you do power and when you do that again If you incorporate a little bit of this into your routine You're going to activate more fast-switch muscle fibers and you'll probably build more muscle and it's not my opinion This has been studied. This has been studied extensively and it's very clear that this actually works So not only are you training a to a skill that you don't want to lose Not only is it gonna improve your ability to move in the in everyday life It's gonna build more muscle on your body This is why you get the popularization of the CrossFit and you see how like some of these exercises get included But it's all about the way that you perform it that will have any longevity to this type of train because it's very demanding and it's it very much exposes any sort of imbalance any sort of you know discrepancy you know up the kinetic chain like it's it's it's one of those things like The more pressure you add The more likely like any of the weak links there will break now before we get into the exercises I wanted to make sure I was before Sal you walked in here I was kind of razz and Doug because Doug sometimes has really really good questions and a lot of times We just fly through something and don't think about like, you know Coming from maybe a consumer or a client like Doug's perspective and he was asking some really good questions around fast twitch and slow twitch fibers Did that answer that Doug or do you is there there's more to that that you wanted to hear? No, I feel like yeah, you went into the details well on that Sal. Okay, I feel good about it Yeah, this is a lot. There's a lot of confusion around fast-twitch slow-twitch fibers like he was asking stuff like you know when you train that way Are you only training like those fibers like if they're like will you hear people? Oh, it's a fast-twitch exercise Does that mean the slow-twitch fibers aren't getting trained and just a fast-twitch like and we're explaining to him that like You can't isolate fibers of the muscle like they're all being incorporated. Yeah, a lot more of them to respond Yeah, so your fast-twitch muscle fiber would be like your dragster engine right burns a lot of energy They they're really big really powerful, but they burn out very quickly, right? You're not gonna drive a dragster for 300 miles. There's no way your slow twitch would be like your hybrid engine or your one-cylinder engine You're not gonna go very fast. You're not very powerful, but you're gonna go a long distance So long distance running long distance swimming or cycling slow-twitch muscle fibers Throwing something really far being really explosive jumping really high lifting something really heavy for you know a few reps That's more you're not not requiring a lot of blood flow like so like you know like making so you don't need a lot of the Endurance or something. That's like a very high demand, but like a short burst right and fast-twitch muscle fibers Okay, the bigger a muscle fiber is the harder and faster it can contract For a muscle fiber to have stamina endurance that's not necessarily true In fact a bigger muscle fiber often will lose its ability to have lots of stamina and endurance if it goes too far because Requires more energy so it wants to remain energy efficient again long-distance runners look very different than sprinters in terms of muscle mass If you're trying to boost your metabolism if you want to lean sculpted physique The muscle fibers that you want to target tend to be fast-witched. They change a lot. They shape your body They sculpt your body. They give you a faster metabolism slow-twitch muscle fibers are great for stamina endurance So if you're an endurance athlete, you need lots of stamina, then you want to focus on that and general exercise does incorporate both It's not like one is you're turning off of muscle fiber and the other ones no But there's a focus right there's a focus on one versus the other okay, so before we get in the exercises Let's talk first about the best place to put Explosive exercises because here's what we're gonna do okay I'm gonna imagine that we're talking to the average listener and the average listener is not a hardcore athlete. Sorry Justin That's I'm sure I know we have those those listeners But the average listener and viewer that we have is somebody that's interested in changing their aesthetics They want to change their body composition more muscle less body fat. They want to look good They like being strong mobile all that stuff, but ultimately they just want to look really good So they're probably following a traditional resistance training routine or at least if they've watched more than five episodes That's what they're doing. They have a good nutrition, you know system going on as well Maybe following a maps program. So now they hear us talking about Explosive movements are like, where do I throw those at the end of the workout? Do I put them in the middle like what do I do? I'm the best place to throw your explosive movements are at the beginning Start with your explosive movement then move to your traditional exercises because at the end of your workout If you're really fatigued then you're not going to get the power Generation requires more energy more focus You know, you