 Welcome to barbell logic rewind. Hey, this is barbell logic. I'm Scott I've got Matt with me and today we're gonna talk about supplemental lifts today first you got it tells what those things are They're not accessories. They're not so when I think of supplemental lifts I think of a lift is a variation on the main lift Something that looks like the main lift something. It's not a competition squat Well, we might call the competition squat normal low bar squat when you do it in competition It's not that but it looks like that You know any variation of a squat that is Close to the main lift or a deadlift or any of the lifts, right? So why would we do that? Well for a couple reasons one is because we can attack weak points with it one So when we start to see places where form breaks down we can concentrate on that specific area We really do supplemental lifts for one of two reasons one is to be able to overload So we some supplemental lifts allow us to lift more weight than normal because it's a partial movement So think of a rack pull as opposed to a deadlift once you get decent at a rack pull It's a partial movement you can do more weight on a rack pull Theoretically and yeah, then you could on a full range deadlift So that's one reason the other reason is because sometimes we actually do lifts which are a longer range of motion Which use a little less weight doesn't tend to beat us up as much But also will attack sometimes attack weaknesses But also because it's a longer range of motion with less weight It allows us to have the stress needed to disrupt homeostasis to drive the Adaptation that we need which is to get stronger work is force times distance if we can make D go up We can often make the F go down and still get more work It's like a deficit deadlift would be something like that Yeah, so there are an infinite number of supplemental lifts that you could use now what it's not is an accessory movement So when I think of accessory movement I think of a thing that might work the same muscles of the main lifts but doesn't look like the main lift at all So a leg press for a squat, right? That doesn't look like a squat It still works a glute ham raise for a squat like things like that those are just an accessory movement and those things are just there to basically get additional volume in Also to disrupt homeostasis, but often they're there for hypertrophy purposes, right that I can't at some point I can't just Squat to get bigger legs, right or I can't just bench press to get bigger upper body or whatever We use those accessories like the barbell row and the chin though to support our other work though Of course. Yeah, but they don't look like anything else. They don't what they are So there are also it's hard to quantify how much an accessory lift makes your you know It's hard to quantify how much a barbell row makes your deadlift or even your bench press go up But it's easier to quantify how much a supplemental lift does and so I just want to talk to you about some of my favorite Supplemental lifts today because there's so many of them out there Which ones I think actually carry over the best to the main competition lifts This may be out of order, but maybe this is more definition stuff. Would you call it like chained work? Supplemental. Yeah, you would okay. Okay. Yeah, and we'll get there Why I think chain work is good versus something else. So let's start with squat. What variations do I like on this spot? Well, there are several lots. There's not lots. There's lots you can do. There's not lots. I like okay with that, right? Okay, so yeah, I just want to be clear. So for example, let me give you one That's clearly a supplemental lift that I don't like front squat. Yep. I don't like front squat It's too different to right and so when we start thinking about the supplemental list We're thinking about the spectrum of specificity and a front squat is not very specific Specifically to what we do to a low bar squad, right? Is it still a squat? It's still a squat But even if it was specific, I don't want them to do it because we fight knee slide So much we want to hold the knee back and reach back with their butt and it's going to teach them the other thing Right. It's a yeah I don't know remember that supplemental lifts to like it has to be noted that I don't introduce supplemental lists until at least Mid intermediate training. So I don't even do it in early intermediate. I don't introduce it in Texas method I don't introduce in heavy light medium. It's not until after I get to that four-day split That's when I'm gonna introduce that and so again that four-day split is gonna look like You're gonna have four days to upper to lower on the lower days day one on the lower day So day one is gonna be squat and you're gonna do a deadlift supplemental exercise And then you're gonna have a couple accessory slots in there, right? So you're gonna do a squat you're gonna do some deadlift variation day three Will also be a lower body day Day three and that'll be the deadlift competition deadlift and a supplemental squat now Usually the supplemental squat will be performed before the deadlift because we just usually like squatting before the deadlift It doesn't have to be but you'll do the main deadlift and a supplemental squat And then the upper body days are the same thing day two and four So day two is bench press day and you'll do your competition bench press and you'll do a supplemental press and Day four will be press day You'll do a supplemental bench and then you'll have your slots in there like barbeaux rose Chins, maybe dips, maybe, you know line tricep extensions, whatever curls for the girls things like that Okay, so that's the template now in a future episode We're actually gonna talk about the