What's The BEST Back Squat Bar & Feet Position? and a new MYS

Hey, Athletes! This week is all about bar and feet position for the back squat! Tune in to see if you should adjust your positioning! 

Episode 125 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!

What's The BEST Back Squat Bar & Feet Position? and a new MYS

This week’s episode we have the fabulous four back at it. After updates and announcements, the coaches go over a study on bar and feet position for the back squat! Some good applications and takeaways on this one and ultimately, killing comfort challenges. The topic for the week is a book review on The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman. The team give their likes, dislikes, and barbell ratings for this one. Lastly, we have a new Meet Yourself Saturday workout coming your way! It will be a new tradition here at Garage Gym Athlete and it may seem simple but it is far from easy! 

If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast either on Stitcher, iTunes, or Google Play by using the link below:

• Subscribe on any device HERE 

IN THIS 69-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• A New Meet Yourself Saturday Workout
• Bar and Feet Positions for Back Squats
• The Alter Ego Effect  
• Joe and Liz Are Expecting!
• Abdominal Snowman
• Tips For MYS
• Updates and Announcements
• And A LOT MORE!!

Diving Deeper… 

If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here are some links for you: 

Study of the Week 

• Effects of Stance Width and Barbell Placement on Kinematics, Kinetics, and Myoelectric Activity in Back Squats

Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week 

Abdominal Snowman

Be sure to listen to this week’s episode:

• What's The BEST Back Squat Bar & Feet Position? and a new MYS

— 

Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!

To becoming better!

Jerred

Transcript:

Jerred Moon 0:03
Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage, a mathlete podcast you're going here with Ashley Hicks classroom Joe Courtney. Everyone. Wow, what's up?

Joe Courtney 0:15
said hello.

Unknown Speaker 0:16
Hello. Must must be some of that lag. I'm getting there from your green room.

Jerred Moon 0:23
Alright, we're not getting into the study. We're not getting straight to the science today we are bringing something back and going while we're going to update the world on our lives because we know everyone just on the edge of their seats, waiting to hear from us and how things are going. So let's hear from

Kyle Shrum 0:41
Kyle. Hey, GM it was gonna pick me. Ah, um, well, I was like, Kyle. Life is life is grand things are things are going well. Still doing house projects, which I think we were doing as projects. There's, there's no way when we start, there's There's one behind me actually, that's our new garage door. This still hasn't been put up. So that one's

Jerred Moon 1:08
Yeah, YouTube documentation that's been there for months. Yeah,

Kyle Shrum 1:12
it's been there for Yeah, it's been there for a few episodes actually. So anyway. Yeah. Other than that, things are going well. Yeah, that's alright.

Joe Courtney 1:23
You're allowed to celebrate the Christmas spirit because even though you're late

Kyle Shrum 1:29
Yeah, it's past Thanksgiving. So yeah, I can

Ashley Hicks 1:31
celebrate Christmas now. Well, technically, he decorated before Thanksgiving.

Kyle Shrum 1:35
So is that right before Thanksgiving? She cheated. I didn't put up our outdoor lights until after Thanksgiving. So those went up last weekend. But our indoor stuff. Okay. Before

Unknown Speaker 1:46
protip never take them down.

Kyle Shrum 1:51
I might, I might go with that strategy this time. Yeah, because it seems to get more and more every year.

Jerred Moon 1:59
That's what my neighbor does. They they only wrap their beams like the columns on their front porch. And they just never take them down. But then they add a bow to it. Come Christmas time. And

Kyle Shrum 2:12
that's a that's actually a gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, that's winning. Right.

Unknown Speaker 2:17
We'll leave them on there.

Kyle Shrum 2:18
I love it. So I get to pick right? You do. I'm picking Jared. You can

Joe Courtney 2:25
Oh okay.

Unknown Speaker 2:30
Well, it's not. It's a little bit power, Kyle, but it's not hold.

Joe Courtney 2:38
Sorry, I was breaking up. I don't know if I've, I don't know the last time we got an update. But probably the last update is when I hit my squat goal like four or five. It was like three weeks to three weeks ago. So that's what I was working toward for the past year on strength and my emphasis and focus for the year and I needed to hit it before we come on vacation because I haven't really worked out or lifted a weight while on vacation because we're staying in most places and family and just isn't a gym because there's cover

Unknown Speaker 3:09
your ears.

Joe Courtney 3:11
I guess I still work out but I'm not exactly I can't Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah, yeah, I've done anything with weights except for at your place. And we did curls. So

Unknown Speaker 3:27
hey, it was it was programmed and hard to kill, we just fall in

Joe Courtney 3:31
weight. So, yeah, hit my 400. So pretty stoked about that. Now I can change my focus to the next one. But the next thing so you know, that is yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna try and maintain and then up my run because I still wanted to get sub six minute mile. But it just kind of fell off the side because I know I needed to hit the squat. And also, it's really, really hard to run when it's 120 degrees outside and barring. So yeah, but now we'll be moving to Monterey, which I can run outside all year long. As long as it's not raining.

Unknown Speaker 4:06
That's probably a big update. Nobody knows about right close to the US.

Unknown Speaker 4:10
That's a lie. Is that Joe?

Joe Courtney 4:13
Because that's just what happens in life.

Unknown Speaker 4:17
All right, awesome. Oh,

Joe Courtney 4:18
I guess you know, lizards pregnant too. There it is. All these things happen. A lot of big updates.

Unknown Speaker 4:26
We throw in the 405 Okay, baby. It moved

Joe Courtney 4:31
back to states in January. Yeah. Cause he needed you to have that airfryer ready a new one to buy or some some force kitchen gadget.

Kyle Shrum 4:41
just updated the kitchen so when they need

Unknown Speaker 4:45
their fifth airfryer

Joe Courtney 4:50
go to something awesome. Again. I got an air fryer.

Kyle Shrum 4:54
Just just my day to catch all the crap today I guess. Yeah. Well, we're doing up dates again. That's what happens. I'm remembering now. Yeah. Always had crappy updates.

Joe Courtney 5:07
Yeah, four or five is awesome. So glad to hit that. And now I can just maintain and focus on other things.

Jerred Moon 5:12
Congrats all around goal achieved. Big news, big life changes.

Joe Courtney 5:17
Awesome. Alright, so I will pick not cherry

Ashley Hicks 5:23
it's funny, you brought up an airfryer because my best friend just got me that for my Christmas gift on Black Friday. So there it is. I got I know. Um, and speaking of house projects, we updated our backyard. And it's finally officially finished. As of this morning, Scott. Put down the last couple bags of mulch. So now we can enjoy it for seven more months because the Air Force Finally, let us know when we're leaving. So we are we're gonna stay in Florida for seven more months. We'll transition. We'll go to Randolph it's official official. It's great. He had to do is out processing. Like it's not out processing. It's like a course of like, this is how you get a job in the civilian world

Joe Courtney 6:07
and the resume writing. Yeah.

