PT. 1 - How To Build The Bikini Competitor Physique With Coach Andrea

Hey team, welcome back to the show. Today we are talking through how to build a bikini physique with coach Andrea. Natalie and I are also here, not as much bikini physique experts as Andrea of course, about to compete in her first bikini competition. And so we got a guiding clients to similar goals. But again, I think that there is a lot of value to like experiencing and like building a physique like this firsthand. So I thought you'd be a really cool person to kind of talk through this topic which I also think is kind of similar to the physique that a lot of our clients aspire to. What do you guys agree? Yeah. I would say like when I was doing a lot of the sales calls, I would get like 70% or like I want to look like Andrea and like 30% or like I want to look like Natalie. And no one ever said they wanted to look like me. It's all. It'd be worse. But in terms of how a jet we want to get, but they are just different physiques, which I also want to do an episode on how to build the figure physique, which I think would be a really fun one as well as it's kind of cool. The compare and contrast how you approach going about the two. But to kick it off, Andrea, talk us through when we say bikini physique, what are we actually talking about? So the shape of a bikini physique is kind of what people are referring to whenever they say they want to build that physique because a lot of times like we'll ask for goal physique pictures in an initial questionnaire with a client. And every once in a while, there's like a stage picture of a bikini competitor. But most of the time, yeah, most of the time, it's more like a physique that looks like they could compete in bikini and it's that similar shape. And so when we're talking about the big bikini shape, a lot of times people will say that S curve, which is-- >>Skollyosis. >>Exactly. I mean, yeah, with the posing. It's not all that different than whenever you're thinking about X frame for figure, for example, but it's a different size and posed differently. So it's still wider up top, small waist, wider on the bottom. So built shoulders, built lats, that's the top half of that hourglass, small waist or at least posed to present a small waist and then larger glutes and then secondarily hamstrings and quads. So that's the bottom part of that hourglass. Okay, so what are the key visual traits then? >>Wide shoulders and lats, small waist. >>It's glutes, it sounds like they're the big glutes. >>Big glutes and shoulders are the glutes, shoulders last for the biggest. >>Yeah, and I would also say not just glute max, but also glute mead, because it gives you a more complete looking glute shape. >>Okay, fair enough. Now, within your clients, we say that most of them, this is kind of a look thereafter, even if they don't set on stage. >>Yeah, for sure. >>Okay, so basically glutes, huge part of those delts, lats. What makes this a more specific goal that just, hey, I went to tone up or I just went to build muscle across the board? >>I would say it's the specific shape that we're building and that illusion that you're creating by building a specific ratio versus just sort of a well-balanced programming that has a little bit more upper body work included. So like Natalie's programming, she's got five days per week, upper body is a really large part of that. With Bikini, it's a little bit more skewed so that you're kind of building that specific Bikini look ratio. >>Okay, okay. So very much biasing those most important muscle groups. Now kind of on the side, but when you have a client come on board and they're like, hey, I want to build this physique. I know your training is very specialized towards this. You have a client come on board and they're like, hey, I want to build a physique like you. Are you typically going to give them like, we're just training glutes five days a week? Or are we going to incorporate more like upper body and things of that nature than like you might yourself? >>It definitely depends on where somebody starts because we're looking at their starting point, their goal physique and what are the holes that we need to fill in order to get there? Like what are the weak points that we need to bring up? So it definitely depends, but most often, no, most of the time we just kind of need more muscle overall. And then whenever somebody has been building for a while, sometimes at that point, they're going to start to give them a little bit more specialized. Like a, like a, oh my gosh, what am I trying to say? Like a more glute focused program. >>Okay, okay, so there's some more specific program. >>Yeah, there's a word that I'm trying to say, but I can't say it. >>I see that a lot as well, especially like coaches that I work with. And even some of them have competed in the past, whereas like, hey, we've done well, but we're not at the point where we need to even like give super specialized here. We just need more tissue across the board, which a lot of times just comes down to like poor training program design in the past. Now when it comes to achieving this look, what do you think most women misunderstand when they say they want to look like this? >>Almost across the board, everyone needs more muscle than they think they do. A lot of times people will look at a goal physique and go, if I just lost 15 pounds of body fat, I know that this is what's under there. And that's just never the case. Almost every single time you need way more muscle. I mean, right now I'm getting ready to compete. I'm 30 pounds less than whenever I started this build. And I have not enough muscle. I think your glutes are so much more body fat than you think they are across the board. That's just true. And so you just have to build so much more than you think you need to in order to have the shape that you want