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EXERCISE TECHNIQUE

Exercise technique

lecture
Exercise technique

This 3 hour exercise technique extravaganza lecture is from the meet-up of a previous year’s
PT Course. To help you work through it in an organized fashion and to refer back to it, here’s
an overview of at which times which topics occur.

The Q&A session at the end is not restricted to this week’s topic and not strictly part of this
year’s curriculum, so you can consider this a bonus section.

GENERAL TECHNIQUE INFORMATION

1. 00:01:00: Textbook v.s. actual bio-mechanics 00:07:38

2. 00:07:39: Blood flow 00:08:58
15. 00:37:20: Scapula Retr. Pushups, Standing Cable Press, Flys, Bayesian Fly 00:38:26
18. 00:40:32: Principles BP and appliance BP DBP 00:41:54
48. 02:06:50: Safety & Trap Bar Pro’s & Cons & Push & Pull Q&A 02:10:17
51. 02:17:35: Client with Unsymmetrical Strength/Muscle 02:21:55
60. 02:43:07: Weaker Bodyparts and Volume 02:44:16
64. 02:59:30: Attachment Points Band Bench Squat DB Press Deadlift 03:01:51

THE BENCH PRESS (3-19)

3. 00:08:59: Bench Press Set-Up 00:10:49

4. 00:10:50: Leg Drive 00:13:53
5. 00:13:54: Racking 00:15:46
6. 00:15:47: Grip 00:17:.52
7. 00:17:53: Force heels vs. Leg Extension (Matrix Move) Q&A 00:20:44

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8. 00:20:45: Lumbar Spine Position Q&A 00:23:10

9. 00:23:11: Back Injury 00:23:10
10. 00:23:21: Head Position 00:24:55
11. 00:24:56: Width 00:28:30
12. 00:28:31: Suicide Grip 00:30:23
13. 00:30:24: Spotter 00:34:23
14. 00:34:24: Breathing Q&A 00:37:19
16. 00:38:27: Curl or Row Spotting Q&A 00:39:21
17. 00:39:22: Necessity Strong Spotter Q&A 00:40:31
19. 00:41:55: Bouncing Bar 00:43:35

ROMANIAN DEADLIFTS (20-23)

20. 00:43:36: Hip Position and Scap. Retr. 00:51:45

21. 00:51:46: Head Position Q&A 00:53.28
22. 00:54:46: Lat Contribution Q&A 00:56:18
23. 00:56:20: Negative Grip Q&A 00:57:18

THE OVERHEAD PRESS (24-32)

24. 00:57:28:  01:01:22 (11 sec. irrelevant)  (start) 01:01:33  01:04:40

25. 01:04:48: Grip Width Q&A 01:07:31
26. 01:07:33: Forearm Position Q&A 01:11:53
27. 01:11:54: Elbow Bottom Position Q&A 01:12:25
28. 01:12:26: Breathing Q&A 01:13:50
29. 01:13:51: Leg & Hip Drive, Back Lean, Cues Q&A 01:18:23
30. 01:18:24: Seated OHP Q&A 01:21:59
31. 01:22:00: OHP Leg Drive Q&A 01:24:07
32. 01:24:17: Knee flex vs Leg Drive Q&A 01:25:24

CHIN-UPS (33-36)

33. 01:25:45: ROM Q&A 01:31:54

34. 01:31:55: Hand Position and grip Q&A 01:35:17
35. 01:35:18: Heavy client or Strong Client Exercise Variation Q&A 01:38:31
36. 01:38:33: Glute Contraction Q&A 01:39:40

SQUATS (37-49)

37. 01:39:44: Grip pos. High OR Low Bar

38. 01:43:16: Q-Angle Women Squats Foot Pos. Q&A 01:44:42
39. 01:44:42: Butt Wink 01:46:25
40. 01:46:26: Posture and Bar Position Depth and Flexibility vs Stability Q&A 01:51:35

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41. 01:51:39: Importance Prevention Butt Wink Q&A 01:55:06

42. 01:55:07: Individual variability squat pattern beginners/advanced Q&A 01:58:00
43. 01:58:01: Knee’s and Hip dominance 02:00:23
44. 02:00:32: Lockout 02:01:41
45. 02:01:45: Head Position 02:03:25
46. 02:03:30: Low Bar Unracking Q&A 02:05:01
47. 02:05:02: ROM related to type of squat ` Q&A 02:06:49
49. 02:10:18: Knee Valgus Q&A 02:14:38

Q&A (50-64)

50. 02:15:19: 1RM or 3RM rep determination 02:17:34

52. 02:21:57: Frequency Advanced Athletes Strength vs Hypertrophy 02:25:04
53. 02:25:05: Question Bikini Athlete 02:25:34
54. 02:25:35: Bikini Question 02:26:33
55. 02:26:34: Exercise Selection Women Bikini 02:28:20
56. 02:28:21: Caffeine, Sleep and Food Tolerances 02:33:18
57. 02:33:19: When to forward a client eating disorders etc. 02:35:10
58. 02:35:11: Snacking as Coping Strategy (Higher Meal Freq.) 02:26:25
59. 02:36:26: Exam 02:42:06
61. 02:44:18: Injury and Hypertrophy 02:47:20
62. 02:47:21: Adrenal Fatigue 02:50:02
63. 02:50:03: Anabolic Steroid Use (and Genetic Potential) 02:59:24

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The mind-muscle connection

The mind-muscle connection is not broscience, as you’ve learned in the course topic on
adaptations to strength training. It can be defined somewhat objectively as the strength of the
neural connection between your muscles and your brain. A good mind-muscle connection
primarily implies 2 things.

