JEFF: What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Looking damn small today.
In between two behemoths here.
Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntire, WWE Superstars.
Guys – Jinder’s been here before.
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: But today, we’re going to get after it a little bit more.
JINDER: Yep.
JEFF: A little more of a back workout.
Take them both through it.
I’m going to try to give you guys some tips along the way.
Even some of the more familiar exercises, I think guys sometimes screw them up.
JINDER: Yeah, definitely.
JEFF: I think there’s always more to be had and you can squeeze that lemon a little
bit more and get a little more out of every exercise.
I’m hopefully going to do that with you guys today, and those guys watching.
JINDER: Absolutely.
And I hear – when it comes to weight – sometimes less is more.
JEFF: Well, we’re going to-
JINDER: That’s just my excuse.
JEFF: The thing is, honestly, these guys are – there’s nobody that has a harder schedule
than these athletes right here.
As a guy who worked in Major League Baseball I can tell you it’s a pretty grueling schedule.
162 games in about 180 days and I didn’t play.
All I did was work it and it was hard for me.
But you guys are on the road – how many days?
200 and something?
JINDER: Yeah.
200.
Year-round.
No off season.
JEFF: There’s no off season.
So honestly, sometimes what you do in this weight room does have to become a consideration.
You can’t just come in here and try to set PRs every time you’re in the weight room
thinking you’re going to be able to go out and perform.
You’ll be able to figure out a way to make some bulk.
JINDER: More technique, yeah.
JEFF: So, dropping down the weight and getting a little more out of what you do is going
to go a long way for you guys.
JINDER: Exactly.
JEFF: So, let’s go knock this one out.
You need to be able to get it far enough over to be able to work the back.
So, you guys are both tall.
So that means your hips are going to have to go back.
The taller you are, the more you’ve got to sit.
I don’t have to sit nearly as far back.
I could be right here, and I’m already bent over.
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: You’ve got a lot more torso that’s got to get out of the way.
So you’re leaning over.
So you’re lifting this up.
JINDER: A lot of these [inaudible 0:01:52], right?
JEFF: Yeah.
One of the things about this exercise that’s kind of cool; if you were to do it in a drop
set, just go through failure, all you have to change is the angle of your body.
So, if I want to be here, I could be straight over, and this way here.
Like that.
Now I’m pulling the weight straight up against gravity.
Which could be the hardest.
So, let’s say I get to the point where I’m fatigued, but I want to do a little bit more.
I just come a little more upright.
So now as I’m pulling in, I’m not really going straight against gravity anymore.
I’m coming more at that angle.
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: So, I cut a little bit of that out.
Drew actually had a little bit more of a movement where he comes a little more in.
Try, Drew, when you do this one, sit – you even have a longer torso than Jinder.
So, sit way back.
So, if you can, the bar is almost like a deadlift right up against your shins.
Now just stand up a little bit more.
Stand.
Drop the hips a little bit.
Then give me four more.
Go back, yeah.
Now pull from the same – there you go.
See?
when you cut the angle you can still keep going.
DREW: Yeah.
JEFF: So, it’s a good way to drop set and just push through.
DREW: Yep.
JINDER: Is there anything to do while you go-?
JEFF: Go wide?
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: The more travel you’re going to have is when you have your arms narrower.
JINDER: Yep.
JEFF: Because they’re going to be longer.
If you do this, it’s almost like doing it like that snatch grip.
JINDER: Yep.
JEFF: Deadlifts.
Your arms are shorter, so you can’t get as much pull.
All right.
So, the big thing here; don’t turn it into a tricep exercise.
For you – and just feel how your shoulder feels because that’s key here.
You want to flare the elbows.
So, make that flare, get this back, and now you’re pulling here.
So, you move from there, to there.
Do you feel it?
JINDER: Yep.
JEFF: So, it’s out, and you’re just shortening this from here, to there.
JINDER: So, I don’t need to go too, too low?
JEFF: No.
You could – if you go low, it’s because – open your chest up.
Get to the bottom.
Again, your shoulder, I always have – and I told you this – but you open the chest
up, that drops it.
