How to stop wasting time lifting weights—Dr. John Jaquish

Dr. John Jaquish has made it his mission to optimize resistance training. On episode 454 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss how variable resistance training beats weight lifting and cardio for having the best body composition.

Full Transcription

Allan: Rachel, how are you doing?

Rachel: Good, how are you, Allan?

Allan: I’m doing really good, doing really good. This is an exciting week for us here in Panama. You know, up until this point, we’ve been on a curfew and a weekend quarantine. And so what that means is from 7:00 at night till 5:00 in the morning, you’re not allowed out. And if you get caught out, they arrest you. And then over the weekend, it’s complete quarantine. So you’re supposed to stay home and not go out on Saturday and Sunday. So from seven o’clock Friday night until Monday morning at five o’clock, you’re not supposed to be out.

Allan: And so, yeah, they will arrest you, but they’re giving us back our Saturdays and they’re raising the curfew from seven o’clock to 11 o’clock. So now the curfew will be 11 to five, which I’m already, I’m asleep then. Anyway, I do wake up sometimes before 5:00 but I’m not rushing out the door. Then I’m having some coffee,

Rachel: Oh good.

Allan: But I’m happy I got the Saturdays. It’s going to make hitting my goal of 100 miles a month a little easier.

Rachel: Oh yeah.

Allan: When you add a whole extra day and it’s a 20 percent increase in days and I’m pretty excited about that, I don’t have to spend my Saturdays in my apartment.

Rachel: Oh, that’s fantastic.

Allan: So what’s going on in your world?

Rachel: Same old. I don’t have quite the strict curfew as you guys have, but not a whole lot new here, trying out some new planks or with your traditional planks. So I’ve tried some new variations this week. I’ve done the the walk down where you get up kind of in a push up position and put your forearms down and get back up and couple of reaching ones and side planks and yeah, it’s been entertaining.

Allan: OK, let me give you a couple more.

Rachel: Ok.

Allan: OK, so this one is called a three tap plank.

Rachel: OK.

Allan: OK. And so you get into the regular plank with your arms extended. So it’s the push up style position. OK, and what you’re going to do is you’re going to take your you’re going to take your right hand off the floor and you’re going to touch your left shoulder.

Rachel: Oh…

Allan: Then you’re going to touch your right shoulder

Rachel: Oh…

Allan: And then you’re going to put your arm back on the ground.

Rachel: OK

Allan: And you take your left arm, reach up and you touch your right shoulder and then touch your left shoulder and put your hand on the ground. That’s one repetition.

Rachel: That’s fantastic.

Allan: OK, so that’s a good one. And then if you’re struggling with the standard plank, you know, some people will do them on their elbows, which is fine. Are you do it with your hands up, whichever works better, your shoulder strength, your upper body strength, both of them are fine.

Allan: But if you struggle with both of those, or you just you just don’t feel like you have the abdominal strength to do that. I recommend people do. And it’s basically a yoga move. It’s called the bird dog. Are you familiar with the bird dog?

Rachel: I don’t think so.

Allan: OK, with the bird dog, you get on your hands and knees.

Rachel: OK.

Allan: OK. And then you want to raise your right arm and point it straight forward.

Rachel: Mmhmm.

Allan: And then you want to raise your left leg. You try to hold that position. Now, once you get really good at it, you should be able to hold that position for a full minute.

Rachel: Oh, boy.

Allan: You’ll shake. You’ll shake. It happened. I was I was using this in a class and the shake, shake, shake song came on and they were all kind of laughing because it’s like this is appropriate. And then after you get on the right side, then, of course, you switch sides. So left arm out and then your right leg up and you hold that. So that’s called the bird dog. So those are two planks that you can add to your repertoire.

Rachel: I absolutely will give that a try. Thank you.

Allan: Good deal. All right. So let’s introduce our guest.

Rachel: All right.

