The InForm Fitness Podcast

Inform Fitness / Acme Podcasting Company

Now listened to in 100 countries, The InForm Fitness Podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of InForm Fitness Studios, specializing in safe, efficient, High Intensity strength training. Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise, nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness and to replace those sacred cows with scientific-based, up-to-the-minute information on a variety of subjects. The topics covered include exercise protocols and techniques, nutrition, sleep, recovery, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more.

  1. 77: REWIND / Doug Brignole Part 3

    05/02/2021

    77: REWIND / Doug Brignole Part 3

    Welcome to the InForm Fitness Podcast series REWIND, a listen back to the classic interviews we’ve had with the high intensity gurus & master trainers… names like Martin Gibala, Bill DeSimone, Simon Shawcross, Jay Vincent, Ryan Hall & Doug McGuff. This is the 3rd of 3 parts with veteran competitive bodybuilder, “biomechanics” expert, author and public speaker Doug Brignole. On his website Doug describes himself as “Bodybuilder on the outside & science nerd on the inside.” In part 3, Doug & Adam talk about Balance & Core training, intensity, reciprocal innervation. Enjoy! For more info about Doug Brignole: www.dougbrignole.com/ www.greatestphysiques.com/doug-brignole/   For Doug Brignole’s books, visit Amazon:  www.amazon.com/Books-Doug-Brignole/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ADoug+Brignole As always, your feedback and suggestions are always welcome. Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen We would love to hear from you with your questions, comments & show ideas… Our email address is podcast@informfitness.com 77: REWIND / Doug Brignole Part 3 Transcript Arlene  0:01  The Inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of inform fitness studios specializing in safe, efficient, personal high intensity strength training, in each episode Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery, the three pillars of his New York Times best selling book, The Power of 10. He aims to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And with the opinions of leading experts and scientists, you'll hear scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We cover the exercise protocols and techniques of Adoms 20 minute once a week workout, as well as sleep recovery, nutrition, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more. Adam  0:56  Greetings, Adam here. Welcome back to the inform fitness podcast rewind. It's our listen back to classic interviews with some of the best high intensity gurus, master trainers, researchers and doctors in the business. This is part three with Doug Brignole, on his website, Doug aptly describes himself as a bodybuilder on the outside, and a science nerd on the inside. In this episode, we discuss balance and core training intensity and something called reciprocal intervention. Enjoy. You know, we started this whole talk, you know, talking about myths and belief systems. And here, here's another topic where that's fraught with a lot of different belief systems. So I think you'd agree that many physical therapists and trainers misuse the word balance when they refer to doing specific type of exercises that improve balance, aren't they really referring to improving proprioception rather than balance? And isn't proprioception and balance two different things? Doug Brignole  1:53  Yes, absolutely balances equilibrium. Balance has an inner ear. Also, the bottoms of your feet, and your eyes are the sensors that basically inform you, whether you're standing upright, or leaning to the right are about to fall, whether the ground you're standing on is flat or not the that is actually balanced. And as people get older, their senses start to deteriorate their eyes, they're there, they have neuropathy, so they don't feel their feet as much, right. So when someone says, you know, I lose my balance, well, they could have inner ear problems, he could have visual problems, they could have, you know, neuropathy problems, and those things are contributing to them. Not understanding not being informed as to whether or not they're upright or not, but if you put that person on a BOSU ball, which is basically proprioceptive training, it's not helping their sensors, they need to see a specialist and ear, nose and throat specialist, an eye doctor, you know, someone that's going to address that neuropathy, in order to really fix their equilibrium issue. But what bothers me about the fitness industry is that it has sold proprioception as balance, because balance seems to have more value as a buzzword than proprioception. And so people don't want to argue with fixing their balance, they might argue with improving their proprioception, which is basically a skill, right is coordination at a particular skill. They might say, well, that's fine, but you know, if it's going to compromise, and it always does, by the way, if it's going to compromise, the resistance exercise portion of that, when I'm combining it, then I'd rather not trade it off. Adam  3:34  So so doing unstable exercises, you know, doing let's say a set of squats on on a on a BOSU ball or wobble board or something like that. You don't feel that that improves balance, for some Doug Brignole  3:46  No, what it what it improves, it improves your ability to coordinate yourself on that Bosu ball. Right? You will eventually get very good at that once you get off of that Bosu ball. You're no longer in that environment to which you have adapted. Right. So it's essentially worthless. Right now, I had a client who said You know, I had a trainer who had me standing on BOSU balls, and I didn't find myself any any more easy to stand on one leg when I'm washing one foot in the shower. Well, that's because when you're standing in the shower, that's not the same thing as standing on a BOSU ball. You got good at the bosu ball coordination trick. What happens is as we get older, we narrow our movements down to straightforward when we're young and we're playful, and we're playing in the in the beach on the sand. We're playing volleyball, we're doing lateral movement, we're doing backward movement. We're jumping up and down. And as we get older, we pretty much move straightforward, right? So we lose our ability to move laterally, we lose our ability to coordinate our brain with these automatic leg movements, right. So let's just say that you are at a party and somebody has put their purse down right next to your right foot. And all of a sudden you realize that as you started to move to your right, something blocked your foot. By this point, you've already leaned your bodyweight, so far over to the right, that you are going to fall. Having stood on one leg will not help you. What will help you is having practiced lateral movement, repositioning that foot. So if I were training you, I would say, Okay, here's what we're going to do, I'm going to throw this basketball to you, you're going to shuffle to three stops to the right, you're going to catch it, throw it back, you're going to shuffle it to the right, and maybe I won't tell you where it's gonna go, it won't be right left, you'll have to think with and then all of a sudden, your feet will start to become automatic. Again, preventing falling is more about coordination. It's more about having your legs work in autopilot. Literally, when you're standing on one leg, you will not prevent a fall. But a fall happens when you've leaned your body way too far over and the one that will save you is lifting that leg and moving it somewhere else. And that has to ...

