Episode 118: Programing and Exercise Selection with Kyle Dobbs of Compound Performance

Today, Kyle Dobbs of Compound Performance and I discuss exercise sequence and training. What are different ways and ideas for programming exercise over the course of a week, month, or longer? Here’s what you should consider and what goes into the thought process.

Episode Notes

• Intro to Kyle Dobbs and Compound Performance

• Programming for strength and aerobics
• Using intensity and duration to drive output through the week
• Dr. Mike’s weekly breakdown
• Squatting mechanics and recovery
• Tweak programming to your goals and ignore what other people say
• Think about training that transfers to other goals in life like recreational sports or activities
• Looking at task demands and your abilities in relation to exercise selection
• Find Kyle on IG: @compound_performance or www.compoundperformance.com.

This podcast is brought to you by the Flex Diet Certification. It’s opening again for the last time this year on Monday, October 18th until October 25th, 2021. For more information or to enroll, go to flexdiet.com. Look for a fast-action bonus if you register within the first few days. If you missed the window, sign up for the waitlist to be notified when it opens in 2022.

Rock on!

Dr. Mike T Nelson

Download the transcript

Full text below

Welcome back to the flex diet podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Mike D. Nelson, where we focus on how to increase your performance and body composition, all without destroying your health and a flexible approach. Today in the program, my good buddy Kyle Dobbs of compound performance, and we talk all about exercise sequence. What are different ways and ideas, thoughts, methods for programming exercise over the course of a week, month or even longer, what are things you should consider things that go into the thought process. And what was interesting is we didn’t necessarily compare notes directly on this and we both kind of ended up in a very similar area. And as always, this podcast is brought to you by this time the flex diet certification, hence the name flex diet podcast.

The flex diet cert will open again for the last time this year, coming up on Monday, October 18 2021. And they’ll be open for a week until October 25 2021. If you want more information on that or to enroll during that time period, you can even get on the waitlist ahead of time, go to flex diet.com FLX and di t comm if it’s before that period from October 18 through the 25th you’ll be able to get placed on to the waitlist there so as soon as it comes out you’ll be notified and I usually tend to do a fast action or a gift for those on the newsletter also. G to flex diet.com they will be open from the 18th through the 25th of this month. If you’re listening after that timeframe, you can still get on the waitlist for when it will be open next year. So enjoy this conversation with my good buddy Kyle Dobbs of compound performance hey what’s going on Welcome back to the flex diet podcast and I’m here with my good buddy Mr. Kyle dogs How are you sir?

I’m good thanks for having me on my Always a pleasure.

Yes, and we are not stranded on the side of a road in Costa Rica in a vehicle you were driving so this is pretty easy.

You know I’ve gotten a lot of flack for that vehicle but I was set up to fail with that and then they gave us a car on empty and then it literally caught on fire on the side of the road and that’s that was an interesting day that the say the absolutely

Yeah, and you know you’re screwed when to get out of the parking ramp you have to speak Spanish and you’re relying upon my Spanish so that was our that was the first thing where things were not going well.

It was it was a tense like 10-15-20 minutes just to get out of the parking garage at the airport like I circled it twice they the security guards finally pull this over no one understood what was going on. It was it was definitely yeah it it’s funny looking back it wasn’t funny at the time.

Yeah, and then of course it’s on a main freeway in Costa Rica and after a while we’re like I think we should maybe move away from the car because if it gets hit by all these vehicles doing like 100 miles an hour it’s just gonna take us right out with it

it was I think that was the biggest thing is if you’ve never I mean again like very few people probably listeners have driven down there but like the shoulders for the highways are like half the size of like oh yeah highway shoulder that you would see here in the states and there’s really no I mean there’s a speed limit I guess but there’s really no speed limit that’s happening like on the freeways people just kind of go as fast as they can. And yeah, like we had like semis going back like I mean chicken trucks cars, people yelling at us and honking the horn data so it was it was definitely interesting and then we had the the fire anthill that we were parked next to you live Did you are there Irish friends sit on that

I think row was the one who was like on the hill and like felt them like like found like discover them crawling up his legs. You realize the entire site hillside was basically one huge ant nest Hill, whatever it says. It was interesting.

Good times. Good time.

Yes, yes.

And so for people who may not know you do want to give a little short introduction on yourself. There.

You Yeah, so I got into training kind of straight out of college I was a collegiate athlete who is injured all the time. Like I am the cliche of a failed athlete that turned into a strength coach because they were trying to fix themselves.

And none of that in the industry there. Yeah. It’s not 90% so that so that was me. And I moved to New York straight out of school with my my then girlfriend now wife and started training it like at a Globo type gym in the middle of Manhattan and quickly found out that I was working with zero athletes and really had to kind of reframe my own thought processes around training. And that kind of steered my education a little bit more into you know, at that point, the FMS and SFM a and then I got into DNS and FRC and pri and a bunch of other stuff in between three letter acronym world, all all of the acronyms as many of them as I could take over the course of the time and eventually got into management and found my way up to, you know, district and regional manager positions, and then went into more of the private sector as far as like personal training facilities and worked at peak performance for a little bit as their personal training director. And then that kind of exploded, and I ended up moving back to the Midwest because I have kids and it’s New York’s a very expensive and challenging place to raise kids.

I can only imagine it’s a lot It was like, right downtown. I mean, I was there did some consulting with them briefly. And yeah, super interesting location. But I can’t imagine having a family in that area.

