 All right, our next caller is Nicole from California. Hey, Nicole. How can we help you? Hey, guys. How's it going? Good. So I will try to sum up my whole story here in less than two minutes, not take up too much time. So when I was about six months old, I was diagnosed with spinal meningitis. What had actually happened was I was in Stanford Hospital for about three or four months. And what had happened was the disease actually affected part of my quadricep muscle in my left leg. They don't really know at this point. This was back in 1982, if it was the high fever that I hit at 105, or if it was the actual meningitis. So in a nutshell, after about four months back and forth on what to do, they decided to go in through my hip and actually remove a portion of my left quad, the muscle in there. So in turn, I was in a body cast for about seven to eight months after that. Then when I got out of the body cast at about 18 months old, my leg, well, so sorry to back up, I forgot about it. What had happened was they had to go in through my hip and release the quad muscle out. So they had to do surgery there when I was eight months old, then put me in the body cast. And then I was in that for a while, came out of the body cast. They had to do physical therapy to get my leg to function correctly, get it to work, and move. So essentially, I didn't really start walking till I was close to three years old. So I've been in physical therapy for almost about eight or nine years old twice a week back and forth from Stanford. At this time, I grew up in Fremont, so it wasn't a huge deal. So we'd go to Stanford two to three times a week, physical therapy, just to get my leg to function properly. What essentially ended up happening was my left leg is now shorter than my right leg, as well as my left foot is a size and a half smaller than my right foot. So on my right, I wear an eight. On my left, I wear a six and a half. So all growing up, I was in therapy. I went through multiple surgeries, my last one being when I was 12 years old in sixth grade. I wore the orthopedic suit to with the lift to try to balance out my back. Obviously being 12 years old, my mom gave up the battle. It's very embarrassing as a 12-year-old girl. So she finally said, screw it. So I walked with a limp my whole entire life with my left leg being very weaker than my right leg. My right leg has had to do the majority of the work my entire life. From walking upstairs to right, I still can't ride a bike standing up. I can't hop on my left foot with one leg. There's just certain things. So I guess essentially what my question is is I pretty much can function and do everything like, you know, I grew up playing softball, snowboarding, skiing, you know, all the basic sports. But there's just one thing that I just can't develop is my legs. So I've worked out since, you know, I've been about 20 and I'm 39 now. And I've always skipped leg day per se because it's embarrassing and I can't do it. And so I've always done spin class or I've hiked a lot. But it just doesn't develop my legs like I wanted to. And I think that my upper body is really suffering from it because it's like overworked per se because I always do upper body. Whereas I think if I develop my lower body, then I think that it would essentially help my overall appearance and, you know, kind of give me a little bit more, you know, built in in town. So that's my question. I'll let you guys take it from there. I'm hoping that you guys can point me in a good direction or some ideas to help me out with what to do. What a lateral training, man. What a story. I mean, first off, you're probably a badass. Now I would imagine going through all of that as a kid. Now as an adult, you're probably a badass. Am I right? Pretty honest. Well, I mean, luckily I went through it in the 80s and it's and I grew up like, and I, you know, I got teased a lot by my limbs, but thank God it's not right now or I'd probably be in a world of verbal social media and stuff. So it was a lot easier, I think, to go through it back then. You know, my parents never, they never, they never made it a deal. It was never really talked about. It was like, no, you get on your bike and you go, no, you play softball. It was it. So I never really grew up with that. Like kind of it was, it just wasn't a big deal. But, you know, you still have it in the back of your mind. So no, that's that's what a story. And and yeah, I guess, right, you are a badass. OK, so here's the deal with the training with the lower body. I would avoid all exercises that involve both legs at the same time. Your training should be entirely unilateral. Every single lower body exercise, single leg leg press, single leg leg extensions, like single everything. Everything one leg at a time, you know, and start with the weaker, less dominant side. That's it. And here's how I would start, Nicole. This is what I would do. OK, I would do about 15 to 20 minutes every single day of unilateral training for your legs and keep the intensity moderate. I wouldn't go super high intensity. Keep it moderate. Do it every single day for about 15 to 20 minutes. When you start to feel like, whoa, I'm starting to get strong and I'm starting to get good at this. Then I would reduce the frequency down to about four days a week. But I would increase the time that you're focused on the workouts. So now