    21 min
  2. 76: REWIND / Doug Brignole Part 2

    04/30/2021

    76: REWIND / Doug Brignole Part 2

    Welcome to the InForm Fitness Podcast series REWIND, a listen back to the classic interviews we’ve had with the high intensity gurus & master trainers… names like Martin Gibala, Bill DeSimone, Simon Shawcross, Jay Vincent, Ryan Hall & Doug McGuff. This is the 2nd of 3 parts with veteran competitive bodybuilder, “biomechanics” expert, author and public speaker Doug Brignole. On his website Doug describes himself as “Bodybuilder on the outside & science nerd on the inside.” In part 2, Doug & Adam talk about Static vs dynamic exercise, along with speed movement and sports training. They start off the discussion with the old saying… “less is more!” For more info about Doug Brignole: www.dougbrignole.com/ www.greatestphysiques.com/doug-brignole/   For Doug Brignole’s books, visit Amazon:  www.amazon.com/Books-Doug-Brignole/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ADoug+Brignole As always, your feedback and suggestions are always welcome. Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen We would love to hear from you with your questions, comments & show ideas… Our email address is podcast@informfitness.com 76: REWIND / Doug Brignole Part 2 Transcript Arlene  0:01  The Inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of inform fitness studios specializing in safe, efficient, personal high intensity strength training, in each episode Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery, the three pillars of his New York Times best selling book, The Power of 10. He aims to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And with the opinions of leading experts and scientists, you'll hear scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We cover the exercise protocols and techniques of Adoms 20 minute once a week workout, as well as sleep recovery, nutrition, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more. Adam  0:56  Hi welcome back Adam here. Welcome to the inform fitness podcast rewind. Once again, it's our listen back to classic interviews with high intensity gurus and master trainers, doctors and researchers. This is part two of three with veteran competitive bodybuilder, biomechanics expert and author Doug Brignole. Doug and I are going to talk about static versus dynamic exercise. Along with the proper speeds of movement and sports training. You start the discussion of the old saying less is more. I read something that you wrote that reminded me of something that we also always talk about, you know, we say there's a big difference between what we say Ken Hutchins came up with this, you know, are you familiar with Ken Hutchins, his work is super slow technique, right? All right. So So Ken Hutchins came up with what I consider one of the seminal articles and exercise history, which is the exercise versus recreation. And I know you agree with this, because I, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna quote something you wrote, actually, if you don't mind, it is important to understand the difference between the goal of muscular development bodybuilding in general fitness, and the goals, which also involve the use of weights but are not intended for the purpose of muscular development of general fitness, for example, powerlifting and Olympic lifting are sports that incorporate the use of weights but are fundamentally different from the goals of getting stronger. The goal of a power lifter is to lift maximum amount of weight in specific lifts. The goal of the bodybuilder or the person that's generally trying to get into good shape and get really strong is to develop the physique to gain a reasonable amount of useful strength to improve one's health and remain injury free. So you're right there. So it's kind of reminds me of all the things that the brands CrossFit is doing and trying to make those sport and recreational activities into some kind of fitness program. Doug Brignole  2:41  Well, and then what I tell people is, it is very naive to assume that the heavier weight you're moving, the more you're loading a muscle, Adam  2:49  right Doug Brignole  2:50  you can actually load a muscle more with less weight based on the kind of physics you're using. So if you're using a longer lever, you're Magnum, magnifying the weight that you're using much more, if you have better align, you're magnifying the weight much more, Adam  3:05  which means you don't have to use as much weight if you're if you're taking those things into account.  Doug Brignole  3:08  And, in fact, in fact, let's go one step further, I'll go so far to say that if you are able to use a lot of weight, it means that you're using an efficient mechanics, it means basically, you're lifting something up with a crowbar. Right? The heavier the weight feels, the more efficient the mechanics is, if you can load your site deltoid maximally with 30 or 40 pounds, and you think it might be better to overhead press 150 pounds, then you're just missing the point. The point is, it's overload the muscle, a lot of weight Adam  3:40  again, now you're involving rotator cuff muscles, they just can't handle that kind of strain, we add all that extra weight. All right, good. Another question for you. static versus dynamic, dynamic exercises. Some people add static contractions into the routine to increase strength and break plateaus. That's the thought process. Do you see static exercise as a viable technique? Or is this is its application limited stat?  Doug Brignole  3:41  I think it's extremely limited. Look, there have been a number of studies that have shown that isometric exercise is far less productive, both from the perspective of developing a muscle enlarging the muscle. And from the perspective of gaining strength through a muscles entire range of motion, it gains strength, right where you're holding it. It does it gains a little strength and the other parts of the range of motion, but not nearly as much. So if you want strength, you want what let's use the word functional strength, strength through a muscles entire range of motion, you're better off using range of motion. Right? So is there a place for isometric? Sure, if you have an injured joint rehab, then you use as part of your rehabilitation. But this idea that we're going to do planks, as the best exercise for the ABS would be like saying, well, let's just do static everything then. Let's just do static wall squat where you just hold the squat position. Let's just do A static barbell hold that just aesthetic pectoral hold. I mean, if it's good for one, it's good for all if it's not good for one, it's not good for all people liked the idea of doing planks because they think that, you know, if you're a, if you're a boxer, and you're trying to improve the rigidity of your spine against an opposing boxer hitting you in the gut, okay, fine. That's a very specific application. But dynamic tension, the abdominal muscle is going to be more productive for the same reason...