It was it was rough. You know it is this from an experience perspective and a financial perspective it Oh, sure. And, and then, yeah, so we’ve been back in the Midwest now for just over four years. I think we celebrated our four years last month, and I’ve been I started my own business. So I’ve been the owner operator of compound performance for about three and a half of those years. And yes, we’ve, I’ve taken on a business partner, Matt Domini and a couple other employees in that time and over the course of last year, we work with about 1000 coaches and clients total within all the stuff that we do, and it’s been really fun, and definitely challenging, but fun, a full, you know, full of fun challenges as well, from an entrepreneur standpoint. So

and you’re primarily helping the coaches with I’d say integration of things developing systems or how would you kind of phrase it that’s me looking as an outsider kind of looking in

that that’s a pretty good perception of it, you know, we we do large groups and then I work with people more individually on the consulting and the large groups are definitely more about helping people kind of take the information that they already have coming into the program and their experiences, you know, the demographics, they work with the facilities and the environments, they work within kind of what those task goals are going to be based on, you know, the biases that are then incurred within those places, and building out a model that works for them, you know, so we, we give our model and which is obviously always always changing and evolving, we kind of tell, you know, tell them what we’re doing and what, and why and as an example, and then really encourage them to kind of critically think about their own processes and what makes the most sense for them. And leveraging those things as best as they can to help the people that they work with, you know, we realize that you know, especially after you know, all those acronyms like I found it, they all kind of work, you know, if given the right given the right context and application, and they you can help people with all of them. So we don’t really bias our material, you’re

supposed to be in one camp only, right? Isn’t that the deal?

That is the deal that I’m very apolitical on that it’s, it’s controversial, apparently. So everybody hates you. They do that’s where it’s like you’re loved by nobody. Everybody’s enemy. And yeah, so we just try to steer people into, you know, what they bias what they enjoy doing, and what’s going to help the the people that they work with the most and building a really coherent model based out of that, that they can help you know, not only from a training perspective, but we cover service models, and then business models on top of that as well to make sure that they kind of have a good like holistic plan of action as they go into, you know, managing and operating your own businesses.

Cool. That’s awesome. And the topic today is a little bit related to that, but how do we blend sort of aerobics training with strength training, I’m, I’m my own phrase, and I’m trying to get away from saying anaerobic because it doesn’t really exist, which is a whole nother topic in general. So I’m trying to change my own vocab without being one of those weirdos that’s demanding the whole world. Follow what I’m doing. Uh, you know, classic cardiovascular type training with you know, meathead strength training stuff.

Yeah and we’re kind of on the same track you know, and we’ve been talking to Evan Python quite a bit.

I love him Yeah, and

he’s kind of you know, reintroducing that and that newer model as its are branch off of kind of that’ll you know, the the old graph that we’ve we’ve always seen covering you know, the, the classic you know, PCP and glycolytic and aerobic and whatever, and

Kyle you’re only using carbohydrates and there’s no use of oxygen up till about one year 30 seconds, you just it’s actually not true

you hold the breath and you hope for the best right right you know, so we’re we kind of do the same thing and we’ve actually just been the way that I kind of look at it and in my own training and what I’m working with with the athletes that I currently train is more so looking at like stimulus exposures where we can look at intensity and duration you know relationships and based on what somebody is actual goal is kind of moderate throughout the course of like a microcycle even sometimes to bi weekly cycle depending on what they’re doing different exposures to kind of high stem moderate stem and low stuff men kind of correlating those with just again giving them you know, different ways to express outputs you know, and then from a kind of blending the strength training in the same way around those things where we’ve got high days and moderate days and low days so it’s it’s almost like a Charlie Francis like Halo model except we’ve kind of introduced kind of that modern day buffer in who as well as we kind of go through like a like you know, typically a one week cycle but sometimes a bi weekly cycle as well depending on who we’re working with and it’s it kind of ensures the way that we set it up that you’re never piggybacking you know, high days on top of one another and you always kind of you’ve got either a moderate day or a low day kind of mixed in between those two and so far so good, but but again, you know, it’s evidence based so who knows?

Yeah, the woman’s like a high stim day kind of look like for reference for someone who’s listening like what would be kind of an example of that and then would you I know Cal Dietz has talked about this like I think that was it four or five years ago I could be wrong he moved as models around where I think he moved the high day to earlier in the week instead of later in the week and then did like high, low and then medium or high, medium low I think instead of having them flip flopped, and he noticed a bigger difference and his theory was right because of college students that you know, Sunday is probably a more moderate off day for him so Monday is probably going to be a little bit better instead of pushing that to later in the week when they already have more fatigue just from the week and everything else they have going on.

Yeah, and I think that’s a super important point to make because I do think the demographic that you’re working with and what they’re you know, obviously what their lifestyles are, or even like working with collegiate athletes like they typically have like Saturday games like Friday yeah games totally and working in so that’s always gonna be a little different aspect of things and I do think that’s a consideration when you’re setting up what a week looks like for somebody like you have to know what that weekend actually looks like for people and kind of from a Gen pop perspective it’s like you can’t you need to know if your clients like day drinking all day on site if you’re if you’re working in like a New York environment was like three football games Sunday man Yeah, you go to brunch you watch a couple games or whatever and it’s like you have to kind of accommodate Monday accordingly based off of that or they need to accommodate Sunday based off of your Monday session and depending on who the client is you kind of have to figure out which scenario is going to be best you know for them you know and that gets into again like it here instant coherence and behavior change and that’s that’s a whole nother rabbit hole. But what I what I look at is you know that that high day from a strength training perspective is typically going to be if I’m breaking down things categorically into patterns, like I’ll typically look at Monday as a primary squat day and from there you know that that would be you know, high high intensity low volume so I would I would be looking at like sets of like threes or fives typically for me I don’t get into singles and doubles that often based on my goals now but those would be hyper and higher intensity subjective to what what I’m typically doing. And then from a accessory perspective, like that might be where depending on the phase I can throw in like a secondary hedge and then I can throw in like tertiary upper body work, you know, based off of that where I’m looking more variability, and more maybe even capacity based stuff from from an accessory perspective, you know, at that point in, in the hinge stuff is gonna be you know, we look at, we kind of classify those by muscular born orientations as well. And this would vary by by who you’re who you’re working with were like my, my hinge primary would be like a hybrid would be like a trap bar where I’m looking at more of a, a neutral orientation or like hamstring glute complex. And my secondary because I struggle with lengthened hamstring positions might be like an RDL, where I really want to drive being able to kind of control especially trying to get into running myself as someone who’s kind of chronically overextended, like I have a hard time and like early to mid stance transitions, like I’ll find my heels super well. lengthened hamstring positions, especially with East centric loading, I have a hard time controlling. So that might be where that at RDL is something where I’m really trying to drive a good stimulus for to kind of create that adaptation and competency within that inner rather tall fellow too. So yeah, longer legs longer.

