you know what is up guys? Welcome to today's episode of the lift train performed podcast. I'm your host, Sean koba. First of all, I would like to apologize for the potentially paul audio quality. I'm actually on the road right now. I'm leaving on a three week road trip around Thailand. Uh so I'm driving up to Bangkok from Phuket over the next couple of days, about 12 hour drive, so I'm taking my time to drive up to Bangkok, I've got a rugby tournament this weekend, saturday, sunday, and then from monday I'm heading up north of Thailand, no real plan, nothing booked. I've got an idea of where I want to go, what I want to do, um but I'm kind of just winging it, so it's hammering down with rain at the moment as I drive out of poop head, so please bear with me with the audio quality. Uh some of the episodes that I will be posting over the next couple of weeks may be recorded in the car. So, again, apologies in advance for uh the potential audio quality.

So what I want to talk about today is my five minute fitness tips and something that's come up for me numerous times over the years is that people always ask me how I maintain, we'll stay in good shape whilst I'm traveling now, the reason people asked this is typically because when I was in Australia, I would work for eight or nine months every year and then I would travel for three or four months every year, and in those 3 to 4 months, I would travel and I would train and I would take my little gym bag which had gymnastics rings, skipping rope, uh cross ball and resistance bands. So I could basically do whatever I wanted whilst I was traveling with just those pieces of equipment. So, that's something that I want to talk about in this episode, is that you don't need all of these, you know, machines and barbells and you don't need the perfect gym to be able to get some training in training should be simple.

Training is simply seeing what your body can do and moving. All right, And when you understand movement patterns, then the tool doesn't matter. So, let me give an example of that. Um If I look at a squat, okay, I can squat with a barbell in a back squat position. High bar low bar, I can squat in a front squat position. I can squat in an overhead position. Okay, then I can squat with kettlebells, double front rack position. I can use a global position. I can squat with dumbbells. I can squat with just body weight. Okay, I can use bands and things like that too. Work on a squat pattern. A little bit difficult to explain in this episode. Okay, but what I could do with a band uh as an example is I could place the band around or underneath both of my feet and then hook that over the top of my shoulders. And now I've just added a resistance band to my squad to make that a little bit more challenging.

All right, so, a movement pattern is a movement pattern. It doesn't really matter what the tools are. So when you understand movement patterns then those tools can be altered. Those tools can be changed and you can use whatever tools available to you at the time to elicit the response that you want. So, you know, a barbell is excellent for loading up and building strength. All right, can I still build strength without a barbell? Absolutely. If I've got a kettle bell, okay, I might simply build a different type of strength. Now, here's the thing, there's many, many different types of strength. So um if I want to build strength and I only have a kettlebell then what I might do is move under control. I'm gonna come up into that goblet position, then I might lower over five seconds, maintaining tension, maintaining posture, control, alignment, etcetera. I might hit that bottom position and I might hang out there for five seconds. Alright, squeezing, driving my feet into the ground, gripping, screwing, engaging my hips, keeping everything firing, keeping everything active and then I might take five seconds to come back up to that top position.

All right, now, think about like this There's 15 seconds of time under tension. All right, and I can squat I think My one rep max squats like 190 195 kg or something like that. Okay. So if I did squats the same way with a kettlebell as I did with a barbell then that's definitely not enough weight to elicit the response that I want. However, if I slow the reps down, create that mind muscle connection, create as much attention as I can by squeezing those muscles through the e centric which is lowering those muscles lengthen. I might pause in that bottom position, grip screw, engage everything as hard as I can, holding that bottom position for five seconds there's an isometric, okay? And then I'm gonna come up nice and slow over five seconds. That's my concentric contraction which is muscles shortening. All right. Now most people, when they go to the gym they just focus on muscle shortening the concentric contraction or lifting of the weights but they pay no attention to any isometrics where they're pausing in different positions and or e centric is where you're lowering really slowly under control to keep those muscles engaged through the entire range of movement.

Now, when I look at the three muscle contractions, the e centric muscle contraction is probably one of the better muscle contractions to work through. Okay, particularly if you're learning how to do a movement. So let me give an example of this. If I have someone who wants to work on their pull ups. Okay. If they can hold that top position but they can't pull from the bottom position. Guess what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna start them in that top position, I might get a bar bell and set that up at say chest height on Iraq and I'm going to get them to go over grass, grip, under grass, grip, whatever they're comfortable with, whatever is going to get the most muscles working through the back, I'm going to get them to have their feet on the ground there, supporting themselves and they're gonna squeeze the fuck out of their back, pull their shoulders down and back, Engage all the muscles of the back. Okay then if they can take their feet off the ground then they do and they lower over 5-10 seconds. Okay, that's one rep. Then they simply stand back up, repeat the process, They're not pulling themselves back up cakes, What happens is most people try and pull themselves back up and if they don't have the strength then they just keep or they kick up, they use their legs and they kind of kip into this position where they again have strength.

Okay now that's not a good way of training because all you're doing there is bypassing those weak points. Alright, so using an e centric contraction where we focus on squeezing as hard as you can in that top position, muscles shorten and then slowly lower under control, maintaining tension, making sure both sides of the body of firing as hard as possible and as even as possible whilst you go through that full range of movement. Okay, now I can also use awesome metrics Where if again, let's take a pull up. Okay? Most people are strong in the mid, in the mid range, okay. Where our muscles are kind of in that mid length. Now, that's typical for most people are, that facilitates the strength curve. But if people are struggling with coming out of that bottom position now I'm gonna use isometric where I just get them to get into that bottom position where they're in that full hang. And what they're going to do is again use the legs for support and they're going to activate through the back, pull the shoulder blades down and back, engage all of those muscles in the back.

The arms are gonna stay straight. But I'm doing an active hang okay now might hold this for 5, 10, 15, 20 seconds, whatever I'm capable of doing all right, so I'm strengthening that bottom range, that bottom portion of the pull up. If I'm struggling to get my chin over the bar and my weaknesses in the top part of the pull up, then I'm gonna do exactly the same thing. I'm gonna either have my feet set up on a box on a step or I'm simply going to set up a bar bell on a rack or use a smith machine right where my feet are still on the ground but I can grab hold of the bar. I can have my chin over the bar. I can pull my shoulder blades down and backfire all the muscles of the back and then my feet are there to support. And I'm gonna squeeze the fuck out of my back muscles in that position. Now, if I can, if you have the strength there then you might slowly start taking a little bit of pressure out of the feet so that your upper body does the majority of work. All right, so there's many, many different techniques that we can use to build strength, build muscle, build endurance, build power speed, etcetera, etcetera.

So um whenever I travel, I slow the movements down, okay? And I focus on all of these muscular contractions. The concentric muscle, shorten e centric muscles, lengthen isometric muscles don't change length or shape. Okay. And this is an excellent technique for building all aspects of strength and connectivity and mind, muscle connection to basically every muscle in your body. That's it for me today guys. Hopefully the audio quality is good. I'll listen back to this later on. Um if it's rubbish, then I apologize and I'll do my best to record in a better situation Next time peace