you're going from 15 to 20 minutes to 30 to 40 minutes. And when you get really strong doing that, then you go down to three days a week and now you can do a full, you know, 30, 45 minute harder unilateral workout. But that should be your entire leg workout. You should do no exercises with both legs on the floor together. You're already doing the cycling. You're doing the hiking. You know how to move with both legs. You have been for your whole life. I don't want you to strengthen that necessarily. I want you to compliment everything else you're doing with the unilateral stuff. That'll make a huge difference in what you're talking about in building muscle and building strength and it won't strengthen some of the imbalances that you might have already developed. Are you training in a gym or at home? No, I actually have a PRX rack at home when the pandemic hit and I was home with an eight year old and a five year old. I basically built a whole gym. I have a PRX rack. I have a sled. I have like ropes. So I do a lot of I like I do a lot of sled work. I know Sal, you talked about like I do like a lot of sidewalking, like with the pulling of the sled that I really like. So I have a whole gym at home and, you know, and one of my biggest things is I always just wanted to be able to squat. But the problem when I do that is when I squat, I tend to go to the right and my whole body goes to that right leg. I would love to see you get I would I would love to see you get a suspension trainer, use this one. Okay, great. So you use a suspension trainer and actually do like pistol squats. And I'm sure right now that those are, are they challenging? How can you do them? No, so I do. So with the TRX, I do what I do is I'll hold them. And so lunges are kind of difficult. Like already, obviously I try to do Bulgarian squats and I can do them on one side perfectly fine. But then the other side, obviously I'm over compensating. My back is coming into play. My even my neck is coming to play because everything is over compensating for that leg. So I'll use the TRX to hold, you know, to hold myself in place. But then essentially what happens is I'm getting an upper body workout now. So now I'm holding myself so stiff, but I will use it to do squats to try to even out, you know, to try to get lower. But, you know, it's it's still it still goes to the right. It's, you know, it's just inevitable. So don't squat not with both feet on the ground. I wouldn't even do Bulgarians. I would try and do either pistols or use a bench. OK, so you're and you can use imagine the bench. You're sitting down on the bench. You have the suspension trainer also and use the suspension trainer to help you get up out of that position with one leg with one leg. With one leg. OK, start with the less the weaker one. And you might even have to do this at first, which is totally OK. Putting a pad underneath there. So it's a very because we don't want to what you don't want to do is cheat the rep. OK, so I don't I care more about you getting up and keeping your hips and your chest and shoulder square. And so what you might have to start at, which is totally fine, is a bench even with a cushion or something. So it's a very short range of motion. Get strong in that range of motion. Then get rid of the pad and get and the the dominant leg, the strong one needs to mirror what you can do perfectly with the weaker one. So let it dictate the training. Otherwise, you're always going to have that that dominant side wanting to compensate when you eventually do bilateral stuff. But for now, everything, the single leg, you start with it. If you find yourself like what you mentioned, like Bulgarian split squat and you cheating, that's because that's a really deep lunge and that's challenging. And you're not ready for that yet. I don't need you there yet. I'd rather you do a very shortened range of motion up with perfect form until we can get a little bit more depth. And so that is the goal, the way it should. And and honestly, like Sal's recommendation of like every day, that's I just that one exercise, that one exercise. I'm going to get you really good at getting up off the bench with perfect form on our weaker side. And if that means I got to start with a big old cushion underneath you at first, that's fine. We get good in that range of motion. Then we then you get to a place where you have perfect form there. Then we drop the cushion and wherever you're at with the weak side, you mirror that with the dominant side. Now, if you have to that that squat rack, I would also recommend like a step up with your weaker side. Yes. And so you, you know, you can brace alongside the post. I know it's a little bit in stable sometimes, yeah, or real short. Yeah, you don't have to go that high. And like that's where you start. But you know, secure yourself so you're in good posture, good upright posture. Start with your weaker side and really kind of dictate it around, you know, how many reps you can do with that side. And then just, you know, frequency is everything. So just, just, just let that leg guide, you know, the amount of volume that you're going to bring into the workout. And Nicole, what this means is for a long time, your right leg is going to get an easy workout. Yeah. Yes. OK, so that means that because the left leg is dictating for a while, you're going to get a left leg