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The InForm Fitness Podcast series REWIND is a listen back to classic interviews with high intensity gurus & master trainers.This is the 1st of 3 parts with Doug Brignole. In part 1, Doug & Adam talk about Compound vs isolation & natural movements.
Now listened to in 100 countries, The InForm Fitness Podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of InForm Fitness Studios, specializing in safe, efficient, High Intensity strength training.
Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise, nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness and to replace those sacred cows with scientific-based, up-to-the-minute information on a variety of subjects. The topics covered include exercise protocols and techniques, nutrition, sleep, recovery, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more.
Arlene 0:01
The Inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of inform fitness studios specializing in safe, efficient, personal high intensity strength training, in each episode Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery, the three pillars of his New York Times best selling book, The Power of 10. He aims to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And with the opinions of leading experts and scientists, you'll hear scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We cover the exercise protocols and techniques of Adoms 20 minute once a week workout, as well as sleep recovery, nutrition, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more.
Adam 0:50
Hi everyone, Adam here welcome to an inform fitness podcast rewind,it's a listen back to our past interviews with some of our great high intensity gurus, master trainers, doctors PhDs names like Martin Gibala from McMaster University biomechanics expert, Bill De Simone, genetics expert Ryan Hall, Dr. Doug McGuff, author of body by science, and for this rewind, today, we have Doug Brignole. On his website, Doug describes himself as a bodybuilder on the outside, and a science nerd on the inside. His competitive career spans over 40 years and he has won numerous bodybuilding titles. His most recent book, the physics of fitness, is endorsed by nine PhD professors, and is a must read if you're going to dig deep into the science and physics of strength training. So here in part one, Doug and I are going to talk about compound movements versus isolation movements. Always a controversial subject. We don't always agree on everything. But it's a great discussion. Enjoy. So glad to have you with us.
Doug Brignole 2:02
Thank you. It's great to be here.
Adam 2:03
It's a real honor to talk to somebody with your experience and expertise in this field. So Doug is a bodybuilder right Doug?
Doug Brignole 2:14
Yes, I say that, although that's sort of like a small piece of what I do. Because a lot of bodybuilders that don't do what I do.
Adam 2:21
So what makes doug so unique is that doug is an intellectual bodybuilder, I guess you can call it and he hasn't really fallen prey to all the cultural and mythological aspects of bodybuilding that have existed for, I don't know, 50 years, 60 years, seventy years and beyond
Doug Brignole 2:40
100 years, actually. Yeah,
Adam 2:42
there you go. What I like about your doug is as a bodybuilder, you debunk a lot of the myths that people have had about bodybuilding. Like, for example, we're gonna get into a lot of things about this. But like, for example, you say, which is unusual for the bodybuilding community, you say that varying exercises for the same body part is really not essential for muscle growth. So many popular exercises in bodybuilding are just downright dangerous, and at the very least inefficient. He talks about why it's impossible that to isolate your lower abs, for example, and the myths go on and on that you talk about, that we've been talking about, too. So it's nice, but but no one listens to me really sometimes because, you know, I'm not big and muscular and what
Doug Brignole 3:26
you're not a titleholder ends up getting more attention than a PhD.
Adam 3:29
This is why I like talking to guys like you because you are not following the culture and still you've been a competitive and very successful bodybuilder. So can you just give us a little brief synopsis of your bodybuilding history and some of your accomplishments not just the bodybuilding, but also, as simply as possible? Talk about your career as well.
Doug Brignole 3:51
All right, well, I started weight training when I was 14, because I was very skinny. And I just wanted to gain some muscle and I was fortunate enough to be living about five blocks away from a gym that was owned by 5 time Mr. Universe winner, Bill Pearl. And I went there, I had no money essentially, and we struck a deal and I would go into every Saturday and scrub the showers and do janitorial work in exchange for membership. And I started competing within a year 16 years old was my first contest. By the time I was 19. I won teenage California and teenage America. At 22. I won Mr. California at 26. I won my division of Mr. American Mr. Universe, and I continue to competing on and off until I was 56, which is a 40 year span of competitions longer than most people for sure who've been in that sport. So along the way of all these years of competing, I was very analytical about you know what it is that constitutes a good exercise or a bad exercise. There has to be mechanical components. And whatever those mechanical components are, that could be deemed Good or bad, would naturally be consistent across the board. If incomplete range of motion is bad in one exercise, it'd be better than all of them, for example, and benchpress is one example of that, right? When you finish a bench press, your hands are far away from the center of your body. So if that's an incomplete range of motion anywhere else, why wouldn't it be there? So a lot of the things that I was realizing were very profound, and have names, technical names, and I would later discover them as I would go to cadaver dissections, and read University textbooks and, and then just sort of ponder sort of the correlation between the physics, the anatomy, the sociology, the brainwashing that has, you know, been happening through all these years that have led people to believe that certain things are just to be not questioned, like compound movements, and people will say, Oh, you need a foundation in the powerless to bodybuild? Well, there's just no logic in that, really, I mean, a muscle doesn't know if it's working alone, or if it's working at the same time other muscles are working. So I came up with this book about a year ago called the physics of fitness, which basically explains, biomechanics and explains what works and what doesn't work, and why and how the physics and anatomy sort of joined forces. And it's, I guess, you could say it's rocking, making waves because it goes against conventional wisdom.