Allan: Our guest today approaches health and fitness problems as a scientist and inventor, he invented the Osteo Strong to help fight osteoporosis, the X3 Bar exercise band bar system to help optimize strength training, along with several other products to help you optimize your health and fitness. With no further ado, here’s Dr. John Jaquish.

Allan: Dr. Jaquish, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

Dr. John Jaquish: Hey, thanks for having me.

Allan: You know, when you write a book, Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time, so is cardio. But there’s a better way to have the body you want. You’re going to get some personal trainers, hating at first until they actually take the time to read the book, which I did. And I agree. When I first saw it, I was like, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute. That’s not, that’s not entirely true until you actually start looking at some of the science behind what you’re talking about and why you’re saying the way we’re doing weightlifting today is a mistake, the way we’re doing cardio and what we’re doing it for is a mistake. There are better ways to get the same results. And that’s really what your…

Dr. John Jaquish: Better results.

Allan: Yes. Yes, absolutely. You know, it’s it’s sometimes it’s really hard. I’ll talk to a woman. I’ll say, OK, look, I want you to do some strength training because you want to get stronger. And their initial response is, but I don’t want to get big and bulky and, you know, I just want to lose weight. I just want to lose weight. And in the book, you cite some studies which I think are critical, but you also go a little bit deeper to why doing strength training is important for weight loss and waist circumference and things like that, better so maybe than even cardio. Can you get into that?

Dr. John Jaquish: So. cardio, like your central nervous system, is going to make changes to your body to a degree based on your environment. Now if the environment you’re putting your body in is to go long distances, run long distances or bike long distances. It’s going to try and find a homeostasis that’s going to give you some advantages and it’s going to adapt to that environment. Well, if you adapt to that environment, you have to think about and let’s just use the analogy of an economy car versus a Formula One car.

Dr. John Jaquish: So let’s say you’re a weightlifter, so you’re more like a Formula One car. You’re built for short distance speed explosiveness. So what do you have? You have a powerful chassis, very high bone density. Now, weight training is actually not heavy enough ever for bone density, but that’s beside the point. And that has to do with a lot of its drawbacks. But so powerful, Chassy, bigger engine, more muscle, that bigger engine is going to draw more fuel and it’s going to disable you from going as far even burning the same energy. When I run up a flight of stairs and like I was in the Munich airport recently out of the Munich airport, but it’s up and down, running up. You run down, running up you run down, especially if you’re like you have a tight connection because you’ve got to go through immigration.

Dr. John Jaquish: Like, I’m winded. And then my friend a guy I do some work with we’re going to Moscow and and he says oh your, cardiovascular is terrible and I’m like, no it’s not. It’s better than yours. I just one hundred pounds more than you in that weight is muscle. I’m not just like taller and bigger. Like so my quadriceps are probably three times bigger than yours. And when they contract they draw a lot of blood.

Dr. John Jaquish: So I am not efficient for distance. It doesn’t mean I have bad cardio health. The health of the heart and the distance you’re able to run are two totally different subjects. So when when you look at what the body is going to do, when you start running long distances, it thinks that it needs to give you that output with the least amount of fuel used. So you lose bone density. Plenty of research on this. You lose muscle, cortisol gets up regulated, cortisol does two things. It lessens your muscle, it gets rid of muscle, and it protects your body fat so that you don’t metabolize body fat, so cardio in essence, keeps you fatter longer.

Dr. John Jaquish: And sacrifices muscle tissue. So last I checked, unless you want to be a distance runner, it’s giving you the opposite of what you think you’re getting. Completely the opposite, and then you can look at marathon runners versus sprinters, the marathon runners are what’s called skinny fat. So yeah, they don’t weigh a lot, but you can’t see much visible musculature. You see kind of slumped shoulders, exaggerated kyphosis, because they don’t even have the muscle to keep their bodies upright. They’ve lost so much of the muscle, but then they’re still soft like still kind of mushy, you can see cellulite in various places and then on these athletes. So cardio is just not the answer unless you just want to be a distance runner.

