Ep. #460: Chris Barakat on Advanced Bodybuilding Techniques for Faster Muscle Gain

Mike: Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I’m doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please consider checking out my VIP one on one coaching service, where we can help you get in the best shape of your life. life. My team and I have helped people of all ages, circumstances, and needs.

So no matter how complicated or maybe even hopeless you might think your situation is, we will figure it out and we will get you results. Every diet is different. And every training program is 100 percent custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements and other products.

And the list of benefits goes on and on. So to learn more. Head over to www. LegionAthletics. com slash coaching. That’s L E G I O N Athletics dot com slash coaching and schedule your free consultation call. I should also mention that there is usually a wait list and new slots do fill up very quickly. Do not wait.

If this sounds even remotely interesting to you, go ahead and schedule your call. Now, again, that URL is legionathletics. com slash coaching. Hello, Mike here, and welcome to another episode of muscle for life. Now, as fun as it can be to geek out on obscure and advanced muscle building strategies. Most people looking for advice on how to gain more muscle and strength really just need to double down on the fundamentals instead.

Compound exercises, heavyweights, progressive overload, and so on. There does come a point though in your weight lifting journey where a basic understanding of the basics is no longer enough to keep the needle moving. And at that point, you should add some more advanced tools to your shed, including programming techniques like periodization, set schemes like drop and rest pause sets, and exercise variations that help you address various weak points in your physique.

Now that last point, exercise variations, is what Chris Barakat and I talk about today, and specifically how to use different types of exercises and ways of performing those exercises to maximize muscle gain in every major muscle group that you train. And as you will learn in this interview, relatively small changes to the exercises you do and how you do them can make pretty big differences.

differences in the bottom line results. Now, in case you are not familiar with Chris, he is not only a member of Legion’s scientific review board, he is also a published scientist, educator, coach, and natural bodybuilder. So he is very familiar with this topic and specifically with the difference between a beginning and intermediate and advanced bodybuilder and their respective needs.

All right, let’s get to the interview. Hey, Chris, thanks for making your first appearance on my podcast. 

Chris: Thanks for having me, Mike. I’m excited. I’m excited to be a muscle for life audience. 

Mike: Yeah, absolutely. And I’m excited to, to have you on because it occurred to me. So I had reached out to one of the guys that works with me and said, Hey, let’s get Chris scheduled.

And then after we’re figuring out, okay, what should we talk about? And this occurred to me and and I’m excited to have the Discussion myself, cause I know I’m actually, I’m probably gonna learn some stuff and the reason being is this is not something that I have, I guess maybe I’ve experienced a bit of it myself just in my training, but I haven’t written much about it and I haven’t spoken about it.

And that is basically the idea. And just for people listening of what are we talking about here in case you skipped the intro, which I understand I do the same thing. Is all right. So you start out and you get in the gym. And you start lifting weights and it’s pretty simple and straightforward.

Your primary goals are really just to get strong on the key compound exercises. And maybe you throw in some accessory stuff to, to add some volume to the smaller muscle groups that tend to lag and just be stubborn. Like the biceps and triceps and shoulders and whatever even pecs tend to be stubborn, at least in, in many guys I’ve found.

So it probably makes sense to do some extra work beyond just maybe, 10 sets of bench press a week or something. It might make more sense to do a little bit less bench pressing and then some other exercise variations, but you don’t have to get too into the weeds in terms of programming. Again, in the beginning, if you really just make that your priority, you’re good to go.

Then though, now you take an intermediate or even an advanced weightlifter though, and they’re in a different place. And if their goal is to, let’s say achieve as much of their genetic potential for muscle and strength as possible, that beginning approach becomes too simplistic. And the, you need to go a bit beyond that in terms of your practice.

programming. So at this point, you basically, you got to work harder. So we know that you’re going to have to do more hard sets per major muscle group per week as an intermediate or advanced just to get anywhere. Then when you begin, and then some periodization starts to make more sense. And then there’s this point of what we’re going to be discussing today.

And that is exercise selection, how to do exercises more effectively, how to accomplish, it can be termed in different ways. More of a mind muscle connection is one way to put it. it, which sounds woo, but actually isn’t. There’s a bit of research on that. And you can touch on that as well if you’d like, but it’s just the point is to make that time in the gym as effective as possible as an intermediate and advanced weightlifter.

You do need to be a bit more skilled in your weightlifting and in your bodybuilding. So yeah that’s the setup. And I’m excited to bring. You on the show, Chris, because you live and breathe this stuff more than I do. So I’m very curious to just hear how you go about it and what any relevant research that’s out there.

Obviously there’s not that much. So a lot of this is probably going to become, it’s probably comes from just being in the bodybuilding game for a while, I would assume. 

Chris: For sure. Yeah there’s a few things. I definitely, I’m excited to cover and share with your audience. I think a good way to start the conversation, we’ll just briefly talk about like muscle architecture to a certain extent, just to paint a good picture.

So obviously we understand that when a muscle contracts, the entire muscle belly is contracting from a neural standpoint. So like you can’t do a bench press and really not. Contract your pack, right? But we understand that an incline chest press can target the clavicular head better than the sternal head.

So I just want to like, start painting the picture as to why that is, although. The entire muscle contracts as a whole unit. It’s really important to realize or understand that muscle fibers don’t run from the insertion point to the origin point. Like one muscle fiber, isn’t the entire length of the muscle belly, right?

So performing different exercises actually can. Impact different regions of that muscle a bit differently, if that makes sense, right? There’s actually a decent amount of data we’ll use the quads, for example, where the compound movements will have more proximal hypertrophy, so the upper thigh, whereas something like the leg extension can lead to more distal hypertrophy the teardrop muscle, the VMO.

And that’s, 

Mike: that’s a good example of something that bodybuilders have been saying for a long time. And it’s just interesting that there’s some data out there now that supports that, which of course makes sense. That’s the beginning of science, right? As observation, people see things, they come up with theories and they begin to test them and investigate them.

So you have bodybuilders who. We’re smart guys. And they put a lot of time into developing their bodies. And they noticed things like that, for example, and just for people listening proximal means closer to the center, right? So you have the center of the body. So the proximal part of the leg would be the upper part.