Adam 6:29
You know, as far as I see, I always see approaching exercise and and how to build the program for yourself, as coming at it from two fronts. One, you have the biomechanics front, and then you have the physiology front,
right.
So what I like to focus on initially, because I do want to get into both fronts, but initially, I want to get into this biomechanics front. And when I was first introduced to you, you would send me a chapter of one of your books, basically talking about compound movements versus isolation movements, which, which is really fascinating, because I want to be talking about beliefs before and all these beliefs that exists in exercise culture. One that can be traced back hundreds of years, like you said, is that the belief that compound movements, otherwise known as multi joint multi muscle type movements are generally better than simple isolation movements, single joint single muscle movements. Now, I want to talk about how this belief got started. But before I do, just for people listening that don't know, the terminology, quickly explain the difference between a compound movement and a simple movement.
Doug Brignole 7:33
As you said, a compound movement is a multi joint multi muscle movement that some people refer to as functional, which is absurd, because it suggests that something that isn't compound is dysfunctional, that would almost suggest that if you do isolation exercises, somehow your body isn't going to be able to coordinate all of its various muscle strains at the same time. It's absurd. I mean, yes, it's true that if you're doing Dead Hand cleans, you get skilled at doing the head cleans, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can cross that over into something that doesn't look anything like it did hang clean, just means you're learning the skill, you're learning to coordinate all of the muscles that participate in that movement, in a particular event. But the idea that, that it's a compound movement will then make you better able to use those participating muscles, as as compared to isolation exercises, has no logic in whatsoever.
Adam 8:27
So how did this get started? I mean, like, where did this fascination and this reverence of compound movements get started?
Doug Brignole 8:33
Well, it started in fact, in my book, I talked about how, once upon a time, without superior strength, as a man, you were in big trouble, right? You couldn't provide food for yourself, you couldn't protect yourself in battle, you can provide for your family you can provide for your offspring today, you know, survival is about having knowledge, skills, you know, earning ability. This is how we survive today in a civilized society, but back then, none of that mattered what mattered was literally your physical strength. And so what ended up happening was that they would there would be like, you know, stories of or whether it's Hercules or, you know, any of these people that have superior strain might have a cretin. You know, he would carry a bowl every day on his shoulders, his daily exercise. And so it became this sort of like fabled thing where exhibitions of strength were really, really, really respected. And so what what ended up happening was eventually became circus acts. There'll be people that would hold a platform up with 16 people standing on the platform, or a man lifting an elephant. And so nobody cared how strong each individual muscle was, what he cared was how much total the lift was. So, but when bodybuilding came along, and by the way, in the early years of bodybuilding, it was considered vain it was considered dishonorable to pursue aesthetics.
Adam 9:55
Yeah, I remember you saying that isolation exercises were regarded as vanity exersises is only focusing on one's appearance.
Doug Brignole 10:03
Right? There's a magazine that was actually a several issues had a banner at the bottom that said, weakness, a crime Don't be a criminal. Well, what it might as well have said is failing to exhibit strengths is a crime. So if you did a variety of exercises that were isolation exercises, you can be deemed a criminal because you weren't exhibiting a large lift at one time. Nevermind that each individual muscle that's working in isolation might actually be working harder than it would be in a compound lift. So it just became that this sort of conventional wisdom that if you want it to bodybuild you have to start off with deadlifts and heavy squats and bent over barbell rows and overhead presses. But if you look at the body is just a machine with of pulleys and levers and pivots. And then you realize that it's just a mechanism. I mean, you wouldn't you would never, let's say, look at an actual machine made out of steel and pulleys and somehow come to the conclusion that that machine would work better if it had multiple things working at one time than one I mean, a machine is a machine, right in the body is a machine. And so if you if you really want to train as efficiently as possible, meaning the lowest risk of injury and the maximum amount of loading for the energy and amount of weight used, isolation exercises are actually better. Yes.
