#414 ‒ Resistance training as we age: optimizing exercise selection and training intensity for muscle growth, function, and injury risk management | Jeff Cavaliere, M.S.P.T., C.S.C.S.

“take. And the hierarchy of barbell straight in front of you to dumbbells is the idea that with dumbbells, look, I'm going to allow you to take a little less pressure off the AC joint by bringing them, like the more midline you're going, you're approximating the landmine.”

“I'll use barbells infrequently, maybe 20% of the time. And again, sometimes because I want to retest my abilities to see how close I've come to being able to use them paint-free again. And I can, I can use them pain-free now.”

“So now I'm back into sort of that scapular plane and I'm able to press from there. So that's one modification I'll make if I use the barbell. I will almost always opt for dumbbells. One of my favorite things to do with dumbbells is to simply do one at a time. So you mentioned the asymmetrical.”

“If I'm on a chin-up bar, I simply let myself go and my feet hit the floor. If I have a barbell and it's going down, it's going to accelerate faster. I put it on the bench or wherever I have to put it back in the rack. It's not like the stress that we have when we are doing a bench press of some sort where the weight's coming down on top of us or a squat when the weight's coming down on top of us.”

“the arm across the chest. So when it comes to the pressing movements, you have options of obviously barbells, dumbbells, machines. They're all going to do pretty much the same thing in terms of the movement itself, but how it feels can be drastically different.”

“you're approximating the landmine. So for you personally, with your shoulder history, are you using a barbell or are you using dumbbells? I'll use barbells infrequently, maybe 20% of the time. And again, sometimes because I want to retest my abilities to see how close I've come to being able to use them paint-free again.”

“I will almost always opt for dumbbells. One of my favorite things to do with dumbbells is to simply do one at a time. So you mentioned the asymmetrical. I love being able to do one dumbbell at a time. I can handle more weight that way. So that's back to that idea of increasing the stimulus, increasing the intensity.”

“Okay, but you would prefer a bar to dumbbells. Dumbbells are okay. I don't mind dumbbells at all. I use dumbbells a lot myself, but people sometimes can feel it to be a little awkward because they can't ever time the dumbbells right in terms of extension.”

“the arm across the chest. So when it comes to the pressing movements, you have options of obviously barbells, dumbbells, machines. They're all going to do pretty much the same thing in terms of the movement itself, but how it feels can be drastically different.”

“rest of your chest. But I think dumbbells give people with any issues the most opportunity to train pain-free. And if you still have pain when you train with dumbbells, slow it down. The slowing of the dumbbell, especially during the eccentric portion of it, is going to give your joint the opportunity to feel safe and overcome any instability that might be causing some of your pain.”

“We're always trying to get when we use cables this perpendicularity between the cable and that moving structure. So, if I have my arm here, it's my forearm that's really the moving structure that I'm focused on. How long can I maintain this relationship of the cable in my forearm in this perpendicular alignment?”

“over the flat, and then let's get you over doing flies or cables or something as well. That's probably a common mistake people make: maybe spending a disproportionate or too much time pressing and not enough time using the adduction.”

“incline. And then, let's talk a little bit about different ways that one can do adduction. You obviously referred to cables. Of course, all of us grew up watching Arnie do flies. It looks like there's a lot of risk on the shoulder with just a heavy fly on a bench. I've thrown that one in my Iron Graveyard too.”

“If I take a dumbbell fly and I pull it to the top, once I get to the top, I don't have much resisted adduction anymore. If I have my cables and I pull them, I could go to midline and still go past midline and still get more of that effect. Do you remember the old Nautilus machine? You'll never see these things anymore, but I feel like they were some of the best machines ever engineered.”

“How do you feel after doing whatever it is that you're doing? So try something different. For me, I actually tried to utilize bands before training. I could take my bands out and work on warming up my rotator cuff or doing some of the movement patterns I'm going to be doing that day, but just doing with bands.”

“They can absorb more of what you can handle. I like the fact that bands can be used to warm up. And it's something that I started doing just individually. I'm not saying that everyone should run out and try bands, but it is a good recommendation. And when you do that, you warm up your joints, the muscles actually get more prepared to do what they're going to do.”

“And then I actually can get into using the weights, which provide a different source of tension. The weights are going to be differently felt than the bands will. I'm more prepared to handle that. The joints are more prepared. And as I said before, that muscle up, all it takes is one bad repetition to make this shoulder go from 100 back to zero again.”