So that kind of stuff,

right? So and then my tertiary hamstring might be like my hamstring curl, where I’m looking at like a short position. And so my Monday is going to be like that primary squat, secondary, hinge, tertiary upper body. And then I’ll usually piggyback that with a moderate intensity conditioning day where I might run like tempo repeats of like, you know, for hundreds at a mile pace or something of that nature where it’s like, I can do very, a very controlled amount of you know, say six to 10 rounds of that and then piggyback that on to some GPP or like lsvt Bass conditioning if I want to get a little bit of zone two and and then my Wednesday, I’ll typically do the

cardio stuff. Is that Tuesday or is that on Monday? Also that would be a tuesday thursday God I said that makes sense as much as possible. Yeah, that was my my question.

Part of that is just my competency and capacity limitations probably where I can you know, both very well on the same day. And then Wednesday I would be looking at like a more moderate strength training day where that’s where and especially for me, it’s like that might be where I go a higher stem upper body day and rest the legs with like a with like tertiary lower body work, or even non so I might have like my, my bench day is my primary. And then I’ve got a like a secondary pusher pole. And then I’ve got tertiary lower body where maybe I’m doing something just like a front foot elevated, you know, back lunge or something where I’m just working through a range of motion, it’s very sensorial based, it’s very, maybe even more like stability based and not really biasing strength too much, just trying to get the blood pumping, get a little bit of work in, and then on that Thursday, that’s where I will go high intensity with the conditioning and that’s where I’ll run under spreads, maybe some hsct work on that. Maybe a little Prowler work piggybacked on to that as well. And then Friday it’s it ends up being a little higher Stampede, that’s why I usually do my hedge but because I’m tall I hinge way better than I squat so I recover pretty bad buddy from the app I don’t know anything about that yeah, it’s especially a trap bar like like I can I can max out and or do something really capacity based and really push the limits and not feeling at all the next day from a recovery perspective. And so I’ll do like a primary hinge on that day so it ends up being moderate to high a little bit and then I can kind of again run the kind of that that’s maybe secondary squat tertiary upper body again and then I’ll do my my lower intensity, longer duration conditioning work on Saturday and kind of cycle those things through in that based on what phase I’m in and kind of what my focus is like that can obviously be a little more fluid but that would be kind of what a week breakdown might look like.

Oh, that’s super cool. That’s funny we didn’t really compare notes on this ahead of time but that’s pretty similar to how I program for myself and for clients. Right So in general, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, maybe Saturday depending upon what they’re doing is you know some type of strength based stuff I try to take the total load and split it out as much as I can over the course of a week although I have found that like having just an upper body more focused day I’d normally for clients I’ll drop in on like a Wednesday seems to work pretty good and I don’t know if that’s just lowering systemic fatigue or, or what but I find that a lot of people can’t handle completely full body or even just like a lot of squats, a lot of deadlifts like Monday, Wednesday and Friday, that usually tends to be a little bit too much. And then Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday is some type of aerobic you know, conditioning one of those days maybe high intensity depending upon what what they’re doing. And then yeah, my train is pretty similar. Like Mondays I moved upper body stuff too, because that’s just like a higher priority day and I’ve got more time in my schedule. And then Tuesday, cardio Wednesday is in some type of hybrid you know type full body thing Thursday is conditioning Friday I’ll do a mix a little bit more upper body a little lower body. And then Saturday I’ll normally do a very heavier squat based routine Sundays off and then kind of repeat again. So for my schedule, it’s very similar I found that if I squat on Saturday, like even to come back Monday right away and do lower body or even deadlift stuff, there’s just not quite enough rest so for my stuff, I’ve moved my upper body stuff to Monday and Sundays usually a complete day off. And so I found that that worked pretty good too. So yeah, that’s