four-day split as from a programming perspective, but the four-day split Regardless of how you end up programming it the template actually looks exactly the same it almost always looks like this for a split What are you gonna do? Well, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna do a squat and then when it comes time to do a squat Supplemental lift, which is what you do on the deadlift day. These are the ones I like. I love a pause squat Yeah, I think a pause squat works really well You lower down exactly the same way you normally squat you pause for two seconds stay super tight super tight And what I'm looking for as a coach when I'm watching videos or in person I'm looking for back angle change on the pause that you're practicing the hip drive You're practicing firing out of life exactly right and so that if you relax your hamstrings to pause Your back angle will become more vertical and you'll cut out your hip drive So instead you have to stay bent over you have to maintain the back angle and then fire up after two seconds I really like a pause squat. Obviously, you can't use as much weight It also sort of breaks up that eccentric concentric chain. There's no stretch reflex down there at the bottom There's no bounce. It makes it hard. So I like that. I like a box squat I think a box squat works just fine Especially for people and it does the same thing as pause squat It's just that you actually allow the box to take the weight for just about a second So it's not a two second pause means only a half second We go down and we just touch our romp on the box and then come back and then fire up We don't do the rock back thing. Definitely do not right back However, we don't change all of our geometry. No, we're on the box But I do let the box take the weight. Yes, so there is a difference. Otherwise, you're just using the box as a depth gauge I'm just going out and touching the box and come back up. That's not what it is I actually have to sit on the box. But again, I don't want the back angle to change I do not want the back angle to change, right? What a box does it does let you tend to sit back a little more than you do and study this I I actually think a lot of people in the box actually allow the barbell to get slightly behind the midfoot Yes, you can do that and and you can go down Exactly over your midfoot and when you sit on the box and it squashes your hamstrings You almost by necessity will rock back back. There's almost nothing you can do about it, right? And but that works really well for people who tend to have a problem on their toes or on the ball their foot Which is most people almost and nobody's on their heels, right? You just almost never have that right or I say almost like one out of 20 people. That's what you're gonna Sure, I do really like a box squat. I like a pin squat I think a pin squat set about two inches above parallel is a horrible place I mean, it's a good it's where you want to do it But it's brutal because it's that same idea as a rack pull like you're in no man's land So so what you do is you you set those pins about two inches so that the bar sits in the pins the safeties in your Brack when you're about two inches above parallel and then see squat down and you let the pins take all the weight Yep, and then fire back up. So you're like you said, you're in the no man's land That's the hard place when you fail and grind. That's where you fail and grind Start the load in the hardspots miserable. Yeah, there's no stretch reflex your hamstrings don't really get stretched out It's like a dead squad. Yeah, you're like, yes, it's a dead squad. You're loose Now I'll tell you I don't know if you want to call it a correction But what I'll tell my clients is rather than letting the pins take a hundred percent of the weight I don't let let it take two thirds of the weight and the reason I say that is because and I don't even know That's true It's just the way I have them visualize thing of it because they'll go down They'll sit on their pins and sometimes the bar will come off their back a little bit and then they'll fire up into the bar And so I want there to still be some weight on their back to keep your shoulder blades back So there's a little bit of weight on so that you go down and pause on the pins and then fire up And so and you can actually do pin squats at various sort of heights and so you could actually theoretically do them higher I just I tend to like a little like two inches about parallel seems to be about right nightmare. Yeah It's horrible. And so and then the last one I use for primary one that I use for squats And most my clients is the tempo squad I like tempo as well I have just started using those more often because I think it helps people control The squat in a better sort of place. And so again with a tempo like three second eccentric No pause at the bottom and like three second concentric and it's hard to six second rep is hard You can't do as much weight some additional stress It's a big help to have a partner in those by the way, it is yeah to kind of count, you know in your ear while you do it So those are the four big ones I for squats now Here's the other one that I actually like maybe more than any of the other ones. It's chain squats. Okay, I Like chains on the bar, but the problem is so much fun They're awesome. The problem is that nobody has them. Yeah And so chains are expensive and they're hard to come by I mean if you get lucky sometimes you get lucky on Craigslist like nothing you did I got a bunch of cheap chain, but it's you know, you want to buy five eighths inch chains That's the actual diameter of each individual link each link is a great big giant link Those will be about six feet long somewhere in there, right? I've got two