Ashley Hicks 6:10
Which was kind of funny to him. Yeah. He got to, because he has a job going for. He got to like skip one day, which was I guess, the day of like, this is how you, you know, apply for a job. This is how you you know, whatever. Anyway, so yeah, that's the biggest news. We're moving in. June. We're staying here. Traveling for the holidays. So I get to pull out that one man system stuff again. It's gonna be great. Anyways, Jared, go then, sir.

Jerred Moon 6:41
Um, yeah, I'm like, I'm in Kyle's camp. I don't have a lot. A lot of good updates. I think the the office is finished. I think we covered at some point. If anyone was, you know, sitting on the edge of their seat for that the Office has finished Kyle was guest 001 If I have that correct. So he has that on his on his list. Joe refused to stay here this past week. And then he did get in the cold. I offered it I was like, like nine different times I can just stay here and he's like, no, no,

Joe Courtney 7:17
no What I slept on the floor next to the your son's or next Eleanor, cuz

Jerred Moon 7:22
it's funny. I was like, he must have like this awesome setup, you know, somewhere else. And he's like, now we're sharing like a single bed and showed child's bedroom. I was like, why don't you just come here? Like, can't do it. All right. That's that's fine. But uh, anyway, my update is Joe. Joe did the cold plunge in the in the sauna which Asana longer than he did both. Yeah, he was in at a lower temperature. And for more time, then Kyle, just so we're throwing that out there. And then the asterisk to that is Kyle only did what I instructed him to do. The temperature was what it was, he didn't have control over that. I gave him a recommended time. So I'm sure Kyle could go colder and longer, but I'm just going out there every visit. We're going to my brother's got the record right now. Joe, you're here with that? He stayed in for 10 minutes? Yeah, he just he was he came out, like shivering. I was like, How long were you in there? He's like, 10 minutes. I was like, it's like 48 degrees. I don't know. Like, how do you just, he's like after like five minutes, I just get numb. And then I stayed in there. So

Ashley Hicks 8:31
alright, well, Joe Challenge accepted. But we all know that females are more mentally tough than men. So it'll be fine. Anyway, so.

Kyle Shrum 8:43
All right. Out there next week.

Unknown Speaker 8:48
We're not crew or anything.

Jerred Moon 8:51
And so to the listener, should we keep the updates or bypass the updates are

Joe Courtney 8:56
here like this experience? Yeah,

Jerred Moon 8:58
periodically. This is your first time to the podcast. I'm sorry. Here's the what did I walk into without we're talking about back squats? And that is what we're talking about. today. We're talking about back squats. Just saying back squat? Yeah, he did. He did mention it. So it's perfect segue into the study. So the study was done in 2021. The name is effects of stance width, and barbell placement on kinematics, kinetics and myoelectric activity in back squats. There were nine men, nine women in the study, they performed back squats with four different techniques such as high bar, narrow stance, high bar, wide stance, low bar, narrow stance, low bar wide stance. So those are all the different stances. If you're unfamiliar with these stances, I mean I kind of think it's funny that this is covered and that it is a an item of discussion in the fitness world but it really is. We're talking about maybe like three inch Max four inch difference on where the bar goes on your back. Like that. between high bar low bar, if you're going much lower than that it's rolling off your back, you can't hold it on there anymore. And so that's what we're talking about. We're talking about this, this narrow margin here of where the bar should be placed on your back. It's huge debated topic in the squatting world, we've covered it before. But then there's also stance, which I think is more, something better to cover overall than like exactly where the bar goes. So should you take a narrow stance? Should you take a wide stance, most of my, let's say, opinions that come from coaching come from personal stuff, and come from what I've heard from other coaches and not so much science. So it is cool to be able to jump into the science on on covering all this stuff. The big reason they wanted to go over it, I always jump into the why is there's they're saying that a lot of studies cover the sticking point sticking region, but not a lot over how these different variations could increase your performance. So that was the main reason they wanted to jump into it. I won't jump into the findings, because I think they're kind of weak. So I'll throw it to you guys. First, and just hear what your thoughts are on the different squat methods in this study, in particular, so actually, what do you think?

Ashley Hicks 11:17
Whoa, Joe normally goes? Yeah. All right. I said, it wasn't surprising to me that they brought up the low bar, wide stance, sorry, I'm gonna have to like,

Jerred Moon 11:30
yeah, it's hard with all the acronyms they use. Yeah,

Ashley Hicks 11:34
the low bar wide stance had more like hip hip contribution to the movement, which made sense to us, right, like, if you are wider, your bloods gonna sit back, you're gonna be focused more on your kind of glutes and your hamstrings. Versus if you have a more narrow stance, it's obviously going to be more focused towards your quads, your knees as they talked about, um, but for the wide stance, both the low bar, narrow stance, as well as the high bar narrow stance, had the two greatest loads, I guess out of all, that's what they came to conclusion, right, the low bar narrow stance, followed closely by the high bar narrow stance, and it was only like, it said, three kilograms. So it's only like seven 6.6 pounds, right? So it's like, not even a massive difference. I think for this, it's basically like, what are you trying to target? Like, what is like, are you trying to target your glutes or your hammies today, or whatnot. Um, one thing I did want to bring up, so they talked about, so there was men and women in the study. And they talked about the kinematics of it, how there was no difference between, I'm assuming the velocity of the difference of the men and the women going up and down, like their sticking points is what they were talking. And I've always just have you ever heard that, like, women get down to get up faster than men? Have y'all ever heard that?

Unknown Speaker 13:02
It's not something that's

Ashley Hicks 13:04
signed. Anyways, I always wonder if maybe it's a height thing then like, because we're obviously shorter than you.

Unknown Speaker 13:10
That makes sense. Like, you could do burpee faster than then I could probably,

Ashley Hicks 13:13
right. Um, which, again, you have more, more to get down and more to get back up. But anyways, um, so I guess my callin comfort would be maybe switch up your stances when you do some back squats and not always, now obviously practice, right? If you're going from a high bar to a low bar, don't hurt yourself. Give it a go give it a shot. But this really helped Scott with his squat. He was not being he's not able to get to parallel. He's got all sorts of mobility issues. And yes, I'm calling out my husband, but he did some research on it and was able to basically he does a low bar narrow stance, if you will. And, you know, it's like, right at a little bit above. A little bit past his hips is where his stances so I don't necessarily that was my other thing. Did they like define how narrow the narrow stance was? They did, Kyle. Okay.

Kyle Shrum 14:07
Yeah, they measure it was per person they measured but they had a unit of measurement that they would use to make it specific for each person based on their natural stance.

Jerred Moon 14:18
Perfect. Yeah. And they had it in the like list of participants like the four inclusion criteria, and one of them was like, being able to hit international powerlifting standards on the back squat depth or something like that on

Kyle Shrum 14:32
the depth. Yeah, getting below parallel.

Ashley Hicks 14:35
Perfect, which I love. I love that they had a depth standard for that too. But for Scott, his problem was just where the barbell was. And once he practice a bit with a low bar position, that's where he can naturally get to parallel even below parallel. For me, I have high bars always been the way that I like to go, which just feels more natural to me. I don't know why but Yeah, that would be my killing comparators maybe switch your stances on this and and do a couple warm up sets before you go crazy. Kyle, what did you have?

