people just do stuff they see done around them that's literally that's literally the case so there's a lot of exercises I've come to reconsider over the years as being more effective than people realize and if they were to implement them they probably see more growth than they have been this far there are insanely effective exercises that are very popular high rep leg press for quads chest fly for pecs but there are also some very effective exercises that are very very unpopular not because everyone knows them and hates them like was my middle school experience but because most people don't even know that they are exercises and don't even know that they're super effective and some of them might look a little wacky but are worth a consideration tell us about that H yeah so one of my big areas of research is the stretch no way no I've never spoken about that before what um and in that Pursuit intellectually there's a lot of exercises I've come to reconsider the years as being more effective than people realize and if they were to implement them they'll probably see more growth than they have been th far since we talked about the squat let's start with a couple of squat variations I think people Overlook the first is the pistol squat it is effectively a what's the pistol squat a single-legged squat so we're calling it a pistol squat for Vibes for vibes okay there's not a pistol that's either pointed at you or in your holster I think the reason it's called a pistol Squad is your contralateral leg the one you're not training at that moment is elevated so it looks like you're holding a pistol you know God that's ridiculous but true hey that's how it goes why is a sissy Squad called a sissy Squad I think it's cuz uh people who weren't strong enough to bend their back and put their back into it brother that's my idea you think maybe that's a do you have a better idea I think s squats are I don't know I don't have a better idea but I think they're pretty hard they are very hard yeah anyways pistol squats I think people do a lot of our squats and they're great great however many people also complain about their backs giving up first or getting back pain from squatting or finding they're only able to do so many sets of squats until they're systemically fatigued psychologically fatigued pistol squats can one be a super solid option if you're traveling like yesterday I was at my hotel hotel gym 50b dumbbells pistol squats bit of weight on my chest and all of a sudden no Rock no Rack or anything solid quad workout so one super effective if you have equipment two by using a single leg at a time you're effectively having the little in your spine first of all many people won't be able to even load the pistol squat oh my God yeah those are hard so you're minim effectively have no loading on your spine anymore like minus your body weight being moved around and even if you do use some weight it is still substantially less spinal loading compared to doing a high bar squat third I find it's much faster to war up up for so if I'm doing High bar squats for 5 to 10 reps I might be loading up three to four plates sometimes even more um that might take me 20 minutes yeah to war up for sometimes yeah whereas if I'm doing pistol squats I do a set of five to eight body weight squats I do a couple of sissy squats I do one or two WS of pistol squats and within maybe two minutes I'm ready to get into a heavy walk set on pistol squats y so for people who have any Dee of like their back limiting them time efficiency for many people can also get quite deep like I find that many people are able to get slightly deeper on Single Leg variations of stuff that makes sense like pistol squats Bulgarian split squats people can get more degrees of freedom y m so I think it's just like a very underrated overall exercise in terms of time efficiency in terms of reducing spinal loading I find I can do more sets of pistol squats then I can hyber squats and still recover overall sure and so because more volume will lead to more growth that is another thing to consider sure great and then if you um are really strong you can do 2/3 bottom range pistol squats where you don't walk out and yeah that's terrible uh so that's all really good um Scott editor's note can we see if we can get some b-roll for somewhere on the internet of all of these exercises absolutely my man why do we even tell you to do your job when you do it better than I could have told you to do I can get just Boll from me as well if you want Oh beautiful yeah I can let try to pretend I know more than Scott like hey Scott all these cameras good they're all rolling at frames per second frames per second squ see how are you diffusing the light today Scott oh what what about the the contrast the edge light hair light o what about ear hair light which is the only one that ever Shines on me apparently did you know that I have profoundly like overgrowth of hair on my ears really sticks out yeah never noticed Catch Me the Right light and it's Judaism it's odd cuz you never see it until it's like the the perfect light yes and then all of the internet goes Dr mik youve got on your ears Dr mik notice me hey engagement comments yes you know yes we live for that we for so that's exercise number one uh sticking with quads I think there's two exercises that are underrated one is the sissy squat and one is the reverse Nory CW I've talked about the reverse n CW before in the channel so people can check that out yes but um The Sissy Squad is kind of the easier version of the reverse nor C it has the same benefits so we have quite a bit of research in the quads looking at the stretch