want to not have fatigue going into any of these as you're performing them just so that way You know what you're doing is you're sharpening You know that skill of being able to move really fast and respond Properly without anything else in the way. This doesn't mean you don't warm up or prime before you do these It's it's crucial. This is key that you prime your body. It's probably more important here than any other Absolutely, the risk of injuries higher when you're moving fast, right less control You know that is something that we didn't address in the beginning of this either that I think it's important to note that there There is an order of operation of going here like your power movements are the greatest expression of strength stability Stability should be done first strength is done and then Beginner, let's you should hold off. Yeah working out for a little while Then then we can start doing some of these especially the ones that we're going to talk about You know if you have good stability and good strength you absolutely This is a great thing to include but it's important to note that that if I'm if there's because there is for sure Because we have enough listeners listening right now and you haven't been at the gym in right six months or a year Whatever and you're getting ready to start and this sounds really cool to go to your first time like not a good idea No, so make sure you're primed make sure your body is ready to go and then here's some great exercises And let's start with legs. Okay, two of the best ones I can think of that I think are applicable to most people and there's a lot of explosive lower-body exercise But we're gonna pick the ones that most people can do who are relatively are a bit more relatable Yeah, cuz I could throw some really obscure athletic When I look at what we put on here, these are I think I did every single one of these with clients Yes, with even like normal clients clients that aren't Yes, so every one of these exercises are something that I think most people Should include in their routine if not running through a phase that's just like totally so box jumps Let's start with that right so box jumps great way to train some explosiveness in the lower body now Here's the beauty of a box jump. You can totally modify it. Okay, so I've had clients Literally just jump like I didn't have in place. Yeah, I didn't have a box low enough for this person It's where you got to start. Yes, let's just put that out Yeah, so so you don't have to jump on top of a bench or a box You can literally just kind of squat down and jump up as explosively in as high as you can jump knee tucks And that's it and then you do hold you wait you get your position what feels good what feels wrong You know, okay now I'm ready to do it again and then you repeat this by the way You're not doing this to fatigue. So don't do this until you're until you're slow Don't you want your last rep to be fast just like the first rep This is not a to fatigue type of workout. So typically if I do something like this I'm doing maybe five to ten reps That's about max that I'm doing because after that I start to fatigue and then it becomes more of a fatigue type work Now this is your first exposure to what you know a lot of Olympic athlete or coaches will talk about triple extension And really we're just trying to organize our body in such a way where our ankles or knees or hips They all in unison are able to extend. Yes, so to be able to do that actually requires a lot more than most people realize because I've seen people try and get up off the ground I've seen people try to get out of chairs and it varies dramatically based off of like your your Habits or how long it's been since you've you know moved quickly So this is a very good place to start just in place Getting you know your hips to to come back in and to be able to kind of take a nice control with this and to jump at a level that's appropriate and then be able to land land Softly, okay. Yeah, you know a pump. Yes. Yeah This is all part of the the process of decelerating and being under control In fact, I don't even think nobody needs a box even athletes You can just jump as high as you as you can in place The one the one positive of a box is it's just another feedback tool Yeah, if you don't have a bottle we're not including a box here Then I highly recommend doing it in front of a mirror or with your phone recording you and the idea between each rep Is to improve the jump That's why the box sometimes is nice is because you can tell how much you cleared it by like oh that was a good jump Because that's when I'm doing these explosive movements every rep I'm assessing what I just did like like ah man I get too far forward or I squatted down too far or my hands went up too quick or you're picking apart every Detail of that triple extension that Justin's talking about right and you're working your way up I'm glad you mentioned the arms because that's one of those things that just can easily get away from people Don't realize how much of a factor that is when you keep your limbs in nice and tight And you stay organized you have way more control and so to be able to kind of get that last component in Now you're improving on the process, right? So