Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2541: This Strength Building Technique Activates More Muscle Fibers... & You're Probably Not Using It (Listener Live Coaching)
Wed, 26 Feb 2025
In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach three Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: Here is the ONE strength-building technique NONE of you are doing that is killing your progress. (2:27) The most important thing to consider when training your kids. (18:53) Turbocharge collagen production in your skin with red-light therapy. (27:40) Cluster vs. traditional sets. (29:17) Shout out to Ben Bruno! (33:32) Adam has a gift for numbers. (35:23) Look out for parasites! (38:10) The grossest thing you have dealt with as a parent. (41:14) The ultimate scam artist. (47:29) GHK-Cu benefits the skin. (50:55) #ListenerLive question #1 – Are my workouts too long? I am averaging 2 hours. (54:04) #ListenerLive question #2 – You guys always talk about ‘muscle memory’. Is there ‘fat’ memory? Would that explain weight gain and how easily people gain weight back? (1:06:51) #ListenerLive question #3 – How would you help someone lose over 100lbs and get absolutely jacked? (1:14:39) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [email protected] Visit Joovv for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP to get $50 off your first purchase. ** Visit Luminose by Entera for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Promo code MPM at checkout for 10% off their order or 10% off their first month of a subscribe-and-save. ** Mind Pump Group Coaching February Promotion: MAPS Anabolic & No B.S. 6-Pack ** We are offering them both for the low price of $59.99, which is a savings of $114! ** Cluster sets and traditional sets elicit similar muscular hypertrophy: a volume and effort-matched study in resistance-trained individuals Ben Bruno trainer post "Scamanda": All About the Viral Cancer Scammer Saga Visit Paleovalley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Discount is now automatically applied at checkout 15% off your first order! ** Train the Trainer Webinar Series Mind Pump #1142: Nine Signs You are Overtraining Mind Pump #1297: 3 Ways to Know If Your Workout Is Not Right for You Mind Pump #1695: How to Lose 100 Pounds Mind Pump #2385: Five Reasons Why You Should Hire a Trainer Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Brad Schoenfeld, PhD (@bradschoenfeldphd) Instagram Ben Bruno (@benbrunotraining) Instagram
Chapter 1: What is the underutilized strength building technique?
The vast majority of you are killing your gains. You're not reaching your full potential because you're not doing this one strength building technique that has been proven dramatically improve your strength, build muscle, activate more muscle fibers. What is it? Isometrics. You got to do those. Yeah.
We'll start with the first thing that I just said, which is the data shows that isometrics, in particular, overcoming isometrics, it's a type of isometric, Activates more muscle fibers within a muscle than any other type of strength training technique Yeah, it's it's so effective at so effective so powerful.
Yes, so whenever you're you're exercising or your strength training I should say Part of the goal is to activate more muscle fibers. This is one of the factors not the only factor It's one of the factors that determines well, how much muscle and strength am I going to build and? And the more muscle fibers you can recruit, the more effective you're making the exercise.
And more advanced lifters are able to do this more effectively. Somebody who's been working out for 10 years can activate more muscle fibers than somebody who just got started. So it's a technique you can learn and grow with over time. You can build the skill.
But if you really want to activate the most muscle fibers, like isometrics does this better than lifting heavy, better than lifting light, better than –
you know, eccentric contractions, which is when you lower the weight or concentric where you raise the weight, just holding steady and driving into something or pulling into something or squatting into something that doesn't move, that'll activate the most muscle fibers.
Well, you guys know what an evangelist I've been forever since we started the podcast, but... I'm trying to highlight this as well in the series I'm doing right now because the pursuit is like a PR is a strength goal. And so to even get my body to respond again at that high level to be able to start really working on the recruitment of it.
Like I really have to summon as many muscle fibers as possible. The only way for me to do that in a safe, effective way is through these types of isometrics.
Yes, yes. I saw you training that way the other day, getting ready for your lifts. It'd be really interesting for people to watch as you progress through that. Why do you think it's not as popular?
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Chapter 2: Why are isometrics not as popular?
No, no, you're right, Adam. You're absolutely right. But the reason why we're here, the reason why there's so little education or so little discussion around isometrics is because it doesn't look as cool. It's harder to sell. So it fell out of favor and people forgot about them. But if you look at the data, there's a lot of data. There's a lot of studies on isometric contraction training.