the squatting takes it out of me, you know, and again, like, and that’s something that we always consider with with clients especially like, like Matt works with a bunch of power lifters and he’ll have people who are, you know, shorter and more compact with shorter arms, and it’s like their deadlift day takes it out. Right, and their squad days are totally fine. And, and I think that’s something we really tried to understand as we’re working with people, just from a morphological perspective, and from a training history perspective, like most people are kind of biased towards one of those more so than the other and it’s like, I’ve always been a better polar than I’ve been a squatter, so Yeah, me too, for me to load up the squats and get a pretty pretty high stimulus they’re like, all feel it for the next few days. And that’s where even like on Tuesdays like if I’m doing those that moderate duration, your training like I might be able to like hit treadmills like repeats on that. But if I’m feeling super beat up, that’s where I just hop on an assault bike and I kind of call you know, call it and say like, hey, like I can get in the conditioning stimulus that I want from that perspective, but I don’t have to do like the impact of actual running right to kind of save the quads and the knees a little bit from that perspective and hop on a bike and and feel good about it and just drive the adaptation a different way. But I can keep the you know, again, the set rep scheme intensity scheme, whatever, kind of the same and I’ll just kind of have a wats marker or something of that nature as I go through those repeats and and that’s where you know, from a Lego, even the clients like I’ll usually give them the autonomy to kind of do that based on what their bias towards conditioning because not everybody I work with as a runner. Like I’ve got some people who like they’re going to row I guess some people they’re going to help on the bike or use a skier like I’ve got one person who loves Versa climbers because they hate themselves. Who loves a versa climb, right, that’s worse than the rower and the assault bike. And there’s not much that’s worse than a rower and an assault bike, you find some sick people in this industry, sometimes it so it’s like, they’ll be you know, playing with different stuff. And if I’m just looking at an exposure and intensity exposure that allows me to, you know, kind of decrease the specificity of whatever modality they’re doing, where I can say, like, Hey, I don’t need you to run on this day, or I don’t need you to do to row if you want to do the bike, if it feels better to do that, or whatever, because I’m just looking for that output. I don’t really care how you you know the, I don’t necessarily care about the vehicle to the output because you’re not a specificity based client. If I’ve got somebody who is looking to run better, all I’m looking at is over the course of that week that we get at least two of those sessions we probably need to be running the third one we might be able to mix them with something else and cross training a little bit if you’re feeling beat up. And that’s where I’ll give them a little bit of autonomy as far as like what that looks like on there. And because everybody I’m working with remote so they they’re already doing it on their own from that perspective.

Do you think the reasons squats are more of an impact or deadlifts or other people is the spinal loading? Like I thought a lot about this. And generally I find that if people have longer femurs, longer torso like even if their mechanics are good, like squats tend to be much more draining for them, like their HRV will be altered usually for a couple days after where people like my buddy Sam Pogue, who claims he looks like a South Park character. He can squat a lot and it doesn’t bug. I don’t see a drop off in his recovery all that much. I’ve just noticed that sort of, I guess trend over time. I don’t know if you’ve seen something similar.

I haven’t looked at it from an HRV perspective but but definitely just

the programming perspective, right? You know what the performance is the next day? Yeah, just

from like when I look at taller people, and especially taller people with longer legs and shorter torsos. Like it’s almost impossible to get like a fairly vertical squat with that person like you really like you’ve got a front load and you got to heal elevate them and depending on what their goals are, like. Like I love elevated squats for a while. A lot of clients, but I hate them for myself because they actually end up being detrimental to a lot of my running because I don’t get the like the tibial ER and dorsi flexion that that I need on them, because the elevation, they’ve actually, I don’t wanna say done more harm than good, but they haven’t been as beneficial as maybe they are for other people. So I’ve been doing more flatfoot anyway. But you’re going to be hinge here, like you’re gonna have more of a forward lean, just because you can’t change your femur length, so you can only stretch out so so far forward. So your butt’s gonna have to go back a little bit. And when you have people who are a little shorter and have and you know, they don’t have to deal with moving around femurs and they can typically get their knees forward enough to drop their hips a little farther back and and i think that does change the way you are loading again, especially the axial skeleton, right? Because you’re more vertical, you already have less surface area, so to speak of where that tension is heading. The way that I’ve gone around it is, is or my solution to it, I should say the best one I found is I do a ton of Hatfields plots now.

Yeah, those are great. Explain what that is, if people are not familiar,

yeah, so it’s you have to have like a yoke bar and SSP. Right? So you you’ve got it kind of balanced on your shoulders, you’re not holding the handles. And then you’ve got pins or actual handles or a bar on the rack that you’re kind of using to maintain your your balance and be able to create more of an upright torso. So it kind of takes the axial loading out of the squat. And I kind of end up being able to I mean, I can load it. I can load a Hatfield like easily 150% of what I would do in normal ssbs Yeah,

I’ve never liked it I can go way heavier, higher Rep. It’s a

significant difference and and that tells me that for the most part, like when I look at my SSB squat, like my limiter isn’t my legs it’s my torso strength based more than anything else it’s my ability to stabilize You know, my my torso, so that kind of takes it out of it you know, and you can you can cheat it like I’ve seen people that are definitely using their arms a lot. Yeah, but you know, so you got to have a little bit uh, efficacy when when you do but but even with like some of our strength athletes like Matt uses those with the with his power lifters in the offseason to when they’re more into a variability based program to overload essentrics Oh sure. For them where it’s like he can really like because you get to a point where like some of these guys are so strong it’s like okay you got a 750 pound squat like what am I supposed to do with you this night? Yeah be like so systemically just draining huh and he’ll be able to give that person half fields that are pretty at a pretty low you know pretty significant weight but the systemic strain isn’t nearly as high and he can overload the East centric and just give him give him like he centric tempos on Hatfield, which is really crappy, like, like, those are real fun if you’re controlling them with your with your legs and but I’ve been using them because it’s as a tall guy, it’s like kind of a secret weapon to be able to really drive my legs without my my upper body or my my torso being a limiter from that perspective. And I can I can get a pretty good stimulus that way. And I’ve been super happy with them. As far as that goes. So

have you found you can bring your stance in and be more almost parallel straight instead of externally rotated out just to use common terms?

Yeah, no 100% like I can, like I can set those up it probably like armpit like I used to call it kind of armpit width, where it’s not necessarily like yes, straight, straight hip width, but it’s also not shoulder width, it’s kind of in the middle there and get my feet fairly forward and get my knees forward because of that instead of kind of scooting them out and, and that’s, again the because I have something to kind of hold against a little bit. It enables me to get pretty solid depth for me, you know, with that and work through kind of that full, full knee flexion range of motion which, again, as someone who’s had like multiple knee injuries over the years, like being able to train those tissues is something that I out I try to prioritize as much as possible to at this point just for longevity sake.

