 First question is from J. Rosen 10 explain isometric exercises. How would you use them in a workout? All right, so probably one of the most valuable yet underutilized techniques in training I would say is training isometrics. So you could loosely categorize I guess repetitions or how muscles contract three different ways, right? So there's the positive portion of a rep the concentric that would be like me curling a bar That's a muscle contraction. Then there's an eccentric or the lowering of the bar muscle contraction So that would be me drop bringing the bar down with the curl and then isometric is essentially just holding steady, right? So muscles holding a weight steady or supporting something stationary maximal contraction, but you're not Moving at all, right now this produces first off the strength gains You get tend to be relatively specific meaning if I only train Concentric or I only train eccentric or only train isometric I get a lot of strength gains in that one thing that I train, but there's so much carry over. This is where it gets fun isometric training Does not damage the body Definitely not as much as eccentric, which is probably the most damaging and not as much as concentric Which is still more damaging so isometric is a great way to add volume Without causing lots of damage the other thing that it does is it turns on the central nervous system really really well One of the ways that I I have always used isometric training as a trainer was when I had a client who had trouble Feeling a muscle or firing a muscle. So if I had a client who's like man when I do squats It's all quads. I get no activation in my butt. That's what I'm trying to build Then we would do like an isometric squeeze Before the squat and that would give them the ability to start to feel it In the glutes almost like turning on the glutes in that case You would just I would put them in a squeeze position I'd have provide a little bit resistance and I'd have them hold the squeeze for Hard for 10 seconds or something like that. So that's one way to do it. I used to use it too. Where are you I would take a client and I'd get them to whether it be a bench press a curl anything And I'd get them to hold it in that position and then I would actually move their body Like because a lot of times when someone's doing an exercise even as simple as a bicep curl I mean how many times have you seen somebody you try to teach a bicep curl You show them and then they try and do it and then their their shoulders roll forward They rock they do all these things no matter how many times you say the cues So sometimes what I do is I take the you know, let's say let's say the curl And they go up the halfway point and then I would come up Then I actually hold that and then I go walk behind them pull their shoulders back Tuck their chin in and be like this is the position I want you in while you're in this while you're feeling this contraction same thing for like a bench press I would get them down in that deep position get them to pull their shoulder blades back hold it So I love it for teaching technique and form that same thing You know addressing weak points in whatever part of the the movement like if you're trying to then add You know a performance enhancement. So where the performance leaks where you lose a bit of You know this tension in the muscle that's supportive So when when the body recognizes that you're not fully stabilized in a certain range of motion or a position It's not going to allow for you to get as much force To create so it really is a performance enhancing type of a method too if you apply it Directly like that and also there's there's a 15 sort of degree carryover in terms of like how the strength sort of Translates like up or down from that angle too. So it gets affected You know from that angle gets affected 15 degree radius on both sides So for an example for what you're talking about Justin if you would apply this Let's say the bottom position of a squat Is where you're the weakest which is quite common Then what you might do is an isometric squat in the bottom positions a couple ways you could do this The more advanced way to do this would be to set the safety bars So that the bar that you're squatting pushes up against the safeties And then what you do is you get into position and you got to make sure you have really really good Stabilization really really because you if you have bad position here Then you're going to do an isometric with bad technique. So good form good technique Squat up with the bar and push into the safeties Really hard but stay stable and what that'll do is make you stronger and or it'll work on increasing strength in that bottom position But then to what Justin said you get that 15 degree carryover So let's say it was 90 degrees that you were doing the squat. Well, it's going to be at, you know, 80 75 degrees or plus 15 degrees from from 90 so 105, right? Yeah, I just want to add one more because like I I'm definitely have been passionate I've been studying a lot about the isometric training There's also an analgesic effect. So there's there's a pain relieving effect to also like applying isometric tension You know throughout the body to stabilize around the joint. So somebody has knee pain or You know has lost a bit of stability You know just just taking that time to go through an exercise where we're focusing on squeezing and connecting and stabilizing around the joint Is it's it's a pain relieving technique as well. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that What is it that's causing that to do that? Is it just firing all the surrounding muscles around that joint because it's you're doing it? Like that has like a like it radiates out. Is that like the idea? It's actually similar to myofascial release when you push hard on a muscle and you get this kind of localized analgesic effect You get that with with isometrics There's there's a localized and then there's also kind of this systemic effect You know, what's interesting about this is that it this was Such a huge training tool back in the day when you look at like Strong men strength athletes from you know, I'd say before The 1940s. This was a mainstay in their routine This is one and one of the reasons is because a lot of these strong men They you know bodybuilding shows weren't a thing really back then that didn't become a thing till a little bit later So what these these people would do is they would do these performances where they would balance Tremendously heavy weights above their head often or in maybe a bent press position Or they would do a hip bridge and they'd have like a table and they'd you know drive a motorcycle on and stuff like that So they would train a lot of isometrics to have that kind of strength And stability you could still see this in acrobats if you ever watch Like circus performers where there's two you ever see those those acts where there's like two guys And one guy's holding the other guy up with one hand. That's tremendous Isometric strength and there's a wonderful thing body control to develop It teaches your central nervous system to really turn on I mean to give you an example of of what I'm talking about If you were to squeeze like a something that measured your grip strength But you were squeezed as hard as you could with your right hand, but kept the rest of your body relaxed You would only get so strong if you did it again, but tensed up your entire body You would actually produce more force. This is a this is a central nervous system Um, you know factors this this is a cns being able to fire better Isometrics at the beginning of a workout done properly can actually increase your stability and performance during the workout So for strength athletes Applying them properly don't fatigue yourself But applying them properly the beginning of the workout will make you stronger and more stable during the workout For the bodybuilder types for people interested in hypertrophy Use them as finishers bodybuilders have done this for years. They didn't call it isometrics. They said posing pose Yeah, it's at the end of my chest routine. I like to pose my chest and squeeze it for Bruce Lee They used to uh, you know promote this quite a bit. Oh, he was he was well known for in fact There's he did in between sets even yeah And there was there were stories of him being able to balance a hundred pound dumbbell arms length You know, he couldn't bench press a lot But he had this incredible isometric strength because he said it helped him punch Yeah with more more stability or whatever So beginning of the workout for performance and strength end of the workout For hypertrophy or you know, like the bodybuilder say as a finisher