When they compare it to others, the curve is faster, right? The gains come on faster on
isometrics they're fury fast and furious in a very short period of time now you'll plateau faster by the way you'll plateau you'll plateau quick faster with isometrics but that initial strength gain is ridiculous and an isometric should not be used alone that's the thing well if you use them in a routine it's like you're adding you're going to add jet fuel to your current routine is what's
going to happen and to do it in the very beginning makes the most sense because it's so much less damaging and so you can recover quickly from it uh and you're i mean you're really just priming your body for more force production i mean i guess you're you're right because i and i remember arguing this when we when we were building map symmetry i i don't remember which one of you
wanted to do like a full phase of isometrics and i'm like i'm like bro you can't do that people will people will be bored to death i don't care how i don't care if it gives you better results than anything else people won't stick with it and so i couldn't argue against that because i totally you know just training clients like i see that it gets yeah it gets uh you know mundane for
So to me, that's the secret sauce, if you're a trainer listening, is because you know the benefits, is learning to integrate it into your regular training. Yes. Because at the end of the day, you have to appease the client, too. At the end of the day, your client has to show back up. You've got to be able to help them. And I don't care if isometrics are the best.
Because in a perfect world, if you think about it, based off the way the research points, it would make sense that almost all programs when someone's getting back into the gym or getting, or getting started for the first time should look very isometric based to begin up. It's the safest brings on the most gains rest, less likely probably to, uh, to overreach too.
I mean, you could still overreach doing it.
You can tax your CNS, but still you're in recovery.
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Chapter 3: How can isometrics be integrated into a workout routine?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, he's supporting me, right? He just wanted me to feel it. That was what he kept telling me was this, you just need to feel it. Your body needs to feel the way. It'll acclimate.
He didn't have the science to explain it.
Yeah, yeah, it'll get acclimated, you know what I'm saying? I mean, and it did kind of make sense theoretically. Like, okay, like, I guess you're right. Like, if I'm... never felt anything close to that. If I can get comfortable with just... Yeah, the shock of it. Right. If I can just get over that fear, then when I go down to 225, 225 will feel so much easier.
There's an old piece of exercise equipment that Bruce Lee used to use, and you can still find this. It's literally a board with two chains and then a bar.
Yeah, yeah.
And you would stand on it.
The old McKee gym had it. Did you?
Okay, and you would do these isometrics on it, and Bruce Lee was a huge fan of isometrics, and he would talk about how much it contributed to his ability... to generate force.
You just lower it down with the links. You lower the link. Yes.
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Chapter 4: What are the benefits of exercise for children?
So did you see, like, some trainer clowning on it?
No, no, no, no. He just did this post, and then people are commenting underneath, like, oh, all these variations don't mean anything. Just do traditional sets. And I'm like, well, you guys missed it. It said, in the real world... when cluster sets are applied, there's usually almost always two factors that you see. One, intensity is increased.
Nobody does a cluster set and has the same intensity as before. It's always a way to increase intensity. So they're controlling intensity, making me equal or equating them. That doesn't happen in the real world. Number two, a cluster set is almost always employed as a novel way of training. It's almost never the way I always train. It's almost always something I just added.
This is also why, because what research says, if all sets, volume, intensity is all equated for, that there is no difference in body part splits versus full body workouts. But why do we advocate for full body workouts? Because nobody hits a perfect week forever for
a year just never happens you end up missing days you end up skipping muscle groups and you're behind and now you're playing catch up and your 15 sets in one workout don't look like the five sets you did on monday wednesday yes it's because we you factor in human behavior which is a huge piece to the puzzle it's the biggest piece so that's that's
I mean, I always get fired up when people hang on to studies like this and they try and use that to support. I mean, to me, it's always an example of somebody who's a new young trainer who's just all excited to learn.
Buried in books and they're not out there doing it.
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaking of that, I want to shout out. We haven't shouted out somebody in a long time, so we'll call this kind of a shout out. Maybe our editing team can put this clip up. I shared it with you guys. I don't know if you watched it or not. Came across the trainer. I'm familiar with him before. I've seen him before. And I'm so glad he popped to my feet again because I like his stuff.
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Chapter 5: How does red-light therapy enhance skin health?
