How To Design Your Perfect Warmup | Dr Sam Spinelli | Modern Wisdom Podcast 162

Dr Sam Spinelli 0:00 ... the first thing, get warm. Figure out whether you want to do that on the Erg, the bike, or doing some dynamic movements. Pick a few different dynamic movements if th- that's going to be your main thing, or if you just want to check off some boxes for getting in and out of the ranges you're going to go to. If we're talking about being in, like, a CrossFit class or general lifting, try to do, like, a thoracic range of motion drill, some sort of trunk stability exercise, some sort of hip motion exercise. And then after that, s- either do some accessory range of motion drills if you need to, such as, like, the shoulder ones we discussed or the hip ones. Afterwards, get into the specific exercises that you're going to start to do for the day, do some skill work for a few minutes, get moving fast on it though, be deliberate with it, and then get into what you're doing. Start training.

Chris Williamson 0:51 (wind blowing) Sam Spinelli in the building. How are you doing, man?

Dr Sam Spinelli 0:55 I'm doing fantastic. How about you?

Chris Williamson 0:56 Yeah, very good. What do you think is more difficult to control, the human body or Skype when you're trying to record a podcast?

Dr Sam Spinelli 1:04 Oh, man. I think I'm going to have to shift towards Skype today. If you asked me before, I would have said a different answer, but-

Chris Williamson 1:09 Yeah. Th- we have had an absolute technical nightmare, but we've wrangled it, we're here, um, and we're talking. So I want to, um, I want to talk about warm-ups today. Everyone that's listening, even from the people that don't do sport anymore and they just did PE in school, they'll have had to do some sort of a warm-up. And I don't have a clue, really, why I should be doing a warm-up. I do one at the start of every CrossFit class. When I did Thai boxing, I was warming up there. I've got programmed warm-ups from my swim coach if I do swimming or anything, you know, you warm up to do it. I even kind of like cough a little bit before I speak on a podcast.

Dr Sam Spinelli 1:43 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:43 Everything has that, like, on-ramp to begin it, right? But I don't know, where do we start? Like, why, why do we warm up? Why should we do it?

Dr Sam Spinelli 1:51 No, it's a really important, uh, question. And at the end of the day, whenever it comes to any of these activities, whether we're talking about swimming, talking on a podcast, or working out, we always want to try to have the best performance we can. When we have a better performance, we reduce our injury risk. When we have a better performance, we have better outcomes. They're just the desired outcomes at the end of the day. And warming up, regardless of the activity, is going to help to do that. If you look at, uh, pretty much high l- any high level activity, people do this in where they progress in certain ways, and, um, they build up into the activity so that they can then perform at their peak when they're doing the actual activity. And if you don't have that progression into it, then you're just gonna be going from cold d- into it. Like, you have an increased risk of injury, you are gonna have a poor performance. There's just tons of negative outcomes with it.

Chris Williamson 2:39 I get it. Where do we start? I'm gonna do something. Let's presume, bec- we could, there could be a million different warm-ups, a million different sports, but I think if we take something like CrossFit/powerlifting, um, slash, uh, uh, a run endurance sort of thing as the broad spectrum of what we're looking at, where do we start with that?

Dr Sam Spinelli 2:59 So when it comes to pretty much any major physical activity, there's going to be a few thr- uh, a few things that we want to ensure that we get in there. There's basically like three buckets that we can think of. And the first one is going to be that you legitimately need to warm up. You need to actually get physically warm. And there's a lot of reasons behind that, but at the end of the day, when we have, uh, an increase in our body temperature, we actually have a faster ability to have metabolism occur. So, um, all of our body reactions occur through metabolism, and they're expedited so they can happen faster when we're actually physically warm. And, um, there's a lot of chemistry behind that, but for everyone listening, you got to legitimately get warm. This also helps with like nerve conduction velocity. So when we're trying to do things that require us to be responsive, reactive, we want to be able to do that quickly, and that's going to be dependent upon how physically warm we are. And so all of these things are very heavily based upon just the simple fact of you have to get physically warm. This can be done wh-

Chris Williamson 3:57 I- that's so, so fascinating.

Dr Sam Spinelli 3:58 I-

Chris Williamson 3:58 I didn't even know that.

Dr Sam Spinelli 4:00 Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why like, um, you can look at different events where people relatively don't have to be, do, um, like long endurance activities or anything like that, like a sp- a high level 100 meter sprinter. They will spend a very long time warming up at a very slow gradual rate so that they get to a very warm state, but they do it where they don't have to like expend a lot of energy to do so. And for most people it can be as simple as like doing a few minutes of jogging, skipping, um, rowing, whatever you like, or it can be done through other things that help to achieve other tasks that we'd want in a warm up. So then when we get into like the other characteristics of a good warm up, we're going to be looking at other things like getting your body physically prepared to go through ranges of motion that you're going to be going through for the day. So, you know, if we're talking about running, there's not a gr- a really crazy excursion that we have to go through, um, whereas when we get into s- things like weight lifting, CrossFit, uh, other lifting sports, you're going to be going through huge ranges of motion for a lot of these things, and that's where maybe doing some dynamic warm-up exercises can be really beneficial, and that also layers on the added benefit of when you do these dynamic warm-up exercises, they also get you physically warm. So they can be really beneficial for hitting two aspects of it. Um, then the third key thing that we want when we do a good warm-up is getting physically prepared neurologically for what we're about to go into. This is where you should have like the idea of a steady ramp up in whatever activity you're gonna do. So like if you're going to be snatching, you shouldn't just go from, uh, doing some body weight squats to trying to snatch 135. It's not really a great decision. Whereas, you know, uh, practicing the skill aspect, doing some sets, gradually working up in weight, or if you're going to be running, gradually building up in effort that you're going to be running at, and then getting into the actual activity. So essentially those are like the three main buckets of a good

Dr Sam Spinelli 5:52 warm-up.

Chris Williamson 5:53 I like it. It's cool. It, it seems like, um, getting warm would probably quite easily come as a byproduct of the other two-... and I'm gonna guess that priming yourself neurologically would come by potentially drilling movements, empty bar, poly bar, um, you know, like hanging from a, a rig perhaps or hanging from rings or whatever it might be.

Dr Sam Spinelli 6:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:16 Um, that sort of stuff wou- would start to get those neurons firing.

Dr Sam Spinelli 6:20 Exactly. And th- those are the things that I would call, like, the essentials. Not necessarily what could go into being, like, the perfect warm-up, but the essentials of what someone would want to not screw things up.

Chris Williamson 6:31 I mean, straight off the bat, I have done, and there will be people listening as well, loads of times, you go in a gym, maybe it's a bit cold, especially in the UK, right? It's-

Dr Sam Spinelli 6:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:40 ... constantly cold.

Dr Sam Spinelli 6:41 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 6:41 Go into the gym (laughs) and, uh, you do some stretches, you get the bar out, it's overhead, maybe you're not doing class and you just kind, "Oh, I'll go do my own thing," and you do, you start your workout, you can start your workout without sweating. So I mean-

Dr Sam Spinelli 6:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:54 ... is it good, is it good heuristic that there's al- a couple of beads of sweat floating around? How hot's hot?

Dr Sam Spinelli 6:59 That's a, that is actually a great question. And so that gets into a little bit more of, like, what's the actual activity you're gonna do? And also, the individual's, uh, ability to sweat. 'Cause there are, there are people that, like, don't easily sweat. There are some people that, you know, they look at a gym and they start to sweat, so-

Chris Williamson 7:12 That's me. I'm in the, I'm in this-

Dr Sam Spinelli 7:14 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 7:14 ... I'm in the second camp, and there's a couple of girls in our gym who manage to come in and their faces just look totally flawless when they're finished, whereas, like-

Dr Sam Spinelli 7:20 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 7:20 ... me and some of the guys look like we've been in a fight.

Dr Sam Spinelli 7:23 Yeah. Yeah, and so I'm, I'm, I'm in that first camp where, like, if you see me sweating, I've, I've, it's pr- it's pretty rare.