what would this look like in the leg workout? Well, you would do maybe a few sets of five to ten Jumps and each one you pause in between each rep gather yourself Make sure your technique is good and try and jump higher the next time that you jump And you do a few sets of like even five honest to god even five of these five reps Three sets then go in your leg workout and watch how you feel land on the pad of your foot and then yeah drop Now the a more advanced But also applicable. I think movement would be like a hill sprint right sprinting Up a short hill just try and get some of that that power and speed and and you can do one sprint To kind of gauge how you feel and then try going all out maybe with the second or third one Well, this is why I like You know hills and incline in general just because of the demand on the joints and like how that impact is very forgiving It's it's a lot more forgiving And so to to be able to be able to run like you're going to get a lot of the benefit of the the the fast You know movement of it, uh with a little bit less Like hard impact on the more skill though than the jump, right? So no, I actually that's when you said that I actually don't agree with that I think I think I would put somebody on a hill sprint first before a box Yeah, I know I wouldn't I think even the average person who can't jump very high I could practice that having them like oh run up a hill really hard You know could be here's another point to it too is that It starts to train you to lift your heels up and be be more on your forefoot on your toes Yeah, and so having having an incline helps to kind of promote that more Whereas, you know the running in general and like you see a lot of people and you could hear the Run their heels. Yeah, you know really really hard on the ground and using their heels By the way, Doug wants us to make sure we tell you it's up a hill not down a hill So you're not doing a downhill. No, no, no not downhill. I guess we did just say hill Well, we assume right people. Yeah. No, that's a good point. I'm like, uh, yeah, that's right. Okay. Yeah We're up for you. I so that's interesting that you would go I would go hill sprints before box jump for if I'm looking at a regression or I've got a client who Does not have the skills to gather himself and I think jump up on a box I would think a hill sprint is a more Fundamental and basic movement. I could teach them to do that. Oh, yeah I've seen I've seen way more shin scraped up and falling down Boxing jump in place without the box. That's what I'm starting But hey, look, here's a deal both of them appropriate Yes, both of them though both of them can work and both of them something we all should be able to do Yes, I don't care what age you are you should be able to jump in place Well, let me tell you it would suck to be a big buffed muscular person and then the dog chasing you can't run So, you know, and you can't jump over something. Yeah, you get your ass bitten. So all right Let's talk about the hips the glutes the hamstrings and the lower back Uh, I think a kettlebell swing is a great movement for this kettlebell swings are great because and I remember when they first came out I thought wow here is a movement that is using some of the best components of a clean That is way less technical now. That's not to say that a kettlebell swing isn't technical It's very technical, but it's way easier to learn than a barbell clean. That's a very technical You're gonna find that being uh, sort of the theme within all these exercises selected is just We know that uh, moving fast is a higher risk situation So how can we sort of mitigate that and and get the same type of benefits from that? And the kettlebell really solves a lot of that because the loading is very close to the body It's very much more controllable And there's different styles my preference with this is hard style, which is more of the russian swing which You can even bend your elbows and shorten the lever with that too for Just all the emphasis being on the hip hinging and locking out And so this is not your bodybuilder version where you're doing Shoulder shoulder race. It is not a kettlebell swing And you're not doing this as an endurance because you can also do kettlebell swings for endurance. Thank you exactly This is not for time lengths. This is not for a competition. This is for a quality Don't you have a good youtube video of you doing teaching this? Yeah, I know me and yes I have a couple and then also with with Mike Salemi who does a great job even our kettlebell with uh, four aesthetics program, which is You know something we don't mention very often There's skill sessions in there that breaks down, you know, a really really high quality kettlebell swing Now to think about it to haven't done this in a long time One of the best things I ever did for my deadlift was I would start my workout With some explosive swings and I wouldn't do them for endurance. Yeah, I wouldn't do them for endurance I would do five to ten explosive swings Do a couple sets then I'd go into my deadlift and and by the way Here's something that's interesting If you set up your workout with proper With a like a proper explosive movement for a couple sets You'll actually feel stronger