080: Kasper Vinther: Strength Coach of Andre Houdet

often I see the the athletes who do most like Mobility stuff before they can train they're reminding themselves that they're in pain instead of just having that that mindset of I can go into the gym and I can do my warm-up sets if there is something that feels a little bit off I have my toolbox of things I can do between my warm-up sets or whatever you shouldn't feel like you have to do 45 minutes of Mobility drills every time you go and uh and work out [Music] the fitness movement is brought to you by zor Fitness we offer coaching and individualized program design as well as educational content for coaches and athletes it's all at one place Z fitness.com today I have Casper vinther on the show he is a physiotherapist and strength coach and he owns North performance training which is located in Copenhagen in Denmark Casper used to work at a practice before actually deciding to open up his own facility and since then he's had the opportunity to work with everybody from the general fitness and health related client uh to people with aesthetic gos all the way up to the people in the top tier of CrossFit including Andre hudde who we talk about quite a bit in the podcast Casper has the Reigns of all of his strength training and then Andre sort of works a lot of his CrossFit and conditioning work around that schedule just a little bit of context for the conversation since we talk about Andre quite a bit he finished top five in Denmark the past four years in the last two years he qualified for the CrossFit Games in 2021 and 2022 today we discuss a number of things including why stability and creating High support through the setup of an exercise is so important to be Express strength and a lift how Casper thinks about developing strength in a movement pattern squatting strength or uh upper body pressing is two of the examples that we go over talk about the importance and the role of hypertrophy and that type of training for CrossFit athletes specifically and how to go about that and we get into the nuances of that as well for example like the role of length inv versus shorten ranges of motion for taxing and biasing certain aspects of a muscle and ultimately improving the strength and contractile potential also how to think about exercise selection for developing that Force potential specifically to CrossFit athletes we talk about how to develop strength with that without lifting maximally all the time and lastly how to improve your potential for strength production without just doing more of the same types of work this is a great episode for anybody who's looking to bulletproof their body and express their best fitness you can learn more about Casper and his business if you go to Nordic performanc trining tocom he inperson and remote training also follow him on Instagram @ Casper venther as well as @ Nordic performance training I start off by letting Casper know just how impressed I am with his English speaking abilities sometimes it may be a little rusty in what we call uh we call it danglish so yeah like a mix yeah but yeah exactly just uh sound like a Danish politician or something that's trying to some sub meaning but I'll do my best no yeah I'm um I only ever speak English I took a little bit of Spanish in high school and it was it was terrible I was I mean doesn't help when everyone around you speaks English you don't ever really use it in conversation but I'm I'm still always impressed when people are bilingual or know a bunch of languages so um you are physical therapist right or still are certified physical therapist yeah but my profession is a physiotherapist and I do I do what what I call physical therapist is probably what most people would just call like straining condition training but that's we just um we have this like approach that just center around resistance training and and active approach uh so we don't really have any I think we're probably one of the only spaces of like physical therapists that don't have any like passive modalities uh like treatment modalities uh we we don't even have like a treatment table or anything uh it's just it's just all about being active and um and everything is centered around like the the gym environment so trying to it up yeah I how did I mean I'm kind of curious like did you feel like your your schooling like set you up well to do what you do now and kind of you know uh treat people in a more like functional approach did you feel like your schooling helped you with that or was there like a learning Gap at all obviously something has given me an advantage in terms of like just regular string training it gives you a a a knowledge base that's that's good in terms of also like U ongoing education afterwards just understanding like more like Anatomy terms and all that kind of stuff but in other ways it's um it's it's not always a good thing with like taking like here in Denmark especially like PT um like the physical therapist uh education because it's very focused on as I talk about like passive modalities and a lot of testing and finding diagnosis and all that kind of stuff which can be great but but I think a lot of people iidea tend to focus too much on those stuff in instead of looking at the the individual in front of them and and I think that's why people they we have we have good outcomes because it's more we don't really see it like people as something that needs to be fixed but but more like um yeah that active approach we always take so in some ways yeah of course yeah yeah I mean I feel like anybody's coming out of uh you know an educational background and going into a field like you're just going to have a learning curve that happens naturally because no matter what it's always your day-to-day what you're you're actually doing and like your career is different than like you know you're you have more of like a broad scope in education and then it gets narrowed down when you're actually dayto day like what you're doing more so at least that's like the the way I've kind of thought about it when I work as a physical therapist like the way the way we work on clinics and all the kind of stuff back in the days we see a lot of people so the thing we really the thing you really learn is just speaking to people and uh um like it's more people skills than anything else that's at least what I feel like is most valuable yeah so I I heard you say before that you don't do like a lot of testing you don't have like a for example like a move in that you take like new clients through um and it's more so just like you watching them as they're actually like doing their their training like you sort of get in into training or like that's at least how I interpreted what you said um do you want to expand upon that anymore like what that intake process kind of looks like for someone that you're working with Yeah so basically when people they come to us they we may have like an initial like consult where we of course um we can do some some form of testing but doesn't really have to be that traditional for form of of laying laying on on a like a treatment table and and testing range emotion all that kind of stuff uh or like trying to because what we are educated in is like finding flaws right