Insights on effective workout techniques, emphasizing the importance of muscle exhaustion rather than focusing solely on sets and reps. He advocates for precision in form, gradual progression in weight, and incorporating time under tension for optimal results while minimizing the risk of injury. Dr. Chalmers advises viewers to prioritize form over ego-driven lifting and encourages adjusting weight and pace to maintain proper form throughout each exercise.

Highlights of the Podacst

00:45 – What matters is that when you are done working out

01:32 – The point is to completely exhaust the muscle

02:41 – The big thing to remember when you’re doing a workout

04:15 – Full range of motion to the more range of motion you can get

05:14 – The muscle will grow much

07:23 – Turn everything up

08:32 – The number one thing you guys have to make to maintain

09:08 – Move perfectly that you know that’s going to help you

10:12 – Low back thing is getting a lot better

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] Getting lots of questions about working out and stuff like that. You know. What are you doing? Sets, wraps and weights and stuff like that. They have a quick fix. SATs and raps on that. Wait. Matters to a degree, but not a huge amount. The the thing that I see that people mess up the most is they get set in this idea that if they do three sets of ten, you know, on whatever, and they do, you know, 3 or 4 exercises, then that’s all they need to do. And. Yeah, okay. The thing about it is that we really get down to brass tacks. It doesn’t matter how many SATs or how many reps or things like that you do. What matters is that when you are done working out that body part, it’s exhausted. It can’t do anymore. The best way to do that is through drop sets. Where you do, you know, 50 pounds, you know, the ten times. And then on your 11th one, your form fails.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:01] So you drop them, you go to 40s. You do those 6 or 7 times. You can’t until you form fails, you drop them, you get 25 stories. You know, that type of a thing where you’re completely exhausted musculature is is really the way to go. That’s more or less the way I do it. That’s, you know, if I, if I get to 23 to 10 or 12 or 15, doesn’t matter if I’m like, I’m shooting for ten, I miss that. And I get to ten and I can do two more. You do two more. The point is to completely exhaust the muscle. It’s not a it’s not to get to a number. It’s not to, you know, finish a set. It’s to completely exhaust the muscle. The way that I do mine is so for instance, the, the, the big one I do is on chest. That is. So I’ll take, you know, relatively it’s not super heavy. I realize it’s not light, but, I’ll take 85 pound dumbbells and I’ll do five up, five down. So it takes five seconds to get up and five seconds to get down. Really slow time under tension. I’ll get around seven of those. I’ll do three sets of that. Then when I’m done with that, I’ll take the same weight. And I’ll knock out 20 reps of the 85 volume quick. I just, I think think, think, think, and I’ll just exhaust the muscle and I’ll do 5 or 6 sets. Just depends on when when my muscles feel like.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:25] Because it’s more of a that piece is my dumbbell press is more of a up here. And I’ll usually do 5 or 6 sets. Then I’ll go over and I’ll do cable flys. And it’s just, it’s high to low on my cable flies. The, the big thing to remember when you’re doing a workout, I don’t care if it’s chest or biceps or triceps or whatever. Remember, you’re working a specific muscle, and the muscle does one thing. It contracts, it shortens. And then it approximately to joint. So yeah, arm goes out, arm comes that comes out. Arm comes out. That’s what the bicep does. So you can come up with all sorts of fancy ways of holding things and moving things. But that’s what’s going on. So if you isolate the forearm and so you’re just moving that one joint and you’re just focusing on contracting that musculature around that one joint as it’s coming up and you’re going slow and controlled and the whole movement is clean. That’s the big thing. It’s going to be form. It’s going to be precision. It’s going to be, you know, because you control the movement of the weight. Those are going to be the big things. And this just exhausted, you know, work until it’s done. So usually, like, I’m on arms, I’ll start with 25 or $1.30 fives.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:38] You know, I’ll do four sets there. Go back down to, you know, 30s, and then I’ll do that exhaustion set with 20 fives. Then I’ll go over. I’ll just do triceps and I do, I do my triceps on cables and I do them independently. Because I want to focus everything on that one arm. I do all my stuff in the pound. I don’t do. I don’t do anything with bars. I don’t do anything where I could. So, for instance, I do like extensions and leg curls. I do those with the cable, one leg at a time. Because I want to focus everything that’s going on on that specific muscle in that specific muscle group. But again, form is 100% all that matters. Full range of motion to the more range of motion you can get, the better. You’re going to feel it like I’m. Chest is up when you come down. When you come out all the way. You should feel that really stretch and then come back up with when, when you arch your back and you do all sorts of things you’re throwing. You throw in energy in a places that it doesn’t belong? Yeah, you can get the weight up.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:37] Great job if you’re a power lifter and that’s what you’re trying to do. It’s again totally different conversation. But the cleaner you lift, the more benefit you’re going to have. And I’ll record some of these. I keep promising to do that. I’ll be back. Similar. But that’s kind of how it goes. It’s. How clean is your left? How smooth is it? How you know? Did you go slow? Did you exhaust the muscle? That’s that’s always gonna be the biggest thing. That’s the thing about weight. How much weight you want to do? You know. The big thing remember on that one is to avoid injuries is to go up slow and wait. The muscle will grow much, much faster and get much, much stronger, much, much quicker. The ligament in the tendon. Well, so the idea of, you know, we should look as heavy as we can. It’s a great way to injure yourself. And I don’t recommend it unless you’re a powerlifter and you’re like, how much can I lift? Because the amount I lift is my sport.