Why Training to Failure Is RUINING Your Calisthenics Progress

Welcome back to the channel, guys. In today's video, we're going to be discussing why submaximal training is crucial when it comes to you learning advanced calisthenic skills and why training to failure is actually killing your progress. I'm going to be giving nearly an hourong breakdown talking about everything from how to structure your training all the way to the science behind the matter of why submaximal training is so so important. diving into the difference between type 1 and type two muscle fibers, handyman's principle, and a whole host of other things so that you guys can stay

away from all the [ __ ] that you guys see online. The calisthenic space is unfortunately filled with many people who have unlocked advanced skills but have no clue what they're talking about. And in today's video, we're going to be dissecting everything from the general programming principles that you need to follow all the way to the scientific breakdowns of why submaximal training is going to yield in much better results when it comes to you learning advanced calisthenics skills. Make sure you guys watch the entire thing through because even if you miss one part of the

meeting, you will not be able to grasp the entire concept. Enough talking. Let's get into it. Basically, we're going to talk about training and programming today. Like what goes through my thought process when I write programs on a larger scale so you know how to write them for yourself. I'm just repeating it really quick because I I forgot to record. Um these are the variables that we need to examine. Age, height, weight, your current strength Level, and then also one more I forgot to mention, which is going to be how much stress you experience on

a day-to-day basis. Your older, heavier, and taller counterparts are going to be able to tolerate less volume and be able to perform less high quality working sets compared to their shorter, lighter, more laid-back counterparts, right? Who who don't exhibit much stress. This is a big reason why it's very hard to make substantial amounts of progress when you're working a full-time job and you're extremely stressed out compared to, you know, someone who is living life on low cortisol. you know, it's just it's simply the case. Your ability to recover session to session is much better. Um,

your ability to bring mental energy to each session is going to be substantially higher. Okay? And this is the first thing we need to identify is your operable bounds. This is where your program should live. Okay? Within this zone. So the lower bound can be defined as the easiest but most useful exercise that we can utilize when it comes to us learning skills. The upper bound is going to be the hardest but still the most useful exercise we can use to learn the skill we're trying to learn. Very simple example. We're trying to achieve the

PLCH. We're currently stuck on advanced tuck. We're trying to learn straddle. A good lower bound would be something like a PLCH lean because it's something that we can scale no matter how strong we are. Okay? You know you have a good lower bound when the lower bound is always unchanging. A good upper bound in this example would be straddle plch attempts because we're holding an advanced tuck and we're trying to get the straddle plch. So doing the hardest exercise that still brings us use is going to be the upper bound in this case, which is

going to be our straddle plch. If we did full plch, it would not necessarily be good. It would be a bad upper bound because it's virtually too difficult to stimulate any sort of type two fibers. You're going to enter the position and you're just you're not even going to fight it. your body's just going to shut down because it's overwhelmed and just fall. Okay, so remember our goal is to stimulate type 2 fibers without generating a lot of fatigue. We have two different axes that we need to worry about. We have relative intensity, which is

how much force is your muscle generating for every repetition that you do. And then we have proximity to failure, which is how close are you actually taking that contractile tissue to failure. We want relative intensity to be high and we want proximity to failure to be lower right around the 70% mark when form starts to break because after form degrades you build up abundance of fatigue and this fatigue is going to bleed over into your subsequent working sets. Make sense? Then you cannot reproduce the result that you did on your first set for a consistently

long period of time and so your stimulation of type 2 fibers drops significantly. Okay. So, it's not the sets are easy. The sets are hard. High relative intensity, low proximity to failure. Okay? That's how we stimulate type two fibers in the most efficient way possible. And like we discussed, there is no perfect amount of volume. The number of sets that you're going to do session to session is going to fluctuate, right? Or you run a running average. Okay, this week I had a running average of six working sets that were high quality. This week it

was seven. This week it was eight. Boom. Package it. And now you have a good kind of window to train between. Um, the goal is not to be 100% accurate. It's not. The goal is to just have a good idea of how much your body can tolerate and work within those bounds. Teddy, go for it. Uh, yeah. So, for warm-ups, usually it's uh it's best usually to to mimic the the main set movement like the same, right? So for example, if it's uh if it is a 90 degree handstand push-up, then I do like bandit

90 HSPU. But uh why is it that for me if uh I I do the 90 degree better if I warm up with PL like if I if I don't warm up the plench, my scapula socket just feels like off. Um, I would assume because with um with PLCH it's you are basically doing the 90 degree on steroids. You know what I'm saying? So it's like you're you're stimulating all the same areas but way way more compared to just doing a standard set of 90°ree warm-ups. So yeah, I would say that's a that's a great

warm-up and probably is very beneficial for when you do your 90deree handstand push-up work because all the activations are nearly the same. It's just the everything is on steroids because your arm is fully locked out. Oh yeah. Uh one more question. Uh because my front lever press is really weak. Uh what kind of anatomical part that is uh inefficient I guess. Yeah. So shorter arms with a poor lat insertion. I forget if it's higher or lower lat insertions that make it more disadvantageous, but does not matter to you because these are things you can't control.

