 What's happening to you too? Salah Mike here back with another video. A little upper body day. You only can't see things because of the lighting. It's not because they're not there. Before we get started, I want you guys right now, any questions that pop into your head, lifestyle, nutrition, fitness, the meaning of life, any of it, comment below. Right now, we're going to be answering these at least once a week in a video coming up today. I hit a little bit upper body. I grabbed some dips, which I haven't done for a long time. Typically they hurt my shoulders. That's why I just did body weight, a little bit of overhead press, strict press, get a little bit of a pump, some nice cheater side laterals, a little bit of triceps push-ups, a little bit of a salt bike to finish her off. A common question that keeps popping up, Mike, how tall are you and how much your weight? I don't know why it matters to you. But if you guys want to know, I'm probably about five nine or so. I'm a basketball roster. Yes, I was six feet. And right now I'm about waking up in the morning around 205 pounds. In this previous block of training come December-ish, I was also around 205 to 210, but I'm much leaner now. The cardio is good. The nutrition is good. And my training volume has gone way up. I talked about trying to find motivation, trying to find fun in the gym. And right now I'm getting more volume, although it's more sporadic and the progressive overload or the progressions aren't as detailed, which is good for my head. I am just getting an overall more work. So my body is responding well, getting a little bit leaner, feeling a little bit better. My cardio is up and my work capacity is way up. General strength is probably down just because I'm not handling the intensities, but we're getting the volume in 205 pounds. The goal is to be 195 or below. Obviously, that kind of depends. Like I said, I have leaned out a little bit because the work capacity and workload has gone way up. Nutrition has been locked in, hitting my protein every single day. So it's just a little bit of a general vague goal. But the goal is around 195 or below. Keep my conditioning up, keep the motivation up, keep my nutrition on lock eating tons of veggies and feeling pretty dang good. If I do say so myself. I guess another semi-common question that I've read at least a couple of times is, Mike, do you have ADHD? Now, Mike, me, is not a big fan of doctors and things, unless I'm feeling really, really sick, which is very, very rare because I think of the lifestyle I lead and the fitness that I have. But so I've never been diagnosed. Do I have some kind of ADD or ADHD in me? It's highly likely. It's highly likely that I do. My mind runs a million miles a minute. My body tries to keep up. And my stress and anxiety also tries to keep up. Do I have my diagnosed with anxiety? I am not. I don't know. I talk about those things because that's what comes to my mind. And I don't know how else to describe how I feel or the overwhelming thoughts and repetition in my brain. So I don't want to claim or negate anyone that has actually been diagnosed or that has issues. But yeah, man, we probably got some ADD up in here. You know, you guys noticed a couple of videos ago, I did use weightlifting, heeled shoes, squat shoes for some trap bar deadlifts. Be sure to check back to that video talking about my back, talking about the future, talking about what's happening. The question is why did you use squat shoes or why would one, one hypothetically use squat shoes to deadlift? And the truth is majority of the time I would say no, they're not going to be advantageous for any barbell movement beside the squat, clean and jerk and snatch. I use them on the trap bar strictly to try to get my legs involved more and my back involved less. Now this doesn't necessarily work with a regular conventional deadlift or a sumo because of bar path. Your knees will travel more forward often if you're using that heeled shoe. And that will mess up the bar path on a regular deadlift. But on the trap bar, there's no bar there to hit me in the knees. So I could get a little more quads involved and hopefully get a little bit more upright. Plus they're nice sturdy shoes. So I tried to do it and still didn't help much tweak my back a little bit or just locked up on me. So it's a no go for me, but it is a way to kind of use a little bit more quads and get more upright in most movement. Same reason I use the high handles. A lot of people say, Mike, turn that thing around. Make it harder. Use the lower handles. I am struggling with a little bit of a back issue. So I purposely used the elevated to cut down on range of motion to see if I could even do that with no back pain. Something easily you should do if you have any tweaks, any injuries. I mean, if you have an injury, you need to go seek professional help. If you have any tweaks or nagging pains, we need to maybe drop the load to an area you don't have pain. That's what you start with. And then probably cut down the range of motion with some kind of exercise variation to see if you can still get away with some type of movement pattern like the squat bench dead. If those are your goals in that region. Yeah. So a couple of videos