Kyle Shrum 15:11
I had all the points that you just covered. Yeah, just echo that of, you know, the low bar wide stance was, is better to build strengthen your hips and your glutes and the narrow stance is better for for your knees and your ankles. And so really just kind of taking, taking stock of what you what your goal is what you're trying to train for the day maybe where your, your weakest point is. And that's that's something else is that like, like Jared said, they were they were talking about sticking point, right. And those of us who have squatted before, or, you know, especially squat regularly, we know that once the once the there's not really much of a sticking point until you get to heavier loads. So once you get like above 75%, I would say, to add up to 90 or 95%. That's where the sticking region comes in. Anything lower than that, you're not really going to have much of a sticking point because you're it's going to be a lot enough load where you can go up and down without having without having that, that stop unless you're doing a lot of reps and you get really tired. But so that's what they're looking at is there. And they were doing three rep maxes and doing heavier loads, so that they could study specifically that sticking point, it wasn't just the squat in general it was they were really trying to look at the sticking point and whether these different factors change the sticking point for for people on the squat, which I thought was interesting, not just looking at the squat in general, but also just looking at this particular spot, and which bar position in which stance with is going to help you the most in that sticking region, which is really where the money's at when it comes to the squat, because that's where are you strong or not, when it's time to stand it back up. That's that's the real, the real kicker with the back squat. So and it, it talks a lot about the the there was a whole lot of like technical stuff in this study like this is this is a whole lot to cover. But I kind of find it interesting the things that they were looking at, like they were talking about, they set up ways to measure the, the lateral, the lateral forces, somehow they had some kind of machine that could measure, like watch people while they were squatting and like measure the lateral forces like the way they were pushing out against the ground, and like the way that they're the force they were generating was affecting the ground around them, which also went into determining which stance width was better, which I thought that was that was really interesting to me, because I was like, how are we determining you know, which which stance is better, or which stance width is better, but they were actually looking even that deep into it of like, how you're actually affecting the ground. And I thought that was an interesting thing to pull out to have. You as, as, as you're training and you're squatting. Think about the fact that you're affecting the ground and think about the fact that you're driving force into the ground while you're squatting. And I think that's something that that you can really think about as well when you're squatting to get better. But that's, that's really pretty much it. You know, the the takeaways were, it depends on what your training but this is, this is what you need to do based on what you're trying to accomplish with your squatting. Joe.

Joe Courtney 18:35
Yeah, so if you are a data nerd or you know in exercise science or PT or something, I would recommend checking this out because the amount of data is ridiculous. If you want to picture the study picture Yvonne Drago working out with a bunch of scientists and schematics just watching them work out with electrodes hooked up and basically how they did the squat track the velocity of the bar they you know, they had electrodes hooked up to all the muscles to when they see that when they fire and how much they had 3d imaging to watch them and all these things craziness so really, really cool. Most of it I don't know what to do with I'd like some beyond me. But there were still a lot of cool stuff with it. And it was kind of surprising to me that the narrower stance lifted more but how I how I interpreted it was narrower stance, lifted the most loads. So I think that was total load but like the heaviest weight on the bar, I thought that was wide stance, and that's what I would do at least if I had to have a hypothesis wide stance low bar would be the absolute heaviest weight on the bar lifts but narrower stance might be greatest load overall, and that kind of coincides with how I lift. So I think I do high bar narrow stance for the most part. But I think once I get above 90% I start I shift the bar just a little bit down kind of like a mid bar and widen my stance just a little bit. Just To make sure I'm hitting my glutes, so that it's not coming forward Smith to make sure that the bar load is put mostly on my posterior chain versus toward the front. Because I just know my back is strong enough to take that load. And that is one of the things that we talked about. So we've already gone over lo barbers high bar in Episode 89. I don't know if he owns a, you mentioned that yet. But we did that before. And this one is talking about low high and the barber and the fee position. So I've actually tweaked my stance what during squatting sessions between signing sessions. And I think it can be good to mix it up if you feel competent enough. But if you're still working things out, then this is another some of these points of the study are good to figure out because of either, okay, first, I need to make sure that I'm hitting depth, okay, so what stance what bar position is going to do that for me, okay. And then after that, if you're after you're squatting for a while, look at what your sticking point is. One of the things that found that high bar wide stance had the lowest sticking point. So if you're coming up out of the bottom of your squat, and you stall early, instead of like a little bit through, then you might need to shorten your stance and narrow it a little bit, because the wider high bar stance had the lowest sticking point. And it's just a very small, nuanced thing that they found. But it could make a difference, especially if you're trying to work on your squat trying to get better at it. Things two things to consider a little more about study, the men had to lift one and a half times their body weight, women had to lift one time their body weight, which I thought was cool, because they're actually like experienced lifters throughout the study to hit depth. Yeah, throughout study throughout the hit the depth, they once they had like three, warm up preliminary, like getting acclimated to what they were doing session, which is, which is cool. So they knew what the heck was going on. And as they measured their squat depth, they had a band under their hamstring. And once they had to hit the hamstring every single time, so that they knew they were hitting their depth, and they couldn't come up until it did that. And then something that was also interesting to me was how they were they adjusted the load throughout. So they would do they calculate the velocity, and they would do three rep max sets. And then they would adjust their load based off of their last rep velocity to make it a certain point so that they could either they would add anywhere from one to 10 kilograms or take away so that they would keep a certain velocity to hit certain max to make sure that that three Rep Max was what they wanted, which is kind of interesting and pretty in depth. But kind of cool. It was it's kind of my view of a couple weeks ago when we did the load adjusted how they did that when they calculated maxes, Max's, I forgot what that one was. But we just a couple weeks ago, pretty recently. Yeah, so changing up your stance, then how how it can differ, you know, when you low bar, you're going to be bent forward more. So it's going to tighten your hamstrings and your glutes and your posterior chain more and activate those more higher bar, you're going to do a little bit a little more the front. And it's I think it's good to mix it up. Because all of those things can contribute to improving your back squat and finding what works best for you and how you move and how your muscles fire is.

Yeah, it's pretty important. You know, that's one of the biggest things of improving what you're lifting is making sure everything's firing right and make sure it's all jiving together. If one thing happens before another than it's gonna throw a full chain. So I guess I don't think we've gotten Yeah, okay, that's that I guess I'll wrap up mine there see what Jared has to say. But really in depth, almost too much information but still really, really cool for what, what they did.