um which doesn't like the wrong it's a wrong term to say flaws but that's what we like it's it's um biomechanical abnormalities or whatever yeah like a deficit yeah which often is completely irrelevant to test and it's often a waste of time we just need to like um cover all like if there is any red flags or yellow flags that's what we call the things we have to take seriously if not then um it's it's a it's a good change of pace for people to not get like when people come if they have like some sort of pain issue or or whatever they've been to multiple other health care providers or physical therapists or chiropractors whatever and they've all been through the test several times everyone gets a different result um so so so we do as little as that as possible only when it's uh when we feel like it's it's necessary and then of of course the training in and of itself is a movement screen uh and and the more it's like real training and not a movement screen the more it's in my opinion a real movement screen because of course as we go up in intensities and all that kind of stuff we see quote unquote the real movement patterns that are like uh essential for what most people at least want to do or want to get back to doing yeah yeah and at least in my experience like a lot of a lot of like pretty good athletes still have like if again if you were like laying on a table and take like the the PT approach to things like they'd have a lot of deficits or like deficiencies um like like stuff that like a PT would be like oh I want to fix this and it's like certainly like that that could have an improvement from maybe like maybe not even more injury prevention but just like maybe from like moving economy or like getting them in the best positions but but often times like those athletes still have like they still can like figure out a way to move and it's like the way that they've done it for so many years that it's like if you try to unwind that it often just causes more issues than if you just kind of you know let them kind of move the way they naturally would yeah like the athletes of they're like specialists in finding new ways to move like um that's just because they're so like fluent in movement so to speak and and um so of course you can you can you can try and improve someone's dorsal flexion or whatever like angle Mobility or whatever or you can just teach them how to put them in a squat that forces them to the body to adapt to to get those squads stronger and let the nervous system choose to to move into dorsal flexion but what I always for me it's more about like the the the like the fragile mindset someone often gets from seeing multiple providers and getting a whole lot of different Mobility drills and banded stuff and all that kind of kind of things because uh you you will experience pain sometimes if you're an high level athlete but often I see the the athletes who do most like Mobility stuff be before they can train they're reminding themselves that they're in pain instead of just having that that mindset of I can go into the gym and I can do my warm-up sets if there is something that feels a little bit off I have my toolbox of things I can do between my warm-up sets or whatever you shouldn't feel like you have to do 45 minutes of Mobility drills every time you go and and work out it's something I've I've often I've heard from the clients I work with that responds well to this mindset that when they get out of this mindset of having to do all their Mobility stuff it actually improves their sessions a whole lot also like the the whole like instead of wasting time laying on a foone roller on your mobile phone you get you get to the gym and and that's the environment where you where you work out it's the environment where you do Mobility drills yeah I that's definitely something that I've noticed is the athletes who can just do like some specific Mobility like for example if they're back squatting do like a couple different variations of you know getting into a squat basically and then start actually doing the actual Movement Like and then building up and just doing the thing like if you can get used to doing that like you're it seems counterintuitive but almost like those people seem to have better longevity a lot of times in that movie M um whereas like the people like you're saying who are like really kind of use the whole like I have to do all these activations and all these Mobility drills and like all this like you know long protocol things just to be able to get to the whatever you know say they want to strength move to be able to get to that um yeah they just like seem to I don't know they don't have as much longevity in my experience no yeah and and is also for for me if you feel like you have to do those those types of stuffs it's it may be something like in your mentality but it could also just be looking maybe we should look at the programming instead maybe it's a volume issue or low tolerance issue or something and of course if you're a high level athlete you need to have those tools if you're in competition but like in the training season and earlier you shouldn't have to be you shouldn't have to do those types of stuff in my opinion but everyone is different and and it's it's a it's about the coach and the athlete uh like your um I I wouldn't if someone has been doing that for a long time I wouldn't just on the first session say to them no that's that's stupid why you're doing this just let just challenge that mindset after working together for a period of time and see if you can find like a common ground uh and try out something else because sometimes it's it's that simple just don't do stuff that reminds you that you're Fragile the feeling of fragility so let's say you have an athlete and and they're there's someone for example let's just say they're a cross-fed because that's a lot of people I work with so it's an easy example for me um and you're just doing some of their their strength and assistance work um not just because that's a big part of the program but uh let's say that you have somebody and they are that situation where uh they have either joint stuff or they feel like they have like this you know again like a laundry list that they have to go through what kind of factors like you were saying how like you could manipulate volume or intensity or start to to prune back some of that stuff how might you start to like manipulate those factors to to start to move them in the direction that that you want them to go uh it's a little hard to like it it depends on where they're at like how does the how does everything look like um I I typically just move them as much as possible over to the way that I like to do it because then I have like the like the the framework from where I can we can change stuff going forward and then of course of course like um the movement quality and the move like the exercise selection all that kind of stuff I feel like makes a huge differ because as a a a CrossFit athlete you tend to do a whole lot of volume like no matter what so being more efficient in what we're doing in the for the string and the accessory bodybuilding type stuff whatever will have huge um a huge impact on the total like amount of volume you're doing um