Chris Williamson 7:31 Yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 7:31 Um, so for a lot of people, it, it's kinda tricky to go off, like, that simple heuristic of a couple beads of sweat. But if you are, i- if you feel cold, you've not done a sufficient job and, um, you should be able to, like, move around, feel, feel loose, and those are, like, some pretty good markers. 'Cause as we start to warm up, um, I talked about, like, all these different things like metabolism, and one aspect is when we start to actually get physically warm, our fluids and our muscle tissue and our blood vessels and our fascia, they start to flow more freely between each other and, uh, it's called this thing, uh, the viscoelastic properties of muscles and other tissues. And a- actually getting physically warm allows that to happen easier, so you should feel looser just by actually getting physically warm.

Chris Williamson 8:18 I

Chris Williamson 8:19 get it. I get it, okay. So where do we go next? We know that we need to have our three buckets, we need to be warm, we need to begin to drill some of the movements and kind of prime ourself mechanically. Um, does that-

Dr Sam Spinelli 8:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:30 ... include, does that include, like, s- sort of static stretching to open up range? What about dynamic stretching? I had Dr. Quinn Henicon and we-

Dr Sam Spinelli 8:38 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:38 ... he did his mobility myths and we spoke about the, the vibrating foam roller and the-

Dr Sam Spinelli 8:43 Oh, they're great. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:43 ... the, the percussion gun and the one that's got wifi connectivity and it's got Bluetooth-enabled and plays you Spotify songs and stuff like that. Like, you know, what do I need?

Dr Sam Spinelli 8:55 Yeah. I think Quinn and I are pretty similar lines. Uh, for anyone that doesn't know, Quinn and I are friends and he was actually a mentor of mine for a long time, uh, so I'm not against static stretching. When we looked into a lot of literature on it, there's some stuff that indicates that, like, if you do a challenging static stretch and then try to go into a physical activity that's very demanding, you're gonna have a worse performance. We have some good information telling us that. Whereas that same information is a little bit challenged because if you do a hard challenging static stretch but then move around a little bit more, which is what most people do, no one really, like, does a max effort hamstring stretch and then tries to immediately go into a max vertical jump.

Chris Williamson 9:36 (laughs)

Dr Sam Spinelli 9:36 That's not really, like, what happens in real life.

Chris Williamson 9:38 Yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 9:38 That's where the research came from

Dr Sam Spinelli 9:40 on this.

Chris Williamson 9:40 W- wasn't it, um, w- there was one that I saw where people had done an extended quad stretch and then it was forced production on a quad extension as well.

Dr Sam Spinelli 9:47 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 9:47 I'm getting the sense that's precisely the same thing. Like, who does that? No one does, like-

Dr Sam Spinelli 9:50 No. No one.

Chris Williamson 9:50 ... a, a one minute max effort-

Dr Sam Spinelli 9:52 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 9:53 ... like, quad stretch straight into then using that muscle.

Dr Sam Spinelli 9:56 Exactly. And so, um, that's where then we see other studies that have done, like, where they do, like, that max effort one-minute stretch, and they have people get up, walk around for a minute, and then do the, the leg extension. And those people actually don't have a significant drop in performance.

Chris Williamson 10:11 What do they gain?

Dr Sam Spinelli 10:11 So... Oh, that's, that's another important one. They don't actually seem to gain anything. So (laughs) -

Chris Williamson 10:18 (laughs) Run, honestly.

Dr Sam Spinelli 10:19 That's one of the things is, like, people are very perseverating on, like, the idea that static stretching is this, like, magical thing, and unfortunately, we don't really see anything telling us that. Like, there, there are some arguments that static stretching can do a wide range of different things, but in most cases, we can get the same benefit from other activities and get it easier and better. Like, you know, the simplest thing of people static stretch 'cause they think they're gonna get more range of motion. Okay, well, we actually have, (laughs) like, some pretty strong research showing us that lifting weights through a full range of motion does that, but it also does it better. So then it's like, "Okay, why should I static stretch?" And then there's other stuff. I'm like, okay, well, if you static stretch really, really hard, it can actually create hypertrophy. It can give you a bigger muscle. But it does it worse than lifting weights. And there's, like, just all these things of, like, I'm not against it. If you enjoy it, go for it, but most people don't really enjoy it.

Chris Williamson 11:13 Yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 11:13 And-

Chris Williamson 11:14 So, uh, um, I did an episode since I did that one with Quinn, he was at episode number 12 I think that I did with him, so we've done-

Dr Sam Spinelli 11:20 Oh.

Chris Williamson 11:20 ... like nearly two million downloads since then, so there'll be a lot of people listening who didn't listen to that episode. I will link it in the show notes below. I, I implore you to go back and listen to, uh, Sam's peer, uh, just-

Dr Sam Spinelli 11:31 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 11:31 ... dispel basically everything that you've ever done as part of a mobility routine.

Dr Sam Spinelli 11:36 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 11:36 But yeah, he, um, he essentially said that people use a static stretch, static overhead stretch, let's say typically with a poly bar, um, so they can-

Dr Sam Spinelli 11:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 11:46 ... op- open up their shoulders to get into a snatch. Um, but his argument was you can do that by snatching with the poly bar, plus you'll drill the-

Dr Sam Spinelli 11:55 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 11:55 ... movement, plus then you can slowly load up over time. Um, h- we spoke about kind of some tenuous information about, uh, activating the parasympathetic nervous system and-

Dr Sam Spinelli 12:06 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 12:06 ... kind of getting people into their body. But I'm gonna guess again, as you've said, you can drill that by moving into the more mechanical priming aspect. Is that correct?

Dr Sam Spinelli 12:16 Yeah. Yeah.... yeah, essentially.

Chris Williamson 12:18 Hey, I've remembered-

Dr Sam Spinelli 12:19 That's-

Chris Williamson 12:19 ... a year-and-a-half later.

Dr Sam Spinelli 12:20 ... that's pretty-

Chris Williamson 12:20 Quinn, I've-

Dr Sam Spinelli 12:21 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 12:21 ... I've remembered, man.

Dr Sam Spinelli 12:24 I'm sure Quinn will be very happy to hear that.

Chris Williamson 12:25 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 12:27 Yeah. No, and that's where we get into, like some of the challenges of some of the traditional information of like, you know, stretch, go for a light jog, and you're good to go. It's not inherently wrong, but it's maybe not the best advice either. And that's where I think a lot of the information has shifted 'cause, you know, most people don't have a ton of time to exercise. Most people don't have, you know, like if you're a professional athlete and you got three to four hours, do whatever you want, different conversation. But, you know, like for me, I go to the gym like four days a week, I've got usually like an hour to an hour-and-a-half. I don't got a lot a time to screw around and I really wanna, like maximize what I do, like give a shit about what I do. And so then it's like, what will get me the best outcomes with the reasonable investment? So, um, for most people, static stretching, pretty low on the list.

Chris Williamson 13:10 Okay.

Dr Sam Spinelli 13:10 Whereas, like dynamic movement, actually, um, going in and out of deeper ranges, controlling that motion. If you wanna, like go into it, hold, hold a little bit of a "stretch" for a second, there's some value in some of those things. I wouldn't ever say like, there's none, and, um, for most people, they probably benefit from it, uh, 'cause we can gear different aspects. And that's where some of the conversation would go in where we move past like the basic levels of what would be, uh, the essential components of a warmup and get into like what might take you to the next level. Because we can do some things where you... Like if you are someone who struggles to get into an overhead position for a squat or for an overhead squat or a snatch, you could do some lower level different activities, like for instance a thoracic rotation drill that might allow you to then get into an overhead position better. We do have some research showing that, um, going into higher levels of shoulder flexion, so basically taking my arm above my head, if we proceed it with doing some sort of thoracic motion drill, we can get an enhanced motion going overhead. So now, you wouldn't necessarily get that by just snatching, so, but you could get that through doing a dynamic stretch first and then str- then snatching.

Chris Williamson 14:18 Mmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 14:19 And that's where it comes into like the individual variation that people have and what they need. Like for me, I can get overhead just fine, but I have a challenge getting into a deep squat. And so then for me, doing some different things for my hips makes me be able to be more proficient when I actually start snatching.

