Anabolic Academy: Proper spotting technique

Lessons on the proper way to spot. 
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:40

It's time to start Anabolic Academy. So fucking grab your socks and drop your cocks. Just Christ. You know what all of you have in common? You're all fucked up. If you watch this show, you're fucked up. Especially if you watch my other channel, you're really fucked up. Holy shit, you're fucked up. You belong in a rubber room with a strait jacket on. If you watch my other channel, holy shit, you guys are fucked up. I'm gonna have that. I'm gonna put that on a shirt one day when I get big enough and people want to buy shirts for me. I'm gonna it's because serious that's on this bodybuilding and on the back, it's gonna say, I'm fucked up. You too, Roger. You're fucked up too. Anyway, all right. Um, I've been wanting to do something on the proper way to spot for a while, and I didn't know if I was gonna do an in the gym thing. But if I do an in-the-gym thing and then I gotta pay somebody to come with me and fucking and fucking video it while I show somebody to spot. So I was like, well, you know what? Let me, I'll just do it on here and hopefully it works out well. But a couple of announcements for you fuckheads at home watching this. The first thing is next week, unfortunately, there will be zero content. I am sorry, no content. I will be in the Bahamas. Yes, that's right. I will be in the Bahamas celebrating my 50th birthday. So that means you guys are gonna have to take a back seat unless you want to meet me at Baja Mar in the Bahamas, then you're more than welcome to do that, and we could get drunk by the poolside. Okay, that's the first thing. Second thing is uh please, the description is in the I'm fucking retarded today. You guys are fucked up, I'm fucked up. The link is in the description today. Please do me a favor, just go and order something from iPravil subs. Just anything. I mean, he I mean, he's got hats and shirts, and he's got his supplements are great, they're really good quality. Um, I know I sound like a broken record, but I'm pushing it because uh Jay is a dear friend of mine. He's he has been literally on my podcast since day one, literally when I started off having 50 subscribers, like and he has never left. Uh thank you, sir. Thank you very much, Roger. I appreciate that very much. Thank you. You don't have to do that. Uh, but it lets me know that you appreciate my content, and that's all I could really ask for. So thank you, sir, very much. But please go and uh check out iPorveil Sops. Uh so Jay is home, he is no longer in the hospital, but he has to go through some treatment. He uh has sworn me to secrecy, not to say what the problem is. Um, it started off with some uh back surgery and um broken ribs, and uh it's kind of escalated to something worse, but he's gonna be fine. The good news is he's gonna be fine. He's home, he's out of the hospital, he has to get uh treatment, but he's gonna be okay. But it turned out to be worse than we thought. When he's ready, he's gonna come on and he's gonna talk about what happened. Uh, I wish I can give you more details, but he's a good friend, and I told him that I would not uh share with any anybody anything unless until he's ready to come on and talk about it. So, but really, uh I prevail subs, go check it out. He's got great stuff. Use the discount code, you get 10% off. It'll show that you've been listening to the channel, and um, we're making some headway. It's SNS 10. You'll see uh the discount code in the description. Okay, third and final announcement. I don't know if Lee Priest is going to be joining us this week. Obviously, next week I won't be around, but this week he is in Germany. So when I will be when I'm taping uh muscle talk, which will be out tomorrow morning, it is going to be 3:30 in the morning in Germany, so he might be sleeping. Uh I am going to send the link anyway. If he's up, he's gonna join. If not, I told him don't worry about it, wait till uh next week. And uh, not a big deal. He's out in FIBO. He's telling me that FIBO is a huge expo. He's being sponsored by Young LA. So um he's having a great time with him and Sid and everybody else from Young LA. And he said that the expo in FIBO is bigger than the Arnold Classic. That's what he told me. Those were his words. So um maybe one day I could get sponsored and fucking fly out there. Holy shit! I probably look pretty good in a young LA shirt. I did order some stuff from him. All right, let's get into it. I am like really sick and tired of going to the gym and seeing people that don't know how to spot. It is an accident waiting to happen. Like it really is bad. I don't know what happened, I don't know why the art is lost. I don't know if people just don't care about spotting. I don't see videos on people spotting. Um, but it is really bad. I mean, you have a workout partner and he's staying behind you on the bench press and he's on the on his cell phone not paying attention. You know, he's uh squatting, he's you're squatting and he's trying to spot you from the bar. Uh you're doing dumbbells and he's spotting you by the wrists. I mean, it's fucking horrible. It's just it's just a shit show. It's fucking horrible. So I had to address it because I I see it all the time. And it's not just like these little shitty gyms. I go to goals, I go to two gyms. I go to LA Fitness and I go to goals. And even in goals, these I don't know where this stopped, but we really need to teach these young kids. And they're not even young, the girls, the