That’s closer to the center of the body. And distal would be further from that makes sense. And leg extensions. Are uncomfortable for me, my knees, like I don’t actually have any problems, but if I load the leg extension to any degree, it actually hurts a little bit. And so I have, I’ve always had a little bit of crepitus in my knees for anyone listening, it’s just popping.

And as long as there’s no pain with it, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything’s wrong. Is at least the. The understanding that I have, and I’ve spoken with a PT about it as well. It’s just like some people have it, some people don’t, but and I can squat pain free leg, press pain free lunge, blah, blah, blah.

But I cannot make the leg extension comfortable just as a random comment. What would be another exercise that you’d recommend for increasing the development in the distal portion? 

Chris: It’s tough, right? Cause the leg extension is almost. One of the only exercises that overloads the quads and they’re fully short in position when the, yeah, when the knees fully extended.

So consider doing really light leg extensions that won’t affect your knee, but perhaps utilize a BFR. Ah, that’s a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. So you can use like a super light load, but you’re still performing that exercise. That makes sense. That’s a good idea. I think that would be a good option. But yeah, if you want, I can maybe talk about a couple different exercises to make that idea a bit clearer to the.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Mike: Let’s go over any of the major muscle groups that people are concerned with. So we’ve touched on chest and it makes sense to do some incline pressing and some flat pressing. Reverse grip pressing is another option, right? That can help. Develop the upper part of the pack.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Good research there showing that it activates the clavicular head more. I actually, I really like low to high flies on a cable machine or low to high flies with dumbbells for the clavicular head because I do too. Cause it’s 

Mike: easy on the shoulder and 

Chris: yeah, for sure. So the primary function of your Peck majors generally horizontal adduction.

So bringing the upper arm closer to the midline. Like you do when you do the bench press, but the primary function of your upper chest, the clavicular head is actually shoulder flexion. So that low to high fly move the low to high fly movement is a great option to target that. 

Mike: That’s a good tip.

And what’s the next major muscle group on your list? 

Chris: Yeah. If you want to talk about a chest a little bit more, like just looking at the different. Exercises and how they load the strength curve a bit differently. So if you take something like a dumbbell fly, obviously you have the greatest amount of tension when the Peck is fully stretched at the bottom of the movement.

And then at the top of the movement, it’s essentially effortless and there’s no tension there. There are advantages to using something like a Peck deck machine. And it’s just important to realize, not all variations are created equal, right? Like you can do so many different fly variations, but whether you’re using a peck deck cables or dumbbells, it is actually providing you with a different stimulus.

That 

Mike: makes sense. Yeah. I also the peck deck because if, dumb, obviously dumbbell fly is something that generally you’re going to use lighter weights on higher reps, but just for safety purposes, if the weights start to get heavy, I wouldn’t say the exercise gets dangerous, but. You have a higher likelihood of hurting yourself doing that than on the peck deck.

Yeah, 

Chris: for sure. I think it’s important that people obviously start their workout off with those primary compound lifts first And then maybe utilize those accessory exercises later on rather than doing something like pre exhaustion Because they’re just going to fatigue themselves and then decrease their performance on the major compound lifts So how you order and organize your exercise structure is pretty important as well.

Mike: I’ve spoken a bit about that Eric Helms was on the show That’s a bit ago to talk about pre exhaustion. We can talk, we can definitely touch on that though here, because people listening may not have heard what I’ve said about it or what Eric has said about it. Before we do though, I’m curious, let’s take the arms, right?

What are your thoughts in terms of how different exercises impact development of the biceps and the triceps differently? 

Chris: Sure. So I actually conducted an acute study on this, on bicep training. And what we found was we did an acute study where we had two separate conditions. One week the subjects came in and they did nine sets of bicep curls, keeping their shoulder at zero degrees.

So just. Normal standing cable curls, right? With your shoulder by your side. And then the next week they came in and they did three sets with their shoulder extended. So their arm was behind their body and they had a greater stretch on the long cut of the bicep. They did three sets neutral at the shoulder at zero degrees.

And then they did three sets with their shoulder flexed at 90 degrees, as if you’re doing like a spider curl. And what we actually found was that total muscle activation was greater When they varied their exercises, even though volume was exactly the same. So it seems like there is a greater internal stimulus despite the external workload being equal.

Mike: Interesting. And so how would you translate that into some practical programming? 

Chris: Yeah, so in regards to programming, I think it’s important if you are doing multiple accessory movements in one workout or throughout your program that you actually vary the joint angles. For example, let’s just say you were doing standing cable curls.

And standing dumbbell curls on the same day, I feel like you’re not really being efficient with your time where you should utilize two different exercises that actually have a different joint angle. 

Mike: How would you, like, how do you go about it? Do you just mix them up equally, or have you found that you prefer some variations over others?

Chris: For sure. Yeah. The way I typically go about it is I start with an exercise that kind of overloads the muscle and it’s shortened position. And then I do a secondary exercise that your muscle is strongest at, and it basically overloads the muscle in the mid range. And then I will finish with an exercise that stretches the muscle and potentially creates more damage, right?

So if let’s just take biceps, for example I might start with spider curls or preacher curl where the shoulders flexed a bit. And then I might my second exercise might be something where my shoulder is neutral. So at zero degrees, like a normal standing dumbbell curl. And then my last exercise we’ll put it under stretch.

So something like an incline dumbbell curl, where your back is on the bench and your arm is extended behind you and you’re getting a deep stretch on the bicep. I’d finished with something like that. Yeah, that makes sense. So we actually want to conduct a chronic study on that and run it for eight to 10 weeks and then compare.

The actual hypertrophy effects. So just because we saw greater muscle activation, we can’t necessarily say that it’s going to lead to greater gains, but we do want to study that and see what would happen. 

Mike: Yeah. That’s a good sign. Let’s talk about the shoulders. That’s another muscle group that is often stubborn.

I’ve dealt with that and you have a lot of different exercises to choose from. You have the three different deltoids and what are the best ways to target each of them? What are your thoughts on that? 

Chris: Obviously sticking with your compounds first and foremost is definitely going to be key, but I think something with the shoulders to consider is it seems like they recover pretty quickly and a lot of people struggle.

to actually get them sore. So potentially like increasing your frequency on shoulder training can be a good way to cause a growth spurt if you feel like it’s been lagging behind. But, 

Mike: and just to clarify there, correct me if if I’m wrong, but it’s not probably just the frequency, but it’s using that to get more volume in.