Chris Williamson 14:35 I get it. Yeah, it's, um, it... First off, I'm very jealous of the fact that you- you can get into a good overhead position without-

Dr Sam Spinelli 14:41 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 14:41 ... having to really loosen up first, because I am not in that camp. But then I can, I can, uh, happily sit on my heels, right? We all have-

Dr Sam Spinelli 14:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:47 ... our crosses, our mechanical crosses to bear in our bodies.

Dr Sam Spinelli 14:50 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 14:51 Um, so yeah, I- I- I really like the fact that we're now getting into a bit more of the nuance of it, right? Like it's not just black and white. It's not just that you need to do the movement. It's point, you know, you may be able to move the needle more by not just going in and starting to snatch. There might be some things you can do, but they're likely to be a little bit more specific to your physiology.

Dr Sam Spinelli 15:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:11 Cool. Okay. So we've got the fact, we've got our three buckets, we've got the fact that there's some nuance in there. Let's start to talk about some nitty-gritty. What are, in your experience as a- a coaching person and online, um, some of the best overall warmups that you can give people? You know, if you were to just structure one, we want five minutes on a bike, and this or this, and a dynamic and blah, blah. You know, what- what is gonna give people 80% of the benefit broadly for the movements they're doing?

Dr Sam Spinelli 15:40 Exactly. So, uh, most of the people that I work with aren't at a similar position as me. They don't got a ton of time. And so then it comes back into that conversation of, what can I do to get that 80% return with the investment? And for most of those people, it's gonna be, I'm gonna pick four to five different movements that, um, has them moving through a different range of motion, that they can do a relatively moderate pace. And then, uh, that will achieve the first bucket of getting them warm. It'll achieve the second bucket of getting them through these deeper ranges. Um, it won't necessarily get them primed up, uh, from the neurological standpoint, 'cause we'll get into that in a second, but the other benefit that it does is it- it'll target those limitations that they often have. So, for the majority of people, picking something like a thoracic mobility drill, 'cause most people do generally have a limitation in their thoracic extension, which is gonna impact their shoulder flexion. So if anyone is doing some sort of exercise with their arms past their shoulder and going overhead, which is like the majority of people, like if you're doing a strict press, push press, incline bench press even, like any of these things, having improved shoulder flexion is gonna be easier when doing them. So usually we're gonna pick some sort of like thoracic extension or rotation drill.

Chris Williamson 16:52 Can you describe-

Dr Sam Spinelli 16:53 So that could be like-

Chris Williamson 16:53 ... what that would, what that would look like?

Dr Sam Spinelli 16:55 Yeah, so like you could do like a side lying windmill. So you lay on your side, bring a knee up towards your chest, and then with your top arm you just make a big windmill. Um, and I can send you some videos if people want in the notes, but that's like a very easy one, it's not very complex, but most people instantly feel better once they do it. Like if you have someone try to reach overhead, lay down and do it, boom, feels way better.

Chris Williamson 17:17 Are you in a side plank-

Dr Sam Spinelli 17:18 And it's-

Chris Williamson 17:18 ... while you're doing that or are you just completely prone on-

Dr Sam Spinelli 17:20 Uh, no, like-

Chris Williamson 17:20 ... on the side on the ground?

Dr Sam Spinelli 17:21 Yeah, laying flat on your side.

Chris Williamson 17:23 Got you, got you, got you.

Dr Sam Spinelli 17:24 Yeah. Yeah, they're doing like some sort of hip movement. Again, most people are going to the gym, they're gonna either do like a full body routine, a MetCon, running, something. So it's gonna be realistically in the majority of cases like a full body routine. So then we're gonna get that upper body with the side lying thoracic windmill. Then we can get into a hip movement. So, for a lot of people, in my experience, people usually will either struggle with a hip rotation, either an internal or external rotation. So like, if you're sitting on a chair right now and you try to bring your one foot across your midline or you try to push it out, that's gonna be like internal and external rotation. And people usually struggle with one or the other. And we can do this drill called a 90/90 hip rotation. So you're sitting on the ground and you got your, you've got one leg in front, one leg to your side, kind of like that classic hurdler stretch, but then you have your front leg bent. And then what we do here is we rotate our hips forward and back.... and by doing this, we work through internal and external rotation, and if someone struggles with one, then they get the benefit of also doing the other one. And so the front leg is being stretched into external rotation, the rear leg is being stretched into internal rotation. We're actively moving in and out of it. And so for most people, getting that allows us to then get into more hip extension, more hip flexion. It's just like this super easy one that covers a ton of stuff. So unless I, like, go through and find someone has, like, a specific issue, it's just, like, an easy one to just say, like, 90% of people are gonna benefit from it.

Chris Williamson 18:54 Awesome.

Dr Sam Spinelli 18:55 Yeah. And then usually some sort of, like, trunk activation-based exercise, so whether it be like a dead bug, a side plank, or some sort of more challenging variation. The majority of people-

Chris Williamson 19:05 Stuart McGill, Stuart McGill's loving it at the moment. He's hearing, he's hearing all of his stuff come through now.

Dr Sam Spinelli 19:10 (laughs) Yeah, he loves it. And at the end of the day, for most people, learning how to create some trunk tension is really beneficial. It's not like this magical thing, but for a lot of people, it's, it teaches them how to be able to create some tension in the trunk that allows us to be able to move around it better, and a lot of people just struggle with that. So it's an easy thing. So for most people, I, I would pick, like, those three as a minimum and then pick something else usually, and then it's just, like, cycle through them for six to 12 reps and repeat for two to three sets. And, you know, like, if I... that's essentially what I do in my warmup and I can usually finish it off in five-ish minutes, and then I would go into, like, my, my first ex- exercises and just gradually ramp up and do some skill work. 'Cause the other advantage is, um, when we're doing that neurological aspect I said, most people are not perfectionists or, uh, uh, perfect technical precision demonstrators in whatever they're gonna do. Like, if you are a weightlifter, you probably aren't fantastic at snatching. You're probably okay, but you're probably not fantastic.

Chris Williamson 20:13 (laughs)

Dr Sam Spinelli 20:14 If you're a runner, you're probably not fantastic at running. You're probably okay.

Chris Williamson 20:17 (laughs)

Dr Sam Spinelli 20:17 And so doing, like, five minutes of some technical skill work, it doesn't have to be done slow, it can actually be done relatively at a fast pace. You're just trying to be, um, working on improving your precision with it so that as you get into your lifting, not only are you now warm, not only have you now improved your neurological efficiency, but now hopefully over time, you're gonna be more technically proficient. 'Cause the goal is like, when we actually lift or we actually run, you don't think about a lot. You should just be, like, doing the activity you're doing. And so hopefully by doing a little bit of, uh, at the start where you're thinking and trying to be, you know, aware of what's going on, you transfer that over time.

Chris Williamson 20:57 I like that a lot. Yeah, you're, you're totally right. Anyone that's doing a CrossFit class or anything, you know, like even just lifting in the gym on your own, the, that guy next to you, "Oh, he's got, he's got three plates on there. Right, well, I better-"

Dr Sam Spinelli 21:08 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 21:08 "... I better, I better hurry up. I'll get three, I'll get three plates on. Fuck, he's put another, he's put another plate. Right, okay, well..."

Dr Sam Spinelli 21:13 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 21:13 You know what I mean? Like, everyone's kind of distracted away from the, um, integrity of their movement precision just by... and especially, you know, you take it to CrossFit, there'll be a lot of CrossFitters listening. You take it to that, you know what it's like. Class gets going, the music gets turned up-

Dr Sam Spinelli 21:28 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 21:28 ... and you're like, "Let's fucking get after it!" And it's like-

Dr Sam Spinelli 21:31 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 21:31 ... no, dude, you've got 15 minutes to establish a back squat. Like, it's fine.

Dr Sam Spinelli 21:34 Oh.

Chris Williamson 21:34 Like, you don't need to hurry up, but everyone's like clattering plates on straight away.