when you go into your traditional your first traditional lift Like you just stretch the capacity for you to generate more force Yeah, and you just feel stronger and more stable and I really do think well, I know the studies again They show it's turning more fast switch muscle fibers on so you just have more power now available more strength available All right, so another one for band Uh, excuse me for back would be a band row now Here's why I like bands by the way bands lend themselves really well To explosive movements, you know years ago when I had my wellness studio I was in the market when I first opened it right one of the safest for sure I was in the market for I was looking for a cable machine So my studio was small and all I had was a cage and barbell dumbbells and a few Personal training apparatuses and I'm like I want some cables cables are very valuable And I looked at free motion and I looked at some others and then there was this one machine I can't remember the name But I think it was a da Vinci it was called and it had all these cable attachments on the side But what sold me was it had a band attachment that you could attach to the the weight stack For explosive movements now. Why was this valuable? You can't do an explosive movement with a traditional cable because the weight stack will it'll jump on you It'll jump on you But when you attach the band to it you could do it I loved it and then I realized man You could do explosive movements with bands all the time because you're not swinging and throwing things all over the place Bands are excellent for explosive movements So a band row is amazing and literally you take a heavy band you anchor it on something that's stable So make sure it's something that doesn't move stand in front of it get in position and row real fast Hold that position and then come back. You don't want to come back fast Right. You want to come back hold and then come back and focus on that explosive pull It's a very basic movement, but very effective No, I love that But I have to mention one of my favorite movement Justin actually taught me this years ago One of the first times that he got me using the sled And uh showed me how to use the sled for the unexplosive row. Yeah, I did this for the first time with him too Oh my god, I love that exercise. You like walk back squat down Yeah, I mean I Rip it back because you're also squatting your body down and you're lifting it allows you to get that full stretch on the Last I sink the hips back. I let the arms come forward So I just feel that full stretch on the last and then from that full stretch position I'm exploding into a row. I back myself up regather myself think about how I just pulled it planting my feet hips I mean love it. It's it's such a great explosive movement because between each rep of the sled drag You have this moment of regathering yourself and repositioning the next explosive movement Which I think forces people into that where like a great point, right? Like you a lot of explosive movements It's really easy to get in the habit of like quick quick quick doing it over and over Organizes and plans that out for you. Yes, you can't you can't do it fast It's impossible because you have to back up you have to let take the slack out of the rope again position yourself So it forces this good fives the seven second between every rep And forces you to gather so I just love the benefits One of the only one of the few workout because all of us have been working out for a long time And we don't ever really I think we've only ever really worked out together And when I say together, I mean at the same time we do that all the time But do the same workout together. I think we've probably done that five times in in seven years And one of the first really on I mean it's because we all like to work out We know what we want to do and it's not a big deal and then also we're old enough to know we get competitive And that's how injuries happen. Nonetheless one of the first workouts we ever did We had started mine pump and nothing we just we just started it Justin was training at that facility with the big grass area or whatever And we all did a back workout together and I remember specifically I'd never really done that with the sled And I remember we deadlifted and then we went to the sled and did those and I was like, oh my god I had the best what a great like like compliments of deadlifting shoes Incredible. I absolutely love it. It's one of my favorite exercises. I guess the only drawback is do you have a sled? And do you have the space? That's why I said the band row because anybody could do that Yeah, I wanted to put it because I feel like a lot of gyms now It's becoming pretty standard now to put a grassy runway and everything It's definitely if it's a new gym like almost every new gym now Has a functional area and it's becoming more common. So hopefully you'll see more of this stuff in there I just have to include it because it was something that was introduced to me late in my career Oh, it's one of my favorites and it's one of my favorite movements to do for my back Another one is uh an overhead slam or throw with a medicine ball Great lat exercise and you're training this overhead movement I've talked about