In the week, right? 

Chris: Yeah. 

Mike: Yeah. Because if you, let’s say you’re not seeing a great response from six sets, let’s just say it’s sort of nine sets of direct shoulder work per week, splitting those up into three different, let’s say you just do that in one workout, doing the same amount of volume in two or three workouts.

I wouldn’t expect that to make any difference. You might need to do 15 hard sets for your shoulders per week. And doing that in one workout is not a great idea. So of course you split that up, right? 

Chris: Yeah, for sure. There’s some research showing that increased frequency with similar volume can be potentially advantageous just because you’re like stimulating muscle protein synthesis more frequently.

But, it’s very contradicting. Yeah, I think you have to increase your volume, but by doing it more frequently, you can. Do more sets within a workout and still perform at a high level. So let’s just say you did five sets in three different sessions for 15 total sets. You’re probably going to get greater growth than doing nine total sets and breaking it up as three, three, and three.

Mike: And that’s true of any major muscle group, right? There is a point where you, whatever volume you, especially when you’re new, moving into your intermediate phase, there’s a point where what you’re doing is no longer going to cut it anymore. And you just got to work harder.

And of course, that has its limits too. Lyle McDonald would say, 10 to 20 hard sets per major most group per week. There you go. If you’re new, you can be closer to 10 and you’re going to do just fine. And how you split it up in terms of frequency probably doesn’t matter that much, but you just make sure you get in there your volume, but as an advanced, You’re probably going to have to do closer to 20 and going above that is probably not going to make much of a difference beyond that.

And I understand there’s, that’s controversial, but it’s workable. And what I like about it also is it’s simple and it’s practical for the everyday person. So even if I know the Schoenfeld study, and even if let’s say you could do, if doing 40 hard sets per major muscle group per week was going to result in quite a bit more muscle growth and strength gain than 20.

And that sounds cool. Go ahead and try to program that and let’s see how far you get, even if you were just doing it with your, let’s say your top three muscle groups that you want to grow the most. And then you’re going to, you’re going to use maintenance volume on the rest. Go ahead and program that and see what happens.

But anyways, I just wanted to point out for people listening that, and it’s just on, it’s on the top of my mind too, because I’m working through this a new second edition to my sequel to the to, to bigger, leaner, stronger, which is intended the sequels intended for intermediates. And there’s a whole chapter on this point and, going into some of the research of a lot of it is you’re just going to have to work harder.

Can just how, when you’re new to weightlifting and you go, Oh, progressive overload cool, you can take that to the bank, progressive overload, no matter what you do, you have to make sure you’re achieving progressive overload. And, there are different ways of doing it, but you gotta make sure you’re adding weight to the bar over time.

That’s like an aha moment, right? When you’re new, at least I remember that. And then when you’re intermediate, the aha is yes, progressive overload, but you’re also just going to have to work a lot harder for a lot less. 

Chris: A hundred percent. I think a lot of people that look at the research they don’t understand that sometimes the subjects in a research study are forced to train so fricking intensely.

Because they’re supervised sessions that the intensity of their training at is harder than the average gym goer, so if someone’s getting a really good benefit out of 10 to 15 sets per muscle group in these research studies, those 10 to 15 sets aren’t necessarily the At the same intensity as your average gym goer.

And it’s really important to notate that working harder is super, super important. And that can definitely be enough to move the needle. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good point of, even if we’re looking at it from the perspective of reps and reserve, right? How many reps do you actually have left? And I’ve been there myself where, I’ve realized that I’ve slipped in my I’ve gotten a little bit lazy in terms of in terms of reps and When in certain exercises in certain situations, I would have thought that it started to feel like, Oh, maybe I only have two reps left, but if I really go and really push myself to muscle failure, just to see, and I find out like I actually had four reps left and I would have stopped that set there.

And so even that can make a difference, in the volume, cause there’s a qualitative aspect to volume. And there are different elements to it, of course, but this would be one of them. As far as muscle gain goes, it’s like, how hard are these 

Chris: sets really? Yeah, a hundred percent and taking into consideration what loads you’re working with is important, right?

So you’ll see a lot of people in the gym Let’s just say they’re running any random program and it calls for three sets of 15 reps They might just select any load that they’re getting 15 reps with but like they literally can do 25 reps It’s like That set is almost like pointless because it’s almost just like a warmup.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s very unproductive. And when you’re working with those lighter loads, it’s more important to get closer to failure compared to when you’re working with heavier loads, closer to your one RM, cause you’re not activating as many muscle fibers until you get closer to that failure point.

When you’re using those lighter loads. So it’s really important that people just train hard and they’re not just doing, 15 reps because that’s what their program’s calling for and they’re selecting the appropriate load for that appropriate intensity. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

So back to the shoulders the point of doing more volume, working harder on the shoulders. I totally agree. I think that’s a common, the calves are probably another example of that, right? What about exercise selection and, starting with the compound? Let’s say it’s an overhead press or some sort of variation of of that or maybe it’s a bench press or an incline press those are not obviously primarily shoulder exercises, but if you’re going to, they are going to fatigue the shoulders.

So you have to take that into account, but then going beyond that, what do you like to do in terms of, cause I’ve seen, and I experienced it myself before I made changes to my. Programming and started training more intelligently where if you do, if you just do a bunch of compound pressing, you’ll definitely get some shoulder development, but you’re probably not going to have that really round kind of capped shoulders that it just requires isolation work.

Similar to the arms. It’s just, it’s hard to get great arms without doing a lot of work on the biceps and triceps. Like very rarely are there people who just do heavy pulling and have impressing and have impressive arms, yeah, 

Chris: for sure. I think It’s important, like depending on your training split, it’s important that you have one day where your vertical press movement is like your primary movement of the day.

Cause a lot of people, let’s just say they’re doing a push day just cause that’s popular, right? Like when people define push day, they say chest, shoulders, triceps, like chest always comes first, right? So they typically perform like a bench press movement first. And that’s totally fine, but you can set up your training program where either if you have two push days per week, maybe your first push day is going to be more chest focused where you’re going to start with like horizontal pressing.