and it may sound count counter intuitive saying like we're working on hypertrophy and the volume becomes it goes down because a lot of people they they feel like increase in volume is like the main driver of hyperthrophy but uh look like learning how to move more efficiently and having good exercise selection we can actually perform less and get more effective volume quote unquote so it's it's a it's a it's like it's a very multifactorial um approach it's not like just go lower the volume or whatever but I I personally like when it comes to volume I personally like to have it as the volume as quote on quote low as possible but then focus more on intensity factors but but because that's what really that's the stimulus where we need that's the we just need to have enough uh sufficient volume and then we can always build it up yeah and and often if it is someone who is doing something like CrossFit they're doing so many tractions in the same patterns on a weekly basis already and they've likely done that if there's someone who's more of a veteran athlete they've been doing that for years so just throwing at more at them is only GNA exasperate problems that they have already so you work with on Andre hudde and you know maybe maybe we could we don't have to use him but we could say like someone like him right and you know I've heard him say that like for example he he really only tends to squat super heavy like once a week and that's been a good frequency for him just because he's doing so many other squatting contractions in his like CrossFit training that that's kind of a good frequency is that something that you kind of helped him arrive at or or maybe how you could just use him as example like how would you think about developing uh his squat in terms of volume and frequency throughout his week yeah so I think typically when CrossFit is they um they seek out help in terms of getting stronger they might look more to powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting yeah where we have we have a sport that's only centered around two or three lifts and and we know that frequency is a it's a very efficient tool in terms of getting good at at at certain movements so they H take a program let's say you squat at least twice a week but maybe three bench three or four and then you deadlift twice maybe if you're doing CrossFit at the same time that should be it should be pretty obvious that it may be too much and with some lifter mentality they they just they feel like they want to be better at something so they just smash it very hard and they like you up the intensity training close proximity to fail all the time um where what what I tend to do or what we tend to do with high level CrossFit athletes um at least in the beginning is somewhat the opposite so we we lower the frequency of a lift and and and make sure that that's like a that's the primary day for like they have one primary day for that lift uh where you need to be the strongest and have have your highest amount of Readiness and and highest performing abilities um so uh as you mentioned with Andre he he normally has like one day that's dedicated to the squat pattern that's his like primary Squad day often we pair with some presses some Del work and some quad accessory but on this session um both the relative and the absolute loads will be the highest um and he knows that's the day that he has to come in fresh and perform and let's say if you place that session on Monday um he of course has the way he does it he has his weightlifting session play play lat so already by having that he Al he has the the squat pattern twice a week so that functions in some way as a um a secondary day um so we we we might not even have to add any more squatting because he has the weightlifting but we could add maybe a squat pattern um with with relatively lower intensities having like self-limiting uh variations in terms of load so safety bar pauses power stuff uh machine um so we can practice the movement have have a higher frequency of practice but stay very cognitive about that you still have fatig left over from the primary session we did on Monday so we we're going to enter that session with a theoretically lower estimated 100 Max but that's okay because we don't have to push the intensities as much as we do on the on the on the primary day so we manage fatigue levels um and make sure that he's as strong as possible on the primary day and then we have that secondary day that induces less stress but has the skill practice and a little bit more volume if we needed and and he's still able to recover come back and then Peak on the primary sessions so it's it's like the the split you choose is in my opinion extremely important and there's a huge different in like for me I'm not a a per an expert in CrossFit programming by any way but uh it it has to be a little bit different than what we do from for like general population clients which is what we before before I started working like Andre he hired me to help him that's all we work with and what the majority of the the clients we help in in our gym is of course so you might look at the uh the the the training split and and and and think it's it looks like an old school bodybuilding split like you you you have like a uh three different sessions uh or four different sessions um where you only have one muscle group The Frequency is is is is mainly just once and then you might have a secondary day but very rarely do we have like tertiary days like you would if you were a high level powerlifter um and and and also it's CrossFit so it's you're not you're not going to be a specialist in squatting just need to continuously get a little bit better and having higher frequency takes away from you practicing other stuff but yeah everyone is a bit different but in my opinion from what I've seen for crossfits it tends to work very well with that um that setup no that makes a lot of sense to me I mean even for conditioning work I've been going to like before I would never run like a a single session progression for like Energy Systems training for somebody like you know if I'm trying to improve their 2K a row like it like previously like several years ago like I I wouldn't have ever run a progression that's like a 2k row progression give that to them once a week but if you're doing enough other conditioning work it supports it where that one session becomes enough and yeah that totally makes sense as to to why you're kind of going that that route with things so let's say if somebody is trying to improve uh like overhead pressing and they're they're CrossFit athlete if we just stick on that example is is it a similar thing where like one day you're probably focused on like the their their priority movement which is like maybe more specific maybe it's actually with like a barbell or something and then it's maybe again like more of a secondary day to support that potentially down down then like later on in the week or or would it be slightly different uh it can be both like uh if we if we go the route with the with like a something like a three split or a quarter split I will only have like the overhead press pattern once a week um we might have uh we can also use a upper lower split and then have