set I got mine from rogue and the rogue ones. They're probably not six feet They're probably about five and I weighed them and they're 17 pounds a section Yeah, that's kind of funny because they say 20 and no that's the same ones I had so the exact same thing There's like 17 17 and a half and so probably three links difference between 20 pounds. Yeah They're that in one link probably weighs a pound sure probably about right So what you'll do the reason we do chains first off what you'll do is you'll take usually a thinner chain a small chain That thin chain that is I don't know. It's probably it's also probably what it's like the one off your swing set Yeah, I mean it's and it's five six feet long, right? And you connect a carabiner to it and it's a leader chain and you put that leader chain on the bar bell And then you put all this heavy chain you fold it over itself and you hook it into the leader chain and it hangs We'll post a picture out on the show notes and then if each chain is let's say it's 20 pounds for easy math, right? Right, but three chains per side. So that's 60 pounds per side. So it's 120 pounds in chain And I have let's say have 300 pounds on the bar when I stand up at the top There's 420 pounds on my back. There's 300 pounds of bar weight. There's 120 pounds of chain and There's one or two links of chain on the ground already. So the chain isn't swinging up in there. It's a safety issue Yeah, sure. It's so you got it so there's a little bit of chain on the ground and as I squat down that chain continues to pool on the ground and De-loads the amount of weight that's on my back. So at the bottom of my squat Probably 60 70% of that chain weight is de-loaded off of the bar. So now I have 300 pounds on the bar But I only instead of 120 pounds of chain on my back only have 40 pounds or 50 pounds of chain on my back So it's like 350 at the bottom. So your load is dynamic, right? And 420 at the top and so what it does is it actually works the strength curve You know most of us can quarter squat more than we can full squat Yeah, and so it allows you to work that full strength curve so that the amount of time that it takes to perform a rep at Maximum intensity trying as hard as you can Slows it down. So most of us when you come firing out of the hole You'll fire the whole out of stress reflex You slow down in the middle and you get towards the top your leverage gets better and the weight speeds up again at The top of the squat well with the chain it just all goes slow. Yeah, all the way the top Yeah, you're stronger at the top. So there's more weight on you at the top Yeah, so it the whole damn rep is hard. Yeah, the whole rest of the consequence So that's when I say it works the strength curve That's what I mean. So it's working this curve of the fact that like maybe I can only squat 75 pounds more in a quarter I can squat 75 pounds more in a quarter squat than I can in a full squat Well, I can adjust for that with the chain. Yep, so that I'm essentially performing movements at exactly 85% or 90% or 95% of true intensity through the entire range of motion lift not just in a specific point of the lift and It sounds great. Oh, that's fine. It's fine Yeah, if you can get the chain, it's a great tool for a late intermediate and beyond Yeah, so you can order those at rogue shipping, you know, shipping's kind of high I think it I just said Brett gets on me got him in this week. I think he got Four sets or something in it costs a pound. Yeah costing like 300 bucks So I'd say you plan to spend between two and 300 bucks on some chain look on Craigslist certainly if you live in like a port city like Baltimore or Something like that. I mean you probably got a real good chance to get them for cheap, right? You know, you're liable to find some 50 60 bucks, but they're nice to have as an intermediate So so that's squat squat supplemental lifts. Would you consider a beltless squat a supplement left? Sure I mean, that is a very a beltless squat is a very specific Squat, right? So it's harder. Of course. It's harder. Yeah. It's harder. Yeah, of course Yeah, of course and what about your safety bar? Yeah bars all the time. I use those all the time I just and I like them carry over quite as well. It's a high bar squat typically It is kind of a high bar so we try to push us handle up and get the bar a little lower Take some pressure off your shoulders. We want it to look like the low bar square We just can't quite get it there again The question is why do I not use a safety swap bar for my subliminal list very often well almost none of my clients Have it right and so there's some of those things like I mean I like a buffalo bar Slash Duffalo bar I mean I think any of those are fine again. You're looking at the specificity How specific is a buffalo bar squat to what we do? It's actually pretty specific I mean, it's just a slight curve to the bar just like a just like a squat without a belt is pretty damn specific Whereas the safety squat bar is gonna be significantly more different Yeah, a box squat is gonna be quite a bit more different a tempo squat It's just gonna basically make things really really hard, but it's the same sort of squat, right a front squat really different Yeah, right a leg press is not a supplemental lift. It's off the reservation. Yeah, so that's squats Okay, let's go to deadlift deadlift. I don't like very many on the deadlift. Yeah, we have less less here in our toolbox Well, I don't know that that's even true like again because of my west side day So really that's idea of supplemental lifts or variations in the lift I learned from Louie at West Side and they had tons of these now remember they would even do things like good mornings Would be their supplemental list. It's just a good