And then your second push day is going to be more shoulder focused. So you’re going to start with a vertical press or an overhead press, right? Because if you start off with that bench press, you’re not going to be able to perform The overhead press with nearly as much load as if you did that first when you were fresh.

So I think that’s important to consider. And even if you’re only training like one push session per week, maybe you run one meso cycle. So four to eight weeks where you’re focusing on your horizontal push and then your next muscle cycle, you’re more focused on shoulder. So you’re doing more vertical pressing besides that, I think it’s really important to do a decent amount of volume on your lateral raises.

I’m a big fan of machine lateral raises where like your chest supported and you have your upper arm against the pad, just because I feel like. It’s really hard to cheat on those machines, whereas I see a lot of people doing dumbbell lateral raises and they’re using a lot of momentum and not to mention like the disadvantage of the dumbbell lateral raises where there’s no tension for like the first 30 degrees of movement, right?

So I’m a big fan of machine lateral raises. It’s just like a fail proof way. To train that lateral head. Whereas if you’re doing the dumbbell, you’re going to use a lot of upper trap. You’re not getting tension at the beginning of the movement and so on and so forth. 

Mike: Yeah. That makes sense. What about any form of a rear race?

Yeah. 

Chris: I’m a big fan of the reverse peck deck and this is this is random, but I’m a big fan of super setting rear delt flies with resistance band pull apart. So with a small muscle group, like the rear delts, I like getting a sick pump in them. And you 

Mike: can feel them. You’re like, Oh, that’s a real, yeah, 

Chris: you can palpate it and be like, all right, there’s actually a lot of blood in there.

Like I could see the change. So yeah, give that a shot, Mike, try a dumbbell swings. So like a rear delt fly. And then right when you’re done, just grab a resistance band and do like resistance band pull aparts. Just a fun little secret. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll try that. But I don’t do a lot of front raising at all.

I used to in the past and my training volume as a whole is a bit lower right now. I’m not necessarily like against doing any sort of front raising, but your front belts get. Pretty well stimulated through just bench pressing and OH being that it’s not necessary. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Even, you have bench pressing and then any other form of pressing, right?

A lot of, especially guys in particular, it’s rare to find a guy who’s not doing about as much chest pressing of one kind of another as he possibly can.

Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. If you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say, Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. 

Chris: What about 

Mike: the back? 

Chris: Oh, I love training back, man. Yeah, same. So many things to talk about with back.

I think, I almost think that’s the problem in itself. Just like calling it back is it like doesn’t do it justice, right? You can call the chest and like you’re accurate there, but your back is so complex, right? You have your rear delts, upper traps, mid traps, lower traps, Terry’s and lats.

So I think a lot of people potentially oversimplified back training because there’s so many different angles to hit your back from, and so many different functions of those muscles that I think it actually needs a bit more. Decent amount of variation to appropriately stimulate like every region, 

Mike: yeah. 

Chris: Tell 

Mike: us about that. 

Chris: Yeah. So a lot of people just typically do like a vertical pole and a horizontal pole, right? But let’s look at the lat pull down. For example, if you take like a pronated grip, Like a pronated wide grip, like a normal lat pulldown, the joint function, or the muscle action that you’re training is, shoulder adduction.

So your upper arm is becoming closer to your midline as you’re performing the concentric. And that’s one primary function of the lat and it’s a great way to target the lat. But another primary function of the lat is shoulder extension. If you were to do a neutral grip lap pulldown, a lot of people just consider it like equal because they’re both vertical poles, but I don’t really like.

Mike: And just so people understand. So neutral would be the palms facing each other. Pronated would be the normal palms facing away and then neutral palms facing each other. 

Chris: Yeah, exactly. So I don’t like. Considering them like the same thing, like they’re both vertical pulls, but they’re actually very different exercises because you’re training a different muscle action.

Mike: And I feel like if you pay attention, you can feel that difference. You can feel it working the back differently. Just by switching the grip. 

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. So if you did just three sets of pronated pull downs forever, And you never did neutral grip, like you’re missing a piece of the puzzle, in my opinion, right?

Again, maybe one pull day, you do your pronated pulldowns, and your next pulldown 

Mike: And what is the key difference, physiologically speaking, of that muscle action? What is the key difference between those two? 

Chris: Again, it’s just because the lat is a very, complex muscle, and because it has multiple functions, it would almost be like Saying the flat bench press is equal to the incline bench press, but we know it’s not, however, like when it comes to vertical pulling, like a lot of people just like labeling them as equals, but like you said, you can feel it in different regions of your lap and yeah it’s going to stimulate different.

Regions of the actual muscle, and like I said, because your muscle fibers don’t run from insertion point to origin point, like you need to utilize multiple exercises to train each portion or each region of that muscle. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything to the idea of training the upper part versus the lower part?

That’s one of those things that it just popped into my head. And it’s a question I never really set out to answer, but I’m just thinking of it now, or I remember hearing about that many, a long time ago, it’s Oh, if your lats don’t extend far enough down here, some, here are some things you can do.

Is that bullshit or, is that just genetics? Some people, they, they have that. And some people don’t regardless of what they do. 

Chris: Yeah, like from an aesthetic standpoint, obviously we can’t change our insertion and origins, but I will say you can program different exercises to stimulate or create more strain on certain areas of the muscle.

So just for example, let’s take pullover variations, right? So straight arm pullovers, if you do a cable straight arm pullover at the bottom of the range, you’re going to feel a pretty good contraction. And the lower part of your lap, right? Like when your shoulder is fully extended, like you’ll actually feel your lack contracted at the lower region.

Whereas if you were to do like a dumbbell pullover where your arm is going behind your head and you’re getting a full stretch on the lap and you’re fully flexing the shoulder joint. You’ll feel a stretch on the upper portion of your lat and you really won’t feel anything on the lower portion. So I think there is some truth there. And that’s more of like the art of body building that the science isn’t necessarily fully up to date with, or just requires more time to actually connect all of those dots and finalize the puzzle to it. But I do think there’s some truth to it. 

Mike: Interesting.

What about standing push downs? Standing push downs for Atric. Is that or no? Is that, no. Maybe. Maybe it’s a, it would be a, what’s it? I have to actually Google the name. Okay, so you’re standing up, you do it on the lat pull down machine. Okay. And so you have your arms straight out. It’s just like a common lat exercise.