You know what I'm saying? Um the biggest thing is just keep going through the range of motion of shoulder extension with a high relative intensity to stimulate the type two fibers. So that's why I have you doing straight arm lat pull downs. um failing between like four to seven reps because you're gonna utilize a heavy weight and you're going to stimulate the type two fibers in the perfect straight arm shoulder extension position plus cluster sets of straddle front lever negatives. We're hitting the type two fibers from a multitude of different angles. So, it's impossible for

you not to make progress. Okay, Stephen, go for it. Yes. So, I definitely am this overanalytical guy. uh both in training and in also the rest of my life I [clears throat] think. Um so I don't know in training I I was training with a friend yesterday and I just did my workout and he was like he's a crazy guy. He can do like two finger maltes and some and stuff like that. Um and he told me yeah you don't have to do advanced tench that doesn't correlate to full plunchch at all and all of

this stuff and then I thought about it. Sorry. He's a [ __ ] idiot. Sorry I didn't understand. He's a [ __ ] idiot bro. I don't Oh, I don't know why people say stuff like this. Like, do you realize what this statement means? Like, just break it down. Advanced talk plch does not correlate to full PLCH. Yeah, we talked about it a lot. He talked he like he said it correlates to the full PLCH if you talk about the strength aspect and everything but the whole neurological connection like uh to combine the core aspect

and everything your whole body like the full punch not the same as the advanced hunch is basically what he said and that makes sense. He agreed at the end that the advanc is not too bad. But nevertheless, my point is that he just got me thinking and that led me to thinking about this uh the whole workout and how I can change it up and everything. Like I have two questions. One, how can I stop thinking like this? How can I just do my session and not overthink everything even outside of training and everywhere? And

second thing, do you need to have like one fixated program or do you need to have like a structure that tells you Uh Monday is volume day, Wednesday is active recovery and adaptation and Friday is intense day. You can do these exercise and then just go by feel and do as much as you feel like makes sense every time. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, a lot a lot to unpack there. Um let's start off with the first question. How do I stop overthinking about everything? This is ultimately a character flaw that

stems from some sort of insecurity or um lack of confidence ultimately because you it's like you get a dopamine hit every time you design a new program. You're like, "Yep, this is the one." Like, "This is it." And then you train on it for a few weeks and you're like, "Bro, I haven't get gotten full planchch in 3 weeks. Okay, let's change it again." So, it's like just a a dopamine. you. It's quick dopamine because you're sitting there like a geek overanalyzing your program, making changes that are going to have virtually no impact on your

ability to progress. So, and guess what? It's going to happen the same thing in all aspects of your life. So, you need to learn to control your mind. Okay? You need to be like, "Yo, I'm sticking with this no matter what." You know, like no matter what, I am following this program. I will not get off of it minimum for, let's say, three months. Okay. Um your other question should we have like a set program to follow or should we always update it I think was your thing like is there a benefit to updating it

frequently? Uh not not updating it you also updating but like when you structure out the workout not like making it uh precisely on what it has to be but just writing out an idea of how of what the training should be looking like of what it actually targets of what the goal of it is and then just training by field you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I've actually started doing a new thing when I write programs. Um, I write three days, the intense day, volume accumulation, and then the um active recovery. And

I like what day to do, but I I incorporate a rule. You must you must do one intense session per week. That's the only rule. But you choose. So, like let's say today I feel average. Okay. Volume accumulation. Okay. How do I feel tomorrow? I feel really good tomorrow. Okay. I do intense day tomorrow, right? So, two days in a row, I just trained because I just listened. I just asked myself, how do I feel? But just having a gauge of how do I feel, you know, it's not definable. So, um, what I recommend is

doing grease the groove and seeing how those sets feel. If they feel sharp, do a crazy session that day. Do intense session. If it feels horrible, you're like 400 lb, active recovery or skip it, you know? So you should write a program but that is going to change based on how you feel. Okay. And every day you then just look how you feel and then every day you just do something. You reassess. Every day you reassess. Yeah. Okay. Um and then the other question like like look look look you guys have to understand. Okay. I

I'm also I'm trying to play the comedy role here. I see some of you guys laughing. Um you know what I'm saying? So, I've just been so I've been so pissed off lately with the calisthenic scene because we got one guy saying submaximal training is useless. Just enter flow state, bro. It's like, dude, what are we doing, man? And these guys these guys are paying thousands of dollars to this man, dude. It's unbelievable. So, this whole argument of these strong athletes who weigh 50 kilos and are gnomes trying to tell you how to train, it's

it's laughable. Okay, advanced tuck plunchch is no different than full plch. If you say that full that advanced tuck plch does not apply to full plch because of the neurological core aspect, you are telling me that the main bottleneck of your ability to hold a full planchch is the abdominal engagement which we all know is not the case. Okay, it is simply how much torque can you generate in this position. Right? I would argue it's the lean if anything, not even the abdomen engagement. Like if I did an advanced tuck plunchch with the same amount

of lean, dude, that's literally a full planchch, you know? Um, so yeah, this is also another thing. Let's This is a PLCH, right? If I had weight in front of me and I'm holding it, this is a PLCH. Yeah. Assuming I have the the lean angle, right? So, what People are doing on social media is you have a 5- foot guy who's holding a PLCH, you know, and he needs to generate, let's say, 100 pounds of force, and we have a guy who's 6 feet tall who can only hold an advanced tuck planch, but he's

still generating the same force. You get what I'm saying? So, like, this guy's advanced tuck planch is just like this guy's full plch, and these two are arguing over which one can train better. You get what? Like, how illogical does that sound, you know? It's unbelievable. This is why you have to examine another sport because this sport is very cooked with the people we have in it. Um because one guy's legs are extended further so he thinks he owns the world and the other guy is literally stronger but his legs are tucked in, right? Because

