Latest / Just Fly Performance Podcast / 484: Manuel Buitrago on Olympic Lifting, Pressure Mechanics and Explosive Athleticism

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484: Manuel Buitrago on Olympic Lifting, Pressure Mechanics and Explosive Athleticism · Just Fly Performance Podcast

• 0:00
  Joel Smith: So tell me a little bit about your travels. How did you end up in Chinese weightlifting?
• 0:06
  Joel Smith: Obviously, people have seen your videos and social media.
• 0:09
  Joel Smith: You work with a lot of really, really strong Chinese weightlifters.
• 0:14
  Joel Smith: Was there any other international travels or what landed you there specifically?
• 0:20
  Manuel Buitrago: So, I mean, I've always had an interest in Asia, just Asia in general.
• 0:25
  Manuel Buitrago: When I was in high school, I was a gymnast. and then like in my junior year
• 0:30
  Manuel Buitrago: i grew too tall and then my coach said there's no hope for you that's like you
• 0:34
  Manuel Buitrago: need to find another sport so um when i went to university i tried doing diving,
• 0:40
  Manuel Buitrago: and uh i realized that that was a big mistake because i'd
• 0:43
  Manuel Buitrago: spent a lot of time landing on my feet and in diving you
• 0:46
  Manuel Buitrago: have to land on the face and uh you know
• 0:49
  Manuel Buitrago: there was just that defense mechanism because in gymnastics you
• 0:52
  Manuel Buitrago: know you learn not to do that you know and so
• 0:54
  Manuel Buitrago: it was really hard uh to to make
• 0:57
  Manuel Buitrago: that extra turn and then plus you
• 1:01
  Manuel Buitrago: know couple that with the 4 a.m practice the cold water and
• 1:04
  Manuel Buitrago: getting spanked by the water whenever i'd miss uh a dime i said okay enough
• 1:09
  Manuel Buitrago: of this so i just to try i just decided to um you know get jacked and swole
• 1:14
  Manuel Buitrago: just like a lot of young guys and um but i realized that i like getting stronger
• 1:18
  Manuel Buitrago: in the process so i um i started veering into powerlifting.
• 1:24
  Manuel Buitrago: And at the time, there was not a lot of information.
• 1:29
  Manuel Buitrago: I mean, there was no YouTube, no Instagram. This was like in the early 2000s.
• 1:33
  Manuel Buitrago: So there just wasn't a lot out there.
• 1:37
  Manuel Buitrago: There wasn't even a Google. So Louis Simmons was writing stuff.
• 1:42
  Manuel Buitrago: And so he was publishing a bunch of articles.
• 1:44
  Manuel Buitrago: So I started to use his method, but he would always talk about how his system
• 1:50
  Manuel Buitrago: was based in weightlifting.
• 1:52
  Manuel Buitrago: And so at the time, I didn't know what weightlifting was and I didn't really
• 1:55
  Manuel Buitrago: care. I just decided to follow the powerlifting route and, you know, get stronger.
• 2:00
  Manuel Buitrago: And, you know, with his articles, he didn't have a lot of pictures and much less any videos.
• 2:04
  Manuel Buitrago: So, you know, I tried following his method and because he made it seem like,
• 2:07
  Manuel Buitrago: oh, if you just box squat and you do this and you do some posterior chain work,
• 2:10
  Manuel Buitrago: you too can squat 300 kilos, you know, or more.
• 2:15
  Manuel Buitrago: Yeah. You know, so I would do these lists by like, I was not getting close to
• 2:19
  Manuel Buitrago: a three or 400 kilo, you know, squat. and then,
• 2:24
  Manuel Buitrago: eventually i saw some of these guys at meat
• 2:27
  Manuel Buitrago: you know uh i think it was at the arnold one year
• 2:30
  Manuel Buitrago: but i saw like the body type that it takes
• 2:33
  Manuel Buitrago: to do that you know and they're built like a box you know
• 2:35
  Manuel Buitrago: like super wide super thick super short and i
• 2:38
  Manuel Buitrago: was like okay just so this is how you squat 400 kilos i'm
• 2:41
  Manuel Buitrago: like this is not for me um i still like getting stronger but you know i did
• 2:45
  Manuel Buitrago: kind of you know uh sober me up as to like how far i could go but i still i
• 2:51
  Manuel Buitrago: was always interested in um and you know he kept mentioning weight lifting so
• 2:55
  Manuel Buitrago: then i just decided to search it once and um,
• 2:59
  Manuel Buitrago: i saw this uh in the search results i
• 3:02
  Manuel Buitrago: saw this uh video uh this poster piors dimas i
• 3:05
  Manuel Buitrago: don't know if you know like the ironman company but there's like there's that
• 3:08
  Manuel Buitrago: black and white poster where he's doing like the number one sign like this it
• 3:11
  Manuel Buitrago: was at i think the 96 olympics and uh you know he's got like it's got like four
• 3:15
  Manuel Buitrago: or five plates on the bar you can't see what it you know how much it is at least
• 3:19
  Manuel Buitrago: i didn't know what it was at the time sure but you know he was like ripped through the singlet,
• 3:22
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, he's had a six pack that was popping through his arms looked,
• 3:25
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, really jacked, but he looked normal, you know,
• 3:28
  Manuel Buitrago: like he didn't look like a box or a square, you know, he didn't look like a
• 3:31
  Manuel Buitrago: professional bodybuilder. So.
• 3:34
  Manuel Buitrago: That looked attainable. And I said, that's a kind of a body that, that I'm interested in.
• 3:38
  Manuel Buitrago: So I said, well, what is he like? I want to see what kind of lifting he's doing.
• 3:41
  Manuel Buitrago: Maybe I can look like that.
• 3:43
  Manuel Buitrago: And so then, uh, you know, I started, uh, looking into weightlifting further.
• 3:48
  Manuel Buitrago: And I remember finding this video of Pyrrhus doing a clean and jerk.
• 3:52
  Manuel Buitrago: And I thought that was so cool.
• 3:53
  Manuel Buitrago: And so I decided to give it a shot because with Louie, you know,
• 3:58
  Manuel Buitrago: I was already doing front squats, overhead squats and things like that.
• 4:00
  Manuel Buitrago: And since I was a gymnast, I could get really low anyway. it so so i had a pretty
• 4:05
  Manuel Buitrago: good foundation for this so i go to the gym and you know i put you know,
• 4:10
  Manuel Buitrago: 245s on each side because i didn't have kilo plates there was like i mean there
• 4:13
  Manuel Buitrago: were no there were no rogue company or any you know any sort of companies that
• 4:17
  Manuel Buitrago: sold this kind of stuff so then um,
• 4:19
  Manuel Buitrago: i got there and i'm pondering the bar for about 30 minutes trying to figure
• 4:24
  Manuel Buitrago: out like how am i gonna get this from floor to shoulders how am i gonna get
• 4:27
  Manuel Buitrago: this from a to b and so um but uh Eventually,
• 4:31
  Manuel Buitrago: I just ripped it and got it on my shoulders, did a front squat with it.
• 4:35
  Manuel Buitrago: It was a super ugly technique, but it was such a rush that I was like,
• 4:39
  Manuel Buitrago: I need to learn how to do this. I want to learn more.
• 4:46
  Manuel Buitrago: Iron Man was also putting on a bunch of DVDs from the training hall footage.
• 4:52
  Manuel Buitrago: He would go to all these competitions and film. and so
• 4:55
  Manuel Buitrago: you know i saw a bunch of uh the
• 4:58
  Manuel Buitrago: teams training you know like the russians the bulgarians greeks the
• 5:01
  Manuel Buitrago: germans etc it was really hard to to
• 5:05
  Manuel Buitrago: learn from those videos because everybody was doing something
• 5:08
  Manuel Buitrago: different you have some people that jump forward some people that jump back
• 5:10
  Manuel Buitrago: some people that you know stay flat-footed or they appear flat-footed throughout
• 5:15
  Manuel Buitrago: the whole lift some people jump off the ground violently you know and so and
• 5:19
  Manuel Buitrago: then you know some people look like they're sitting down and more bright.
• 5:23
  Manuel Buitrago: Some people look like they're moving forward over the bar.
• 5:25
  Manuel Buitrago: And so it was just really hard to figure out how to do this lift.
• 5:30
  Manuel Buitrago: But he put out a video one year of the Chinese team because the,
• 5:34
  Manuel Buitrago: I think it was the world championships were in China that year, I think in Guangzhou.
• 5:40
  Manuel Buitrago: And that video just put the light bulb in my head because there you could see
• 5:46
  Manuel Buitrago: how the Chinese athletes were approaching the lifts.
• 5:51
  Manuel Buitrago: And you could see it was really systematic.
• 5:54
  Manuel Buitrago: They were all taking their time. They all looked the same or at least following the same principles.
• 5:59
  Manuel Buitrago: Sure. And, you know, it was just so different from all the other teams.
• 6:04
  Manuel Buitrago: Because again, even within, say, the Greek team, you had lifters who were doing
• 6:08
  Manuel Buitrago: completely different things within the team, you know. And then among teams,
• 6:12
  Manuel Buitrago: you also had differences.
• 6:13
  Manuel Buitrago: But the Chinese team, you know, it looks systematic. I didn't know what the
• 6:17
  Manuel Buitrago: difference was, but you could see the difference.
• 6:19
  Manuel Buitrago: And so I was, that really sparked my interest.
• 6:23
  Manuel Buitrago: And so I decided to study abroad in China because I was at university at the time.
• 6:28
  Manuel Buitrago: And uh you know it was i was a good
• 6:32
  Manuel Buitrago: time because china was really open and so you
• 6:34
  Manuel Buitrago: know the uh they were really open to international exchange at
• 6:38
  Manuel Buitrago: various levels of society and so i was
• 6:41
  Manuel Buitrago: able to to study there and learn chinese and then communicate with people that
• 6:45
  Manuel Buitrago: being able to communicate to read speak and write chinese really helped me in
• 6:50
  Manuel Buitrago: communicating with athletes and coaches and stuff and then start asking questions
• 6:54
  Manuel Buitrago: yeah so yeah that's uh that's how that's how I got into it. You know, it's an Iron Mind DVD.
• 7:01
  Joel Smith: Sure. Yeah. It is funny you mentioned Louie. I, you know, back in,
• 7:05
  Joel Smith: um, 2005 and again, yeah, there wasn't, I mean, it's funny to look back on what
• 7:11
  Joel Smith: there was for coaching education back then.
• 7:14
  Joel Smith: And when I switched my majors from athletic training to exercise science,
• 7:18
  Joel Smith: I, I just went and went to the library and I was like, okay,
• 7:23
  Joel Smith: what is there on human performance, strength and conditioning?
• 7:26
  Joel Smith: And it was all Louie stuff. So I printed out like 450 pages of Louie.
• 7:30
  Manuel Buitrago: Is that too?
• 7:31
  Joel Smith: You know, it is funny because it was that same thing. It's like,
• 7:34
  Joel Smith: oh yeah, just do the other, we just do banded box squats and this.
• 7:37
  Joel Smith: And wow, this guy went from, you know, improved his squat and deadlift, 100 gulos or 120 kilos.
• 7:42
  Joel Smith: And yeah, I did not have that experience. But I'm glad you mentioned the build
• 7:46
  Joel Smith: of those guys just because,
• 7:48
  Joel Smith: That's what I really wanted to get into today is kind of those roots of what
• 7:54
  Joel Smith: we would call, you know, strength and conditioning for athletes and the powerlifting
• 7:58
  Joel Smith: versus the Olympic lifting dynamic.
• 8:01
  Joel Smith: And what adaptations does that elicit beyond just even, I think,
• 8:07
  Joel Smith: on the first layer of things, people would just say power.
• 8:10
  Joel Smith: Oh, you're more powerful if you're an Olympic lifter.
• 8:12
  Joel Smith: Yeah, sure. I agree. But there's more to it than that.
• 8:15
  Joel Smith: And someone like my own build i mean
• 8:18
  Joel Smith: i am so much more built for just displaying
• 8:21
  Joel Smith: power in a power clean olympic lift type situation than
• 8:25
  Joel Smith: i am a power lifting i mean the i work my butt off and the farthest i could
• 8:29
  Joel Smith: take my powerless was not that good but that was a jumper in track and very
• 8:34
  Joel Smith: elastic and plyometric and so i i did have that period of time where i thought
• 8:40
  Joel Smith: oh i gotta improve of my power lifts,
• 8:42
  Joel Smith: these good athletes are this strong in these lifts.
• 8:45
  Joel Smith: And I found out very quickly that my frame and the way I was producing power
• 8:49
  Joel Smith: wasn't that compatible with getting really good at those lifts.
• 8:53
  Joel Smith: Being okay at them was okay. You know, being okay at them was okay.
• 8:58
  Joel Smith: So I'd like to ask you a little bit about, and I did have, you know,
• 9:03
  Joel Smith: Chinese lifting and kind of like you occasionally post like bodybuilding exercises they do.
• 9:08
  Joel Smith: I did want to ask you that. That was my first question, but I think this would
• 9:11
  Joel Smith: be a great segue into some of the major differences that you see and know between
• 9:17
  Joel Smith: Olympic lifters and powerlifters from a skeletal perspective.
• 9:22
  Joel Smith: And I know you already mentioned it, but if you want to go into that a little
• 9:24
  Joel Smith: more with a little more depth and then also a breathing perspective, respiration.
• 9:30
  Manuel Buitrago: Mm hmm.
• 9:32
  Manuel Buitrago: I mean, I think the breathing is really a huge difference because there's,
• 9:38
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, with the introduction of CrossFit, you have people of all shapes and
• 9:43
  Manuel Buitrago: sizes doing the Olympic lifts.
• 9:45
  Manuel Buitrago: So the breathing, I think, has been a huge part and a huge difference between the lifts.
• 9:54
  Manuel Buitrago: And you know honestly i gotta you know credit bill hartman
• 9:57
  Manuel Buitrago: on this uh because he's he's the
• 10:00
  Manuel Buitrago: one that opened my eyes to this breathing or
• 10:03
  Manuel Buitrago: at least it gave me the words to be able to describe it because like
• 10:06
  Manuel Buitrago: when i was in china and you know i would be at various levels of training bases
• 10:10
  Manuel Buitrago: and they knew the shapes that they wanted for a successful lifts so like the
• 10:15
  Manuel Buitrago: coach would give you a stick and kind of point at different areas and you know
• 10:19
  Manuel Buitrago: they would kind of push their chest out because they want you to expand the
• 10:22
  Manuel Buitrago: chest or they want you to elevate,
• 10:24
  Manuel Buitrago: or feel the upper body.
• 10:26
  Manuel Buitrago: They knew the shapes that they wanted, but they didn't have the description
• 10:33
  Manuel Buitrago: to communicate it for a general audience.
• 10:37
  Manuel Buitrago: Most of the lifters that get selected to do professional weightlifting already have that shape.
• 10:46
  Manuel Buitrago: There's not too much work on there, but when you're dealing with general people,
• 10:48
  Manuel Buitrago: you have to try to make a shape.
• 10:50
  Manuel Buitrago: And so, uh, working with Bill helped me, helped me do that.
• 10:56
  Manuel Buitrago: Like help me verbalize how to create that, those shapes.