Dr Sam Spinelli 21:38 Exactly. It's real funny 'cause like, you know, I'll assume the majority of people listening here aren't freak savages with like 700 pound back squats, and uh, you know, if you are squatting 400 pounds as your one rep max, you shouldn't need more... you shouldn't need 15 minutes to be able to establish that. Like, you don't need to rush into it. Uh, like I can hit a max squat in... I squat just over 500 pounds and I could get there in like 12 minutes, assuming that I've done a basic level of a warmup first. And so that's where, like, spending some time doing that, 'cause most classes and most people working out are gonna go through some level of warmup. So if you've gone and done a good job, then you're ready to start building up and you can do a little bit of s- practice work before rushing into it.

Chris Williamson 22:21 Mm-hmm. Yeah, I get that. So we've spoken about the fact that we've got our three buckets. We've spoken about the, uh, sideline windmill or anything else really that's gonna get that thoracic moving, uh, the hurdler's stretch, which I know how it looks. I hope the people listening do. If not, we'll, I'll get a link off you. It'll be in the show notes below if you're a little bit confused. Um, what about cardio? Is there... like, should I not be on an assault bike? What about a rower or a C2? You know, like pretty much all of our warmups make us go for a run or, or sit on a bike or whatever before. What's your thoughts there?

Dr Sam Spinelli 22:53 Yeah, so again, it comes back into that, like, conversation of, how much time do you got? And by no means is that a bad thing. It's just like, um, I would put it as a lower priority. And if someone has the time, like I actually coach a bunch of CrossFitters and so most of them will do a five minute thing on either a run, an Airdyne, or ERG. And they're gonna do that first, then they're gonna get into their other stuff that I outlined. But most those guys are training for like an hour and a half to two hours, and for them, I think that the, uh, it, the, uh, merit is there to do it. And if we're there, if they're doing activities that are more based on those as well, like if they're doing an ERG workout, we're gonna warm up on the ERG. If they're doing a running workout, we're gonna warm up running. But if you're doing lifting, if you're doing a lot of these other things, I'm gonna put less of a priority on that.

Chris Williamson 23:39 Allow you to get warm through your movements, through your dynamic stuff-

Dr Sam Spinelli 23:43 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:43 ... all the rest of it. Okay, cool. So the main movement that I see people struggling with, especially in CrossFit class, and I'm, like, I'm speaking as patient zero for this, um-

Dr Sam Spinelli 23:55 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 23:55 ... is, is the snatch-

Dr Sam Spinelli 23:57 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:57 ... is getting, get- getting a barbell overhead, um, getting yourself into that position. Especially if, like me, people have been a bro for the last 10 years and have just done that chest and biceps every twice a week. Um, so can we talk about perhaps, uh, some slightly more specific stuff to help people get into that good overhead position, both lower and upper?

Dr Sam Spinelli 24:20 Oh, yeah. Absolutely, man. So again-... we're going to be looking at when it comes to the upper p- portion, we're gonna wanna check off that box of thoracic motion. It's gonna be really beneficial for the majority of people and so that's, again, like that sideline windmill or we can get into something that's very specific. So, when we're talking about, uh, the snatch, when we take our arms above our head, that's what we call like a thoracic extended position. And there are different drills that we can do, for instance, like a bench T-spine mobe. So, what happens here is we have a bench, we're to the side of it, we're gonna put our elbows on it, we're kneeling. So, kneeling and you're almost in like a prayer position.

Chris Williamson 24:56 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 24:56 Like you're gonna be praying on the bench.

Chris Williamson 24:58 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 24:58 And then ideally, you have a dowel in your hands and your palms are facing you. And that way you can then sit back and it takes you into a shoulder flexed position, and that extends your thoracic spine, and then you can bend your elbows and bring your hands back towards behind your head. So, what this does here is, um, by having our elbows bent, it puts a little bit more tension on our triceps. Our t- our triceps cross our shoulder joint, so they can limit how much shoulder flexion we get, so how well we can bring them overhead. By going into shoulder flexion, it helps to encourage us getting into a thoracic extended position. And then by sitting back, what makes this drill specifically really great is when we sit back, we go into, um, some posterior pelvic tilting, some lumbar flexion. So essentially, like our back rounds a little bit. And it's unloaded, so it's fine. And the benefit there is that we see that in the research when we go into a little bit of lumbar flexion, it limits how much motion occurs at the lower back and encourages at the upper back. So, because our goal is to specifically try and encourage more upper back motion to get more shoulder motion, this drill just like works beautifully for that.

Chris Williamson 26:05 That's really cool.

Dr Sam Spinelli 26:07 Yeah. So, that's a great one. And then when we're talking about, again, snatching, so if everything else is moving there, a drill that's similar to that but a little bit different would be like a pullover exercise. This is one that actually Quinn is very well known for.

Chris Williamson 26:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 26:21 But it's essentially where we just lay on our back, and then you can have a dowel, you can have a dumbbell, a kettlebell. Uh, I'd probably not utilize a barbell specifically for your warm up, but you could. And then you're just laying there on your back, arms extended out, pointed towards the roof, holding something, and then you're gonna lower it down towards the ground above your head. So, you're trying to flex your shoulders, so reaching up above. And as you do that, you're trying to reach out, trying to have your shoulders extend out more and then keep going back.

Chris Williamson 26:53 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 26:54 And then as we do that, we're just trying to slowly go into that range and then come back up out of it. Now, earlier we discussed the differences between like static stretching and strengthening. And whether or not this is strengthening, different conversation, but it's like resistance-based stretching essentially.

Chris Williamson 27:09 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 27:09 And so this is a type of, uh, motion. If we go really slow into it, that's called eccentric motion. And we've got some good research on different motions like this showing that it actually does really well before exercise to enhance motion. And so then just doing a nice few repetitions slowly into that range and then coming back out of it is gonna enhance how well you can bring your arms above your head.

Chris Williamson 27:32 Is that sort of biceps brushing the ears in that position?

Dr Sam Spinelli 27:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:36 Yeah. Okay. And do you ... Would you advise, uh, knees up, so feet, feet up so sort of knees are at a little bit of an angle or legs out flat?

Dr Sam Spinelli 27:44 So, my preference would be more towards like the knees up. So, if you can think of like that dead bug position even-

Chris Williamson 27:49 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 27:49 ... like bringing them up all that, all the way that far. Because what that does is it really encourages people to make sure that they're, um, putting the motion at their shoulders 'cause one thing we know is that-

Chris Williamson 27:57 Not going into too much extension in that-

Dr Sam Spinelli 28:00 Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:01 Got you, got you. Got you. Yeah. I can see how that would happen if your legs were out straight. You'd be tight-

Dr Sam Spinelli 28:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:05 ... and tight in the hips and you'd push up through the, through the midline, right?

Dr Sam Spinelli 28:09 Yeah. Or if you're tight through the upper back and shoulders, then you use your lumbar spine to extend, to get around from having to go through them. That's one of the reasons like for a lot of people that are maybe not as, uh, competent going overhead, you'll see them extend at their lower back a lot more.

Chris Williamson 28:24 That's me. That's me all day.

Dr Sam Spinelli 28:26 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:26 That's ƒ you, you're describing me. You've see- seen me snatch some. Um-

Dr Sam Spinelli 28:30 Yeah. I think I saw some videos.

Chris Williamson 28:31 (laughs) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so we've got, we've, we've got ourselves in with that. I- I've just noticed there's something that I meant to bring up. What about PNF? Is there a place for PNF and can you describe

Chris Williamson 28:41 what that is?

Dr Sam Spinelli 28:42 Yeah. So for anyone that doesn't know, PNF is a really fancy term.

Chris Williamson 28:45 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 28:45 Uh, it's originally from a company that like formulated it and it's called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. (laughs) And, uh, it's nothing special. Sorry.

Chris Williamson 28:55 (laughs)

Dr Sam Spinelli 28:55 Sorry, PNF, but, uh-

Chris Williamson 28:55 I love it. I love it.

Dr Sam Spinelli 28:57 Yeah. You know, like theoretically there's a lot of like mechanisms that they talk about in like in s- in, uh, you know, physio school to give you like all these different terminologies to memorize about PNF. Um, the terminologies make it sound cool and, uh, some of the stuff and the rationale they say sounds fantastic when they start talking about, you know, uh, reciprocal inhibition, all these different terminologies that they start throwing at you.

Chris Williamson 29:18 I want that.

