All right, I got this intro. You good? I'm chewing food so Jake's gonna intro this.
What's up, guys? Jake Hutton and Steve Cook from Fitness Culture.
We both got new haircuts so we figured that we'd do the video together today.
So we're gonna be starting a new series called advanced training techniques.
And what we're gonna be doing is basically just showing you some of
the techniques that we use in the Fitness Culture app to help get our
clients stronger. So the one we're going to be talking about today is gonna be
myotatic reps, and specifically we're gonna be talking about a 1 1/4
variation on these reps. So these are a technique that we've used that's
definitely helped a lot of our clients get stronger really fast, and it's also
helped Steve when he came back from bodybuilding, so he'll talk about his story a little bit.
So I think one of the biggest things that I want to relate to people
out there is a lot of times when we get stuck in this whole going to the gym,
three sets of eight, just it's progressive overload but you're not
using as many of the advanced training principles as you really should be.
So this is one that growing up, to get stronger you might focus on, but then
you know, you're not playing sports anymore and you're just concerned
about looks and you forget it. But what you're forgetting is type 2 muscle
fibers, those quick twitch ones, those are gonna be great for explosive movements
that will actually lend to a bigger, more muscular body. So you definitely don't
want to steer clear of these. I did it, I stopped doing this type of work for a
long time, and when I started doing them again I realized how profound of a
difference they can make. So we're gonna be jumping into this today and really
show you guys some really cool techniques. All right guys, so we're gonna
be talking about myotatic reps today, and basically that's just a fancy way of
talking about your stretch reflex. So what we're doing with these 1 1/4
reps, and you can do them without the 1 1/4 reps,
but the danger in that is going to be if you use heavy weight, coming down and
just doing basically, it's basically a barbell plyometric, that's we're gonna be
doing on the bench press today. So if you come from a full lockout down, it's gonna
be a lot more dangerous. So for 1 1/4 variation on the bench press is
great because you're able to use heavier weight and still tap into that stretch
reflex by just pausing at a quarter, dropping down,
and then exploding back up. Just my personal experience, I was plateaued at
475 on the benchpress forever, and then after college went to a combine training
prep facility and we started doing these, this is where I was first introduced to
these, and doing a progression of these, that's when I was finally able to
bust through that plateau and actually bench over 500 pounds by utilizing this technique.
Alright, so the first exercise that we're gonna be showing you guys
today is how to utilize this on the benchpress. So Steve is gonna set up,
a lot of the times on these reps when we're going a little bit heavier,
we'll make sure that the client controls it on the way down, that first rep to the chest,
and then he's gonna pause at a quarter, and then just drop and overcome, and
straight up. For some people it will bounce off your chest just a little bit.
And if you want to use a pad you can, to really let it bounce off your chest.
But you really think about, like I said earlier, it's almost like a barbell
plyometric, so you're just gonna drop, like you would off a box jump or
something. You're gonna drop and explode. Gonna pause, drop, explode up, good.
So as you notice, Steve was using a wide grip right now. What we usually do with
our clients when they come into the app is do a close grip progression of this
and then gradually we'll take their hands out wider once they get closer to
a max phase, and then obviously we're gonna take out that quarter rep,
start working with heavier weights, and build them up to a max. All right, the next
thing we're gonna be showing you is how to utilize this in a back squat,
because we do that a lot with our programming as well. So Steve is gonna
control the weight down, basically break parallel, come right back up above parallel,
then drop down and explode up. There's gonna be a lot more involved in
the back squat, so you've got to make sure that, like we said earlier,
these are advanced training techniques, so if you're new to the back squat, you're not
gonna want to use this, especially in the way that we're utilizing it, where he's
just dropping down and exploding back up. But the goal here is to stay tight the
entire time, don't really bottom out, you'll want to stay nice and tight.
And it's really all about overcoming basically that velocity out of
the hole and exploding back up through it.
Is that where you'd say most people get stuck, is in that pocket?
And this is kind of helping to create... Yeah so one of the
ways that we use 1 1/4 reps number one, we'll put people through a
progression where we're not using that as basically a speed movement
where they're going to drop down fast and come out, they're gonna control it
there, and really we're utilizing that to basically work on
strength out of the hole. And then this would be even a more advanced technique
when they're starting to get stronger in the hole, their knees are tracking
properly, then we would actually let them drop down quickly and try to overcome
that force. If you guys aren't advanced we have other beginner workouts as well,
go check out some of those. These ones are if you've been working out for a
while and you know what you're doing. Alright, the last exercise we're gonna be
showing you guys today is the same variation, but doing it with a pull-up.
So this one for sure you're not gonna want to do unless you are really good at
pull-ups. So I would say you need to be able to do 10 to 15 strict pull-ups at
least before you do it. You're gonna do a pull-up, you're gonna pull all the way up,
control it all the way down, come back up to 1/4 rep, and then drop and
explode back up, good. The intent on this is everything. So if you're controlling
if you're just moving slow and coming back out you're not going to get as much
out of it. It's gonna tax those type 2 fibers and so you're gonna burn out way
quicker. So if you did a set of these slowly you'll notice that it's not that
difficult, it's just more time under tension. But if you actually focus on
letting yourself drop to full extension and overcome that, you're really gonna
elicit that stretch reflex and tap into those type 2 fibers, and you're gonna
burn out way faster. So you might think you're going down all the way, but until
you bottom out completely on it, you have no idea how far that full range of
motion is, and I think that's one thing is, again as bodybuilders, we're kind of
always keeping the tension on the lats. This is letting go all the way down and
immediately exploding back up, and that plyometric-type principle attacks
those type 2 fibers big-time. Again, that's one of the reasons why we're
only doing a quarter upon those. If you were to drop from the top and try to
overcome that, it's gonna be super dangerous, and just your body weight
moving that big of a distance is gonna be really hard on your shoulders.
So that's why we're just utilizing the quarter rep, and we're able to do
something like a pull-up where it's really heavy and
still get maximum benefit out of it.
Guys, we hope you enjoyed these advanced principle techniques.
We're gonna be doing a lot more of these. If you guys want to check out a full upper body day
of working out with these principles, click the link in the description.
One thing Jake and I are also talking about doing is, I'm trying to talk him in,
you know with these advanced style principles, athlete program, you got the
NFL Combine coming up, I want to do something that's gonna be really fun to
watch while exploring how these athletes train and maybe seeing how big Jake
does against some of the combine numbers. So if you guys want to see that...
You're not doing it with me? Uh, I'll spot you. We'll see how my back does.
I'd like to do it too, but I always know Jake would smash some of these numbers.
So if you guys want to see him and I do that, more so him,
smash the like on this, and then give it a subscribe, if you guys haven't.
We're gonna have a good time with these, and definitely check out that link in the bio.