JEFF: What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
So today is a very interesting video on flipping the script around a little bit.
But I promise, it's going to be extremely helpful.
Maybe even more helpful than ever to you, when it comes to arm development.
Here's what happened: Jesse walked in to the office today wearing his tank top, but noticeably
his arms were definitely, noticeably bigger.
It hasn't just happened overnight.
I don’t just see him walk in every day in a tank top.
What I said to him was "Dude, your arms are definitely" – I give him compliments, guys.
I promise you.
I said "You're getting bigger.
If you could change something, or if you knew of the things that I've shown you" – because
I don’t babysit him.
I don’t take him through every workout, despite what you might think.
I try to give him the tools, as I do you, and let him go off and try to make the most
out of it.
It's ultimately the best way to have success.
I said "If there were five things that you could change, or that you knew easier about
your arm training; what would they be?"
He was able to rattle them off immediately because he knew exactly what they were.
So what I wanted to do is, I told him "Dude, this is good information that they're going
to be able to benefit from.
So let's go film a video."
So that's where we are right now.
There are five things.
Jesse, what is number one, the first thing you told me that helped you, in terms of getting
better gains?
JESSE: Intensity.
Changing my intensity up was the biggest thing I've ever done for my arm training.
Training in general.
Before I would get to fatigue and I'd stop right there.
Like "Oh, that's enough."
Now, using drop sets and pause reps, especially, I'm able to up my intensity.
I feel like that's upped my gains a lot.
Guys, don’t get me wrong.
I've got small arms right now.
They're getting better, but to start with they were way smaller.
Now I've added at least an inch, or two.
To me, that's something I'm very proud of, and I think I owe a lot of that to the intensity
of my workouts, now.
JEFF: Yeah.
There are – I don’t know if you could measure them – but they're probably bigger
than 12".
The fact is this, guys: using here, as you see I'm doing the rest pause technique.
Anything that I could use to get him to train harder, to realize that hitting the first
hard portion of an exercise is not the stopping point.
Not if you want to see gains.
You have to be willing, and able to mentally push yourself so physically you're giving
your body stimulus to grow.
The next thing I asked him, "What's the next thing that you did?"
JESSE: Next thing was going through full extension on the curls.
JEFF: So, full range of motion.
JESSE: Full range of motion.
Yeah.
JEFF: What a novel concept, guys.
We've talked about it a lot here, but why was that so beneficial of an example for the
curls?
What were you doing wrong?
JESSE: For me, I was short arming it.
I was bringing the dumbbell up like this, in one motion, elbows locked out, and that
wasn't really giving me the full extension on my biceps.
JEFF: So when he's talking about this movement here, what he's doing is, he's literally not
training the biceps because the bicep's function is to flex the elbow.
Open the joint, close the joint.
He's not doing that.
What he's doing is basically locking into one position, and then moving the elbow in
front of, and behind his body, but not really making the biceps do all the work.
Here, he's shifting most of the load to the front delts.
So by doing that one change you saw better gains because of full range of motion?
JESSE: Yeah.
JEFF: And a better stimulus throughout the range of motion?
JESSE: 100%.
JEFF: Great.
Now, the next thing.
What's another thing that you did?
JESSE: Next thing I implemented was the static hold up on the chin-up bar.
JEFF: One of the best exercises, as I've shown you here before, has been my secret weapon,
probably since the time I was a little kid.
It's the static bicep chin hold.
You can see Jesse doing this here.
It is not easy.
All you have to do is put yourself up in position at the top of a chin-up, and you really try
to contract your biceps as hard as possible.
So you're not just hanging here, you're literally trying to flex, right?
JESSE: Yeah.
You're contracting as hard as you can.
JEFF: What the advantage here, of why this works so well guys, is – we talk about putting
the science behind the strength here – you're not just bending the elbow here, which is
one function of the biceps.
You're not just supinating by having the underhand grip.
But you're also getting that peak contraction of the biceps by having shoulder flexion as
a component of the other two.
Now he's in this position trying to fight it for as long as possible.
Not to mention, the eccentric hold here.