morning is not a supplemental lift That's an accessory movement based on the way we're defining it which is does anything like nothing like a deadlift, right? And so bars up on your back, and it's it's also doesn't look anything like a squat Louie thought that it was a supplemental lift for both the squad and the deadlift and I can understand why it'd be an accessory movement for Both of those But for a deadlift, I really like a low deficit. That's my favorite So like a one inch deficit deadlift one and a half inch two inches absolute max The reason I like that longer range of motion But not too much is because at one inch it makes the range of motion one inch longer Which is actually more than you think yeah, it's at the worst part At the worst part but because it's only an inch it doesn't change your back angle that much And so it seems to carry over well There have been a lot of guys from the past powerlifting from those 70s 80s 90s Who really like like a three inch deficit four inch deficit? I just would argue that it changes the back angle too much I also like a deficit better than a snatch grip deadlift Because to me a snatch grip deadlift changes two major variables It changes both the range of motion and where the grip is So the grip if you've ever done a snatch grip deadlift so a snatch grip deadlift is gonna change the back angle That's right, right to make the range of motion longer angle of attachment for the lab Yeah, and so everything is different in the upper body as well So with a deficit deadlift where I'm standing on an inch of mats two mats a two little half inch mats Then everything else is exactly the same. It's just the range of motion is longer And so I really like a deficit. I like a deficit for people who struggle to pull the weight off the floor Quickly properly they lose back extension Anything that kind of goes poorly with the weight off the floor I like doing a deficit because now it makes it even harder off the floor and then when we go to pull off the floor Normally then all sudden you go like well, this is way easier because I'm in a better position I can breathe a little better like everything's easier. So I really like a deficit. I really like rack pulls I love right. I like rack pulls just below the tibial bump just below that tibial plateau tibial tuberosity Two inches below your knee Three and then when they do it they're still an inch too high So maybe it's four inches below the knee somewhere in there So upper mid shin rack pulls above the knee or a waist. Yeah, your leverages are too good You still want to make sure when you set up with a rack pull You set up just like you would a deadlift at the point that you pull a rack pull Your shoulders are still gonna be slightly in front of the bar If you can get to the point where you can you say it's just like the deadlift You're closer to the bar when we set up on our deadlift our shins are an inch away when we're standing Yeah, and you're doing the rack pull like, you know, you're half an inch or maybe but you're exactly right except That's exactly where it would be on a normal deadlift at that point, right? Right. So you're exactly right. So what I do I don't walk on a rack pull Forward until my shins are an inch from the bar. I walk forward until my shins touch the bar Yeah, so that my shins are at the point where the rack on pulling right pull my shins are vertical at that point Because that's where they're gonna be When the bar is at that height if I'm pulling a regular deadlift, right? My knees will extend and go back a little bit, right? So my shoulders will be slightly in front of the bar. If you've never done a rack pull from this position I'll tell you right now. It's a shorter range of motion. You're like, man, I'm gonna deadlift a lot more I'm gonna rack pull a lot more than a deadlift and you end up deadlifting about 75 pounds less It's hard. It's hard. Now you can get good at it And I've seen you know, you get to the point where you get more efficient at it And you will eventually probably pull 50 pounds more or 75 pounds more on that mid-shin rack pull Then you can do from the floor once you get efficient and good at it But in the beginning you're again, you're in no man's land out there There's no tightness of nothing stretch your hamstrings aren't stretched Nothing's tight. You're just kind of in this spot where you're just everything's gonna lose It's really hard to get tight And so the other thing you've got to do on these rec pulls is you often have to strain for four or five seconds to Get the bar to break off the pins. It takes a long time So be patient with that thing because you could compress everything in your body You've got to compress everything and most of us are normal population We don't have a great rate of force development, right? So that's a genetic thing if your vertical jump is 42 inches and virtually nobody's listening to us has a vertical of 42 inches Are you saying people are sluggardly? Yeah, yeah, probably probably that's what I'm saying You know people are real explosive are gonna make that bar move a little faster And those of us are they're slower. It's gonna take a longer time to go from pulling It feels like you're pulling a hundred percent on that bar Yeah, but you're not it takes a while to actually go from pulling zero to pulling a hundred percent Sometimes it takes like five seconds to pull and then so you'll pull you'll pull you'll pull you feel like oh man My face is gonna explode so much pressure and then all of a sudden the bar starts moving And as soon as it starts moving off the pins, it usually goes out fast Yeah, because your leverages get better quickly. So it teaches the grind. Yeah, it does those are my two favorite Deadlift variants the other two that I