Dr. John Jaquish: And that’s the thing. And that’s fine. But if you’re not going to be that, you got to know what that activity will do to you is not what you want at all, it’ll do the opposite. So when it comes to strength training, muscle is an engine that’s running all the time and influences your metabolic rate. So, you know, as I have gained muscle, I’m burning more calories all the time. And and so that’s big. But also, as I lift I up regulate growth hormone. I up regulate testosterone, so to ensure that I have the building blocks for muscle growth and the growth hormone, is anti catabolic.

Dr. John Jaquish: So even if I go on a caloric deficit, which I frequently do, I’m not losing the muscle at all. And so when you do weight training and like I do push the point, variable resistance is more powerful in the weight room, but weight training in the most efficient way. Let’s call it resistance training because it’s not really weight training.

Allan: That’s the word I use.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right, right. Like I didn’t say, resistance training is a waste of time. But weight training is a waste of time. So so when when you apply the resistance in the most scientifically proven way, you will have all kinds of anabolic effects, build muscle. And if you have your nutrition right, you can build muscle and lose fat at the same time.

Allan: Yeah, now you were working on a problem. It’s kind of what started you down this whole path your mother was dealing with with bone density issues. And so you started saying, what can I do to help her improve her life? And so you started working on a product to basically work on bone density that’s been quite successful. And while you were doing that work, you not stumbled upon, but you started noticing the strength curve and you started noticing some things about the strength curve that I think we’re missing in the past.

Allan: So, for example, you know, novelists back in the 70s put these cans on their equipment so that you got a variable style of resistance as you worked. If we work with most of the resistance bands that are out there today or even like a Bowflex in the old days, I assume they’re still using some form of band. As the band got longer, the resistance was variable. So I think that the concept of variable training has been out there for quite some time.

Allan: But you’ve kind of come across something that says, look, we don’t understand. We didn’t understand the strength curve well enough to design that equipment well enough. Can you talk about the strength curve and why it’s so important for resistance training?

Dr. John Jaquish: So what I what I documented in in some research that I ended up doing in a London hospital and this was for the bone density was going to be able to hear me a little bit better if I do this. But you have when you’re back here, you have X amount of weight you can hold. When you’re out here, you have seven X. So why would we ever work out with weight that’s the same when we have different capacity?

Dr. John Jaquish: So the weights heavy and the weakest range of motion and then it’s really not that heavy at all in the other range of motion. So I just. You know, like I said to myself, wow, weightlifting is so inefficient as a muscular stimulus. And then the next question was, well, maybe, maybe I should just train with bands, but then once you look at a band and what a band can do to you, once you get to a band that will deliver load that’s relevant to strength.

Dr. John Jaquish: This happens, your wrists get twisted. And when the wrists and ankles, most specifically wrists and ankles get twisted. So now you’re just causing a different type of injury than you would normally get from weight training. So the band’s by themselves are totally useless. There is a couple of hucksters out there who see the success of my product and then they launched a different one. That’s just like a bag of bands and it’s like, OK, you can’t get a workout from that, but you can certainly charge people money for it, but you’re just not going stimulating growth.

Dr. John Jaquish: So what I did was I developed an Olympic bar that can hold as much or more than a regular bar. Solid steel on the inside connected, I’ll show you this. So, you know, there’s a solid steel core and you can see both hooks rotating. So the risk is always kept neutral, and then the exterior is anodized aluminum mill to the million like an iPhone, because I want people to grab it and realize that this is not just some other fitness product made out of cheap plastic or whatever like this is this is it. This is like the iPhone of fitness equipment.

Dr. John Jaquish: And now I have over 40 professional athletes using X3 Bar resistance band training system as their main main strength development tool and a joint protection tool. Now, of course, professional athletes, they have to do like their drills and stuff like like skill training has become a lot more important with athletes. I was just on a podcast talking about this with a former NFL guy. And so, like they do their skill training but then X3 Bar variable resistance training system is their strength.