• 11:01
  Manuel Buitrago: So, you know, when you do the lifts, um, it's not just, there's just not,
• 11:05
  Manuel Buitrago: there's not one shape in me cause you have to go up, but you also have to go down.
• 11:09
  Manuel Buitrago: And so it's not just, uh, making this shape, but you also have to change the shape.
• 11:14
  Manuel Buitrago: So, you know, when you're growing up, you want to try to create what's,
• 11:18
  Manuel Buitrago: more like a funnel in your system.
• 11:22
  Manuel Buitrago: Because with a funnel, you're going to create an upward gradient.
• 11:26
  Manuel Buitrago: So fluid's going to go up more easily with that kind of shape.
• 11:30
  Joel Smith: Narrow at the bottom, right?
• 11:31
  Manuel Buitrago: Yeah, narrow at the bottom, wider at the top. But then to get under the bar,
• 11:35
  Manuel Buitrago: you have to change that shape. You have to form what's more like a cone.
• 11:39
  Manuel Buitrago: So narrow at the top, wider at the bottom. That way you can get under the bar really fast.
• 11:44
  Manuel Buitrago: People who just stay in one shape are not going to be as successful as people
• 11:50
  Manuel Buitrago: who can change their shapes.
• 11:53
  Manuel Buitrago: So, you know, people who stay up a lot, who have a tendency to stay up,
• 11:57
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, they're going to have difficulty going down.
• 11:59
  Manuel Buitrago: And then the people who go down, you know, they're going to have difficulty
• 12:02
  Manuel Buitrago: getting up to begin with.
• 12:06
  Manuel Buitrago: So you need to be able to make those shapes, but also switch between them.
• 12:13
  Joel Smith: Yeah. I'm curious how much you can switch in the sense that I think at least
• 12:19
  Joel Smith: a lot of what I've thought over time, at least that early,
• 12:23
  Joel Smith: maybe Dunning-Kruger following of Bill, you know, where you're just learning
• 12:26
  Joel Smith: it and you're like, oh yeah, this makes sense.
• 12:28
  Joel Smith: But then there's, of course, more layers to it would be someone who's like a funnel.
• 12:32
  Joel Smith: And I know Bill has described this when he's been on my podcast. I believe he has.
• 12:37
  Joel Smith: I think it was the one when him and Chris Weikas was also on,
• 12:40
  Joel Smith: but there's different shapes. There's the funnel and the piston,
• 12:44
  Joel Smith: all different shapes of someone's rib cage and how that's going to do a lot of how they function.
• 12:49
  Joel Smith: Um, so my thought would be, and I know I'm, um, a funnel, like I was a track jumper.
• 12:55
  Joel Smith: I mean, just bouncing like that gradient worked in my favor.
• 12:59
  Joel Smith: Um, and I always struggled as well with like the deep position of a squat,
• 13:05
  Joel Smith: the sticking point of a squat.
• 13:06
  Joel Smith: That was the thing that really killed me. Although, but if you would ask me
• 13:09
  Joel Smith: to like do a really heavy farmer's walk with a lot of weight,
• 13:12
  Joel Smith: I could do the same as somebody who could squat 150 more pounds than me just
• 13:17
  Joel Smith: because it was all tall and that kind of thing.
• 13:20
  Joel Smith: So, and like my power clean and
• 13:22
  Joel Smith: those kind of numbers, stuff that didn't require me to descend too far.
• 13:26
  Joel Smith: So basically someone who's like a funnel you're saying that the work is getting
• 13:32
  Joel Smith: that pelvis to expand to open space
• 13:34
  Joel Smith: to be able to get in the bottom more effectively so you can reverse it
• 13:40
  Manuel Buitrago: Well I mean it's the whole system so I focus more on the upper body because,
• 13:45
  Manuel Buitrago: that way it's a little bit more, it's a bigger space it's easier for people
• 13:49
  Manuel Buitrago: to seal but basically you have to squeeze the lower part of the torso and expand in the upper part.
• 13:56
  Manuel Buitrago: So, um, and you want to do that from the start position because your goal is
• 14:02
  Manuel Buitrago: to go up. So you have to create that funnel in the start. And, um,
• 14:07
  Manuel Buitrago: And then, uh, and then you have to change it as you go down.
• 14:12
  Manuel Buitrago: So it's actually, it's actually the opposite of, of what a lot of people try to do.
• 14:17
  Manuel Buitrago: So a lot of people, uh, you know, they, they learn from power lifting where
• 14:21
  Manuel Buitrago: they try or they learn from strength and conditioning. And so they try to breathe like a power lifter.
• 14:25
  Manuel Buitrago: So what they'll do is, you know, they'll squeeze the upper, the upper body,
• 14:29
  Manuel Buitrago: the upper part of the torso, they'll squeeze their shoulders together,
• 14:31
  Manuel Buitrago: shrug, you know, they'll tense the arms.
• 14:34
  Manuel Buitrago: Right. And then if they have a belt, they try to push against the belt.
• 14:38
  Manuel Buitrago: So if you look at what you're doing in that situation, you're squeezing the
• 14:43
  Manuel Buitrago: top, but expanding the bottom as you try to push your belly against the belt.
• 14:47
  Manuel Buitrago: So you're making that cone shape.
• 14:49
  Manuel Buitrago: And that's really good if you're trying to go down. But that is not what you
• 14:52
  Manuel Buitrago: want to do when you're in the start position.
• 14:57
  Manuel Buitrago: So if you're breathing like a power lifter in the start position,
• 15:00
  Manuel Buitrago: you're making your job more difficult.
• 15:05
  Manuel Buitrago: So what I do when I teach people is, first I'll teach them how to do the opposite,
• 15:11
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, how to compress the abs and then allocate the air in the upper torso
• 15:16
  Manuel Buitrago: so that they make more of a funnel shape.
• 15:18
  Joel Smith: Athletic performance is built on a spectrum of training methods,
• 15:22
  Joel Smith: from high-velocity skills to power training to strength work.
• 15:26
  Joel Smith: And on one end of that spectrum, on that strength end, you have the most targeted
• 15:31
  Joel Smith: work in the form of machines. And this is part of the reason that so many top
• 15:35
  Joel Smith: speed and strength coaches have their favorite machines to deliver that targeted stimulus.
• 15:40
  Joel Smith: For decades, Hammer Strength has been a top provider of reliable,
• 15:44
  Joel Smith: effective machines that are trusted by coaches and athletes worldwide.
• 15:49
  Joel Smith: They fit seamlessly into that total performance program delivering that targeted
• 15:53
  Joel Smith: strength stimulus. When it comes
• 15:55
  Joel Smith: to your machine-based strength training needs, think hammer strength.
• 16:00
  Joel Smith: Got it. So a couple of things with this, because I do want to,
• 16:04
  Joel Smith: I want to talk a lot about the lifts, which I really are such a first love of mine in training.
• 16:09
  Joel Smith: I think I get carried away sometimes being in more of the track and speed and
• 16:14
  Joel Smith: general athletic performance world.
• 16:16
  Joel Smith: And you see athletes who are over lifted, especially in the power lifts with
• 16:19
  Joel Smith: the standard coaching shoes and stuff that sometimes I get a little jaded and
• 16:22
  Joel Smith: I'll think, oh, I would rather talk about speed and plyos sometimes.
• 16:25
  Joel Smith: But I've, the more I learn about pressure and the shape of a torso that can
• 16:30
  Joel Smith: handle pressure i'm like man there's so much good stuff here and even
• 16:34
  Joel Smith: track athletes like we talk about like
• 16:37
  Joel Smith: track athletes and doing abs and stuff and i
• 16:40
  Joel Smith: think a lot of people would look at abdominal direct abdominal training and
• 16:43
  Joel Smith: sit-ups and things like that like oh it's just superficial there's trying to
• 16:46
  Joel Smith: look good it's not going to help you but like what you're talking about if you're
• 16:50
  Joel Smith: creating a torso that um backs being a good funnel that i I mean,
• 16:58
  Joel Smith: you look at like great track athletes, sprinters and jumpers.
• 17:01
  Joel Smith: I mean, they have usually wider shoulders, which there's obviously a genetic
• 17:04
  Joel Smith: portion of that that you can't change, but usually pretty ripped abs.
• 17:08
  Joel Smith: And then, but the interesting thing that I've been, and for that compression
• 17:12
  Joel Smith: sake, but then the chest is a thing that I've been thinking about a lot more lately.
• 17:17
  Joel Smith: And this got on my radar a lot with, I think one of the things that Bill's spoken
• 17:22
  Joel Smith: about is doing a lot of trap bar deadlifting, which is very common in the athletic performance world.
• 17:27
  Joel Smith: Obviously you're not gonna i mean i wouldn't imagine too many people use that
• 17:30
  Joel Smith: in olympic lifting if at all no
• 17:32
  Manuel Buitrago: Not too much.
• 17:33
  Joel Smith: Yeah yeah but like one of the things is like getting really good at a trap bar
• 17:37
  Joel Smith: deadlift has a big top down gradient like you have to squeeze your chest downwards
• 17:41
  Joel Smith: and i was thinking okay well
• 17:43
  Joel Smith: If you did a lot of that, maybe that's not great if I want to maintain that
• 17:47
  Joel Smith: powerful funnel position, because if I start to squeeze my chest too much,
• 17:53
  Joel Smith: I can't get the space I want to be a good funnel.
• 17:57
  Joel Smith: And I know I speak from the experience myself. I know my this has really just
• 18:02
  Joel Smith: been a lot in the last year.
• 18:04
  Joel Smith: Like I've done a lot of work trying to open up my own chest, breathe into my chest.
• 18:08
  Joel Smith: And honestly even just aesthetically like if all i
• 18:11
  Joel Smith: cared about was looking good i'll stand
• 18:14
  Joel Smith: there in the mirror and i'll just breathe and just play with
• 18:17
  Joel Smith: like where the air goes in my rib cage and i'm like man the
• 18:20
  Joel Smith: more air that goes in my chest like you know i rarely talk bodybuilding or aesthetic
• 18:25
  Joel Smith: stuff on this show at all but i'm like you know my my chest and pecs look a
• 18:29
  Joel Smith: lot like i think they're supposed to when i get air up there versus that just
• 18:34
  Joel Smith: getting squeezed down thing and so oh 100
• 18:37
  Manuel Buitrago: No it's like instant it's instant chest.
• 18:40
  Joel Smith: Yeah that's what we all really care about honestly like yeah
• 18:42
  Joel Smith: it's good fun to spread faster jump however you're out of the field and honestly like
• 18:46
  Joel Smith: but i will say that's i i it's funny like
• 18:49
  Joel Smith: bodybuilding too like i think we just write off bodybuilding
• 18:52
  Joel Smith: sometimes as all it's not functional it's just muscles but
• 18:55
  Joel Smith: honestly the shapes that bodybuilding can give you
• 18:58
  Joel Smith: when you really pay attention i think be
• 19:00
  Joel Smith: really valuable but it's it's a lot of it's the shape
• 19:03
  Joel Smith: you know that like and for me it's been that like breathing
• 19:07
  Joel Smith: into the chest and hey yeah it's nice
• 19:10
  Joel Smith: that it makes my chest look more like aesthetic but i'm like there's a lot of
• 19:12
  Joel Smith: function behind this too getting air up there versus constantly doing stuff
• 19:16
  Joel Smith: that squeezes you from the top down uh so that's been an eye-opener for me with
• 19:20
  Joel Smith: that funnel back in the funnel there needs to be a phrase about the funnel to
• 19:24
  Joel Smith: make it catchy so that we really can put that on the forefront because i think it's so universal well
• 19:29
  Manuel Buitrago: I mean i think like you always need to take into account the shape when you're
• 19:32
  Manuel Buitrago: doing um when you're doing bodybuilding yeah so for example
• 19:38
  Manuel Buitrago: you know people you'll see a lot of chinese weightlifters they'll do upright
• 19:41
  Manuel Buitrago: rows really explosive rows and those are useful but um what they do looks like
• 19:48
  Manuel Buitrago: it looks like the bar is going up but when you do an upright row the way they
• 19:51
  Manuel Buitrago: do it you can see that their torso is going forward and down.
• 19:54
  Manuel Buitrago: So the upright row, especially once they pass the optimal height for a snatch
• 20:00
  Manuel Buitrago: pull or clean pull, the torso starts compressing from the top down.
• 20:04
  Manuel Buitrago: So upright rows are great if your goal is to try to go down faster.
• 20:10
  Manuel Buitrago: Because it's squeezing you from the top down, so it's helping you go down.
• 20:14
  Manuel Buitrago: But if you are doing upright rows with the intention of trying to go up,
• 20:19
  Manuel Buitrago: then you're creating interference.
• 20:21
  Manuel Buitrago: Like you focus on the shiny object, which is the bar. You say,
• 20:25
  Manuel Buitrago: oh, the bar is going up and I am going upright.
• 20:28
  Manuel Buitrago: But you have to, but a lot of people ignore that. Yeah, that's going up,
• 20:33
  Manuel Buitrago: but your body is going down.
• 20:35
  Manuel Buitrago: Yeah. So you have to look at how you yourself are moving, not just the bar,
• 20:41
  Manuel Buitrago: but then also what kind of shape you're creating with that.
• 20:44
  Manuel Buitrago: And in a similar way, a lot of Chinese athletes, they avoid bench press because
• 20:49
  Manuel Buitrago: the compression from the bench combined with the compression from the weight
• 20:54
  Manuel Buitrago: that's in front of you, it's going to squeeze you from AP, from front to back.
• 20:58
  Manuel Buitrago: So it's going to take away your ability to go forward.
• 21:05
  Manuel Buitrago: So you have to go more outward to the
• 21:07
  Manuel Buitrago: sides and that will take away some
• 21:10
  Manuel Buitrago: of your range of motion and for olympic lifting you
• 21:13
  Manuel Buitrago: need to have access to certain spaces so that you
• 21:16
  Manuel Buitrago: can get the bar overhead properly otherwise you're going
• 21:19
  Manuel Buitrago: to have to go around it so you might have to swing the bar outward you might
• 21:22
  Manuel Buitrago: have to lean away what looks like leaning away from the bar like you're
• 21:25
  Manuel Buitrago: going to move around in a way so that you can get the bar from a to b you know
• 21:29
  Manuel Buitrago: but if uh so a lot of athletes will actually avoid that a lot of attorneys athletes
• 21:34
  Manuel Buitrago: will avoid bench pressing because you know they don't they don't say it this
• 21:38
  Manuel Buitrago: way that you know it creates a shape but they'll say something like oh it takes
• 21:41
  Manuel Buitrago: away from my shoulder into motion,
• 21:45
  Manuel Buitrago: so a lot of coaches there you know follow that.
• 21:48
  Joel Smith: Dude if I turn sideways right now I'd almost disappear I mean not that I was
• 21:53
  Joel Smith: that strong but I just bench pressed for a long enough period of time as a staple
• 21:58
  Joel Smith: lift that I threw javelin
• 22:01
  Joel Smith: and I always used to be able to touch my hands like if I put my
• 22:04
  Joel Smith: hands behind my back one over the top one over the bottom I could
• 22:07
  Joel Smith: always get a few inches of overlap and then I
• 22:10
  Joel Smith: think eventually enough just enough consistent steady pressing over a long period
• 22:15
  Joel Smith: of time coupled with working at a desk and not throwing as much and man I mean
• 22:20
  Joel Smith: it's crazy how fast that range decreases and then you just think oh it's just
• 22:25
  Joel Smith: mobility oh just we'll just we'll just stretch it more and I'm like I cannot,
• 22:29
  Joel Smith: my rib cage is the thing.
