Is Geoffrey Verity Schofield's Advice INEFFECTIVE? (Exercise Scientist Reacts)

Comments · 278

• GV

  @GVS · 2 years ago

  Appreciate the video my guy! Just a few comments:<br><br>Rack pulls, they work the hell out of the erectors, as I&apos;m using them very actively. While I don&apos;t really recommend doing them exactly like this, they&apos;re actually beyond failure for me in many cases as I have to go deeper into flexion to complete later reps. They&apos;re quite good for upper traps, and I&apos;ve found they definitely do work the lower/mid traps and rhomboids to get the chest up at the end. So basically, erectors and mid back. If I wanted to work pure upper traps I&apos;d probably go a high pull from the hang or power shrugs. Bodybuilding training is a bit like Tetris, it&apos;s hard to fit everything in sometimes. The deadlift is one of the most compound movements out there, and I do think that differences in style can have massive differences in what gets trained. I&apos;ve always deadlifted with a lot of back, and so that&apos;s what gets trained, for me. Would be interesting to try a machine that allows for more range of motion for the erectors, unfortunately I don&apos;t have access to one.<br><br>Arnold press, if I had to choose between a normal seated dumbbell press and these, I&apos;d go normal, but I do find that it&apos;s a nice variation and does work in the upper back enough to justify it&apos;s existence. <br><br>Pullovers, agree somewhat about feel. Probably boils down to experience level, if I feel something working, I can tell if it&apos;s actually doing something or just sensation. Whereas a beginner can&apos;t assess things quite as well. But yea, they&apos;re good overall...and can definitely feel more triceps or chest or abs or lats if I change the grip or execution a bit, which might explain why different people have different opinions on this one. EMG tends to bias numbers in favor of contraction focused lifts so it&apos;s not surprising that this one gets overlooked. <br><br>Machine squats, sounds like we&apos;re fully in agreement here. Interestingly, after doing a lot of very quad dominant variations of the squat pattern, my form has changed a lot on barbell variations so that they&apos;re more quad dominant as well. <br><br>Side bends, I didn&apos;t know the obliques were also worked with spinal flexion, interesting! I included these mostly because I have seen fearmongering around them, and they helped me rehab my QL, but you&apos;re right in that it&apos;s hard to quantify if or how much they might prevent or reduce the risk of injury. I&apos;ll try to be more careful with my wording in the future!<br><br>Again thanks for your takes on this, and keep up the good work!

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• AT

  @atlaspowershrugged · 2 years ago

  In fairness, the way gvs does the rack pull is basically all spinal flexion. &nbsp; Most folks keep their backs straight and just use leg drive to lock out.

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• JU

  @JuliusCaesar103 · 2 years ago

  Gvs is the man, look forward to this

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• NM

  @nmnate · 2 years ago

  In my opinion the Arnold press basically just rotates the head of the dumbbell in a way that it doesn&apos;t tend to run into your shoulder at the bottom (similar to a neutral grip). If you&apos;re used to doing only the upper part of the DB press, the bottom is going to feel way different. A lot of bros barely get the dumbbell head below their ears... 😅

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• NA

  @names116 · 2 years ago

  Still would like to see you do a video on John Meadows and his 4 phases of Mountain Dog Training. Thanks for covering Geoff though!

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• ZA

  @zakazan8561 · 2 years ago (edited)

  I always found it odd that people would extol exercises like the deadlift or in this case, rack pulls, for back hypertrophy when these exercises are just isometric holds. What these people may be getting from these movements may not actually be from the back, but from the insane amount of bracing that is required to fully stabilize these movements, leading to more efficiency in movements that actually do grow the back optimally. What these movements are doing is pretty much the same thing that something like a plank does for people. You are teaching your entire core and back to work together and you are successfully stimulating this movement pattern with enough weight to get some muscle building benefits out of it as well. The thing is, for building good bracing and core stability, there are many exercises specific to that you can do that will train your core much more effectively without as much fatigue, and I agree that just holding a weight in front of you for time is going to lead to as much gains if not better gains for your back than doing deadlifts or rack pulls. If you introduce spinal flexion into rack pulls or deadlifts, you are lifting very dangerously because the compressive force placed on the spine combined with resisted flexion will cause a disc herniation if you continue to do it, and will generally delineate the tough outer crust of the disc, which will lead to degenerative changes in the spine over time, which can predispose it to permanent damage. Excessive flexion will tend to cause herniation and conversely, excessive extension will cause spondylosis if you&apos;re lucky, spondylolisthesis if you&apos;re not.<br><br>Functional fitness gets a lot of hate, especially by youtube fitness influencers, but the notion that the deadlift or rackpull give any back gains is essentially rooted in the concepts behind functional fitness. Exercises like weighted carries or turkish get ups or core isometric holds will lead to a fitness level that is sort of beyond the movement itself and transfers very well to other movements and the activities of daily living. I just find it interesting that on one hand someone will insult a thing yet on the other utilize its concepts for massive gains. Like Stuart McGill says, proximal stiffness (or stability) leads to distal athleticism. A science based approach is very useful because it attempts to remove dogma and stigma and it rigorously tests what is beneficial and what is not, disregarding any sort of preconceived notions of efficacy.<br><br>The soreness in the rear delt area after doing an arnold press can be the subscapularis muscle due to the minimal internal rotation caused by moving the wrist during the movement, which will eccentrically load the subscapularis muscle. The subscapularis is innervated by the subscapular nerve, and the axillary nerve, which innervates the posterior delt, are both branches of the posterior cord so pain may be able to radiate to the posterior delt as the nerve is downstream from the subscapularis nerve or it can just be a proprioceptive problem<br><br>As far as the side bends go, a side plank clamshell is the closed chain alternative to them, which should be safer. The problem with side bends is again, loaded flexion and possible disc herniation along with the large range of motion. Just google lateral disc herniation and revel in the massive amount of horror you uncover as a lateral disc herniation is far more serious than a posterior disc herniation which is what is usually seen. While the side bend does work the obliques, GVS is right here in that it&apos;s an exercise you can do for your QL. Side plank clamshells will work the QL in a small range of motion, and suitcase carries will work the QL isometrically. All my knowledge of spinal damage, back pain, and physical therapy tells me to avoid side bends.

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• LE

  @leoerus · 2 years ago

  I like bro science leaning stuff because it actually gets me big.

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• KA

  @kaveus · 2 years ago

  I think you should review Eric Bugenhagen, it would be interesting

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• MA

  @mattricav · 1 year ago

  I understand what milo said about deadlift and hack pull. But in my experience deadlift helped my back so much. And I would always feel the entire back on the next day doing literally just the deadlift. I cannot possibly say it doesn&apos;t work lower back and lats. Otherwise how would I feel them sore next days.

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• RO

  @RobertSmith-xp1mg · 2 years ago

  You should do a best exercises for abs hypertrophy video. You should also include not just the rectus abdominis but the other parts of the abs. Maybe even include the hip flexors if you can train them both by leg raises or something.

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• BE

  @bermysanders9278 · 2 years ago

  You should do one on Bald Omni-Man!

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• NO

  @Nostalgiaforinfi · 2 years ago

  Power shrugs and rack pulls work great for traps.

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