Oh, sure, yeah. 

Chris: The straight arm pullover, the straight arm pull down or 

Mike: straight arm pull. Okay. I never called it a pull. I always thought of pull over as something you do on the bench where you’re literally pulling something over you. So I always called it pull down makes at least more sense because it doesn’t mix it up with the triceps.

But yeah, what about that? What about that exercise? 

Chris: Yeah. Like again, that’s training the lats in a very isolated manner where you’re just training extension of the shoulder joint. But I’m a big fan of it. It’s to me, it’s like comparable to a cable fly where you’re isolating your chest.

You’re isolating your lat when you’re doing those straight arm lat pulldowns. And like I said, when you do those, you’ll feel it in the lower portion of your lat or the mid portion of your lat compared to the dumbbell pullover where you’re going to feel it in that upper lat region. Yeah, I’m a fan of them either to start the exercise session as like a warm up just to get a little bit of blood in there or just to develop like a little bit of a mind muscle connection so you can actually feel your lat work or at the end of the session just to get more isolation volume in and maybe finish off with some pump work some cell swelling and accumulate more metabolites at the end of your session.

Mike: Yeah, that makes sense. Programming wise for the back. What are your thoughts on that same type of approach? Start with a heavy compound, like a heavy pull of some kind, maybe a deadlift or barbell or dumbbell row and then move on to like, how does that what are your thoughts on that? 

Chris: Yeah, for sure. I think I typically either start off with a heavy vertical pull.

Again, it can be either neutral or pronated, and then I would do a heavy horizontal pull, and that can flip vice versa. So maybe one session I’m doing the vertical pull first, and then one session I’m doing a row variation first. But similar to the differences in pull downs, there’s, So many variations of rows, right?

So if you’re doing like a row for your upper back, you’re going to have your elbows flaring out while you’re pulling, right? So if you look at the muscles of the upper back, you have your rear delt, you have your rhomboids and you have your mid traps. The functions of the rhomboids and mid traps are to.

Pinch your shoulder blades together, right? So scapular retraction. And then the function of the rear delt is to horizontally AB duct. So bring that upper arm further away from your midline. Doing a row with your elbows flaring out is totally different than doing a horizontal row with your elbows tucked close to your body.

So I think it’s just important that people pay attention to that because it’s going to significantly impact what muscles are working. If I do a horizontal pull with my elbows flaring out. I’m not training my lats like at all, like literally nothing because they don’t help with horizontal abduction.

They don’t help with scapular retraction. If I want to train my lats while performing a horizontal pull, I would have to depress my scapula down. So trying to pull the shoulder blade Into your back pocket is the cue. I like to use China, put that shoulder blade in your back pocket to start the movement, and then you’re extending at the shoulder as your elbow and your upper arm is close to the midline of your body.

So just very different movements. And I think it’s important that. You program them appropriately so you can develop your back the way you want, or at least target every area of the back. 

Mike: Yeah. And anybody listening, you can experience this right now. If you’re sitting, as if you were doing a seated row, if you have your elbow up and you start your elbows up and you start bringing them back and retracting your.

Your shoulder blades and you feel the upper, the muscles in your upper back starting to contract. You don’t feel much at all really in lats almost just feel relaxed. And then if you bring your elbows down to, to, to your side and put your shoulders down, it’s a good cue of as if you’re trying to tuck your shoulder blades in your back pockets and then do the same motion.

You feel your lats fully engaged and the muscles in your upper back, not 

Chris: nearly much as yeah, I think a lot of people have a hard time connecting with their lats when they’re doing rows. So besides that cue of, pulling the shoulder blade down into your back pocket, I also tell people to picture themselves scraping the floor with their elbow as they’re pulling.

So like you’re constantly keeping that downward intention as you’re pulling back and every time I like tell people to do that, they feel their lats fire and they’re like, I’ve never felt that in my life. So it’s like one of those things, if you’ve been training for three years and you’ve never felt your lats contract like that, I can guarantee you that when you start executing a movement with that intention, it’s going to make a very big difference.

Absolutely. 

Mike: And it can make a big difference in terms of development because of course if you there’s, there could be programming mistake of, maybe they’re just doing mostly exercises that are targeting other muscles in the back. Or it could just be how they’re doing certain exercises. And again, if they’re going about it incorrectly, and I’ve heard from people, many people over the years who lats were, are a very common one, very common way.

Like I’ve never felt my lats really working chest. Some guys have that seem to have that issue with chest as well. But I wanted to ask regarding back, what about also at first, I actually want to make a quick comment on that for me, what has helped with just really feeling my lats fire on a seated row is a neutral grip.

I’ve always liked that. It just is more comfortable to me to, and to keep my elbows down and down throughout the pole. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. And what about grip with your palms facing in like a, a chin up type of grip? 

Chris: Oh, like supinated forearm during rows or doing pull downs?

Any sort of pull. Okay. Yeah. A lot of people are stronger with the supinated grip and I think that’s why they prefer it. But what ends up happening is usually the biceps do a little bit more work. So I don’t recommend it unless you have a really good mind muscle connection with your lat. You can ensure that you’re not going to cheat and use a lot more bicep and take away from the lap.

And then another thing to consider is like what’s happening at the shoulder joint, right? So when you’re taking that underhand grip and you’re supinate the forearm, more likely than not, it’s gonna lead to a little bit of external rotation of the shoulder and. The lats, one of the secondary functions of the lat is to actually internally rotate the shoulder.

 I don’t think it’s optimal by any means, but it’s another option, but I’m not a huge fan of it. 

Mike: Okay. So it’s best use would be if you actually are trying to target your biceps a little bit more because of, there could be, it could just even be how much time do you have to be in the gym every week and.

You want to double up maybe after you’ve done your heavy rowing and you’ve done your work that is specifically targeting the upper muscles in the back, the lats, and you want to do a little bit more pulling. You also want it to double as some bicep work. 

Chris: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

That’s a good way to utilize it. If there’s one exercise I can recommend for people that struggle with their lap, my muscle connection. I like doing a low cable row and I like doing it unilaterally. So just one arm at a time. And what I do is with the setup, I take a slightly staggered stance and I actually side crunch at my torso.