and it being beneficial give you a couple examples one study by Pedro and colleagues compared doing bottom half leg extensions to top half leg extensions to full range of motion leg extensions and those bottom half leg extensions from around 100 degrees of KN flexion 65 caused more growth at pretty much all Sites measured yes so at the very least we want to get a decent stretch on the quads for maximum growth it seems to be important for both lusor and the rest of the Quad a second study that we conducted with steel noris up in Norway on the leg extension we compared doing leg extensions with normal hip positioning 90 degrees of hip flexion to with 45 degrees of hip flexion so extending the hips to get a bit more stretch in the rectus femoris context anatomically the rectus femoris is both a knee extensor but also a hip flexor so when you extend your hips you squeeze your glutes you'll get more of a stretch in the light extension is kind of the worst of all worlds in terms of stretch it pre- shortens the rectus femoris by having your hips flexed a good machine will allow you to get around 100 degrees of knee flexion which is still way less than you could in our recent study we had people leg press with their heels coming off they got up to 165 degrees Yeah that's crazy so they're you're missing 65 degrees of stretch at the knee of I hated the leg extension here's another problem Milo in probably more machines than not the Leverage is such that it's even more difficult at the top than it needs to be and the bottom is a throwaway and it's like you guys literally purpose built the fucking stupidest leg machine ever made y sorry the seated half the seated calf machine is the stupidest this is rank two yep so the leg extension does have a role within people's programs and that's to isolate the quads meaning nothing else can really go up first to be able to do it for High Reps cuz we can just sit down and do it for High Reps without getting a systemic bottleneck like like you're getting super out of breath or psychologically tied and unable to push to failure and it minimizes spal loading so it it has a role in people's programs as that and also has a quadricep isolation movement which allows you to actually train the rectus foror if you can lean back on it if you can lean back I mean even just isolating NE extension will mean that you're training at least somewhat somewhat but that isn't the case in compound movements so if you look at a study by Kubo and colleagues for instance where they looked at rectus foror growth from the squat basically zero growth the barbell squat yes zero growth because in the squat or any compound quad training you're shortening it at the knee while lengthening it at the hip preventing it from getting trained effectively so we need some sort of quad isolation training in your program for maximum growth yeah the leg extension does that it just doesn't do it very well yeah in fact if you compare it to all other quadricep isolation movements I think it's the worst and I think the sissy squat is a very solid option to replace it by keeping the hips fully extended you're actually maximizing the stretch on the foror yes every comparison we've had of quad training being more shortened or more lengthened more lengthen pretty much wins so we're lengthening the rectus foror at the hip we're also now allowing not just for a 100 degrees of knee flexion and stretch as we would get in a light extension we're relying for full KNX maximum maximum like0 the biggest leverage of force is at that bottom position as well really is an unbelievable exercise yep and so for people who want to get more quad growth for people who don't have a leg extension machine like in home gym or traveling it's just a solid option that I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually do in any gym I've ever been to so that's why I call it unded same with pistol Squad I don't think I've ever seen anyone do pistol squads in my gym again people just don't know that these are exercises and when they try them they're like uh fuck that weird yeah yeah like people just do stuff they see done around them that's literally that's literally the case so pistol squats sissy squats I think are highly underrated and people should do them so that's the two quad exercises that I think people should be doing more of yes next we have the shoulders I think that the dumbbell side raise is a good option the cable ladder raise is a better option you get a bit more stretch a bit more resistance especially if you put the cable lateral attachment at the hip y height M you can do machine lad raises the Atlantis machine you have for instance great stuff I think one option for people who don't have say like they're training a home gym they all they have is a pair of dumbbells just buy an Atlantis machine $6,000 later like that um if you don't have a machine if maybe you don't even have cables or you just want a different variation that could be very effective you can only lader race for so long that's true the lying dumbbell side Race So effectively you lie down on a bench or even on the ground if you don't have a bench all you have is one dumbbell you can still do these and get a solid stimulus in you lie down on your side on a bench you grab a dumbbell you come around halfway across the body to get a deeper stretch and maximum resistance is presented when your upper arm is parallel to the floor which is basically in the most lengthen position almost and so all of a sudden you have a highly stretch focused exercise with basically no equipment requirements you can modify it to be more or less stretch emphasized