    20 min
  3. 75: REWIND / Doug Brignole Part 1

    04/28/2021

    75: REWIND / Doug Brignole Part 1

    Welcome to the InForm Fitness Podcast series REWIND, a listen back to the classic interviews we’ve had with the high intensity gurus & master trainers… names like Martin Gibala, Bill DeSimone, Simon Shawcross, Jay Vincent, Ryan Hall & Doug McGuff. This is the 1st of 3 parts with Doug Brignole. On his website Doug describes himself as “Bodybuilder on the outside & science nerd on the inside.” His competitive career spans over 40 years & he has won numerous bodybuilding titles. His most recent book—“The Physics of Fitness”—is endorsed by nine PhD professors!!! Here in part 1, Doug & Adam talk about Compound vs isolation & natural movements. For more info about Doug Brignole: www.dougbrignole.com/ www.greatestphysiques.com/doug-brignole/  For Doug Brignole’s books, visit Amazon:  www.amazon.com/Books-Doug-Brignole/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ADoug+Brignole As always, your feedback and suggestions are always welcome. Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen We would love to hear from you with your questions, comments & show ideas… Our email address is podcast@informfitness.com 75: REWIND / Doug Brignole Part 1 Transcript Arlene  0:01  The Inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of inform fitness studios specializing in safe, efficient, personal high intensity strength training, in each episode Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery, the three pillars of his New York Times best selling book, The Power of 10. He aims to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And with the opinions of leading experts and scientists, you'll hear scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We cover the exercise protocols and techniques of Adoms 20 minute once a week workout, as well as sleep recovery, nutrition, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more. Adam  0:50  Hi everyone, Adam here welcome to an inform fitness podcast rewind,it's a listen back to our past interviews with some of our great high intensity gurus, master trainers, doctors PhDs names like Martin Gibala from McMaster University biomechanics expert, Bill De Simone, genetics expert Ryan Hall, Dr. Doug McGuff, author of body by science, and for this rewind, today, we have Doug Brignole. On his website, Doug describes himself as a bodybuilder on the outside, and a science nerd on the inside. His competitive career spans over 40 years and he has won numerous bodybuilding titles. His most recent book, the physics of fitness, is endorsed by nine PhD professors, and is a must read if you're going to dig deep into the science and physics of strength training. So here in part one, Doug and I are going to talk about compound movements versus isolation movements. Always a controversial subject. We don't always agree on everything. But it's a great discussion. Enjoy. So glad to have you with us. Doug Brignole  2:02  Thank you. It's great to be here. Adam  2:03  It's a real honor to talk to somebody with your experience and expertise in this field. So Doug is a bodybuilder right Doug? Doug Brignole  2:14  Yes, I say that, although that's sort of like a small piece of what I do. Because a lot of bodybuilders that don't do what I do. Adam  2:21  So what makes doug so unique is that doug is an intellectual bodybuilder, I guess you can call it and he hasn't really fallen prey to all the cultural and mythological aspects of bodybuilding that have existed for, I don't know, 50 years, 60 years, seventy years and beyond Doug Brignole  2:40  100 years, actually. Yeah, Adam  2:42  there you go. What I like about your doug is as a bodybuilder, you debunk a lot of the myths that people have had about bodybuilding. Like, for example, we're gonna get into a lot of things about this. But like, for example, you say, which is unusual for the bodybuilding community, you say that varying exercises for the same body part is really not essential for muscle growth. So many popular exercises in bodybuilding are just downright dangerous, and at the very least inefficient. He talks about why it's impossible that to isolate your lower abs, for example, and the myths go on and on that you talk about, that we've been talking about, too. So it's nice, but but no one listens to me really sometimes because, you know, I'm not big and muscular and what Doug Brignole  3:26  you're not a titleholder ends up getting more attention than a PhD. Adam  3:29  This is why I like talking to guys like you because you are not following the culture and still you've been a competitive and very successful bodybuilder. So can you just give us a little brief synopsis of your bodybuilding history and some of your accomplishments not just the bodybuilding, but also, as simply as possible? Talk about your career as well. Doug Brignole  3:51  All  right, well, I started weight training when I was 14, because I was very skinny. And I just wanted to gain some muscle and I was fortunate enough to be living about five blocks away from a gym that was owned by 5 time Mr. Universe winner, Bill Pearl. And I went there, I had no money essentially, and we struck a deal and I would go into every Saturday and scrub the showers and do janitorial work in exchange for membership. And I started competing within a year 16 years old was my first contest. By the time I was 19. I won teenage California and teenage America. At 22. I won Mr. California at 26. I won my division of Mr. American Mr. Universe, and I continue to competing on and off until I was 56, which is a 40 year span of competitions longer than most people for sure who've been in that sport. So along the way of all these years of competing, I was very analytical about you know what it is that constitutes a good exercise or a bad exercise. There has to be mechanical components. And whatever those mechanical components are, that could be deemed Good or bad, would naturally be consistent across the board. If incomplete range of motion is bad in one exercise, it'd be better than all of them, for example, and benchpress is one example of that, right? When you finish a bench press, your hands are far away from the center of your body. So if that's an incomplete range of motion anywhere else, why wouldn't it be there? So a lot of the things that I was realizing were very profound, and have names, technical names, and I would later discover them as I would go to cadaver dissections, and read University textbooks and, and then just sort of ponder sort of the correlation between the physics, the anatomy, the sociology, the brainwashing that has, you know, been happening through all these years that have led people to believe that certain things are just to be not questioned, like compound movements, and people will say, Oh, you need a foundation in the powerless to bodybuild? Well, there's just no logic in that, really, I mean, a ...