it with dumbbell pullovers, right? But not explosive dumbbell pullovers more of a strength exercise But you're throwing with that that is a fundamental human movement And it develops the lats and works on shoulder function mobility So phenomenally, it's a great exercise to do with clients all the time And I would have a medicine ball that they could obviously slam that wouldn't explode And uh, they they got and it hits the core by the way too that overhead throw Well, it's very exposing and I've seen some people hurt themselves just to throw caveat out there with I prefer to do it with a split stance. So you're stepping into it and then throw versus I've seen people with their farts their low backs are back too much and then they're You know hyper extending and you're in a bad situation. So good point Yeah, but I love that exercise in terms of like you don't get a lot of Exercise where you can do something that quickly and expose those muscles Well, it's like I mean and it by the way you mentioned pullover. What a great way to great exercise the couple on the same You know do a the heavy grinding dumbbell pullover and then use then do an explosive one with the with a ball toss But I think you brought this up on a recent podcast cell that there really isn't there's only a handful if that exercise is That you do in that position We just there's not a lot of movements that we do with the shoulders in that position So really important to train that for strength and then I'll even more important to be able to train that in an explosive way This is the one thing that's going to protect that you think like the shoulder and stuff with those overhand throws Well, this is why we're always addressing it with mobility Yeah, uh because and if you did incorporate a lot more in your training I guarantee you wouldn't have to spend so much time Yep, uh trying to regain that range of motion No, 100 this is one of the things I keep telling people about my journey to the the deep squat Like I don't have to do the mobility. I just have to squat. I just got a squat deep That's all I got to do now is it is always incorporate that And and it just it keeps those joints mobile and the same thing. This is an example with the shoulders It's the squat of the shoulder in a sense, right? Like if you train those those Pullovers and train that explosive move like that You should you shouldn't lose that mobility in that shoulder By the way, if you do a medicine ball slam do not use the medicine balls that bounce I have you know good point. I was knocking so well I have seen a lot of people bust their faces with the medicine ball So make sure it's one of the sandy one. This is yes or whatever So again, you're doing your back workout What do you do two or three sets of one of those explosive band movements? Not to fatigue just to activate those fast switch muscle fibers Then go into your back workout and see how you feel. All right. Let's go to chest This one people tend to get a little confused with what do I do that's explosive for chest? One of the most basic exercises you could do for explosive chest Movement would be like a an explosive push-up. By the way, you could Modify this so many different ways Obviously, you could do it on the floor like a clapping push-up and show off or whatever some more difficult one You could do it on elevated surface. You could do it off the wall It's funny when we brought this up adam brought this exercise up and I'm like, oh, that's really advanced And then you reminded me like you could do it on Different surfaces and I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember doing this with clients off the wall I would have them stand away from the wall and just get and push themselves off Or this is another one we joke well It's been a while since we've joked about the smith machine But this is one of the things I used to love about the smith machine is because it goes up in so many increments So I mean you do like a push-up. Yeah So if I wanted to teach an explosive push-up to a client and of any age So if they were advanced age and they were I had to regress it I would just move it up to where it's almost, you know parallel to them standing up, right? And so you don't have them clapping. Yeah, so you just push off right and you reabsorb Yeah, yeah, you could also use your bands for this Yes So you could wrap the bands around a anchor of bands to behind you and and do an explosive Press with bands another regression to the the chest press that I think is a very safe and easy Or a chest pass with the medicine ball Yeah Where you you throw it up against the wall or just throw it for distance and then walk slowly over to get it Face the other direction and then do it again. That's also an explosive I just I love anything that where you could just focus on the concentric portion And I think that yes these power movements always consider that and so even with like a kettlebell swing You know one of my favorite things to do is to just throw the kettlebell And if you have access you could do it out on a field don't do it in the gym, you know Don't do it in the gym, but uh any opportunity you can do where you're you're Using weight, but now you're able to then get rid of I had a blast when he