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:33] In that case, again, really different goals, completely different everything. So you guys kind of have to watch out for that. So if it’s not if you’re not powerlifting, if you’re not, how much weight can I lift. Is that that’s your thing then I would I would advise you to reduce the weight and go slower. So typically what I’ll do is I will go really, really slow for. You know, if I can do four sets of 15 real slow with a weight, then I will go up by 5 pounds or so with that weight and then see if I can still get around that 15 mark. The, if you’re doing three or 5 or 6 reps and that’s all you can get, especially to the end of your set, or you stack up to it. You know, if you’re doing bench crushing on 135 one 5185, 192, you get 193 times. Don’t go up. Don’t go up. You don’t need to. You’re going to hurt yourself. You’re going to cause more injury. And the problem with injury is that. It not only delays what you’ve already done, but it holds you out of the gym for the night, or sometimes 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 weeks. And so now you’re 5 or 6 weeks behind. And so, you know, your games just aren’t going to be there. And if you tear this up bad enough to have surgery, you might not ever come back properly. So I know that everyone’s like just heavy as you can be.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:51] Let’s you know. So the king of that one, Ronnie Coleman, his big quote, everybody wants to be big but no one to get muscle lift, no heavier shit. Multiple hip surgeries. Multiple lower spine surgeries. Again, you know, you can get pretty big. You can get, you know, you can get where you want to go. Yeah. Again, if you’re trying to be Mr. Olympia as a different conversation. But, you know, I’m using his example because there’s a lot of you guys out there who are doing really heavy squats. Don’t need to be forms. Not perfect. You turn off your back, turn off your knees, turn everything up. So, you know, drop the weight a little bit. Let’s go really slow, put more time under tension and you’re going to get a lot bigger and a lot better results. For that. It’s also I like it for, for fat burning as well, because the more the more you do a time under tension exercise, the more your body recognizes that needs to build two things strength and endurance. Strength and endurance come from my from the actual.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:53] The actual tissue. Muscle. The, the myocytes, the signal. Possible. You gotta you gotta link those things together. But that tissue will build up. But it also starts to build, more mitochondria. So you can have more, more energy over time. So the more muscle density you have, the more mitochondria you have regardless. But if we go time under tension that we after we ask that muscle to be have endurance. It’ll have to start building that type of endurance as well. Now that long term burns more ATP than normal. So again, that’s that’s the big thing. And I’ll start I’ll start recording some of these but makes the number one thing you guys have to make to maintain this form. Like I don’t care what you’re weights. I don’t care about sets of reps. Form is critical. If you don’t have form, stop doing everything you’re doing until you acquire the perfect form and then work on your form each time.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:46] People always ask like you do the same workout all the time. Doesn’t get boring. Now I’m focusing on my form. I’m focusing on being perfect on my form each time. So that’s, you know, that’s how it doesn’t get boring. I’m not just like, oh, whatever. It’s was that rep. Perfect. If it wasn’t, how do you fix it for the next the next rep you’re going to do so. It is perfect. Hand placement, elbow placement. You know everything’s got to move perfectly that you know that’s going to help you keep it. Stay away from injury. And then you know then you just resist that range of motion. You know, as you start to fail in your form drop down and weight a lot of a lot of guys, some women, but a lot of guys get too hung up on the amount of weight they’re using. That’s a really that ego pieces a really quick way to ruin your gains. It really, really is. Now you got to lift. You got to lift to a point where you’re challenging the muscle and it’s uncomfortable and it’s hard and you’re exhausted when you’re done.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:39] But, you know, stay in that 10 to 15 rep range or do a little bit more and just go slower. If you realize, oh, I’m having a stronger today, go slower instead of doing four seconds, do 5 or 6 C, you know, push yourself in the how slow can I go doing this exercise idea. And that’s kind of how, how I’ve been doing it, having having people do it for a while and it’s been giving great gains for a lot of the people. And we’ve had very, very, very few injuries. In fact, people are starting to talk to me and they’re like, hey, that shoulder thing I had doesn’t hurt anymore. Hey, that low back thing is getting a lot better. Yeah. You’ve had this issue for years cause you’ve been lifting wrong or even lifting wrong for your body. So slow down. Really, really concentrate form and don’t let a number stop you. If you’re supposed to get to ten, you get to nine. Great. Drop your weight, do some more. You’re supposed to get to ten. You get to 13. Great. Slow down. That’s that’s kind of the rate that we do it. So if you guys have any other questions it’s up. Questions at Chalmers Walmart.com. And I guess I’ll see you guys about 230 today.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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