use that I really like again I really like deadlift with chains as a matter of fact I definitely like deadlift chains better than a rack pull Because it does what we're trying to do on a rack pull but it does it with a full range of motion Again, most people don't have chains, but if you do have chains man chains on a deadlifter excellent, right? The only thing I hate about is like setting that deadlift down without putting it on the chain Yet to pain in the butt so you've got two options. You can actually put it inside the collars Close to your hands close to your feet right but just outside your hands and feet And that will sometimes or what I'll do is actually put it at the end of the collars on the outside Yep, and try to gather it up. So yeah deadlift with chains rarely Can you do more than like two reps per set when you double chain because eventually the chain is going to work It's way underneath the weights and you're going to set it down on the chain and it's going to roll funny Yeah, that's the one thing that's kind of pain in the butt and then I like paused deadlifts I like to pull a deadlift to mid shin about four inch of four inches pull pause And then pull and finish the lift so you're not halting there You I mean a halting one right they pull it halfway and then set it down and set it back down Which is fine as well, but I just I like to finish the lift You've already got it off the ground It's not a great deal of additional work to go ahead and lock it out actually at that point Correct, and I've used other things. I've used isometric isotonic lifts. Oh, yeah Listen, I did some lifts years ago. I mean one of my training partners at strong We would load the bar up and we would actually pull it from the floor And we would pull it to the spot where you would do a halting deadlift And we'd pull it and put the pins in the racks You pull it to the bottom of the bottom of the safety and pull against the safety pins for three seconds three two One and then set it down two Those are terrible. They're so hard, but I liked them. It works. Yeah, it works And then we've also done them too where you kind of do a A rack pull that way So you you set your rack pull up about two inches lower than we were talking about earlier It's like two inches below the tibial bump and then put the pins just below the kneecap And you just pull from the bottom pins to the top So if you have two sets of safety pins and so the bar is sitting on the safety pins You go from the top of one safety pin to the bottom of the next one It moves about three inches three four inches and then you just hold it. This is brutal that clang Yeah, so I'm not by the way. I'm not telling people to do that I don't know that I've actually I know for a fact that I've never programmed that for any of my clients I saw one of those isometric york squat racks the other day on craigslist, you know Did you really already bought that? It was in um, I was in like dodge city or something. Okay, man If you ever see one of those yeah, but yeah, it looked like a squat rack But the rails are like, I don't know nine inches apart or something You uh, you would move that bar up and down in between those and just you weren't really using Rack you were just using it for a block to put your bar against you'd squat up against a pin Or deadlift against a pin like that like he was talking about. Yeah, so the interesting thing The story I don't know if you know the history behind this but that came out Essentially the year that Diana ball was invented No for real Right. Oh, it's great. So in the john fair book musseltown usa you can read about this is so interesting Right. So bob hoffman who was a charlatan. Just you know just a just a mess All these guys that were on the york barbell team They had all put on like 40 pounds of body weight and they got super super strong And he's like it's from the isometric isotonic machine. That's what it's from And of course, lo and behold, they were eating diana ball like, you know, like their pez And it wasn't illegal at the time like, you know, just yeah, dr. Ziggler had just invented So that's the guy that actually invented diana ball who got the idea of like Process and formulating this from the soviets. He tested it on the york barbell guys They were the very first guys in all of the world ever have diana ball. So diana ball is an anabolic steroid And so yeah, so probably Their progress was due more to the steroids that they were on and less to the isometric sort of work Star told a story about some university in the town that he was lived in had some of those Isometric under the risers under the risers and he talked about like sneaking in at night and like jumping over the fence To use that I think I would break in to work. Yeah, you know, yeah, that's how they were under the football stadium So that's deadlift. Let's go to press and bet press. That's pretty fast, too Presses that with there's a least amount for press. Yeah, there's a very few that I think carry over well for press And so my favorite by far are pin presses standing pin presses now I actually use different heights So I primarily use pin presses from the forehead height or kind of the top of the forehead or the top of the head I like them there So you put the bar on the pins you press overhead now This creates some problems for some people because a lot of you guys can't press inside your rack I've got the pins that go inside the rack, but I also have the catch safeties that go outside the rack the spotter arms Yeah, the spotter arms. Yes. Thank you And I'll put them on the spotter arms to stand outside the rack and put them on the spotter arms And that's what most of my let's you set the spotter arms up high and the bar is like maybe your hairline high