What s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere,
Athleanx.com. Jesse Laico, Athleanx.com. Speaking of Jesse Laico, I think congratulations
are in order today. Why is that?
How many years you've been here? Just over four.
For the first time in four years, Jesse's been able to stick to a plan for 90 days.
You want to throw one of my intros out there as a congratulations?
I m not sure that s something to celebrate. I think, as a matter of fact, half the people
out there like to jump through the camera and strangle you for a wasted opportunity.
Well, he trained like Jeff Cavaliere-- For 90 days.
For 90 days and he s made some gains. A lot of people are writing in, what has Jesse been doing?
I'll say this, it s consistency-- Yeah.
--and that s really important. However, there are things I want to showcase as to what you actually
did that have been the most beneficial. Right.
But before people do get a chance to jump all over you, you do have good reason for
not being able to stay consistent over all these years, a lot of starts and stops.
Yeah, it all has to do with the previous head trauma. A lot of head trauma.
Everybody has followed the channel knows that Jesse's had quite a few concussions. You've
probably seen it play out in front of you quite a few times on camera before. But it's legit and I'm
actually proud of him and I want to make sure that you guys see the nine best things that I
think you've taken from that 90 day experience that are going to help those out there.
Sounds good. So, we start
with a little bit of a no brainer here. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You re going to make that joke?
A bad choice of words. So, we start with the obvious. And actually, this is one Jesse had a
head start on a long time ago. You probably watched the evolution of his posture from
something that looked like this, to something that looked like this. Or as these pictures show,
from this to this. Jesse came to me not only as one of the hardest of hard gainers, but one of
the most poorly postured individuals I've ever seen. He's not alone, though. A lot of you out
there will find that you have terribly rounded shoulders, your lack thoracic extension to your
upper back. You have a bad pelvic tilt, whether it be even posterior or anterior, Jesse had
the latter. The fact is you need to work on those because they screw up the mechanics of your lifts,
which we re going to cover next, and by doing so, hold back the potential you have for excelling
in those lifts. So we actually focus on making sure that as part of Jesse's routine
and it's been part of your routine, right? It has been. I ve been pretty consistent with
it. You know, I was doing it every single day, but now I've been doing it a few times a week just to
keep it up and to reinforce that good posture. Working on the things that are kind of your focal
points and not everything in the books. No, exactly.
And we have a whole bunch of videos that cover all these different topics all you got to do
is search your issue plus Athdlean-X and you're going to find it. Just make sure that you don't
ignore it and start building into your training. Also, with postural inefficiencies, mitigated the
focus was on trying to get Jessy's compile lists to be better, right. To get stronger and then
because you have more efficiency in performing them as a possible inefficiencies, go away.
Yeah, as my posture got better, it felt like the bar was flying up. I was just
more efficient with the lift itself. So you focused on them a little bit more,
basically the big three. Yes.
And not to mention here, you've developed some impressive numbers, I would say.
Well, I'm an elite level power lifter now. I d be a little careful with that one.
Okay, advanced level power lifter. I still might be a little careful with that.
I mean, look, you can see here he's accumulated some pretty big lifts for his body weight. As
matter of fact, we're going to cover in a video later this week about Jesse being able to perform
a three-time body weight deadlift. And who would have thought little Jesse could actually get it
done? But it was the focus on building the base foundational strength. Remember, guys, you don't
improve anything upon a cracked foundation. When you fix the foundation, the strength itself will
be a hell of a lot easier to build and it will come a lot faster than if you do it on that
cracked foundation. And that leads us to point number three. It wasn't all just about building
strength. As a matter of fact, that's just one component of it. What else were you doing?
Well, just like you, I was incorporating body weight movements and also
hypertrophy training itself. And the body weight for control,
not just going through the motions of trying to get rep after rep.
No, I was trying to command my body in space and really slow the movements down so that
way I could feel every single muscle working throughout that movement.
And of course, as you did that, you dip count went up, you pull up, count went up. But beyond that,
when it comes to hypertrophy, we talk about it all the time, if you want to build the most well
rounded and high performing physique, you have to have elements of hypertrophy, training.
Yup. And that means instead of
going for the efficiency we seek with our strength based movements here, you're actually seeking,
I always say it, inefficiency, right. Yeah.
Making the muscle do more of what it doesn t want to do.
Yeah, making that muscle really, really work. So like on your lat pulldowns, your back
is like really doing more of the work as opposed to just getting the bar down.
