 First question is from wellner wellness both my husband and I suffer from neck pain and find that bicep work standard curls and Others aggravate this. What are some bicep workouts we can do? I love this question because this reminds me of the flak that I got on YouTube In regards to my bicep curl video. Do you remember that? I do your split stance. Yeah, the split Oh, they're giving shit about yeah the split stance and then teaching people to pull the shoulders back and then just coming up to full flexion and where your dumbbell is about to your you know, right about your nipple line or so and Not rotating up, which we know that you know full full range of motion on the bicep requires a little bit of that rolling up of the shoulder the problem is That this is exactly what I came across with clients either one They would allow the shoulder to take over a lot of the movement and they'd feel feel it less in their bicep Or it would even aggravate their shoulder Because they're in this kind of forward position and then they're moving and rocking up with the bicep curls And then teaching them in more strict form One help them feel it in the bicep more and then to eliminate things like this. Yeah Well, okay, so the big thing for me when I hear questions like this is is a reminder that just because an exercise Works a particular body part. It does not mean that the rest of the body is not engaged in some way, right? So a bicep curl single joint exercise. You're bending the elbow. You're just working the biceps Does this mean your core is not involved? Does this mean that your shoulder girdle doesn't have to be stabilized Doesn't mean that your head and neck position aren't important to pay attention to if you have a tendency towards neck pain What a lot of people do with with exercises is they either shrug their shoulders a lot with all exercises or They look down or jet their head forward for they strain, you know out of their neck muscles Just by the you know grinding their way through the exercise. Yeah, so I would say keep your shoulders down Keep your head straight and tall elongate create some traction in your spine as you're doing your bicep exercise The other thing I would say is work on your shoulder and upper back mobility work on those areas because you know if your neck is preventing you from working your biceps I mean, it's going to prevent you from doing a lot of things Especially exercises like squats and overhead presses and and deadlifts. So I would definitely work on on mobility Now there are also of course supplements that can help with pain and inflammation Although I don't consider these things to be first lines of defense or solutions They can help and in the way that they tend to benefit is they reduce inflammation Which then gets you to move better which then helps you reduce Future pain because when you have some pain already there sometimes we protect ourselves with certain positions Which actually contribute to the pain over time I know Organifi has got a great Natural anti-inflammatory supplement called move in fact it has asked that that's the xanthan in it It has that in there it does because of its anti-inflammatory Yeah, properties it's got a holy basil in there and other products as well So you could take that and help reduce the inflammation But you got to fix your positioning in your mobility. Otherwise this problem was gonna stick Yeah, this was actually a common one I would get from clients doing bicep curls Primarily like you had mentioned the chin kind of tucking down and like because they're trying to concentrate so hard on what their arms Are doing and looking down at it, but also if it's you know a heavy amount of weight where They're grinding their teeth and they're really squeezing and straining a bit in their face You know the next not in a favorable position and then they're adding all this extra tension and stress in that area They they ended up getting these tension headaches as a result if you haven't watched the YouTube video I did on bicep curls. I know it's one of the it's one of the top ten or top five videos that we've done as far as views It's pretty easy to find on our mind pump TV YouTube channel watch that if you want to take it to the next level So this is where I love I would love to pull out my PVC pipe So I would take this person I would put them in that splits I would lighten the load. Okay, especially when we're talking about an isolation exercise Yeah, you know pushing yourself towards the highest dumbbells you can curl or easy curl. Nobody cares Yeah, and not even just nobody cares But the you're not gonna get that much more benefit by lifting 10 more pounds than what you could in a bicep You get better better results of more better form, right? So you lighten the load You know watch that video and then then even the next level to that especially I think this person said they're working out with Their husband right so there's two of them working out together You take the PVC pipe and you you put it behind your partner's back And you want the the back of their nodule of their head touching it You want their their upper shoulder blades touching it and then their low back with their hips touching Those are the three points that you do not want to lose Contact at all and then perform the movement like I teach it in the YouTube video That should eliminate a lot of the stress that you're feeling in the neck And in the shoulders and again just focus on form Remember we've talked in in the previous episodes about progressive overload you can do that by slowing the tempo down So lighter weight slow the tempo down control the exercise focus more on the bicep Make sure you're keeping that spine nice and neutral. That's what the PVC pipe is for That's why I like the split stance. You can also do that with a wall or a squat rack I do that sometimes with the squat rack right place instead of using a PVC pipe I'll use the one of the you know the one of the bars from the the squat rack And I'll put that in the middle of my back or I'll put my back up against the wall Put your back up against the wall keep your shoulder blades hips tuck the chin and tuck the chin And put that the small nodule at the base of your skull Against the wall keep them all in contact And if you really want to make it strict keep your elbows in contact with the wall And then do curls I would recommend that because part of sometimes with the shoulder aggravation Is that last bit of flexion that happens in the shoulders engage and that might be aggravating it