Jerred Moon 23:45
I mean, to be honest, I can't add a lot from the study to what has already been said the ultimate takeaway was, you know, I'm just reading it straight from the study. Our findings suggest that training with a high bat high bar narrow stance could be beneficial when targeting the knee extensors and plantar flexors whereas low bar wide stance could be beneficial when targeting the hip extensors and that as useless to me it just like it's just absolutely useless takeaway even though the study was so in depth and they did so much like to your point Joe, you can't really look at this study and like you know, find a flaw and the execution of what they did they did measure so many different things they did it and they were made sure depth was was in there and everything else. And so my

I guess I'm gonna go to like kind of my takeaways in my opinions on this. I said an episode of United State again, to me, high bar versus low bar is like comparing conventional deadlift and sumo deadlift, they're just different. Like you use them. Different people have different sizes typically use them. So if you have like long femurs or you're taller person, poor ankle mobility, you're going to want to be doing low bar back squat. That's just how it is. When you look at a power lifter they're all doing low bar. A wide stance for the most part. And I don't know, many people who want to emulate a power lifter are like, oh, you know what I want to just be exactly like you, you know. And I always get powerless, there's a hard time or whatever, like, cool, you can have a lot of weight but you can't bend over and touch your toes, you can't do a pull up your you have no mobility, like these are not cool things that you should pursue for strength. This is a big reason. I don't like it from anecdotally, and you know, what I've seen, low bar wide stance will you will move the most weight, like period. But I feel like high bar, narrow squat high bar, I've never done thing I've ever done high bar wide stance before, to be honest, I think that's up though combinations. That's when I probably haven't tried. But anything high bar is just slightly more athletic to me in nature. But I would say it depends on what you're if you actually are a sports asked athlete, I would consider what you're doing. Like if you're a baseball player. I think that having really powerful hips and a wider stance for batting, you probably want to consider some low bar wide stance, right? Like, I feel like that would translate. I know some guys have a narrower stance says okay, well, then maybe they should do that. But there's a lot of hip involved in like swinging mechanics. So any sport that has swinging, you're going to want to shrink from the hips. That's just something to know maybe have a teenager, you're listening this who you're trying to train or whatever, and you want to try and get them stronger in that. So anything swing mechanics, you're gonna want to have stronger hips. But anything else athletically inclined is typically going to have a narrower stance, if there's jumping involved or anything dynamic, you're going to have a narrow stance just naturally, to include sprinting and jumping and everything else. So you just really have to consider what you want. And if you're you're an athlete, like a garage, gym athlete like us, and you just want to be well rounded, I'll say what actually says just like mix it up, like try different things. Like, you know, one thing that Louis Simmons from Westside barbell, their method is essentially there's max effort days, and then their dynamic effort days. So their days are your lifting of maximum load. And then their days, you're lifting that load for speed. And we use a lot of that in our programming. One thing that people often overlook or don't understand about this max effort day, is a max effort, squat day, they don't do that. The same squat, like today would be low bar, wide stance, then next week, we're not doing that, again, it's still max effort, but it's a different thing. And they do this, they might not see low bar wide stance again, for 16 weeks. And so it's very different than how people execute it. And I see people execute what the Westside method incorrectly all the time. And they get burnt out, because they're not actually following it loosened and said, so my point there being, try it all, like try all of the different variations, high bar, narrow stance, high bar, wide stance, low bar, narrow stance, low bar, wide stance, get new one rep max is for them, see how they feel, see if it, you know, plays differently with you and your mobility, maybe one feels better. I know, when we were doing BCT. I wanted I tried to move to low bar wide stance, because I knew just from everything I'd seen, I'd be able to move the most weight and I didn't care about I cared about just enough depth for to count. But that's it. I don't, I'm not trying to impress anybody with my ass, touching my heels or anything like that, with 500 pounds on my back, I just wanted enough depth for it to count and stand back up. And so the bar has to travel less distance. If you're if it's lower down your back, you're basically just if you've seen some of these power lifters are basically bending over and standing back up. It's like it doesn't even look like a squat compared to what we would do. And that's what I do, but it was so I've been doing high bar narrow stance for whatever 15 plus years to try and change my stance with really heavy weight, all of a sudden, it was it was impossible. I even tried for a couple weeks and I just couldn't do it. It was too ingrained. Like there's I could not lift more weight that way because of how accustom I was to lifting weight a different way. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't try these new things. I just found what's comfortable with me. And then another thing on their depth, I think, if people would have gone just a little bit lower, they would have seen more hamstring and glute activation, independent of the stance or where the or bar placement because after you go below a certain depth, which would count in powerlifting. But if you go lower than that, which a lot of us do, your quads can't do anything anymore. You're asking your hamstrings have to take over to get you out of the hole if you go really low. And so that's the only thing I did think that they they probably miss and you would see because that's the first thing like if I see someone not squatting low enough and you get them squatting lower, their hamstrings are gonna be sore, their acid is gonna be sore that these are just the things that are going to happen because they're not accustomed to doing it and then once they start getting a little bit lower, so my feeling comfort would be focused on

ultimate depth beyond what powerlifting lifting depth is, if you're like, Oh, well, there's more muscle activation here, just go a little bit lower, I think you're going to be okay no matter your stance or bar placement. And then my second one was just kind of know who you are. Like, if you have poor ankle mobility, and you are taller person, like, don't try and force yourself into this, you know, high bar, narrow stance, it just doesn't work. It's like, it's never going to work until either fix your mobility or get shorter, which is kind of hard to do. And so just just go with the back squat that feels comfortable. And that that's the biggest thing is you should not finish squatting at all that hurt or my knees for three days out for a squat, like those things are not normal. So figure it out. And experiment around. That's, that's ultimately, all I got on that one.

Unknown Speaker 30:57
Good, he goes on to move on. Yeah. All right topic. Book, the alter ego effect by Todd Herman.

Jerred Moon 31:07
I got to see, let's let's dive into it. We'll give our barbell rating for it. So this book was ultimately about how your alter ego can be your secret weapon. And once you fully embody this version, your alter ego, you can reach your full potential that was kind of the premise behind the book. There's a lot in here. A lot, I actually took a lot of notes more than normal. I think because I, I didn't like the book. But I also liked it at the same time. I have a, I have a very, and I'll get into it. But that's it. I'm not saying I I liked and didn't like the book almost equally. There it is. It's not I hated the book. But I'll talk more about that. Um, what did you think of the book, Joe?

Joe Courtney 32:04
I liked it in the sense that it's very simple, and pretty easy. So it's not like you're not going to get a super ton from it. It's kind of like, one concept that is expanded on, which sometimes is fine. In some of these books, you know, there's, there's some books that try and do way too much. And then there's some that, you know, they have their one thing, and it just goes through an ad nauseum at least this book, it wasn't very long, he kind of told you what upfront what it was about what he's trying to get you to do, you know that it's not going to fix everything in your life. But it could be a it's a useful tool in your tool to use for what for what it's worth. So it wasn't there wasn't any grammar proclamations of this is going to turn your entire life around, but it could help certain areas, which I think was good. So I like that, that practice a little bit. And just knowing what you're getting into, to me, it makes a big difference. So some of the couple of points that I really liked was the inner self talk, the negative self talk, he goes into a lot of things that were what hold people back, what he finds is, in these clients that he has is that they get into negative self talk while they're in the position or the sport or whatever that they're doing. And that's what's holding them back. So creating an alter ego, self eliminates that self talk because you're not talking about yourself, you're doing what another person's doing, or you're off your your your alter ego. So that negative self talk kind of goes away. And this, this has come up in other books and in studies of having positive self talk and visually, visualization, and, and all that. So the negative self talk place I think was really, really good. Because confidence can be everything, especially in performance and what you're doing, from a very even from the smallest thing to the biggest. So that part I liked. And then his part about you know, being more intentional about who needs to show up. So whatever you're doing, you need to make sure you are in the right mindset to do that specific thing and not anything else be very intentional to what you're doing. And I think this can apply specifically for grab some athletes because like when you're going to the gym, you have your five blocks to work out it you need to be intentional about what you're doing in the gym in like block everything else out this is this is the time to do that you shouldn't use to try and just you know visualization and being present and what your tasks you're doing. So then you're going to be getting more out of you know, the training or whatever your whatever thing you need to do for that set period of time. And then you click back to your normal self and and whatever else you're going on in your life. Just just two things that I will point out but Ashley