he's maybe longer, heavier. And then this is the essential argument of everyone in the sport. And so the funny thing happens is the guy stuck on advanced top who's stronger than the guy doing full PLCH goes to the short guy for coaching who doesn't know how he got there when they're the same strength level and tries to teach him his method and then he stays plateaued. You see the the irony there, you know, it's very it's this is the only sport with this problem. It's it's so it's so unique. Um Teddy, go for it. Uh

yeah. Would you count like the reverse deadlift as a front lever press? Because uh for last workout I did the halflay, but uh like it's like a press Because I cannot hold it. Uh and it's actually easier than if I try to to do like the straight arm lat pull down on the advanced stock front lever if you get what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah. So that's the only problem. Like when you do advanced tuck presses, sometimes people just move like their legs up. So it looks like they straighten. So you look like this,

right? So this is my torso. These are my legs in advanced tuck. And if I do a press, the press should be like this, right? But when you do advanced tuck press, it's like this, you know, which is not the same movement. So um same thing with inverted deadlift, right? This is all you're doing. you're just straightening out fully like this. But a press is your whole body tilts in unison, which is much harder and is much more is much better. So inverted deadlift, it has carryover, but not to the same degree as a actual

press and an actual straight arm lat pull down. All right. And we talked about fatigue is not like fatigue is not this magical health bar, right? We can break fatigue into three big pillars. Connective tissue, which is your tendons, right? How much how much What is the health bar of your tendon? Right? That's 25% of it. Is is your thing about to snap the next session? Like, you know, we want to be careful. Knock on wood. Okay. And then muscular is going to be the other 25%. This is actually going to be your your contractile

tissue, right? Your muscle because this is also going to get Fatigued when you hold your sets. And the other 50% is the mental acuity aspect. How focused are you? How much are you actually bringing to each session? the actual formation of new neural pathways. Right? Our whole training is literally we have one goal. It's to extract as much power out of the type two fibers as possible. We know that with Henman's principle, muscle fibers are called up upon in a linear fashion starting with type one and as the relative intensity increases, we call upon the

type 2 A and type 2B muscle fibers which are the strong aggressive ones. That's why you can have someone who looks like a twig but is doing full maltes presses because he is literally showing you that his body is so neurologically adapted to utilizing type 2 A and type 2B muscle fibers that he doesn't need a lot of contractile tissue because he's already utilizing the ones he has to such a high degree. You can have a bodybuilder who's extremely weak but has a very large potential for strength but he has not yet taught those muscle

fibers or recruited them through the necessary training. Okay? Because as we know bodybuilders are more concerned with type one longer time under tension, right? And and by the way bodybuilders always recruit the type two fibers just at the very end of their sets after they've reached like a large amount of time under tension. But think about it think like think about it right you can you can utilize right our body is ATP Like energy like our muscles are are firing energy right so it's in our best interest to utilize all of the energy that our

muscle has with the type two fibers right away. So versus starting the engine with type one and then slowly redlinining to type two we start with type two. So, we're using energy off the bat to stimulate type two. Bodybuilders start their sets type one, type one, type one, type one, right? Lactic acid is building up, muscles actually starting to get fatigue, type one, type two, and then as they get to the end where they need to really call on those aggressive fibers, type two gets recruited for a short period of time, set ends, right? Calisthenic

athletes were calling on type two almost instantly because most of the movements we're doing static, you know, static movements are are intrinsically very intensive off the bat. Really high relative intensity. So, and this is like 50% of the whole game, right? The for these processes to actually like undergo and these neural pathways to form, this is where most of the recoveries happen. Stephen, go for it. And we're moving on to the new info after this. Yes. So what I don't understand is how should you how should you combine um acquiring th those type two muscle

fibers which basically means like training very intensely right uh with training semoximally uh with having enough time under tension. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome question. I love this question. So remember I defined two different things. I defined relative intensity and then proximity to Failure. Okay. Relative intensity is a measurement of [snorts] how much force your muscle is generating per repetition. That's all it is. Okay? So, if I curl 10 pounds, I'm generating 10 pounds of force. If I'm if I'm curling 50 lbs, I'm generating 50 lbs per rep. Yeah. Proximity to failure is what we refer

to when we say submaximal. So, we are staying away from actual failure. Okay? So submaximal does not mean easy easy sets right where the relative intensity is low. If relative intensity is low no stimulation of type two. If it is I I'm just blanket statement. Okay these are blanket statements. There will always be type one when there's type two and there will always there will not be type two when there's type one. Right? Maybe very minimally but I'm just using blanket statements to paint a picture. We want relative intensity to be high. That is the

most important crucial thing. And we want proximity to failure to be roughly 70%. So right when form breaks, cut it. Okay? And by getting time under tension, that's why we have progressions, a scalable thing that is going to recruit type two fibers, but that we can also hold for a prolonged period of time. Because you're right now you're Associating in your head, how can I reach high time under tension if my relative intensity is high? If my relative intensity is high, doesn't that mean my sets are going to be short? Right? That's what you're thinking.