some type of of pressing twice a week um but again if like I would rather have them train it once a week and then see like slowly um slow but but but sure progressions over a longer period of time instead of um of course we could like what I've been doing a little bit more recently is if it's a weak point and they're not very good at the exercise because someone like Andre is he's he moves very well in everything and he learns it he can do it like every just two an exercise once a month and still be pretty pretty uh pretty good mover like uh yeah uh he he's C his moving coordination is on point almost no matter what he just needs a few practice lifts on the same day and then he's good to go but with with um with other clients we may need to have something like so you can have like your primary session and then on the secondary day we could do 50% and then just do more of a power variation or like again just have that the primary day be the high intensities and then the relative intensities be lower on the on the secondary day uh being cognitive that our estimated one R Max is of course low on the secondary day but we need to have some movement practice or um stimulate a bit more hypertrophy if it's hard for us to get enough volume in on one session so it's it's a little hard to come with like like specific yeah uh setups for it but that's like the that's more the the thought process I have is we have one primary session then we can have one day where we just stimulate the high threshold more units a bit and uh and work on the the the movement um coordination but it's not really it's not a what we call a hot session made for like like where we need the adaptations to to happen or get stimulated um so and so I I prefer to give crossfitters three or four days a week where they it's very adaptation focused and then from all the other volume they're doing I know that they're hitting stuff again and they're probably hitting more than they tell me so I I know they get they get the a bit of the stimulus uh anyway in without me having to program more uh even more sessions than those three or four weekly sessions or even two that matter of fact so to you what role ises like having uh exercise selection that's where like a a muscle is in like a lengthened or shortened position and maybe you could just give like a a brief example of like uh what you mean by that uh but like how how might you for example uh one of the things you mentioned was like potentially reducing the volume by getting a little more specific with things and I think that's maybe one of the things that you were alluding to like what would be an example of that and then how might you uh manipulate that into an athlete's week so yeah in terms of the the volume stuff manipulating that it it depends a little bit on if if it's um hypertrophy work we're trying to incorporate because that's become quite popular to to like focus on which makes a lot of sense because it's it sets you up for for more success in the sport like if you look at like game satate you see you need to have some some muscle on on your on your frame but um when we like both in uh in hypertrophy and string there's like a threshold of volume we need to we often need to uh to reach but there are also uh diminishing returns when we get too far down the the volume uh Rabbit Hole so if we are training for uh for strength so now we're not really talking so much about the length and shorten part but I guess we can just allude back to that but um we of course we won more sets um of relatively uh lower repetitions the load being higher but we stay further away from from um from repetition failure because each repetition is is uh like the first repetition in a in a strength set so to speak is more stimulative than the last one because of the accumulated fatigue and because um at the bar velocity starts to slow down so total strength um production capabilities that we that we are training in in in that movement becomes um less and less as we as we um get further into the session or into a set when the so so what we that's that's why we we do back off sess and all that kind of stuff where make sure that we can keep a relatively high amount of of of force produ on the set but when we train for hypertrophy it's a bit you can see it a bit as the reverse where we want to have enough repetitions that are that are relatively slow because that's when we sense the most mechanical tension in the individual muscle fibers which then stimulates to um to mechano transduction to to hypertrophy um and that's like that's very costly in terms of recovery because we tend to do that in more like lengthened exercises when we when we talk about hypertrophy because that's where we can generate the most tension and we can get what's called stretch mediate hypertrophy but it also comes with more of a it comes with a price uh like recovery wise because it tends to lead to more mechanical trauma uh to the tissues we're training and that's where we can start to not worry but talk about which um length which we training the muscles at um because we now we we have evidence that long long length are better for hypertrophy seen in isolation H but we also have evidence that suggest that shorter range exercises cause lesss and peripheral um fatigue and soreness um so so we may move more of our like accessory movement uh the volume we're doing there there over to more shortened exercises uh if you want to keep fatigue levels and so as low um so and that makes sense for even um every everyone from like beginners to Advanced athletes or beginners coming back for from from a vacation whatever we don't want them to wake up being too sore yet the next day but athletes who are like getting close to competition you're tapering um or you just mitigating soreness having those tools of moving more of your accessory to something that's hardest in the short more shorten uh range can be pretty pretty valuable at least that's what we've been doing a lot with um with someone like someone like Andre who incorporates some like leg extensions hamstring curls all that kind of stuff to his training instead of adding more accessory work that's hardest in the lengthen position as well because he knows like the saus uh like you can perform if you're saw of course but um it's a lot harder than if you feel more FR like feel more Fresh So I want him to leave each session still feeling pretty fresh when it's strength trining and come back to the next session feeling uh feeling strong again and as long as he get he gets enough volume in the lengthen that he's that he's keep he keeps on growing then we are then we're happy so could you give some more examples of like exercises of that might be in like a a shortened versus lengthened position just for people listening that they could maybe like visualize it so um a classic example is something like a a leg extension so when it comes to quads it's very hard to to train uh train them where they where they're maximally contracted so you're in a relative uh degree of hip flexion and your uh knee is totally extended when you're at the top of a leg extension so all the the the four all the quadriceps muscles are completely contracted so that's the most shortened range you can get in