Dr Sam Spinelli 29:18 But most, most of the time it's just like that's shit that we get when we just lift weights anyways.

Chris Williamson 29:23 Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 29:23 And it, and I think that's like a really common thing in like the physio, chiropractic and like all the rehab world is essentially like make things sound more complicated and that means that it's actually way better. And it's like (laughs) a big load of bullshit.

Chris Williamson 29:37 Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's-

Dr Sam Spinelli 29:38 Super frustrating to me. Um-

Chris Williamson 29:39 Yeah. I bet it is. It's, it's like the, um, signaling, right? It's like look at my technical expertise. I'm using this word which sounds so convoluted. I mean, uh, you know, you don't need to worry. Don't worry about the, about the, the technical readuction inhibition or whatever it is. Like you don't need to worry (laughs) about that. Like, um, yeah. Okay. So, don't fuck around with PNF. I don't think we actually described what P-

Dr Sam Spinelli 30:02 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:02 ... what, what PNF is but it's essentially putting yourself into a stretch and then forcing muscle contraction in that stretch to then allow yourself to stretch further, right? Is that close to a description for-

Dr Sam Spinelli 30:12 Well, that, that's like one, one aspect of PNF. That's the hard part is like, so, um, people that are like in the details of PNF, it's like a whole system of structures. It'd be like saying, "What is CrossFit?" And then you describe a snatch.

Chris Williamson 30:24 Oh, holy fucking shit. I didn't realize I'd opened Pandora's box there.

Dr Sam Spinelli 30:27 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:27 Is that what the P in P- PNF stands for, Pandora's nutri-

Dr Sam Spinelli 30:31 Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:31 ... fishy old fascilation?

Dr Sam Spinelli 30:33 Pandora's bullshit. Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:34 Pandora's bollocks. Yeah. Um, okay. So, uh, no PNF.... we've dec- we're, we're snatching. We've decided to do our, uh, thoracic stretch. We've got down into our prayer position. We've got a dowel out. We've also made Quinn happy because we've got ourselves into a dead bug and we've allowed our hands to come up and over our head. Like-

Dr Sam Spinelli 30:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:51 ... one k- one kilo dumbbells or like a dowel or like just something that's super, super light, right?

Dr Sam Spinelli 30:55 So yeah, like you don't, you don't wanna grab a 45-pound bar and start busting it out. Like 20 kilos is too much, um, for most people. Whereas like, you know, when I do it, I grab a 10-pound dumbbell or so it'd be like, uh, four kilos for most, for all the, uh, metric system users. I am metric system, so... But you still my American friends. And I just lay back, bust it out and then I'm good to go.

Chris Williamson 31:18 Are you... Sorry, are you... Just for clarity here, are you having palms facing forward towards the ceiling or palm- palms facing-

Dr Sam Spinelli 31:25 Oh.

Chris Williamson 31:25 ... in towards the ears?

Dr Sam Spinelli 31:26 Yeah. So that depends on what you're holding. So if you're holding a dowel, you're gonna have-

Chris Williamson 31:31 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 31:31 ... palms facing the ceiling. Um-

Chris Williamson 31:34 For dumbbells?

Dr Sam Spinelli 31:34 And then you're, you're holding a dumbbell, you're likely gonna be holding it palms facing each other.

Chris Williamson 31:39 Okay, cool.

Dr Sam Spinelli 31:40 Yeah, 'cause as you get like more narrow, so essentially if you're grabbing a small dumbbell, it's gonna be a little bit more narrow. The more narrow position while keeping your palms facing the roof is gonna be more challenging to hold. And it can be a little irritable to some people. It's one of the reasons why, um, people have a little bit easier time like if you lay on your back and you try and take your arms above your head and you go into like your snatch grip position, it's easier to hit the floor than if you go into your jerk grip position.

Chris Williamson 32:05 Yep.

Dr Sam Spinelli 32:06 Yeah. So-

Chris Williamson 32:06 Well, you see these, um, I'm sure you'll have seen them, these videos online of like these hypermobile people. Sonny Webster, who I'll send this video to, one of my buddies, past Modern Wisdom guest, like he's got videos of him, um, going into ass actually touching the ground with a barbell overhead and his hands-

Dr Sam Spinelli 32:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:23 ... crossed in like some weird Power Rangers shit. (laughs) Um, it's like-

Dr Sam Spinelli 32:30 Yeah. Sonny's a freak.

Chris Williamson 32:31 ... what, what, what is your like construction? Honestly, man. I came... So he, he was on a night out. He was in the living room just through the back there once after we'd been on a night out. And I came in in the morning and he was stretching. You know when people just do that stretch, they put their arms in the air and they do this. And you can see mine. Mine are essentially just lateral with my body when I put my arms out. I promise you, his arms were parallel going backwards behind him like a bird, like a bird at the top of the flap. And I was thinking, "This is what happens when you do weightlifting at a high level from at the age of 10," isn't it?

Dr Sam Spinelli 33:01 Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Williamson 33:03 Insane, man. And he does it under control. Like it's just... That's what you want. Okay, so we got that. We, we've got ourselves into some good movements there. Are we going to lower or is there anything else we need to do with upper to prep ourselves for a, for a snatch?

Dr Sam Spinelli 33:16 No. I think for most people they're good to go like at that point. And then when we're getting into the lower body stuff, again, like that 9090 motion, so like similar to that hurdler position, uh, that's gonna be a good starting point. And then after that, you know, maybe some sort of ankle motion exercise. So similar to the, uh, sh- the shoulder flexion one where we're laying on our back and then pulling the dumbbell overhead, doing... That's an eccentric-based stretch. I think doing something similar to that for the calf is really beneficial. So most people are gonna struggle with having their knee go forward. And when your knee goes forward, it allows you to stay more upright, which is really beneficial in a snatch. It's really beneficial in most activities. But again, people struggle with that. And getting some sort of like, um, deeper calf raise type exercise done first can usually allow for that. Like if you sit up on the edge of a step and then you lower down for like three to four seconds, pause for a second in the bottom, and then come back up, just like what we were doing for that overhead one, it's gonna be really beneficial. And if you do it steadily over a long time, it's gonna help to increase that range of motion, get you comfortable, able to control the position too, and have a really good transfer when you start to snatch.

Chris Williamson 34:26 Mm-hmm. Is that one foot, one leg at a time or both together?

Dr Sam Spinelli 34:31 Uh, the biggest deterring there for one foot versus two foot I would say is like how strong the person is 'cause if you can't like really get out of a one-legged one very well, you probably just wanna do two feet.

Chris Williamson 34:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 34:42 Um, man, a lot of people, I think a lot of people don't realize how weak their calves are. Uh, as like a, as a physio who does a lot of work with different people, like I work with a lot of runners and triathletes, and they come in and I make them like bust out legitimately good quality calf raises, they're often quite shocked at how weak they are.

Chris Williamson 35:01 (laughs) Especially as people who use them all the time, right? They-

Dr Sam Spinelli 35:05 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:05 ... using their calves every day. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, so we've got that. We've, we've got ourselves I think that's the, that's... If s- I was to do a survey of what movement do you struggle with, I think snatch might be number one. But why don't we do a couple of bonus rounds? What else-

Dr Sam Spinelli 35:22 Sure.

Chris Williamson 35:22 ... what else do you find people coming to you and saying, "Hey Sam, I need a warmup for this movement." What are some of the common, the common requests?

Dr Sam Spinelli 35:33 Yeah, a deadlift is a pretty common one. And I think like, you know, when we're looking at things that are different from the snatch, you know, like a, like a squat, I'm gonna probably do a lot of similar things as what we just outlined for the snatch. Similar kind of requirements. Clean, other than like the aspect of the front rack, which a lot of people do struggle with and we could talk about, um, like getting into the bottom position of the clean is gonna be similar from the hip standpoint, but there's gonna be a little bit different aspect for the front rack. And then otherwise the deadlift is a pretty different one because we have like a much higher demand on being able to get deep into the hips because if you're doing a good job, like you're not squatting the weight, whereas you're gonna be, uh, keeping your legs more extended and then hinging at the hips to a higher degree. And so for a lot of people that's gonna be like a different demand. So I guess we could jump into either the front rack or the deadlift, which would be like a-

Chris Williamson 36:23 I'm feeling, I'm feeling let's deadlift first and then we'll, we'll-

Dr Sam Spinelli 36:25 All right.