once you die it down and lose the body fat. >>For sure, I feel like glutes are one of the most misleading muscles because on the flip side, if you're like someone who's genetically blessed with great glutes, you can not be that lean and it looks like you have a great physique. And in reality, when we die it down, your butt might completely disappear. Lower body as a whole, especially for women who tend to store so much fat on their lower fat on their lower body, it's so hard to actually truly tell how much shape you have down there until we do get quite a lot leaner. You feel like you don't have nearly as much as you expected or is it about what you expected? >>I expected them to shrink quite a bit. So I wouldn't say it's too far up from what I expected, but I mean, they have lost a lot of inches, sadly. >>Were you surprised with lower body when you died it down for your show Natalie? How it changed? You feel like you held on to the weightless shape you expected? What was that like? Natalie maybe frozen. >>She was muted. >>I'm going to assume she just insulted me. But it is very, very normal part of dieting. I find with a lot of clients when we're getting someone's lower body leaner for the first time. I have a couple of clients right now who are dieting down and we're starting to uncover more lower body shape than they actually expected to have. I have one client who's prepping for a photo shoot and I knew she would have a good amount of lower body tissue just based on what I had seen. But whatever co-workers was like, why would you do a photo shoot? You don't have any lower body muscle a couple months ago. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Trust me, you have a lot. We just need to get leaner. The thing was she just wasn't lean enough to see it yet. Because again, just by seeing more fat source towards her lower body. Now it's like damn dude, you were jacked. I guarantee you now if you were sure to show co-worker her, she would not think that in the slightest. But on the flip side, yes, I think especially with glutes, it is quite easy for them to just spear. Not only are you back with us? >>Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I have a spotty signal or something because it's like everything is super delayed. So I can unmute myself anyways. I try not to look back on photos from my prep. I actually actively don't unless iPhone populates them for me in a memory and then I'm like, oh, and I just remember, you guys know that up until I walked on stage for the second show I was like my glutes aren't in. They're not in. I just need to build more. But it was interesting the way that my anterior shredded down faster and more completely than my posterior. And obviously some of this has to do with body fat storage patterns, but also like muscle density, right? And looking back, like when I am faced with some of those photos these days, I look back and I'm like, oh my gosh, I was so tiny. >>Not the meatball he ordered for sure. >>Yeah, no, but it goes to say like how you look in your off season can be really deceptive. For sure. Okay, so from there, any other big takes in terms of what most women misunderstand when they say they want this look? Andrea. I think that, I mean, this kind of goes hand in hand with you just need to build more muscle than you think. You're not going to be able to stay like stage lean all the time or photo shoot lean all the time if you want to build the most amount of muscle. And all of us, I know are on the same page with not adding unnecessary body fat. However, there is some degree for most of us, a necessary amount of body fat that does need to come along with a build phase. And especially for those that are more advanced, we have to see the scale going up to know that we're building muscle, especially if you are someone that's on the leaner side. If you're already on the leaner side, you definitely need to see the scale going up or else there's likely very little happening. For sure. Like for people who are looking to build glutes, like, I don't think they can understand what that takes. I know you're going to get into it a little bit later, but I just don't think they understand what to put on like actual size strategically where you want it, like the amount of food and really hard training that it takes. And I think a lot of women are under the impression that they can do this on like 17, 1800 calories and like just kind of taking the boxes and the gym. And that's, that's not at all how this happens. So I'm looking forward to like you getting into this Andrea. And then I also will acknowledge like the power of posing to when people are submitting some of these like stage lean athletes and stuff. It's like they can also express the shape that they have. Like I think what draws the eye and what appeals so much about this physique for a lot of people is like the silhouette and the shape. And yes, that comes with a tremendous amount of muscle and everything that that entails. But it also when you're setting, when you're looking at a goal physique, those athletes also know how to express it. And you look at most lifestyle check ins. And like it's apples and oranges. You know, it's like you're, you're just kind of standing a little bit more relaxed. Whereas like that's what posing is posing is meant to highlight your shape and make you look basically as jacked and lean as possible. And so in a lot of ways, it's not a fair comparison. And even if you did have like that amount of muscle, it might not look like it in your trekking photos. Yeah, that's, I'm just crying. I've been just putting something about this one client I have who I wanted to do forever. Great guy is a great progress, but progress pictures are still not as forte after years and years. Like a while back, you sent me a picture that was, I was like, I already had any some progress