workout. And the right leg is going to just feel like it's going through the motion. That's right. And that's 100 percent what we want. What we don't want is you to have a hard workout in both legs because then all you're doing is you're just continuing to, you know, strengthen that imbalance between the left leg. So you got between the legs. You got to keep it a harder on the on the that's why the weaker leg needs to dictate. It literally means the stronger legs and get an easy workout for a while. And the second thing is your all muscles are stronger on the negative portion of a rep than they are on the positive. In other words, I can lower way more weight under control in a squat than I can lift, right? So when you're doing these exercises, the hard part will be the lift, right? But then when you go down, try to do it slow and control. That's where that's the big focus. So that's where stability comes when you're doing that step up that Adam was talking about where you're or that standup exercise. It's going to be hard to get up and you're using your arms. You're like, oh, man, this is real tough. But now it's time to sit down, go down as slow as you possibly can and see if you can do it without using your hands and you might plop down at first. But keep practicing and you'll notice that the negative will get better way faster than the positive does. And that's perfect. That's exactly what we want. And I care. I care about your form more than I care about the depth on the bench right now. So even though we talk, you hear us talk all the time about the benefits of range of motion and that's so important. What I don't want you to do is either the step up or the get up. So the two exercises that Justin and I are talking about, just because you can, you're strong enough to step up on a, say a three foot bench. If you got to turn your body and tweak it to the side and kind of cheat it up to get up every time, doesn't count. I don't want you to do that. I would rather you, I would rather you start on a fucking six inch step. You know what I'm saying? Like I want, I want to, I want to see a six inch step perfect. I mean, and like Sal saying real slow on the way down, stand up perfect. And it'd be perfect form. And then we just slowly increase the range of motion until you can do something pretty deep with perfect range of perfect control. Now, Nicole, because we're talking about a large imbalance due to some, you know, actual structural issues, a shorter leg, smaller foot and years of, especially as a kid walking a particular way, this means we can't neglect any muscles on that left side. So that also means do not neglect single leg calf raises. Do not neglect. Here's an exercise we almost never talk about on the podcast. It's not a big deal, but this is one I would always recommend to runners with shin splints and stuff. And in your case, I definitely would recommend you want to do tibialis raises. So tibialis raise is I literally stand on a really low, like maybe like a five pound plate on my heel and I lift my toes. So I'm working the muscle on my shin. This also means I'm going to strengthen abduction where I bring my leg out. Adduction where I bring my legs together. Don't neglect any muscles on this left side. So do exercises kind of for everything. Of course, make the focus, the big compound movement, the one that mimics, you know, what you're going to need in real life, but no, don't neglect anything. And don't be surprised at how quickly your body responds. But frequencies, your friend here, 15 to 20 minutes every single day. And I'd like you to throw in a mobility component here. Ninety nineties. I would love to see her prime. Yeah, so do I do, I do right now. I mean, obviously it's not what you got your mobility, but I have done yoga for almost 15 years. I do it about three times a week. It's just something that has really increased, you know, my strength in that leg. So I do do that. But yeah, I mean, some sort of more central like mobility. Okay. Well, here's a deal with, with, with yoga. And you've been doing it a long time. Uh, I would place special emphasis on the, uh, the single leg balancing movements. Okay. So just because, like, like, like literally that's the focus. So just because you're in a split stance, you know, like if you're like warrior, I think one or two, we tend to think, Oh, this is unilateral because one leg is in the front. Not, it's not really unilateral because the back leg is still engaged. This is why the Bulgarian split stance squats to you. It was like so much cheating. Cause even though that back leg is behind you, it's still holding onto something and you're still engaging us, right? So what we want you to do is real pure unilateral work, meaning the other leg is out. It's not even holding onto anything. It's just the left leg. So do that with your yoga as well. And maps prime pro, uh, yeah, I think would be very beneficial to you. So if you don't have that, we'll send that to you. Cause there's some movements into that. I think you'll like yoga is great, but I would rather see, um, 90, 90, uh, moves done before you do the leg training. And I would love to see assisted Miguel planes. So I did a, I did it. If you don't know what that is. I did a video on that on, um, Instagram, I'm sorry, but you said the assisted. What I didn't hear you assisted. Miguel, Miguel M G I L