    28 min
  4. 74: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 4

    01/21/2021

    74: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 4

    Welcome to the InForm Fitness Podcast series REWIND, a listen back to the classic interviews we’ve had with the high intensity gurus & master trainers… names like Martin Gibala, Doug Brignole, Simon Shawcross, Jay Vincent, Ryan Hall & Doug McGuff. Adam kicks off the series with biomechanics expert, author, weight lifter, and personal trainer Bill DeSimone. Bill penned the book Congruent Exercise: How To Make Weight Training Easier On Your Joints. Bill is well known for his approach to weight lifting which focuses on correct biomechanics to build strength without undue collateral damage to connective tissue and the rest of the body. In part 4 Adam & Bill discuss past & present trends in training, along with a quick chat about posture, mobility & feel in exercise. Bill DeSimone Website Optimalexercisenj.com Bill DeSimone - Congruent Exercise https://www.facebook.com/CongruentExercise As always, your feedback and suggestions are always welcome. Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen We would love to hear from you with your questions, comments & show ideas… Our email address is podcast@informfitness.com 74: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 4 Transcript Arlene  0:01  The Inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of inform fitness studios specializing in safe, efficient, personal high intensity strength training, in each episode Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery, the three pillars of his New York Times best selling book, The Power of 10. He aims to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And with the opinions of leading experts and scientists, you'll hear scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We cover the exercise protocols and techniques of Adoms 20 minute once a week workout, as well as sleep recovery, nutrition, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more. Adam  0:56  Hello, everybody, greetings, Adam here. Welcome to the Inform fitness podcast rewind. It's our listen back to classic interviews with high intensity gurus, master trainers, scientists and authors. This is part four of our interview with author, personal trainer and biomechanics expert, Bill De Simone. Conversations with Bill are always enjoyable, always enlightening, because of his experience, being in the business for over 40 years, he really knows his stuff. There's absolutely no one better than discuss the past and present trends and training. But first, a quick chat about posture, mobility and feel in exercise. Bill DeSimone  1:35  Some people work at a desk, their postures fine. Maybe they just intuitively stretch during the day. Like maybe maybe the postural issue. No, I don't think we're postural issues. If you get them on the person's young, you might be able to correct them. You guys got a person, you know, 60 70, it may have settled into the actual joints, the joints actually may have changed shape. Adam  1:54  Yeah, we got people with kyphosis. So all the time, we were like, We're not gonna, we're not gonna. I mean, you know, you have these women that I find that a lot with tall women, right? They grow up. So taller than everyone else. And there is and they're shy. So they end up being kyphotic. Because they're shy to stand up to it. You can, I've never been able to, I mean, you can prevent further degeneration, Bill DeSimone  2:16  20 or 25. If you catch that, maybe you can train, they can train out of it. But if you get it when it's already locked in, that's all you can do is not do more damage. The way we train people takes a half hour twice a week, maybe that leaves plenty of time for this person to do mobility work or flexibility work. If they have a specific activity that they think they need the work in. If you're training for strength once or twice a week, that leaves a lot of time that you can do some of these mobility things if the person needs. Yeah, I think feel is very overrated. In our line of work. The guy can get you to feel something, but it's not a you can do a concentration curl, a tricep kickback, or, you know, Donkey Kicks with a cuff. And you'll feel something because you're not because you're making the muscle about to cramp, but that's not necessarily a positive. As far as activating the glutes, glutes go, if they don't feel on leg press, I would go to the abductor machine. If you put somebody on the abductor machine, and they feel the sides of the glutes burn, in that case, the feel matches what you're trying to do. If you have somebody doing these glute bridging exercises where their shoulders are on a chair and the hips are on the ground, and knees are bent, and they're kind of just driving their hips up. You feel that, but it's it's it's irrelevant, you know, you're feeling it, because you're trying to get the glutes to contract at the end of where they are away from their strongest point. You're not taxing the glutes, you're getting a feeling. But it's not really challenging the strength of the glutes. One thing that was better in the early 80s is because we had all these Nautilus fitness centers around with the the one right way to work out. Even though that didn't catch I noticed the trainers who came through that system, you had a common vocabulary that you could work off of. So at Sports Training Institute, which was around the time, we would get trainers from those types of Nautilus fitness centers. And it was like that was sort of like the default workout one set to failure, full range of motion on this machine. But if the client didn't like go into failure, or if the machine didn't agree with them, it would take us you know, we had the option of doing what we do now. Trainers today, people coming out of school today or even with multiple certifications. There's a definite to me. There's like a lack of it's like the anything goes School of Exercise, right? If I call it an exercise, it's an exercise. There's no common vocabulary. So a young trainer will come into the studio and see that I have a kettlebell he's Oh great. I'm gonna do that. No, you're not Oh, no, no, no, no, no, but kettlebells whole door open. That was for experimentation. That was for experimentation only and I was the guinea pig. Now, we do not do that with clients. There's too much of an anything goes mentality, like, you know, just because some physical labor you did makes you breathless and makes you sweat makes your muscles burn, and pumps you up, doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. And that I think is very common among newer trainers, the exercise industry has created this. They've created this structure that I don't think I kind of think is a house of cards. Like it appears to have a lot of substance to it. But if you can't apply it to most people who walk in your door, what good is. And that's kind of why I got away from NSCA type stuff and heavy industry stuff. Adam  5:52  And let me say but you ...