pictures. So he sent me progress picture was him holding his phone through a plant in the mirror. I was like, this is so horrible. Thank you. Okay. But I think another, another very, very important point there is going to be that we can't stay like thinking to the clients who submitted. I think of the clients who have submitted like a stage lean competitor, like Alora, Leah's like their goal physique. And it's like a picture of her on stage. I think another important point to understand is like no matter how much tissue we build, you're not ever going to look like this all the time. She looks like this one day out of the year or one day like every couple of years, right? This is like her peak, our very leanest and her most jacked. I think that's another misconception when it's like this is actually someone's stage such shots and you like want this to be your walk in your out of the week. It is not going to be. It's just an unsustainable level leaness and like peak muscular for that person. Cool. All right. Natalie, what were you saying? Brought up Laura Lee and you were saying how you know this is not a sustainable look. And she doesn't even walk around like that. Now granted, she is able to exist in a much leaner body on a more consistent basis because she's put the time in to be able to do so. But the actual stage shot of her, she looks like that for like five minutes that day. Right. Just very, very important takeaway. Kind of like Andrea, do you think you're quite a bit below what's a standard lean for you right now? Not that far below like where do you think you're at relative to what's sustainable? Because I mean, a lot of people listening to see what your physique is like right now. I think that's a good comparison as well. I think with the, this is so individual person to person. I don't have a cycle right now and my sleep is pretty jacked up. So, um, sleep, I would say probably about four weeks ago started going downhill. So that's probably a little bit more sustainable for me. But even that, I'm not going to just get back to that point and stay. Um, I think that the, I mean, no, I don't think this, I know this, the more muscle you have, the more lean you're going to be able to look and maintain that for a longer period of time. And so, you know, maybe at some point, I will get to the place where, you know, four or five weeks ago, that is kind of a sustainable body fat for me. But for right now, no, I think that I'm for me pretty far below that point right now. Okay. I should think again as a good takeaway, right? Like, this is your physique and look great year round, right? Your thick lean, your playing muscle, right? Have a great physique year round. But it's not like the same level shredded you are either. So again, very important to consider when we're looking at chasing a physique like this. Okay. So let's talk about building muscle. Big topic here, starting off with one of the most important, the kidney physique, everybody's favorite glutes. What would you say of the biggest glute training mistakes you see? Not only here in the glute training this week, you can throw some there as well. I don't know if it's been long enough. Andrea, though, unless you start biggest glute training mistakes you see. A lot of it is just not training hard enough. That's by far the most common. So I want to start there because we have our clients give us what is your RIR target? And then what is your video for this movement? And some will say RIR one and it's like five, six, seven RIR. That's the when they first get started. So that is by far the most common mistake. Beyond that, I think that the programming that people start out with is just not usually very good. We want to make sure that we have a variety of length and overload movements performed well so that the glutes are actually the target muscle that's failing. And with some of the short and overload movements as sort of secondary, but I think with glutes because you're feeling a pump in the short and overload movements so much better, those tend to take more of a front seat in people's programming when they are focused on glutes. And they're just not as big of dial movers to actually grow a lot of tissue. They're helpful for sure, but they shouldn't be the primary focus when you want to build big glutes. You see so many programs for new clients. They're doing previously trying to build their glutes and it's just straight kickbacks, kickbacks, kickbacks. And it's like, dude, this is not where the money is going to be for us. So when we're looking at like, okay, you personally like a couple of favorite glue builders for yourself or clients, when we're talking about like those like the bias movements, what are if you have your personal favorites? Some kind of hinge. So an RDL, a B stands RDL. That's pretty much it. I got last week's episode. Yeah, exactly. And that's one where I think people miss out on some big glute gains with that because you don't feel your glue to ton in that movement. And it's still one of the best glute builders. Beyond that, a glute by a squat pattern. So that is ideally a couple time, at least a couple times per week, one being bilateral, one being unilateral. So that could be like a glute, a leg press or a glute by his leg press. It can be like a split stance movement like a rear foot elevated split squat or front foot elevated split squat, lunge patterns, anything like that. And then you're shortened overload movements like cast bridges or hip thrusts, kickbacks, glute mead work, stuff like that. Okay. If you like personally had to choose like within my training, these are the two that I feel like have done the most for me. What do you got? Personally, I think an RDL and it's really hard to say bilateral or a B stands because I think they've both been really huge. But I think with a dumbbell RDL, it's just