Yeah, I found that too. Like I can usually tell in my programming if I’m doing too much stuff with my my feet kind of in that external 45 degree position, which again, I don’t think is wrong. I don’t think it’s bad, no. But whatever position you train in, you are going to build up adaptations to that position. And so I can go for a fair amount of time doing that like on a safety squat bar. Good. Pretty Get up. But at some point if I really start pushing it, I have to bring my feet in more straight and start loading that position more. So like lately I’ve been using a trap bar with like the wagon wheels so it’s like a 16 inch pick. So it’s I find the higher up by going a poll, I can get my feet more straight the lower I start dropping the bar, I need to get that external rotation to get enough depth to put my hips in the right position. So I find by playing around with those that seems to solve it literally within like a couple sessions, which is kind of cool.

Yeah. I mean, I haven’t, I’ll do barbell with with like rdls. But with trap bar with like my primary deadlift. Now I mean, for years, I’ve been pretty much exclusively been been using a trap bar and I do high handle even with that, because I don’t care like I’m not worried about arbitrary like hype marker that I’m not a powerlifter or a competitor. And, and that allows me to I like for deadlifts like because the knee flexion isn’t as much of a of an issue there. And I don’t have to worry about balancing femurs as much. Yeah, like, that’s where I will be like, pretty narrow, like I’m at hip with when I do those, and they feel super good for me and and yeah, with the I can get a little bit more hip flexion and depth with with my secondary hinge at that point with that RDL. And then I’m hitting, you know, potentially a single leg RDL later in the week on the face, or I’m looking at, you know, the the ham curl of some kind, where I’m working through that shortened hamstring position. So it’s like over, that’s what I always try to tell people is like, it’s good to train muscles through full ranges of motion. But that doesn’t mean that you have to do that in a singular lift, like I can raise my hamstrings, within multiple ranges with three to four different lifts throughout the course of a week. And for me, that just works way better than doing like a hamstring day, or trying to work through every single exercise like full length and full shortening position and worked with those ranges of motion.

And some of it is arbitrary to like I’ve posted, probably not recently, but in the past like doing a trap or a deadlift off the wagon wheels, which is a higher pick, right. So your handle height is 16 on the trap bar is 16 inches, which is pretty high. And people are like, Oh, that’s like cheating, because the handle is so high. I’m like, but if you can get a heavier load, and it puts you in a better position. There’s no like competitive trap bar lifting. You know what I mean? It’s not like I’m cheating who like, I’m not competing in this sport, right?

That’s when you find out there’s a lot of people on the internet that are competing with you that you don’t even know exists. Yeah, I was like, I get that all the time. They’re like, Oh, you’re doing a touch and go or Oh, you’re doing like a high handle like spy workout man. Like it doesn’t affect what you do. And anyway, like keep doing your thing. Like it’s it’s okay. Well, yeah.

Yeah, because for a while I did a like 490 on. Farmers bar handles deadlift. And people are like, Oh, well, but that’s easier because you’re at your side. And it’s like a 14 inch pick instead of 12. I’m like, Who cares? Like, there’s no, maybe sometimes you see that in a strongman event? Maybe. But usually it’s farmers walks to get a walk with the damn things. You know, it’s just such a weird thing.

What I tell people now just to end the conversation right away, because, like, I’ll post I’ll post a trap bar deadlift, like once every two weeks or so. Yeah. Sometimes every week, depending on how frequent I’m posting. At least once a month, somebody will like DM me or comment on the post? Like, why do you trap bar? And I literally answer I’m back now, I’d say because it’s easier. Like why? Why would I not want to get a higher load for more reps? Right? Like it’s just Yeah. Why would I not want to get that stimulus? Like if I’m not bound by a barbell specific sport? Well, there’s all kinds of other tools that I can use to train more efficiently. Like why would I not do that? You know, and I think that people just get so stuck in that mindset where it’s like, everything they need to do is like a barbell it’s like not like, go Swiss bar benchpress go Yeah, SSB squat, like, go trap bar deadlift, like if you’re not in a barbell sport, like do what feels better for you if that’s what feels better and then progress it. It’s just training. It’s not a big deal. So

yeah, if I could go back in time, like I would have bought a safety squat bar like infinitely sooner than what I did. Because I wasted so much time, just being stubborn aihole trying to back squat, not having the best mechanic on it like in the funny part is like got to a point once where I literally know a lot of people who are really good in biomechanics I sent him a video all these people I said hey man Do you mind looking at my back squat? Like Yeah, like what do you think and across the board everyone is like looks pretty good there’s not really any weight on it but other than that it looks good. Only one person asked me how did it feel? But I’m like it felt like dogs like like horrible like a horrible like like if I didn’t know anything about mechanics I would swear that that was the worst list I’ve ever done in my life. But yet physics wise it It looked okay because what I was doing was forcing myself into what was the best lift by physics and just throwing my whole anatomy under the bus my gas grew and figured out later and I always end up with shoulder pain hip pain neck pain, like you know I couldn’t figure out why because I’m being an idiot is why

I’m in the same boat where I didn’t start I’d never used an SSP until really probably like four years ago you know and it’s like I’m I’ve been training for 20 years now since I was young teen in college right so it’s like I use the barbell exclusively for a very long time and and I throw in front squats here and there and again like I’ve also got three screws and a wrist that makes that not feel great either and but there’s there’s videos I’ve got videos of me where like my chest is on my thighs like doing like low bar back squat Yeah, and I got to where like I like I could squat like 455 or five you know like, but it’s like I was literally doing just the world’s worst Good morning like it wasn’t squat It was absolutely awful and everything hurt all the time. And I just but you just keep forcing it because you don’t you’re stubborn or you don’t know better Yeah. So I’m the same way if I would like have access to or thought about or just been less rigid maybe in my own beliefs like I could have saved myself a lot of frustration over the years if I just would have switched to an SSP like 10 years ago. It just Yeah, a much better situation.