Adam 11:29
So are you telling me then that in your career as a bodybuilder, you avoided compound movements? Or, or in most of your training was done with isolation movements? Or are you mixed it up?
Doug Brignole 11:41
Well, I will tell you this, that I had a very, very good sense from the very beginning of what, what felt natural or what didn't feel natural. Okay, so a squat, for example, is a compound exercise, but it involves basically two natural movements, hip extension and knee extension. Now, we can talk about how efficient that is in just a moment. But at least each of those two joints are doing what those joints do best. Right? Now, let's look at an upright row. That is absolutely not true for an upright row, and I've tried to is a very contorted exercise, which makes you twist your wrist sideways. Your deltoid does not end up where the deltoid would end up if you were doing a lateral abduction. And so I always tell people, like if you look at someone doing an upright row, and you just imagine the straightening their arms, when they're atop you go, Oh, guess what, that pretty much ends where sideways would end. The only thing you've done now is, is bent the elbow and inverted it forward. Yeah, and there's no benefit to the delta for doing that. It's just a less comfortable movement. So I avoided the compound movements that seemed unnatural.
Adam 12:47
Sure,
Doug Brignole 12:47
but I did do the compound movements like squat that seemed natural, without joint distortion. But then you can get into things like, like, if you look at, let me just get into a little tiny bit of physics here, I won't dwell on it too much. But in physics, any lever that is parallel to the direction of resistance, and right away, people are glazing over. As I say that, like a lamppost is vertical, because a lamppost is vertical to gravity. And so it's balanced over its base. But if you tried to anchor that lamppost at a 45 degree angle, you'd have to bolted down to the ground with a lot more force a lot more bolts, because now it wants to fall. Okay, so a lever that is parallel to gravity, or whatever resistance is going to be a zero, neutral lever, and one that is perpendicular to gravity, or whatever you happen to be using for resistance is going to be what I call a 100%, lever, a maximally active lever. So when you look at a squat, and you realize that the lower leg is the operating lever of the quadricep, and you realize it doesn't even reach a 45 degree angle, you say, Well, it's actually closer to neutral than it is to fully active.
Adam 14:03
It's more of a more of a glute exercise, and then a quad exercise
Doug Brignole 14:07
we'll look at that in just a moment. So what I want to say is, you know, if you're doing, let's say, a 200 pound squat, you've got 200 pounds pressing down on your spine. That's the cost, right? And the benefit is 30% of that is going on your quad. That's not a good trade off. 30% benefit and all this spinal compression,
Adam 14:28
as opposed to let's say knee extension,
Doug Brignole 14:32
right? So so then someone would say, Well, yeah, okay, maybe the lower leg does actually only go to about a 30 degree angle from neutral, but the femur does get vertical, I mean, does get horizontal, right? It does get perpendicular, and I go yes, but look what's happening. With the lower leg, the lower leg is doubling under the femur, right? It's doubling back under the femur, which is effectively shortening the femur, right? So when we talk about mechanics There's a thing called the moment arm. And the moment arm happens when you draw a vertical line straight up from the, say the heel straight up and straight up through the hip joint. And you realize instead of being the length of a regular femur, it's about half the length of a regular femur. So yes, you're getting an active femur, but a very shortened femur. And someone says, Well, how can we make that better? Well, ironically, the way you make the femur more effective is by taking that lower leg. And instead of having it be an inward angle, having it straight it straight down, and then you've eliminated the quality by working both, you're compromising both. Alright, that's a good argument for why it's better to isolate. Because as soon as you tried to combining a glute and a quad exercise, you literally compromise both, you got a percentage. And this is all about percentages. By the way, when someone says, you know, is your what is your method all about? I basically say, well, it's about efficiency, which is about percentages, the first thing we should probably do is define what a natural movement is. If we go by the fact that all muscles pull toward their origins, okay, that is an absolute fact. And muscle can do nothing other than pull towards its origin. If you are a pectoral muscle, fiber origin, standing on a sternum, and you're holding that pectoral fiber that goes across the chest crosses the shoulder joint ties into the upper end of the humerus, the only way you can do is pull toward you, you're going to pull that humerus toward you now whether that humors actually does come toward you depends on whether or not other pectoral fibers are also pulling. And so maybe collectively, we'll pull in a slightly different direction, but I can only pull toward me. So the most natural movement would be taking a limb towards directly toward its origin, muscle origin. The other way of looking at natural movement is to say, how have our joints evolved, and for what reason that they've evolved that way. So once upon a time, we were quadrupeds, we walked on all fours. Little by little, we started walking slightly more upright, which meant that we when we were quandra, pets, we were pushing straight down with our pecs. And as we got more and more upright, we were pushing progressively more downward, right, but we never had to push upward. And there was never a reason there was never