or something like that And you get your feet underneath that thing and you're again, you're loose Yeah, there's no man's land and you just got to get tight and lock that thing out And we normally press it out a high percentage of our wonder at max on those Yeah, a lot of triples there. And so I like those. I like them from eyeball height as well Which is lower and I also like them for like a three to four inch lockout So, you know three four inches above the head kind of depends on when you're failing, right? Like you watch a guy's press and you're like, we're gonna work the lock out. Yeah, yeah, absolutely And also if you're working it at the eyeballs, it's just very stressful And if you're working it for just the last three four inches of lockout You're also trying to acclimate somebody from handling like way heavier weight than they can actually do So if you're only locking out the barbells only moving three or four inches Then a lot of times you're doing 50 pounds over what you could actually do. So I like those I actually like press starts Which is tough to use in the way we're talking about using In a four day split program because press starts usually occur So a press start is basically you do it after your normal pressing so you press So you work up and your press weights are like 205 and you're hitting for some triples here You're already tired. You're already tired your wonder at max is let's say you're hitting 205 for triple And your wonder at max is 225 You put 230 on you put five pounds over your max on you take it out of the rack You walk back you give it the big throw you throw it as high as you can you grind on it and it grinds Just as long as you can and it falls back down Right And then you rack it and then maybe do one more one more single So it might do two singles Of press starts take them out of the rack again You know rest four or five minutes take another rack again step back and I'm basically going to attempt to want a new wonder at max It's a little more than I I'm virtually positive that I can't press it You wrote a like a high-low max effort like powerlifting program is based on some I guess some old movie stuff or something I guess and you had those you had them teamed up, right? You were doing pin presses and then like next week We would do like press starts and then the week after that we do pin presses And after about three cycles of the pair You would go almost every person that tried that program Would put weight on the bar for press stars and then they would log out the press star after doing three sets of five at like 90 points Yep, they would hit PR. They were really miraculous, but then they'll kill you So there's you only seem to be able to do them for about four or five weeks And then if for whatever reason it's just that really heavy weight on your body Just ends up wrecking your body and so it works for you know Yeah, alternating back and forth every other week for six weeks So you would do it three times about three times in a row and so it actually would work really well for people there I think those are so illustrative of the idea of the supplemental lift So, you know, we train the top of the press with our pins pin presses or our lockouts Then we train the bottom of it. Yep because a full range of motion at that weight's too heavy We can't do it So you do top half bottom half top half bottom half and eventually we put it all together and we get a big PR out of it Yeah, it works perfect. Yeah, you're right. So it's a perfect picture Those are the two main ones I use. Um, I talked to jordan about this not long ago He's actually been doing some chain presses, which I've never had anybody do It would be interesting to do that or chain pin presses Doing chains off the pins So it puts the pins at a relatively low spot like you know eyeballs And then I mean puts the barbell at the eyeballs and then connects chain to the bar You know, I think that would make sense like at your regular height that we don't have to walk out the chain Correct with the dragon on for just a regular regular rack position. Yeah, so yeah Yeah, because walking it out with the chains is coming. I gotta do that. I like it I actually like standing heavy dumbbell press Yeah, but again a lot of my clients don't have access to dumbbells, especially at the train at home I think a standing dumbbell press especially start from a strict start at you know at the bottom Carries over well to barbell press. Let me tell you what I don't like. I don't like push press No, because once you get it in there, it's like a tumor. It's too hard to get out I mean, do I think a push press is a valuable exercise for like triceps and lock-out strength? I do I just think that the negatives outweigh the positive and so yeah, I totally agree So I'm not a big push press fan the same thing for push jerk I mean push truck is just not it's a full body lift and it's too Yeah, I'm just not gonna use it. So there's just a handful of press exercises that I use And we have the analogous ones for the bench press, right? We're gonna do Press lock out the bench press lock out pin presses, right? No bench press. You could do a pause press You just half the range. I I actually I really like a long pause on the chest bench press So I do a two second pause bench press off the chest and I'll often do those with a slightly wider grip If the person's shoulders are totally healthy, no problems with their shoulders I haven't widen their bench press grip by about one inch And then come down and they'll pause for two full seconds one one thousand two one thousand boom fire up If they do those long pauses like that same thing for squats. I never have them do more than three reps A lot of time under tension. Yeah, it's too long So I do like