    9 min
  5. 73: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 3

    01/19/2021

    73: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 3

    Welcome to the InForm Fitness Podcast series REWIND, a listen back to the classic interviews we’ve had with the high intensity gurus & master trainers… names like Martin Gibala, Doug Brignole, Simon Shawcross, Jay Vincent, Ryan Hall & Doug McGuff. Adam kicks off the series with biomechanics expert, author, weight lifter, and personal trainer Bill DeSimone. Bill penned the book Congruent Exercise: How To Make Weight Training Easier On Your Joints. Bill is well known for his approach to weight lifting which focuses on correct biomechanics to build strength without undue collateral damage to connective tissue and the rest of the body. In part 3 of 4, Adam gets Bill’s opinion on the machines vs. free weights debate. Then Adam asks the question, just what is functional training today? Bill DeSimone Website Optimalexercisenj.com Bill DeSimone - Congruent Exercise https://www.facebook.com/CongruentExercise As always, your feedback and suggestions are always welcome. Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen We would love to hear from you with your questions, comments & show ideas… Our email address is podcast@informfitness.com 73: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 3 Transcript Arlene  0:01  The Inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of inform fitness studios specializing in safe, efficient, personal high intensity strength training, in each episode Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery, the three pillars of his New York Times best selling book, The Power of 10. He aims to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And with the opinions of leading experts and scientists, you'll hear scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We cover the exercise protocols and techniques of Adoms 20 minute once a week workout, as well as sleep recovery, nutrition, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more. Adam  0:55  Hello, everyone, Adam here, welcome back to the inform fitness podcast rewind. It's our listen back to classic interviews with high intensity gurus, master trainers, authors and scientists. This is part three of four with author and weightlifter and personal trainer, Bill De Simone. In this episode, I thought I would get Bill's opinion on the old debate on whether machines or free weights are better. But before we got into that, I asked Bill, what exactly is functional training today? A lot of people feel and argue that machines are great, if you want to just do really high intensity, get really deep and go to failure. But if you want to really learn how to use your body and space, then then free weights and bodyweight movements need to be incorporated. And both are important, going to failure within the same machines in a safe manner that may be cammed properly. But that in of itself is not enough that a lot of people feel for full fitness or conditioning, if you will, you need to use free weights or bodyweight movements. So if you have an opinion about whether one is better than the other, they both serve different purposes. And they're both important. Or if you just use either one of them correctly. You're good. Bill DeSimone  2:19  Well, I mean, let's talk about the the idea that free weights are more functional than machines. I personally think it's what you do with your body that makes it functional or not. And by functional. That's it. Adam  2:32  Let's talk about that. Alright, so what? Alright, so let's, before we even go into the question I just asked, maybe we can talk about this idea of what because even people were throwing around the expression functional training nowadays. So CrossFit is apparently functional training. So what exactly was functional training? Well, see, I don't know what it has, what has it become? Bill DeSimone  2:54  I don't know, I don't know what they're talking about. Because frankly, if I gotta move a tire from point A to point B, I'm rolling it, I'm not flipping it. Adam  3:03  That'd be more functional wouldn't it. Bill DeSimone  3:07  If I have a child or a bag of groceries, I have to lift I'm not going to lift the kettlebell or a dumbbell awkwardly to prepare for that awkward lift. In other words, I would rather train train my muscles safely. And then if I have to do something awkward, hopefully I'm strong enough to get through it to extend it. My thought was like when I started in 1982, or so, 84 83, somewhere in the early 80s, I started to struggle. Most of us at the time were very influenced by the muscle magazines. It was either muscle magazines, or the Nautilus one set to failure type training. But the people we were training in the early 80s, especially in Manhattan, they weren't bodybuilders and they weren't. They weren't necessarily athletes. So to train, business people, and celebrities and actors, etc. Like you would train athletes seemed like a bad idea. Plus, you know, how many times that I hear, Oh, I don't want to get big. Or you know, I'm not going out for the Olympics. Okay, fine. If someone has a hunched over shoulder or whatever, now you're tailoring the training to what the person is in front of you right to what's relevant to their life. You know, if 20 inch arms didn't fascinate them while you're training them to get 20 inch arms, right? Maybe, maybe a trimmer waist was more their priority. So to my functional training and personal training, back in the 80s was synonymous somewhere through since the 80s functional training turned into this anti machine approach. And, you know, functional training for sport was a book written by a guy named Mike Boyle. His his main point in there is, and I'm paraphrasing, so if I get it wrong, don't blame. Don't blame him. But his point was as an athlete, you don't necessarily need to bench heavier squat, heavier deadlift, heavy, although might be helpful, but you do need the muscles that hold your joints together to be in better shape. So all of his exercises were designed around rotator cuff around the muscles around the spine and muscles around the hips, muscles around the ankles. So in his eye, it was functional for sport, he was training people doing exercises, so that it would hold their posture together. So that that wouldn't cause a problem on the field. You know, that material was pretty good went a little overboard, I think in some ways, but generally is pretty good. But then it got kind of bastardized as it got caught into the commercial fitness industry. And it just became an excuse for sequencing like a lunge with a curl with a row with a push up to another lunge to a squat. It just became sort of a random collection of movements justified as being functional, functional, for what, right at least Boyle said it was functional for sport. His point was to cut injuries down in sport, where's the function and stringing together? Again, a curl to a press to a push up to a squat back to the curl like one rep of each. Those ar...