So I laterally flex the spine to the side I’m rowing on. And that’s another secondary function of the lat. So that makes sense. Yeah. It’s going to just enable you to really feel that one side at a time. So I laterally flex the spine. So I do a little side crunch. I intentionally just drop my shoulder blade down before I bend out my elbow or do anything.

And like you feel your lat contracted already and you still haven’t moved the weight, like you just got in your starting position and then as I pull back, I think it’s out. Getting my elbow down as I’m driving back. And I just feel the lat really fire up. It almost feels like it cramps, but it’s just a really good way to teach people to connect with that 

Mike: muscle.

Yeah, that makes sense. I realized that on the legs, we didn’t talk about hamstrings. We talked about quads and everybody knows they need to squat. You can then get specific with how you are at, how you are addressing the quads. What about the 

Chris: hamstrings? Sure. With the hamstrings again. I think it’s important to think about the two primary functions.

So obviously you have knee flexion. So any sort of hamstring curl is going to stimulate the hamstrings very well. And then the secondary function is hip extension. So any sort of hip hinge, like a RDL or 45 degree hip extension are going to be like your bread and butters. But there are some differences too, between hamstring variations.

So if you take a prone hamstring curl. And you’re doing a lying hamstring exercise, your hip is in a more extended position, right? So when you perform the hamstring curl, I feel that there’s a deeper contraction at like my upper hamstring closer to my glute. And then if I were to do a seated hamstring curl, your hips are flexed.

So your hamstrings start off in a stretched position. And when I perform those, I feel the exercise targeting more of my distal hamstrings. So like closer to behind the knee area rather than closer to my glute. Does that make sense? 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I’m just looking back and my, and I can totally see what you mean.

I prefer prone because I find it more comfortable seated. It really depends on the setup. Some machines have been comfortable. Some have not, whereas the prone are generally comfortable and I’m not like trying to wiggle around just to get into a position where I feel like I use enough weight comfortably.

You know what I mean? 

Chris: Yeah, for sure. And the prone, gives you an opportunity to. To get the hamstring and the shortest position possible. So that’s what the hips extended and the knees flex at the same time. So I think if you have to choose one, I would do a lying before I chose a seated. And then if you’re someone that is more advanced and you have a lot of volume and a decent amount of exercise selection, I see the reasoning to do both.

And then I think it’s important to notate with hamstring training is I wouldn’t do something like an RDL to start off my workout. And the reason for that is because it creates a lot of muscle damage because you’re overloading the hamstrings when they’re stretched, right? It’s one of those lengthening exercises and it’s very eccentric focused.

So if you started off your workout with that, You’re most likely going to inhibit your performance with the rest of your compound movement. So I like doing RDLs after one of my other primary compound lifts. 

Mike: Yeah. That’s the way I’ve always done it. It would be after some form of squatting usually.

And sometimes it would be some back squats and some front squats. Usually it’d be one or the other though, and then move into an RDL and then move into, it could be again, a leg extension has been, I haven’t done it in a while. Cause it just. It doesn’t feel good on my knees, but it might be a walking lunge followed by some hamstring curls is like a very common leg workout that I’ve done over the years.

Nice. Yeah. That makes sense. And I guess the last thing that there are two things that we might as well be as thorough as possible. There’s, if we’re on the leg, so let’s talk about calves. Is there any hope for someone like me? 

Chris: The calves are interesting. I think the most important thing is don’t save it for the last exercise of your workout.

If it is a weak point, it’s a good, just because you’re like, like you’re not motivated at the end of the session, right? You just want to get out of there. So everyone gets to their gastroc exercise, the last exercise, they’re like fly through it, or they just skip it as a whole because they just want to go home.

If it truly is a weak point that you care to bring up, just do it first. 

Mike: Cause it’s something that you can easily superset with whatever you’re doing. That, that’s probably how I would, I don’t know if you would not do it that way. That’d be my first thought though, is let’s say I’m even bench pressing to do a set of bench maybe rest a minute, go do a set of calves, rest a minute or two and get back to the bench.

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. And even on a leg day, One of the benefits of doing calves first would be a lot of people have like limited ankle dorsiflexion, right? So they can’t pull their toes to their nose and that like negatively impacts their ability to squat to depth or their squat Just feels a little bit uncomfortable.

So if you start with calves first, you’ll actually like acutely increase Your ankle mobility and your ankle range of motion, and then when you squat, it might feel more comfortable. So Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, it’s just you’re gonna, you’re gonna hit your weak point and then you’re also probably going to squat better.

So you gotta look at the bright side of doing calves first, , 

Mike: and then, all right, so that’s in terms of just like a programming tip. And then what about exercises and volume? And sure. Frequency goes along with that, but 

Chris: yeah, so the calves are simple, which is a good thing. Obviously primary function is just plantar flexion.

So going up on your toes, but they do assist with a knee flexion. So any sort of hamstring curl is going to hit your calves, your gas shock a little bit. If you want to be really specific, make sure you do a seated calf exercise. So target the soleus a little bit more and then a standing or like donkey calf variation where the knee is extended.

That’s really as complex as it gets with that. 

Mike: Leg press is another good option for that, right? 

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. Like press, as long as you’re not like using 600 pounds, like a lot of people. 

Mike: And just to be clear for leg press calf raise, not, a leg press is fine, but you can, it’s a good, it’s a good machine to use for your legs straight and, just targeting your calves.

Chris: Yeah, it’s funny. If someone has really poor development of their calves and they’re doing like press calf raises of 600 pounds, you can almost guarantee they’re just like using their Achilles and like a lot of momentum and like spring energy and stuff like that. So yeah, a lot of people bounce obviously out of the hole.

So making sure you pause in the fully stretched position. Just so you’re not using momentum because the Achilles tendon does store a lot of energy and it’s very easy to cheat. So yeah, just definitely pausing at the bottom and pausing at the top. 

Mike: Yeah. That’s a good tip. And then it’s just a matter of doing as much as you possibly can, it’s, it seems to be a muscle group that is almost impossible to make sore. At least I’ve found that over the years. And I try to think. I’ve done quite a bit of volume and I’ve done, I’ve gone, back and forth on it where I’m like, all right, I’m gonna do a lot of calves and see what happens.