for the quads it doesn't have to be the most shorten range when you're training it's just we have like it's a spectrum but um let's say for example if people are are creating their own training program and they are training for it could be e either be strength or hypertrophy and they have six sets of squats whatever instead of adding a [ __ ] squad or some type of split Squad that that really targets the quads afterwards you could you could incorporate leg extensions um because it's it's still going to work your quads you're going to get some some good stimulus but it's way easier to recover from and the same applies to um to something like um hamstring girls um when you're lying hamstring curls hardest in the tend to be depends on the exit like the machine you're using tends to be hardest in the in the short position um so you can you can get a bit more volume there in like in relative to what you can do in a Romanian deadlift as most people have done like stiff Leed deadlift they know they get sore if they push like only one set maybe but you can do more sets of hamstring cills without getting super sore so it's a way to to to get in more volume if needed improve like Pro reception and and everything just in in the entire range of motion of the joint and and this is just from um this is more like experience based but doing uh like leg extensions lateral races that are like wi races hard at the top at least tend to feel more like stable in their joints uh catching stuff overhead um and if they had have problems with the like the knee front of the knee or whatever I I tend to use and then we talked about movement assessments just doing a set of leg extensions see if they could extend the knee all the way up if you're an El leite athlete that can squat above 100 yeah hundreds of kilos uh you should be able to extend your KNE all the way off if not I see that's like something that we can like a low hanging fruit that we can improve yeah and don't really know the mechanisms why that should help or if it's a placebo or whatever but it's it's something that we could work on it seems like a a lot of again if I just go back to crosss because that's who I work with a lot it's it's like man a lot of them lack the the end range of motion like you're saying in the shorten position in particular so when they're overhead that last little bit of like actually having control of that range of motion like same thing like oftentimes with the amount of squatting that they're doing like they don't get like that terminal knee extension as much um you know certainly they a lot of crossfitters lack just hamstring strength overall so like there's lots of things like even hip extension like you think with all the weightlifting that they do that they'd have great hip extension a lot of them don't um so even like barbell glute Bridges and things often times is I'm starting to give a lot more of that kind of stuff because yeah it seems like just it helps yeah make people a little bit more less susceptible to injury and just feel better and more stable like you're saying when they're they're catching weights and just moving yeah gives them a little more longevity yeah yeah and we're not really sure like I can't tell you why that is but um but again if some if I had like a a big guy who snatches 130 he couldn't do a a y race in in a cable with the like with the counter weight on the uh on the on the like the counterweight plate on the cable yeah um which like again it's it's a simple simple way to to increase like um like tolerance and maybe also confidence um when catching like it says your nervous system gets used to being strong in the position that you wanted to so it's just the sum of all the parts you're looking at and like that needs to carry over to the to the big compound lift you're doing and also uh using Andre as an example again when he's now he's he's very efficient and doing all these quote unquote bodybuilding type stuff like leg extension y races Rose he if he comes into a session and he feels a little maybe a little bit beat up either like um like he needs um he needs to get in the zone you know sometimes you you you're ready in the middle like in the start of the session sometimes he needs a little pick me up he can just reverse the like turn the session around and just start with the shortened type stuff first uh as a way of just turning all the nervous system and get that get that out of the way and you get a little pump and um that tends to make feeling better yeah the same as like doing hamstring curse before squatting I use that a lot if people they complain about knee pain instead of trying to micromanage the joints and everything do a bit of hamstring curls a good squeeze on the at the top uh as you're warming up between your your your set your your your warm-up sets and see if that doesn't quotee unquote fix the fix the problem and then you have that in your toolbox instead of like looking too much on T rotation and and all that kind of like yeah and I think if you have a a more experienced athlete you're working with you can start to play with those factors a little bit more like you if you have someone who's been you know exposing themselves to strength and endurance training the last decade like and they're they're kind of the case before like where they're taking you know 40 minutes to get warmed up for their snatch session you can kind of flip that around give them some aerobic work at the beginning they feel super warm and like their joints prep a lot quicker and now they they still can feel good when they actually go to do their strength work and they can still Express really well on that but it's just a way of like switching things around so that they can still get productive training in not just like quote unquote like waste a lot of time in the beginning of their session but they're still not blunted that much when they actually go to express their strength work either and I I feel like it doesn't really it doesn't even have to be like quote unquote wasting time because if you're training twice twice a day and you need to spend 40 minutes doing mobility work you are you are pretty much wasting time if you not do that like if you could get use your preparation sets to get ready instead and and you would have more energy and just um yeah just use the the preparation sets and the warmup sets as as your way to get ready as you get to your top sets or whatever doing too much before we just mask your uh your like yeah mask your performance too much I think um and again like when um like confidence wise I also remember him and other athletes telling me that at the games or at big competition seeing all the other guys on the the last two or three days just foam rolling and stretching and doing banded stuff and he they just okay they feel great like they can do a bit of like they feel like they want to do some leg extensions and squats instead because they know that makes them feel feel good instead of having to uh to do a whole lot of Mobility drills all the all the time they just they just warm up like that's that's crazy good for the the confidence of an athlete going into the last days of competition seeing everyone else feel beat up but you just feel great because you