The eccentric lengthening.
Again, another major stimulus for the overload necessary for creating growth.
JESSE: Right.
JEFF: What's next?
Number four.
JESSE: Next there was – number four was the rocking tricep pushdown.
JEFF: So when it came to your tricep training, how were you doing your pushdowns?
JESSE: Just standing straight up and down, and just going – just extending right there.
I wasn't really doing anything with that.
JEFF: The issue with that, as I've covered in a video here – again, I tell you; he's
a good learner because he's been watching the videos, for crying out loud.
Earning his pay.
The thing is, I say that because of physics here guys, when you do a tricep pushdown you
can maximize the amount of force directed to the triceps throughout the entire range
of motion, if you're willing to move your body, and space while you do them.
So if you were just to stay locked in up, and down, as Jesse's doing here, the line
of resistance – which is the cable – is staying perpendicular to his forearm, only
in the beginning portion of that exercise.
As he goes down, toward extension it's not.
It's becoming more parallel, and that means he's losing the force that the triceps have
to produce to do the exercise.
So what we can do to make that better is the rocking tricep pushdown here.
Jesse has a little bit of a lack of extension in his elbow from an old lacrosse injury.
He's got bone chips in the elbow.
But the fact is, he's going as much as he can into extension, and you could probably
do better.
Right?
JESSE: Yeah.
Much better.
JEFF: So, the fact is, you're trying to, now, as you rock backward, you're still allowing
that line of resistance of the cable to stay perpendicular.
So you're keeping that peak force on the triceps throughout the entire range.
Then what was the last one?
Because the last one is the one that stood out to me above everything else, because it's
a mental thing that I think a lot of you guys can benefit from.
What was that?
JESSE: The last thing was to stop worrying about what everyone else was saying in the
gym, or thinking in the gym.
It was training here that really taught me that because when I'm training here, and there's
no one around me, and I'm not looking over my shoulder thinking "Oh, no.
Someone's looking at me."
I always felt that someone was saying "This kid – what is this skinny kid doing; doing
curls and tricep kickbacks?
He should be deadlifting, and squatting."
The thing is, I was doing all that.
JEFF: Right.
You were deadlifting, and you were squatting.
JESSE: I was always squatting.
My arms were tiny.
Let's be real.
So I figured, get some extra work in with them, and really focus on them.
And honestly, without worrying about anyone else it's been very helpful to me because
I'm able to just focus on it without the worry of anything.
I'm not too self-conscious about it.
I'm not self-conscious when I go to the gym now, if I go to a commercial gym and people
are looking at me, it is what it is.
JEFF: Right.
You're not the biggest dude that walked into the gym, but you have to realize, guys – I
say this all the time.
Everybody starts somewhere.
I started somewhere.
Jesse even, before your very eyes, started somewhere, and look at the changes he's made
here.
You can do it, guys.
You've just got to change your mindset to not care about what anybody else is doing.
I'm going to open up another revelation, too.
I know Jesse didn't necessarily mention this.
I bet you the people he thought were looking at him, weren't really looking at him.
I bet you they really didn't give a damn what he was doing.
The thing is, we feel that.
We feel the eyeballs on us because we think people are caring about what we do, but everyone
else is in the gym trying to do their same old damned thing.
They all have their own struggles.
They all have their own issues they're all trying to overcome.
And they probably aren't even focused on you.
So my key message to you is, regardless of whether it's your arms, or anything else;
stop caring about what other people say.
Do what you know needs to be done and I promise you, you're going to be in a better place,
even a few months from now, than you are right now.
Just as Jesse has been able to do.
So guys, I hope all of this is helpful to you.
I hope every, single video is that we put together here because, again, these are a
lot of the same principles that he's been learning, and implementing that have been
doing the trick.
If you're looking for a program that puts it all together, step by step, just like Jesse
here; you can head to ATHLEANX.com and get our ATHLEANX training program.
In the meantime, if you've found the video helpful leave your comments, and thumbs up
below.
Let me know what you want me to cover in a future video and I'll do my best to do that.
All right, guys.
See you soon.