And I’m like a very small amount of something happened and then not do anything calf specific, just do standard, leg training, but it seems like they can probably just because they’re a smaller muscle group, right? They can take quite a bit of a beating similar to the shoulders.

You had mentioned that earlier. 

Chris: Yeah, for sure. If you’re someone that trains with like really good form and appropriate frequency and you’re still not getting calf growth, potentially utilize like an advanced technique, maybe intraset stretching or even BFR just to give yourself a different stimulus that you’re not used to.

That would be like the last option on the menu. And then it’s just 

Mike: accept 

Chris: your fate. Yeah. Or say a prayer. 

Mike: So yeah. Yeah. All right. So last is would be core, right? So abs core, what are your thoughts on improving ab and core development? 

Chris: It’s actually a huge weak point of mine, so I can be a huge hypocrite for the next minute.

But again, I think not to get too off topic, but a lot of people say, just get lean and you’re going to have a great midsection. And I’ve been there and 

Mike: rarely the case, 

Chris: Rarely the case. Like I’ve been 5 percent body fat for the shows, for bodybuilding competitions and my midsection, I’ve been like, It looked good, but it wasn’t what I wanted.

And I definitely wasn’t happy with it. There, it was clear that there was a lack of muscular development. And the reason for that was because there was a lack of training and prioritizing that muscle group. And that’s, 

Mike: and that’s common because a lot of people, I think that’s still a thing.

It definitely has been a thing over the years and it probably still is that There’s the leanness and then there’s the, Oh, and if you’re doing your heavy compounds, that’ll take care of it, those heavily engaged core. And don’t worry about it. Just do your squatting and your dead lifting and your bench resting overhead, pressing, get lean, and you’ll have a killer six pack.

Sure. 

Chris: Yeah. I just, I totally disagree with that, and it’s like what you said before. If someone wants big biceps, you’re not going to tell them to just do pull ups in rows. Like you’re going to go tell them to do a bicep curl. If someone wants like really impressive abs, I think it’s important that you train them.

So from a function standpoint, obviously like the rectus abdominis, the main six pack muscle, primary function is just spinal flexion. So doing things that brings your rib cage closer to your hips. So any sort of crunch or sit up variations are going to be good. And then vice versa, any sort of exercises that brings your pelvis closer to your rib cage.

So Things like hanging leg raises or reverse crunches and stuff like that. I think that needs to be the bread and butter for the six pack muscles, but then it’s also important to not neglect the external obliques. So doing some sort of rotational exercise or some sort of lateral flexion exercise is definitely important as well.

Do you have 

Mike: a kind of go to’s for those? 

Chris: Yeah. For the rotational 

Mike: exercise 

Chris: or lateral flexion. Sure. A lot of new gyms have the lower trunk rotation machine. I’m not sure if you’ve seen it. You put your knees on this pad. Yeah. Yeah. I have. Yeah. Your shoulders say square, right? And you just twist your hips.

I freaking love that exercise for trunk rotation. And then for lateral flexion, I keep it really simple. I do side lying crunches. Yeah. Where I like, I bring my leg up as the same time I’m bringing my rib cage to my hip, right? So I’m just connecting the dots and getting those two points closer together.

Kind of like a bicycle. Am I, 

Mike: am I envisioning that properly or no? 

Chris: So yeah, lie on your if you were lying on your side, one knee is bent and the other leg is straight and I have one arm behind my head, like by my ear. And. I’m literally just raising one leg up, like abducting at one leg and then crunching at the same time.

Yeah I do those and that’s pretty much it for like core stabilization and for injury prevention, I think it’s really important to do exercises like dead bugs. That’s probably my favorite core stabilization. I’ve never even heard of this. I’m Googling the dead bug. I like it. It’s super important, man.

Like I’ve literally seen people that can squat 500 pounds for reps and they’re somehow always getting hurt, even though they still have An insane amount of strength, and then I have them do dead bugs and they can’t even do 10 reps without shaking like crazy. And it’s actually a fairly like simple and basic exercise, but I think it really shows how weak their core actually is.

This 

Mike: is a super cute exercise. I’m doing right, right when we’re done, I’m going to. I do my little daily. I have a little stretching just some yoga stretches that I do every day. I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to do this and see where I’m at. You’re going to feel it, 

Chris: man. You might have a little bit of a wobbly, shakiness to it, but you’ll, yeah, definitely include it and let me know what you think.

Yeah. 

Mike: Yeah. I’m going to do it. Question weighted versus unweighted with any of this ab core stuff. Yeah. 

Chris: So just like any muscle group, I think it’s important to start with minimal load so we can say unweighted or body weight, right? If someone can’t do a pushup, we’re not going to tell them to go like this.

Bench press, a ton of weight kind of thing. So I think it’s important to get the exercises down with your body weight first, and then you can progressively overload. I don’t think it’s as necessary, but if you really want to get stronger abs and thicker abs, then over time, it just makes sense that you’re going to have to use some load.

Mike: Yeah, that’s a staple for me has been just a weighted cable crunch. Like I’ve always I’ve done that for, and I noticed doing that Stelly, so I was doing a way to cable crunches. I was doing leg raises. I was doing bicycles. I might be forgetting a couple of those. Those were like core exercises I would go to.

And I noticed, I definitely noticed that. My abs, my rectus abdominis the, for people listening, those are the muscles that you most associate as abs, right? So those, I definitely looking at pictures when, so I have a picture of when I first got pretty lean, maybe somewhere around 7, 8 percent or so where you can clearly see all your abs and you look pretty good.

And then a couple of years later of doing a lot of Just the stuff that I preach, including this ab training and then got, and got down to a bit leaner, actually the, that next time. And I was impressed to see how much, of course it’s not like night and day, but if you really look, you’re like, Oh yeah there’s quite a bit more muscle there now than there was previously.

And then though, I actually was like happy with, I know some people like the look of really big, really blocky abs. I personally don’t. I like. There, I think there’s a balance aesthetically. And so I was happy with where I was at there. And so then I dropped out the weighted stuff and I still do some, I still do maybe a few sets per week.

But obviously that’s probably not necessary. I would. Think, I don’t know if you agree, but doing, this would be my experience at least doing heavy compounds has been enough to maintain the development that I achieved through the focused work and, it doesn’t, and then maybe a few sets of direct ab work per week, just to keep things where they’re at.