And it’s a weird thing to because like even now just recently I’m still shaking my head because you’d like to think that you learn from some of your previous lessons and then some days you realize that you just don’t so recently I’ve been squatting more especially the last year and a half since I’ve been home having been traveling been able to train in my gym which is awesome. And for whatever reason I got it in my head that you know because there’s a camber on the side so if I have the handles down, the camber moves so it’s not out in front as much right if you move it up it’s it goes forward so it’s a little bit more like a front squat you know not to the extent like the transformer bar is but because of that’s like camber it moves a weight forward so I got it stuck in my head that okay I have to have the handles down because that’s gonna move the load back more and rub stuff though good but like heavier stuff just just did not feel good at all and I mean anyone who’s used the safety squat bar before I I often joke that like in general rep stuff will feel pretty good. But if you get to like a one or two rep max on it, it feels like a gorilla jumped on your back and just trying to force your head into your own asphalt

it feels a horrible it’s it’s really bad like we we Matt works with a power lifter in Australia who like he’s won like the Australian Arnold’s and stuff using credibly strongest, probably top five or 10. Like I think I know what you’re talking about. But yeah, he’s a he’s 1000 kilos total guy like he’s in crazy. And, like whoa, do SSB. And it’s just like, he looks like a turtle like literally like it. And it’s just the most uncomfortable looking thing you’ve ever seen. And anytime I’m the same way anytime I’ve ever done anything, like near maximal loading on an SSP, like, it feels like someone’s trying to rip my back apart. Like it is absolutely terrible. It’s like the crunch from hell basically, you know, and I just don’t know if there’s a way around it cuz you get to a point where, because of the camber, the weight will just like drag you forward, like you will end up like there’s this weird like bell curve where it’s like, okay, when it’s pretty light, like I can use the weight as a counterbalance to like, get my rib cage back in space a little bit and feel pretty good. And but there’s a tipping point for everybody where it’s like that way it gets enough to where it just pulls you straightforward. Yeah, and does the exact opposite effect for people. So I think it’s like, like I’m in the same boat that like sets of six and eight and 10 like they’re not fun, but they’re manageable. Yeah, I don’t think anybody likes a set of 10 of squats. But anytime that I get lower than that and get, you know, upwards of like 80 plus percent one RM or something, whatever that might be like, it gets really uncomfortable really fast for me.

Yeah, and my mistake was then I kept having the handles down because I’m thinking got it already feels like my head’s getting driven forward. I don’t want any more weight for than what it is. But again, same thing, like I didn’t take into account my anatomy and what else is going on? And then one day, I just wasn’t thinking and I had the handles up and it was just a heavier percentage. I was like, what was weird is that felt harder, but yet better, better, you know, that weird sensation Where? Yeah, the lift was harder, but I felt okay about it, you know, and so then I realized maybe I should be doing with the handles up and I’m like, oh, all of a sudden I started progressing again, but it was a weird thing where the lifts felt harder, but yet they felt better. Right? They felt like I had to put in more effort, but the quality just like it just agreed with my body a lot better. And so I’m like, Okay, yeah, I should probably listen to my body and physics are just sort of a guideposts because everyone’s going to be different. And again, I’m not competing in like the safety squat bar lift I’m using it to transfer to other things. So does it really matter if I have it in a quote unquote, a little bit more of an inefficient pattern, like no, and it worked better for me so I’m just gonna keep doing that now.

Live and I went through a phase my last phase two phases ago where I was doing a little bit of like potential creation prior to my bigger to my primary lifts right so I had a pin squat and like a high pin squat, not a low pin squat and then had like banded trap bar before my trap bar and so on so forth. And so I’m doing the, the higher pin squat which ends up being kind of like a quarter squat ish type thing Yeah, and it’s just all it’s all like concentric and you can overload a little bit you can move up pretty fast because you’re you’re kind of just good leverage or Yeah, you’re on top of the sticking point right? Like you’re not getting it you’re just about parallel and that was another one where like people came out of the woodwork and I’m like well if you do like one slide over and it’s there and you see me doing like my normal squat it’s just like, but but people just lost their minds and you know, it’s just like yeah, there’s no safety squat bar Olympics like right it ends up being kind of crazy how much other people care about like your training you know? Yeah, that’s something that we’re yeah I think the Internet has made it really strange where it’s just like I like the access and it’s a huge part of our business to be able to promote that way and mark it that way but it’s also at the same time just like you don’t know my goals you don’t know what again like you see like a snapshot of like a singular session you don’t even know you know, we just talked about concurrent model how that session mixes in with everything else that’s happening during the week what my face looks like, because I’ll have people they’re like oh, like you only do trap bar I’m like no, I only did trap bar today this is literally the fourth hamstring exercise I did over the course of a week right and they’re like oh yeah it’s just like it there’s no there’s no context anything you post and again, it’s just like, like, people people are like oh, have you always fat bars like I’ve been lifting for 20 years I did barbell deadlifts for 15 of them like no idea. Trap bar deadlift, like now I do because it’s just an easier movement for me and it meets the goals right and meets the demands that I’m trying to hit so it’s always interesting when you start getting like feedback from people that just don’t know what your actual like plan of action is or what what the strategy looks like and that’s just yeah like why why are you even commenting on this like why why you know, so it’s it’s strange just so it’s a weird phenomenon for sure.