1. Good proprioception, specifically the ability to feel which muscles are currently active
to what degree.
2. The ability to intentionally override your motor cortex’s muscle recruitment pattern
and actively select which muscles are active during a given exercise.

The first point has been covered in the lecture about exercise technique. Even if you have an
above average mind-muscle connection, your perception of which muscles are active is only
poorly related to actual muscle activity levels. You mostly feel fatigue, like the burn and muscle
stretching, not direct muscle activity. So evidence-based exercise selection should primarily be
done according to the principles of exercise selection you learned in this course, not based on
what you feel during an exercise.

Point two is where most bros place the emphasis. If you can change your muscle recruitment
pattern, you can increase muscle activity, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

For one, your brain’s motor cortex functions like a Bayesian system that has been finetuned
over millions of years of evolution. Most movements, like walking, are so complex in terms of
muscle recruitment pattern that our conscious thought couldn’t remotely govern this task as
well as you can do automatically. Even the brightest mathematicians can still barely create
robots that walk with a hint of elegance. In this respect, trying to take over complex
movements with your conscious thought is a bit like trying to hack a computer by poking into
its motherboard with a kitchen knife.

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When you’re lifting a near-maximal weight during a compound exercise, trying to interfere with
your motor cortex to isolate a certain muscle group often means that you won’t be able to lift
the weight at all. Your motor cortex already optimized your muscle recruitment pattern so that
all muscles can provide maximal force. Any deviation from this plan will result in suboptimal
force production. Try deadlifting your 1RM by focusing on your quads. Or your hamstrings. Or
your glutes. Most people can’t lift the weight without an extrinsic focus, i.e. just thinking of
lifting the weight or standing up and letting the nervous system do its job.

We also see this in strength training research. McAllister et al. (2014) performed a great study
on the mind-muscle connection. They looked at how bench press muscle activity in the triceps
and chest changed when the subjects used regular technique compared to when they tried to
isolate their chest or triceps. The researchers tested this at various intensities. The results are
illustrated below.

The key findings were as follows.

1. Your ability to influence your muscle recruitment pattern during the bench press is
limited, even when you’re trying to completely isolate a muscle group. For the chest, the
highest difference was 7% of maximal muscle activity; 11% for the triceps (percent
difference of 1RM maximal RMS EMG).

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2. Your ability to influence your muscle recruitment decreases as the intensity of your
work increases. At the 80% intensity there were in fact no differences in either muscle’s
activity regardless of muscle focus.

And these were not novices: they were strength trained men with an average of 8 years of
strength training experience and an average bench press 1RM of 227 pounds (103 kg). So it’s
unlikely that your mind-muscle connection is a whole lot better.

Moreover, the subjects only performed 3 repetitions at each intensity and they used a very
controlled tempo. So in a practical setting where you’re actually lifting heavy weights close to
muscle failure, it is even more unlikely that you can significantly influence your muscle
recruitment pattern. Unfortunately, this renders the majority of the research on the mind-
muscle connection irrelevant in practice due to its use of artificially light weights and low
proximities to muscular failure.

Even in the event that you can influence which muscles you use, it generally comes at a
significant cost in terms of how much weight you can move. As Greig & Marchant (2014)
explained: “The finding that an internal focus of attention was associated with increased
muscular activity … supports the proposal that such a focus results in greater neuromuscular
‘noise’ when compared to an external focus of attention”.

A similar study in Division III American football players had similar results in that the mind-
muscle connection weakened at higher intensities. At 50% these guys were able to selectively
recruit the triceps or chest, but at 80% they could no longer increase triceps muscle activity.
Only this time at 80% focusing on the chest actually increased muscle activity of the chest ánd
the anterior deltoids. This largely defeats the purpose of using the mind-muscle connection,
since the whole point is to isolate the chest and make sure your shoulders don’t do all the
work.

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We see a similar effect in some blood flow restriction research, where occluding the triceps
increases chest muscle activity. This is likely because you weaken yourself and thus the overall
exercise becomes more difficult. When you’re trying to isolate the chest or occluding the
triceps, 80% may effectively be a 90% intensity because you’re weaker. This is likely not optimal
for long term strength or muscle development. You’d be better off just lifting a heavier weight
so that you also get extra muscle activity in the triceps and you gain more strength.

When you’re injured, however, the mind-muscle connection can be a valuable tool. You can
reach relatively high muscle activation levels with relatively low loads, so the stress on your
connective tissue for a given level of muscle activity is lower than with performance oriented
strength training. Here are some tips to make full use of the mind-muscle connection for
injured body parts. They rely on providing the brain with more information via active feedback.

 Touch the muscle group you’re trying to emphasize, if possible. This provides tactile and
kinesthetic feedback. If you palpate your client, there is only kinesthetic feedback, but
you can add verbal feedback.
 Perform the exercise in front of the mirror. This provides visual feedback.

Conclusion

You’re generally best off letting your motor cortex do its job when you’re in the gym. Focus on
performance and you’ll automatically optimize muscle activity levels; performance will be higher
to boot. Trying to isolate muscles should generally be reserved during (p)rehabilitation of
injuries to make use of the relatively high muscle activity you can achieve with relatively light
weights.