Ashley Hicks 34:48
so I kind of like this book just because it's different from how I would tackle mindset. Here is all about it's almost like creativity right and For me, that's a little, I'm not gonna say I'm not creative, I'm creative in different ways. But I would have never, like thought up of this, of creating an Alter Self in order to then make yourself better. He, he talks a lot about layers here to like he started with your core self and the possibility and then he like expounds upon those layers, and the I think its core drivers belief layer, action layer, and then the field of play, right. And then, to Joe's point, when he's talking about the whole negative self talk, he talked a lot about of its suppression, he called it your trap self, that you are basically like suppressing yourself from doing some achieving a goal essentially. So his maneuver around that was positive emotion and building confidence. So he called that your heroic self, right. And then one big thing that I really loved about this book was he, I really enjoyed the moments of impact, because he talked about target mapping. And again, it's talking about you take a goal, and then you define that goal. And then you work backwards from that big goal. And plan that out to reach the ultimate goal, I guess, which we've kind of done within our own team, when there's been times like, at the beginning of the year, Jared has given us some really cool goal sheets. And it's always, it's always the 10 year goal that gets me right, I'm like, I don't know what I want to do in 10 years. But if you can, like, reach something, and then work your way back, and like start smaller, I don't know, I think you can actually, you can actually figure out what you want to do in five to 10 years, even longer. But the cool idea for this book, again, is it's another great resource for mindset, it's I again, I never would have thought about this whole alter ego in order to combat any negative emotions are something that is preventing me from achieving my goals. And we always talk about envisioning, and this is just a different way of envisioning, right. You know, we talked a lot about saying things out loud, and like seeing yourself doing things, this is just a cool, creative way to change it up, I think, Kyle,

Kyle Shrum 37:27
so I think this is going to affect different people in different ways. And which, maybe that's an obvious statement, maybe all books do that. But I think because I think there are certain people who, especially when they think about because he's talking about, like, he's talking about performance, right. And he's talking about, he works with a lot of high level performers, in business, and sports, all that kind of stuff. And so he talks about helping them develop alter egos to help them perform in their field of play, right, whatever it is that they're doing, and basically kind of being a different person on the court versus off the court. Right. And I think this is different for certain people, I think certain people can just turn it on and just and just do what they need to do. And all of it is just that them, that one person. Some people have a hard time doing that, though, you know, so and he talks a lot about that he talks a lot about people who have confidence issues, they, you know, for various things, you know, and that's something that stuck out to me, he talked about, you know, coming from a small town and not being, you know, coming from a family who, you know, was very successful, you know, or had a lot of money or things like that, you know, and I think those are barriers that people deal with. And some people deal with them in different ways. Some people are just like, I'm going to go smash it, and this is what I'm going to do. And some people need different strategies. And so I think people who, who can just get in that mindset and go do it and go get it done. This book isn't for you, you don't need it, you know what I mean? But people who, who really do have confidence issues, or they have those barriers, they have those things that are getting in their way those those negative, you know, thoughts about themselves, that and negative truths that they've told themselves of like, I'm not supposed to be successful, because nobody else is successful around me and things like that, like this would be really helpful for you. But something that I also feel like this is kind of something that we all kind of do, in a way with the whole alter ego thing, I think, especially when you when you first meet another person, I don't think that you present to that person, exactly who you are. Right? I think you're giving that person an alter ego from the get go. And they're they're giving you one back to and I think I just I think at least some of us, some of us are not this way. Some of us are just open and it's just we are who we are. And you know that you know, everybody that we meet, they know exactly who we are, you know, but then other people are like, Well, I have this person at work and the people at work, see me do this and they think this about me and this is how I act at work and then This is how I act with my friends. This is how I act at church. This is how I act with my family. This is how I act specifically with my spouse, like my spouse sees, you know, somebody, that version of me that other people don't see, things like that. So I think this is something that we kind of all naturally do. But this book gives you a way to be intentional about driving that natural practice into something, and specifically using it to increase performance. So and one last thing that I took away from it, he talks about naming your enemy. So the thing that is holding you back, the thing that is getting in the way, the thing that is constantly trying to pull you back and keep you from doing what it is that you're wanting to do, or even doing what it is that you feel you're supposed to do. You're made to do things like that, you give it a name. And he talks to you about how to do that he has an entire process of understanding what your enemy is understanding what your your barriers are, and then you give it a name. So I just I kind of thought that was cool as well of like, naming it like giving it giving it a specific designation so that you can know exactly what it is. Anyway.