Allan: And I think some of the things that you went into are really, really important is, one understanding, yes. I think anyone that’s done just something as simple as a push up, they notice that as they go down and get to the bottom position, it’s a lot harder than it was when they were up at the top because they can’t recruit as much muscle. So they’re much weaker there. And that’s why a lot of people that that struggle with push ups just do half pushups.

Allan: You mentioned that in the book, that that’s the strength curve. That’s our recognition of the strength curve and thinking if we go down any further, we’re probably not going to come back up. That’s just our mind turning off because it says you can’t do this. So, you know, that’s the one thing. The other thing I think that’s really important is you’ve taken the time to think about how band work can be improved by making sure that the bar does what Olympic bars do, which is rotate. If you’ve ever had one of those screw cap kinds and they don’t rotate, you feel it when you’re trying to move that bar because the weights are static.

Dr. John Jaquish: You can’t really lift, you have neural inhibition. It makes the joints very uncomfortable and muscles start to shut off. So your body’s protecting yourself. Yeah. So it’s you can’t you can’t exercise in any serious manner.

Allan: Yeah, and then you have the footplate, which I think is also critical because that’s going to keep the ankles from feeling that resistance, whereas a normal band set, you know it just like the handles. Someone’s going to stand on the band and use their ankles and try to press overhead. Well, as they start getting stronger with that, that’s that’s basically going to start turning their ankles. So this gives them the capacity to work as hard as they want to and I think I saw the bands go over 600 pounds. So there’s there’s not anyone I can think of that’s not going to get a good workout with over 600 pounds of resistance.

Dr. John Jaquish: Anything you do is high reps. So it’s like six hundred pounds with, you know, thirty repetitions. Like, you’re not going to bump into anyone, in fact, the NFL guys of the NFL guys, not a single one, uses the heaviest band. And it’s not and it’s really funny because there are fans of the product who do like you’re supposed to do 15 reps minimum, but then they get the heavy band and they’ll do maybe like 10 sloppy kind of reps or they’re like twisting their body and stuff like that.

Dr. John Jaquish: And then they’re like, oh, I’m stronger than guys in the NFL. That’s a lot of attitudes online is it’s not really about. How you perform, it’s about how you look on or how you think you look on the video you post on Facebook.

Allan: Yeah, and that’s just that’s just ego. And I’d say if you’re over 40 and you’re doing strength training, you’re doing resistance training, you need to leave the ego at the door. You need to do work that’s efficient and effective. You need to make sure that you don’t enjoy yourself, because once you enjoy yourself, you’re out of the game until you recover. And when you’re over the age of 40, that’s just much more difficult to do. So this checks off a lot of really good boxes. So I’m pretty excited about this product.

Allan: Now, you also got into the topic, which I think is really important, because I think when a lot of people want to build mass, they’re thinking, oh, I’ve got to, you know, I’ve got to hit the carbs, I’ve got to hit the protein. And, you know, I go low fat. So, you know, I’m eating chicken and I’m eating rice and I’m just, you know, tuna and pasta and I’m just going after it. But you actually follow a plan of ketosis and intermittent fasting. Would you talk a little bit about your protocols and how you’re able to build the mass that you have. Because I’m looking at your massive build, the mass that you have while still practicing ketosis and intermittent fasting.

Dr. John Jaquish: So the conclusion I came to had mostly to do with realizing protein recommendations and understanding protein quality. So like whey protein, it’s easy to get your protein if you count whey protein. But the problem is only 18 percent of the whey protein is of the proper amino acid ratios. So, you know. 82% goes through you as waste. So it’s really not worth it to just even bother with whey protein.

Dr. John Jaquish: People get so upset, probably because they have six months of whey protein in their in their pantry.

Allan: Yeah, it’s cheap, it’s the most, it’s the most cost less product you could have relative to actually eating some whole food. It’s actually a little cheaper. Like if I look at and say oh I can get 30 grams of protein with this two dollar scoop of protein powder or I can go buy, you know, a steak and pay, you know, maybe four or five, six dollars for that at the store, you know, so, yeah, it’s it appears cost effective.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, whey used to be the byproduct of well, so it is the byproduct of pasteurizing processing milk and then it was thrown away. It was garbage. And so it was Dandi Shane who started buying it. And say, hey, can I have that trash of yours and I get like a buck every chemical drum or whatever, and then that’s where that’s really where protein whey protein supplements came from. It was garbage.