This is your lat.
This is as far as your lats are going.
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: If you keep going lower, that’s just because you’re bending your elbows more.
JINDER: Yep.
JEFF: But that’s as far as your lats are going.
Get a little – get your elbows a little straighter.
A little bit like that.
There you go.
But that’s it.
And you keep the tension on by stopping them about here.
There we go.
To there.
If I let you come all the way up – come all the way to the top.
JINDER: Yeah, that takes it off.
JEFF: There’s no tension there anymore.
So, if you want to do it, you get it from here.
Down, big stretch, to there.
Out, and down.
Try to not let those elbows extend at all.
Then the more you drop your hips down here, the more of a stretch on the ribcage because
the lats actually attach down to the pelvis here, and they attach here at the arm.
So, if my hips are dropped and my arm is back here, that’s as long as they can be.
So, you get all that tension on your lats on every rep.
Now go.
Feel?
You’ve run out of room.
DREW: Yep.
JEFF: You’ve just stretched that out even more.
See, these are long?
But the elbows aren’t – the triceps aren’t pulling this.
It’s all lats.
The straight arm pullover.
He stops it at the right angle, hips are dropped down.
JINDER: His arm position doesn’t change.
JEFF: No.
It’s all right there.
Feel it?
The biggest difference is that you – then there’s no extra stretch or separation from
the pelvis to there.
DREW: Now I feel it is [inaudible 0:05:28]?
JEFF: You feel it a little more?
DREW: Yeah, I just feel like a dumbass.
Now that I’m doing it this way, [inaudible 0:05:31].
JEFF: It depends on what you’re really trying to train.
If you’re trying to get more lats you’ve got to stay upright more.
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: If you’re trying to get a little more of the midback with the row, then you just
recline back.
The key is, the chest should go out every time you pull back.
That’s the main key.
As you pull back, the chest – force it the other direction.
Now, as you come down, open this.
Spread it.
You feel that?
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: You should come up as your arms are going back.
There you go.
Yeah.
So, as you go down, spread it open.
Stick the chest out, up toward the sky.
It’s like opposite direction.
There you go.
Opposite directions.
You’re coming down, chest is going up.
This level of focused work?
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: It makes a lighter weight heavier.
Your body really, truly doesn’t know what that weight is.
It never does.
It just-
DREW: I didn’t even look.
It feels the same.
JEFF: Yeah.
I can guarantee you, it’s less.
So, you get in here, this way.
Then you just lean, and then you pull straight down.
So, you’re going almost – it’s almost like a pulldown, but you’re going right
in at that angle.
So, the cool thing about that is, as I was asking about your shoulder, you’re actually
getting an overhead movement here without having to have your arms overhead.
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: So, if you ever get in the position where it hurts to get your arms up overhead,
just because they’re sore from whatever, you just change your body position in space,
as opposed to your arms.
Then you’re able to do the same movement.
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: Relative to your body, it’s in line with your torso, which is what happened over
there.
It’s not having to have your arm get up there because you’re not where your body
is this way.
Honestly, at the bottom of it, even though you’re going straight up and down like a
pulldown, you look at the position of your elbows, they’re back behind it.
It’s a row.
So that’s another way to do a row.
JINDER: That’s a good one.
I like it.
JEFF: That’s cool, right?
JINDER: Yeah, it is.
JEFF: And it’s hard for me.
I don’t know how much the load is, but if you have the load right it gets tough.
So, go straight down.
Elbows down toward your side.
Yep.
Give them a little bit more flare.
Out, as you come down.
Yeah.
You feel that?
Okay, then when you…
Go high.
Use this right here.
Stride out, pull back, and squeeze.
Pull it nice, and tight.
JINDER: Can I twist my body a little bit.
JEFF: Yeah.
So, this right here, you get the stretch, right?
JINDER: Yep.
JEFF: So, then you drop down.
You should feel a good squeeze in there.
You can go lighter and when you use some of these – yeah.
I think – you actually squeeze it and you feel it.
It makes the weight more effectively heavier.
Do you know what I mean?