And as far as obliques go, I was doing. Lateral flexion type. So let me, whether it was a side raise or sometimes there was some twisting exercises, but I found that I, my obliques got to a point where I actually didn’t want them to grow anymore because yeah, it looks cool when you’re really lean, but.

If it makes you just look fatter, unless you’re really, unless you’re really lean, right? You can even be lean. You could be at 10 percent body fat and the 10 percent is great. It’s a it’s a great place to be. You’re going to look good. You feel good. It’s, you can train hard, but then if you have really developed obliques, it almost looks like, a muffin top.

Chris: Yeah, for sure. No, I totally hear you there. But it’s motivating to hear that you saw a significant difference after you gave it a lot of attention and focus, and you can definitely maintain it with less volume than was required to build it. Like you said, you’re doing your heavy compounds and you’re just doing it.

Some direct ab work, but not nearly as much as you were when you were really trying to bring them up. Another thing with me in regards to ab training, one thing I want to add is besides like body fat distribution, I stay like I stay at 10%, like pretty much effortlessly, but my midsection is terrible even though I’m 10%.

So like some of that is due to body fat distribution. And just the fact that I store more body fat there. But a huge component to it is because I don’t have good development. So sometimes I’ll notice if I focus on abs for four to six weeks, my midsection will look better, even though my body fat isn’t changing.

Yeah, I think it’s really important that people don’t neglect that. 

Mike: Yeah, that makes sense. One other thing that I think it’s worth you touching on is making sure that you’re focusing on the concentric and the eccentric. Portions of the exercise. Can you talk about that just in general?

It’s just a common mistake that I see. And there are many ways to certain exercises make it easier to mess it up, but, yeah, what are your thoughts on 

Chris: that? Oh, a hundred percent. I think one thing I commonly say is if you can’t pause the movement, And basically at the snap of a finger, you’re not in control of the movement.

And you’re just letting the weight move your limbs through a range of motion, rather than like concentrically contracting the muscle and like eccentrically lengthening and lowering it under control. I think it’s really important that you’re actually moving the load. Rather than the load is moving you.

Mike: So like a good example of that, like obviously a common mistake is bicep curls, right? So paying attention to the raising of the way, flexing the biceps and then just letting it fall down. 

Chris: Yeah. I see people do bicep curls and I feel like they train their front delt more than they do their bicep because.

Their elbow joint isn’t actually moving through a full range of motion and their shoulder joint is moving through a huge range of motion, right? So yeah, being in control of the movement for both the concentric and eccentric is really important from like a scientific standpoint. You got a lot more muscle activation during the concentric phase, but you create a lot more muscle damage during the eccentric phase.

So they’re both important for. Stimulating hypertrophy and stimulating muscle growth. So you’re just shooting yourself in the foot if you’re missing out on one of the phases or just not doing a good job of. Controlling both of them. 

Mike: Yep. Makes sense. All right. One last before we wrap up, I realized, and this is true.

It’s topical. It’s it’s popular and that’s glutes. Might as well touch on it. So for people that, let’s just say, let’s say for the person who’s doing a good job on their leg training and they just want more glute development, especially females, right? 

Chris: Yes. I would say if your goal is to build big glutes, juicy aesthetic glutes, I would definitely start one of your leg workouts with a hip thrust movement or something that overloads the glutes when they’re fully extended.

Like if you’re squatting and leg pressing or doing a different leg compound movement every time, It’s like you’re not prioritizing your glutes, right? So I think the hip thrust is like the best exercise, so to speak for glute development. I don’t like using that term, but it’s just so efficient. It trains it through a full range of motion for the most part, and it overloads it when the glutes are fully contracted and fully shortened at the top of the lift.

So it’s a great lift that you can overload heavily. You can get strong on pretty quickly. Yeah. It needs to be in your programming if you want big glutes, in my opinion. Yep. Makes sense. 

Mike: Awesome, man. Those were all the things that I wanted to pick your brain on. And I really enjoyed the conversation.

Actually, you’re giving me some ideas for my programming. I’ve taken a few notes, so this was fun. That’s awesome. Yeah. For people listening who want to find you on the interwebs and check out. What else you have to offer in the way of information and you, you also have, you have programming as well, right?

You have training products to tell us where can people find you. And if they’ve liked what you’ve had to say here, what else of yours should they check 

Chris: out? So for my one to one coaching is done through a competitive breed. com. That’s my coaching brand. And then my online training programs and my educational content is on school of gains.

com. So that’s coming out very soon within the next week. Not exactly sure when this is dropping, but stay tuned for that. If it’s not out yet, it’ll be, there’ll be out very soon. And I’m also working on a collaboration project with Jeff Knippard. Covering everything you need to know on body recomposition.

So I’m really excited about that. And that’s coming out in late September. Yeah, you can find everything on competitive breed. com. And then my social media handle is just at Christopher that barricade 

Mike: cool. And that’s B a R a K a T in case people are wondering on the spending. Correct. Cool, man. Again, thanks for taking the time to do this.

This is a great information and we’ll, I’ll, you have to come back and do this again. We can figure something, figure 

Chris: out something else interesting to talk about. For sure. Thanks so much for having me on Mike. And next time you’re in the Tampa area, I would love to have you in the lab and I’ll just connect in person again.

Mike: Yeah, absolutely. You gotta run me through some training. I’ll be your I’ll be your coaching client. You can just tell me what to do. That’ll be fun, man. Sounds like a plan. Yeah. I look forward to it. Yes. Likewise. Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I’m doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please consider checking out my VIP one on one coaching service, where we can help you get in the best shape of your life.

My team and I have helped people of all. ages, circumstances, and needs. So no matter how complicated or maybe even hopeless you might think your situation is, we will figure it out and we will get you results. Every diet and every training program is 100 percent custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls.

Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements and other products. And the list of benefits goes on and on. So to learn more, head over to www. legionathletics. com coaching. That’s legionathletics. com slash coaching and schedule your free consultation call. I should also mention that there is usually a wait list and new slots do fill up very quickly, so do not wait if this sounds even remotely interesting to you.

Go ahead and schedule your call now. Again, that is legionathletics. com slash coaching.