There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
The Seven Moves That Build Strength
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Welcome And Sponsor Thanks
SPEAKER_00Welcome to There is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell, and I'm an exercise physiologist in personal training. I'm the owner Maxwell's Fitness programs, and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really worked and most importantly, why I think it worked. Hence the name, there is a method to the magnet. Before I get started today, let me thank Jonathan and Lynn Gilded of the Gilding Group ELT Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. All right, so this is the method to the madness. So on this podcast, I talk about the reasons why we do things and sometimes the reason why we shouldn't do things. Basically, this is the fitness podcast about the science behind things.
The Seven Foundational Movements
SPEAKER_00So today I'm going to talk about the basic seven foundational movements that we should be doing at the gym because they're the foundational movements for us. And I want to talk about why they're important and how we can do them. So let me tell you about these nice movements. We got the squat, we got the push, we have the upper body pull, we have the hinge movement, we have the lunge, we have the rotate, and we have a carry. These are the foundational movements that some way, shape, or form we should be doing in our strength workouts. All right. We should be doing all of these movements in some way, shape, or form.
Squat Technique And Smart Variations
SPEAKER_00I've often said that the squat is the king of strength training. I mean, there might be a couple other exercises up there we can put right there with it, but I'm telling you what, the squat is so foundational to everything that we do. I mean, think about it. It's getting out of a chair, it's getting out of your car, it's using the major muscles of your lower body, the quads primarily, the glutes, you're using your hamstrings to an extent, and you're using your core. It is so important. Getting off the toilet, yes, you heard me. Getting off the toilet. That is the classic squat move. Kind of a funny thing. I've heard many people say in the past that after a hard leg workout, they weren't able to get off the toilet. Well, that shows you how much you are using those muscles when you are in that position. We really have to be able to squat properly if we want to get anything and everything out of our strength training routines. If you come to me as your trainer, or if you see one of my trainers, you will notice you will find that we're constantly putting a big emphasis on the squat. Like we just don't, or I should say, I definitely don't, and neither do my trainers like settle for squats that are done with very little focus, very little concern. I mean, in other words, I really, really don't like seeing crappy squats. So when you tell people to squat and I put on my events, the MaxFit Games, and there's a squat competition, and I'll see people or I'll show people what a terrible squat looks like. It's just something I don't like. So one of the foundational things we always do, literally on workout one during the assessment, is we watch how somebody squats because there's a lot more into it than just squatting down. We have to keep our feet firmly in place. We have to keep our spine up. We have to go down to a certain distance, and that does depend on the individual. We have to be able to keep our knees behind our toes. We have to keep our knees in alignment with our ankles and hips. Like there's so many foundational things that we should be doing when we squat. The good news is it doesn't take that long to really learn how to do it right, especially when it's been pushed on us to do it right. And so you start squatting properly right away, and then because of that, you are getting all the fruits of that. Because really being able to squat properly will make your lower body so strong, resistant to injuries, and you're able to do the things that you want to do. So we always start with the big squat. All right. Now, let me talk about different ways we can squat. We can squat with a barbell, like you'll see some of the power lifters doing or some of the kids playing sports in high school or college. That's where you put the barbell on your back and you load it with plates. I mean, that is a way I spent many years doing that. I don't think it's the best way. I definitely don't think it's the most practical way for us adults to squat. There's so many better ways. Putting a bar on your back causes a lot of compression on the spine. It usually reinforces bad movement patterns. You end up leaning forward too far. I mean, I'm not going to knock it completely because, like I said, a lot of kids are sort of forced to do it when they're doing high school sports. That's the way that they do things. If you squat properly that way, then you're probably not going to have any problems. But if you don't squat properly with the bar on your shoulders, you could definitely injure yourself. And uh, you know, I don't like that because weight training is one of the least injury-producing of all the physical activities. There's only one injury per 1,000 hours of weight training, and almost always that's due to ego lifting. So I don't like setting up unnecessary risk. So, really, as long as we are doing a form of a squat, then we are winning. A goblet squat where we hold a dumbbell is a great way to do it. A cable squat is a great way to do it. A leg press is a squat. It's just a machine version of a squat, but it's the motion of a squat. Body weight squats can be very effective. I mean, there are many ways to squat. TRX, where we use the ropes essentially to help us with balance and proper positioning and keeping our chest up, is the absolute best way to start to squat. All right. So the first motion we want to get of all the seven basic movements is the squat.