Chris Williamson 36:26 ... go into front rack.

Dr Sam Spinelli 36:27 Yeah. So when we're talking about the deadlift, again, um, couple of the main things that challenge most people is gonna be that deep hip flexion position, particularly with the knees extended 'cause essentially for most people they feel like their hamstrings are gonna rip off.

Chris Williamson 36:41 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 36:41 And, um, if you don't-

Chris Williamson 36:42 I'm gonna guess. S- sorry to interject there. I'm gonna guess that, um...... what that causes some people to do is probably stay too upright at the bottom of a deadlift, right? And squat-

Dr Sam Spinelli 36:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:51 ... squat into it too much.

Dr Sam Spinelli 36:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:54 Interesting. Yeah, 'cause I see, uh, you know, all of the guys that I know that I've got some friends ... Johnny, one of the co-hosts of this show, he's deadlifted 307 in the 105s.

Dr Sam Spinelli 37:08 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:08 So, he's like, he's got-

Dr Sam Spinelli 37:09 Strong.

Chris Williamson 37:09 ... he's got a regional record up here.

Dr Sam Spinelli 37:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:11 Um, and you see the position that he gets into and he's not squating the weight.

Dr Sam Spinelli 37:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:15 He's squatting the weight when he's-

Dr Sam Spinelli 37:16 No.

Chris Williamson 37:16 ... when it's his time to squat.

Dr Sam Spinelli 37:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:18 But when he's deadlifting, it's, he doesn't do

Chris Williamson 37:20 that.

Dr Sam Spinelli 37:20 Exactly. That's what you see with people that are very proficient at deadlifting and it's one of the reasons why like if you ever watch Sonny as an example, Sonny deadlift and how he does it compared to that guy, it would look probably quite different.

Chris Williamson 37:33 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 37:33 And it's because Sonny, while he's still strong, he's not like a high-level deadlifter, he's a high-level weightlifter. And when weightlifters sit up, they're, they're not looking to maximally deadlift. They're looking to, um, perform a higher velocity-based movement that's gonna set them up to receive a weight in a different position. And so it's just like a drastically different position, but that's one of the reasons they sit up with like their knees more forward and more of like a squatting type-ish movement. The problem is that if someone's trying to legitimately deadlift the big weights and be very strong in that position, that's not the position to do it from.

Chris Williamson 38:04 Mm. I wonder how many people that do CrossFit perhaps have started to confuse the mechanics, thinking to me, doing it, I probably do. I probably think, "Oh, well, a deadlift is just a hardcore clean with an over-under grip."

Dr Sam Spinelli 38:18 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 38:18 You know?

Dr Sam Spinelli 38:19 Yeah. No. That's actually a really common thing. Yeah. Definitely.

Chris Williamson 38:22 Mm. Interesting. Okay. So, we're deadlifting.

Dr Sam Spinelli 38:25 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 38:25 We need to get ourselves into that position. How are we gonna do that?

Dr Sam Spinelli 38:27 Yeah. Yeah. So, I think for a lot of people, again, starting off that 90-90 drill just to like clear off some stuff, boom, get it done. And then we could get into, um, getting the hamstrings a little bit more comfortable and getting into a deep position. And so, a good exercise for that is where you have like a, uh, a rig or a doorway or something that's gonna be like firm, uh, stay in place, and then you can put your leg against it, and then have your other leg down by the side. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna lay on your back and you're gonna put, uh, one leg extended up on the rig, the doorway, whatever it is. And then we'll start off having both legs up. And then you're gonna lower down the one leg that's in like the doorway or beside the rig-

Chris Williamson 39:06 Mm-hmm. (laughs)

Dr Sam Spinelli 39:07 ... and the other one stays in place. And your goal is to be able to lower down towards the ground while keeping your leg straight. You'll see a lot of people try to bend their leg. Your goal, keep it straight. Keep your back pressed into the ground, don't let it arch up. And then over time, you work closer and closer to having your butt touch the rig and having your leg extended. So, the further out you are, the less, uh, hip flex you'll be in. And the more you get close to the rig, the more flexed you'll be. And the same with your knee extensions. People that really struggle are gonna be really far out and have their knee bent. And then people that are really, uh, comfortable with it are gonna be basically on their butt against with leg totally straight. And then going through essentially similar kinda set up where you're going down nice and slow, three to four seconds, pause in that bottom position, come back up, and then switch sides and do as many times as you feel. The thing here is like, um, if you get to a point where you're just like absolutely demolishing it, then you can come off the rig and try and maintain that leg up. That's gonna put a higher demand on having like trunk activation-

Chris Williamson 40:11 Oh my god. (laughs)

Dr Sam Spinelli 40:13 It's a, it's a great exercise. It's great exercise.

Chris Williamson 40:15 I'm sure that is a great exercise, Simon. It sounds terrible.

Dr Sam Spinelli 40:16 Yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 40:18 So, I think for a lot of people doing, uh, that 90-90 position, doing that, and then doing some sort of like, um, lat-based activation exercise.

Chris Williamson 40:28 Mm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 40:29 So, um, uh, we'd essentially want some sort of like pullover based exercise but different than ... So like when we did the pullover earlier when we were talking about the snatch-

Chris Williamson 40:38 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 40:39 ... the emphasis was on getting the shoulders opened up overhead. Whereas now, we're looking to come down and bring the hands by your side as you do a pullover. And so like that same position doesn't work very well. Um, but instead what we could do is like be standing, a little bit bent over position, have a band out in front of us, and then pull our arms down by our sides. So it's like you're trying to sweep your hands back by your side and then go to-

Chris Williamson 41:00 Have we looped the band, have we looped the band around a rig here or is it literally just between our hands?

Dr Sam Spinelli 41:04 Yeah. Uh, I would loop it around the rig.

Chris Williamson 41:06 Okay.

Dr Sam Spinelli 41:06 That would be-

Chris Williamson 41:06 Around the rig and we're just pulling down and ... yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 41:09 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 41:09 Okay.

Dr Sam Spinelli 41:09 Yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 41:10 And doing that is gonna allow you to get a little bit more lat activation. The lats are really beneficial in deadlifting, um, whether it'd be from the standpoint of being able to help maintain the bar close to our body. But then also your lats actually have, um, attachment into your spine. And so when they have a higher level of attachment, we can create more stability around the spine.

Chris Williamson 41:30 And by focusing on driving those shoulders down towards the ground, right?

Dr Sam Spinelli 41:33 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 41:34 Yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 41:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:36 Yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 41:36 Yeah. For everyone deadlifting, don't pull your shoulder blades back. Pull them down. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 41:41 Okay. Why is that?

Dr Sam Spinelli 41:43 Well, uh, so if you think about, uh, physics, when we do a deadlift, we wanna reduce the range of motion so we wanna have to move the bar as little as we need to. And if you have your arms in place and you pull your shoulders back, it actually increases the relative length because now your chest is closer to the ground, and so you have to move the bar the same distance. Whereas if you put your shoulder blades down, it'll relatively decrease the length that you have to move and the other benefit is that it actually increases your lat activation, whereas pulling them back does not.

Chris Williamson 42:17 Got you. I, um, I once got red-pilled on what low-bar squatting means by Johnny and, um, he was telling me about ... is it moment force arm? Is that what it's called?

Dr Sam Spinelli 42:27 It's called a moment arm, yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:28 Moment arm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, he fully red-pilled me one day-

Dr Sam Spinelli 42:30 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 42:30 ... about that and I was like, "Okay, no worries, man." Right. We're, we're-

Dr Sam Spinelli 42:33 Uh.

Chris Williamson 42:33 ... we're gonna either front squat or we're gonna prep for our clean. How we, how are we sorting out our front rack?