Right. If you incorporate all of these into
your training, you see the results. As a matter of fact, you start to see the growth beyond just the
increase in strength gains. And so now going hand in hand with that increased focus on hypertrophy,
training or the inclusion of the hypertrophy training is also the intensity techniques that
we'd like to incorporate along with them. Yeah, you know, I was doing what you do now
as you. I was doing some drop sets, partials, pause reps, as well as--
Rest, pause. Rest, pause.
Basically, anything to again take the intensity, let's say, to and through failure.
Yeah. Not just taking the sets to some point
short of failure. And when we talk about failure, we're really talking about form failure. That's
what you're instituting across the board. Yes.
But at the same time, I do believe that in order to force changes in growth, you need to push your
body where it's not comfortable going. And these intensity techniques are something that you really
shouldn't shy away from, especially if you want to see similar gains. So now we have to talk about
one of those things that was maybe holding you back a little bit before. And that was what?
Running. As I've mentioned here on the channel before, I was a distance runner. I liked running,
it really helped me with lacrosse. I have no issues with running,
it s an athletic and positive thing. But your distance was a little bit excessive.
Yeah, it was the primary of my training, but I've changed
that to be the supplement to my training. So now serving that role as his conditioning work,
which we advocate every week. Yeah.
But it wasn't your primary focus. No.
And even as such, you were still doing some of your distance work just for the benefit
of your heart. Yeah.
Which I always advocate. But you were shifting a little bit more
the intensity of even the running. Yeah, I we were moving towards sprinting
and then we started moving towards conditioning drills such as, you know, agility work.
Foot work. Speed work.
Which actually can be fun, right? Yeah. Oh, I didn't think I was
going to love it, but I absolutely love it. Guys don't shy away from exploring some of the
sprint work in some of the other stuff that you can do outside the gym. It does always have
to be within these four walls, to increase the stimulus of what your training is doing for you,
especially from a conditioning standpoint. And so now it goes without saying that, of course,
there was one exercise that Jesse did every single day, and that was?
Bicep flex. No, that s not
what I was talking about. No, it s face pulls. Of course,
it s face pulls. Of course. Face pulls. So, guys, I
advocate face pulls for a reason. You can see your Jesse's back development, particularly his upper
back development, his rear delts, his mid and upper traps, they got significantly more developed
and they're responding to that and not only that, but it carried over well to your deadlift.
Oh yeah, and not only that, but I started doing something else every day.
What s that? The Bridge of Reach Over. But,
you know, if I had to do every single one of your do this every day exercises--
That s not fair. I d been in the gym
for four or five fucking hours. That s not fair. They re never intended to be
done every single--not every one of those things are done, people are supposed to pick and choose
where their deficits are and do those things every day. But is the Bridge of
Reach Over the one you like? Yes. That s the one I love
every single morning. That one actually reinforced some of Jesse's
postural issues. So selecting the ones that fit the best with where his or your limitations are is
the right way to go. That one's good for getting more thoracic extension and for getting the hip
flexors loosened up. Yup.
Fact is, consistency with even just a single exercise can pay big dividends if you do it
every single day. Which brings us to another thing you are actually doing every day and that was?
Ab training. Okay.
You know I got to show off these for the chicks, they dig them.
Oh boy. Whatever your motivation is, daily ab training is something I highly recommend. And I've
covered it many times before, you ve probably done some of my follow on workouts. It doesn't have to
take a long period of time to get the job done. Right. Just about five or six minutes.
That's it. But when you incorporate ab training, specific, focused ab training, not just through
the lifts you're doing already, it does have a way of carrying over by developing better core
strength into all of your other training. And I think it benefited Jessie and it could benefit
you too. And that brings us to point number eight, and this has been a particular struggle,
especially for anybody that's watched this channel before they've witnessed it. Nutrition.
Yeah, it's me eating enough and eating quality foods.
Well, the issue is you actually cleaned up that whole gummy bear habit a long time ago.
True. The quality of the foods
is not really an issue for you anymore. No, you know, that's
something that I've been really working on. Yeah, but what happens oftentimes as you increase
the nutrient density of the foods, the better quality foods that you eat,
the caloric density goes down. Yeah.
And that means you have to eat more and more of it or more frequently.
Yeah. So, for example, this is what my typical breakfast was for up until about six months ago.
Clearly, it's not a lot of food. There s not a ton there.
No exactly. But here I've actually increased the portions of the exact
same foods that help getting more calories. Yeah. And that's one of the things I advocate is
just trying to eat more of even what you're eating right now to overcome the fact that the calories
are likely going to be a little bit low if the quality is high. But you did more than that.
No. Now I'm incorporating more meals. For example, I'm incorporating a second
breakfast as soon as I get to work.