Upper Body Push Done Right
SPEAKER_00The next one is the upper body push. We humans need to be able to push things. Basically, it is using your upper body to push things away. There is a proper way to do it. I was working with one of my clients this morning on a dumbbell chest press, which is the epitome of a way to do a push. You know, uh, she either puts her elbows too far out or too far in, which isn't necessarily awful. It's just not doing it properly correct, like the best way that we like to have people do it. So, yes, there is a way to push, and strength training teaches us that way to push. And basically, in the pushing motion of the upper body, we're using our pectoralis major, we're using our deltoids, specifically our anterior deltoids, and we're using our triceps. So we're using three big muscle groups when we're doing an upper body push. We need to be able to get off the floor by pushing ourselves up, by pushing doors open, by pushing chairs across the room. We need to be able to push. If we play sports, it's pretty obvious that we need to be able to push. So that is one of the basic movements that we need to master in the gym. And again, there is a lot of different ways that we can do upper body pushing. I'll go back to one of the ones that I don't think is the best, but you see it as one of the most classic upper body pushing motions, and that's the barbell bench press. Again, used a lot in athletics, used a lot with youth growing up, learning how to lift weights, used a lot on sports teams. So I'm not gonna say it's terrible. It isn't terrible, but again, it's probably not the best because it does lock your wrist and elbows in a certain position. And a lot of times kids are going too heavy, slamming the weight off their chest. All those things don't have to happen. I get it. If you do a really good bench press, it's probably a good exercise. I just think as adults trying to stay stronger, and really even kids trying to get stronger, there are better ways to do it. You can use a machine chest press, which I love to use. You can do dumbbell chest presses, you can do push-ups, which is a great exercise, one of the most functional exercises that you can do. So there's a lot of different ways to do the upper body push. It could be done horizontally, and that's basically like a push-up, a chest press, a machine chest press. It can be done vertically, that's like an overhead press. And if you're doing it vertically, then you're working more of your deltoids and less of your pecs. You are still using your triceps. So horizontally, think mostly pectoralis major, your chest muscles and your triceps, think vertically, think more of your deltoids and your triceps. So the more vertical it becomes, the more your shoulders are brought into it. All right, another great movement that we have to do. Method to the madness. We have to include this. I'm always looking for ways when I work with somebody to make sure all of these movements are somehow included. When somebody hurts their shoulder, which is common, you know, life happens, or their elbow, again, things do happen, or their knee in the case of the squat or the hinge or the lunge, which I'm going to get into in a bit. I'm still always as a trainer trying to find a way to get them back into these movements because we want the body stronger. We don't want to just neglect these areas, or we are setting the person up, or they're setting themselves up for injury. Sometimes we have to work it back slow. Like if person has a bothered shoulder, they might miss two or three weeks of doing any upper body pushing movements. Then as soon as they start to feel no pain and it looks like the range of motion is full, because I'm doing testing, I'm asking them, then I'll typically bring back in a very light pushing movement. It could be 25% of the load or even less that they used to use. And then I build it back up and in because we never just want to not do something. You know, and I hear people say, Oh, I've injured my shoulder. I should, you know, I don't think I should ever do that. It's like, well, then you're always going to be hurt. I mean, you might always be vulnerable, but you're going to be more vulnerable if we don't strengthen that movement pattern because we do move in that movement
Upper Body Pull And Balance
SPEAKER_00pattern. The next one is the upper body pull. That means you're pulling things towards your body. For example, rows and pull downs and pull-ups and chin-ups. Those are the types of pulls that we are talking about. Now, we again we have to pull things to us. Whether we're pulling something across the floor, we're pulling a door open, we're pulling a car door open, which you know might be light, but it's still pulling. We have to be able to pull things. That's what we do. Now, the pulling muscles of the upper body are the upper back muscles, such as your lecimus dorsi, your rhomboids, your posterior deltoids, your biceps, and your brachioradialis. Those are all the basic pulling muscles, and it is so critical. You know, oftentimes when we work with people, especially young guys, you know, young men, even at the young age of late teens or