Dr Sam Spinelli 42:38 So I think doing like a thoracic rotation or extension drill, kinda like those ones we discussed earlier, so, uh, either sideline windmill or the, uh, bench mobe. Those are two great options to start off with.... but then things get different because we're not going overhead really and so instead, what a lot of people complain about with, uh, front rack is having, like, wrist discomforts. So a lot of people will, like, complain, grab their wrist, say that's bothersome. And it's because, like, at the end of the day, it does require you to get into decent amount of wrist extension. The difference though is that, uh, for people that usually don't complain about it, they usually have pretty good shoulder external rotation. And if you think about it, like, when I'm in this position, this is where my arm can set up. I have to really extend my wrist hard back if I can't rotate outwards very well, but if I can rotate out really well and then I c- don't have to extend my wrist as much. That's where if you ever see, like, a, a video of Klokov doing a push press or any kind of position like that, the dude has almost a straight wrist and-

Chris Williamson 43:35 He's a freak, man.

Dr Sam Spinelli 43:35 ... so, like, his wrist is not extended, but he has, like, such good external rotation that he's able to get into that position and be very strong from there.

Chris Williamson 43:42 Bro, so to-

Dr Sam Spinelli 43:43 So-

Chris Williamson 43:43 ... to interject there, Sam, I saw Bodypower 2000 and 18, was with the, when I first met Sunny, right? So two years ago. And we're on a stand with a full rig set up and we're doing muscle ups and, like, chilling out and Sunny comes and does a little ... he wasn't, like, booked on it, does a little presentation and, um, Klokov walks by and he sees-

Dr Sam Spinelli 44:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:04 ... he sees him doing his circus lifting and, um-

Dr Sam Spinelli 44:07 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:07 ... then he, he messa- so Sunny messaged him and was like, "Hey man, like, do you wanna, shall we do something tomorrow?" 'Cause he's got his, um, Klokov brand of weights and plates and bars and stuff and they had a big lifting platform over there and, uh, he just replied, I can't remember what he replied, but it was like the most Russian, it was like, "Yes, tomorrow, strict press." (laughs) And it's like-

Dr Sam Spinelli 44:28 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:29 ... "Fuck! Fuck!" So you watch, um, Klokov's, he, he put, like, I think he jerked 210 from the rack-

Dr Sam Spinelli 44:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:37 ... um, like, just like animal, absolute animal. And, um, yeah, him and Sunny are doing stuff and there's, like, a couple of videos floating around of it. That was really cool. But the man, uh, met him, said hello, said, like, "I think I really like sort of what you do and, and bla bla." The dude shook my hand and I swear to God it was like, you remember when you were a kid and you used to put on your dad's slipper-

Dr Sam Spinelli 44:58 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:59 ... and pretend to be your dad?

Dr Sam Spinelli 45:02 Yeah, I-

Chris Williamson 45:02 I put my hand into his hand-

Dr Sam Spinelli 45:04 Oh.

Chris Williamson 45:04 ... and I was like, "There's, there's room in here. I could sell this as real estate." Like there's-

Dr Sam Spinelli 45:09 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 45:09 ... there's (laughs) genuine square footage inside of this thing.

Dr Sam Spinelli 45:13 Yeah, he's just, like, an absolute thick beast.

Chris Williamson 45:15 (laughs) Yeah. Everything about him is very thick, isn't it? Yeah, even his neck-

Dr Sam Spinelli 45:21 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:21 ... man. I actually, I want to ask you about that, fuck, I've, I've wanted to ask someone for ages. Why does Klokov set up with his knees out so wide in that particular position? 'Cause I don't see many weightlifters set up in that position for the clean.

Dr Sam Spinelli 45:34 Oh, in the clean?

Chris Williamson 45:35 Yeah, yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 45:35 He does it in the snatch too, right?

Chris Williamson 45:37 D- um, sure.

Dr Sam Spinelli 45:37 Like, uh, talking about his bottom position?

Chris Williamson 45:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr Sam Spinelli 45:40 Yeah, so, um, it's funny 'cause I actually set up very similar to Klokov and, uh, it's, like, really common for ... so I was talking about, like, these hip rotation things and, um, for individuals who have a limited hip internal rotation, it's hard to maintain your, your knees directly forward in front of you because you don't actually have that internal rotation. And so then if you turn your feet out, turn your knees out, it allows you to get around that and if y- um, you know, I've never assessed Klokov, I can't claim to have done that, but I've watched thousands of videos of him-

Chris Williamson 46:13 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 46:14 ... move, and you can just tell in the way that he chooses to do a lot of things that he inherently has that same issue and it's really common in a lot of, like, um, larger males to have that limitation. And so it's just, like, a likely scenario for him. And you see that a lot in a lot of, um, like, Russian-descended males where, um, they have, like, limited hip internal rotations, so then they set up that way. That's why you see it a lot across, like, Ukrainian lifters, um, some, uh, Belarusian lifters, all these different kind of people where they have, like, that similar bottom position and they also squat in a similar way. Yeah, just, like, very different from a lot of other places.

Chris Williamson 46:50 I guess girls don't know how good they've got it with a Q-shaped pelvis, do they?

Dr Sam Spinelli 46:55 (laughs) Maybe not. It's hard to say.

Chris Williamson 46:56 Well yeah, I don't-

Dr Sam Spinelli 46:57 There's, uh, there's benefits and limitations in all these things, right? Like-

Chris Williamson 46:59 They've got the, they've got the pain of childbirth but they've got the benefit of a deep squat, like-

Dr Sam Spinelli 47:03 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:03 ... you know, throughout life, so-

Dr Sam Spinelli 47:05 Oh yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:06 ... pluses, pluses and minuses. Okay, so we've got-

Dr Sam Spinelli 47:08 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:08 ... um, we're talking about front rack, we've talked about that-

Dr Sam Spinelli 47:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:10 ... external rotation. What are we doing for it?

Dr Sam Spinelli 47:13 So a good one is going to be, you l- simple, simple is fantastic, especially we're talking online, no one's gonna give a, understand when I give a complicated exercise. So simple thing, you're gonna lay on your back, you're gonna have your elbows out to your side, and then you're gonna try and bring your knuckles to the ground. So you're gonna have arms bent. So you're gonna make, like, a, like a d- uh, a U-shape.

Chris Williamson 47:37 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 47:38 And what you're gonna do here is if you can get your knuckles to the ground, okay, you passed that test, nice job. Now what you're gonna do is you're gonna put your elbows on top of something like, uh, the edge of a 25 pound plate, a, uh, little step up, something that you can increase the range of motion and then repeat. And then you can hold on to, like, a 2.5 pound plate, a five pound plate, something relatively light.

Chris Williamson 48:02 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 48:02 That's just gonna help to pull you back into that range, sort of like the shoulder flexion exercise.

Chris Williamson 48:07 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 48:07 Uh, and just slowly go back, then come back out of it. And what's that gonna do is it's gonna pull you into shoulder external rotation-

Chris Williamson 48:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 48:14 ... and then you control back out of it and it'll allow you to have that extra range so that hopefully you're able to get into a more externally rotated position and less stress on your wrists.

Chris Williamson 48:23 Got you. So for the people who need a little bit more clarification there, it's like the-

Dr Sam Spinelli 48:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:28 ... it's the classic, uh, double bicep pose from a, from a bodybuilder, right?

Dr Sam Spinelli 48:31 Exactly. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:32 And then, but instead of that, we've got, um, shoulders are running at a straight line, arms are at 90 degrees, then I'm gonna guess as they go back, that, that angle maintains, that, uh-

Dr Sam Spinelli 48:41 Yep.

Chris Williamson 48:41 ... forearm to, uh, upper arm angle maintains as we go back?

Dr Sam Spinelli 48:46 Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 48:47 Cool. And then, again, slow on the eccentric, touching the floor-

Dr Sam Spinelli 48:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:50 ... and then coming back up, are you just coming back up to, um, to vertical, like, as you're-

Dr Sam Spinelli 48:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:55 ... on the floor?

Dr Sam Spinelli 48:55 ... yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:56 Cool. Um, why don't we do it as a bonus round? How can I source out my external rotation?

Dr Sam Spinelli 49:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:01 How about, how about improving my internal rotation on my arms? What should I be doing for that?

Dr Sam Spinelli 49:05 Oh, I like actually just the, uh, opposite, keep going down. Uh-

Chris Williamson 49:09 Okay. Okay.