• 22:31
  Joel Smith: So I've been doing a little bit more work lying on the side with the sandbag
• 22:34
  Joel Smith: to squish it back, which feels really good.
• 22:38
  Joel Smith: I'm continuing that journey to try to do more of it. But yeah,
• 22:42
  Joel Smith: these days it's been a quest to restore shapes in so many ways.
• 22:46
  Joel Smith: And so let's talk a little bit more about
• 22:49
  Joel Smith: Okay. Yeah. Like the, the way down. So versus the way up, uh,
• 22:53
  Joel Smith: and maybe I'll give the context of, you know, I hate to just use myself for
• 22:57
  Joel Smith: all these examples, but it's easy.
• 22:59
  Joel Smith: Um, the probably the strongest I've ever been from a powerlifting perspective.
• 23:04
  Joel Smith: Um, I was doing this thing. It was called the cube method by Brandon Lilly. It was awesome.
• 23:09
  Joel Smith: I mean, if you want to get stronger, it was really cool. I thought it was a great program.
• 23:13
  Joel Smith: And I put, I mean, I probably put like 60 pounds on my deadlift in about 10
• 23:17
  Joel Smith: weeks or 12 weeks and a good bit on my other lifts.
• 23:21
  Joel Smith: And it was funny because after that cycle was done, I think my standing vertical
• 23:25
  Joel Smith: was down like three inches or four.
• 23:28
  Joel Smith: It was really, really bad. I mean, that was age 32 and I'm 42 now. I could jump way higher.
• 23:33
  Joel Smith: And then when I was at the end of that, as you were talking,
• 23:36
  Joel Smith: I was just thinking, I think that program taught me how to go down really, really well.
• 23:41
  Joel Smith: But I think it really impeded my ability to reverse rapidly,
• 23:46
  Joel Smith: to go up and create the shapes to go up.
• 23:50
  Joel Smith: And it took me a little while to get back to getting back from that,
• 23:54
  Joel Smith: because I think if, again, going back to almost the Olympic lifting versus the
• 23:58
  Joel Smith: powerlifting on the outset, it would just be, oh, well, you're just not moving the bar fast enough.
• 24:02
  Joel Smith: Well, guess what? On that program, actually, we had tendos and we're doing fast
• 24:06
  Joel Smith: stuff in the program, like trying to estimate wonder at max is based off how
• 24:10
  Joel Smith: quick you could reverse the deep squat and that type of thing.
• 24:14
  Joel Smith: And I just think the shape of my, my gut would say, and based off what you're
• 24:18
  Joel Smith: saying, the shape I was creating and that the compression in my back to like
• 24:21
  Joel Smith: creating that brace in the back was really conducive to going down for me,
• 24:25
  Joel Smith: especially like I'm a pretty narrow,
• 24:27
  Joel Smith: I say high jumper, but going up, Ooh, like it's like, I really smashed myself
• 24:33
  Joel Smith: in terms of my ability to take that upwards.
• 24:36
  Joel Smith: And I think it's also that that conversation is interesting because you would
• 24:40
  Joel Smith: say, okay, well, there's athletes who can do that and not impede themselves.
• 24:44
  Joel Smith: And, but I obviously did, I think. So I'd be curious to go a little more into
• 24:48
  Joel Smith: what the powerless versus the Olympic lifts, just without anything extra,
• 24:52
  Joel Smith: just as lifts themselves,
• 24:55
  Joel Smith: the shapes that those are creating from both descending and then ascending out of it.
• 25:01
  Manuel Buitrago: Well, I mean, so in powerlifting, your goal is to squat down.
• 25:06
  Manuel Buitrago: Like, so you're starting from the top, you're going down.
• 25:08
  Manuel Buitrago: So you want to make a shape that helps you do that.
• 25:11
  Manuel Buitrago: It helps you release pressure so that you can hit just the amount of depth that
• 25:16
  Manuel Buitrago: you need and then go back up.
• 25:18
  Manuel Buitrago: Whereas in weightlifting, the squats happen after the catch.
• 25:23
  Manuel Buitrago: So all of your squats are from the bottom up. right so
• 25:27
  Manuel Buitrago: if you look at like a like an anderson squat or a pin squat
• 25:30
  Manuel Buitrago: you know those that's that's like the real squat that's
• 25:34
  Manuel Buitrago: happening in weight lifting like you are getting under the bar which
• 25:37
  Manuel Buitrago: is true but you're unweighted when that's happening
• 25:39
  Manuel Buitrago: the bar is going up you're going down so um you're just releasing pressure but
• 25:43
  Manuel Buitrago: there's not that's not the same as starting a squat from the rack and then trying
• 25:48
  Manuel Buitrago: to go down uh which is why the if you look at the way somebody catches a snatch
• 25:54
  Manuel Buitrago: versus how they overhead squat on the way down, it looks different.
• 25:58
  Manuel Buitrago: Like people who overhead squat from, you know, from the rack,
• 26:00
  Manuel Buitrago: they're not going to get as deep.
• 26:02
  Manuel Buitrago: They're not going to bend the same way as they would in the snatch because the
• 26:06
  Manuel Buitrago: snatch is unweighted when you get under it.
• 26:08
  Manuel Buitrago: So the squat for weightlifting always happens from after the catch.
• 26:14
  Manuel Buitrago: It happens from the bottom up.
• 26:15
  Manuel Buitrago: So if your goal is to get really good at squatting from the bottom up,
• 26:20
  Manuel Buitrago: you need to make a shape that again helps you go up right so
• 26:24
  Manuel Buitrago: um this is why even in when
• 26:27
  Manuel Buitrago: it comes to squatting and chinese weightlifters will
• 26:30
  Manuel Buitrago: will use that funnel shape when they unrack the bar and um
• 26:34
  Manuel Buitrago: and then they release their pressure and they get
• 26:37
  Manuel Buitrago: a good rebound out of it whereas when you're powerlifting you
• 26:40
  Manuel Buitrago: know the whole system is is tense like you're squeezing everything and
• 26:44
  Manuel Buitrago: then you're releasing pressure by expanding the belly
• 26:47
  Manuel Buitrago: pushing against the bell and then creating a space for
• 26:49
  Manuel Buitrago: you to go into yeah and then you squeeze it and go back
• 26:52
  Manuel Buitrago: up but you know these are those are two totally
• 26:56
  Manuel Buitrago: different shapes yeah and and they
• 26:59
  Manuel Buitrago: they affect you know the speed but they they affect the
• 27:02
  Manuel Buitrago: depth and they also affect like the shape because even if you
• 27:04
  Manuel Buitrago: watch like the deepest squat and power lifting it doesn't
• 27:08
  Manuel Buitrago: look like a snatch it doesn't look like a clean you know if you watch the front
• 27:12
  Manuel Buitrago: squat in a clean it's not the same as a you know a heavy front squat from the
• 27:16
  Manuel Buitrago: rack so you know you You have to keep in mind the shapes that you're working
• 27:21
  Manuel Buitrago: with and that you're trying to create so that you can be successful or make
• 27:26
  Manuel Buitrago: better decisions when you're training.
• 27:27
  Manuel Buitrago: Yeah.
• 27:28
  Joel Smith: Oh man, that's so good. I, because funny enough, I was going to say,
• 27:31
  Joel Smith: and you kind of reminded me of this is, so I did that, that powerlifting program
• 27:35
  Joel Smith: when I was about 32 and I don't know what I did for the next couple of years,
• 27:39
  Joel Smith: probably meandered in different ideas and systems.
• 27:41
  Joel Smith: And then about 35, I had stumbled, I not stumbled, but I had settled on,
• 27:46
  Joel Smith: okay, to restore my power, what feels the best for me is a high block,
• 27:50
  Joel Smith: a medium to high block lane with a deep catch.
• 27:53
  Joel Smith: And that was my primary. I was doing like maybe a
• 27:56
  Joel Smith: set of 10 singles on front squat heels elevated front squat
• 27:59
  Joel Smith: to supplement it or you know stuff like that so it's one set
• 28:02
  Joel Smith: of 10 to 12 was my supplement there but the main
• 28:05
  Joel Smith: work for my strength was a lot of just doubles and
• 28:08
  Joel Smith: triples of that uh deep uh block clean catch so go off the blocks higher position
• 28:14
  Joel Smith: squat catch and get it lifted up and i just i mean my vertical was at that peak
• 28:20
  Joel Smith: was eight inches higher than it was on the power lifting program and it was
• 28:24
  Joel Smith: night and day and this is crazy i also to weigh a few pounds less, but,
• 28:27
  Joel Smith: um, that just felt the best.
• 28:30
  Joel Smith: And I always love, that was one of the things I always loved with Olympic lifts in general.
• 28:34
  Joel Smith: I remember a lot of just self-taught, no idea what I was doing.
• 28:37
  Joel Smith: There's some video of me when I'm 23 or lifting and vibrant five fingers because
• 28:41
  Joel Smith: I'm like, yeah, barefoot Olympic lifts and catches.
• 28:43
  Joel Smith: And so of course to catch it, my feet have to spin way out and all this stuff.
• 28:48
  Joel Smith: Like I was doing, um, like I was really getting into snatches from the floor
• 28:52
  Joel Smith: just cause I didn't know any different, but I, you know, and I just love the
• 28:55
  Joel Smith: feeling of the heavy catch.
• 28:57
  Joel Smith: I remember one day after a heavy snatch workout, full catch,
• 29:02
  Joel Smith: I remember playing basketball.
• 29:04
  Joel Smith: It's just some like, just some
• 29:05
  Joel Smith: guys were getting together at a church and like, I was jumping so high.
• 29:09
  Joel Smith: I actually, I remember I got a breakaway and dunked on the breakaway and I like
• 29:13
  Joel Smith: came off the rim and landed on my face or something. I don't know. I was ready.
• 29:16
  Joel Smith: We're stimulated. It was really
• 29:17
  Joel Smith: bad. It says a lot of bad things about me as an athlete to be honest.
• 29:20
  Joel Smith: But I know all I'm just trying to say is that always felt really good,
• 29:23
  Joel Smith: way better than if, like, as you said, just doing an overhead squat and dropping down.
• 29:28
  Joel Smith: Something about catching and receiving the weight in that position
• 29:32
  Joel Smith: Was just so athletic and it felt so good. And that's the one thing where in
• 29:36
  Joel Smith: my home gym setup, I don't have space to do Olympic lifts.
• 29:40
  Joel Smith: Well, I mean, I guess I could trick up my basement, but even though I couldn't stand up with it.
• 29:43
  Joel Smith: So I just do other stuff and it's, it's all right. Like, that's the thing that I do.
• 29:48
  Joel Smith: This was, was always felt so good. And I always, I guess I was just thought
• 29:53
  Joel Smith: again, first layer, just reactivity, like not thinking of the skeleton,
• 29:56
  Joel Smith: just again, if we're just thinking power, it's like, Oh, it's more reactive.
• 29:59
  Joel Smith: It's an instant catch. It's an instant isometric, you know, that's from that
• 30:02
  Joel Smith: side of the equation, I would think of it that way.
• 30:04
  Joel Smith: But I love what you're saying with the shapes and the breath and the funnel
• 30:08
  Joel Smith: too, because I actually think that's the first order really.
• 30:11
  Joel Smith: And because you could do a, you could do a back squat fast and drop and catch it.
• 30:17
  Joel Smith: But I don't think that would be as good as a, like a snatch catch or a front clean catch.
• 30:21
  Joel Smith: Um, so yeah, if you could go into a little bit more,
• 30:24
  Joel Smith: um, the bottom up lists, um where
• 30:28
  Joel Smith: those come in the program as well like like a bottom up if you had a rack and
• 30:31
  Joel Smith: like did bottom up snatch or anything like that or like an anderson squat too
• 30:35
  Joel Smith: um go in please go into those and their usefulness for olympic lifting and then
• 30:39
  Joel Smith: also if you think there's implications for the general population and explosiveness
• 30:43
  Joel Smith: i would love to hear your take well
• 30:45
  Manuel Buitrago: Um just to before hitting that just talking about your experience it's not an
• 30:50
  Manuel Buitrago: accident that you felt more explosive or,
• 30:55
  Manuel Buitrago: powerful however you want to vocalize it by doing stuff that's closer towards
• 30:59
  Manuel Buitrago: the hip because one of the things that's happening is that you're changing shape
• 31:04
  Manuel Buitrago: throughout the lip and again this is something that I've,
• 31:08
  Manuel Buitrago: been able to vocalize after working with Bill.
• 31:11
  Manuel Buitrago: I guess it seems obvious when you see the lift, but people look past it.
• 31:16
  Manuel Buitrago: People don't focus on that.
• 31:17
  Manuel Buitrago: But you are changing shape. And so as you are reaching the hip,
• 31:22
  Manuel Buitrago: say for a snatch, you are reaching more of an externally rotated shape of the pelvis.
• 31:28
  Manuel Buitrago: You are reaching that night propulsive position.
• 31:32
  Manuel Buitrago: And you are reaching that funnel shape.
• 31:35
  Manuel Buitrago: So if you were doing stuff from the hip or near the hip, then you're training yourself to go up.
• 31:41
  Manuel Buitrago: You're training yourself to be you're starting in a shape that's that's conducive to to going up,
• 31:47
  Manuel Buitrago: and going up very quickly so you know
• 31:49
  Manuel Buitrago: if you spend a lot of time doing a bunch of trap work squeezing yourself from
• 31:52
  Manuel Buitrago: the top down and pushing yourself to the ground then when
• 31:55
  Manuel Buitrago: you switch to this stuff you know it would uh of course
• 31:58
  Manuel Buitrago: it's going to be different now if you had done
• 32:01
  Manuel Buitrago: something say from like mid shin or uh mid
• 32:04
  Manuel Buitrago: thigh you know you would be more in this uh internally
• 32:07
  Manuel Buitrago: rotated position which you know may or
• 32:11
  Manuel Buitrago: may not help as much okay so um because you you know your setup might reinforce
• 32:18
  Manuel Buitrago: the strategy that you were using before that you know with the trap bar but
• 32:21
  Manuel Buitrago: if you're moving outside of those ranges then those areas then you know you're
• 32:26
  Manuel Buitrago: you're helping yourself move and create a different shape yeah.
• 32:29
  Joel Smith: Sorry i'm sorry to interrupt i was just trying to throw something.
• 32:33
  Joel Smith: I apologize for throwing this in there, but you got me thinking about just bounce.
• 32:38
  Joel Smith: Like I think about external rotation. I mean, that's resisting the ground.
• 32:42
  Joel Smith: You're bouncing off the ground.
• 32:43
  Joel Smith: And if you're doing like a high block clean, you're starting more externally
• 32:48
  Joel Smith: rotated. And then a deep catch is also more external rotation.
• 32:51
  Joel Smith: So you're kind of bypassing like that more of internal rotation,
• 32:55
  Joel Smith: compressive zone a little bit. Is that what you're getting at there?