early 20s, they're already starting to develop some areas of muscle imbalance where they're not doing their backside nearly as much as they're doing their front side. So they're doing a lot of like pecs and abs and biceps, which are part of the pulling muscles, but not the back muscles. And so, you know, you're really starting to see the imbalances with them, like even their posture. And we're getting set up for injury if we don't strengthen the whole body. Now, the reason they're doing that is because those are called the mirror muscles, right? The pectoralis major, the deltoids, the biceps, the abs, what you can see in the mirror. You know, young guys want to look good. I totally get it. It's just they don't realize that we got to train the backside too. And oftentimes, training the backside isn't as much fun. I mean, in their opinion, it's a lot of work. And again, so much of the gym is spent for young men doing bench presses and curls and things like that. So we need to include the backside muscles, which we actually call the posterior chain muscles, and they are so critical for athleticism. You'll see as an athlete tends to progress up into the higher levels, there's going to be a lot more emphasis and strength and conditioning on what we call the posterior chain muscles because they're so critical to a strong athletic body. All right. So, again, what are the exercises that we need to do in the gym? Again, everybody's different with all of these exercises. So, as a trainer, this is I talk about this a lot. This is one of the things I really enjoy doing when we have somebody who's limited in what they can do. I love looking for alternatives for them to do all of these seven basic movements. But cable pull downs are great, cable rows are great, low rows on a machine, selectorized machine made for rowing is great. A pull-down machine is great. Dumbbell rows, whether you're doing one arm at a time or both arms, is a great way to do rowing type exercises. If you're strong enough, able enough, doing pull-ups and chin-ups is a great way to do upper body pulling. Again, it doesn't matter what you choose. One thing I can go off on here a little bit to make sure everybody understands is in the old world of the bodybuilding circles, it's not nearly like it used to be, thank goodness. But the bodybuilders used to misinform people basically, and I think they just didn't know themselves. But they would talk about training these different movements. You know, in this case, it would be more about training muscle groups, and they would tell people to train them at all these different angles, essentially doing the same exercise, but with all these different varieties at the gym, because they would they'd say that you need to do that to fully train the muscle. For example, going back to the triceps or the pushing muscles, they would say, well, you have to do press downs, you have to do line tricep extensions, you have to do kickbacks because you're training these muscles at all these different angles. Yes, you're training them all at these different angles, but no, you're not stimulating the muscles that much different by doing different exercises. So the reality is you really need to find the polling muscle, the polling exercises that work for you. You don't need a ton of variety all in the same workout. That is not true. You find the ones that work best for you and you stick to them. That doesn't mean you can't change down the road, but the point is when you go to the gym, you don't have to do four types of pulls, four types of rows. Pick a row and go with it. All right. Now in bodybuilding, they know it comes a little bit more down to volume, meaning just doing a little more total work, and it was less boring to spread that out among a bunch of different exercises. So really didn't have anything to do with hitting all these different angles. I find all the time that everybody responds differently. I'll find that if somebody is doing a cable side raise, for example, they might tell me they feel that in their side of the shoulder, which is good, and they don't feel anything in the shoulder joint, which is also good. But then we move it to a dumbbell, even if it's a light dumbbell, and they feel it in their deltoid, but they also feel some pain in the joint. So I switch them back to the cable and vice versa. So what you're gonna find is some movements just simply work better for you, especially with the elbows and pulling motions. We see that all the time. It looks like the same row. You're holding a dumbbell or you're holding a cable and you're essentially doing the same thing, but on one of them you feel the elbow in a bad way, on the other one, you don't. All right, so really we go with the best one that works for us. There is no best one for everybody. I mean, personally, I love all the ones I just mentioned. I love cable pull downs, I love cable rows, I love seated rows, I love dumbbell rows. I try to incorporate all of them at different times in the workouts for myself and with the clients, but we need to make sure that we're doing a form of upper body pull. All our clients do. All right, now we have the big hinge.