Yeah, even the potential ation is interesting I didn’t post this picture yet but before I did safety squat bar the other day I have cambered bar. And so I’m like, hmm, if I play around with potentiation Yeah, I can do like what do you suggest to go higher with that? But I’m like, Can I get by with less weight in a different position because it’s normally quote unquote, my core my upper back that’s going to be probably the limiter so can I do something to potentially that with a little bit of axial loading so I ended up taking a camera bar and put it in the rack and then did it as a zurcher just as a hold for you know, 10 seconds? Yeah. So can I hold this you know, can I move it out of the rack and stand there Can I breathe you know, under loads, I’m not going to hold my breath for 10 seconds. You know and obviously if I can’t do that, that I knew mechanics wise there’s there’s something you know, red flags, you know, going on, and with the searcher because you’re holding it in the crook of your elbow is in the front for anyone who’s ever done that. The whole Weight is in front of you, and it just wants to basically pull you onto your face. You know, so I’m like, Okay, so this is kind of simulating with just a change in position of the load of, you know what my weaker point is. So when I got to doing safety squat bar stuff, like oh, everything felt a little bit better, like blue contraction, everything. It just felt easier, and I used a little bit less warm ups too so but again, if you were to post just a picture of a static hold the camera just 265 people are like, What don’t you lifted? You dumb ass? Like,

what do you do? And you don’t? Face palming this face palming. You know, it’s, yeah, I like that, too. And that’s we’ve played around a lot with, you know, searchers. And yeah, because they get brutal one in it, but they’re really great for people who especially like shoot their hips up early, like, yep, they get like, for like a taller lift, because you just queue them, you’re like, hey, just push the knees forward, you know, and then like, and then try to like, actually, like, stand it up, and, but they’ll, they’ll get people in anyone who tries anyone who like just, again, shoots their hips up too early, or if that’s if that’s kind of the the limiter. And what they do is like, quad strength, or something of that or adductor strength of that of that focus. Like, they’ll just dump it forward. They can’t hold it, you know, and using it. So it ends up being like this really good self limiter. For a lot of people where it’s like, you find out what load you can manage real quickly. because like you said, it’s as soon as you get to a point where you’re like getting more horizontal with the upper body, like your biceps aren’t holding, it doesn’t matter if it’s 135 or a 405. Like you’re not holding it there anymore, like you’re gonna dump it forward. So we use that a lot of people and that’s I’ve never used it as a potential nation set but that’s actually something that would make a ton of sense for my limiters as well. Yeah, that’s, I like it. That’s, that’s a super good idea. Yeah,

I’ve gotten back to doing searchers off the floor with an actual bar just because it doesn’t hurt as bad and then forcing myself to set it down on the tops of my quads, put my arms underneath and then I’ve even been even more weird lately where I’ve been doing you know, one to three to five second pauses in the bottom position with the weight like on my knees and again no pain or anything like that because one of the positions I’m missing is that bottom heavily dorsi flexed knees in front and I’m like so if I can hang out in this position without any pain then I’m probably These are my goals I’m getting a little bit more benefit from it. Obviously you’ve got no stretch shortening then if you’re coming up on the bottom of a pause so I’ve been playing around with those lately and that’s not fun but seems to work.

I even look at it it’s like because that’s always the thing like when I talk about like exposures with clients it’s like there’s obviously the physical and the physiological but I even look at like something like that is there’s like a psychological exposure that happens with that Oh yeah, you know, you build the confidence where you know you do go into your squat set at that point, you’re like hey, like I just sat down and this with the load feeling manageable, squatted out a bit after an extended pause. So me going into like my squat set now and more like a one one tempo or to one tempo is something that I should be able to manage pretty well and that confidence goes a long way with a lot of people and yeah, and and I think that’s something that you know, again, it’s not measurable for our purposes so it’s not something that you know, we talk a lot about from from a coaching perspective but but building like the the self advocacy and the confidence to do that through isometrics and through some of these other things I think goes a super long way with a lot of a lot of the clients that I’ve worked with in the past where it’s just like, they’ve been there they’ve kind of suffered in that position, like oh, this is me just squatting it now is actually easier. Yeah, like, even though they might even be like a little more weight. But now that I have a continuous range of motion, I’m not dealing with pauses and I’m not dealing with like, ISOs like, this is actually an easier thing for me to accomplish now at this point.

Yeah. And again, my context always goes back to what what are your overall goals? Like what is the thing you’re driving stuff towards like so for me, especially now before I leave to go kiteboarding it’s more can I make things look more kiteboarding? specific, right? And so people are like, but a zurcher pause at the bottom that doesn’t look anything like a party, but I’m like, if something really bad happens, and I get dropped 15 feet out of the sky and I land on my board, you know, do do I have at least hopefully some strength in my legs to decrease that acceleration before my ass goes through my board. You know what I mean? Can I put myself in a bottom position in a pause and take away any momentum and have enough strength to reverse that in a safe and you know, static load in the gym. There’s no guarantee that’s gonna save me. But yeah, it’s better that I could do that than not do it right. I’m probably getting closer to reducing that potential injury to so yeah.