• 32:58
  Manuel Buitrago: Oh for sure so so when you when you're
• 33:01
  Manuel Buitrago: doing the from the blocks and you're near the hip you you're
• 33:04
  Manuel Buitrago: releasing energy a lot of it and really fast so uh
• 33:08
  Manuel Buitrago: you're going to move forward very quickly but then if you catch deep like i
• 33:14
  Manuel Buitrago: said you're unweighted between you know after the elevation and the catch so
• 33:19
  Manuel Buitrago: the bar is going up you're going down so you don't have time to stop in the
• 33:22
  Manuel Buitrago: middle and create that internally rotated position.
• 33:26
  Manuel Buitrago: There's, again, you're unweighted. So you're not stopping there.
• 33:31
  Manuel Buitrago: You're falling into what's going to be another externally rotated position.
• 33:35
  Manuel Buitrago: You're just changing the connective tissue behavior. So you're storing energy
• 33:39
  Manuel Buitrago: so that you can catch the bar.
• 33:40
  Manuel Buitrago: Because if you can't store it, then you're just going to keep going to fall.
• 33:44
  Manuel Buitrago: So the shape is the same, but the connective tissue behavior is different from
• 33:50
  Manuel Buitrago: starting to lift from the hips into the deep catch.
• 33:55
  Manuel Buitrago: So you're biasing the entire movement towards external rotation,
• 33:58
  Manuel Buitrago: and you're just playing connective tissue behavior at that point.
• 34:02
  Manuel Buitrago: And again, if you've been using more of an internally rotated position or spending
• 34:07
  Manuel Buitrago: a lot of time in that range and squeezing yourself from the top down,
• 34:11
  Manuel Buitrago: then that kind of a movement can help, I don't want to say undo some of that,
• 34:18
  Manuel Buitrago: but it's changing the shape into a way that moves fluid differently. it moves it more upward.
• 34:23
  Joel Smith: So the difference one of
• 34:26
  Joel Smith: the differences then between just dropping into that bottom
• 34:29
  Joel Smith: to rebound and then lowering it slowly
• 34:32
  Joel Smith: or or ish you know whatever tempo one two seconds is the connective tissue behavior
• 34:38
  Joel Smith: so it acts more like a spring when you drop into the bottom it's like versus
• 34:43
  Joel Smith: the top if you lower it it's more of a dampener or how would you explain that well
• 34:49
  Manuel Buitrago: Um If you catch it in the middle and then ride it down, you have to come to a stop.
• 34:55
  Manuel Buitrago: So you have to put force into the ground to stop.
• 35:00
  Manuel Buitrago: And then after that, you have to release pressure to let yourself go down slowly.
• 35:05
  Manuel Buitrago: But it's not going to be, even if you try to overhead squat quickly,
• 35:08
  Manuel Buitrago: it's not going to be as fast as when you're unweighted.
• 35:12
  Manuel Buitrago: So you do have to, for you to stop, you do have to internally rotate.
• 35:16
  Manuel Buitrago: So you are changing the shape midway in the catch, um,
• 35:21
  Manuel Buitrago: which, you know, if you're doing power snatches, I mean, there's a time and
• 35:25
  Manuel Buitrago: place for that, but if your goal is to try to get low, you know,
• 35:28
  Manuel Buitrago: or try to, um, you know, uh,
• 35:33
  Manuel Buitrago: create, you know, stay in that external rotate position, then that,
• 35:36
  Manuel Buitrago: that's not a good, that's not a good choice.
• 35:38
  Manuel Buitrago: You want to be able to just sink into the bottom and absorb the weight from there.
• 35:41
  Joel Smith: Got it. Got it. Um, yeah, it's interesting.
• 35:44
  Joel Smith: It's just really interesting with that stuff i was thinking about you
• 35:47
  Joel Smith: as you're talking it got me thinking about another anecdote and you
• 35:51
  Joel Smith: know i don't know there there's a few layers to this but i just remember one day i was
• 35:54
  Joel Smith: like in grad school and i was i was squatted back squatting
• 35:57
  Joel Smith: and i decided i'm gonna squat really deep i mean like as
• 36:00
  Joel Smith: deep as i can like just get into the
• 36:03
  Joel Smith: bottom and i i
• 36:06
  Joel Smith: don't know i did maybe three or four steps like five or six and i remember
• 36:09
  Joel Smith: the next day interestingly enough like just doing like skips and
• 36:11
  Joel Smith: hops and stuff and feeling pretty bouncy um even though i think i was going
• 36:16
  Joel Smith: slow i said i was i now i wonder is that did that do something for that expansiveness
• 36:21
  Joel Smith: like the er position at the bottom like just to open up i don't i don't know
• 36:26
  Joel Smith: i mean it's not fast right but like if we're talking like like
• 36:31
  Joel Smith: really maxing out the depth of the external rotation capacities at the bottom
• 36:34
  Joel Smith: if i guess you're not compensating really badly and you know could that be positive
• 36:39
  Joel Smith: i mean at these days i don't i would kind of steer away from that kind of thing
• 36:43
  Manuel Buitrago: I don't know i mean kind.
• 36:45
  Joel Smith: Of force me to the bottom of deep squats not being a great idea a lot of times so
• 36:48
  Manuel Buitrago: Well when you go into that deep position you're storing energy
• 36:51
  Manuel Buitrago: that's the thing and so then if you're able
• 36:54
  Manuel Buitrago: to go deeper you're going to store more energy and so
• 36:57
  Manuel Buitrago: maybe that is what is giving you the bounce because when you bounce you
• 37:00
  Manuel Buitrago: have to store and release energy right so you
• 37:04
  Manuel Buitrago: can either do stuff that helps you release energy or do stuff
• 37:06
  Manuel Buitrago: that helps you store energy and so if
• 37:10
  Manuel Buitrago: if what you're lacking is the ability to store energies then going and forcing
• 37:15
  Manuel Buitrago: yourself into that deeper position can have a benefit yeah you know what i mean
• 37:20
  Manuel Buitrago: because you're training yourself to store that energy so that when you use it
• 37:23
  Manuel Buitrago: in something else like your hops and jumps then you're able to see some some return on investment,
• 37:28
  Manuel Buitrago: But if you're already somebody who, you know,
• 37:31
  Manuel Buitrago: as soon as you unrack the bar, you know, you sink to the bottom and it takes
• 37:35
  Manuel Buitrago: 10 seconds to stand up, you know, it's not for you.
• 37:38
  Manuel Buitrago: That's not the kind of squat for you. You know, you want to,
• 37:40
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, that's where you do want to maybe do like a touch and go box squat
• 37:44
  Manuel Buitrago: or something, something that helps you stay up because you're already really good at going down.
• 37:50
  Joel Smith: Do you think there's a difference not to get too far into the archetypes just
• 37:54
  Joel Smith: because I think, you know, we're already talking about stuff that's pretty heavy.
• 37:56
  Joel Smith: You know the shapes and you know with all this biomechanical
• 38:00
  Joel Smith: ideas or all these biomechanical ideas there's a
• 38:03
  Joel Smith: lot there's a lot of layers like it can be especially if you're
• 38:06
  Joel Smith: not you know versed in Bill's world and watching all the Q&A's and
• 38:09
  Joel Smith: stuff it can be a lot so I don't want to get too far into the archetypes and
• 38:12
  Joel Smith: also for my own sake but would you say as a generalization like someone who's
• 38:17
  Joel Smith: more of a wide ISA muscular power you know however you want to do it versus
• 38:23
  Joel Smith: a narrow and for sternal angle, who's more of an elastic, bouncy type.
• 38:27
  Joel Smith: Would one of those archetypes do better than the other with more bottom-up?
• 38:32
  Joel Smith: That makes sense. Like, I'm almost thinking for someone like me who's a narrow,
• 38:35
  Joel Smith: like more elastic and bouncy, I should do way more bottom-up,
• 38:38
  Joel Smith: maybe even compared to someone who's more of a wide or no, or is it pretty universal?
• 38:44
  Manuel Buitrago: So, I mean, when we're talking about these shapes, like this is what has to
• 38:47
  Manuel Buitrago: happen in the lift period, regardless of your archetype.
• 38:51
  Manuel Buitrago: So it doesn't matter if you're narrow or wide, I say, like you need to go up and you need to go down.
• 38:56
  Manuel Buitrago: So, and you need to make a shape that lets you do that.
• 39:00
  Manuel Buitrago: So, um, so the good thing is that we don't have to get into those,
• 39:04
  Manuel Buitrago: uh, into those archetypes too deep, uh, because this is the way to do the lift.
• 39:08
  Manuel Buitrago: So um you know
• 39:12
  Manuel Buitrago: the the archetypes are useful uh whenever you see
• 39:15
  Manuel Buitrago: it to help you analyze like undesirable behavior
• 39:18
  Manuel Buitrago: and how to uh address that how to make
• 39:20
  Manuel Buitrago: better decisions and also understand uh how
• 39:24
  Manuel Buitrago: how they're turning in space but uh
• 39:27
  Manuel Buitrago: but again in terms of just doing the lift you have to go up
• 39:29
  Manuel Buitrago: and down you have to create the shape that does that so um
• 39:33
  Manuel Buitrago: you know and because there's weight uh
• 39:36
  Manuel Buitrago: weight classes in the game you're going to see you
• 39:39
  Manuel Buitrago: know different body types so you're going to see you know some of the big
• 39:42
  Manuel Buitrago: boys and the supers you know and sub supers that are they're going to be more
• 39:45
  Manuel Buitrago: on your wide isa kind of types you know whereas uh as you go into the lighter
• 39:50
  Manuel Buitrago: weight classes you'll see um you know guys who are more narrows okay but you
• 39:56
  Manuel Buitrago: know sometimes you'll you'll get an outlier somebody who's you know really short
• 39:59
  Manuel Buitrago: and stocky and doesn't weigh a lot you know,
• 40:01
  Manuel Buitrago: they're pretty wide for the weight class.
• 40:04
  Manuel Buitrago: And so they're using, they're going to be using a different strategy.
• 40:08
  Joel Smith: Got it. In terms of that reversal power, so coming out of the bottom,
• 40:12
  Joel Smith: a bottom-up quick motion.
• 40:15
  Joel Smith: I find it interesting, and you had a post on this, like squat catchers versus split catchers.
• 40:21
  Joel Smith: So if I'm doing a jerk, people who do a squat jerk versus a split jerk.
• 40:25
  Joel Smith: It does seem to me, with my limited knowledge of Olympic weightlifting across
• 40:29
  Joel Smith: the world, that the Asians or Chinese do more of the power catch, the bilateral.
• 40:34
  Joel Smith: But are people who prefer the split catch people who might not have that ability
• 40:39
  Joel Smith: to produce the shapes to reverse that powerfully?
• 40:43
  Joel Smith: I'm curious how one's shape and those dynamics might play a role in whether
• 40:49
  Joel Smith: it's better to split catch or power.
• 40:52
  Joel Smith: And of course where I'm going to go with this too for people listening if you
• 40:55
  Joel Smith: want to get into the athletic you know general athletic ideas as well are you
• 40:58
  Joel Smith: more of a unilateral or bilateral person but maybe let's start with Olympic
• 41:02
  Joel Smith: weightlifting and what's the shape difference in someone who prefers one or
• 41:05
  Joel Smith: the other splitter power catch
• 41:08
  Manuel Buitrago: Your squad jerkers so the people who catch all the way into a deep squat you
• 41:12
  Manuel Buitrago: know those guys are going to be usually more,
• 41:17
  Manuel Buitrago: conducive to staying upright in the squat so they're going to have short femurs,
• 41:21
  Manuel Buitrago: they're going to have a longer torso, and that just helps them stay in their
• 41:24
  Manuel Buitrago: base of support more easily compared to somebody with longer legs or longer
• 41:29
  Manuel Buitrago: femurs, because they just don't have to lean forward as much when they go down to squat.
• 41:35
  Manuel Buitrago: Because when you squat, you do have to go forward and down. And so the less
• 41:41
  Manuel Buitrago: you do that, the more you can stay in the middle and over the midfoot and keep
• 41:45
  Manuel Buitrago: the bar over the midfoot.
• 41:47
  Manuel Buitrago: So that's a first step. uh, that they've, they've discovered in China.
• 41:52
  Manuel Buitrago: The other thing is, you know, those guys have a really good,
• 41:55
  Manuel Buitrago: uh, funnel ship because you have to do a clean and drip.
• 41:59
  Manuel Buitrago: So you have to, you know, you have to stand up with heavy clean and then get
• 42:04
  Manuel Buitrago: under it again and stand up with it, you know, from an overhead squat position.
• 42:08
  Manuel Buitrago: So the people who are really good at squat jerks, um, they tend to have a lot of, uh,
• 42:14
  Manuel Buitrago: uh good resistance to squats
• 42:17
  Manuel Buitrago: so these are the kind of people where and you've probably you've probably
• 42:19
  Manuel Buitrago: seen this like they they get really close to their one
• 42:23
  Manuel Buitrago: rep max and they can do a lot of reps and
• 42:26
  Manuel Buitrago: it looks like they can do 10 to 15 kilos more but you put one more kilo on that
• 42:30
  Manuel Buitrago: bar and they're done you know whereas uh the rest of us you know as we get closer
• 42:36
  Manuel Buitrago: to our one rep max uh you know it's it's uh you know we're we're struggling
• 42:41
  Manuel Buitrago: you can see the strain you know and you can see that, okay, not one more kilo,
• 42:45
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, or you can say, oh, maybe five kilos more and that's it.
• 42:48
  Manuel Buitrago: You know, so the, the squat jerkers tend to be able to do higher reps at higher,
• 42:55
  Manuel Buitrago: uh, intensity of the one mat, uh, mats compared to split jerkers. So that also helps.
• 43:01
  Manuel Buitrago: Um, and like I said, they have a funnel. So having a funnel makes it easier
• 43:05
  Manuel Buitrago: to stand up, not just from a heavy clean, but from that heavy overhead squat position.
• 43:10
  Manuel Buitrago: So those are a couple of things that they look for when they're selecting those athletes.
• 43:13
  Joel Smith: It's interesting to just once
• 43:16
  Joel Smith: you have the lens of shapes just because without that
• 43:19
  Joel Smith: lens of shapes of the funnel we would
• 43:22
  Joel Smith: look at that athlete who can like who can move fast with uh and but then that
• 43:28
  Joel Smith: one pound more and they just can't move at all and just under the lens of muscular
• 43:33
  Joel Smith: output you would say oh that athlete's super fast twitch because as soon as
• 43:37
  Joel Smith: it was one pound more there you know their nervous system's so explosive And then,
• 43:41
  Joel Smith: you know, one pound more, they're, they're starting strikes,
• 43:43
  Joel Smith: can't do it anymore, whatever the,
• 43:45
  Joel Smith: you know, the classifications with a muscle only, you know, nervous system only perspective.
• 43:50
  Joel Smith: But it's interesting to think about the role of the shape and how that plays
• 43:55
  Joel Smith: into it. Cause that just makes so much sense to me.
• 43:57
  Joel Smith: Cause I, I think that confused me a little bit, just a little,
• 44:01
  Joel Smith: you know, I, I, the RFD, the rate of force development thing,
• 44:04
  Joel Smith: I think was good enough, but I think always in the back of my mind,
• 44:08
  Joel Smith: Like there's some, there's gotta be something more to that.