But relative intensity does not have anything to do with that. Relative intensity, like for example, I can push on this wall really hard forever, right? Like I'm pushing on this wall right now. Very, very hard. I can do it forever. You know, I'm producing a lot of force. I could do it forever. So when we use progressions, we're utilizing a lot of force because we're holding all all of our body weight. Whether it's for like 5 seconds or 15 seconds, the relative intensity is still high. Now, I will say if you're going like above 20

seconds, I would I would re-examine your relative intensity, you know, because then it's like, okay, maybe we could go up a progression. You get what I'm saying? That is why bands are only great for coordination, right? For you learning like the actual um like pelvis position, right? Protraction. What do bands do? Bands reduce your body weight. So, your relative intensity [snorts] plummets. Okay. But it's still important because now you're able to learn the actual like like form, the shape, you know. But most of your training should be in the body weight work. Awesome. Now I

understand. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Um, no question. Okay. Why do we even train submax? Okay. This is it right here. Again, I'm using a random number. Mental exertion matters way more than physical exertion when learning skills by 20x. Okay, let's talk about it this way. When you were a kid, okay, you have you have no recollection of you learning how to walk. Okay, like none of you can remember. If you do, you're like Einstein and you should be developing something right now. You don't remember how you learned to walk, but during that period of time,

the only thing you were thinking about was, "Bro, how the [ __ ] do I get my feet to move forward?" You know, how do I how do I stand up? and that's all you're thinking about, but you you would do not consciously remember. But now as you've gotten older and you're trying to hold yourself, why would you ever do that? Um you you have a bunch of stressors in your life, right? So for you to bring that mental focus is very hard versus a kid, you're like in La La Land. You're okay, I want

to do this. How do I do this? You cry if you don't get it. As an adult, you have a way bunch of other things going on. But if you can try to be mentally present in every single session that you do where you're you're trying to direct these neurons to the most accurate degree possible, you will progress so much faster compared to your other counterpart who is simply showing up and going through the motions. Okay? I I cannot emphasize this enough. This is why Darien I think he's still in here. This is why Darien

is an absolute madman. Okay? This guy made such unbelievable progress in such a short period of time because I can tell his attention to detail is super high. I tell him something, it's perfectly applied. Like, you need to be so mentally focused. All right? Listen to music. Do whatever you got to do to really bring as much mental effort as you can to your sessions. Your body's already trying to develop all these formations of things, but you like being mentally present is just going to amplify this already natural process. Okay, these processes. Um this is

the general approach I follow when it comes to writing programs. We have three different sessions. We have an intense session recovery day and volume accumulation. This is more pertinent for like um skills, right? like very advanced skills. Um, I program things differently for people who are more beginner because I feel like this red lines your recovery a little bit more. Um, you have to worry about connective tissue more. Not a fan of it. Intense days, we're trying to push the upper bound. We're trying to set new upper bound. We're operating at very high degrees of

intensity. This is in relation to both relative intensity and proximity to failure. So, this is going to be like you're going all in. like you know this is your you're testing things out. Then we have day B which is going to be your recovery day. This is going to be focused on perfect activations and form longer time under tensions still high relative intensity to stimulate type two Fibers. Um and yeah these days will be easy. Okay. Volume accumulation is going to be similar to day B but more volume re focusing on reinforcing the neural patterns

that we're trying to acquire on our A and B days and it sets us up for the next intense session. Okay, so this is just general structure. Um this is the key thing. Okay, this is really what I want to talk about here. Why submaximal training builds strength faster than training to failure. When you train to failure, it's very easy. You turn off your brain and you go like this, right? Just curl, curl, curl. Oh, I'm tired. Done. If if I tell you, bro, do a set at 70%. You're going to enter the set and

you're going to be focused on exerting yourself perfectly. Because now, like, oh my god, how do I I have such a good way to describe this. I have such a good way to describe this. Oh, for example, the dude, I'm the goat. All right, listen. So, look, there's a wall in front of me, right? If I say, "Yo, punch the wall as hard as possible." It's very easy, right? Just throw my hand at the wall and I hit it. Yeah. If I say, "Yo, stop your hand right before you hit the wall," I have to

be more focused, right? So, if I want to just slam the wall, it's easy. If I want to stop right before I hit the wall, I need to be more focused, right? Because I have to not Only have acceleration, but I need to break at a very precise period of time. This is num one reason, okay, why submaximal training is better. Hopefully that makes sense. Hopefully I'm not um confusing you guys. But another reason why is because we get to manage our muscular fatigue way better because we're not going till failure degrades over and over

again. Which means we get to have more high quality working sets that continuously reinforce the motor unit recruitment when it comes from those type two fibers. Okay. The name of the game, like I said, is doing as many high quality working sets as possible. And the only way we can do that is by shying away from failure with a high level of relative intensity, Stephen. Go for it. Yes. So, this submaximal thing um is it applied to like all the movements? Because like a plull for example, no matter if banded or not, is very hard

to do like neurologically. when you do like the netti presses, it's much easier to do and you can go to uh much more like you can go to actual failure without uh breaking down in form really. You know what I mean? So, does it correlate to everything or only like the hard skill that are hard neurologically? No. No, it it applies to it applies to everything like this applies to squats, everything. Everything everything. Okay. So, so you basically should never train to failure. Yes. Okay. I mean I mean no no no no no like you

should be training to failure but but like I would say 20 80% right 30 70 like because if you if you don't train to failure you never know what your true maximum is you know like you have to retest your max you know like you you have to you have to do those sets where form breaks and you're holding you know that's still very crucial too because you're putting your foot in the door of the next thing which is also very important but the thing that's allowing you to do that is not what's going to

allow you like the submaximal training allows you to PR but the fact that you're pring does not mean that you should keep doing PRs to keep PR make sense yes it's like it's like this thing of you make progress and you unlock a new skill and then you start just repeating that new skill and you plateau because you acquiring that skill is not what got you there. You get what I'm saying? Like you doing that skill is not what got you there. So you need to just keep doing what you've been doing just maybe a