a little of a pause bench press a close grip bench press just elongates the range of motion Right, so it's gonna put more moment on the elbow, right a lot of tricep Yeah, a lot of tricep. I like a floor press. I like a pause floor press So floor pressure is scared the sh** out of me. Why is that? Well, you heard on I don't know because what if you miss there's so much safer than bench press if you miss that maybe I don't know So with a floor press, you've got to bring the bar down slow and in control You come now, but also by the time you're doing a floor press Really even females you certainly males. Well, not only that but it's like you've got big old thick triceps So your elbows don't really touch the ground like when I'm doing a floor press and I come down My triceps are the thing that's touching the ground my triceps are thick enough that my elbow really never touches I mean, I'm sure if I came down slammed along the ground it would and so do you prefer the floor press to using the Pen on the bench press. It's the same thing. I think that's true. I do you prefer to I you know And then you've got things like board presses like a box squat almost It's kind of it is like a box squat and it puts you in no man's land again Anybody who's good at bench press from a form perspective. Nobody misses a bench press right off the chest Everybody can throw weight off their chest and where you miss is right at where that floor press is So you bring it down you pause it you're in no man's land and you just you got to lock it out So I I like a floor press. I like a paused wide grip bench press. I like a close grip bench press I do like low pin presses. I do especially low pin press. I like a much better than higher pin presses Low pin press like an inch to two inches off the chest. I really like those If people have boards or like I've got the elite fts as a a pad a bench pad That you can attach the barbell and do kind of partials. I'll tell you my favorite one for bench press slingshot I like slingshot. You know why it's cheap It's easy to get available, you know and you can very much overload the lift, right now You got to be careful. Tom Capitelli had one of his best lifter moon She was benching with real heavy slingshot and you know, no problem I think she had to do a set of three and did the first one no problem Did the second one no problem and threw the third one right on her face And I thought it broke her jaw. They'd take her to the emergency room and I think it changes the mechanics of the lift A little bit. Well, what would be a better option than a slingshot chains chains This is going to be the I bet I could get myself a free pair of chains So I like pimping these chains out all the time. I need to put the show notes Where to buy chains and I'll call rogue. Well, I'll do that. I'll do that You guys sell 20 sets of chains to our listeners. I get a pair I want some sets man. Yeah, because I don't I don't so it's one of the things I lost We had 600 pounds of chain at strong gym and then when I sold strong I was one of the things I lost So yeah, so certainly a better Variation than slingshot is chain But a slingshot cost you what like 40 40 bucks or something like that Put it in your gym bag take you to the gym and go change are going to cost you 300 bucks And so but the same thing. Yeah, so we just you know, bring it down and and pause and fire up I did those with Brett McKay today. I taught him how to do those today at his house And they worked well, so I think that's it on those supplemental lists Obviously, there are other supplemental lists that will work Just the longer I do this the more I see that there are less that I think carry over As well as we want them to and so I don't know that we said it this way Maybe you can't squat super heavy every session So we can take a little weight off the bar Essentially complicate. I don't want to complicate but just makes it a little hard handicap the lift, right? We can put a pause on the back of it. And so you're moving less weight So your joints aren't getting beat up as much because it's less weight, but it's still really damn hard So it's a hack, you know, it's a lot of squats tempo squats things like that That's what all these things are they're all lighter lifts. They just make it harder or You do something like a rack pull or a chain lift or something like that and it overloads the weight So now what's amazing is it allows you to lift heavier weights certainly get stronger What's interesting is that if you let's say your bench press all-time best bench rest is 300 pounds And you get to the point where you're handling 335 and chains at the top So it's 335 and chains at the top and it's like 275 at the bottom and it's a real hard rep It's 335, right? Well, how heavy is 305 going to be in your hand and trying to new pr? It's awesome. You take it out. It's 305 like listen. I've handled 30 pounds more than this This doesn't feel heavy to me. So it's it's a lot of about confidence with those overlifts Do you call a squat walk out? Yeah, I do that dude sometimes a squat walk out to me is the same thing as a press start So I can't program a squat walk out as its own So let me tell you why because it's an overload movement that I have to put after this main thing So a squat walk out you would put in after regular competition which shares that with the bottom squat So what it is guys like let's say your squat max is 400 Yeah, let's say we'll put like 475 maybe on the bar and you just get tight under it Pick it up out of the hooks You step it out like you're going to squat and you just stand there for five seconds I'm 10. Yeah, or 10 and then walk that thing in and it man It is astounding how much stress that places on you. So you're getting some stress You're