That’s all preparation is like yeah, again, it’s like it’s there’s nothing in the term like sports specific is I think, is the most misuse No, totally turn like in probably strength and conditioning, right? where it’s like, people look at sports specific as ability or skill, right? And they try to match like lifts to look like the skill and that’s where you end up with, like, people like trying to shoot jump shots with medicine balls and stupid stuff. Like, whenever reality it’s like the sport specific aspect of training is really just looking at Okay, what what stimulus Are you going to be under? And do you need to be able to operate within? What exposures do you need from a sport specific perspective? Like, what planes of motion Are you working in? Do you need to be able to decelerate force and accelerate force? What are those things look like? Because that’s going to be what’s actually going to prepare you for that task. And, you know, so it’s like sports specificity exists, just not in the way that the industry sometimes portrays it, you know, and I think that’s where a lot of the confusion exists, where it’s like, Okay, if I’m looking at running, you know, one of the big things I’ve been looking at is okay, like I do need, like, I’m not as an extended person who leads with his chest on everything he does, like I have a hard time like, in early stance, decelerating through a heel with a LinkedIn hamstring. Hmm, so I can turn that into a single leg RDL with like a toe elevation, right, or a toe off position, I could turn that into a barbell RDL. If I want a really lengthened position under a higher stimulus, like, I can find things that move my rib cage back in space, like an SSB squat on a cambered bar, something of that nature. So I can find exercise selections that will drive the postural or physical or physiological qualities that I need. Even if they don’t necessarily look like the sport itself. They’re training the qualities that the sport demands. And I think that’s where there’s like a huge misconception sometimes with how that’s described for people.

Yeah, well, two things I always think of is, in the gym, if we look at running or sprinting, right, are you really doing anything where your limbs are going to hit that velocity in the gym? You’re just, you’re just not, you know, but like you said, maybe the first thing I look at is, can you decelerate and break whatever motion, right? Can you have the E centric strength in order to not tear yourself apart? Right, and like you said, with a toe elevated, you know, RDL, whatever, can I increase the E centric load in the gym, so that when I go to do my sport, I have a greater capacity. So doing my sport now is going to be easier and reduce that overall risk potential than to

Yeah, and that’s, I think that’s exactly what it is. because like you said, it’s especially sprinting. We’re not smarter than our nervous system, you know, at this point, and I think it’s like, your body’s only gonna go as fast as you can stop, you know, in most in most cases, right. So it’s like, if you can increase the capacity to decelerate, you can probably increase your ability to accelerate as well over time. And, and again, like, obviously, if you want to get better sprinting, you need to sprint, yes. But for any so that that’s obviously that’s a caveat that we’re acknowledging, but just from a pure training perspective, it’s like, okay, I also need to work on these other capacities, to ensure that if I am, you know, going to go all out, I don’t, you know, pull my hamstring, or rip it straight off my pelvis, like, on my, on my second set of like, you know, 50 yard accelerations or 50, meter accelerations or something. And I think that’s, that’s where, again, it’s like the sport specific training is training. The, the way that I look at it with clients from an assessment perspective is it’s like, Okay, the first thing that we look at is your task, and what are the task demands? You know, from a physiological perspective, from a physical perspective, or a movement perspective, and then we assess your abilities against those demands, right? Do you have the capacity Can you produce enough force can you get into the positions needed, right to produce to, you know, again, like move laterally, or move or sprint or whatever. And then the training is everything in between, like the training is just bringing your limitations to a point where you’re competent within those task domains. And, you know, sometimes it’s just the task itself. And other times it’s also not only the task, but it’s like, the new the new standard is like who you’re competing against. Yeah, cuz that actually, you know, that has to be considered too. And so that’s what we, you know, I kind of think about when I’m looking at that where, like, sports specificity will, you know, be subjective, too because you we are going to address limiters we are going to address the things that are actually keeping this person from the absolute success that they’re looking for, from that perspective from a competitive perspective and, and that’s where I always look at too. It’s like, when people are like, you know, all clients are athletes or everybody’s an athlete, or it’s like everybody can do things that are athletic. But very few people actually compete. Right? Anything, and I think that’s where, like, competitive athlete is different. Yeah, like that’s, that’s a completely different thing. Because that changes, you know, everything you’re doing inside a gym and outside of the gym, you know, for a lot, because a lot of people want to train like an athlete, but a lot of people don’t want to live like an athlete.

No.

There’s a two very different things, right? So it’s always interesting when those conversations come up with people, it’s like, yeah, we can train athletic Li. But as soon as we start talking about like, being a competitive athlete, like we can’t just look at like training tissue qualities, we have to look at task demands and the people you’re actually competing against, and your abilities, respect for those things. And that’s going to change your training significantly from that perspective.

Cool. Well, thank you so much for all your time today. Really appreciate it. I know you got to head out. But where can people find more information about you?

Yeah, so probably the easiest place is Instagram. So it’s just compound performance with an underscore. We are working to get our YouTube content up to speed. That’s our next project for the for the next year. So that’ll just be compound performance, your YouTube channel, and then Our website is www compound performance. COMM you can always reach us there as well.

Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you very much, Kyle, really appreciate it. Always. Wonderful to chat with you. And hopefully we’ll see each other again in person sometime soon.

I hope so, man. Thank you again for having me on.

Cool. Sounds good, man. We’ll see ya see it. Mike, thank you so much to Kyle for taking time out of his busy schedule to be on the program. I always love chatting with him and getting to hang out and, and lift in person. Whenever possible. Make sure to check out his information on the web at compound performance Comm. He’s got great stuff also on the old Instagram there, go to compound performance underscore, and you’ll be able to find out more about him. So big thanks to Kyle again for coming on the podcast. And as always, check out the flex diet certification opening up for the last time this year, October 18 through the 25th go to flex diet.com flxdt.com. If it is during that time period, you’ll have all the information on how to enroll in sign up. If it is outside that time period, you’ll be able to get on the waitlist. So you will be the very first to be notified via the daily newsletter, to go to flex diet.com fxdt.com. Thank you so much, really appreciate it. If you could do me one last favor. If you have not subscribed to the podcast on your favorite podcast player, that would help me out immensely. Because that helps out with the rankings as far as I’m able to tell and better rankings allow us to get more guests higher level guests on the program for you. So thank you once again for listening. I really appreciate it. Talk to you again next week.