a need to push toward an incline angle, there were no incline benches in the early days of hominids, right, and the only way to create an incline angle would have been to elevate your upper body so that your head was much lower than your feet. And there would have been no functional, purposeful reason to do that. So our shoulder joint nor our musculature has evolved to perform an incline movement, it has evolved to perform forward and downward decline movements. So this is how I typically say, let's start off by saying what is a natural movement, something that we have evolved to do an overhead tricep extension? Is that something that we had to do with that shoulder joint on a regular basis, if the objective is to work the triceps, you can work it with the shoulder joint in a much more natural position, that being with your upper arm alongside your your your torso? Anyway, so what I say is this is, you know, since my background, and my focus is bodybuilding, what I try to do is I say how can we get the most bang for the buck in terms of muscle development? Well, the best way we do that is by be working in as pure a form as possible. And by making that lever go directly to and exclusively to the origin of that muscle.
Adam 18:36
the most efficient way of using that muscle.
Doug Brignole 18:39
Yeah, now if you do that, the strength you gain in that those pectral fibers can be applied to anyway, it can be applied when you're washing dishes, they can be applied when you're juggling, they can be applied in a million different ways. It would be ridiculous to assume that it would only work for exercises that were similar to the ones you did in the gym. It is functional, right? There's no way that a muscle can get stronger and then not coordinate with other muscles when the time comes. But when someone says So are you saying that we should never do compound exercise? I say no. Because if you combine, let's say, let's say you're doing a curling with a step up, okay, you're stepping up and at the same time you're curling, okay, well, you've got more muscles working, you've gotten more oxygen demand, you got more cardiovascular stimulation. There's benefit there. If you're working only in isolation. You know, let's say if you're trying to combine some strength training with some cardiovascular and some proprioception training, which is basically coordination, right? That's a good thing to do. But if your goal is to build muscle, then you're going to care less about proprioception.
Adam 19:46
Yeah, well, that's why that's why we do both. That's why when we program most most of our clients workouts, and when we recommend people how to work out, we like mixing both and we like we like the efficiency of the isolation movements and really working on muscle to its truest function to its tracking its truest function. And like you said, I mean, there's no, there's no doubt that doing a knee extension tracks that function of the quadriceps a lot better than a squat would or even a leg press would. But I also take in consideration what you were mentioning before also, I mean, a compound movement is metabolically much more demanding. And you go from exercise to exercise doing compound movements.
Doug Brignole 20:25
It's more athletic, right, there's more athleticism that is required. And there's a that's a coordination advantage.
Adam 20:33
And I see physiological benefits from pushing the energy systems drastically. And the best way to push energy systems yes to their max is through compound movements. So as long as those compound movements are generally safe, and I'm not putting I'm not putting barbells on or recommending people put barbells over their shoulders to do a compound type movement. Like you mentioned, I know you mentioned this stuff, there are other ways of doing squats or, or compound leg movements without putting huge levers on your shoulders with lots of weight on
Doug Brignole 21:06
putting a metal barbell on at the very top of your spinal column is not a good idea. The Leaning Tower of Pisa has its greatest stress at the base opposite the lean. Yes, the lower back a purist, someone like let's say me who just says, you know, I want to get from point A to point B, as forcefully and dramatically. And as quickly as I possibly can, then I'm going to exclude the stuff that isn't maximally productive, right. But when we're dealing with the public, as trainers, we also have to realize that there's a compliance issue. There's a motivation issue, if we're too monotonous. But, monotonous by the way, is certainly productive. But it makes it less fun. And there are some people with a psychology, psychological profile that just absolutely need some variety, or else they will get so bored, they will end up quitting, if you were to lay out in the sun every day for 30 minutes. And after doing this for two months, you think you're plateauing. And so you think you need variety. So you decide that you're going to go try some incandescent light instead. Or you decide you're going to try some fluorescent light, or infrared light, or neon lights, right. And you realize, no, because these aren't all equal forms of stimulation. If you've plateaued from being in the sun, it doesn't mean that sunlight or UVB light, or UV light isn't the best way to tan it just means that you need a little break, take three days to six days off, and then when you come back, everything's fresh again. Right? So now, let's compare this to exercise, let's say someone says, you know, I've been doing these tricep pushdowns. With the cable for the last three months, I think I'm gonna switch to parallel bar dips. Well, guess what, the tricep is still doing the exact same thing. A tricep extends the elbow. That's all it does
Adam 23:05
just not as efficiently, far from it actually, far from it. So it's more it's more stress on your anterior delts. And triceps are why I do it.