The Hinge For Back Strength
SPEAKER_00Hinge essentially is bending over at the spine, and the hinge is the hardest exercise to teach people to do correctly. I mean, watching people try to get the hinge down is so frustrating as a trainer because doing it wrong and doing it right looks pretty darn similar from the outside eye. The person that knows what they're supposed to feel can tell the difference. But from the outside, you're seeing somebody bending over at the spine and it looks proper. I mean, there are things that we look for. Are they keeping their back flat? Are they pushing their butt back? Those would be the correct ways to do things, but it's still hard to tell if somebody is doing it perfectly right. Whereas with other exercises, it's very, very apparent to the eye. So, but we have to practice it and we have to get it right. We have to be able to bend over properly. I mean, it's the key to back strength. If you are unable to hinge because of back pain, you're gonna really, really, really get yourself in the trouble. So, whenever I have somebody that has a back diagnosis, lower back pain, or whatever, we uh as soon as they're out of pain, we really start working on the hinge motions to get them stronger. Now, in the hinge motion, you're primarily working your glutes and your hamstrings, and then secondarily your erector spinae, which is your lower back muscle. But the main muscle groups of the hinge movement is your glutes and hamstrings. Again, part of that posterior chain that I took talked about earlier, that so many young men tend to neglect, but it really is the key to great athleticism. All right. Exercises that you'll often see are going to be deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, which are basically straight leg without bending your knee deadlifts, which I prefer over regular deadlifts, hip thrusts, you're gonna see lower back extensions, you're gonna see some people do kettlebell swings and things like that. Those are all examples of hinge exercises. Now, doing them properly teaches you how to pick things up properly. All right. Again, you pick the ones that work best for you. I like the Romanian deadlifts, I like using the back machine at my gym for people that aren't doing Romanian deadlifts. I mean, sometimes I'll do both again, it just depends, but it is a great exercise. I'm not a big fan of bent-knee deadlifts because I feel like the person doing them often uses the other muscles to get the weight up. And it's a very hard exercise to teach people to do properly, and I just don't think it's very functional. But it's uh it's uh, you know, bigger sister, in my opinion. Some people would call it the smaller sister, but the RDLs, a straight leg deadlift. Are one of the best exercises that we can do. Matter of fact, I did mine this morning. It is so important to do a proper hinge exercise. In some way, shape, or form. You might be listening to this and go, wait a minute, I come to you, I don't do those. Again, yes, you do. If you are doing the low back machine, if you're even doing cobras on the floor, you in a sense are doing a form of a hinge exercise. If you're doing a bridge on the floor, that's basically a hip thrust. I mean, all of a sudden in uh, you know, 2026, everybody says hip thrust, hip thrust. We've been doing different forms of bridges for years. All right.
Lunges For Single Leg Strength
SPEAKER_00Next is a lunge exercise. Now, I think a lot of people do lunges incorrectly from what I see. I watch people do them and the knees are flying out over the toes. A lunge basically is just being able to do a single leg squat type motion where one leg is doing most of the work. Because there is in life, we're not walking around just squatting. We end up on one leg all of the time, right? I mean, walking, standing, climbing stairs. I mean, we have to be able to strengthen our legs individually. And a lunge type exercise is going to do that. A step up is a version of a lunge. So again, we are going to do this with each and every one of our clients in some way, shape, or form. Now, the muscle groups trained are essentially the same as when we squat. It's still going to be primarily the quads and the glutes and secondarily the hamstrings. But again, we are doing one leg at a time where one leg is doing most but not all of the work. And those exercises could be lunges. I prefer split squats or Bulgarian split squats. You might see us doing that. Well, we might do it with you, but you might also see it at the gym on other people. That's where one leg is elevated, the other leg is out in front, and we are squatting down on one leg. It could be a step up. There are a lot of great ways to do a lunge type activity. Again, always trying to incorporate new things with people to help them get stronger. Improving on a lunge type activity will help senior citizens with their balance because they will feel a little bit more confident in their ability to stand on one leg or to step forward with one leg. So they're a great exercise. If we have somebody who's had lower body injuries for whatever reason, life or sports or whatever, and they've been out for a little bit. After we get them stronger and we start with a squat type movement and a hinge type movement, eventually we will try different forms of single leg or lunge type exercises because we want to make sure we are getting them as strong as possible.