L. And, and I did them on, I did them on our mind pump media, IG, maybe. And you hear me, I give credit to squat university. And I'm actually talking about, uh, when you, and I think it's on our YouTube channel, mind pump TV. Also, I talk about when you're down in a squad, it's really common for someone to have their, their knee cave in on one side, more than the other. And so that's what I'm, I'm discussing with this, this movement is because there's a stability component in there. There's a strength and control component in there. Uh, this would be a really good way to kind of prime, uh, your hips and leg before you go into, uh, some of these exercises we're talking about. Now, now this is, now the next things I'm going to recommend really are adding 1% okay to what you're going to do. But what we want to do also is we want to maximize your central nervous system activation, um, and mitochondrial health. This will help with some of these adaptations. So, uh, a little bit of caffeine before you work out, if you don't already, probably a good idea that's already, it's already there. And then, and then if you don't take creatine, I think, and of course this is, I do, I do Legion. Um, I do the Legion per your guys's request. I mean, I've been listening to you guys for a while. So I like a lot of your products, like I do Ned and a bunch of stuff. Um, so I do the Legion, but I do it, I do it usually, um, I don't do it every day. I'll take it maybe two to three times a week, um, basically because I did, I felt it made me a little bloated, but, which is what you have mentioned before on it. Um, are you, are you recommending I take it before? Yeah, no, you could take it, take it after your workout before it's fine to actually doesn't make a huge difference. Instead of taking it two or three days a week at the full dose, take it every day at half a dose or a quarter dose. I'd rather have you take it frequently and equal the same amount for the week than to take it less frequently at higher doses. And you may find, if it's stomach bloat that you feel that sometimes this can happen with creatine, you may find that the smaller doses are a little bit easier. All right. All right. All right, Nicole, we're going to send you maps, prime pro, if you don't already have that. Okay. Oh, thank you so much. No problem. All right. Well, I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for calling. Um, you really helped me a lot. I got a whole page of notes here. All right, you guys, right on. Have a good one. You too. You know, as a, I tell you what, as a, as an early trainer, a client like that would terrify me. I mean, it's just so many, you know, but as a, as a later on, that's the kind of client. Oh, I love this because there's, um, and I know I, I can't see her and actually, but I know, uh, I know the little, like I can guarantee you one of the things that she, what she does is she's competitive. Listen to all the sport she still does. So she's probably when she's doing that weaker side, really trying to muscle it up. Barrels through. That's right. And so, and she's probably shifting the left and right and she's not, uh, not helping the imbalance in pursuit of trying to get that leg stronger. And I, I know I'd have to tell her, like, listen, and that's why I was talking about the cushions. Like, we're going to start with just a little six inch range of motion right now. Drilling the technique is at the utmost importance here and the quality of the movement because we're, you know, we're so limited in terms of like making sure that we want to, we want to really hone in on the right, uh, type of movement. Yeah. And, and, you know, when we're dealing with, and here's why we were so adamant about like disengaging the other leg completely. This isn't necessarily what I would recommend to the average person with a typical muscle imbalance, but what we're dealing with here are structural issues that can't be changed. And this is an imbalance that has been trained for her entire life. Yes. Yes. So, so she's so good. So her body's so good at compensating with the other side that if I have her right leg touch something else, it's going to do something without her even realizing. This is actually why I asked her if she was working out from home or the gym, because this is actually a place where I love machines. Like this with leg extensions and a leg press machine right here, uh, because I can keep her whole body stable and just really focus on one side time. This, they, in fact, I mean, that's machines were originally designed for rehabilitation. So this is where they have tremendous value because it's going to lock the body in positions. Yeah. Very fixed position. And I could really just, you know, isolate one side of her body. So that's why I asked that first, because I know that to your point, so like, you know, even a Bulgarian split squad or a lunge, which is considered a unilateral movement, you still got that trail leg involved. And when you've been your whole life, 30 years plus, you've taught yourself to use that other side to help out. It's not going to be completely fine. You're upper body rotating and all kinds of hard to shut that off in just by saying, hey, stop using that back leg, you know? So, um, yeah, but I, you know, really excited to hear her progress. Yeah, her progress. So hopefully she reaches back out to us.