Jerred Moon 41:11
Yeah, so I have very similar takeaways to you, Kyle, I think, because I look at it when I'm kind of reviewing a book, I do look at it in two ways. I look at it from a subjective, what did I think about it? And then more of an objective? How could this be helpful to other people, independent of my opinions of, of the process or the idea. And so objectively, I agree 100%, with what Kyle said, so if you are someone who struggles with a lot of negative self talk, you have trouble, like cars, flipping the switch, turn it on, and all those things, a lot of insecurities. And none of these things are bad, we all have missing, if you if you know that you're like in a place where you're struggling with a lot of that stuff. This could be a great book, the alter ego effect by Todd Herman, it could be a great book for you to pick up. I think from a psychological standpoint, the strategies that he talks about are, are very similar, like I'm in parallel with a lot of the things that we talked about. I mean, one of the chapters, I don't even think I wrote the chapter down, but like, he was basically describing meet yourself Saturday, to me, he was talking about being able to, like, get to this place where you have this inner dialogue with yourself. I mean, that's the whole premise behind meet yourself Saturday, it's not just to do a hard workout, it's to take your body to a place because you don't get there very often, then most people don't get there every day you it's occasional, you get to this place where you actually have the voice in your head, that is telling you to do something that's different than what you think you want to do. And it's an opportunity for you to control that conversation in your brain. And essentially shut down that negative self talk. And my belief is that if you do this enough, it's going to go into every area of your life where this ran these thoughts, you'll realize are not truly you. And if you if you go down the the deep enough path into mindset and meditation and all these things, that's one of my biggest takeaways having gone down those paths are you are not your thoughts. You are not your thoughts. Like you might have some crazy thoughts. They're not you. They're just thoughts. Other people have had these thoughts, you're having the thoughts that the thoughts are what they are, but they're not who you are, that that's not what a thought is a thought is just something that comes up, you can choose to let go of that thought act on it, whatever you want. And so I feel like he had a lot of phenomenal, like psychological strategies, I think his book will be great for a lot of people. So that's my objective opinion. But my subjective opinion. I think it's a weird, I think it's a little bit off. I'm not gonna lie. I mean, I don't want to sit around and, and pretend I'm someone else to tackle situations that I feel unprepared for. I would rather tell myself, I can be better. If I want my alter ego to be me, I guess is what I'm saying. Like, even if I'm not actually at the standard of what I want me to be, I want my alter ego to be a different version of me that's better than who I am, if that makes sense. As opposed to pretending to be someone else. That's why I think that that's a little bit unhealthy. And this is just go like said, I gave you my objective. Now we're jumping to subjective Chairman's opinion. I feel like it's a bit unhealthy to be like, You know what, I want to be more like Joe Courtney in this situation. And like, I'd rather just be me, let's just be me in this situation and see how I tackle it. And if I don't feel like I'm doing a good job, how can I get better, as opposed to being someone else or like, being Superman or Batman, I feel like these things are very, it's just very weird. It's very unusual. I don't think that for me, they'll put me in a healthy mindset to pretend to be someone else. And even if it's just in situations, you know, like small situations, I feel like I would rather just be me and try and be a better version of that person. And then he gets into totems. And after I just had to, like shut it down. I was like, Okay, we're, we're not in agreement on the execution of some of these things. just kind of out. And I feel like some of his his examples didn't land. But he brought up the Churchill and like wearing different hats, which had Am I going, like, I don't feel like he should have tried to bend, Churchill wearing a different hat to this alter ego thing, because I don't really feel like that's what Churchill is doing. It's like Churchill was, Churchill wanted to be Churchill, he wanted to be the best version of Churchill. And he just wanted to know, like putting on different glasses as Martin Luther King, you're trying to give off like a, it's like wearing clothes, I consider wearing rags, you're gonna wear something nicer to certain meetings, that's, that's not an alter ego. That's just things that you do. But like, these are things that you do like, it doesn't mean that you're trying to be someone else. So for me, I think if I were to regularly practice this, it would put me in a worse mental state than I'm currently in. Because it would make me feel like I'm not actually good enough for any of the situations I'm walking into. So I need to pretend to be someone else. And so that's my, my personal opinion of the book. But ultimately, all the things that he talked to him about are great negative self talk, let's get rid of that. You know, let's,

you know, really control who we are in different situations, let's make ourselves better, like all these other things. But his execution is not one that I personally agree with it. Overall.

Ashley Hicks 46:14
I think that that was his ultimate goal, right? Was to make you get better. And I don't necessarily think it's meant to be like, Hey, Ashley, you be a UV Joe, or you be Kyle, or you be Jared, I think it's more of like, what is what is something that you're struggling with? Whether it be confidence or something? And then let's pretend that you, you are actually good at that? I don't know. I took it very differently than you did.

Kyle Shrum 46:41
Well, yeah,

Jerred Moon 46:42
maybe at the end, say start with a list of your mentors. Like that's a good place to start with, like with a list of your mentors, because all the other examples are like, yeah, be Batman be a vicious dog be, you know, like, okay, I get it. But then when he jumped to like actual people, mentors, I was like, now this is getting weird. Like, why would I like? Like, why would I want to just be someone who's in my life, who I see as a mentor, like, just be me, like, I'll just be me in this role. How about that? I'll be better if I suck at it. And I'll just get better at it. So yeah, it definitely the interpretations for each one of us could be different that that was just Does anyone see what I'm saying, though? Like, do you guys

Unknown Speaker 47:18
hear what you're, I hear what you're saying. And I just, sorry, I'm,

Kyle Shrum 47:22
I'm familiar with you. So I had a feeling that I had a feeling that was gonna be your takeaway anyway, especially when he said, Well, I loved it, and I hated it. And I'm like, Okay, I better know what he's gonna say here. But, but at the same time, something he talks about in the book. He talks about Beyonce, right, and he talks about Beyonce, developing his alter ego. To be Yeah, to be someone else, so that she could, you know, launch her career. And then eventually, she, she stopped calling herself that alter ego, because she became who that was, you know, and so it was kind of like, it's kind of like a self actualization type thing of like, well, I don't have to pretend to be this other person now, because I've become who that person was. And now, that's just me, that's me now. And so I don't need the alter ego anymore. And so I think it's just I think, but that's what I was saying, like, some people don't need that practice. Some people just see it as I need to be better, I'm gonna go get better. And that's just me, you know what I mean. And there are things that um, but that also comes with, like, knowing your lane and knowing, you know, staying in your lane and knowing what it is that you're you're going to accomplish and things and you're not, you're not deviating from the path that you have for your life, right? Like, like, this is the, this is what I do. I'm not trying to be anything else. I'm not trying to do anything else, this is what I'm going to be. And I need to get better at being that and so I'm going to be that, you know what I mean? Versus there are some people who just they just, they're, they're forced into situations for them. They want to be, you know, a performer in some way, like in their job or in their sport, or whatever. But they need a different strategy to become what it is that they need to become. And so that to me, that's, some people don't need it. And that's kind of what I said in my brain was like, some people don't need to read this book. If you if you just feel like, Hey, I just need to be better at this. And that's going to be me, don't read this book. It's not pretty. But then other people, they need different strategies in that.

Jerred Moon 49:25
It is a very creative strategy. And yeah, one of the points I wrote down was, the my notes was, It's the epitome of fake it until you make it. It's, it's true, like in your Yeah, Beyonce thing is like, just, yeah, let's just pretend to be this person over and over until eventually you are that person. And I think that actually what happens if you've been on a self development journey for long enough, because maybe when you start self development, you know, and I'm talking about reading books regularly meditating, praying, like all these things on a regular basis that people don't do and so you start doing those things every single day. Well, when you're 10 15 years into that practice, you probably are a different person than when you started on the first day, you know, and so you're just are completely different. You weren't using an alter ego to get that way you just became a different person through through practice. But if, Hey, be an alter ego get you there faster. It's definitely like I said, it's a parallel path to the same same place. Who are your ratings? Oh, barbell ratings. Yeah, yeah, sorry. Let's, uh, get out my calculator. So I can do the hard math of averaging out for people. Oh, no, actually, what's your rating for this one? I give it a 3.5 3.5. All right, Kyle.

Kyle Shrum 50:47
I'm gonna give it a four actually resonated with it a little bit more than other people. I think it wasn't like, and I think my reasoning for that was like, it's not mind blowing to me, like, other books that we read. And so that's why it doesn't get a five. It wasn't it was creative. In a in a, it's an interesting concept and things like that. And I kind of resonated with kind of what he was saying. But it wasn't like, it wasn't like a mind blowing like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Like, I'm not, I'm not giving it that. So also, he talked about, he talked a lot about comic book characters and stuff. So I'm like, I'm cool with that. I think that might be another reason why he didn't like it that much, too. You know,

Unknown Speaker 51:28
nobody's talking about no really isn't a fiction guy.