guys, they really didn't know how to spot. Um, there have been times where I want to train heavy and I say, hey dude, can you spot me? And they have no fucking clue. I mean, like literally no clue. I'll be doing like a uh dumbbell bench, and they'll stand in front of me and I go, What are you what are you doing, man? What where are you going? You're supposed to be behind me. I don't I'll be doing a um, you know, uh easy bar curl, and they'll be behind me. And I go, what the fuck are you doing? Like it's uh and I'm not talking like you know, a 19-year-old kid that doesn't know. I'm I'm picking people that I think would know, but apparently, yeah, for some reason, spotting is just out the window. Nobody, it's just it's a shit show. Okay, let's real simple. Okay, what this is what we're gonna do. I am going to bring up the proper way to spot on images on here, and then I'm gonna basically talk about it, and then you guys, and I'm gonna do the basics, right? Bench, uh deadlift. No, we don't spot for deadlifts, that's stupid. Uh, bench, um, squats, um, dumbbell, shoulder presses, all the basics. I'm gonna pull it up so we could see exactly how to do it. I mean, it's it's it's absolutely ridiculous. Anyway, so the the first most important way to learn is your squat and bench press. You guys need to learn. I know the guys that watch the show pretty much know what they're doing, but the people out there, you need to learn how to spot properly, especially on squatting and bench press. 100%, those are the two uh motions that you could hurt yourself really bad if you don't have a good spotter. So let me just bring it up. I'm gonna bring the first one up, okay? Let's see. Okay, this is clearly all right. This is obvious. It's really simple, it's not difficult. Here he is in the bench press. He's got one hand underneath and one hand above. Do you see what I mean? He's got he's got his left hand underneath and his right hand above. That is the absolutely 100 way, 110% proper way to spot somebody that is bench pressing. Now, here's what you don't want to do. You don't want to lift it for him, okay? You just want to have your hands on there. All right. We're not in the gym powerlifting, we're in the gym trying to move that weight and trying to stimulate the muscle. So if he gets to a point to failure, one of the good things of having a really good spot is cost is referred to as forced reps. After he's trained till failure, a good spotter could get him to do a few more reps by taking a little bit of the weight off, a little bit of percentage of the weight off, and he will get some forced reps. So he will be training after failure. But do you see how he has his hands? That is this is the perfect, the perfect way to spot somebody bench pressing, okay? And again, what you want to do is just follow through. All right, your hands are on there, he's you're not helping, not right away, you're not helping, okay? And then you're gonna and then you're just gonna keep your hands there because if something were to happen and your hands aren't there, and he drops the weight, all it takes is a millisecond for him to crush his neck, and all you need is that much time for damage to happen, a millisecond. So you keep your hands there, you don't help him, you keep your hands there, you keep him in motion. And what talking from my experience, anytime I had somebody that I knew was a solid spotter, was a good spotter, that knew what he was doing, I would always push myself even further because I knew that I was gonna be safe. And I always wind up getting a few more reps because I knew the guy behind me knew what he was doing and I felt safe. So in a situation like this, his hands are already there. So if something were to happen, boom, he takes it, he takes the bar. And between me pushing and him pulling up, that is enough force to get the bar off your chest or off your neck or to continue moving the weight. All right, all right, next one. Let's go to squats because this one really drives me fucking crazy. Oh god, it really does. This one really drives me fucking crazy. All right. I like this. I like this because this shows the incorrect way and it shows the right way. And the problem is nine times out of ten, when I see people squatting, I see people doing it the wrong way. Okay? Now look. Number one, the good thing is he has the safety bars there. Always squat with the safety bars there. Do not think you're Superman and not spark with the uh not and squat without the safety bars there. Always, always, always use the safety bars. I don't want to fucking see somebody break their neck and then you can't get it up, and then you fucking crush yourself, okay? That's what the safety bars are there for. If they're there, then you can go all the way down and the bar is not gonna crush you. It's gonna stop at the safety bars. And at the same time, those safety bars have to be low enough where you can get a full squat, but also high enough where if you can't get it, you just drop it and it's off your neck. All right. Also, in this diagram, he shows the wrong way. Okay, the wrong way is he's spotting from the bar. That is the wrong way. Here's why it's wrong. If you're spotting a girl or you're spotting some, uh I shouldn't even say that. There are some girls that are very strong, but it doesn't matter. If you're spotting someone at a beginner, or you're spotting somebody that's that's squatting light, yeah, you maybe be able to pull the bar off his back if he can't get it, right? Maybe. But if you're squatting two, three, four, five plates, there's