little bit harder. Yes, I understand. But with stuff like Zenet Press, for example, you're not focusing in there to like get this neurological adaptation done. Like you you are in every movement you do, there's a neurological adaptation happening. Yeah. But the main reason why we do the net presses is because of like the the uh muscle are both growing and also just able to generate like raw force output, isn't it? You're able to stimulate the type 2 fibers in a very predictable and measurable way. That's why Zenetti is awesome. You know, like if I for

example, if I want to expose you to the same degree of lean that you want to do in a full plunge, I have two options. I can hook you up with a bunch of bands, but that's going to plummet your relative intensity. Or I can expose you to Zenetti with that same lean, but your relative intensity is high because you're holding a substantially large amount of weight, you know. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, Max, go for it. Yeah. So, that's probably because I'm just a kid still. Um, but in my uh program, we go to failure

like very often. Is that because I'm just Yeah. For your thing, like you're doing a lot of like handstand push-up stuff and um like you're this is not comparable to you. Like most of the times you fail, it's not because of what do you call it? It's it's not because you're overexerting yourself, you know, but rather a um a coordination deficit, you know, like for example, if I do handstand push-ups to a failure, am I really doing it to failure? Like most of your sets are going to end because of balance, you know? Yeah, but

like and also we're running a phase for you. Yeah, we're running a phase for you where it's more more intensive right now. So it again, it's going to like be different person to person and where you are. Like we discussed in the previous weekly meetings, we have periodization, right? We have undulating and then we have linear, you know, like we have these different approaches for when we also write messy. Right now you're on a very very intensive one. Okay. No, just because like we have pike push-ups to failure, we have like the hands and push-ups

and we have the front lever holds advanced tuck and stuff, but I just wanted to know. Yeah. I mean, bro, you're killing it. You're at like five handstand push-ups. Six. Yeah. Deep ones. [clears throat] See, you're killing it. Also, you're younger, so I'm just throwing way more at you because it's going to benefit you a lot more. Yeah, that's what I thought. But like to to which age can you do that? I honestly don't know. That's something I'm learning too. I think it's like um I would say after after puberty like I would I I

think that's when I I mean just logically speaking like I don't know but I would assume like a few years after after you're done growing is probably when you don't see just throws random stuff at me not knowing. [laughter] Yeah. I mean dude like you know I I haven't coached many people who are young so It's a new ball game for me. But you're killing it, bro. You got 90 degree handstand push-up in like a month, bro. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I will I will. Don't worry. Yeah. [clears throat] Okay. Thank you. Braxton, do you have

a question? So, I have questions and then you answer them two seconds later. So, Okay. Okay. Okay. Injuries. Everyone's favorite. So, we have um usually injuries happen two different ways. some sort of physical trauma, right? Like a car just absolutely just nails you. Um or we have underlying weakness, okay? Some sort of weak link that causes um another structure to take on too much load and it gets strained, right? So, physical trauma, we're not going to focus on. Hopefully, none of you guys get sideswiped by a by a vehicle. Um underlying weaknesses is what we're

going to be targeting. Okay? So, this is the the big thing here. Whenever we deal with any sort of injuries, we want warm compress. We want more blood flow to the area. Okay? For some reason, everyone thinks you need cold compress because as a little kid, you you fell down and you scraped your knee and then everyone put ice pack on you. Okay? It makes sense there because you're not trying to heal the area necessarily. You're just trying to reduce the pain so you stop crying, right? So, this constricts blood vessels, stops blood flow, no

nutrient Delivery to the area, and is good for acute pain relief but not for healing. Okay? warm compress and blood flow. Why do you think your body has inflammation? Like like the body is inflaming certain parts of of your of yourself that are not only promoting pain but also promoting blood flow to the area because that is your body literally trying to heal itself. When you're inflamed, there's excessive blood flow to the area, more nutrient delivery, so you feel the sensations more. Pain is higher. But this is what's allowing you to heal. So whenever you

have any sort of pain, irritation, discomfort, warm compress, blood flow to the area, light banded work, stretching, warm compress. This is critical for tendons which have very low blood flow. Um and like we mentioned, we want nutrient delivery because we know recovery will be accelerated. Biggest thing is force management, right? When it comes to um injury prevention. Now look, I partially tore my bicep from doing a straight arm um press. I felt perfect. I've done this exercise countless of times. My biggest thing is I came off a sickness and I and I trained again. I

felt great, but I think it was like shortly after sickness, my body was Still in some sort of weakened state. So really listen to your body and always overestimate things. I promise you. I promise you, you never want to get injured. Like, with all of your guys' stuff, I'm never gonna make you do stuff that's like gonna be even remotely like, are [ __ ] you might get injured, you know? Like, if we're doing any supernated work, anything weird, bro, there's going to be at least months of conditioning prior to that. You know what I

mean? Like, you must to to prevent it. You always want to step load, you know, like imagine a staircase. You always want to step load your intensity. So, if you're building up to a big one rep max, do a a bunch of warm-up sets slowly building up to that one rep max. Okay? Um, you need to match your level of exertion to how you feel on a given day, right? Not just based on what the program is saying. That's why I tell all of you, bro, if it's supposed to be intense session today, don't do

it. Cut the sets. Keep it easy. Okay? If you're injured, you need to avoid movements that cause the pain to increase. If the pain is staying the same, it's okay. You can train, but be mindful still. Don't be crazy. If the pain is increasing, you stop instantly. You go home. Light banded work is great for blood flow. And strengthening the weak weakened structures is very important. See, the thing about the body is it's very interesting in the way that it's going to radiate pain to another area, but the root cause is not in pain. You