Allan: There you go. But but you do follow ketosis, but you’re just making sure that the quality of your protein is such that you’re able to get the protein you need and that helps you maintain your muscle mass and continue to maintain strength.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. I don’t use the word I mean, I’m in ketosis all the time. But what’s interesting is I don’t use the word much because there’s a lot of confusion around it. Like people think to get in ketosis, you need to eat fat. That is 100 percent not true. To get into ketosis, you need to not eat carbohydrates. Now your body turns to fat for fuel, but it could get that fat through what you’re eating. This is true.

Dr. John Jaquish: But it could also get the fat from the Krispy Kreme donut you had when you were eight years old, which is in your gut. So let’s get it from there. So that that’s that’s really where I want people to focus.

Allan: Well, you definitely do a lot of research, and when you want to solve a problem, by God, you solve it.

Dr. John Jaquish: And then I document it because I tell people, people, and sometimes they get like a DM or something. And it says, what’s your opinion on this or what’s your opinion? And then I’m like, I don’t have any opinions. I’ll tell you, there’s research on that. And what and how we could view that research and what the weaknesses and strengths of that research are, but there are no opinions. Like I wont volunteer my opinion on really anything from a biological standpoint.

Dr. John Jaquish: Like I can say, there’s no research. Hearing things that might be happening. But I won’t wait those one way or the other because, you know. So I guess my point is I’m always trying to be is referenced or I’m trying to reference other research as much as possible. So because I’m saying so many controversial things, nobody would believe it if it were just like this is what I think. If I can I can site a bunch of studies and go, well, you know, these researchers that Dr. John Jaquish doesn’t know. You know, and years before he launched his products came to these conclusions so they can kick and scream about it. Unfortunately, people are dogmatic about it. I actually get trolled for nutrition even more so than my product.

Allan: I mean, I can understand that because and I was actually thinking about this, I’m working on another book, a little e-book that I’m going to put out. And I was actually thinking about, you know, why why does someone get so mad when you you have a food approach or a way of eating approach that is so different than theirs that, you know, they literally almost like politics, want to come to blows about how wrong you are. And it is just dogma.

Allan: It’s just they’re tied married to their idea. You know, sometimes when you’re looking at research even, which is cool because, you know, you made the comment that most of the research you’re following, these guys just never figured out how to productize what they were finding. You have so, you know, boo-hoo on them if they feel bad about it. But you did. You’re taking the time to think about it and come up with solutions, which is huge because that’s what we need.

Allan: We don’t you know, science is great, but if it sits in a journal unread for 20 years, it’s not really doing us a ton of good.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right.

Allan: Occasionally something will come up, you know, like like Louis Simms at West Side, you know, put bands and cable and chains over the bars and his athletes got really freaking strong and everybody’s like, what’s he doing? And a few people went in there and basically spied on what is what he was doing, this conjugating method. And it got out. It’s like, yeah, this is what he’s doing. This is how his athletes are getting really, really strong. And all you’ve really done is take some of that same. You figured out exactly what the optimal strength curve is and said, OK, if we have an appliance that allows them to work out with this kind of strength curve, or at least as close to it as we can approximate with what technology we have today.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh, I’m dead on. I measured.

Allan: Yeah, I saw the curves online. I was like, yeah, he’s right there. You know, it’s not there’s not much, much, little bit to get in there, but it’s there. And so, you know, and you took the time to think about what are the other problems we’re going to have with a piece of kit like this if we one, don’t think about turning ankles and we don’t think about the wrists and we don’t think about the bio mechanics of how this is all going to work so that we’re, you know, in a way optimizing without the injury. So, again, I’m really I’m really pleased with your product. I think it’s I think it’s really, really cool.