learning how to get tight, you know We can track isometrically harder than we do in any other way So you get super isometric contraction against that load and then we also are getting used to handling that big heavy weight And so you walk out 475 and 405 feels a whole lot better next time. So I love those Really useful is me especially me like I just I don't know I panic and choke and screw up on heavy squats so much And they've been a big help for me and uh, big heavy bench press handoffs too You just put something super heavy in your hands And then have your spotter racket All those are perfectly fine and they don't stress you out too much But it's more for mental sort of stuff You get you get that stuff on your back and you know, you put 475 on your back If your best squat is 400 pounds and you go to a meet and you try for a 420 squad 425 And you've had 475 on your back to 425. I know this is no big deal. You've at least trained the walk out part Yeah, so I can remember the first time I squatted 600 and a meet I took 600 a rack and I was like, holy This is really a matter of fact the first time when I was a geared lifter, which I'm not proud of those days By the way, well everybody did it. It's like everybody was doing I played for the other team The first time I took 800 pounds out of a monolith because that's what you do when you're a geared power lifter I stood up with 800 pounds in my full squat suit and I went nope And I said pull the rack back in I just set it back on the floor back in the rack because it was so Heavy as a matter of fact I did the same thing when I was doing the yoke And I was learning how to do strongman the first time actually was also 800 some of that 800 800 on your back is really heavy And so now when my pro card and strongman we got to the point where the heaviest yoke run I did as a pro strongman was 930 pounds that is heavy dude 930 I think it was for 75 feet and I think you only got one put down So you could set it on one time you put it down again that marked you in distance and so I can remember the first time I stood up with 800 pounds on a yoke So for those of you guys who don't know what a yoke is it's basically just like a big like squat bar It's how would you it's you know you guys see you know like they pick up the motorcycles on both sides of them or whatever You do a little quarter squat to stand up with the thing and then you run down the street with it It's a super healthy for your hips and knees and ankles, right? They had to I can remember the first time I stood up with 800 pounds I stood up and went now screw this On the ground didn't take one step. So yeah, anyway, yeah, we need to walk out 475 I'm not a giant squatter. I was like I couldn't believe the pressure on the bottom of my feet It didn't hurt. You're just like damn the pressure on the bottom of your feet is astounding. Yep. I can't even imagine 800 Yeah, so if you're listening to the episode and you are not Intermediate you're not in mid intermediate. You should not be doing this list Right There's one of those things that we were talking about that you could go faster than like can you get benefit from these lifts earlier? Intermediate phase for a little while Yes, but you had dues that you should have paid earlier To get yourself to the point to be able to use these and by the time you get to a point where you need to use them Certainly your coach will know if your coach and you should be coached by somebody whether that's an in-person coach or an online coach But even for yourself by the time you get here You'll clearly know the places in the lifts that you need to work on like where you're failing Are you weak at the lockout or you weak halfway up like where do you need to work? And so You don't know those things when you're early intermediate You need to build some more capacity before you start adding these things in you really do So don't use this stuff unless you absolutely have to But when you need to man, they're great friends They're nice to have that card to play It's just like when people start trying to diet, you know in the beginning and they say hey I want you to do nutrition program for me And I do minimum effective dose and I give them like the one step the great for the biggest return on investment They go, whoa, whoa I thought I was going to be eating chicken breast and broccoli and doing cardio five days a week and taking Thermogenics and all this and I go, whoa, hold on. So we just sit you can't eat ding dongs. We did all those things You would lose a whole bunch of weight in like four weeks So this is a great analogy to what we're saying. You would lose a whole bunch of weight in four to six weeks And then when the weight stops What am I going to do because I gave you everything, right? So that's the idea. I want to milk after linear progression I want to milk texas method or texas method variance for as long as I can have that medium as long as I can And then when I move that four-day split, which is no reason to jump right into that from linear progression Right, then I can start to introduce these Supplemental lifts and in the beginning I want to introduce supplemental lifts are the closest to the main lift So the most specific to the main lift and as I go on and become more advanced I can handle more variations It's not going to throw off my motor patterns that I can do things that are a little more different You know, you know, our goal isn't just to get the strongest. It's also to get strong for a long time No injuries, you know, that's a long smooth career Even if you don't compete you're having a career as a strength athlete So we want to make that long and so using these things judiciously helps us do that I think we've killed this one. Thanks for listening