did that one time We've never done that before we went to the beach. You know, you're seeing how far we could throw it over our head And we were just hurling. I mean I was so sore from that day just messing around No, that was cool. Actually if you I mean not to not to go back But if you put a band Around the kettlebell and and stand on it now you can do a really explosive Kettlebell swing and then place the kettlebell down in between reps and it controls it for you Right, so you don't feel like you're swinging it and you're gonna you know hit someone But yeah, chest pass Explosive push-up a few sets of that then go into your normal chest workout and again Watch how you feel. All right. Now. Let's go to shoulders, right? My favorite and by the way, I learned explosive training Through this particular exercise, which is for shoulders, which is the push press Now, I remember reading about a push press in my very first, you know Bodybuilding book as a kid and I treated it like a traditional shoulder press in the sense that I did it for fatigue I just thought Me boosting the weight up the benefit was the fact that I could use more weight It wasn't until later that I treated the push press Explosively in the sense that Let's say I could do 10 reps with 135 pounds and with a push prep push press But the 10 rep the 10th rep was like my last rep So I'm treating it to fatigue Then what I would do is I would do four reps four explosive ass reps with 135 Rack the weight and rest and the goal was to move the weight faster with each repetition when I treated it that way Holy cow the gains I got from the push press. It was incredible. Do you know there's an app out? God, what's what's that one kid? It's one of those smart nerdy kids. That's annoying to all of us God, not if you name one. He's a nice kid. It's not me talking shit So he's he had a he had a really cool app that actually Every rep it measured his his the time on the speed Yes, not the speed the time like so so his when he came out of the squat The first rep was 1.75. The next time was 1.67. The next time was 1.53 So it was or actually it would go the other direction it would go longer right took him longer to finish the rep So you could actually be able to see the speed or basically break down the speed by the time that it takes you to express that taking it back to the push press the One of the biggest things that uh was kind of a hard thing to teach somebody who'd done a lot of like hypertrophy training or Strength training in general and then trying to transition that into now moving fast was uh the tendency to try and just like Rip it with just my arms right and just like sort of you know not not incorporating the hips Okay, and like not taking it down the kinetic chain further and really getting the legs As a part of that and so to to be able to hinge the hips and then have that type of extension while also You know contributing into Into the press part of it. Um, you know, that's something that You'll see how that benefits the lift and how much more weight actually when you get those to connect What that does in terms of how much you can push there's a few points I want to make with that one is that just like strength even more so power is a skill So there's a lot of skill involved with generating power Your body has to know how to organize its muscle contractions In a way to generate the most force in the safest way possible. So it is a skill number two The more muscles you activate appropriately the more power you can generate with the target muscle Okay, so what does that mean? But this is true for strength as well I've used this example before in a podcast If I would had a gripper in my right hand and I were testing my strength and I squeezed it as hard as I could But I had to keep every other muscle on my body including the muscles of my face totally relaxed And then I repeated that rep but then I was allowed to squeeze everything else Which naturally by the way if I were to squeeze something as hard as I could naturally I tense up my face and my whole body By tensing up the rest of my muscles. I would generate more force in my hand So when you're doing a push press and the goal is to generate force You're using your whole body So you're you're coming down with the hips and you're boosting it up and then driving with the shoulders and the arms Here's the third point and this is to what you were saying adam Time under tension is very important for strength training and traditional muscle hypertrophy Your goal is to have more time under tension more control with power. You want less time under tension I don't want time under tension. I want to drive and move it quickly. So it is Very different and if you've never done power training before it's going to feel weird I'm just going to say that right now. It's going to feel very very weird No, you I want to add to something that you just reminded me of that I'm just thinking about like when I'm doing a lot of these exercises How I'm like I'm trying to envision how I gather myself to get ready to do it And I actually kind of uh, I I go from my feet all the way up I I think right away and it doesn't matter which exercise we're talking about It could be the hill sprints box jumps kettlebell