get what I'm saying? So like just because you feel pain somewhere does not mean that that's the area of concern. Okay. The area of concern could be something else. A very classic one. You get pain in your shoulder doing overhead press. 90% of the cases it's not your shoulder. It's the long head of your biceps tendon. Right? It's a it's a it's a a bicep issue. So it's things like this to consider. Now, nutrition. [snorts] Three macros. All three different jobs. Okay. Protein. Everyone knows this. I'm not going to talk about it. You eat a

gram of protein per pound the body weight help you recover. The steeper of a deficit you're in. More protein. The less of a deficit you're in, the more of a surplus you're in, the less protein you can get away with. Fats. 20 to 35% of your daily caloric expenditure of your daily caloric intake should be from fats. Fats help with hormone regulation. They help you feel not dead. Okay? If you feel dead all the time, if you just have no you you want to lay in bed the whole day, probably you're not eating enough fats.

Carbs are your superpower, bro. If you're not eating carbs, you are you are selling you you are you are throwing your gains away. Literally, carbs are your your body's number one efficient. It's crack cocaine for your body. Okay? Before you're training, you should have carbs. Maybe even the night before it'll get stored as glycogen in your muscle. Okay? Every gram of carb you eat stores grams of water. Okay? That's why it's called a carbohydrate. Glycogen is fuel in your muscle. Okay? More carbs, more fuel, stronger. Okay? No carbs, flat, weak, go home. You also want

to have carbs after you train because when we train, we spike our cortisol. When cortisol is is raised in the body, your ability to synthesize protein and recover is diminished. So as soon as you apply cortisol from training, consume carbohydrates after your training, spike insulin, drop cortisol, promote nutrient delivery. Okay? So carbs before, carbs after. Carbs after is arguably more important. Okay? And we're not talking like you need to sit there and eat five pounds of rice, okay? This is not what we're talking about. Like most of you should be consuming anywhere I would say

between 250 to 350 grams of carbs a day. Okay? Like if you need more, you need more. If you need less, you know, you can get away with less. But yeah, this is um what I have to say about carbs. Um uh yeah, we talked about glycogen, right? The night before um you can you can have a lot of carbs. Um pre-training is also good, but you don't want to have too many so you're not like full. This is another thing. Do not eat protein or fats before your training. You're going to promote so much

blood flow to your digestive tract and it's going to make you feel very lethargic and tired. You should be training fasted or with Minimal carbs or not minimal carbs. You should be training fasted or with carbs. Okay? Fast digestion. And post training, we need um we need carbs so we can spike insulin, drop cortisol. Braxton, go for it. So you said no no no proteins before training and the carb carbs are okay, right? Yeah. What about caffeine? Is caffeine okay too? So caffeine Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Caffeine's a vasel constrictor. Um which means it's going to

reduce your blood flow unless you're trying to get like an insane pump. It's irrelevant. Um like I bro I have caffeine. You have caffeine. Go for it. Just don't do like 400 milligrams. You know, I I would say a safe bet is like 100 to 200. Mhm. And what do you think are the best sources of foods to get the carbs and protein goals? Good question, man. I love I love rice, sweet potatoes, potatoes, um oatmeal, steroids. So, fruits. Um, for protein, ground beef, salmon, eggs, egg whites, um, chicken if I didn't mention it. Greek

yogurt is a fantastic choice. I always start my mornings with cup of coffee, Greek yogurt, honey, and fruit. Um, I love starting my morning like that. Usually before trading I like to have um banana As well as sodium like salt is also crucial um for we have a a sodium potassium pump in our body. Um, wait. I think that's intra I I I don't I can't I don't want to speak on that because I don't know for sure. But yeah, sodium is very important as well for pumps. My oatmeal and banana before wrestling practice and

I threw up everywhere. So yeah. Yeah, that's good. That that that's good. That's good. Yeah. In terms of protein sources like protein powders is also a good choice. I would not try to rely on protein powders a lot. Um, but sometimes making a shake in the morning with like milk, strawberries, frozen fruits, and a scoop of protein is good. Quincy, go for it. How many carbs do you want to eat like after training? It doesn't matter if it's like fast digesting or slow digesting carbs. Yeah, it doesn't matter afterwards. Um, did you ask how many?

Yeah, like a rough estimate. Rough estimate. say I would say 50 or more. It's going to depend on the individual. I would say you try to eat like 20 to 30% of your carbs after your training. Like in in that meal alone, assuming you assuming it's not the last meal of the day for you, like 20 to 30%. If it's the last meal of the day for you, I would try to eat a little more. Um, okay. Yeah. So, if you if you remember nothing, if you were literally asleep during the presentation, wake up and

this is what you need to remember. Okay. Operable bounds is the first thing we do. Um after examining the variables we discussed, height, weight, age, um daily stress, right? Stuff like this. Figure out operable bounds. From there, it's very easy to design a program because now you know, okay, I have these bounds. I need to systematically raise this one and have a lower bound that's fixated that I can always run back to no matter how absolutely horrific I feel. Okay. Second, there's not a perfect amount of volume. It's going to fluctuate dayto-day. Track the number