you yeah maybe it's also um just because the way we structure the training we use that accessory work to drive up their um uh how much volume like the volume tolerance so often when I see when people they they progress volume they start let's say you have you do you have three sets of three in a in a in a as your like top sets whatever people they go from three sets of three to four sets of three and then five sets of three and then six sets of three but from going going from that to to to like just straight sets of five sets of three you have a a million different ways to you can progress volume by using accessory work instead so you can still do your squats maybe just a few sets and you could do your hack squats afterwards as back off or and then you can use leg extension other type of stuff to build even more tolerance uh over like a block of training then when you come back then you can add instead of adding a work like a top set more you can just add um a middle set or backup set more or more accessory work just keep doing that and then at one point you can just add that extra set um so your volume tolerance has improved over let's just say half six months or year While others they they follow that linear process of uh like or they start at five times 5 at 85 and you may progress for four weeks but um but but as an elite athlete um you shouldn't be able to come like keep putting two and a half kilo on the on the bar and and keep progressing like you need to find ways to progress further down the chain in my opinion before the the prime work is progressed that much but that may also be one of the factors that that makes um that helps with the the the tolerance to to more work yeah so in your mind like how important is uh like having a an athlete's joint just like operate in the way it's supposed to in like terms of like having all the the planes of motion and being strong and like all those versus like going down like the specificity route of just like for example like you gave the if we just use the example of squatting like you can practice barbell back squat up to a certain point and you're going to get really good at that but then there's like diminishing returns on that um so yeah like how how do you like balance those two and like think about keeping an athlete like well-rounded being able to stay healthy and be able to use their uh joints sort of like an anatomically correct way versus like fitting them into like what they're supposed to be doing for their sport yeah so um again the the way we Pro like we go about this for athletes is a bit different than just like general population clients whatever we always do our best to not um fearmonger in any ways in terms of any movements uh but being good at understanding yeah quote unquote biomechanics uh like exercise selection and um and and finding ways to move that feels better for for a joint for example yeah let's just use Andre as an example again because he's been very vocal about like everything he's done he's been doing and all that kind of stuff um he had a lot of like elbow problems uh classic like CrossFit um stuff with you know like tendonitis and chronic elbow pain all that kind of stuff um if if we were to just start him out with doing a [ __ ] ton of bubble presses I'm not sure he would it would feel better for him so we just move more volume to a um the like a little bit further down the specificity chain whatever like if we if the movement specificity is just doing that Mo like the movement because sometimes I also feel like specificity is just um it's sacrificed for um otherwise very good uh training um methods whatever uh doing a dumble shoulder press instead or even a machine if you you have one that's very good that's that works in like let's say scapula plane or whatever that allows more range of motion more um more power output because it's a more stable environment it's it again it's more lengthened it's more specific it builds more muscle that it feels better on the elbows the the fact that you get lower sensation of pain whatever and you get more muscle mass and you train an environment where you can get more more T like more total Force output in tension when you get back to say Bobble lifting again you just need to practice the movement of course but then we often see that it has a huge carryover uh and you can press uh more weight afterwards so I I I'm not I I like um I I know that we have to have the exercises that are that that that you're doing in the sport but a hack Squad is highly specific in practicing Force production in the squad pattern uh which will carry over to a regular Squad um and a lad pull down is in my opinion very spec specific to practicing Force output that looks something like a rope climb builds massive lats it's going to help you um and they're very very very easy to overload just like when you um and in my opinion there like that's the basics it's not the bble stuff is not the basics um and these Basics have carryover to specific stuff just as when you do a lot of symbol as you talked about improving the the row like doing concept two machines building aerobic base it carries over into metcons if you know how to do the the skills uh the necessary skills in the movement of the workout of course you need to practice like combining exercises all that kind of stuff but it's very e it's much easier to for you to overload aerobic base or we'll do a view that's why you do you do a V2 Max test on a bike you don't do it in a mcon like it's it's easier to overload and if you if you're a soccer player and you want to get in in better shape it it's normal for them to use machines it's not like you don't have to only play soccer to get better it's just a matter of how you view uh exercise selection um and yeah it it all falls back to like increasing Force production capabilities when we're speaking strength finding exercises that are like quote unquote similar enough like the same type of vectors the transfer to um through the specific sport environment and then we can train both in like stable and less stable environments and usually it carries over fre yeah so if people don't follow you on Instagram they should because you post really good stuff all the time but uh one of the things I've seen you post on there is like it's just you you pay relative to other people who I've seen just do like more strength accessory type stuff um you pay way more attention to the setups of lifts you get way more intricate and how you think about helping an athlete create stability so that they can express power output really well um and is that just going back to like you want them to be able to produce the most amount of force possible um in a given range is that why um yeah so in terms of just the overall like setup that's for me that's the most important thing to learn if you're training people one-on-one one of the most import like specific things you need to learn because if you have a good setup then every like from the get-go the movement is you don't really have to have a lot of cues besides like press heart and and power and all that kind of stuff you don't have to micromanage anything because if you're in a good position from the from the start of the lift uh the the athlete is just