Joe Courtney 51:33
Joe, what's your rating? The three I think I also really liked the concepts, but kind of like Jared, I'm not gonna pretend I'm somebody else. I'd rather work on my own mindset shift and fix realize what's going on with myself and fix that versus pretending to be somebody else. Because it's it's not really completely fixing the problem. You're just kind of putting a bandaid over it, but the concepts and everything else, I think the Apply Now, thing I think apply appeals to me a lot with all these books to where you can read the book. And you can you can act on it right away as you're still reading the book, which is which I think is really good. So three to five.

Jerred Moon 52:10
I just can't even I'm gonna like, walk into my gym today. I'm not sure today. Oh, I'm a fierce lion trainer. I don't, I can't like I can't honestly do it. I can't do I can't even and that's okay. That's okay. You have made you. I don't know. I'm just saying I don't want to knock it until you try to type thing. But I'm saying I feel like I can't even try it. I would like to do imposter syndrome. It would be reverse imposter syndrome. I'd be like, I'd be like, Yeah, okay, you're this person today in the gym and be like, hey, nah, yeah, sure. No, that guy?

Ashley Hicks 52:50
Like, what do you like I envisioned yourself like, if it's like a hard workout, you can't get it done you have you ever envision like you're competing against somebody else? Or have you ever been? Like, I don't know, I'm just like throwing stuff out? Because I am. Never normally you're just different. It's fine.

Jerred Moon 53:05
We're all but I feel like a lot of us are agreeing or Joe's agreeing with me. He's just being more silent. Kyle is on the fence. And I don't know where you land. I can't tell you.

Kyle Shrum 53:17
Okay, go ahead.

Jerred Moon 53:18
Well, let's like, if we were to try this, where would you try it out? And then I'll get my rating. Like, if you were to try this today? What area of your life? If you don't mind sharing? Would you be like, You know what, let's try out an alter ego in this area of my life. Like, where would you try that how to do it.

Kyle Shrum 53:34
Honestly, as I was reading it, one of the biggest, biggest fields of play that I want to improve, to use his to use his terminology fields to play, I want to be a better dad. And there was a there was a an army officer that one of his talks that he was given, you know, that pulled him aside and specifically asked him about that, you know, he was like, I'm solid here, but like, still, like, I'm still like a military dude. Like, I'm still ordering my kids around. Like, they're my soldiers. You know what I mean? And it's like, and I don't want to be that guy. Like I want to be, I want to be different when I'm at home, you know, and I don't treat my kids that way. I'm not in the military, but I'm just saying like, I want to be a better dad, you don't mean so if I was gonna, if I was gonna implement it, I would try to implement it somehow being being a better dad. That's the way that's what I

Jerred Moon 54:23
like, Would you like envision someone in particular or like a thing? Or like, what

Kyle Shrum 54:27
I would probably envision my dad actually try to be more like him? I would probably because I feel like there's a lot of ways that I'm not like him that I need to be, you know, what I mean, and, and treat my kids the way that he treated me and as I was growing up, so I would probably envision him and try to be him more and maybe even like, pretend to be him, you know, maybe certain things about him that I would that I would rather that I would like to change about myself. I would try to emulate that.

Unknown Speaker 54:58
So good luck, Kyle. And Joe actually care to share how you would try this out today, if you were to try it out.

Ashley Hicks 55:06
My good. My would be for praise team. Scott and I are on praise team and he plays a keyboard and I sing and I do some solos sometimes. And I come from very choral background. So I sing with other people. I'm good with harmonizing and stuff. But when I have to do solos, I will say that like, I don't know what it is, but I just get very, very nervous I shake I just not my most favourite thing. So that would probably be an area that I mean, I've got a pool of people that I can envision being, you know, not nervous, Nellie Ashley, but you know, something else. But I think for me, the focus would be what are the attributes I want to do so that way, like, I can feel confident when I go onstage? I don't know. It's not necessarily like, I want to be like Beyonce, or I want to be like, So and so I want to be myself.

Jerred Moon 56:06
But like, like, was it last week, I talked about the suit building Superman example where you you talk, but it's just building a better version of yourself. So it's not like I disagree with the idea. It's just that I just think it's odd to like, use someone else. But yeah, if you're like, this is this is the Ashley that I need to be to step into this performance. And then now you it's almost like a goal like a, you know, something you aspire to have this this different version of yourself that has the traits that you want, like, I have no problems with that. And like, I also don't want anyone listening to this thinking, Oh, I'm, I'm perfect. I no one's better. Like, that's not what I'm saying. Like I I have a lot of shortcomings, a lot of areas, but I just want a better version of myself in those areas. I want to identify those weaknesses and improve them and not pretend to be someone else in the process. Right. And

Ashley Hicks 56:53
you just use different practices, correct? Yeah, I

Kyle Shrum 56:55
think this is just a path to do the exact same thing. I think some people can do that. And then some people need just a different strategy to do the exact like I said, like, eventually, you become Superman. You know, you build Superman, you become who it is you were trying to be. But you just have different paths to get there and strategies to do that. Joe didn't answer that. You

Joe Courtney 57:15
probably say here, podcasts and public speaking. I just want to be Jerred. Moon that's that's

Unknown Speaker 57:25
already said I wanted to be you on this podcast

Joe Courtney 57:28
already. So we don't even have this. Well.

Kyle Shrum 57:32
You guys were saying podcasting last week. So yeah, that's already happening. You didn't even know.

Jerred Moon 57:39
Okay, so if I were to use this, it wouldn't be in a regular garage gym training session. But I could probably try it. I would use it in fitness. big shocker there, I'd probably use it in a track session. Like doing really hard intervals. Mainly because I just finished reading I mentioned last week to the perfect mile, which was a phenomenal book. But yeah, I didn't mention it. Maybe like, you know, how would Roger Bannister tackle these intervals? Something like maybe I could go there. And some of those those ways is somewhere I could try and use it and see if it would would be helpful. My ultimate rating is a three. I'm not I'm not giving it something too bad. Like I said objectively, I think a lot of good stuff. So that brings the average for the team to 3.375

Kyle Shrum 58:25
fractional plates.

Jerred Moon 58:28
Where's my 375? Plate? Yeah, okay. I don't know nothing about fractional plates and say what do you use a couple

Alright, so that's, that's the book. Go grab it or don't? I don't know. Sorry, Todd. I don't know. Whatever. Alright, well, I'll get into the Yeah. Make your until Okay, we have a challenge. Meet yourself Saturday workout. Kyle's gonna brief it but it's a new tradition. I love fourth traditions. It was the best kind of tradition. And so, around Thanksgiving, we have the Geo Metro Thanksgiving throw down that workout has nothing to do with Thanksgiving whatsoever. I don't even know why it is around that time. But that's what we do during Thanksgiving around here. It's one tradition we have here. Now we're forcing a second one. And it is the abdominal snowman. Yeah, yeah. So it's a challenge. We're gonna have a shirt trampas is working on that as of right now. We should have the shirt by the time all this publishes I would hope Krampus anyway, so uh, there we go. We're gonna brief it and it's a challenge workout for everyone this holiday season.