of working sets that you do that are high quality per day and run a running average. Okay. Number two. Number three, fatigue is 50% neurological. Okay. Now, blanket statements just to paint a picture for you. Okay. I doubt it's 25 2550. I doubt it's like that. Um I doubt there's even a percentage, but this is just to paint a picture. Stimulating the type 2 fibers is our number one goal. And letting those processes happen and adapt is very, very crucial. Sleep is important. Um, and so yeah, keep that in mind. Injury prevention. If pain raises,

stop. If pain stable, you can train through it carefully. Okay. Number five, use warm compress to promote blood flow to heal injured areas. Cold is for pain relief, not recovery. And then the last thing is with macros, make sure you're consuming 20 to 35% of your total calories from fats. And time your carbs pre and post-workout. All right, guys. Give me some banger questions. Let's go. So, [snorts] with like a injury you could work through, that would be like, for example, when I first started training PLCH, I had like killer pain in my forearm. So,

that's the type of pain that you could work through, but like a pain that you shouldn't work through is like a bicep pain, right? So, the like in that case, yes. because we all know that the forearm pain from planchion that way is a very normal thing. It happens to virtually everybody. I would say bicep pain is a little bit more niche and should be like a bigger raise for concern, you know. Um, but nonetheless, follow the same rule. If the pain is increasing, stop, which for all of us PLCH guys, we know we don't

[ __ ] stop when that forearm pain happens. It just like keeps getting worse each set goal. my arm, my fingers like lock and like I lock onto the parallet and like for a couple seconds, oh god now. Yeah, dude. It's so bad. It's so bad. But yeah, bicep pain I'd be more careful with. Um, why does that happen? Because when you're leaning and plch, you're extending this part of your wrist so much, like this whole side of your forearm under load, and then when you drop all that tension, it's just a big ache. What

you can do is release the bar slowly. This is one way to help um not strain it as much. But yeah, ultimately this goes away on its own. Just ju just control your your um proximity to failure and also your relative intensity. Only time I don't get it anymore. Only time I do it is when I'm doing like intense push-up plant push-up days is when I get the pain. Yeah. On the on the lockout. Yeah. Yes. Like as I'm coming out like, "Oh, [ __ ] Fuck." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Boris, I assume

you had the same question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to ask whether I um whether like warm compress is good for this uh this issue. Yeah, very good. Very good. I would I would I would not only do warm compress on the area. I would also get like a bowling ball. Not bowling balling. I get like a tennis ball and like shove it in here and just massage it, you know? Okay. Okay. Thanks. Yep. Quincy, go for it. Um, I have a question about front lever cuz I know a lot of people that train

sat they do like they like put their feet on the wall. Is that like a possible like lower bound the front lever too? So the reason that exercise is actually really good is because it has a high relative intensity because you're using your body weight. You're not reducing your body weight like versus in the form of bands. Um, for front lever, I would say no, man, because there's so many like better ways to do it. For SAT, it's really nice because you don't need to use like a shitload of bands, but also the SAT, your

lat is in its most shortened um like position, you know? So, it's a very like awkward way to train it. So, I think that exercise has a very specific use case for the SAP. I would not use it for fun. Okay. Thank you. Orlando, go for it. Yeah, I have a question about the one arm handstand because you say that you have to retract your scapula and also depress your shoulder, but also you say that I have to have a slight slight elevation. So, should I depress the shoulder or or not or Yeah. So look,

um, the way my methodology on one- arm handstand is very different compared to your traditional hand balancers. I like the break dancing approach. These guys are doing like flips and then they just jump into a one- arm handstand and they're like jumping on one arm and like balancing. So it is the the chaotic form of it, right? I would argue these guys are better balancers than actual hand balancers because you're doing so many different chaotic movements still holding it. So, this leads me to my point of it's not going to be perfect form, but biggest

thing is retraction. Okay, if it's elevation or depression, that's going to be up to you and what you prefer. I prefer having a more sunken in shoulder because I treat it like a mini PLCH lean. Like that's why I'm holding the one- arm handstand. Like I'm a little bit lean through my arm, right? I'm not like I'm not like like this. I'm a little lean. So, I get to put more weight into my delt and be able to make Better corrections that way versus being perfectly stacked. Um, I feel like I have less control, although

it is cleaner and it is conventionally a real one- arm handstand, you know. So, I would say retraction is good, but depression or elevation is going to be up to you. I prefer depression because it allows me to create a stronger pocket. Okay. Okay. I see. Thank you. Yeah, [clears throat] Armen, go for it. Okay, so there's one thing um I don't really understand. So, if our goal is to recruit as many type two fibers as possible, um then wouldn't it just make sense to go till failure like a lot? Um because the type two

fibers are only getting used in those very like extreme and high intensity circumstances. Yeah, it's a very very very good question, man. Very good question. So, we know according to the the Hennyman's principle that type one and type two fibers are recruited in a very linear fashion, right? Type one fibers, the smaller, weaker ones are called upon first before the stronger, bigger, type two, more aggressive fibers have a Reason to get called on, right? The body is smart. Why utilize its strongest resources when it doesn't need to? So that means that if we need to

get type two, we should probably be going to failure, right? But why are we training submaximally then? Well, because it's not actually about your proximity to failure, rather your relative intensity. So how much force you need to generate per exercise that you do. So for example, if I'm pushing this wall in front of me very easily, right, just low pressure, I'm not getting many type two. If I push against it as hard as I can, now I'm recruiting type two. But I don't need to go to failure to recruit those. I just need to generate