going to self organize perfectly uh as they they start to do more reps but um we we love using like one of the things that has caught a lot of like more a lot but some people's attention is U that we use machines quite a lot and we try to use exercises more stable um what people could refer to as like bodybuilding type stuff um and and uh we incorporate external stability and and a lot of different constraints and so to answer why it's important to to do this um it's it's a great idea to really um that people that what we meet by strength because um for me strength is uh is is means producing force and getting getting stronger means being able to produce more Force than you were previously capable of and if you're in stable exercises they allow for you to use a higher amount of both absolute and relative intensity um and uh and in the movement patterns you want to quote unquote overload or train and using a hex Squad lets you practice like the ability of creating very high levels of force production in a very just appropriately uh constrained environment it's still it's still squat but because of the way the movement is set up you cannot shoot your hips back for example it's um it's it's very it's very quote unquote squat specific um it makes it way easier to focus purely on your um your output like the force output you you do and and and the intensity of your contractions compared to if you're doing more complex non-constrained exercises like freeweight movements where something like a babble Squad would be on the other end of the the Spectrum if we were placing the hack and a bobble squad on like a our own little theoretical Continuum of of of squat patterns um and then remembering that like increases in strength is um it's not like a physical adaptation but it's more like the combined ability to express multiple adaptations so we it's easier to get those mechanical uh adaptations in terms of like more muscle mass all that kind of stuff if we we can like log in and really make sure that it's the quads we're using compared to if you're doing a freeway squats where you're if you train at high intensities you will change the way you move and you should but it's just a different it's a different type of training um it's hard to to overload the specific positions uh that we want to at high intensities because things are going to change again going back to like looking at movement screens and all that kind of stuff it's you cannot tell how how person will squat with above 90% of their one red max if you're just doing a air Squad it's it's still a fine thing to do but just know that there are huge differences so in my opinion things like hack Squad all that kind of stuff it's ineni in isolation is a is a better tool for the for the job of creating strength because strength is essentially Force production and then we just need to find good ways to um to carry that over into the specific exercises and learn the movement coordinations and and all that stuff from this quote unquote base of of General strength training or the basics as I I like to call it yeah and I would say you could probably argue that for a lot of athletes especially people who have been around a while they move well um you're saying like an Andre who like you know he does a movement once a month and it's still pretty refined like couple warm upsets and he's ready to go uh especially for people like that it's like you don't need a ton more practice of the specifics like you just need a higher ceiling and you know to be able to train the right systems so to constrain the movement like you're saying uh yeah it allows them to express maximally their their strength without having any technical breakdown that kind of like kind of just we you could call it like Mal adaptation basically like not getting the thing that you want out of it uh it just kind of it makes sure that you're you're able to get exactly what you want from a specific exercise to to help it improve yeah and I think that of course uh as you it's like you you you shrug a little bit when you said malal adaptation because it's like but I it's like movement wise if you're constantly doing um that type of stuff you will learn how to move like that that's also why we we don't Peak every week because there's a huge difference in doing an RP 9 at above 90% than there is doing all your working sets at lower rpes with quote unquote good Tech like the technique we want yeah for most of the stuff and then just PR practicing uh the feel like the soft skills and all the the skill of having even higher load where you need your form need to quote unquote break down or you just need to to change your um the way you move uh like your to to to lift the bar um so so yeah um yeah uh another thing that I've I've seen you give a lot of is maybe not a lot of but that that you implement is uh like supported exercises so for example this is going to be really hard to explain over Audio Only but um for example if you were doing like like a preacher curl would be an easy example right like you're basically your arm can't move backward in space right so if you're doing like a for example like a barbell bicep curl you have your back against a wall where your elbows can't travel back behind your body why would you give those types of exercises so uh I like that you use the the curve biceps curl as the as the as the example important exercise but yeah I I uh people they they may joke a little bit about being focused on like the arm training we're doing but it like if you have a CrossFit athletes and they don't have they have quote unquote Small Arms than they they they need to like they they have room for them to get bigger why not because it will translate to a lot of the stuff you do in CrossFit and you'll feel more resilient and and do more stuff uh but we like to use both supported and unsupported variations but when we use to support it it's because we want more Force output the same examp like same exact thing as when we did when we talk about the hex spot whereas when we do it unsupported it's more about creating that internal stability um it it teaches you to do that but when you have more support it it's the external stability we try to take in to get more Force total Force output uh and then it's also very good for hypertophy work as it's easier to like fatigue the the tissues we want to in the positions that we want to if it's more like locked in space so to so to speak um but it's there still there's still some skill in learning how to use that external stability um and the funny thing is using preacher curl like just a single arm dumble preacher curl that's very well supported if you have some even someone who's on the level as and Andre and and big bigger guys the top of the top like having them train a set of biceps Cur like preacher Cur to failure they get pretty exhausted because they used to like good athletes are very good at um quote unquote cheating like in movement wise because they know how to uh what do you call it like um movement um econ economics whatever um but if you like that isolation stuff just and it's not only crossfitters but everyone take like if you have muscle mass and you take a a a biceps preacher curl to failure you will get you will get out of breath uh it's it's harder than than people realize because most people are used to just having three sets of 15 dumbbell hammer curls at the end of the session and just standing there and Swinging The dumbb around you might as well not do it in my opinion why not have two very good uh sets or even incorporate an arm day doesn't have to take more than 30 minutes into your weekly schedule then really focus on what you're doing and and then move on with your training week and and then I also hear that um like they it feels good on the elbows or that kind of stuff the shoulder joint like people they for tend to forget that the biceps and the triceps is a shoulder muscle it's crosses the shoulder joint the having the nervous system feel strong and competent in different levels of shoulder flexion extension U being able to create force and create internal stability in all those positions will carry over to your snatch and all that kind of stuff I'm I have no doubt about it all right last question for you so if if you're gonna often like super set things uh for example say it's like a pressing and pooling do you try to often line those things up or they're in the same plane so for example like a a b over row or like a cable low row with like a bench press for example it when when like pairing exercises like a push and a pull there are a lot of things that we can we can um we can take into consideration like is the Press A variation where the where the shoulder girdle or the the shoulder blade is pretty constrained like it it's like a bble bench press then we may think about using an a pulling exercise where the the shoulder blate can move more in space instead of having two exercises where they that are more biomechanically challenging so to speak um just to get a bit bit of a balance U and I think I learned I learned this principle from um Stefan CAU from from kill strength like if he has a a chin variation that that's a little bit uh awkward in terms of like your grip you may may use a a press variation that's more you have more like movement um Freedom sort of like the shoulder blade and everything can move better so that's one way to to think about it you can also go more of like the almost like N1 route where you very like fiber type like f fiber um specific so if you if you do a a press for the clavicular peeg or maybe like a press around fly or something you can you can think okay if I if I shortened that uh that cicular Peg fibers the upmost fibers of the of the chest that's the um that's the position where my lowest lead fibers the ilc lead is lengthened so you can do instead of just being um thinking agonistic antagonistic superet being chest and back you can think um IL ilc lad and clavicular pec and you can do the same so if you're doing a dip you're doing more like a a high to low a low to high row and a and a high to low push so you're pushing in the same plane that's you you could you could uh play around with that but um for most people it it I don't I'm not sure it really matters but I I like I'm glad that I know these types of exercises like press arounds that kasm made kasm Hansen made famous and because there may be like someone like Andre who he wants to be the like he wants to be the best in the world and uh if we see like his the top of his chest there are room for more muscle mass he didn't really have a lot of of that so it's very easy to incorporate some cicular work and and then behold two years later we have a wall facing handstand push-up and he feels like he's just like yes I like all the muscle mass he built he can he can really like we talk about this often like he feels like he can change about change from doing using more anterior Del clavicular because he's so good at the pressing angles like clavicular is more like narrow andriel you go a little bit further out H and he just killed that workout uh like big strong guys like big shoulders and he just he just flew past and of course he's also good at Diego bike like but but um yeah so like why not uh if if your entire if it's your job and your entire life is revolved around being the best athlete you can be you can try to find those quote unquote weak points and try to improve them and it's not because of Aesthetics like a bodybuilder would do but it's just make sure that you have you have muscle mass everywhere that can help you in in the in the exercises you want to do so yeah and then then one other example we had with has nothing to do with this like using the gym to yeah work on the things that may carry over into competition it's it's the same Principle as playing around with like your rest intervals we used to do like we did I think did 10 sets of two hack squads in one session where we had 10 minute rest between each said it sounds uh from a lot of people it sounds like um crazy long rest periods but then again go to Dubai class like Dubai um championships they have cleaning Jerks with like he had like 15 minutes between lifts and there's no stressing out because he's he's tried that at at the gym and now he's at the competition floor he knows that he can like he either per actually performs better when he has like this long rest and it makes sense because of the the the system we're training but like cross do are used to like eoms and all that kind of stuff instead of like really resting so you can you can use the gym to make sure that that you're used to like these scenarios that can happen in competition I love it and now we're speaking like very elite like type stuff like yeah I think you're gonna continue to get some uh good publicity as you should um I hope to see you continue to grow I mean the stuff you're doing is certainly unique and uh it's not just unique but it's like sound like it's good yeah yeah I don't I don't feel like like sometimes I I people think that I do stuff like very differently but it's it's it's the print like it's still the same principles that like applying like just I feel like sometimes when it comes to like helping CrossFit is that I just give them what like makes sense so to speak in like because if you yeah think if you like been in a in a like a method of training for so long um there there may be pieces that that you don't really see that are very that pretty easy to incorporate and that's that's also the cool thing about CrossFit like every year when I think athletes they they they reach out and learn stuff like Andre is very good at they incorporated into the their own programs and it just expands very very fast in terms of like U as as like when like Chris hin came to like the aerobic stuff and all that so it just evolves very fast and see how to find the best combinations for the sport so yeah but thanks for having me on it was uh it was nice talking thanks for listening today if you're someone who just found the show I would encourage you to subscribe so you can stay up to date for someone who's been listening for a while and enjoying what you're hearing i' would encourage you to leave a rating or review for the show that would definitely help us out and lastly if you're someone who does take your Fitness seriously and cares about your forance deeply I would encourage you to look into hiring one of our Coes until next time stay the course