Dr. John Jaquish: Thank you.

Allan: Now, if someone I’m sorry I jumped ahead. I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, so the easiest one is you grow when you sleep. You repair cells when you sleep. So don’t compromise your sleep, which really means don’t drink alcohol. Thats not the answer a lot of people want to hear or, you know, drink it at the minimum, but it really affects your sleep if you sleep monitor like a motion detector next to you in the bed and like you can use your phone to do this. There’s a couple different sleep analysis apps and you’ll notice you thrash around all night when you have a lot of alcohol in your system. When you don’t, you don’t. And you sleep much better and you can have a much better repair of damaged cells.

Dr. John Jaquish: And then, you know, the growth, just the muscle protein synthesis that comes with proper strategic strength training. Yeah, so like, that’s the easiest one getting getting better sleep by cutting, cutting down or out alcohol. So the other two really have to do the two pieces of information we have that lead to long life, so the two greatest drivers of long life, despite what you read on, you know, nutritional facts.com, which should really be called nutritional lies.com, the two greatest drivers are high levels of strength and low levels of body fat.

Dr. John Jaquish: So if you want to live a long time, focus on those two things. So that means strength training or cardio. That means focusing on things like ketosis if you want a low body fat. Animal protein, because it’s going to make you leaner, like a vegan nutrition plant based nutrition. From a vegan perspective, you know, there’s not a lot of data on the pure vegan, but you notice their weak with a lot of body fat, so they have two things going on that are going to cause them to live shorter lives, longer lives.

Dr. John Jaquish: And then and then, you know, when you when you look at the Western diet, like right now, people are practically vegan. 70% of the Western diet is plant based because remember, vegans are not necessarily eating vegetables. Bread is vegan, right? So they’re having all kinds of pastries and little nut bars that have nuts from every continent in the world that, by the way, if you want to talk about destroying the environment. There we go, sourcing ingredients from every corner of the world to make some little fake health bar. Like that’s a stupid decision, so like some of the vegans I know, they brag about how Oreos are vegan and they eat like sleeves of Oreos for dinner or at dinner time, I’m sure they would call it dinner.

Dr. John Jaquish: But like, you’re just getting fatter, like you’re just getting fatter. That’s all you’re doing. And you’re worsening your cellular health, your metabolic health, your hemoglobin A1C score all the things that they’re saying on the news to do the opposite of. But then, of course, like the American Diabetes Association gives out cookies at their events. Like, that’s like going to an AA meeting in pouring free shots. It doesn’t make any sense at all.

Dr. John Jaquish: But, you know, like you can tell somebody they smoke too much, you can tell somebody, they drink too much, you tell somebody they eat too much, and it’s like you insulted their ancestors. So unfortunately, that’s the situation we live in.

Allan: I’ve been doing I’ve been doing this for five years. And I can just tell you, it’s like I have a guest on and we don’t exactly see eye to eye on the nutrition front. It’s never a pleasant conversation for either of us. So, you know, I don’t push my own out there. You know, I’m like I’m agnostic generally. I say eat what I’m going to eat because it doesn’t matter what I tell you to eat, you’re going to still eat what you eat. But I’m just saying, you’re right. If we’re not paying attention to the quality of our food quality of our protein, we’re not paying attention what we’re putting in our mouths. It really doesn’t matter what else we try to do for our health. It’s just not going to happen.

Allan: Dr. Jaquiss, thank you for being on the show. If someone wants to learn more about you, the X3 Bar resistance band bar system and the protein supplements and things that you have Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time, where would you like for me to send them?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, I made a landing page with all the links to everything, you know, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. So go to doctorj.com.

Allan: Cool, So Dr. Jaquish, thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Dr. John Jaquish: Allan, thanks for having me. This was great.

Allan: Well, Rachel, that was that was a really interesting talk. It’s kind of interesting to see John on video. I took some videos and I’ll be posting those promos for this episode. So I encourage you guys to go check those out on our Facebook group. I’ll have a couple of videos posted there of John and we’re having this conversation.