Dr Sam Spinelli 49:10 It's a very simple one and it's really effective, especially if the conversation is about weight lifting, because if you think about, um, snatching or cleaning, you're basically in that exact position. You have an extended torso, you've extended up and your arms are right there. Yeah, exactly. And so it's highly specific, which is gonna be really beneficial. Um, the only thing there is that I tell people that they should take their, uh, they should do one arm at a time, and they should take their non-moving arm and they should put it on the front of their shoulder. And that way can, they can feel as they turn down, if their shoulder starts to pop up-

Chris Williamson 49:39 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 49:40 ... like, uh, it leaves the ground, then they're not really moving through their shoulder anymore, and they should stop going down and then come back up. 'Cause the emphasis is on like shoulder motion. And so if you're just getting more motion because like your shoulder blade's moving funky or you're moving outta your back, like that's not the desire because you don't want that during the motion. So let's just keep it to what you're looking for and keep it on the shoulder.

Chris Williamson 50:02 That movement, that U-shaped line on the ground, I'm gonna guess-

Dr Sam Spinelli 50:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:06 ... is, uh, that definitely meets our criteria for, um, 20% with 80% of the benefit, right? You know, you can just-

Dr Sam Spinelli 50:13 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:13 ... continue that down and then go back up and you've sorted your internal-

Dr Sam Spinelli 50:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:17 ... and external rotation with one exercise. That's pretty cool.

Dr Sam Spinelli 50:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:21 I like it. That, that's one of the big winners. I'm just thinking about some of the other things that people might wanna prime for. How about, um, lower traps? How about someone potentially, again, like me, a little bit of a bro, tight in the upper traps-

Dr Sam Spinelli 50:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:33 ... tight in the chest, that rolled forward classic sort of bro lifter type posture. How can I prime myself to get back and down?

Dr Sam Spinelli 50:42 So assuming that you've like gone through these other things that we just discussed, particularly like the thoracic motion or any of those ones, 'cause those are gonna be really beneficial to get some thoracic extension. But then after that, a nice easy one is where, you know, you lay on your stomach. So if you just did the W1, for instance, um, you could just progress off this, or you could, if it's not relevant, like if you're not snatching or anything, you just wanna get some lower trap activation for other reasons, you can just lay flat on your stomach, face down towards the ground, and then you're gonna take your arms so that you make like a T-shape, so your arms are straight out to your sides. And then you're gonna lift your arms up, and then you're gonna try and make like a snow angel motion over here, you try to bring your thumbs together overhead. And as you do this, your goal is to keep your chest down on the ground, and that way you have to actively lift up through your shoulder blades, and that way you're utilizing your lower trap, you're using your rhomboids, these other musculatures of your upper back that require you to use, um, scapular motion. Now, if you're not able to get all the way overhead, I'm gonna guess like you might struggle with that, just go as far as you can and then come back down and repeat. And, um, you know, like if people are trying to find this exercise, if you Google, um, like prone angels, it's a common exercise name for it, they can find variations of where it's shown. It's like you just lay flat on your stomach, lift your arms up, and then try and bring 'em... A lot of times you'll see people like go all the way back down to their hips-

Chris Williamson 52:08 Mm-hmm.

Dr Sam Spinelli 52:08 ... and then come back up overhead. And it can be a great way also just for developing the upper back too.

Chris Williamson 52:13 Got you. Okay. So we've got palms are flat to the ground, arms are out to the sides.

Dr Sam Spinelli 52:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:18 And then we're just gonna take 'em up, and then we're gonna allow them to come back down. I can f-

Dr Sam Spinelli 52:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:22 Like that would, that must feel probably quite nice. I can imagine that feels quite nice.

Dr Sam Spinelli 52:26 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:26 Would you ever, if you became quite proficient at that and then got yourself to overhead, would you then maybe add like a .25 plate or a .5 plate like into either hand to, to start progressively overloading?

Dr Sam Spinelli 52:37 Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:38 Man, we've got it. Quinn-

Dr Sam Spinelli 52:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:40 ... Qui- Quinn, mate, uh, if you need some advice from me at any point about how you need to do your warmups or something, just come speak to me, I'll give you a bit of a-

Dr Sam Spinelli 52:47 Exactly, yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:48 ... give you a few tips. Man, I think, I think we've got it, you know? I think we've, I think we've managed to create a, a pretty good robust warmup for people. So why don't we, why don't we do a, a, a recap so that people know what they're, they're going away with for this week? How are they gonna, how are they gonna move the needle this week on their warmup?

Dr Sam Spinelli 53:03 Absolutely. So first thing, get warm. Figure out whether you wanna do that on the erg, the bike, or doing some dynamic movements. Pick a few different dynamic movements, if that's gonna be your main thing, or if you just wanna check off some boxes for getting in and outta the ranges you're gonna go to. If we're talking about being in like a CrossFit class or general lifting, try to do like a thoracic range of motion drill, some sort of trunk stability exercise, some sort of hip motion exercise. And then after that, s- either do some accessory range of motion drills if you need to, such as like those shoulder ones we discussed or the hip ones. Afterwards, get into the specific exercises that you're gonna start to do for the day, do some skill work for a few minutes, get moving fast on it though, be deliberate with it, and then get into what you're doing. Start training.

Chris Williamson 53:51 Man, I love it. I like the idea of getting the warmup, um, you know, really cutting it down to size. You are right as well, everybody's strapped for time now, especially, you know, in CrossFit class, the people like the fact that you can get in and get out. I, you know, the powerlifters that are listening, I salute you. The fact that you guys going into-

Dr Sam Spinelli 54:08 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:08 ... the gym and, and you have to spend, because there's some of the rests that you need, you gotta spend, you know, two hours plus in the gym. But the total tonnage that you've moved maybe, you know, well, it's not that much, it's just that you've got, you're putting yourself under so much stress. So yeah, uh, I like it. I, I like it a lot. And then, um, just as a final thing, you know, we t- we talked about some of the specific stuff for movements. Is there a way that you would be able to, um, begin using your movement or begin doing your movement, let's say I'm gonna start snatching, and then, um, interlace that with some of the positional stuff? Or would you have warmup is warmup, and then once warmup is finished, it is lifting? Or would you then maybe start to try and, uh, intersperse them?

Dr Sam Spinelli 54:50 So like I'm a big fan of, uh, people doing something active in between their, um, warmup sets. So like if you are doing technical skill work or any, or just like light snatching, those kinds of things, doing one of the, um, range of motion type exercises in between sets, particularly if it's one that you find really beneficial to you, 'cause then it helps to ingrain it even better. The thing that I would say is like once you get into your actual working sets, I would like try to limit that, because you wanna legitimately rest if you're trying really hard. So, you know, like if you are a 60 kilo snatcher and you find that like doing that overhead, um, that shoulder flexion drill is really beneficial, do it up until you get to like 50 kilos and then shut her down and get into your working sets.

Chris Williamson 55:37 Man, I love it. I love it. We've, we've made it, man. We've gone through, we've got great, a great warmup. Uh, I'm super, super impressed. What, uh, where should people go? They wanna hustle you online. You've just rebranded, kind of. You've just changed to... I couldn't find you on Instagram.

Dr Sam Spinelli 55:50 (laughs)

Dr Sam Spinelli 55:51 Yeah, so on Instagram I am, uh, Dr. Sam Spinelli. I also have accounts of Citizen Athletics and E3 Rehab. So they can find me there. If they're looking for fitness-based stuff, Citizen Athletics is a great resource, lots of stuff. Uh, YouTube channel now where we're trying to pump out high quality content. And then, uh, E3 Rehab, if you're looking for rehab stuff, tons of resources there.

Chris Williamson 56:14 I love it. Dude, we've done it. Thank you so much for your time. Everything that we've spoken about will be linked in the show notes below. This episode's awesome. Like, send it to a friend, find a person that you think, "Fuck, like they need to know how to warm up as well." Send it to them and, uh, yeah. Uh, Sam, I'm g- I'm gonna have to get you back on line. I need to find about, find something else to talk to you about now.

Dr Sam Spinelli 56:33 Thanks for having me on, Chris. That was great. Uh, yeah, yeah. (instrumental music)