Kyle Shrum 59:51
So you guys know that or if you don't know that you're about to find out that we are all about simple, not easy around here and this is about us. Simple not easy as it gets, accumulate 30 minutes in the frontline in rest position in the least amount of time as possible. Obviously, it's a minimum of 30 minutes. So you're going to spend at least 30 minutes doing it, if you can do 30 minutes unbroken in the in the frontline and rest, I don't know, maybe you get another t shirt or something. So each time you leave the front line and rest position, you start a running clock. And each time you leave the front leaning rest position, you pause the timer, and you can rest for however long you choose to rest, do whatever you need to do. But then when you get back in the front leaning rest position, you start the timer, the timer is only running, when you are in the front leaning rest position, you continue that until you've accumulated 30 minutes total in the front line and rest, there is a 60 minute time cap,

Jerred Moon 1:00:52
they do need to kind of discuss the need to ways of keeping time, right like because you there's a 60 minute cap, you're accumulating time. So if you get out of the front leaning rest position, you have to stop that time. So if you have a second stopwatch, or you just know, like I mentioned to the team, like my the Garmin has when you go to the actual stopwatch feature, it says the time at the top like it's you know, 2pm but it'll keep the time and I think stopped as much as I want. So I it's easier to do accumulate a time that way. So either have a clock, like an actual time clock or to stop watches to be able to do this one. But yeah, cumulate 30 total minutes in the front leaning rest. If you didn't know front landing, this is the top of the push up position. So we're not always having done it yet. But I'm sure we all will. Right Joe, you're gonna

Kyle Shrum 1:01:40
Hey, this one needs to know, a quiz. You can do it now. Yeah, you can do it.

Jerred Moon 1:01:46
I threw out a lot of ways we could make this a lot harder. And I didn't do it in hopes that Joe would want to, you know, tell us how it goes next week. But anyway, what What tips do you have?

Kyle Shrum 1:01:58
Hmm. I'll go first, I'm thinking I'm sorry, I was no dip

Jerred Moon 1:02:06
the hips towards the ground. Okay, I this, this is more of like a standard of movement, you should have a very rigid midline, like you don't want the button the air, you don't want to sag the hips towards the ground. But it's actually gonna end up hurting your lower back. If you have bad form here and you have bad form for 30 minutes in this position, you're gonna have to go see a chiropractor, like you're gonna or physical therapist, you're gonna have a problem, like a serious, you're gonna have an injury, everyone's hearing me like, it's going to be a problem to do that for that long with poor form. So make sure that you have a really good form throughout this, if that means you have to take more breaks than you'd like, that's fine. But keep your form rigid and stable, because I don't want to hurt your back. If you're tightening your core and everything's tight and you are rigid, it's just gonna be uncomfortable, it's not going to be, you know, bad for you. And so that's the only thing I have there is really try not to if you're sticking the button here, that's almost like a rest. That's just cheating, but that it's worse to have hips towards the ground, because it's going to put unnecessary strain in your lower back. So that's all I have is the form keep really good form.

Kyle Shrum 1:03:14
So that's something I would say as well. It's like, if you get into more of a pike position, get your hips up too far, like you're out of front line and wrist, which means right, you should be stopping the timer. So really, I would say, to Gerrits point as opposed to going into a compromised position, either with sinking the hips or Elevating the hips. Rather than doing that. Just go to your knees or just stand up. Like if you're if you're going to break if you're going to stop then just stop, do a full stop. You know, don't try to game it or any way in any way by like, oh well I'm not in the perfect position. But I'm going to stay down here and try to eke out a few more seconds like just stop the timer. And, and take a risk and then get back down and make sure you're doing it in a proper, proper form. I would also say Metallica, Metallica

Jerred Moon 1:04:10
is an audio book. 100% workout for me. This is just waiting for you get pumped up for some isometric contractions like come on. Let's just take my take my brain out of here.

Ashley Hicks 1:04:25
No way. That's when music is huge for me is when we are when I'm in a hold 100% I'm going I'm singing interesting not even

Kyle Shrum 1:04:35
know some of us use different things to go to remove our brain that's

Unknown Speaker 1:04:40
a big takeaway from this podcast is people. People are different.

Kyle Shrum 1:04:45
Especially Yeah, certain people. All right. Oh,

Joe Courtney 1:04:50
no matter what song you put on for Metallica because they all sound the same.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:54
Repeat Here we go. Glad that made it back. Yes. Full Circle.

Joe Courtney 1:04:58
Yeah, he was asking for it. Yeah, I'll just get into my tip. So I kinda have two things to say the first one is just knowing somewhat of a plan. So like, if you do one minute on one minute off the entire time, keep that pace, then you will will make the time cat. But knowing that if you stray from that, or like any less than you're not going to make it. So just kind of know about that going through, I wouldn't really recommend going five, seven minutes out right out the gate, and then you can't hold it after that. So yeah, that's just up to you to determine. But my actual tip is, externally rotate your hands out. So instead of your fingers being pointed straight in front of you point them at about 45 degrees or so outwards, because your shoulders are in a stronger position when you're externally rotated versus internally. And a lot of people when they do push ups, their hands are straightforward, but you should really rotate them outside because your shoulders will be locked in a little bit better, and you'll be at a stronger position for your shoulders.

Ashley Hicks 1:05:58
I mean, I don't have my shad, I would just find some tunes that you can go somewhere or an audiobook or whatever. And like take because I'm interested to see what people's heart rates will do this because, like with static holds, my heart rate can shoot up sometimes it just depends, like, so doing accumulating. Accumulating this, I'm interested to see where everyone's gonna land like what different zones people will touch just from being in a front leaning rest.

Joe Courtney 1:06:25
So a curse words shoot up, that's for sure.

Jerred Moon 1:06:29
Well, that's a actually, a big debate in the energy system world is isometric contractions and heart rate, because it doesn't adhere to typical energy system and heart rate stuff. So I wish we could do a large, doing unofficial, unofficial study and have to have everybody report their heart rate, average heart rate for the entire team. If you want to, like just throw that somewhere on Facebook, let me know. Because my heart does the opposite of Ashley's, when I'm in an isometric contraction, it will lower Yeah, and so but my muscles still burn and it still sucks, right? So it's not like it's oh, this is easy. It's still hard. So it's a it's a weird it's a weird thing to have happen. But uh yeah, let's I like Joe's thing one on one off, I think is great. But then just like trying to kill at the end.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:20
Yeah,

Jerred Moon 1:07:21
just yeah, go I've got at least like a five minute 10 minute straight so I'm like that. But that's it for this one. We'll we'll get out of here. Try the abdominal snowman. And for everyone who's been around for training and you know took part of Black Friday all those things. Really appreciate you everyone for supporting what we do. If you're here still listening, not a part of this somehow go sign up for a 14 day free trial graci mathlete calm. And remember, you don't feel comfort, comfort will kill you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai