Kinetix

03/10/2025

02/05/2025

COMPOUND LIFTS

For most average gym goers, we should be prioritizing the compound movements. Squats, lunges, rows, presses, pulldowns, pushups, pullups etc. The exercises themselves can vary, but the idea is to maximize your efficiency. If you are in the gym a few days per week, it will take an eternity to isolate out every muscle group piece by piece and really be effective seeing big changes. You get way more bang for your buck by focusing on less exercises and making them hit multiple parts at once. The majority of your energy can be spent maximizing the effect of 2 or 3 exercises on several body parts as opposed to trying to disperse your energy across 4 different exercises just for the shoulders.

Compound lifts are also more effective in stimulating growth (globally) as compared to isolated movements. There is more of a tax on the nervous system which drives more adaptation and there is a more pronounced hormonal change (growth hormone amongst others) when larger/more muscle groups are being stimulated.

Isolated movements are still really good. Don’t throw them out. But maybe think about an 80/20 ratio if you’re someone who can only get to the gym a few days a week. 80% of your training should be spent working your butt off on compound movements, and the other 20% can be more focused, isolated work.

If you’re getting to the gym 5x/ week, it’s still a decent idea to maximize gains using compound movements, but maybe a little less important than someone that’s only in the gym 2x/week.

01/27/2025

Muscles Don't Turn "On and Off"

Never has it been more common to hear phrases like "my glutes are turned off", "my quads aren't active when I squat", or "my hamstrings are inhibited during...". Our nervous system is carefully constructed to ensure this is not the case. The only time this can actually be true is during some neuropathic disease or injury like a stroke, a neuropathy, or a spinal cord injury. Pain can also inhibit the ability for a muscle to activate. But your muscles are ALWAYS on.

Words matter and we can't keep repeating and promoting pathologies that don't exist. You don't have a firing problem. You can't turn a muscle on or off so let's stop stressing about it being a problem.

What CAN be true: we can help a muscle to fire more during a movement through better body awareness (proprioception, kinesthesia etc), through use of feedback tools like tactile/verbal cues or tape, or through use of electrical pulses like Russian Stim.

But why do we care so much if you're more quad or hamstring dominant during a squat? There are millions of neural pathways to which our body synchronizes a complex movement and achieves the desired results. For arguments sake, let's say you attached some electrodes to your legs during a squat and found that your hamstrings did 60% of the work and your quads did 40%. Your body has fine tuned that ratio across your entire lifespan to create it's most efficient pathway for success. Why try to mess with what we are good at already? Don't rebuild your engine from scratch.

The caveat always tends to be the bodybuilding community. They are training their muscles to perfect symmetry and specific areas of growth. These ratios matter. But for most of us just trying to get stronger, get healthier, get more fit...you're overthinking and moving backwards by focusing on something that doesn't matter.

Unless you are a bodybuilder or your goals are only to make your quads or your b***y pop, just focus on getting stronger and maintaining good technique. Your muscles will never turn off. They are always working.

01/17/2025

Train Less Intense? Really?

We love the idea of being a gym rat. Showing up every day, grinding through tough sets, staying for two hours, dripping in sweat. Leaving the gym or your practice with your clothes drenched and barely being able to walk to your car is the quintessential image we put in our heads of a successful workout.

For 99% of people, it's a silly pipe dream and we really shouldn't be striving for this. We should be setting realistic goals and striving for consistency. Training to failure is cool and all, but there's a litany of research telling us that you can get the same results leaving a little bit in the tank. Having a few reps in reserve is smart training when science tells us that you can get the same effect.

Don't get me wrong, a high level athlete can absolutely be training multiple times per day, working their a** off every session, and leaving everything they have in the weight room or on the field. I still believe that training to failure is important for many of us. But most people haven't earned the ability to train this way, and quite frankly it's going to lead to burn out or require too much recovery and ultimately limit the success of your next workout.

Reach for smaller, more attainable intensities and time commitments with your workouts and grow it over time. You should feel good and enjoy the ride for many years. The more you beat yourself to a pulp, the less chance you have to reach your goals.

12/24/2024

Asymmetries Are Perfectly Normal.

Imagine doing everything you’ve ever done right handed but expecting the left to have the same size or skill level. Unless you are ambidextrous, you've been brushing your teeth, writing, swinging a bat or a club, kicking a ball one way your entire life. Maybe an athlete who practices their skills on both sides daily will have a little bit less disparity between right and left side.

But most people living a perfectly normal life are just not practicing skills or tasks with both sides. When you multiply this by 20, 30, 40, 50 years...you are going to have some imbalances. There is no direct link between muscle imbalance and injury. Yes, weak links on BOTH sides can fail and may need to be addressed. But left or right being bigger or stronger is not directly causing pain or injury.

I've been working out for the better part of 20 years. My left arm is still the limiting factor for a heavy dumbbell press. My left leg pistol squat is weaker than my right. I have a little more development visible on my right chest, arm, upper back. It's perfectly normal and healthy.

Unless you are bodybuilding, for which it does matter, just work hard and incorporate some single leg / single arm activities in your programming. You don’t need to spend countless hours working on every little flaw or else you wouldn't get any meaningful progress.

We are all flawed. The human body consists of 200+ bones and 700+ muscles. Do you really think they are all perfect? If we addressed every little imperfection we'd be moving backwards in our training. FOCUS ON WHAT MATTERS MOST, then do some fine tuning when things aren't working the way you'd like them to.

Pursuing more symmetry (unless bodybuilding or you have a specific injury/reason to be working a weak link) is wasted time and effort that could be moving you forward. A good program incorporates some single arm or leg stuff and that should be more than enough for most of us.