no fucking way you're saving him if you can't, if if you're spotting from the bar. It's impossible. You're not going to be able to get the bar off his back. But if you spot him in the correct position, like it says in this diagram to the right, with the green check mark, with your hands on his waist, or even his arms. You so I've seen guys do it with their complete arms around their waist. Then what happens when he can't squat it? You're actually both squatting the weight. And it is with the safety bars and somebody spotting properly like that, it is almost impossible to get hurt. Well, not severely hurt anyway. Okay. Now I know it looks a little gay, but you're gonna have to suck it up, no pun intended, and fucking do what you gotta do. Because this is the this is your your comrade in the gym, this is your friend, this is your gym bro that needs help. Okay, and he asked you to squat uh spot him, and you need to do it properly, all right? And and if let me and let me put the shoe on the other foot. If you ask somebody, and this has happened to me plenty of times, if you ask somebody, if you're gonna go heavy, you feel good, you're in the gym, you're like, today's gonna be a good day. I'm gonna fucking squat heavy. Um I feel it, right? You get two plates for like 20, 30 reps, like, holy shit. You get three plates for 15 reps, like I'm going up to four plates. I know I can get 10. Whatever the case may be. And you ask somebody to squat spot you. I can't fucking seem to differentiate the pronunciation piece in your tweet between squat and spot for some fucking reason today. And you ask a colleague to spot you, and he spots you by the bar or doesn't come right behind you, and he doesn't know what to do, just tell him thanks anyway. I don't care if he gets insulted. It's your back you're gonna break, it's your neck that's gonna fucking be crushed if uh if you can't get that weight off your back. I don't care if he if he's insulted. Fuck him, who cares? Your well-being, your health, your condition, your injuries are more important than his fucking fragile ego, okay? So please, if you're gonna squat, do it like he's doing it in the right to the right, okay? From the waist, all right? And same thing, it's the same concept, okay? You're not going to help right away. You're just gonna follow through with him. He's gonna squat, you're gonna follow through. Then once he has a hard time, then you start taking a little bit off. You start pushing a little bit, and then you you let him get some force reps, okay? And then when it gets to the point where you can't get it, you uh you help him squat it up, and then you help him walk the bar onto the fucking ledges, onto the uh the the safety ledges. All right, and also another thing about squatting and spotting. Don't put the safety, not the safety, don't put the I don't know what you want to call it, the pieces that hold the bar, but the barbell too high. I'd rather you have it low because when you can walk into it, then you could just drop it onto the fucking rack that holds the barbell. If it's too high, now you got a fucking problem. I've seen people do that all the time, and they're trying to get it, you know, because they can't fucking squat it uh high enough to get it onto the onto the rack. So please, if you have to like go on your tippy toes, just drop those, just just drop those two pieces that hold the barbell a little one more, okay? Or two more. I'd rather you get underneath it, squat it up, because when you walk it in, you could just drop it into the into the safety rack, into the rack that holds the barbell, rather. It's really simple. I I have to do a video on this so that people could see because it is extremely important to learn how to squat properly and learn how to spot squatters properly. All right. Okay. All right, let's get rid of this, let's get rid of that. So we did bench press and we did squatting, okay? Uh if you guys are watching and you want to throw out a motion, but I'm gonna basically now look up shoulder presses, chest presses with dumbbells, because this is another one people screw up all the time. Uh, let's see here. All right, the proper way to spot for dumbbell presses, uh, images. All right. Let's see if we could find an image that actually shows a person squatting, uh spotting from the elbows. Let's see. I'm trying to look for you guys. I can't believe I can't I can't find anything like that. This is fucking ah, okay, good. All right, good. Here we go. Now, this is for dumbbell chest and dumbbell shoulders. It's the same fucking concept, okay? Now see where his his hands are on his elbows. The whole time your hands should be on his elbows, not his wrists. Not his wrists. Spotting somebody from the wrists are worthless, it has to be by the elbows, okay? And once again, you're not going to help him when his hand and keep your hands on his elbows, unless he tells you, no, no, no, I don't like it like that. Unless the guy keep your hands on his elbows. You don't have to help him. Don't help him. Just keep your hands there. If his hands are on the on his elbows, mentally he's gonna know he's safe, and then he's going to even push further on his set. If he thinks he's not safe, if he thinks you're not a good spotter, he's not gonna push the point of failure because he's gonna be afraid. Okay, and once again, let's put the shoe on the other foot. If you're the person doing the dumbbell press or doing the shoulder press, and somebody tries to spot you from the wrists, or somebody is standing in front of you, like I've had people stand over