Core Myths And Rotation Training
SPEAKER_00Next is rotate. Now, rotate is a spinal movement. And you know, it is so funny. You hear people talk about the core all the time, and you might be thinking, we didn't say anything so far about abs and crunches. That's because it's not that critical or essential of a movement. I mean, if this is gonna like maybe make people like throw something at their radio or however you're listening to this, throw your phone across the room. Look, I know people love to do abdominal exercises all the time, but most of the time they're doing them for completely the wrong reason. They really, really, really think that by doing more abs, they're going to flatten their stomach. That's called spot reduction, and it doesn't work. That's why most, if not all, people do crunches. The reality is you are training your anterior muscles of your abs. So your rectus abdominals or your transverse abdominals, if you are strength training properly in every move that you're doing, we teach you to contract your core by keeping your spine up. That is working your abs. After that, they are so freaking cosmetic that there's really not much that they're doing other than holding up your spine. I mean, technically a plank is a good exercise for that. But if you're squatting properly and doing your other exercises properly, you're doing a plank. We do some because there's really no reason not to, unless somebody is really over-dominant in their abdominal muscles. But the real big daddy there is the rotational muscles, your external and internal obliques. They're the muscles that are so important in the core that get neglected all the time. The muscles do you use to rotate your spine. I mean, we're not just moving around in this linear pattern all the time. We're moving and we're rotating. We need to be able to strengthen those muscles. It's funny, when people have been neglecting them, as soon as we do some rotational muscles, motation rotational exercises, excuse me, then they get really sore and they say, Man, I felt that. Yes, you can rotate with too much weight and injure yourself. Of course, you can do anything, right? I mean, any exercise can be done improperly. So I don't believe in the people that are loading up with these heavy weights and doing these twisting motions. It's really, really silly to do that. But we do have to strengthen our rotational muscles of our internal and external obliques. So basically, spinal rotations done properly, or payload press where we're pushing a load out while we're resisting and holding ourselves statically in a position, cable chops, medicine ball rotations, what we call Russian twists, what we call TikToks with some of our people, or we can be doing lateral flexion where we're holding a dumbbell at the side and coming up and going back down. Like there's so many good ways to do rotations, and we always throw that in with our clients. I love doing them. I mean, rotations are really a huge, huge foundation to sports. If you play golf, that's rotation. If you play baseball or softball, that's rotation. You have to have strong rotator muscles. I mean, when you see guys playing baseball, hitting home runs, it's that's because they can wind up like a top and they're using their obliques and their hips to hit the ball. They're not using their arms. So it is such an important muscle group and area to train. And
Carries Grip Posture And Wrap-Up
SPEAKER_00finally, number seven of the sweet seven is we need to be able to carry things. All right. So we have to be able to take a load and move it. Now in the MaxFit games, we do the farmer carry, you know, and it's funny, a lot of people said that that was the hardest motion for them because a lot of times we're just not doing those things. So we have to strengthen our grip. We have to be able to hold weights and be able to move them around. A lot of times we, well, not a lot of times, almost all the time, I'll have my clients go get weights because I think it's really important for them to go grab the weights, carry them across the room. They're getting a form of exercise by doing that. So we have to be able to carry things. The most classic way we do that, again, is a farmer carry. That's where we hold a couple dumbbells and we walk a certain distance, you know, maybe 50 yards, turn around, come back. Sometimes we'll do exercises where people are carrying buckets or water coolers. I remember when I was teaching sports medicine, you know, those big five-gallon water cooler things, I'd say, Hey, Jimmy, go grab two, bring them in, you know, and they bring them in. I'd say, Oh, go bring them back, you know, a way to do exercises. I mean, things like that are such an important way to build up your core, because again, that's core too, because you're you're fighting anti-rotational type movements by holding weight that way. You're learning good posture because you're keeping your chest up, or you should keep your chest up when you're doing it, and you're working your grip motions as well by holding on. So I promise you this if you are incorporating those seven movements in there, some way, shape, or form on a regular basis, on a weekly basis, you are training all the main areas of your body to be stronger. And there are a ton of variety exercises we can choose to be doing these things. When you train with us, when you train with trainers that know what they're doing, they've already thought about all this. You may not realize it. They may not say, hey, we're doing some squat, push, carry, hinge, rotate type exercises today. No, it's just been programmed in with the different exercises that we're doing. All right. So I hope you learned something today. And next time you go to the gym, check it out. Make sure you're doing that. Play this podcast again, listen to it, and go, wait a minute, I'm not doing that. And then uh, you know what? Start doing it. It will really, really help you, and you will be glad that you did. Thank you for listening to today's show. I ask you to please hit automatic download and also follow the show. It will cost you nothing. Now I would like to thank our second great sponsor, Procharge Liquid Protein. What I love most about it is it is extremely portable. I have a tendency to make a mess when I'm making my protein smoothies after I exercise because I spill the powders and all that other stuff. But instead, with Procharge, all I have to do is open up the cap and pour it in my mouth. There are two servings per container. Each serving has 20 grams of protein. My personal favorite flavor is lemon lime. Check them out on my website at fittothemax.net.