• 44:10
  Joel Smith: And even for myself, like I was actually pretty good at a lot of lifts at reps,
• 44:14
  Joel Smith: but I was like, I think I'm more fast twitch than this.
• 44:18
  Joel Smith: Like it was depressing sometimes looking at the estimated fast twitch,
• 44:21
  Joel Smith: slow twitch tables with how good you can rep out certain lifts.
• 44:24
  Joel Smith: And I think I'm in the middle, to be honest, my, my gene test says double copy of fast twitch.
• 44:30
  Joel Smith: I'm like, well, I had to have something, I guess, to high jump what I did.
• 44:32
  Joel Smith: But, um, you know, it's, it's just always, that always confused me just looking
• 44:37
  Joel Smith: at the reps and that estimates your fast twitch and only from the muscle perspective.
• 44:42
  Joel Smith: I think, yeah, looking at the shape perspective also, man, it's like,
• 44:46
  Joel Smith: once you add that in stuff, you could see a much more clear picture of how many
• 44:50
  Joel Smith: reps you can do and how fast that bar is moving with some maximal weights.
• 44:54
  Manuel Buitrago: Oh, for sure. For sure. So, you know, what happens with those athletes is that they,
• 44:59
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, once they, once you add that little bit of weight,
• 45:03
  Manuel Buitrago: they change their shape and now they can, they just can't produce enough force
• 45:08
  Manuel Buitrago: to get up. And so they stay down there.
• 45:13
  Manuel Buitrago: But you know they might be at like 95% and they're
• 45:16
  Manuel Buitrago: you know they're able to do two or three reps or most
• 45:18
  Manuel Buitrago: of us are going to be doing one rep at 95% but
• 45:22
  Manuel Buitrago: they'll do it for two or three reps and again if you
• 45:25
  Manuel Buitrago: look at the the squat charts you should be like oh oh no you've got way more
• 45:29
  Manuel Buitrago: than you know five more kilos if this is three three reps for you you should
• 45:33
  Manuel Buitrago: be doing more but it's not like that and so uh not for these guys and so um
• 45:39
  Manuel Buitrago: yeah the charts were useful but if you didn't,
• 45:43
  Manuel Buitrago: If you couldn't perform according to the chart, you're always kind of just left wondering.
• 45:47
  Manuel Buitrago: And I think like there's a missing piece, you know, and it's like you said,
• 45:52
  Manuel Buitrago: like the shape matters a lot. Yeah.
• 45:55
  Joel Smith: Yeah. That makes perfect sense. It's almost like, so if they can maintain that
• 46:00
  Joel Smith: very advantageous shape, they can just keep bouncing the weight essentially.
• 46:04
  Manuel Buitrago: Pretty much.
• 46:05
  Joel Smith: The fatigue hits in, because I think there's so much of that too.
• 46:08
  Joel Smith: It's the elastic rebound of the tissues that also is helpful.
• 46:11
  Manuel Buitrago: Oh, 100%.
• 46:12
  Joel Smith: It that's where i love um clifton harsky
• 46:16
  Joel Smith: the idea of instead of calling it strengthening
• 46:19
  Joel Smith: conditioning calling it like movement strength and conditioning because
• 46:22
  Joel Smith: it's that steering of the shape that's the movement piece that's the skill of
• 46:27
  Joel Smith: moving the skill of maintaining internal shapes even though you know that's
• 46:31
  Joel Smith: a lot harder to see and notice on the offset than a lot of skills but i just
• 46:35
  Joel Smith: love when we can put those movement and biomechanical layers because it gives
• 46:39
  Joel Smith: us so much more with what we're seeing.
• 46:41
  Joel Smith: And yeah, otherwise those guys would just be doomed if you had them.
• 46:44
  Joel Smith: I think it was a Charles Poliquin who may have started the idea of,
• 46:48
  Joel Smith: or maybe someone before him, I'm sure, but like, oh, if you're doing 80% and
• 46:52
  Joel Smith: you can do it 15 times, wow, you're slow twitch.
• 46:54
  Joel Smith: Let's give you a slow twitch set rep scheme in the gym to maximize those slow
• 46:59
  Joel Smith: and intermediate fibers.
• 47:00
  Joel Smith: But if I give you 80% and you can only do it five times, then you're fast twitch.
• 47:05
  Joel Smith: So let's give you the fast twitch program.
• 47:06
  Joel Smith: And I do think that is true to an extent for sure but
• 47:10
  Joel Smith: if you have a shape that's conducive to whatever you're
• 47:13
  Joel Smith: doing you might test differently or i think for me i just always utilize so
• 47:17
  Joel Smith: much elastic bounce at whatever i was doing like bench press i just finagled
• 47:21
  Joel Smith: my way my body into a way that could get the bounce maximized to make each rep
• 47:26
  Joel Smith: more efficient uh yeah i just think yeah i think that shape piece in there i
• 47:31
  Joel Smith: think is yeah really helpful
• 47:34
  Manuel Buitrago: A hundred percent. You know, and a lot of all this stuff, you know,
• 47:38
  Manuel Buitrago: that you encounter, it's, it's all trying, it's, there's, people are measuring it in different ways.
• 47:44
  Manuel Buitrago: But if you go back and look at the people who, who receive those prescriptions,
• 47:51
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, if you look at their shape, then things become more clear.
• 47:55
  Manuel Buitrago: I just think that, you know, when you say, oh, you need this many reps or this
• 47:59
  Manuel Buitrago: intensity or whatever, that's the load that helps you create the shape or create
• 48:04
  Manuel Buitrago: enough of a gradient to move in the direction that you're trying to go, you know?
• 48:08
  Manuel Buitrago: And so, yeah, it's like, you know, the good thing about Bill is that it helps
• 48:12
  Manuel Buitrago: you get away from blaming muscles, you know, or blaming stuff that you can't
• 48:18
  Manuel Buitrago: measure very easily or that you can't see, you know?
• 48:21
  Manuel Buitrago: Like people will blame the nervous system but it's like yep you know it's like
• 48:25
  Manuel Buitrago: i can't that's that does not help me in real time when i'm coaching athletes
• 48:29
  Manuel Buitrago: so um i need something else and the shape is easy to see like but once you see
• 48:35
  Manuel Buitrago: it you can't unsee it but you just have to be able to know what you're looking at yeah.
• 48:39
  Joel Smith: I totally agree even with like um yeah nervous system if you don't understand
• 48:43
  Joel Smith: the shapes it's like oh it's the nervous system or it's the fascia you know,
• 48:47
  Joel Smith: it's, and I think once you,
• 48:49
  Joel Smith: once the shapes come in, oh, it's like, oh, like this, this is,
• 48:53
  Joel Smith: yeah, it's multifactorial for sure.
• 48:55
  Joel Smith: But it's like, I think at the center of it all on some way, shape or form is
• 48:58
  Joel Smith: the shape athletes can create both.
• 49:01
  Joel Smith: Like you said, with the leg length, like, you know, in the squat lane and also internally.
• 49:05
  Manuel Buitrago: And, um, and you know, the thing is that all of that stuff is helping you change the shape,
• 49:10
  Manuel Buitrago: your muscles, your tendons, your ligaments, like all that
• 49:13
  Manuel Buitrago: stuff your bones you know like all that
• 49:16
  Manuel Buitrago: stuff is storing and releasing energy changing shape to
• 49:18
  Manuel Buitrago: help you move in the way that you're trying to do and think
• 49:22
  Manuel Buitrago: what has created a lot of confusion and difficulty
• 49:25
  Manuel Buitrago: for a lot of people is that you know we try to isolate
• 49:28
  Manuel Buitrago: those things you know and just focus on
• 49:30
  Manuel Buitrago: the muscle just focus on the tendons or whatever and then
• 49:34
  Manuel Buitrago: you ignore the rest of it and then uh and
• 49:37
  Manuel Buitrago: you're not even looking at the shape you know you're just
• 49:40
  Manuel Buitrago: looking at the result of the movement you know did you jump higher did
• 49:42
  Manuel Buitrago: you get stronger etc but if you ignore the shape
• 49:45
  Manuel Buitrago: then you know you're kind of flying blind you
• 49:49
  Manuel Buitrago: know and i i don't know if it was louis that said this or you know just in the
• 49:54
  Manuel Buitrago: power lifting crowd i learned where i heard the phrase where you can't can't
• 49:58
  Manuel Buitrago: flex bone you can't bend bone and and at this point at the time i said oh okay
• 50:03
  Manuel Buitrago: yeah you know bones you know very solid sturdy and stuff yeah of course but now you know,
• 50:08
  Manuel Buitrago: after seeing things from this lens and working with Doe, I respectfully disagree,
• 50:12
  Manuel Buitrago: but you totally can bend bone, you know, and they do bend throughout the movements, so,
• 50:19
  Manuel Buitrago: all of it is working together, so you have to find a way to,
• 50:25
  Manuel Buitrago: put it all together rather than try to separate it because you'll get lost. Yeah.
• 50:30
  Joel Smith: Yeah. It's kind of like the shape is where all that lands. The muscle,
• 50:34
  Joel Smith: bone, connective tissues, tendons, fascia.
• 50:38
  Joel Smith: It all ends up in the shape and in so many ways and the pressure.
• 50:41
  Joel Smith: I think it's a good, I'm sure there's a, like a heuristic or a mental shortcut
• 50:46
  Joel Smith: we take to want to generalize to one thing.
• 50:49
  Joel Smith: It's, you know, to only look at the nervous system or, I was on a podcast as
• 50:53
  Joel Smith: a guest recently where we were talking about the old, it was like the DB Hammer
• 50:57
  Joel Smith: book where it was everything was nervous system centric.
• 51:01
  Joel Smith: It was instead, the three constructs in that book are rate of force development,
• 51:06
  Joel Smith: magnitude or maximal magnitude of application, and then the duration you can
• 51:11
  Joel Smith: hold. But it was all neuro.
• 51:12
  Joel Smith: So it's neuro rate, neuro mag, neuro duration, everything. things.
• 51:16
  Joel Smith: But obviously the shape's going to impact, like we're talking about magnitude
• 51:20
  Joel Smith: of force, like the shape you can make with your skeleton is going to be a big
• 51:24
  Joel Smith: influence in that maximum magnitude. It's not just the nervous system.
• 51:29
  Joel Smith: Obviously the nervous system is massively important. It's awesome.
• 51:32
  Joel Smith: You know, I love getting into that.
• 51:34
  Joel Smith: Not too deep, but at a good, you know, at a good, at an appropriate,
• 51:38
  Joel Smith: I feel like, length for being a generalist.
• 51:41
  Joel Smith: Um, but yeah, I, I, I think that's really helpful. One of the things I was just
• 51:45
  Joel Smith: going to sneak in there just from a general perspective at, and this isn't, um,
• 51:51
  Joel Smith: Uh, related to Olympic list per se, but along with the bottom up cleans,
• 51:55
  Joel Smith: the thing I've found really helpful over time is, um, Jay Schrader's,
• 51:59
  Joel Smith: uh, I had a match let us do in this in his videos.
• 52:01
  Joel Smith: It's like low squat foot jumps where you're basically you're hopping up and down.
• 52:05
  Joel Smith: You're not riding down in the bottom, like a frog jump. You know,
• 52:08
  Joel Smith: if you're doing a plyometric like a rocket or frog jump and you're riding down
• 52:11
  Joel Smith: to the bottom, it's rather you're stopping on a dime.
• 52:15
  Joel Smith: Like you're just hitting a 90 degree angle with your legs. Basically,
• 52:18
  Joel Smith: your hips, knees and ankles are all pretty close to 90 and you're just popping
• 52:22
  Joel Smith: out of it, popping out of it and then lifting the knees.
• 52:26
  Joel Smith: And I found so much just instant boost in that. It's a movement I commonly prescribe.
• 52:32
  Joel Smith: And I feel like it probably works along a lot of the same things,
• 52:34
  Joel Smith: like an overcoming piece.
• 52:36
  Joel Smith: Now I'm actually thinking of how to work like maybe I'll
• 52:38
  Joel Smith: start supersetting it with like chest breathing exercises and
• 52:42
  Joel Smith: stuff like it's the shape change remedy to
• 52:45
  Joel Smith: kind of especially if you've done too many hex bar deadlifts in your
• 52:48
  Joel Smith: life um but yeah it's it's interesting to think about it from that funnel or
• 52:52
  Joel Smith: that idea literally that funnel um because otherwise it would all just be just
• 52:56
  Joel Smith: reactivity it's just the reactivity of the nervous system or something but it's
• 53:01
  Joel Smith: like there's also some shape pieces and some pressure pieces there that are
• 53:05
  Joel Smith: really conducive to how we move in sport.
• 53:08
  Joel Smith: I think that plyometric is almost the ultimate example of that versus stuff
• 53:12
  Joel Smith: that's, and a depth jump, yeah, that kind of thing, versus like a,
• 53:17
  Joel Smith: not that I think the ride it all the way down plyos don't have a roll,
• 53:21
  Joel Smith: I occasionally use those, but they're not my meat and potatoes.
• 53:25
  Joel Smith: I think maybe for the same reason that like a deep squat has that,
• 53:31
  Joel Smith: you know, the connective tissue behavior with all that stuff
• 53:34
  Manuel Buitrago: Well you know i mean there's just a time and place for everything so you know
• 53:39
  Manuel Buitrago: it was like i said the people who are really good at going down,
• 53:42
  Manuel Buitrago: you know you don't want like you're going to want to do stuff where
• 53:45
  Manuel Buitrago: they catch and maybe slowly lower themselves or
• 53:49
  Manuel Buitrago: where they do stuff that it's going to bias them
• 53:52
  Manuel Buitrago: to just go up with uh for example
• 53:55
  Manuel Buitrago: you know if you're looking at a box squash you know
• 53:57
  Manuel Buitrago: the people who are really good at going down uh you don't
• 54:00
  Manuel Buitrago: want them to deload on the box they're already good at deload so
• 54:04
  Manuel Buitrago: you want to use more of like a touch and go uh for
• 54:08
  Manuel Buitrago: those people so that they maintain that upward pressure uh as a squat whereas
• 54:13
  Manuel Buitrago: if you have the guy who takes 10 seconds to go down just to try to get depth
• 54:17
  Manuel Buitrago: yeah and then as soon as they get depth they stand up like it's nothing like
• 54:20
  Manuel Buitrago: that guy you know you want him to deload on the box you know for a few seconds
• 54:24
  Manuel Buitrago: actually because you want him to release that tension,
• 54:27
  Manuel Buitrago: release that pressure and create the shape change that helps them get into that deeper position.
• 54:34
  Manuel Buitrago: And create the shape. So,
• 54:37
  Manuel Buitrago: you know so you can do a box squat for two different
• 54:40
  Manuel Buitrago: two different people and you're just changing the
• 54:43
  Manuel Buitrago: way you do it and it changes the the direction of
• 54:46
  Manuel Buitrago: the flow uh you know of your internal fluid
• 54:49
  Manuel Buitrago: so it's not to say that touch and go is is
• 54:52
  Manuel Buitrago: always the way to go or that deloading is bad it's
• 54:56
  Manuel Buitrago: just it depends on the person like what direction are
• 54:58
  Manuel Buitrago: you trying to go and so and you can do this for
• 55:01
  Manuel Buitrago: any movement and you know it doesn't have to be squats it doesn't have to be
• 55:05
  Manuel Buitrago: weightlifting so if you're a you know uh working in another sport or whatever
• 55:09
  Manuel Buitrago: you know you can use those tools as well you just have to sit down and think
• 55:13
  Manuel Buitrago: for a minute like where am i trying to go where am i trying to move this is
• 55:17
  Manuel Buitrago: this limb trying to go up is it trying to stand.