by either raising the incline on the bench until it becomes a normal lateral raise or you can have it be more stretch emphasized by putting into an incline or even more stretch emphasized by having it be flat for instance and all of a sudden you have an exercise that places more resistance on the stretch like the part of a traditional dumbbell side raay whereas the most resistance is in the shorten position but there's effectively no resistance at the bottom this flips that 90° meaning there's the most resistance in that stretch position and less as you come up you can also get more stretch than a traditional side raay because you can let your arm come across your body slightly with some resistance still yes so I think it's a highly underrated side out Builder overall the again s myself I don't see people doing so yeah for me I I would love to do it it's just profoundly uncomfortable and unstable for me to be on my side on a bench okay there's kind of a lot of me though I think most people can pull it off better love you to love you know oh to hate or to be neutral towards there certainly there some technique involved like if you lie down and then kind of like grab the bench with your other arm it just makes it like feel pretty stable um but yeah like if you've gotten sick of cable side raises or machine side raises or you don't have any of them yes I think this is up there for some of the best side Del training you have all right shoulders covered uh next we have dips most people perform dips wrong basically oh shit like they go halfway down thumbnail title hey thumbnail I think a thumbnail with me doing dips or you doing di super deep can work pretty well because most people think that if you go deep you're going to die yeah what's that all about squatting deep good dipping deep apparently terrible they used to say squatting deep was bad though it's everything deep used to be bad and we're slowly waking up to everything deep is actually dope but it's just taking a while for everyone to get the crust out of their eyes I um it was a clip of me talking about how going super deep on dips is sweet on YouTube that's like a short I think and there are unreal numbers of comments from both as a PT I just want to be like I outrank You by three orders of educa whatever I I'm kidding pts but seriously um and then um you know what my PT said and it was just like as soon as you go below some arbitrary depth and dips like like a wave swallows the continent of Africa or something like other people be hurt because of what you chose to do it's like building a nuke in your basement don't do it it's just this weird double think nowadays we're we're phasing out of squats keep squats being bad but we're still like dip okay dips real bad don't double think something about the shoulder Milo nothing we learned in anatomy in our PHD programs but something we didn't learn there you go um I think the dip is just a solid overall compound exercise in many ways one you're getting probably the deepest front delt stretch out of any exercise ever huge because you're hyperextending the shoulder by pressing yeah you get into like a neutral position you get some stretch in a dip you get like 40 50 degrees of hyperextension of the shoulders so you will feel a deep stretch in your front bels not that you need to like really focus on your front dels for best physique development but it's still cool that's not the only thing if you do a proper deep stretch proper deep in it bro um you will get a very deep tricep stretch as well like in the L medial head yes because you can get to full elbow flexion yes like it's as deep as you ever to get I like when I do dips for triceps to envision myself trying to reach my elbow as far back as possible while keeping my weight over my forearms so I sorry over my fists so that I end up basically doing the sissy squat equivalent of a dip because if you push your chest forward first of all it's great chest stimulus to the point of being awesome but also you reach really deep but by then the tension for the triceps isn't maximized anymore it's still great basically dip back if you want more triceps dip forward if you want more chest the front delts pay a huge cost one way or other technically if you dip forward they are even more grow uh growth promoted but it's kind of like do you want more baller chest growth and front delt growth or more baller tricep growth there's not a way to do dips as long as you're doing them Ultra deep and under control that's bad it's just what do you want more awesome stuff from yep 100% and talking about the chest I think it's also underrated for chest development the role of the upper chest specifically is both shoulder horizontal adduction so like a fly bringing your arms in upper arms in but also shoulder flexion yeah yeah yeah and because you're getting into deep hyperextension and you're also horizontally abducting the shoulder you're likely getting a pretty baller upper chest stretch as well whole chest everything yeah and so deep stretch for triceps front delts upper chest lower chest it just seems like a really solid compound to incorporate requires an exteral equipment yeah grows a big fraction of your upper body really well you can get some serratus anterior whack in there which you don't get from bench pressing variations it's just underdone but specifically focusing on getting deeper because if all you do are half reps yeah you can get the weight belt out half reps whatever very cool you know but based on the research going deeper will likely just make for a really solid stimulus for a lot of muscle mons yeah I love it next we have the seated lro