here. You just tell them, thanks anyway. Find somebody else who knows how to do it. It's I'm I'm sorry if I hurt your fucking feelings. Too bad. Too bad that I hurt your feelings. Learn how to fucking you. I I mean, there are guys in the gym my age, they've been in the gym for 30 years and they still don't know how to spot. It's unbelievable, it's unreal. It's unreal. That used to be a that it spotting properly used to be a fucking, it used to be a must. And you would just learn from the the guys in the gym. They would show you, and they would show they would show that's it. So you spot from the elbows, all right. If he's going heavy, okay, he might need help putting the dumbbells on his knees or on his on his lap. Okay, I'm not a big fan of laying back and putting the dumbbells in the guy's hand, all right, because that leaves too much room for injury. You got to put one and then you gotta put the other, or you gotta bother the second person. I put my dumbbells on my knees, okay? If I'm going too heavy, I have him pick one up. I pick up one, I have him pick one up. Then he goes behind me, I throw it back, and on my three, and on my three count, we start. That means hands on my elbows. All right, and you keep him there the entire time. And the same thing. Once he's exhausted, once he's trained till failure, then you could start pushing, taking 5% off, 10% off, and then he gets his force reps. Let's see if we can find one with uh with the shoulder presses. I think this is actually uh do the pull-ups. Oh, that's a good one. Okay, pull-ups. Yeah, I'll let's do that. Let me do the shoulder, uh, see if I can find shoulder presses first, and then I will do the pull-ups. That's actually a really good one. I forgot about that because I don't see anybody spot. It's unbelievable. Like I learned that in high school how to spot with pull-ups. Proper way to spot for shoulder presses. Uh shoulder presses spot. Let's see. I'm trying. Uh everything is how to shoulder. Ah, okay, here we go. This is well okay, decent, decent enough. We get the picture. We get the picture. Okay. We get the picture. This is this is on the whim, but we get the picture, okay. His hands aren't on his shoulders. Uh shoulders. His hands aren't on his elbows. But they basically he's behind him, and his hands should be on his elbows. His hands are going to be on his elbows. This is the best picture I could I could pretty much find. Let's see if I could find another one. But for the most part, that's basically what it comes down to. Okay. You're going to put your hands on his elbows, whether it is a shoulder press or whether it is a bench press with dumbbells. No, they're not showing shit, so fuck it. It is what it is. But okay, pull-ups. It used to be so simple. You would take your legs, cross them, tuck them behind you, and then the person would actually hold your feet while you're doing a pull-up. Not pushing you up, but just holding your feet just in case you're there, right? But I think the problem is what happened is those pull-up machines, those assist machines have kind of taken over. So if you can't do a pull-up, people go to the to the assist machine. I use it too. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes I use it, I'm I'm doing pull-ups toward the end, and um it's at the end of my workout. Sometimes I do that where I do a pull-up at the end of my workout, and I need the assist machine because I just did a whole back workout. But let's see, let me let me see if I could find it. Okay. Uh spotting for pull-ups. Images, pull-ups, pull-ups. No, I tumbled. Ah, here we go. Perfect. Okay, good. We got it. We got it. We got it. Good. This is a basic variation. The other variation is your legs are crossed behind you. But this is fine. Okay? This is absolutely fine. And if you don't have the ability to go to an assist machine, this actually works really well. You just have to know the person and how much tension that you're gonna take off, right? 5%, 10%. And the same thing. Once they get to the point of exhaustion, they can continue, you can continue and give them a little bit of help so they can get force reps. It's the same, it's the same scenario. But like I said, a lot of times they go to the assist machine, so they really don't do it too much like this anymore. Right? But this is this is actually a perfect uh example of how to actually spot somebody doing a pull-up. Now I know this is gonna be ridiculous, but I'm gonna do this too. Spotting somebody while doing a bicep curl fucking kills me. I don't even see that. Uh spotting for bicep curl. You would think that people would know this too, but not so much. All right. Of course, come on. Uh oh, maybe if I put with I'll put with training partner. Oh, yeah, that'll that should help. Uh with training partner. Let's see if that works. I don't see shit for bicep curls. I don't see shit for bicep curls. Uh, it's pretty simple though, if somebody's gonna spot for a bicep curl. Okay, it's this is not as important as bench or as ah, there we go. Good. Okay, pretty simple. Got it. Okay, got it. But it's not it's not as important. Bicep curls, spotting properly is not as important for bench or squat, because you could just drop the weight, right? But here, it's pretty simple. I mean, you see where the guy's hands are, right? Now he's he's he's this guy is curling with an easy bar or a straight bar, doesn't matter, same difference, okay? And this is what you want to do. You want to stand in front of him, keep your hands on the bar, right? And just keep it there, know that he's safe and