• 55:19
  Joel Smith: Like how
• 55:20
  Manuel Buitrago: Am i trying to do this and then that gives you more clarity into what exercises
• 55:26
  Manuel Buitrago: to choose and how to do that.
• 55:28
  Joel Smith: Yeah that's where um you
• 55:31
  Joel Smith: know back to the archetypes that's where those probably are i think
• 55:34
  Joel Smith: Bill's talked about them as shortcuts like they're not like coveralls
• 55:37
  Joel Smith: but like a wide ISA who's stiff
• 55:40
  Joel Smith: is going to benefit more from that sit where that
• 55:43
  Joel Smith: things get to settle and I know for me Nero
• 55:46
  Joel Smith: like I never felt good sitting I just
• 55:49
  Joel Smith: like something about this I always wanted the touch and go just that
• 55:52
  Joel Smith: bam like that always felt the best for
• 55:55
  Joel Smith: me but then you know if it feels the best for me I'm
• 55:58
  Joel Smith: gonna go through the shortcut of person oh it feels good for me so everybody's
• 56:01
  Joel Smith: gonna get this you know and actually being
• 56:04
  Joel Smith: able to look at it as athletes who need who need one
• 56:07
  Joel Smith: thing or the other um it reminds me of the old bigger faster stronger magazines
• 56:12
  Joel Smith: i i got a few of those in high school i mean i've been obsessed with this stuff
• 56:15
  Joel Smith: for a very long time i remember they had um pictures oh we box squat and this
• 56:21
  Joel Smith: guy's sitting like with a lot of weight like everybody's on the box.
• 56:26
  Joel Smith: I did. Oh, yeah.
• 56:29
  Manuel Buitrago: But it's like I said, I didn't get the same result. And so, you know, I...
• 56:35
  Manuel Buitrago: I should have been doing more of a touch and go about deloading the way that
• 56:39
  Manuel Buitrago: louis was writing you know because his guys needed to deload you know he did
• 56:43
  Manuel Buitrago: have those kind of guys who were you know wide really really compressed and
• 56:48
  Manuel Buitrago: stiff you know and so they needed something to,
• 56:52
  Manuel Buitrago: to deload and create the shape to help them go down but for
• 56:55
  Manuel Buitrago: me coming from a gymnastics background like i was
• 56:58
  Manuel Buitrago: i was predispositioned to stay in the air i was predispositioned to
• 57:02
  Manuel Buitrago: go up so um and i was narrow
• 57:05
  Manuel Buitrago: too so uh i had um you know
• 57:08
  Manuel Buitrago: i could access these deep positions but if you if
• 57:11
  Manuel Buitrago: you force me into those positions i'm
• 57:14
  Manuel Buitrago: not coming up yeah yeah so you
• 57:18
  Manuel Buitrago: know it's why like when i was training in china you know
• 57:21
  Manuel Buitrago: i could deadlift uh you know i could deadlift competitive competitively to some
• 57:29
  Manuel Buitrago: of the chinese athletes there but my squat was always weaker um because i just
• 57:35
  Manuel Buitrago: you know once it got too heavy once that weight starts to smash you into the ground i just,
• 57:40
  Manuel Buitrago: couldn't uh i just didn't have enough space to to rebound out of it and they
• 57:46
  Manuel Buitrago: did so although i could stay up i couldn't store as much energy as they could yeah.
• 57:53
  Joel Smith: That was always me i i could not But storing energy in the bottom of a squat was just like, oh, man.
• 58:01
  Joel Smith: So I'd like to ask you about that with breathing and energy storage.
• 58:05
  Joel Smith: And so how would you, I guess, maybe first from a general, but then however
• 58:11
  Joel Smith: many layers you want to put into it, just thoughts on breathing in the lifts.
• 58:15
  Joel Smith: You can take it anywhere you want, you know, traditional squats,
• 58:18
  Joel Smith: front squats, bottom up stuff, racks, wherever you want to go.
• 58:23
  Joel Smith: I'd love to hear about how you coach and instruct that pressure in a little bit. Yeah.
• 58:29
  Manuel Buitrago: Yeah so so if we're talking about weightlifting you know it's like i said we
• 58:32
  Manuel Buitrago: need to create a funnel from the from the start position so right there you
• 58:36
  Manuel Buitrago: need to be able to squeeze your abs press your abs you need to exhale basically
• 58:41
  Manuel Buitrago: and squeeze that until you feel your abs kind of,
• 58:45
  Manuel Buitrago: squeezing the air out of you you know and that's tension you're going to feel
• 58:49
  Manuel Buitrago: your abs get tight you're going to feel them get hard okay because they're squeezing
• 58:53
  Manuel Buitrago: they're compressing and then And from there, you have to breathe.
• 58:58
  Manuel Buitrago: You have to maintain that tension as you're in it. Because if you release the
• 59:02
  Manuel Buitrago: tension, then you won't get the shape.
• 59:04
  Manuel Buitrago: So you have to maintain that tension. And then the air is going to go along
• 59:10
  Manuel Buitrago: the path from these resistance.
• 59:11
  Manuel Buitrago: So it's going to accumulate in the upper torso.
• 59:14
  Manuel Buitrago: And that creates your funnel. But you just need to make sure that you expand the chest and the back.
• 59:21
  Manuel Buitrago: Because if you just expand the front, you're not creating a funnel.
• 59:26
  Manuel Buitrago: A funnel has to be, you know, wide on both sides from front to back.
• 59:30
  Manuel Buitrago: And so, so one, you know, a lot of people when they try to expand the chest,
• 59:35
  Manuel Buitrago: they'll squeeze their shoulders together and just push the chest out and it
• 59:38
  Manuel Buitrago: looks expanded because they're pushing everything forward. But that's not a funnel shape.
• 59:42
  Manuel Buitrago: You know, what you need is to expand that chest with air, but then you also
• 59:48
  Manuel Buitrago: need to make sure that you're expanding between the shoulder blades.
• 59:51
  Manuel Buitrago: So you're getting that, that mid-back area to expand as well.
• 59:54
  Manuel Buitrago: And that's what's going to give you the funnel. Otherwise, you're just going
• 59:56
  Manuel Buitrago: to push yourself forward really fast.
• 59:59
  Manuel Buitrago: So, you know, that's what I teach with people in the lifts.
• 1:00:03
  Manuel Buitrago: And because you're not able to breathe 100%, when it comes time to change direction,
• 1:00:11
  Manuel Buitrago: you squeeze from the top down, you release the pressure in the abs,
• 1:00:15
  Manuel Buitrago: and that's what helps you go down.
• 1:00:19
  Manuel Buitrago: It's kind of like squeezing a balloon that's not full, you know,
• 1:00:22
  Manuel Buitrago: so it has a little bit of air but you can squeeze one side then the other side
• 1:00:25
  Manuel Buitrago: gets really big and expanded and then you squeeze that side and the other side
• 1:00:28
  Manuel Buitrago: gets big and expanded you're doing something like that,
• 1:00:31
  Manuel Buitrago: because you haven't you haven't filled the balloon up as as
• 1:00:33
  Manuel Buitrago: much as it could possibly fill so uh because
• 1:00:37
  Manuel Buitrago: you don't have you know maximum air ball here when you squeeze when you change
• 1:00:42
  Manuel Buitrago: direct when you change direction and squeeze differently you're going to create
• 1:00:46
  Manuel Buitrago: that shape which is really important but if you just take a huge breath and
• 1:00:51
  Manuel Buitrago: you know try to gulp the air as much as possible,
• 1:00:54
  Manuel Buitrago: then you don't have any space to move,
• 1:00:57
  Manuel Buitrago: and so um you know
• 1:01:00
  Manuel Buitrago: it's you know and then you might have to you might have to change shape to to
• 1:01:04
  Manuel Buitrago: uh to accommodate that air so a lot of guys a lot of times you see people round
• 1:01:10
  Manuel Buitrago: their back shrug their shoulders like they're bending because they're creating
• 1:01:13
  Manuel Buitrago: this huge air bubble and they got they have to make a shape to accommodate it
• 1:01:17
  Manuel Buitrago: and that's not the shape that they need to do the lift.
• 1:01:20
  Manuel Buitrago: So that's uh that's like the biggest thing uh the eye opener when i teach these lifts to people,
• 1:01:26
  Manuel Buitrago: and in this in the sport of weightlifting like i said your squats
• 1:01:29
  Manuel Buitrago: are always from the bottom up so you you need to be able to
• 1:01:32
  Manuel Buitrago: do this in your squats as well so it's not
• 1:01:35
  Manuel Buitrago: saying that power lifting style breathing strategy is
• 1:01:38
  Manuel Buitrago: bad uh you will get strong with that and
• 1:01:41
  Manuel Buitrago: uh but it's not going to
• 1:01:44
  Manuel Buitrago: help you for weightlifting yeah and and that's the
• 1:01:47
  Manuel Buitrago: thing is that you know i get people that you know write to me
• 1:01:49
  Manuel Buitrago: and say you know hey man i got you know this super
• 1:01:52
  Manuel Buitrago: heavy squat you like it's like 250 or more but my
• 1:01:55
  Manuel Buitrago: snatch is like 80 kilos you know like how
• 1:01:58
  Manuel Buitrago: come i have i have legs you know and it's
• 1:02:01
  Manuel Buitrago: like yeah you you can you can produce force but you're using the wrong shape
• 1:02:05
  Manuel Buitrago: and so that's not helping you for the snatch that's not helping you for the
• 1:02:09
  Manuel Buitrago: clean you know and so um and same thing with deadlifts again they'll don't use
• 1:02:16
  Manuel Buitrago: a power lifting style deadlift and they say, look, I've got this heavy pull.
• 1:02:20
  Manuel Buitrago: I'll come home. I can't snatch more than I do or clean more than I do. And it's a shape.
• 1:02:26
  Manuel Buitrago: So it's not a strength issue. It's a shape that's expressing that force production.
• 1:02:34
  Joel Smith: I want to just unpack that a little bit. So a general squat,
• 1:02:38
  Joel Smith: so you're saying more abdominal tension because that's going to expand the back
• 1:02:43
  Joel Smith: more because typically people just compress their back.
• 1:02:45
  Joel Smith: Would that be a first step? And unpacking it a little bit.
• 1:02:49
  Manuel Buitrago: So what happens with a lot of people is that they'll arch the back,
• 1:02:53
  Manuel Buitrago: right? So they'll go. So that's closing the space behind you.
• 1:02:57
  Manuel Buitrago: You're squeezing stuff by and that's pushing you forward. And because the tension
• 1:03:02
  Manuel Buitrago: is greater there compared to the front, the internal fluid is going to go forward to the front.
• 1:03:09
  Manuel Buitrago: So you're not going to be able to tense your abs. You're not going to be able
• 1:03:12
  Manuel Buitrago: to squeeze the abs because the fluid is there.
• 1:03:15
  Manuel Buitrago: You know, I mean, if you just think about just arch your bop as
• 1:03:18
  Manuel Buitrago: much as you can you'll feel your abs uh you know stretch
• 1:03:22
  Manuel Buitrago: yeah and then you know but you can't do anything in
• 1:03:24
  Manuel Buitrago: that position like you can't really you know if you try to you know
• 1:03:27
  Manuel Buitrago: flex your abs or squeeze your abs in that position you can't do anything because
• 1:03:30
  Manuel Buitrago: that's that's not a shape that lets you compress the front side so uh what you
• 1:03:38
  Manuel Buitrago: know what i teach people again is yeah exhale so that they do create that compression
• 1:03:43
  Manuel Buitrago: in the abs and you know I have them just stand naturally and then from there.
• 1:03:49
  Manuel Buitrago: Again try to fill the front and back sides and you know the
• 1:03:51
  Manuel Buitrago: front front side it's pretty easy for most people uh
• 1:03:55
  Manuel Buitrago: the back side is what takes a couple of reps just because
• 1:03:58
  Manuel Buitrago: um people are not people are used to closing that
• 1:04:01
  Manuel Buitrago: space rather than expanding it um and so
• 1:04:04
  Manuel Buitrago: it takes it takes a second to to do that um once you have it once you feel it
• 1:04:09
  Manuel Buitrago: um it's you'll find that you're you won't get push forward as much you're able
• 1:04:15
  Manuel Buitrago: to stay more upright and uh um and you're able to bounce out of the bottom a lot easier so.
• 1:04:23
  Joel Smith: So that's something that
• 1:04:26
  Joel Smith: i think you know if we look at this spectrum of power lifting
• 1:04:29
  Joel Smith: olympic lifting like athletic movement like
• 1:04:32
  Joel Smith: a standing vertical or running vertical whatever sprinting it
• 1:04:36
  Joel Smith: chris corf has said this a long time ago something to
• 1:04:39
  Joel Smith: the tune of people who are more athletic and fast tend
• 1:04:42
  Joel Smith: to be able to squat better with a more upright torso or a
• 1:04:45
  Joel Smith: torso that kind of mirrors the shin angles versus leaning way
• 1:04:48
  Joel Smith: forward it was an old article maybe it was on simply faster
• 1:04:52
  Joel Smith: it was free lap usa maybe back then or i don't remember i just remember seeing
• 1:04:56
  Joel Smith: that i was like wow i i can totally see this and so it strikes me that you know
• 1:05:02
  Joel Smith: people debate in the strength and conditioning community olympic lifts and weight
• 1:05:07
  Joel Smith: lifting and should we do olympic lifts to me it's
• 1:05:10
  Joel Smith: If you can learn the shapes behind the shapes and pressure movement
• 1:05:13
  Joel Smith: behind the olympic lifts i think that's the the spirit of
• 1:05:15
  Joel Smith: so much of it and right um i'm
• 1:05:19
  Joel Smith: trying to think where where was i going i forget where i was going for this oh i know
• 1:05:22
  Joel Smith: the guy who could squat a lot
• 1:05:25
  Joel Smith: but really struggles to to do olympic lifts that
• 1:05:29
  Joel Smith: also strikes me as someone who is not going
• 1:05:32
  Joel Smith: to be as effective on the field you know whatever you're asked
• 1:05:35
  Joel Smith: to do you from a shape perspective you aren't creating the shape that converts
• 1:05:39
  Joel Smith: into explosive power and so could you just go in a little bit more about that
• 1:05:44
  Joel Smith: person in those states like someone who's really strong probably leans forward
• 1:05:47
  Joel Smith: a lot in the lifts the shape that's being created versus what shape you would
• 1:05:52
  Joel Smith: try to steer them towards
• 1:05:53
  Manuel Buitrago: Well i mean i think it depends on the sport and the position you know so if
• 1:05:57
  Manuel Buitrago: you're you know we're talking about american football you know you're the center
• 1:06:00
  Manuel Buitrago: like you want to stay low to the ground you want to be you want to do you want
• 1:06:04
  Manuel Buitrago: to be on the powerlifting program because you need to stay low to the ground
• 1:06:07
  Manuel Buitrago: and be an unmovable object.