fun to get really strong at it. So that ends up being a big down mover. And then a room for elevated split squat. The movements that everybody hates with your own. - Yeah. - With your RDLs though, this is one, like there's a pandemic where no one loads their RDLs heavily enough, or it takes so, so long to get a client to get to the point where their RDLs actually have a challenging load, because people are so afraid of hurting their backs, which is, I started telling clients, like, hey, weak things break easier, right? Like if you would just, like, if you stop being a bitch and get stronger at this, like you're less like literature-self, I haven't used that term, Fulgee, but, like, how much do you RDL? - Right now? - Not peak build, not right now. - I got to 265 in the office. - I thought that out of the video, I said, people of you doing RDLs all the time, as an example of how to do RDLs, where I thought you were doing 275. - Maybe it's 245. - Feel free to tell people that. - I do tell people that, so I'm sorry for all of you, I'm misled, but regardless, like that's, and that's for what, at least like six reps I'm assuming. - Yeah, six or seven. - Okay, okay, cool. Not only anything else you would add there. Cool, side notes, somebody wrote "Shirt overload movements." That was cracking up. - Yeah. - That's short overload. All right, so let's talk delts, personal favorite online. When we're looking at building the delts, what do you think most people get wrong there? - Not enough lateral raises. You can do so many lateral raises, and the side delts, like the middle of your three hudds of the delt are the ones that give you, that's the part that sticks out. It gives you that definition, that V shape, at the bottom of your shoulder, that everybody is kind of thinking of whenever they think about delt definition. And the best way, really the primary way to build that is with lateral raise variations. And not only are people not doing them enough, but there are also people suck at lateral raises. Like leading with the hands, they end up in a W at the top of it with their thumbs pointed up. So fixing that is gonna be huge. Also on that same movement, not pushing them hard enough, just similar to glutes. There's so many reps left in reserve, where especially with something like lateral raises, it's a single joint movement. It's not that fatiguing. We can just really push it. - It's delts, do you see her? - Yeah, just keep on going until you can't move your arm. It's like you're gonna be recovered. I don't think my delt have ever been sore. So it's very easy to recover from. So just keep pushing them harder. I think those are the main things that people get wrong. - Yeah, I would agree. The lateral raises one, I tell people the same thing all the time. Like just go and tell you, like can't hardly move the weight anymore. And that's how all the sets of these should look. Like even if it says like zero to one, or I'll change it to zero. And just I wanna see us go till we can't move this anymore because there's no reason for us to be stopping when like the rep starts to slow down. We get still squeeze a lot out of this. - Yeah. - That'll be, I know this is something that's probably more near and dear to your heart. Any other takes for us on delt trading. Things people get wrong. - Yeah, any nights, the same thing, lateral raise technique, leaving too many in the tank. And I think that might come from overthinking a little bit, but it's like, it's not that deep. Like we're probably not gonna hurt ourselves on a lateral raise, which is, you know, it's one of those movements I always tell people like, dude, what's the worst thing that's gonna happen? You're not gonna get full range of murder. - That's right. - That's really the worst of it. So like, why are we not going for another rep there? - Yeah. As you said, those while Andrea like the W pattern, where basically like we're leading with a hand so much that we get in this weird like extremely externally rotated position. And like, again, we're not doing a good job driving this stimulus to the delts there. That is like the counter to that. If we are pushing in load too much to where like technique is breaking out like that, again, we're not gonna get a whole lot in terms of the delt. So probably the two biggest things I see. Let's talk back, lats and upper body balance as a whole. Now when I come into building this physique again, like I know I joke like just trading glutes five days a week, but this is still an important part of having the bikini physique, correct? - Yeah, yeah, for sure. - Okay. Basically, we're gonna talk about that hour glass. - Yeah, exactly. If you don't have any shape to your lats in the front pose, even if you have shoulders, it's just gonna look a bit incomplete because you're gonna go from shoulder right into your waist and it just makes your waist look more blocky. Whereas if you have shaped to your lats, you're gonna have more of that inward slant into your waist, which makes your waist look smaller. And same goes for someone who's not posing and getting on stage. The width of your lats makes your waist look smaller. It's all illusion. - It is pretty cool to see like when you bring on a client who has just no last at all, which is quite common for a lot of women. Like I have some clients where I'm like, damn dude, you were almost like shaped like a triangle where like, you know, it's almost like we, like narrower as we get up towards like your shoulders, but it's so cool when we can build last, like just how much that changes, like the entire shape with the vehicle, almost more than anything else. For you, you've also never, have you ever trading at lats with Natalie? And I always just, I feel like when we have our team trading sessions, we're always training lower body end lats. I don't feel like I'm gonna go on to trade