Maybe that's LeBron's secret. I mean, there's got to be somebody wealthy enough that can bathe in it. You can't tell me someone hasn't tried to do that. You're probably right.
Yeah. You're probably right. I hope it's that. It's not, you know, the dark stuff.
So GHKCU is so powerful, okay, that if you get a sunburn, so I know somebody who did this, They got a sunburn. They applied this on the sunburn. We should have Justin test this. It would be perfect. Yeah. Come summer.
Tell them their commercial comes summertime.
Yes, for sunscreen and sun.
We're going to burn Justin really bad.
Especially when I get that horrible farmer tan on my neck, dude. It's like my face and my neck.
Come on, he's such a funny experiment. So he's like, his face is all red with the sunglasses.
No, to do a proper test. Get the NASCAR test. To do a proper test. Burn the shit out of him. No, this is what we'll do. Justin will go out in the sun, get a sunburn on his face. We'll only apply luminosa on half of his face. So we can see the difference between half of your face. We got to do a cool design or something. So I know somebody did this. They got sunburned.
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Chapter 6: What are cluster sets and how do they compare to traditional sets?
Now, you kind of told me a little bit in your question. You said you're finding it hard to get motivated and you're sometimes feeling like you're spinning your wheels. So I think a better question to ask would be, would I get the same results if I worked out less or would I get better results if I worked out less? Probably.
You probably, if you cut it down to an hour, I don't think you'd see any slowdown in progress. I mean, five pounds of muscle in a year is... It's pretty damn good. You're doing pretty well. So if you cut it down to an hour, I don't think you would see a reduction in progress. You might actually see yourself progressing more.
But really the only way to know that is to test it out and see for yourself.
Yeah, I would love to put you on MAPS Anabolic. The two days that you were kind of doing abs, you could still do that as your trigger days. So in MAPS Anabolic, we've got the three days a week plus – two days are trigger sessions. And so you could follow that protocol, still do your kind of going to the gym or going in your garage, working out five days a week. But it's a little more organized.
It's probably going to be, well, not probably, it is less volume than what I'm looking at right now with your program. So, I mean, I would love to let you follow that for three months and see what happens. And I bet you get as good of results, if not better, with about half the work.
I just feel like if I would miss out, like I, you know, I, I do the, uh, you know, the, the, the main primary compounds, uh, squad, you know, bench overhead. And then I do some isolation. I just feel like those isolation is so important that I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't want to kind of get rid of them.
You know, I, I just don't know where, you know, that's why I asked me, am I doing too many, too many, you know, I'll do one main, like I said, one main compound and then I'll add another isolation to kind of, um, help with some secondary stuff. I kind of like the routine I have, but...
I don't know. Because you're progressing. Your testosterone is good. You're building muscle. So I don't know if you're necessarily overtraining. If you're noticing insomnia, excessive soreness and stiffness, if your progress is going backwards, then you're probably overdoing it. But if you're slowly progressing, you feel good, you're probably okay.
So the real question is, can I do less and get the same results? If... if what you said was something you're really feeling, which is sometimes I don't want to work out for two hours. In other words, you don't want to work out for two hours. You probably don't have to. But are you overtraining?
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Chapter 7: How should trainers approach social media and credibility?
I mean, is that average, though? I mean, what's the average time usually?
45 minutes to an hour. I mean, my workouts are like 20 minutes right now. When you've been lifting for a really long time, you'd be surprised how little stimulus you need to maintain the muscle that you have.
Deficiency at this point. Look, I've had two-hour workouts, but the reason why I've had two-hour workouts is I had long rest periods and I was going really heavy.
So it's not like...
Two hours of double the volume. It's typically two hours of the same volume. I'm just taking really long rest periods, doing a little bit of mobility in between, stretching, foam roll, whatever. And so when I train more powerlifting style, sometimes my workouts are an hour and a half or two hours. But it's not because I'm doing tons and tons of work. Same.
But those shorter workouts, you're still able to hit all the main –
Those compound lifts really cover a lot, so you're including those. You're pretty good. Honestly, I think less is more for you, and you're doing the rest periods and everything. You're probably just a nice little change. Yeah, you're going to notice a big difference.
Yeah, I appreciate that, guys. Thanks for your time.
You got it, man. Thanks for calling in. We'll send that to you.
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