but specifically a modification that I don't really see anyone doing and that's leaning forward even more so holding on to the pad and leaning forward even more to accentuate that stretch and while leaning forward tucking your hips so lean forward and arch your back at the same time to really you almost want to see there's the the bottom pad and the back pad try to put your asshole onto the back pad yep your hip should kind of remain back keep your clothes on though it should be your it should be your torso approaching your thighs effectively not your head approaching your legs yes cuz that's spinal rounding versus hip flexion cor is fle corre try to get your belly button as close to your knees as possible if you do that you'll feel a deep stretch even before you start the set oh my God huge and hey look based on the most recent study by Mo and colleagues comparing that literally that variation where they lent forward in the SE leg C to noric C at least on that comparison it seemed to be effective for growing the B articular hamstrings and it makes sense right like the reason why rdls like remaining the lifts and stiff the lifts are quite effective for hamstring growth is that your knees are nearly locked out which pre-stretches the hamstrings and you get into deep hip flexion which again the highest vectors Force at those deep y but now imagine that while removing the spinal loading all of a sudden you have a hamstring isolation exercise with a deep stretch that you can effectively spam as the kids would see yes and also less spal less fatigue less chance of your lower back uh being limiting factor to where you're you're now your hips are rounded and you you're not actually stretching the hamstrings anymore less of fatigue on the back and the traps and everything and another one is uh technically speaking because the back I I want to I take that back I was going to say injury risk but it's not a really big deal um grip like stiff like a deadlifts man you get a versa grips out and all all stuff and even with Versa sometimes like get real strong it's just like a lot of like focusing on the fingers whereas if you just pull yourself into a hamstring machine get the belly button to the knees but it's just all hamstrings all day you do even get if you really lean forward a decent kind of passive glute stimulus as well but like who here has too big of glutes why is that a complaint red Contours literally ass in the name bro yeah that's right put put some Speck on that name hey um so yeah I think like leaning forward in the seated leg C is underrated people readily acknowledge that seated leg CS are likely better than lying leg Cs on a set Pro Set basis overall that same reasoning should extend to leaning forward as a technique modification yes the final exercise you're a fan of deficit push-ups huge and they are great I think people don't realize that if they were to El their feet by a good amount that accomplishes several things one it effectively turns it into the incline chest press variation amazing like all of a sudden you're tilting the movement turning into more an incline chest press which one targets your upper chest more which is a good thing for almost every physique ever and two also based on the one study we have looking at PE growth from incline pressing versus flat pressing they compared the 45° incline Smith press to the flat Smith press and they found basically better overall pet growth at all sites from the in press amazing so they looked at um fourth to the fifth inter costal it's like third and fourth and second and third for the lower chest it was marginally more growth from the inine Press but the higher you got the more of a benefit there was to Incline pressing so it was always a slight benefit but the benefit grew as you went higher for the incline press so one study don't make this your be all end all for the rest of all time about Chess training like probably still do some flat pressing but if you had to prioritize one it makes sense too CU upper chest is more important for physique development anyways and the on that we do have leans towards that being more beneficial yes um so one elevating your feet will emphasize the upper chest more potentially even be better for overall chest development and two arguably even more importantly it will make the movement a bit more challenging yeah for many people push-ups are relatively easy deficit push-ups are easyish as well the more you elevate your feet the more challenging the movement becomes like very few people can do overhead push-ups position with your hips yep does that help as well yep so elevating your feet will just give you a better overall PEC stimulus focus more your upper chest and also make the movement sufficiently challenging that more people can do it for 10 to 20 reps and get close to failure Y which you know when you do higher reps push-ups sometimes based on Research people tend to kind of suck at getting close to failure sure and that's one of the limitations of body weight movements is that they're too easy you going have to do all reps you may not actually push yourself to failure making it more difficult without without needing to awkwardly load yourself mhm baller that's it that's all you got that's all I got and if you're really really strong then you can do the bottom two-thirds of the rep only yes and that really helps because it doesn't give you a break and more of the total work is done at more long muscle lengths which gets you more jacked amazing so if you're not doing these exercises you'll never grow that's correct that's exactly what I was saying that's crazy excellent n [Music]