lats with you. - Like we did a back day when you were here. - We did, Natalie. - Oh, we did your back day in Arizona. - Yeah, that's right. - Yeah, okay, okay. Back in the day, way back in the day. - Yeah, yeah, we're tiny in that picture. I haven't saw that the other day either. Anyways, when we're talking lat training, for you personally, of course, like we have pull downs of rows. So basically if we want to simplify, we could pull from overhead, we pull horizontally. We're looking at, let's just go to like, your two personal favorite lat builders. When I was like, this is how I built these lats. What are those for you specifically? - A single arm Iliac pull down, which for me, I have to do with a bench and a cable, which I still really love it. You guys have great machines for that, but the cable works well. And then a single arm cable row is my other favorite, I think. - Okay, okay. I feel like we've had this conversation many times. Natalie would yours be same. - But we can talk about in a different episode, but we're looking to get a little bit more specialized with the divisions of the lat and which part of the lat we need to bring out and like terries and things of that nature. So it is a little bit of a different shape, but same principle. - Bill me in though, how would that potentially buy us our programming if we're talking specific to the bikini physique? - Me or Andrew? - Yeah, you. - Well, for my division, for example, specifically I need like a little bit more terries and I also lower lat, because it just like the more we can hone in on like some of those other divisions, the more we can kind of build that 3D back, which is needed for my division. For bikini, when they turn around to the back pose, their hair is down. So most of them actually have really jacked backs. Andrea included, but it's hidden by their hair, strategically and on purpose. So what is really most important for them in a back is like dealt and upper lat like width so that you get that like the dealt cap and the silhouette there at the top, which again is what leads to that like S curve that Andrea keeps talking out. So like the ratio from like the your upper lats to like your waist and where that goes in. And then like rear del as well, like you can see that, but you know, they're not looking to build their upper back necessarily. So like I have a lot of upper back focus. - I'm none. - I have none. I have no upper back movements at all. - So like I need things like traps, rhomboids, like all of those things. And a bikini athlete might get that a little bit by default, but they don't need that. They don't need the upper back density. And even if they have it, it's gonna be covered by their hair anyway. So really everything just goes into that like that silhouette that you want. - Okay. So fascinating. Do you have a lot of rear del specific work Andrea? - Not a lot. I actually only have a rear delt row and that's it, but. - You don't do like a reverse pectite? - Mm-mm. - No, I mean, there's some rear delt that gets involved in the other pulling that I do, but that's it. - Okay, okay, interesting. So talking through then quads, Andrea, do you avoid training quads so your legs don't get too bulky? - So now, yes, but initially I had pretty underdeveloped quads. So you do. need quad shape and size, but it's just enough to give your lower half a really nice shape. And then beyond that, it's not really helpful. And you would end up meaning to kind of hide them in your posing a bit. If your quads were too well developed, okay. Do you like with new clients, do you often see that someone's quads are overdeveloped? No, no. Ninety percent have underdeveloped quads, especially like down around the knee. There's almost no shape there for most women. And I don't like whenever I first started lifting, I was kind of scared to do a lot of quad work because I thought it was going to make my quads just look bulkier. And I think that a lot of women kind of have that mindset, but then there's also the group of women that really try to build their quads and just don't put themselves in the right positions or aren't training them hard enough or don't get in deep enough knee flexion to really build them efficiently. But yeah, I definitely don't see very many overdeveloped quads at all. Yeah. You're someone where I shared your side best like quad transformation that really recorded a while back about how to get lean legs or something like that. And it was crazy. Your legs shape has changed so much as you said, especially like the BMO area around your knee where you just really didn't have a whole lot of tissue there at all. And just the whole shape your legs has improved so much. Now outside of training hard, like you mentioned not putting them so, like there's a lot of women are trying to build their quads, but they're not putting themselves in the right position to do so. Can you elaborate on what you mean by that? A lot of people's quad training is just kind of coming in from leg pressing or split squat variations if they're doing them or leg extensions, which leg extensions are great, but whenever I have somebody get started on a leg press or a hack squat nearly 10 times out of 10, then their feet are up too high on the platform and they're going down to about 90 degrees. And so we're not really getting into that deeper stretch where we're getting more forward knee angle over the toes and we're adding a significant amount of tension to the quads in their maximally stretched position. So then we're not going to grow that that quad tissue as effectively that way. You had a really great post on your on your pendulum squat where we want to be able to get down into the deepest knee flexion that we can while still maintaining good foot pressure, good hips to build all of those things, but even within that, most people are just cutting