    13 min
  6. 72: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 2

    01/17/2021

    72: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 2

    Welcome to the InForm Fitness Podcast series REWIND, a listen back to the classic interviews we’ve had with the high intensity gurus & master trainers… names like Martin Gibala, Doug Brignole, Simon Shawcross, Jay Vincent, Ryan Hall & Doug McGuff. Adam kicks off the series with biomechanics expert, author, weight lifter, and personal trainer Bill DeSimone. Bill penned the book Congruent Exercise: How To Make Weight Training Easier On Your Joints. Bill is well known for his approach to weight lifting which focuses on correct biomechanics to build strength without undue collateral damage to connective tissue and the rest of the body. In part 2 of 4, Bill talks about the importance of always using a safe limited range of motion. Bill DeSimone Website Optimalexercisenj.com Bill DeSimone - Congruent Exercise https://www.facebook.com/CongruentExercise As always, your feedback and suggestions are always welcome. Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen We would love to hear from you with your questions, comments & show ideas… Our email address is podcast@informfitness.com 72: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 2 Transcript Arlene  0:01  The Inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of inform fitness studios specializing in safe, efficient, personal high intensity strength training, in each episode Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery, the three pillars of his New York Times best selling book, The Power of 10. He aims to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And with the opinions of leading experts and scientists, you'll hear scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We cover the exercise protocols and techniques of Adoms 20 minute once a week workout, as well as sleep recovery, nutrition, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more. Adam  0:56  Greetings again, Adam here. Welcome to the inform fitness podcast rewind, our listen back to classic interviews with high intensity gurus, scientists, and authors. This is part two of four with author and personal trainer, and biomechanics expert Bill De Simone. Bill is certainly known for a sensible biomechanics approach to exercise and training, and that it should always be joint friendly. Bill and I are going to be talking about the importance of always using a safe and limited range of motion. Bill and I both agree that everyday life tests us and can in some cases, certainly push and extend our safe limits of range of motion, especially in sports. So later in the episode, we will be talking about should you be working out to extreme ranges of motion if your life or your sport asked for Bill DeSimone  1:43  it. I'm saying limit range of motion because that might be the verbiage that we understand and maybe listeners would understand, it's really a lot more complicated than just saying use this range of motion. So for instance, in a low back exercise, a stiff legged deadlift, when I used to misinterpret that by using a full range of motion, I'd be standing on a bench with a barbell, and the barbell would be at shoe level, my knees would be locked, my lower back would be rounded, my shoulders would be up by my ears as I'm trying to get the bar off the ground. And so yes, I was using a full range of motion. Adam  2:20  And I go to a chiropractor just listening to that. Exactly, Bill DeSimone  2:23  yeah, but you still see it all the time. You see it all the time when people are using kettlebells. You see that exact posture, right? The kettlebells between their legs and knees are locked, the low back is rounded. And then now they're doing a speed lead, at least I was doing I'm slow. They're doing speed deadlifts. So if I was going to use it, if I was going to do an exercise like that, it would be a extreme range of motion, I would be looking use a correct range of motion. So for instance, I wouldn't lock the knees. And I would only lower the person's torso so that they could keep the curve in the lower back, which might require a rep or two to see where that is. But once you see where that is, that's what I would limit them to. So for instance, the chest press machine I have in the studio, so nitro and Adam  3:05  Nautilus, nitro Bill DeSimone  3:05  Nautilus Nitro, the seat doesn't adjust enough for my preference. So the bed hurt the person's elbows come too far back. So first is to get the first rep off the ground, the person's elbows have to come way by way behind the plane of their back. So what So what I'll do is like, you know, I'll help the person out of the first repetition help out of the bottom, and then I'll have you the my hand or the clipboard where I want their elbow to stop. So as soon as I touch my hand on my elbow, they begin the other way. So that's another thing we tend to do is we tend to think of everything in terms of the big superficial muscles, right?  Because those are the ones that rarely get hurt, right It's those are the ones that don't get hurt. It's it's the joint set. That was one thing of all the stuff I read whether it was CSCS, or Darden stuff or Jones's stuff. There was always a little murkiness between what was the joint and what was the muscle, and then that stuff was always written from the point of view of the muscle, right? It Adam  3:59  was a joint capsule. For those that don't know what a joint capsule is a shoulder capsule, Bill DeSimone  4:04  it's part of the structure of what holds your shoulder together. If the old Nautilus machines, you know, 1980 vintage, that bragged about getting such an extreme range of motion. Some of them it really took your shoulder to the limit of where it could go to start the exercise. And we were encouraged to go that far. But the real problem is unnecessarily adding to life's wear and tear on your joints. So it's not just what we do in the gym that accounts for somebody who plays tennis or somebody has a desk job or a manual labor job and it constantly say, you know, a plumber or some other manual labor guy has to go over his head with his arms a lot that wear and tear on his shoulder counts. And just because they walk into your gym, and yes, my health history of any orthopedic problems, I say no. Yes, I'm on the verge of an orthopedic problem that I don't know about. And I've worn this joint out because of work. But no, I have no problems at the moment. You know, my thing is, my the exercise I'm prescribing isn't going to make that worse. Adam  5:08  Well, you don't want it to make it worse. And well, and that's why you're limiting range of motion. That's why you're matching the strength curve of the muscle with resistance curve of the tool you're using, whether you're free weight or a machine where the cam Bill DeSimone  5:21  right there was supposed to be doing this for the benefits of exerc...