Doug Brignole 23:14
And this is what I explained to people is getting back to what we were talking about before about parallel levers versus perpendicular numbers. When you see someone doing a bench dip, or a parallel bar dip, and you notice that their forearm is almost vertical, it only breaks from the neutral vertical position by about 11 degrees,
Adam 23:35
which destroys it was it was only
Doug Brignole 23:38
getting about 11%. Right? Right. So here's the math I do on that. As I say if you're 180 pound guy, and you want to figure out how much Lodi tricep is gonna get, you say, Okay, I'm 180 pounds, I'm gonna divide that by two arms, that's 90, the length of your forearm is about a 12 to one ratio, so you have a magnification of 12. So you see 90 times 12 times 11% active lever gives you about 119 pounds of load per tricep, at a cost of 180 pounds of effort. But if that same person would rely on a flat bench with a pair of 20 pound dumbbells skirt, where the Piriform does actually cross gravity at 100%. You do the same math, you say 20 pounds times 12 times 100% is 240 pounds of load per tricep at a total cost of 40 pounds. So this is efficiency. Why would you bother doing an exercise that cost you 180 pounds of effort but only load your tricep with 119 pounds when you can do 40 pounds of cost and 240 pounds of load. And it's not like it's working a different head of the tricep. Right? All three heads are working in both ways. It's just that they're they have drastically different efficiencies.
Adam 24:55
So let me let me let me translate that for somebody for example, because you know, they're gonna be like Most of our listeners that don't understand a word you just said, this is the bottom line. We're trying to work the triceps and the triceps don't function as well for that barbell dip as it does for the other exercise that you talked about the skull crushers. And the thing is, let's make an analogy. Just so you understand this. We use word processors nowadays to write letters. And just for variety sake, we're getting bored with a word process, we decided to dust off old Corona. That's a much less efficient system. But we're just doing it because what the hell, I'm nostalgic, and I want to go back to the old days, right using a typewriter, but it's not going to do the job as well. Right? It's not it can still do the job, right? Yeah, it does the job much less efficiently.
Doug Brignole 25:42
If you're doing it for fun, and you understand that you're trading down, and you you're willing to accept that trade down. Great. They're equal,
Adam 25:50
right, and I want to add one more thing to that. Now, in the case of the typewriter and the word processor, you're not taking any risk to get injured, you're just wasting your time. And if you want to have fun, and go back to the old Corona days, have fun and type of letter and old Corona and kind of go down memory lane. But in the case of what you're talking about choosing an inferior exercise is not only less than less efficient sometimes, but it's also much more dangerous. In the case of parallel dips. All right, you are putting undue stress on the anterior delt, right and the pecs for that matter, because they're being stretched in an unnatural position, right? They're not bringing the humerus towards your middle of your torso or the sternum, right? They're going up. So not only is your deltoids you enter your delts taking a strain that's unnecessary. So as your pecs, all four very inefficient way of working your delts or your your triceps doesn't make sense. Why?
Doug Brignole 26:41
If you if you ask the average person, why are you doing parallel bar dips, they would say for pecs and triceps. But ironically, as you said, the pecs and triceps are getting far less work than the front deltoids. And that's not the objective of the exercise. And there are far better front deltoid exercises.
Adam 26:57
All right, so just choose your exercises carefully. We've been saying this forever. All right, that was part one with Doug Brignole on the inform fitness podcast rewind. I hope you enjoyed it. In part two, Doug and I are going to continue our discussion on static versus dynamic exercise, along with speed of movement, and specific sports training concepts.
Arlene 27:23
This has been the inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman, for over 20 years inform fitness has been providing clients of all ages with customized personal training, designed to build strength fast, and now Adam and his staff would be delighted to train you virtually just visit informfitness.com for testimonials blogs and videos on the three pillars exercise nutrition and recovery.