it so short and then have trouble growing their quads as a result. I see you is that women are so focused on wanting to build glutes that any time I like per well, usually program something quad specific like if their gym has a hack squat, we'll probably also do some leg extensions as well because you know, for my coaches, I like, we kind of need to bring everything up, but there's just this like it's like people know, like hack squat equals quads and they're like, no, no, no, no, like I don't want to build. I'm like, dude, trust me, we need we need to build. That's what we need those to. Like we'll get to your glutes, but we also need this. Yeah, kind of similar to what we made, we're most pitiful, the stench tissue across the board. I would say the other thing I see is oftentimes when people do understand like, okay, I need to stop cutting it so high like the getting into like morning flexions and important. Again, to kind of tack on Natalie's post. A lot of times I will see as well like, okay, once we understand that, then it's like this person is just dive bombing down into the bottom of their pendulum squats or their hack squats, your little I press, where the weight is just pushing you down like lower back is rounding up at the bottom. We're being pushed outside of our active range of motion and again, just forcing down further than we can really control. And again, it's like, I'm not getting a ton out of this outside of like joint pain and I feel terrible, but again, we're not actually getting a whole lot of quad stimulus either. So that's both your dips post and your pendulum squat post. I had a couple of people message me by your dip post, Natalie actually like, I have like Natalie's dip post inspired me to use better tempo. So I appreciate that by the way. Another big mistake I see with quad training. When we're talking about go ahead. I think that's, I mean, just to hone in on what you said, like, if that's what we're going for with any of our movements like like the quads, for example, like, oh, I just need as much knee flexion as possible. You're not, if you're outside your active range of motion, you are not going to grow as effectively as if you weren't. So like, the mentality of like as much knee flexion as possible, like no matter what it all costs, you won't grow as well. Like you personally, your body will not grow as well as if you were to respect your active range of motion. Absolutely. Now when we're talking about overall training structure, kind of big picture, kind of shifting from specific body parts to how to train as a whole. I want to talk through some other mistakes. Now we've already talked about training hard quite often. Andrew, you mentioned here not doing mobility work is a big challenge for a lot of people or kind of a mistake people are making. Why is that? Well, in terms of bikini specifically, the mobility aspect is just so huge. You have to get into really uncomfortable positions. And in order to be able to access that, you just, you've got to, you've got to put as much intention into your mobility work as you do your training. Like, you've got to push past that point of comfort in your in ranges, loading those in ranges is also extremely helpful. And so many people just either don't do any mobility work at all or they are just kind of going through the motions. This also can carry over into your training too. Like, well, you're just, we were just talking about active range of motion. You can improve your active range of motion if you are more mobile and you have access to a deeper deeper hip flexion, for example. And that that really matters whenever you're starting to really focus on in on like specifically glute glute hypertrophy. It also like there's there's also like, hey, we want to make sure that your hips are able to move well. That's going to carry over in a big way to building your glutes. And also preventing injury, you're not going to always completely prevent anything from happening because stuff happens. But you can lessen the frequency of stuff popping up here and there. And the worst thing for your gains is not being able to train because you're hurt. So mobility work is something that has taken a ton of intention for me because I admittedly did not do much of it previously. But it really significantly helps. Okay. So if it sounds like first frame there is relevant to your posing mobility works been very important. But then also through the lens of training and how that can make our training more productive and less potential for entry. Okay. Now I do think that like sometimes with mobility, I do want to be careful how we frame that to a degree because like a conversational habit of clients sometimes is like, my knees hurt. I think I should start doing more mobility or my back hurts. And it's like, I'll actually remember how I was saying like we're losing all heel pressure on our leg press, right? Or like you're drastically rounding your spine. We're doing our RDLs and our toes are lifting and we're like, that's the reason this thing is our aching more. So then like, it's a lack of mobility. I do think there's a misunderstanding. Like the solution to that isn't, hey, we just need to know. And also even like what mobility is, right? We just not necessarily, we need to just like go do 30 minutes of static stretching or something of a sort. A lot of times when we're looking at like, yes, mobility is helpful. Also like making sure that you're looking at the movements we're doing again, not like not that you're saying this. I just want to make sure as it rests because like this is a conversation I have quite often. When you're looking at like mobility work pre-session, let's see you're going into, we talked about this in the RDL. Let's see you're going into like a lower body day, like a squat pattern. You're prepping for that. Can you give