• 1:06:10
  Manuel Buitrago: You basically need to be a wall. You just stick yourself to the ground so that
• 1:06:13
  Manuel Buitrago: if somebody runs into you, they just bounce off of you.
• 1:06:16
  Manuel Buitrago: Yeah. You know, you don't want to be lifted.
• 1:06:19
  Manuel Buitrago: You know, I can't know why a receiver or something like that.
• 1:06:22
  Manuel Buitrago: Like, you need to be able to move.
• 1:06:23
  Manuel Buitrago: Like, you need to be able to fly off the ground, sprint, so that,
• 1:06:27
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, you can cover a lot of distance. So, you don't want to be on the powerlifting program.
• 1:06:31
  Manuel Buitrago: So, you know, if I have a center, you know, I probably wouldn't have him do the Olympics.
• 1:06:36
  Manuel Buitrago: Doesn't need that you know so for him it might be easier to just do you know
• 1:06:41
  Manuel Buitrago: good old-fashioned power lifting squat uh squat you know uh low bar some heavy
• 1:06:47
  Manuel Buitrago: deadlifts things like that whereas um your your athletes who need uh to stay
• 1:06:52
  Manuel Buitrago: elevated to need to go up and out faster those guys are.
• 1:06:59
  Manuel Buitrago: Snatches and not even the lifts those lifts
• 1:07:02
  Manuel Buitrago: themselves just any movement that helps them create that shape you
• 1:07:06
  Manuel Buitrago: know and so the lifts the olympic lifts are a way to do that they're not the
• 1:07:10
  Manuel Buitrago: only way yeah and so um now i like them because i love the sport it's how i
• 1:07:15
  Manuel Buitrago: compete it you know what i teach and everything and it's been life but but you
• 1:07:20
  Manuel Buitrago: don't have to do that you just have to follow the shape yeah so.
• 1:07:24
  Joel Smith: For example like a wide receiver and that makes total sense with the center
• 1:07:27
  Joel Smith: i could i can 100 see that as just someone very strong grounded like pat david
• 1:07:32
  Manuel Buitrago: Sumo squats all day more.
• 1:07:34
  Joel Smith: Ground versus more air types see i mean it doesn't get any different than
• 1:07:37
  Joel Smith: that and so if i'm a more aerial type and
• 1:07:40
  Joel Smith: i need to have more explode in my system um
• 1:07:43
  Joel Smith: that shape would be my mind goes to like
• 1:07:46
  Joel Smith: okay let's say a block pull a block high pull but i'm making sure i get air
• 1:07:50
  Joel Smith: in my chest i'm making sure i set myself up to reverse that in a more aerial
• 1:07:55
  Joel Smith: or you know bouncing off the pelvic floor type way i can explain it directly
• 1:08:00
  Joel Smith: that that's something that kind of comes to mind is there anything that you would
• 1:08:04
  Manuel Buitrago: Well you know you need to you need you need
• 1:08:07
  Manuel Buitrago: to expand the front end like i said because if you only focus on one then uh
• 1:08:12
  Manuel Buitrago: it's not going to create the shape that helps you stay elevated so like if you
• 1:08:17
  Manuel Buitrago: if you don't if you expand the front and you don't pay attention to the back
• 1:08:21
  Manuel Buitrago: you're going to go forward really fast and so you know If you just think of a sprinter,
• 1:08:25
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, if they don't land, if they don't land the middle key,
• 1:08:29
  Manuel Buitrago: let's say hit the ground, if they're going too far forward, then they're going,
• 1:08:33
  Manuel Buitrago: I don't want to say they're going too fast, but they're like leaning forward.
• 1:08:36
  Manuel Buitrago: Like they're not able to hit directly into the ground.
• 1:08:38
  Manuel Buitrago: So you, in that case, you're going to need something that holds them back.
• 1:08:43
  Manuel Buitrago: Slows them down per se so that they can produce force directly into the ground
• 1:08:48
  Manuel Buitrago: because if they squeeze too far forward they're not going to go to strike it
• 1:08:52
  Manuel Buitrago: at that optimal angle and get the get the elevation that they want because once
• 1:08:57
  Manuel Buitrago: you pass that that that direct force into the ground,
• 1:09:01
  Manuel Buitrago: you're you're going to start reducing the amount of force you put into the ground
• 1:09:05
  Manuel Buitrago: so again some people need to go faster some people need to slow down but the
• 1:09:09
  Manuel Buitrago: goal is to put them is to get them to be in that spot where they can produce some of this force.
• 1:09:17
  Manuel Buitrago: And again, some people need to go faster, some people need to go slower.
• 1:09:21
  Manuel Buitrago: But that's how you will optimize it. And that's why you can't just say it's
• 1:09:25
  Manuel Buitrago: just one or the other or it's just one exercise or another.
• 1:09:28
  Manuel Buitrago: You need both. And you just need to know what shape you have,
• 1:09:32
  Manuel Buitrago: what shape you want, and then what exercises you're going to help you do that.
• 1:09:37
  Joel Smith: Yeah. So let's just say for someone who's not a center in football,
• 1:09:40
  Joel Smith: but like uh maybe they want to do olympic weightlifting
• 1:09:44
  Joel Smith: maybe they're in a different sport but they're just like that there's their explode
• 1:09:47
  Joel Smith: their their olympic lifts their snatch is poor their ability to create that
• 1:09:51
  Joel Smith: shape is poor you know maybe a lot of it is just their genetic shape but their
• 1:09:55
  Joel Smith: squats pretty good or whatever um what are some what are some uh tactics you're
• 1:10:01
  Joel Smith: going to be using to try to shift that into creating a better shape or better
• 1:10:06
  Joel Smith: breathing mechanics We'll see you next time. Bye.
• 1:10:09
  Manuel Buitrago: So, you know, if they can't, you know, first, you know, I always go back to just technique.
• 1:10:17
  Manuel Buitrago: So they need to make sure that they have the ball in the right position,
• 1:10:20
  Manuel Buitrago: that they have the proper bar contact, that they're keeping their balance.
• 1:10:24
  Manuel Buitrago: So like the sports specific stuff is useful as well.
• 1:10:27
  Manuel Buitrago: And you still have to, there is a way to do this. lift and
• 1:10:31
  Manuel Buitrago: so um i find that a lot of
• 1:10:33
  Manuel Buitrago: people who um who struggle
• 1:10:37
  Manuel Buitrago: with these lifts you know they're not able to keep their barbell contact
• 1:10:40
  Manuel Buitrago: and they're not able to keep their balance so they're literally
• 1:10:44
  Manuel Buitrago: falling while they're doing the lift that doesn't look like they're falling
• 1:10:47
  Manuel Buitrago: uh you know they might even have the foot you know on the ground but you know
• 1:10:53
  Manuel Buitrago: you'll see some athletes where they'll be doing a snatch pull or they'll be
• 1:10:56
  Manuel Buitrago: you know midway in a snatch they haven't even uh reached the hip yet and you'll
• 1:11:00
  Manuel Buitrago: see the heels come off the ground or the toes lift off the ground a little bit.
• 1:11:04
  Manuel Buitrago: And uh that's a fall you know
• 1:11:07
  Manuel Buitrago: now they're not they're not landing on their butt but you know
• 1:11:10
  Manuel Buitrago: uh the guys who are lifting the heel they're falling forward the
• 1:11:13
  Manuel Buitrago: guys who are lifting the toes they're also going forward but they're
• 1:11:16
  Manuel Buitrago: they're trying to fall backwards to undo that and so
• 1:11:19
  Manuel Buitrago: it's a fall and so the thing is
• 1:11:22
  Manuel Buitrago: to slow them down and uh help them keep
• 1:11:26
  Manuel Buitrago: uh you know keep their foot contact so that
• 1:11:28
  Manuel Buitrago: they're not falling that they're putting things on the ground so so
• 1:11:32
  Manuel Buitrago: those are things that i that i focus on first uh before you know messing around
• 1:11:37
  Manuel Buitrago: with um you know exercises or whatnot it's just get put them in a position let
• 1:11:42
  Manuel Buitrago: them feel this feel the contact feel the balance make the shape with their breathing
• 1:11:47
  Manuel Buitrago: then do the lifts and see what happens yeah.
• 1:11:50
  Joel Smith: Yeah, back to that, like just high pull example. I'm sure there's all over the
• 1:11:55
  Joel Smith: country, many skilled positions and fast athletes doing Olympic lifts,
• 1:11:59
  Joel Smith: being instructed to squeeze their shoulder blades, big chest,
• 1:12:02
  Joel Smith: and chewing in a way that just pushes all the pressure into the front ends.
• 1:12:07
  Manuel Buitrago: Right. And so if you try to do a snatch pull that way, it's not going to be
• 1:12:13
  Manuel Buitrago: helpful from a technical standpoint for a lot of people.
• 1:12:20
  Manuel Buitrago: And um the other thing is knowing how
• 1:12:22
  Manuel Buitrago: high to pull so a lot of people they just you know rip
• 1:12:25
  Manuel Buitrago: it as high as they can but there is
• 1:12:28
  Manuel Buitrago: a there is a line there is a standard that you have to
• 1:12:31
  Manuel Buitrago: do when you're doing these pulls you know so in china you
• 1:12:34
  Manuel Buitrago: know they teach that the clean pull should reach the navel
• 1:12:37
  Manuel Buitrago: and then the snatch pull should reach the lower chest
• 1:12:40
  Manuel Buitrago: the reason uh you don't want to past
• 1:12:43
  Manuel Buitrago: those uh those points is because
• 1:12:46
  Manuel Buitrago: you change shapes so as soon as
• 1:12:49
  Manuel Buitrago: you uh pass uh those those those marks uh you
• 1:12:52
  Manuel Buitrago: start squeezing from the top end you start to shrug you know yeah yeah and um
• 1:12:57
  Manuel Buitrago: and again people look at a shrug and they think that they're going up they look
• 1:13:00
  Manuel Buitrago: at the shoulders and think oh wow like i'm going upward like this but to do
• 1:13:04
  Manuel Buitrago: a shrug you have to actually squeeze the chest so it's the chest it's the rib
• 1:13:09
  Manuel Buitrago: cage and chest that's going down it's creating this relative.
• 1:13:13
  Manuel Buitrago: Elevation of the shoulders.
• 1:13:14
  Manuel Buitrago: And you can just try this yourself if you're sitting there, you know,
• 1:13:17
  Manuel Buitrago: just lift your shoulder as much as you can, put your hand on your chest and
• 1:13:20
  Manuel Buitrago: you're going to seal your hand, go down and in.
• 1:13:23
  Manuel Buitrago: Like you can't, you can't raise your shoulders and still keep your chest expanded.
• 1:13:29
  Manuel Buitrago: And so uh so once you pass those marks you're going down or at least you should be going down.
• 1:13:36
  Manuel Buitrago: So if you're doing a snatch pull as high as possible you're you're
• 1:13:41
  Manuel Buitrago: trying to go up but you're creating interference because you're
• 1:13:44
  Manuel Buitrago: changing the shape so now instead of throwing the
• 1:13:47
  Manuel Buitrago: fluid upward letting it flow upward it's going to crash it's going
• 1:13:50
  Manuel Buitrago: to dampen as well because you're blocking its upward movement
• 1:13:53
  Manuel Buitrago: and then that throws off your timing and rhythm so this
• 1:13:57
  Manuel Buitrago: is why you'll have people who will say oh
• 1:14:00
  Manuel Buitrago: coach my snatch pulls are so heavy like i'm
• 1:14:03
  Manuel Buitrago: so you know i'm getting so much height on the bar but i can't stand
• 1:14:06
  Manuel Buitrago: i can't get it well yeah because
• 1:14:09
  Manuel Buitrago: you've your timing is you're already and you.
• 1:14:13
  Manuel Buitrago: Can't you can't you've already made a shape but you've
• 1:14:16
  Manuel Buitrago: resisted it uh and you can't
• 1:14:19
  Manuel Buitrago: squeeze you can't squeeze further because once you once you
• 1:14:21
  Manuel Buitrago: pull so high you're making that cone shape and if
• 1:14:24
  Manuel Buitrago: you force yourself to stay up there there's no there's a limit
• 1:14:27
  Manuel Buitrago: to how much you can raise your shoulders you can elevate your shoulder
• 1:14:30
  Manuel Buitrago: you can shrug and so once you reach that limit you
• 1:14:34
  Manuel Buitrago: can't do anything more so you can't go down you know
• 1:14:36
  Manuel Buitrago: it's like um it's like when you when you do
• 1:14:39
  Manuel Buitrago: a bicep curl like if you bend your elbow as much as you can and you
• 1:14:42
  Manuel Buitrago: reach this limit like you can't curl any further so if
• 1:14:45
  Manuel Buitrago: you're if you're in this position and you're asked to curl with your
• 1:14:49
  Manuel Buitrago: you know with your forearm you know touching your bicep like
• 1:14:52
  Manuel Buitrago: there's nothing for you to do you can't move yeah and that's what happens these
• 1:14:55
  Manuel Buitrago: guys literally can't move down into that shape so they they've made it they
• 1:15:02
  Manuel Buitrago: resisted and then they're stuck and then they complain that they can't again
• 1:15:06
  Manuel Buitrago: that they have super heavy snatch pulls but they can't catch.
• 1:15:10
  Joel Smith: Matt, it gets me thinking about Julian Pinot has a system of internal and external torque.
• 1:15:15
  Joel Smith: And he talks about that with like CrossFit is doing dips.
• 1:15:19
  Joel Smith: It would be an example of people who let the smaller shrug way up when they're
• 1:15:22
  Joel Smith: doing dips. They just hit that strategy.
• 1:15:24
  Joel Smith: And here first it has a more external torque related strategy in terms of the
• 1:15:28
  Joel Smith: muscles that get activated.
• 1:15:29
  Joel Smith: If we look at the muscle knock on effects from working in that position.
• 1:15:34
  Joel Smith: And it's different than someone who keeps that chest in a proper or good open position.
• 1:15:41
  Joel Smith: And so it's interesting to think about, yeah, what happens when the shape changes
• 1:15:45
  Joel Smith: and now what muscles come online and are working.
• 1:15:48
  Joel Smith: I think he was trying to get injuries happening in some CrossFit,
• 1:15:52
  Joel Smith: some competition with a lot of dips and people lost the shape.
• 1:15:56
  Joel Smith: And then just so it's really interesting to think about. Just running into the
• 1:16:02
  Joel Smith: last question, because I mentioned this in the beginning, was,
• 1:16:06
  Joel Smith: I think I touched on it, was hypertrophy or accessory exercises and shape.
• 1:16:12
  Joel Smith: And I know you've, I believe you've posted a little bit of this on some of the
• 1:16:16
  Joel Smith: accessory or bodybuilding type movements that are done.
• 1:16:20
  Joel Smith: And it's interesting to think about, it was the Bulgarian system,
• 1:16:24
  Joel Smith: Abhijev, it's like only Olympic lifts, nothing else, not even like accessory squats.
• 1:16:30
  Joel Smith: Just straight, just do the thing.
• 1:16:34
  Manuel Buitrago: Yeah, I trained with him for a year.
• 1:16:37
  Joel Smith: Oh, nice.