ago, I talked about how I don't love powerlifting as a sport. And what I mean by that is I never got into squat bench deadlift or lifting weights or never continue to lift weights or push myself in the gym because of the sport of powerlifting is what drives me. I love coaching people. I'm very involved in the sport and have been for the last seven years in a multitude from, from judging to spotting and loading, to coaching, to promoting meats, to helping other people set up meats, to coaching athletes in those meats and competing myself. But I don't love that. I love the day in, day out grind, going to the gym, getting work done, even when you don't want to. I love the simplicity of the progressive overload to get certain sets and reps done every single day, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out to make small incremental gains. And that is, for me, just the picturesque summary of what life is. Small improvements, little things day in and day out to get you towards your goal. And that is why I love the sport of powerlifting. It's not for me to compete. I'm sorry if that confused you on the question, but I love, I love you all. I love people that compete. This isn't a powerlifting channel. This is me helping you guys channel. Hopefully I can help you in fitness and in the gym. Hopefully I can help you smile a little bit. Hopefully I can share my experiences that I'm so lucky and that I've built to be able to experience and share them with you. So you guys can have a little bit of fun and to build a community. Those are the goals of this channel. This channel is always two. Number one, help you guys make you smile, make you a better athlete, make you lose the weight, reach your goals. Two, hopefully, hopefully share my experiences that entertain you guys to some extent. And three, to build the best community that I can. And I'm so blessed to have that. And those are always from day one, been the goals of this channel and will continue from here on until infinity. Ladies and gentlemen, last fixture form video, scroll back, check it out. I went over a bunch of dead lists. We talked a little bit about breathing and we talked about tightness and being so important for the transfer power in both squat, bench, and deadlift. And how it'll allow you to not only train more volume, be more efficient, and stay safe. And someone's question was, Mike, hypothetically, if I could brace harder or get tighter with a rounded back, then I could have flapped back. Would that then be safer? And I think because of multiple factors, that's just not hypothetical. One, when you're all crouched over, you won't be able to brace your stomach as well. What we're trying to do right is expand and brace both our obliques, our abs, and our low back and really get as rigid and straight as we can. Nothing in a bent position is going to be as strong to transfer that power. And then two, what I would say is that will put an extra stress, especially if you're pulling a conventional or sumo on the erectors and low back and not be able to engage the glutes at lockout under maximal loads, maybe even 90% or more. You won't be able to lock out very efficiently and actually hip hinge because you'll have your pelvis tucked underneath you, ala this. Can you see me? Yeah. So if I'm trying to lock out a maximal load and I'm in this position, one, I'm probably not already braced, right? Although my abs are flexed, none of my obliques or my low back are in a nice tight position. And so what will happen under max load right here is we'll have to uncurl ourself under load, under using full erectors rather than if I'm already in a nice brace position and I'm compact, all I'll be able to do is squeeze my hips and hands and I'll be able to lock out just like this. Do you guys see the difference? So one, I'll have to uncurl myself. I'm called out the zombie, the fish hook, the dog shitting on the lawn because my pelvis is underneath. So now my glutes are not engaged and my hands are not engaged. Or if I get a good starting position, the reason we miss that lock out is because the shit starting position, I'm compact, I'm tight here, I'm rigid from hips to shoulder, hamstrings are engaged, glutes are engaged. All I have to do is flex my quads, flex my hips and I'll lock anything out. So you're hypothetical, although on the one millionth chance that that's true, maybe, but your lockout will suffer, your low back will take unneeded stress. And again, for the efficiency for not only handling more volume, handling more weight, handling more safely and longevity, I suggest a flatter back, a more rigid midline and being able to hip hinge, not just squat or unroll or lockout. Ladies and gentlemen, again, I want you to leave your fitness, life, nutrition, universe questions below in the comments. We'll be answering in upcoming videos. I appreciate all this support. Guys, smash that thumbs up, smash that thumbs up, and I repeat myself, smash that thumbs up, give it a like, turn on the bell so you don't miss a video. New videos come on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, twitching as much as I can. Everything Link in the bio appreciates you. Oh, thanks so much. I'm out of here. I'll catch you in the next one.