    11 min
  7. 71: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 1

    01/15/2021

    71: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 1

    Welcome to the InForm Fitness Podcast series REWIND, a listen back to the classic interviews we’ve had with the high intensity gurus & master trainers… names like Martin Gibala, Doug Brignole, Simon Shawcross, Jay Vincent, Ryan Hall & Doug McGuff. Adam kicks off the series with biomechanics expert, author, weight lifter, and personal trainer Bill DeSimone. Bill penned the book Congruent Exercise: How To Make Weight Training Easier On Your Joints. Bill is well known for his approach to weight lifting which focuses on correct biomechanics to build strength without undue collateral damage to connective tissue and the rest of the body.In part 1 of 4, Bill explains all about being “Joint Friendly”. Bill DeSimone Website Optimalexercisenj.com Bill DeSimone - Congruent Exercise https://www.facebook.com/CongruentExercise Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen We would love to hear from you with your questions, comments & show ideas… Our email address is podcast@informfitness.com 71: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 1 Transcript Arlene  0:01  The inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of inform fitness studios specializing in safe, efficient, personal high intensity strength training, and each episode Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery, the three pillars of his New York Times best selling book, The Power of 10. He aims to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And with the opinions of leading experts and scientists, you'll hear scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We cover the exercise protocols and techniques of Adoms 20 minute once a week workout, as well as sleep recovery, nutrition, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more. Adam  0:56  Greetings everyone, Adam here. Welcome to our first Inform Fitness Podcast Rewind, it's a listen back to the classic interviews that we've had with high intensity gurus, scientists, and master trainers. Names like Martin Gibala, Doug Brignole, Simon Shawcross, Ryan Hall, Dr. Doug McGuff. And of course, Gary Taubes. This is part one of four with author, personal trainer and biomechanics expert, Bill De Simone. In 2012. Bill penned the book congruent exercise, how to make weight training easier on your joints. Bill is well known for his approach to weightlifting which focuses on correct biomechanics to build strength without undue collateral damage to the connective tissue and the rest of the body. So here's part one, where Bill will explain all about being joint friendly. Let's explain first and foremost, you wrote something called moment arm exercise. Yeah, so the name itself shows you how technical it probably is inside. Right. So moment am is a very technical term, very specific term in physics, but then you now you're calling a joint friendly exercise. And you will recall that also congruent exercise at 1.0, all synonymous with each other. So please explain what is joint friendly, exercise or fitness  Bill DeSimone  2:14  Its based more on anatomy and biomechanics than sports performance. Unlike, you know, a lot of the fitness fads that the attitude and the verbiage comes out of say, you know, football practice or a competitive sport, what I'm doing is I'm filtering all my exercise instruction through the anatomy and biomechanics books, to try to avoid the vulnerable, putting the joints in vulnerable positions. And that's so complicated, which is why I struggled so much to make it clear. So I started with moment arm exercise. And then I wrote congruent exercise, which was a little broader. But obviously, the title still requires some explanation. Now, as it happened, in my personal training in the studio, I would use all this stuff, but I wouldn't explain it because I was only dealing with clients, I wasn't dealing with peers. Since it's a private studio, not a big gym, I don't have to explain the differences between what I'm doing and what somebody else is doing. But in effect, I do. I've been doing this every day for 15 years Adam  3:13  You know, I have to say, when you say that, that you didn't explain to clients, I actually use this information as a selling point, I actually explain to my clients, why we're doing it this way, as opposed to the conventional way, because this is joint friendly. I don't get too technical, necessarily, but I let them know there is a difference of why we're doing it this way versus the conventional way. So they understand that we actually are cut above everybody else and how we apply exercise so they don't feel you know, they feel very secure in the fact that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing but Bill DeSimone  3:47  but you know, what I do is Oh, is any any signage, I have business card, website, Facebook presence, all lays out joint friendly and defines it and kind of explains itself, I would say most of the clients I have aren't coming from being heavily engaged in another form of fitness. There are people who started and drop out of programs or, you know, they joined a health club in January in a drop out. It's not like I'm getting somebody who is like really intensely into CrossFit or intensely into Zumba or bodybuilding. And now they're banged up, and now they need to do something different. The joint friendly phrasing is what connects me with people that need that. I just find they don't need to. They don't need a technical explanation as to why we're not over stretching the joint capsule in the shoulder. Adam  4:37  Of course Bill DeSimone  4:37  why we're not getting that extra range of motion on the benchpress because because again, there's nobody they haven't seen anybody doing otherwise. So I don't have to explain it this one. Adam  4:48  Yeah, but they might have had experience doing it themselves. It just take an overhead press for example. Having your arms externally rotated and abducted versus having him in front of you. Yeah, there's an easy explanation right to a client Why we won't do one versus the other. Bill DeSimone  5:02  But I have to say, I do not get people who even know what behind the neck presses now in Manhattan was a little different, you know, I guess more dense. Adam  5:09  So so for this conversation, let's assume some people know what an overhead press Okay, they they understand in a way what the conventional is, but we can kind of get into it what is conventional, what's not conventional? So as join friendly, so how was it join friendly? What are you actually doing to make it joint friendly? Bill DeSimone  5:23  Well, the short answer is I use a lot less range of motion than we got accustomed to, when we used to use an extreme range of motion. You know, if bodybuilders in the 60s were doing pumping motions, and then you want to expand that range of motion, for good reason. And then that gets bastardized. And now we take more of a range of...