keep him moving. And then if he wants to do four sets, force reps, you help him do the force reps. I love to do force reps with biceps because it's an easy spot. I just go once I'm exhausted, I go, give me three more, three more, and the guy helps me. Give me four more, and the guy and the guy helps me, or the girl helps me, or whatever the case may be. Okay. All right. Oh god. So we did squatting, we said we did bench, we did shoulder press, we did uh dumbbell, uh bench press, uh pull-ups. The pull-up one was really good. I appreciate that. Thank you. I wouldn't think or thought of that. Uh do the pull-ups, yes. Uh come on, where are you? There you go. Yes, thank you, Shamble. Uh, let's see. Um another thing. When you are spotting on bench press, or even even if you're spotting on skull crushes, that's actually really good too. When you hand the weight off, hand the weight off so it is perpendicular to his chest. Hand the weight off so it's here, whether it's a bench press or whether it's a uh skull crusher, don't hand him the weight back here. I've seen that happen too, because this the guy's got no leverage. If the guy's got two, three, four plates on a bench press, you can't hand it to him here. You don't just you have to on on it on on the three count, you hand him the barbell perpendicular to his chest. Okay, and that's his starting point. So his starting point should be here, and your hand should be here. All right, it's amazing to me. I never thought that I would actually have to do a video on this and teach people how to spot. Uh, the the amount of people in the gym today that don't know how to spot properly, it just blows me away. Now, look, if you were on a hack squat, if you are on a leg press, obviously you spot from the weight, right? You could just get from the get in front of the weight and you could actually spot from the weight on the hack squat or the leg press. Let's see if I could look that one up. That one's pretty important too. Uh uh proper spotting for leg press with a partner. Oh boy. Okay, images. Let's see if I have anything with a partner that would show ah, we got it. No, that's a joke. That is ridiculous. That's stupid. That's not it. I can't believe they don't have fucking spotting uh, I'll just spell it out, okay? I'll just fucking I'll just fucking spell it out. All right. Because it gets to the point where it's ridiculous. So I'll just I'll just spell it out. If you are spotting somebody that is doing a leg press, okay. This person is doing a leg press. You want to be standing right by the weight. Your hands should be behind the weight or on the bar here, okay? That's where you want to spot the person, and you just follow them all the way down and you guide them all the way up, okay? Because it's the same premise. If he can't get it, he's not going to be able to push it with his legs all the way up. And you want to get it to the to the rack, right? Where they have that uh that twisty rack thing that every leg press has with the starting point, the end point. So you want to be able to push it up for him. And again, you're not doing the weight for him, you're guiding him. And then he will tell you when he's done. All right, uh, two more, three more, whatever the case may be. And you keep him, you keep him moving, you keep him in the momentum. This is what this is what a good training partner does. A bad training partner, you know, is standing there with his with his komasekyama in his hand. He's got he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. All right, a good training partner always knows how to spot properly and is always on the lookout. He's never distracted by his phone or the fucking girl wearing the fucking half shirts and yoga pants with their ass hanging out. I mean, all right, you're gonna be a little distracted. But anytime your boy or your partner is training, you have to be on your game. You don't want that person to get hurt, all right? That is the that is the sole response, the two sole responsibilities of having a good training partner is keeping your training partner from getting hurt and pushing each other to the limit. That's it. That's that's what it's that's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. All right. I'm hoping that by the time I get back, I'm going to on vacation next week. I'm hoping by the time I get back, which will be two Mondays from now, that Jason Ons will be back with us. And then um we'll find out, we'll figure out what he wants to do, if he wants to talk about it or if he just wants to continue the show. He might just want to continue the show. You know, um, you we have to respect some people's privacy, okay? So if he does not want to talk about it, we are not going to talk about it. His friendship is worth more to me than you know me getting views because Jason Owens is not doing well. So if he tells me I'd rather not, then we're not. If he tells me, yeah, I'm gonna come on and talk about it, then we will talk about it. All right, guys. Once again, um, hopefully Lee will be with us tomorrow morning when we're doing uh muscle talk. Uh hopefully uh Jay will be back two weeks from now. And next week, unfortunately, no content. I will be in the Bahamas. Screw you guys, I'll be in the Bahamas with a drink in my hand and by the poolside. Um, and then also once again, I know I sound like a broken record. Please go to iPorve Subs. The link is in the description. Get yourself something, use the discount code SNS10. Get yourself 10% off. Um, it's a big help for my friend Jay. All right, guys, I'm out later. Peace.