swings. There's a lot of ground forces Right. So I and I love to do a lot of these things barefoot if I can right So I like to get barefoot and I kind of feel like I grip the floor first and then I set my knees my hips You know, get my core engaged and then I grab and load or do whatever I'm about to do So and every rep you should think like that every single rep Work from your foot all the way up your body and think about getting it all engaged so that it can activate to your point Of letting it all tense up together Whereas if all your if it's a shoulder press and all you're thinking about Is your shoulders in your arms and your core's loose your hips are loose your feet aren't gripping the floor You're losing tremendous amount of power a huge leak huge huge leak in power And you'll only be able and you'll know like when you train this really well You will see um, like let's say we're doing five reps There it doesn't always isn't always the first rep is the best one sometimes like rep three It's usually the second or second or third rep You'll get and then what that is is that you're you're getting everything to communicate better You're not necessarily stronger on rep three You should be stronger on rep one when you have more technically more energy But what's happened is you're starting to get you learn to gather everything to express that pay attention to that So like and that's what you're trying to get at get to as fast as you can And you get better at it to your original point of priming. This is what sets you up for that So you get that loud response, you know more uh in the beginning right all right So another one would be like a circus press. This was an exercise that we included in maps strong And it's a strong man typically sometimes I'll do it in competition It's kind of like a one arm shoulder press obviously there's a lot more body movement involved It's very explosive. It starts at the floor comes up to the shoulder and then you you boost it up So it's like a push press except with one arm with a dumbbell Great exercise again, don't do it to fatigue the goal is to move the weight fast and hard Keep the reps relatively low and again if you're adding this to your normal routine a couple sets Then you go into your traditional routine and in and then you'll see you'll see the difference You'll see how you feel and you'll see by the way you'll notice. I love this. I said this again I said this earlier, but I'll say it again You'll notice that you may actually be stronger in your traditional exercises because you started with something explosively It's a very strange phenomenon. It's well documented It's like you you we're teaching this right now like you're to to prime to go into traditional stuff But I actually think that this could actually even work as a standalone workout by itself Oh, I could you do three to five sets of one of these exercises of this the seven that we're going through We're going through all the whole body. Yeah, I mean you you get a an incredible workout right here Five reps three to four sets of each one of these exercises And and go through all uh all a single one pick one of the exercises We're doing two or three for every like muscle group you pick one And do a full body routine. You have an incredible 100% right 100% right. All right. Uh next let's go to core Now core a lot of people think oh, it's is that really explosive or whatever. Oh, yeah I mean any explosive movement in life involves the core So having explosive dynamic ability in the core for functional Capabilities is really important. My favorite core exercise. That's explosive involves bands I love doing an explosive side chop with bands now. It's not explosive on the negative So I've seen people do this with a band where they swing swing swing swing It's looks loose and it's not good. It's the positive portion of the rep So it's the chop control on the way back gather yourself chop again with a lot of speed Control yourself on the way back one of my favorite core exercises and it also trains rotation Which I think generally speaking a lot of people don't have enough rotation, you know in the routine I like this. I really like the the landmine rotation And I think we had Danny do a series of the landmine rotation I know we have it in performance. Do we have it in anything else? Where we have the landmine rotation just in performance. So it's in performance And I also know that we did a series on the youtube channel I just think that one is it is such a great movement and it's a it's a most gyms have the the The little accessory that you put on the things you could do the landmine. They do now, don't they? Yeah, most of them have them now. That's a that's a great exercise. What about a side toss right with the medicine ball? Oh, yeah, that's one of my favorites again to the point of like sort of just focusing on the concentric portion of it You know taking a medicine ball across your body and being able to you know maintain your Your stance in a lateral position and then you know throw it across It's a very dynamic You know type of an exercise that you can you can do, you know You know very very effectively as long as you have a good wall. That's not going to smash, you know And stuff and I believe