Allan: Now, the interesting thing is that when you see John, he looks like a bouncer. You quite literally looks like a guy. If you walked up to the club, you got the guy who’s got his arms crossed in front of his chest. And you’re kind of like, I’m not going to mess with that guy. He also is bald, but he just looks like a bouncer. But he’s a really, really smart guy. He’s an inventor. He’s a scientist. He looks at data and he solves problems. And so his piece of equipment X3 Bar, I’m not I’m not joking. You know, right now, I’m not getting any money from John to say this, but I’m going to buy one and I’m going to check it out because I think it is important to optimize what you can get if if you’re not lifting weights at all, or you’re not doing any resistance training at all. Shame on you.

Allan: Your bones and your muscles are not happy. I can tell you right now. And you’re missing a big pillar of our health and fitness by not doing resistance training. But to start with something, you know, the resistance bands that you can buy on Amazon and I’ll have a link in the show notes to some. Those are really great little tool for you to get some exercise at home and they fit in your in your suitcase so you can carry them anywhere you are.

Allan: You can get your resistance workout done. And resistance bands are just a great adjunct to body weight movement because it just gives you an opportunity to do things you can’t do, with just body weight. So but he has a specialized process, specialized tool. And I like gadgets and I like playing with stuff. So I’m going to I’m going to probably buy his equipment. So understanding that we can we can do better with science. I mean, in a lot of times I pooh-pooh supplements.

Allan: I pooh-pooh. It’s Arjuna’s ketones last week. Forgive me, Dr. Lori and I pooh-pooh a lot of other stuff, but there’s a time and place when those things matter. You know, I talked about the guys that were lifting at West Side and how they were using chains and bands to maximize their effort. They had a specific task to get really freaking strong. And you might not want to get that strong. But if you if you want your deadlift to get heavier or you want your squat, get heavier, training your body the right way will help that happen.

Allan: And so what’s going to happen for someone that does both. You’re going to you’re going to fatigue your muscles to the full range of motion a lot better than you would if you just did the exercise itself. So I see the tool as a great tool. And again, these were a tool and I like to use the same word twice in a sentence, but it is a tool and it’s a tool for allowing you to get stronger. He put a lot of thought into how it’s designed and how it’s built.

Allan: So it’s it’s a pretty cool thing and it’s something that weighs like seventeen pounds. So it’s something you can actually carry around with you. And like I said, just the same convenience you kind of have with bands, although these are probably and likely much better, is going to give you a gym in your hotel room and give you a gym at your house in a time when people don’t necessarily want to get out and about around a lot of people and like in the gym, because our gym still closed here.

Allan: Yeah, they basically lumped us in with discos and casinos and concerts and movie theaters. So, you know, we’re just that important. But no gyms here. So if I want to do something at home, this is a pretty cool piece of kit to have.

Rachel: Yeah, I’m actually really intrigued by his results with bands. Usually when I think of a big bulky guy, a bouncer type guy, I’m thinking big heavy weights, big Olympic bars, big fat plates. Yeah, serious weight lifting. And I’m pretty intrigued that he can get some really good results with this program or this tool.

Allan: Yeah. And the interesting thing is he’s got he’s even got professional athletes working with it. So, you know, it’s it’s not a toy and it’s not the little bands that you’re buying on Amazon.

Rachel: Right.

Allan: Again, if you’re not doing anything there is the start, that’s where you go. You get those bands, you do body weight movement. And if you have any questions about it, email me. I’m here. You know, I’m here to help you figure that out. But if you’re getting into the training and, you know, scary to get under a lot of weight when you’re doing a bench press, it’s scary to get under a lot of weight when you’re doing squats and there’s opportunities for you to injure yourself when you’re moving a lot of weight.

Allan: So here’s a band that’s going to work within your strength curve so that you’re getting stronger through the full range of motion and he’s built it to be generally safe. So again, I think it’s really cool toy.