JINDER: Yep.
JEFF: Even though it’s not heavier than what you were using, it becomes effectively
more heavier.
JINDER: Yeah, less taxing on the joints.
JEFF: Yeah, definitely lighter on the joints.
I actually think this is one of my favorite back exercises of all of them.
Just to go out here because you literally get the full stretch on your lat.
You arm is coming out in front and up.
Which is really how you stretch the lat out.
Get it all the way there.
Then you get this hip set all the way back.
So, you have that big, long stretch.
Especially if you’re going to drop the weight a little bit, the range of motion should be
as long as you can possibly make it so there’s tension across the whole muscle.
It’s good that you’ve got a rotation because your body wants to rotate.
JINDER: Yeah?
JEFF: But if you over rotate what happens is – because you want the arm behind the
body.
So, let’s say – you weren’t doing this, but a couple times you came close.
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: You were doing it, and then you just keep rotating-
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: It doesn’t really change and get back behind the body.
So, as long as you get back behind, if you were to rotate then, that’s okay.
But if you do it this way and you stop, and then you rotate, you think it’s going back,
but in relation to here, it’s still at the side.
As opposed to behind it.
So, you just – all you think about is hands and knees.
Where are the hands in relation to the knees?
If the hands are below the knees, it’s pushing through the legs.
Once you get to the level of the knees everything comes forward.
So, if I’m here, you’re still getting that tight position here, and here.
Like that, I push through.
Through.
But then from here, push, drive through at that point.
Then back, you actually reverse it, then it goes – when you’re at the top – hip,
hip, hip, hip, hip, hip.
It’s a hip hinge, all the way to the knee.
Then once it hits the knee, straight knee back.
So, you’ll see once you do that, the bar should stay right up against your body the
whole time.
So, let’s try it.
If his knees are there, boom, and when he drives his hips through, meeting the bar on
the way up.
For me, it simplifies the cues.
In terms of “when do I?”
“How much hips, how much knee?”
Let the bar tell you when you need to go because once the bar is at the knees, then it’s
good.
The cool thing is, your knee height is different than my knee height, but it works the same
for both of us.
You should be able to look down and not be able to see the ties of your laces because
the bar should be-
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: The bar should be covering it.
So, you can even be a little bit closer.
Yeah, right there.
Even though your knees are coming out in front, the bar is still an inch or so away from your
shin.
Which is good.
JINDER: So, I’ve just got to-?
JEFF: Yeah, you’ll get your hips back, and down.
Yep.
Then that will be visible, but obviously you haven’t changed the relationship between
your shins.
So, try that.
This is almost impossible to move it when you start to get significant weight.
Move it off the ground and break it from the ground, if it’s not in position over the
middle of your foot.
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: Otherwise you won’t have the leverage to pull.
So, I try to do the liftoff on the bench-press.
You can’t get it off and behind you, you know?
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: That’s the same thing with this.
So, there you have it, guys.
A workout there with these two guys, again.
I don’t feel that big, but I’m comfortable in my own skin.
I realize that not everybody is supposed to be 6’5”, 6’6” and be a giant.
But the fact is, guys, everybody can be equalized by the weights.
We can all be humbled by what we do in the weight room.
I think if we’re doing it right, we will be.
I think nobody should be in here trying to think they’re better than the weights, or
that there’s something they can’t learn.
JINDER: Yeah.
JEFF: I’m learning every, single day.
Every athlete that I work with, we’re all learning and hopefully getting better.
JINDER: Yeah, absolutely.
It’s good to get down to the basics and build that solid foundation.
You showed us some great things.
Like the technique-
[crosstalk]
JEFF: Like with Sheamus.
DREW: I dropped those weights and it felt way better.
JINDER: With the deadlift and everything.
That’s an awesome technique.
And thank you for keeping your shirt on, by the way.
JEFF: Honestly, it would be the only weapon I have if I took it off.
All right, guys.
There you have it.
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that is.
We actually take everything that we do with our athletes, and we put it out there for
you guys.
It’s available over at ATHLEANX.com.
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All right, see you soon.