• 1:16:37
  Manuel Buitrago: Yeah, it was a very interesting experience. But it was fun. It was fun.
• 1:16:44
  Joel Smith: Those who, it's funny because, yeah, Max Zeta, it did as well as he was on the show.
• 1:16:49
  Joel Smith: And, you know, it's interesting to talk about, like, who survives that system?
• 1:16:53
  Joel Smith: I suppose people who can keep the shape is one thing that probably helps.
• 1:16:58
  Manuel Buitrago: You know what? I mean, again, it's like, I didn't know any of that back then, but it's true,
• 1:17:03
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, like if you, because you'll be able to do it and if you can maintain
• 1:17:08
  Manuel Buitrago: it, you know, with those loads, then, then you'll, you have a better chance of being injury-free,
• 1:17:15
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, but if you're always missing or you're losing shape, you know,
• 1:17:21
  Manuel Buitrago: then something's got to absorb that stress you know and um uh you only have
• 1:17:27
  Manuel Buitrago: so much of those lifts in you yeah you know yeah.
• 1:17:32
  Joel Smith: Um yeah so that i that'd be so interesting to talk about too i've just been
• 1:17:35
  Joel Smith: thinking about that system just from a philosophical adaptation perspective
• 1:17:39
  Joel Smith: like forcing adaptation how long can you force adaptation before you just blow
• 1:17:42
  Joel Smith: up and you know like how long could the peds stretch that out for i don't know
• 1:17:47
  Joel Smith: you know it's interesting it's just um it interests me with just hard training concepts.
• 1:17:52
  Joel Smith: But I do want to ask you about, sorry to get distracted with that question,
• 1:17:56
  Joel Smith: just like bodybuilding, muscle-based training, how does that play out in your
• 1:18:04
  Joel Smith: role in Olympic weightlifting?
• 1:18:07
  Manuel Buitrago: Yeah well um you know i don't i don't
• 1:18:10
  Manuel Buitrago: worry too much about the muscle um because it's
• 1:18:14
  Manuel Buitrago: going to get training no matter what like everything is everything is
• 1:18:16
  Manuel Buitrago: working uh together you can't isolate the
• 1:18:19
  Manuel Buitrago: muscle even even a bicep curl like you still
• 1:18:22
  Manuel Buitrago: like you still have to uh it's not
• 1:18:25
  Manuel Buitrago: just like the bicep of the arm that's doing stuff like the
• 1:18:28
  Manuel Buitrago: rest of your body is holding you so that you don't fall on your face when
• 1:18:31
  Manuel Buitrago: you're move a heavy dumbbell so everything is
• 1:18:35
  Manuel Buitrago: working all the time so the focus
• 1:18:39
  Manuel Buitrago: should be on what if you're
• 1:18:41
  Manuel Buitrago: going to do this bodybuilding movement what shape
• 1:18:45
  Manuel Buitrago: is it helping with you know and how is
• 1:18:48
  Manuel Buitrago: that helping you go up or down you know
• 1:18:51
  Manuel Buitrago: and it becomes really clear once you
• 1:18:54
  Manuel Buitrago: just ask those two questions and then and go
• 1:18:56
  Manuel Buitrago: from there because a lot of people get stuck with programming because there's
• 1:19:00
  Manuel Buitrago: so many exercises so many ways to do them and it's hard to choose which way
• 1:19:04
  Manuel Buitrago: to do it you'll see athletes successful using all kinds of styles but if you
• 1:19:08
  Manuel Buitrago: can just ask yourself okay so what direction do i need to go and what shape do i need to get there,
• 1:19:16
  Manuel Buitrago: then you can say okay well then maybe i need upright rows because i need to
• 1:19:20
  Manuel Buitrago: go down or maybe upright rows is not the day is not today not for this person,
• 1:19:25
  Manuel Buitrago: Or I'm going to do box squats. I'm going to do a touch and go for the person
• 1:19:29
  Manuel Buitrago: who needs to stay up and a deload for the person that needs to go down.
• 1:19:34
  Manuel Buitrago: Maybe I need to do some split squats. Maybe I need to do a front foot elevated,
• 1:19:41
  Manuel Buitrago: because I need to be able to put more force into that side.
• 1:19:45
  Manuel Buitrago: Or maybe I need to change the
• 1:19:50
  Manuel Buitrago: location of the weight so that uh i don't turn as
• 1:19:53
  Manuel Buitrago: much doing the split squat or the jerk so you
• 1:19:57
  Manuel Buitrago: know that might be doing a split
• 1:20:00
  Manuel Buitrago: squat with the the kettlebell
• 1:20:03
  Manuel Buitrago: dumbbell on the lead leg side or
• 1:20:06
  Manuel Buitrago: the opposite side you know so it's not that one
• 1:20:09
  Manuel Buitrago: is better than the other it's just what's happening in
• 1:20:12
  Manuel Buitrago: the lift and then how the reverse
• 1:20:15
  Manuel Buitrago: engineering and then that's where you get that's where you get your body
• 1:20:17
  Manuel Buitrago: will be so and again
• 1:20:20
  Manuel Buitrago: it's it's it's just but for example if you want to do uh you know a lot of a
• 1:20:25
  Manuel Buitrago: lot of chinese athletes will do lap pulls and pull-ups okay well lap pulls you're
• 1:20:31
  Manuel Buitrago: you're pulling you know that helps you go down like you're squeezing you're
• 1:20:34
  Manuel Buitrago: trying to pull yourself down whereas if you do a pull-up you're trying to go
• 1:20:38
  Manuel Buitrago: up you're trying to create upward pressure.
• 1:20:40
  Manuel Buitrago: To get your get your body to the bar so we
• 1:20:43
  Manuel Buitrago: can all do lab day all day every day cool but
• 1:20:46
  Manuel Buitrago: somebody the person who needs help going down they're going to be doing lap pulls
• 1:20:49
  Manuel Buitrago: and then the person who needs help going up they're going to be
• 1:20:52
  Manuel Buitrago: doing pull-ups interesting yeah because
• 1:20:56
  Manuel Buitrago: the pressure the pressure is different you're unweighted when you do
• 1:20:58
  Manuel Buitrago: a lap pull like the the stack the weight stack and the uh the bar is is lifting
• 1:21:04
  Manuel Buitrago: you off the ground so what you have to do is produce a lot of force to try to
• 1:21:08
  Manuel Buitrago: pull that bar down so you're pulling yourself there you're squeezing more from
• 1:21:11
  Manuel Buitrago: the top down when you do the lap pull versus when you're doing a pull-up it's not the same.
• 1:21:16
  Manuel Buitrago: It looks similar and it, you know, and, and, and everybody feels the last,
• 1:21:20
  Manuel Buitrago: but you're going in a different direction. The pressure is completely different.
• 1:21:26
  Joel Smith: I'll have to try that with the lap pull next time at the gym.
• 1:21:29
  Joel Smith: I was just thinking as you were saying that about anecdotally,
• 1:21:32
  Joel Smith: some strength coaches have talked about in putting pull-ups in a program,
• 1:21:35
  Joel Smith: they see, and I'm sure there's a lot of things that have happened in the program,
• 1:21:38
  Joel Smith: but noting an increase in sprint times with an increase in pull-ups, I think it's hard.
• 1:21:43
  Joel Smith: I'd be curious to see an actual statistical study on that.
• 1:21:47
  Joel Smith: But when you first said lap pull on top down, I was getting confused.
• 1:21:50
  Joel Smith: I was like, ah, pull up, like maybe being able to reverse the pressure upwards
• 1:21:54
  Joel Smith: and having a strong enough.
• 1:21:55
  Joel Smith: And obviously lats important working along with the glutes and sprinting but
• 1:21:58
  Joel Smith: maybe the pressure as well going up it's interesting when you think about things
• 1:22:02
  Joel Smith: on the level of shapes and not just oh well strong lats and it works with the
• 1:22:06
  Joel Smith: gates i agree yeah but like yeah what are we what's happening from a shape a
• 1:22:10
  Joel Smith: pressure in the shape as well yeah
• 1:22:12
  Manuel Buitrago: I mean and the thing is just that the muscle your muscles do more than the things
• 1:22:17
  Manuel Buitrago: that we learned that they do you know like they don't they don't do one thing
• 1:22:20
  Manuel Buitrago: they don't stay the same shape the whole range of motion um Um,
• 1:22:25
  Manuel Buitrago: and so they're always, and, and different parts of firing at different times, you know, and,
• 1:22:32
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, we look at some of these muscles and we call them one muscle,
• 1:22:36
  Manuel Buitrago: but when you look at some of the research, you'll find that,
• 1:22:39
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, what we call one muscle in the textbook is actually like four or five
• 1:22:42
  Manuel Buitrago: different muscles, you know?
• 1:22:44
  Manuel Buitrago: And so it's, um, you know, it's, it's a useful, it's a useful like starting
• 1:22:50
  Manuel Buitrago: point in road math, but you don't want to rely too much on it because it's just too complicated.
• 1:22:54
  Manuel Buitrago: You know and so um,
• 1:22:57
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, like your lats, it's such a huge area. You know, it's not,
• 1:23:01
  Manuel Buitrago: it's not just one muscle and has different layers.
• 1:23:04
  Manuel Buitrago: And so it's going to do a lot of things. And so, you know, again,
• 1:23:10
  Manuel Buitrago: you can do lap pulls and pull-ups and you're going to feel the,
• 1:23:12
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, the lats working, but it's going to be different. Yeah.
• 1:23:17
  Joel Smith: You get me thinking about swimmers now. I'm like, man, I, this is the last question,
• 1:23:20
  Joel Smith: like going up, but you got my, you got, you opened up my brain here.
• 1:23:22
  Joel Smith: Cause I was thinking, And I remember there was one stint.
• 1:23:26
  Joel Smith: It was a group of swimmers. I wasn't working with them at the time,
• 1:23:28
  Joel Smith: but like they, there's a group of pro swimmers and in their program was a bunch
• 1:23:32
  Joel Smith: of neutral grip pull-ups.
• 1:23:35
  Joel Smith: And like they, usually they would rotate around more, but for some reason they
• 1:23:38
  Joel Smith: were on neutral grip for, I don't know, a few months.
• 1:23:40
  Joel Smith: And I think they were all saying it was messing with their swimming.
• 1:23:43
  Joel Smith: Like something about that was messing with them.
• 1:23:45
  Joel Smith: And then I was thinking lap pull-down always, I always felt like that was a
• 1:23:48
  Joel Smith: pretty good, just my gut said this is a good movement for swimmers.
• 1:23:51
  Joel Smith: I mean, along with pull-ups, like you want to be a pull-up purist,
• 1:23:54
  Joel Smith: but I always felt like lat pull-downs also got a really good response and maybe
• 1:23:59
  Joel Smith: something with keeping their back up on top of the water.
• 1:24:01
  Joel Smith: I don't know, but it was, um, you got my wheels turned now, so I'll have to
• 1:24:05
  Joel Smith: approach it with that light, but it does make sense.
• 1:24:08
  Joel Smith: I guess you're pulling your chest up to the bar in that neutral grip.
• 1:24:10
  Joel Smith: It's almost the opposite of that reaching, expanding catch position with the backup on the water.
• 1:24:16
  Joel Smith: So I'm sure there's some shape stuff that could definitely go into that too.
• 1:24:19
  Joel Smith: Um, the last, I'll just, let me just ask you this because unless my
• 1:24:22
  Joel Smith: brain get hung up in places I don't want it to right now um abs
• 1:24:25
  Joel Smith: so like just direct work with abdominals because
• 1:24:28
  Joel Smith: we talked about that in the pressurization piece um talk about how you would
• 1:24:32
  Joel Smith: do that for or you know anything with that for Olympic weightlifters just because
• 1:24:36
  Joel Smith: I think there's some universal applications obviously track athletes love doing
• 1:24:39
  Joel Smith: abs and we say it's all cosmetic but I think there's probably something from
• 1:24:43
  Joel Smith: a feeling perspective in there um direct abs and Olympic weightlifting any thoughts on that
• 1:24:49
  Manuel Buitrago: I mean, athletes still use them. I don't use them as much.
• 1:24:54
  Manuel Buitrago: I just, again, I don't want to isolate a certain muscle.
• 1:25:00
  Manuel Buitrago: But you do need to be able to compress to create that shape.
• 1:25:05
  Manuel Buitrago: So, you know, if you are, if you're really arched, you're pushing forward and
• 1:25:11
  Manuel Buitrago: everything expanded like that, you know, ab work is not going to help you very
• 1:25:17
  Manuel Buitrago: much. You just don't have the shape.
• 1:25:19
  Manuel Buitrago: For it to do anything uh you have to
• 1:25:21
  Manuel Buitrago: slow the signal gravity down you have to breathe and
• 1:25:24
  Manuel Buitrago: expand different areas for the ab work to do
• 1:25:28
  Manuel Buitrago: do something um so you know the abs are always they're always working you know
• 1:25:34
  Manuel Buitrago: they're working when you squat they're working when you when you deadlock so
• 1:25:37
  Manuel Buitrago: uh i don't i don't worry too much about that um you know and if you're doing
• 1:25:44
  Manuel Buitrago: it for cosmetic reasons, that's more diet than anything else.
• 1:25:47
  Manuel Buitrago: So, yeah, but athletes do it, you know, they like the pump, they like,
• 1:25:52
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, they like the cosmetic healing,
• 1:25:58
  Manuel Buitrago: but it does, you know, it's low priority in my exercise selection. Got it.
• 1:26:09
  Joel Smith: Awesome. Great. Thank you so much, Manny. Where can people learn more about
• 1:26:13
  Joel Smith: you and your work if they want to check that out?
• 1:26:17
  Manuel Buitrago: Yeah, so, you know, they can go to chineseweightlifting.com,
• 1:26:20
  Manuel Buitrago: you know, and they can check out what I'm all about there.
• 1:26:24
  Manuel Buitrago: I've written some books on Chinese weightlifting and I've updated my second
• 1:26:30
  Manuel Buitrago: book to talk about a lot of the shape change.
• 1:26:34
  Manuel Buitrago: And because I've arrived at a point where I can verbalize it.
• 1:26:39
  Manuel Buitrago: You know it kind of bring coherence to what
• 1:26:41
  Manuel Buitrago: i learned in china with what i've learned from bill
• 1:26:44
  Manuel Buitrago: and so so that's that's useful and um
• 1:26:48
  Manuel Buitrago: so if you you know it's it's more of a visual book so
• 1:26:50
  Manuel Buitrago: it's uh it's good for coaches it's also good for athletes and
• 1:26:54
  Manuel Buitrago: uh yeah so then uh you know you can check out any of the seminars that i do
• 1:26:58
  Manuel Buitrago: or the camps that i hold in china you know i'll talk to people to train there
• 1:27:02
  Manuel Buitrago: and at a professional base so they get to see uh what's happening live and then
• 1:27:07
  Manuel Buitrago: be able to spend two weeks living the life of a Chinese bit.
• 1:27:13
  Joel Smith: Awesome. Well, Hey, thank you so much for the conversation today.
• 1:27:16
  Joel Smith: I really appreciate it. And I'm glad we can make this happen.
• 1:27:19
  Manuel Buitrago: Ah, thanks for having me. It was fun. I hope it was useful for people listening.