“And those are all amazing movements. I like to just resist them all with bands. I've actually done a video where I show you how to do all those movements with just bands. And again, it's something that can match your ability level based on just how much resistance or how far away you step from the anchoring point.”

“love a classic tricep pushdown. I don't care if you do ropes, if you do a straight bar, whatever seems to be most comfortable. What are the pros and cons of each? I think it depends on people's health of their wrists. Some people might find the rope gives the wrist a little bit of a break, whereas if you have the bar, you have two hands on a fixed bar.”

“by that. The position of the shoulders, the position of the elbows gets affected. Because if I can't grab onto a straight bar, because I lack the ability to get a fully flattened wrist, then what happens is your elbows will flare, your shoulders will internally rotate. So, now all of a sudden, you're doing your pushdowns from what I call this jackhammer position, which is like this, because”

“I can't get there. So I have to do this. When I do that, now all of a sudden I'm pushing down. If I have a straight bar a lot with my chest, I basically turn this into a straight bar dip. And so, I'm taking a lot of focus away from the triceps. So, is there a difference between, let's just say you're doing it with a single arm to make life easy.”

“A regular gym rope won't cut it. If you attach two ropes, you could possibly do that. Before we move on to bicep, maybe we can talk about this after or before, but benefits and cons to supersetting tricep with bicep, with deltoid.”

“The first thing is you really should attach two gym ropes to the device to be able to do this properly. When you do one, like the regular gym rope that we see in all the gyms, it's not long enough to get the elbows open enough to a 90 degree angle. What's going to happen is your elbows are going to be bent in this position.”

“But you can manage that by simply taking an incline bench and performing it on an inclined bench because now your arms don't have to be back like they would in a vertical position here all the way to here. I could be in an inclined bench and get that level of extension at the elbow, but not have to have this arm as high on my body as I have to.”

“You could use an EZ grip bar easy or a regular straight bar, but that could be harder on people's wrists. Okay, but you would prefer a bar to dumbbells. Dumbbells are okay. I don't mind dumbbells at all. I use dumbbells a lot myself, but people sometimes can feel it to be a little awkward because they can't ever time the dumbbells right in terms of extension.”

“You'll never see these things anymore, but I feel like they were some of the best machines ever engineered. But this machine that was just a fly machine, it had round bolsters that I'm sure other companies make it besides Nautilus, but it allowed you to do a fly with your arms at 90 degrees.”

“about to do because I just did something similar to that and that motion. And then I actually can get into using the weights, which provide a different source of tension. The weights are going to be differently felt than the bands will. I'm more prepared to handle that. The joints are more prepared. And as I said before, that muscle up, all it takes is one bad repetition to make”

“I'm selling it. I've got all these other things I'm just getting rid of because it just replaces them. Frankly, if I didn't already have a lat pull-down machine, I'd get rid of that thing too, because you can do pulldowns on this thing. You can do belt squats with this thing. I mean, all you need is a really good rack and this device because it clicks into.”

“my heels? Yeah. You don't hear me talk much about ... If my exercise favorites were the leg extension, you might hear me speak a little bit more like that, but anteriorly, I know I can shift the focus by positioning the body differently in space, but I don't have a lot of go-to specific, hey quads, I'm really focused on the quads here, because I don't do a lot of leg extensions.”

“absorbed somewhere else up the kinetic chain, my knees, my hips, my back. I would have done something back then to become a lot more diligent with finding the right orthotic, with actually staying true to wearing the damn thing, not taking it out because it was uncomfortable in one shoe or wasn't really going to wear my favorite shoes because of it.”

“Any type of eccentric overload is great. And again, when it comes to biceps, where is the risk? If I'm on a chin-up bar, I simply let myself go and my feet hit the floor. If I have a barbell and it's going down, it's going to accelerate faster. I put it on the bench or wherever I have to put it back in the rack.”

“that they're not going to bottom out or can get to a box. So I think there's things we could do to manipulate that deadlift. One of the things we do oftentimes is elevate the bar either through a trap bar so the handles are elevated or just to be able to give them a little bit more security and knowing that when I do fail here, it will feel like I'm in a safe, secure position.”

“Okay. And by the way, I have no affiliation with the company, but I have become completely enamoured with and obsessed with Voltra. Have you been using this thing? No. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's kind of electromagnetic. I really, really like it.”