more force, you know? So, it's about the amount of force that our muscles need to generate in proportion to how much raw force they can actually produce. So the the higher we reach the upper echelon of how much raw torque that muscle can produce, the more type 2 A and type 2B fibers we need to recruit. That that is different than proximity to failure, right? Relative intensity and proximity to failure are two different things. And you can stimulate type two without necessarily going to failure, but the inverse is not the same. Every time you go

to failure, you will stimulate type two fibers. But not every time you stimulate type two fibers, do you go to failure? Make sense? Yes. Thank you, sir. Got you. That's a problem meeting, guys. If I didn't sell the bag with the recording. My god. Gus, my man. Go for it. Yeah. Uh, hello. Can Can you hear me? I don't know if it's Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. All right. All right. Okay. So, I had a question about like the uh the front lever touch. So, I heard like on like Instagram a lot

of people were saying that to think of like the front lever touch or if you're even just transitioning from like um a front lever pull-up into the touch position that think of it as a pushing skill like you're rounding your shoulders and pushing your actual hands into your stomach or would you consider it more of an actual pulling skill? Yeah, I saw that post. Um, that guy's a little bit of a [ __ ] bro. Honestly, like that guy. I was like, I don't really know how that would be related to [laughter] Yeah, I would

not I would not listen to that information, bro. It's definitely I just wanted to ask. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. Good question, Darian. Go for it. Hopefully, you can hear me. Um, do you think there's something to be said for like when you program, you know, things for your clients, like what they actually resonate with, what they like training because you were talking about earlier like cluster sets. There was like debate on cluster sets. Well, if I don't like doing [ __ ] cluster sets, But they're like hypothetically the most optimal thing, then it's not really

optimal for me if I don't like doing it and don't enjoy my training that way. So, maybe you can like expand on that. I'm just curious. Yeah. So, sometimes I write someone a program and they're like, I'm just not I'm just not having fun with this, you know? I'm like, 100%, man. It's not always about being optimal. Um, I would argue you have to enjoy your training more than it being optimal because you're going to able to bring more mental energy, have more dopamine, and and like just have more fun, be more present mentally, which

we know is very, very important. So yeah, having a training approach that is very fun and optimized as it can be is the best bet. And if you're not having fun, um, it needs to be changed. Damn, we've been going for a long time. Yo, guys, this is a phenomenal meeting. I would say this is I'm glad I remember to record play through. Armen, go for it. All right, I have a question. So, when we when eventually in the future we do a we do a meetup with, you know, all of us and E, are

you gonna let any of your students uh drive the Supra? He already said he'd let me. [laughter] Yeah, of course. Wait, what? Of course, bro. I want to do a meet up so bad, man. I think it'd be so We should take that [ __ ] to like We should meet up at like a airport runway and just let us [ __ ] rip that [ __ ] dude. Let it rip, dude. Yeah. Now, we we need to get Man, we got to do a big USA meet up. I'm going to try to organize something

when I come back from They should um They should make a [ __ ] Never mind. Stupid. Yeah. They should make a racing driver's license where you could get like extra perks on the road. Like you could speed. [laughter] You just have to come to Germany's Autobon. Autobon, bro. Yeah. [laughter] And drive 300s, bro. We me and my dad were driving on the autobond. He's like, "Why does the light keep flashing?" Like, "I see them sometimes." And turns out we were not on the autobond, bro. [ __ ] Ah. Yeah. And my not the [

__ ] cameras are going to get you, dude. Yeah. And he got like seven tickets in the mail. It's like, "Oh, my god." That's why. Okay. I have a quick question on uh periodization. Um I start like this year. I was training like this uh A B C Day like like you say and that training was 100% skill focused and I got to a point where I thought that I need to have a block of hypertrophy training because like I thought that that was my uh my bottleneck. So is like I guess my question is

whether this ABC um method is already a periodized training like is this uh is this like periodization but just an undulating or what whatever it is called or yeah I guess that's my question. Yeah. Yeah. So um in in this context so you can structure your ABC day to either be a skill focused block or more of a hypertrophy focused block. Right? The only difference between like more skillesque training and more hypertrophy-esque training is going to be the time under tension and the percentages of your one rep max that you're working with. So with skill

work, a lot of the holds are going to have very high relative intensity, very very like intensive work intrinsically, right? Not pro not close to failure, but very intense. If we're doing more of a hypertrophy um block, it's going to be more focused on movements that are not necessarily um skills. It would be more like zenetti work, a lot of zenetti work. um because this is a thing that you can measure, scale, and that you can have a lot of time under tension with, you know, with a with a free weight. I would say I

don't normally do hypertrophy blocks. I kind of sprinkle it in if I feel like it's needed. Um very rarely is the case a lack of just raw tissue, you know, like that's assuming that you've adapted all the new fibers that you have already. You're using all of them and you've literally reached the ceiling. So it's like you need to upgrade the engine in a sense. So you need to get more muscle. I've never seen this happen because with everyone who's extreme beginner, I spend the first six months to a year just trying to build your

physique up, you know, so that we never have to like worry about having this awkward period in the middle where we have to run like a four-week hypertrophy block, you know? Okay, I understand. Thanks. If you made it this far, congratulations. I hope you learned a lot from this video. If there's something that you didn't quite understand or you still have questions about some of the topics, make sure to drop a comment down below and I'll go through and make sure I answer it. If you've been struggling to progress in calisthenics and want to be

a part of over 70 other individuals who share the same exact passion as you, then I do offer one-on-one personalized coaching. You can check out the link in the description below and fill out an application to work with me and be a part of my team or shoot me a DM over on Instagram, which is the platform that I am the most active on. I love all of you and I'll see you guys in the next