you did this on the youtube channel Yeah, almost almost everything that we've listed most everything is if it's not in a program It's also on the mind pump tv channel. All right now calves. Let's get to calves. You know, what's funny about this by the way Um, one of the few things that calves is stubborn body part for me Part of the reason is I didn't focus on them a lot of like a lot of other body parts The other part is that they just don't respond Like most of my the rest of my body and it's funny There's a few things that I've done that really add muscle to my calves and one of them is explosive movements Like any times I've done anything explosive with my lower body which always involves calves like sprinting or jump rope Which is what we listed here. I do notice growth in my calves part of me not doing them Is that is actually being lazy? But if I want my calves to really develop It's one of the best things I could possibly do is an incorporate some explosive component I mean you guys tease me a lot like genetically, but it's not I mean That's definitely a huge part of it. But at the same time like I was doing a lot of jump ropes and and I you know, obviously like Sled sprints and things like that where I was on my toes quite a bit and I was moving explosively Which does express, you know those muscles and get them Well, I'll come to your I'll come to your defense on that. We had a treatment. You I don't remember Mike Mike I used to a trainer of mine and had these great calves and I'd never seen him do calves And he used to always tease me about my calves, of course And he swore that like he's like bro My calves look just like your calves when I was a young kid and stuff like that and what developed him He's a boxer. Oh jump rope all the time. He's like jump rope like every I jump roped every day And he goes literally that's what all I have done for my calves my whole life And I didn't have calves until that into that point and he swears by That being the the answer to him developing his calves So, you know, it's funny about that speaking of boxers boxers typically if they're well developed will have Muscular calves muscular shoulders and muscular cores and oftentimes upper back as well all involved With the most explosive with all the explosive movements that they do which involve punching So, you know, there's there's some more evidence right there on some of the muscle building You know capabilities ice skaters. That's another good. You know what I like about ice skaters is the the lateral You know work that you get from it. So yes, it develops your calves But it's also training laterally. Oh, you could throw that in the glute area too because when you when you do an ice I actually like decelerate. Yes. I actually love to do ice skaters for glutes Even though you're getting cab cab stability and stuff going on there and the laterals for your hips and stuff But up boy the glutes develop big time from from ice skaters such a great explosive movement But when you have to stabilize on one leg and then explode over the other side It's always one I would try and incorporate especially with clients too because it really helps a lot with, you know ankle stability and like lots of Injury prevention if we can like keep this in the mix Really addresses a lot of issues that you don't Address very often which get exposed when you're in a situation like that where you know, you step on something You you slide you, you know, you're falling. How do you catch yourself? How do you gather yourself and like, you know, it's good to train these things to be able to get your body respond Also another one I love to do barefoot if you can like such a good like you we talk about Like a limiting factor on a lot of people is Foot and ankle strength is just with the shoes that we wear Often we wear them all the time we we tend to have weak weak in mobile ankles and weak ass feet And so this is such a great exercise to strengthen both the feet and the ankles while also working calves and glutes Such a good exercise to incorporate no matter what your goals are in your routine Yeah, and I'll start slow of course and of course make sure you have some strength and stability before you attempt these and do the first Set easy to kind of get the hang of it, but here's the challenge that I'll give everybody watching this You can do all of these in a workout. That's great or Pick a body part that you have that's tough to develop So we talked about every single major body part If there's an area of your body that you have a challenge developing Try doing three sets of one of the explosive movements that we talked about in the beginning of that workout And then train your body part like you normally would and let us know Let us know after about four or five weeks if you don't see Additional muscle growth and my bet is that the vast majority of you will look if you like our information Head over to mind pump free dot com and check out all of our free guides You can also find all of us On social media. So justin can be found at mind pump. Justin. I'm at mind pump sal and adam is at mind pump adam All right, if you enjoyed that clip, but you might want a little more visual aid to go with that Go to mind pump tv and subscribe