    12 min
  8. 70: Bad Education

    09/21/2020

    70: Bad Education

    The idea to include physical education as part of a child’s core curriculum is as uniquely American as Edison’s light bulb and the Blues. As early as the mid 1800’s American educators argued that, from kindergarten through to 12th grade, schools should provide children with the knowledge and activities necessary to maintain a high level of physical fitness for a lifetime.  In the mid 1950’s, President Eisenhower established the President’s Council on Youth Fitness (PCYF) urging schools to offer ‘15 minutes of daily, vigorous activity’.  And America’s Physical education system was born. President Kennedy continued to address the issue of physical education, and although the PCYF did not have the authority to impose a national program, it developed and promoted a curriculum to improve fitness. Two hundred thousand copies were distributed in a sweeping drive to achieve widespread participation in the program for the 1961–1962 school year. The program produced a measurable improvement in fitness nationwide as well as a shift in public attitudes and wider participation.  Today, however, Fitness classes are disappearing from the nation's public schools at an alarming rate, vanquished by ever-tightening budgets and time constraints. Only about half of students in grades K-12 have physical education classes every day, and even less for high school students. All at a time when there is a growing body of evidence showing exercise to be fertilizer for the brain. Exercise fosters brain development and growth, and physical activity prepares children to learn.  If you are a parent with young children you must listen to our most recent episode, “Bad Education” with Robert Francis.  Robert explains how important exercise is for our children and details the fascinating, yet sobering history of the Physical Education system in American schools; from its roots, its original mission, how we diverged and what, as parents, we can do about it. As always, your feedback and suggestions are always welcome. Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen We would love to hear from you with your questions, comments & show ideas… Our email address is podcast@informfitness.com Inform_R FRANCIS Ep 70 Transcript SUMMARY KEYWORDS physical education, exercise, sports, people, fitness, school, called, problems, education, athletics, early, teaching, educators, kids, gymnastics, plato, naperville, games, obesity, recreation Arlene  00:01 The Inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of Inform fitness studios, a small family of personal training facilities specializing in safe, efficient high intensity strength training. On our BI monthly podcast, Adam discusses the latest findings in the area of exercise nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists, we aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And to replace those sacred cows with scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects will cover exercise protocols and techniques, nutrition, sleep, recovery, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more. For this episode, Adam welcomes back Robert Francis, exercise historian and instructor at informed fitness. If you're a parent with young children, you must listen to bad education. Robert explains how important exercise is for our children and details the fascinating yet sobering history of the physical education system in American schools, from its roots, its original mission, how we diverged. And what as parents can we do about for the first time in American history, there is likely to be a generation dental are going to have a shorter lifespan than their pounds.   Adam  01:38 Well, I am so happy to bring back Robert Francis, once again, my mentor, so for so many years, who now have the honor of working with him for fitness. He has a fount of information, when I asked him about all the subjects that we should talk about, one subject that he likes to talk about, and he's well versed on is something that you don't normally hear me talking about, because I don't really know that much about it at all. Although Robert says I do no more than I think about it. So we're going to find out. And that is the subject of your original intent of our physical education system in the United States. You know, gym class and school, and how it compares to the actual present reality is how Robert likes to put it. So, Robert, I guess we'll start with this question. Why do you think this is an important subject for this podcast? Because you know, we normally talk about, you know, exercise fitness nutrition. So here, we're talking about the physical education system, the United States. So why do you think this is an important subject?   Robert  02:48 Well, we train hundreds of people a day in our studios. And I can see and you can see that people ask questions that they really ought to know the answers to people come in with problems that when we talk, we talk about how preventable so many of these problems are. And it's very clear that people have had an inadequate education for 12 years in the public school and kindergarten, on how to maintain their physical bodies. And in my view, a lot of what comes into our doors are not people wanting to optimize an already well moving body, but they're reconstructing a body that is falling apart from maladies and from conditions that are completely preventable, and that they ought to have been adequately educated in order to prevent they're coming in with problems that have to be dealt with. First, sometimes their injuries very often, it's obesity, and diabetes, there's a lot of makeup work that has to be done before we can put them on a course of really robust physical health. Well, you're   Adam  04:13 right. I mean, are you? Are you including a lot of orthopedic issues as well? Yes, sometimes? Yeah. But it's not just orthopedic issues. You're saying things like, you know, metabolic syndrome type stuff, you know, just obesity, high blood pressure, just just bad health,   Robert  04:27 and a lot of the problems that those things bring on mental distress, anxiety, depression, and all the rest of these things that had they been maintaining had they've been taught, according to original intent for physical education, the so   Adam  04:45 you're saying the original intent of our physical education system, you'll have to tell us when that started, actually, is that the 40s? Is that the 30s but the original intent whenever that was in our physical education system, United States, it was a good intent. They had good intentions and they did it well.   Robert  05:00 Well, physical education has been something that's always been in flux in this country. And it says some of it has to do with customs. And some of it has to do with cultural changes. But the original intent was so intelligent that it would apply today and top physical educators today are trying to get back to t...

    44 min
4.5
out of 5
22 Ratings

About

Now listened to in 100 countries, The InForm Fitness Podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of InForm Fitness Studios, specializing in safe, efficient, High Intensity strength training. Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise, nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness and to replace those sacred cows with scientific-based, up-to-the-minute information on a variety of subjects. The topics covered include exercise protocols and techniques, nutrition, sleep, recovery, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more.