an example of like what quote unquote mobility work to prep for that would look like because I think that's helpful to understand like the difference between this versus like what people typically think of as mobility work. Yeah, so a good example of that is doing like a hip airplane or the wall striders that we talked about last week in the RDL episode. So it's not just going and like stretching your hip or laying on a foam roller. It is taking your hips through internal and external rotation so that then whenever you go into that squat pattern, like a split stance squat or your RDL pattern, you're actually able to achieve internal rotation at the hip rather than that hearing that force over to your low back, for example. That's very well put. So again, it does have to be like we're doing 30 minutes of mobility work prior to our lower body such as for example, but for opposing, especially it seems like that's like a whole different animal which, yeah. - It's awesome. - It's cool. Anything else to add there before we move on Natalie? - Just that. I think people would do well to think about mobility less as static stretching more as I need to teach my body how to move better. - Yeah. - Very well put, which kind of is just intention. Similar to what you mentioned at area. So when we talk, it's kind of example split design here. Let's talk through a couple examples of like how training for this look might go. So let's start with, for example, a beginner's client, let's say they're fairly lean and they don't have a lot of muscle yet. And they want kind of more of that, just like lifestyle bikini type look, right? Maybe we don't want to get stage lean. You could think of like the physique I have currently versus what I'm trying to build. What does like what kind of slowed you typically like their starter? - For a beginner client, they're very likely not great at training yet. So they don't need a ton of specificity. They just kind of need to build muscle all over and they can also handle a little bit more frequency sometimes because they're not creating a ton of fatigue and stimulus every time they do a set. So that might look like an upper lower, upper lower split or even for some people with bikini specifically lower, upper, lower, upper lower, which I don't honestly do five days a week for too many people, especially with lower body focus, but somebody that's pretty new and not that strong can handle that. And that's gonna help give them more frequency to practice those movements, get better at it, get stronger and also give like plenty of volume for their entire physique through the week. - Yeah. For someone in that position, it's largely skill acquisition and we're trying to like develop that skill as quickly as possible fast. We can, the faster they'll make gains. Similarly, like not a lot of new clients would have put on a five day split, but I think I mentioned this while back. Like I have one client who does like her goal long term is or kind of made term is to compete in fit model needs to build a lot of muscle and it's fairly new to training. And we're really focusing on like just getting her training hard through a four-range emotion and her lower body training at the start had a long way to go. So like what I do with her is lower up and she's all about it though, like loves to train low to be in the, loves to be in the gym. So she has lower upper, lower, upper lower. And basically all through those lower body days are more or less like the same three movements that I want her to master. Like the more frequently you can train those and you get like as like if there's not a recovery issue because we're not training hard enough yet to get there like we're still mastering these but again like it's more practice we can get there quicker. Like we're going to master those the quicker she is going to start making bigger gains. Go on anything else there. When we're talking about then a more advanced client. Okay, so like someone like yourself looking to compete at a higher level. What would you say that split could look like? - So here we're training hard. We're creating more fatigue and especially whenever it comes to lower body which tends to get more sore for most people than upper body. And there's a little bit more of a recovery tax versus upper body. We still want it to, at this point you're probably a little bit more specialized with training the glutes specifically more frequently. So that might look like lower upper, lower, lower. Where maybe one of the lower body days is kind of balanced. One of them is more anterior focused. If you need that one is more posterior focused. I also am partial. This is what I've been doing for a long time but I'm also kind of partial to having an extended micro cycle where we can have more lower body days but space out according to recovery needs. So you don't ever go do your lower body days back to pack and you go in and you just kind of do the next training day on deck whenever you're recovered and ready for it. I really do like that for training lower body so frequently because sometimes you need a little bit more recovery. Sometimes you're still sore from the previous day and there's some overlapping soreness there. So being able to have that flexibility of just pushing that back one more day and training that lower body again whenever it's ready and recovered is nice whenever somebody can do that. - Absolutely. That's like I have a decent amount of clients where like building glues is a big priority and we're like pushing like playing with three day we frequency for that or like three training sessions with the micro cycle but it is hard to like get someone recovering well especially if you're training a lot of more lengthened bias movements for glutes. Like I like a lower like a more glute bias lower upper rest kind of more balanced lower rest