Rachel: That’s something I can see having in our gym, too, especially when if I’m working out by myself, I don’t want to be crushed by some heavy Olympic bar.

Rachel: But I’m also interested in the strength curve and the kind of the specificity behind using bands to get kind of a different workout than your basic dumbbell, barbell type move?

Allan: Well, the the equivalent, because, you know, I’m kind of been in this lifting mode for a long time in my life. But one of the core things that comes out is when you do push ups, you can watch someone doing push ups or watch someone doing pull ups and you’ll notice how they don’t go all the way down.

Rachel: Mm hmm.

Allan: And the reason they don’t go all the way down is because it’s so hard.

Rachel: It is.

Allan: You know, it’s like I go to the bottom. I might not make it back up to the top. You know, I’m not going to take a deep squat like I’m supposed to. I’m going to take those little half squats and risk my knees because it’s hard to get back up. Whereas with this piece of equipment, you’re working that weak part hard enough for that weak part and you’re working your strong parts as hard as your strong parts can work. So you can find that equilibrium where you’re getting the best work.

Allan: So, you know, understanding that having that variable resistance is going to help you get a better workout is, like I said, really, really cool. And there are, the way we used to do it as bodybuilders would be this. Is we knew that we could lift a lot more weight within that strong zone. So we would do partial reps there. And we knew we couldn’t lift as much in those weak ranges. So when we found our sticking points, we would work lightweights through heavier, heavier but lightweights there.

Allan: You know, lightweights, but not as heavy as our strong. So you would do these partial reps, you know, and that’s cool if you’re trying to build muscle. And, you know, look, Buff, you know, once when I was doing it was kind of the goal. But, you know, that’s not practical for a lot of people to say, OK, I’m going to do, you know, partial reps in this zone and then I’m going to go change the weights and do more reps in this zone, and then I’m going to do more weight in this zone.

Allan: That’s not a practical workout for most people. And it’s not strength training. It’s that’s bodybuilding. It’s very different kind of lifting approach. But what he’s allowing to do is within the strength area for you to use that same concept and just work the whole range of motion. And you don’t even have to change bars or change weights. Just just do the work. So I think it’s a great adjunct to a normal weight lifting program. I’m not going to go as far as as John went as to say lifting weights is a waste of time, cardio too. I’m sorry John.

Rachel: Bold. It’s a bold statement.

Allan: As I told him. I said, you know, of course I’m getting you on this podcast because I’ve got something to say to you. But he’s a big guy, so I probably wouldn’t say it. I would just say good job. But anyway, it’s you know, I feel good moving weight, you know, and I don’t get the exact same satisfaction moving band. So, you know, there is a motivational factor for me to to get under a bar to to pick up a bar from the ground.

Allan: I love deadlifts, love, love, love, love, love, love deadlifts. It is my favorite thing. But besides steak and oysters and a couple of other things. But it’s it’s up there anyway. So yeah. I love I love moving way. I love about the feeling of being able to functionally do something and so bands can be a great adjunct if I, you know, maybe I, I don’t want to move that much weight or want to know, maybe I’m sticking in my tall, you know, sticking at the right and, you know, sticking at the bottom and I’m just not getting a good start on my left.

Allan: I’m like, OK, I know I can get this weight, but I just got to be able to build strength in that zone. Now, there’s ways I could do that. You know, I could put it on rack and I could lift partials. I could do boxes and I could elevate my feet and I could do some things to kind of change those angles and change that weight within those angles. But again, not my favorite thing and too much time dedicated to something like that.

Allan: And it means not adding a tremendous amount of value to my life other than just feeling good about what I’m doing. Bands are going to be a great adjunct to what I’m doing.

Rachel: Yeah, I think so. I think it’ll keep things interesting in the gym and give you something different to do and you won’t be stuck in a rut or doing get bored doing the same thing all the time.

Allan: All right. Well let’s go ahead and call it a day and we’ll see you next week.

Rachel: All right. Take care.