posterior and on that posterior day we might have like maybe an RDL and like curl or maybe like a glute rev in there and then like a more like lap upper body of course that your entire posterior chain so like lats upper back potentially as well where it else. But even that I find it's like you don't have a whole lot of wiggle room before people just don't recover as well if they're not as long as they're training hard which anyone I have like I'm a split like that is training hard already. So it's for sure harder to make work than just like a traditional seven day week. - Yeah you almost need one of them to be like all shortened overload movements to give it just like some extra volume but still recover. - Yeah and then I run into like I don't love a whole training though that is just shortened overload movements because it just doesn't. - Yeah. - Like I feel like once we get past like about okay we've done like four or five sets. Of course we could like do like four sets of glute max four sets of glute mean. Has that as like I don't know if I feel like I'm getting a whole lot more out of this. Do you like play with like a higher frequency lower body training more often as well? Natalie with clients or no? - Yeah and even my clients that aren't on a predominantly lower split I will introduce this idea of more like a rotating like micro cycle to them. You know so I'm like hey we're so we're like never really skipping anything we're just taking extra rest days. So as much as we can kind of like break out of that seven day week mentality which is totally made up by Western civilization anyways. Like if you're not one of those like every Monday is Chess Day then you know this is an approach that can work really well. But I will like load up I'll definitely make like a lighter posterior day with like kickback variations 'cause like we need those too. Like we're actually like trying to like build a fully well rounded like blue then like kickback variations something that they can load up a bit heavier even if it's shortened overload like the blue drive like you said. So it's going to like be a little bit more effort and a little bit more stimulus there even though it's shortened and maybe like that's where I'll put there like a beast dance already L and then or something. Right? - Like that is a really good application for the you're like control I really loaded like a stand stuff. 'Cause you're just automatically limited by load like there's no way you're pushing the weight on a beast dance like you are with a bilateral. So you're automatically capped. - Yeah and you're actually loading your spinal loneg is this big driver of fatigue right? So just reducing that by so much. Okay. How many of us do we get glad? - Sorry but like I also find from like a function standpoint that those like single leg RDL movements actually like make you so much better at the other glute movements that we need so that we're getting better stimulus when we are doing your split squats and your bilateral and you know and like leg press and things of that nature. - Feel like they get people so aware of the pelvis and like how like controlling it how it should be moving. - I've become a really big fan of the Contra lateral RDL that the stands are you all. - Yeah like I've noticed even in like my own training my bilateral leg press actually even my unilateral as well but like my leg press I am connecting so much better and faster since like working on my single leg like internal rotation. Which is just been really yeah it's just been really cool because like not a lot has changed with my leg press you know like in terms of the way that I execute it. So it's been really cool. - Working on your single leg internal rotation so that's just like your single leg movements or what do you mean there? - Yeah I mean movements that force me to be in action to access internal rotation so like my B stands or single leg RDLs. - Okay okay. - I had a client who she's been having some like back stuff working and like I've been talking her through like hey basically in simpler terms like every time we do a split squat see how you're back me is like traveling way outward. We want the opposite of this like we want more internal rotation and she met with a PT and she was talking her through as well like we need to be improving internal rotation and she had like basically doing like kind of like a 90 90 type movement things of that nature as well and she was like should I avoid like the split squat and things of that nature for now and it's like I mean this is gonna be one of the best. that's ways for us to get better at internal rotation, right? Is not just like training your, actually like internally rotating your leg, not just like the action of the internal, some of your internal rotators, but again, like the actual like, getting your body internal rotation, getting, getting strong with that range as well, rather than like us avoiding this, while you're doing like the like, we're squeezing like a ball between our legs and doing like the kicking your foot out, internal rotation, drill. - Yeah, we need to load it. Is how we're gonna get. - Cool. How many days a week are you guys programming frog pumps? - Every day. - Every day. - Banded though. - Let's wrap it up there for this. We'll go ahead and break it with that into your bars. Next week we will talk about, next episode we'll talk about the nutrition side of things, kind of timeline. What if we don't want to compete? How does the cell apply, works through them, rapid fire? And then how to know what should you do next based on where your body composition, trading history, et cetera, is at. But for now, we will wrap it up here. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. If you would like to work with our team, hit the link in the show notes, and we will catch you guys next time.