ADVICE YOU NEVER HEARD OF BEFORE | Interview with Yaad Mohammad | Athlete Insider Podcast #70

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gravity works like this your elbows are being pulled down they want to actually overextend  and break but what your bicep does is like nah i do this that's why gymnasts have huge biceps dudeyo gorillas welcome to the athlete insider podcast by GORNATION my name is phil and today's guest  is the statics beast from the netherlands the medical student yad mohammad i'm really looking  forward to this interview about calisthenics programming so yeah welcome to the show  thank you for having me super awesome to be here huge fan of granation and uh  super stoked to do this interview thank you thank you that's uh awesome words already  that makes me happy so today the focus should be really about your questions on uh that you post on  on instagram we received a lot of questions about calisthenics programming you're somebody  with an a lot of a lot of knowledge and a lot of uh like interesting insights into the sport  and yeah i'm looking forward to and super thankful that you share this with us todayof course anytime i'm very curious to the questions awesome so yeah before we start  with the content maybe you want to share a little bit about your background who are you  where do you have all the the knowledge about calisthenics and what do you dookay so let me make that long story short i've been doing calisthenics for almost 11 years  the reason why i studied medicine was because of calisthenics i was super obsessed like most of  you listeners probably are and i eventually wanted to learn even more so i decided to become a doctor  and in a few months that quest is finally done so in october i'll finally be a full-fledged  medical doctor and in this six years of studying i've primarily looked at calisthenics from a  scientific point so i looked at the biomechanics you know at the anatomy of the muscles but i've  also looked at the sports science which is a big field so something that we're going to talk about  today programming periodization recovery fatigue and that's something i've thrown myself into  and uh now that i'm finishing this uh medicine uh study hopefully i can eventually specialize  in sports medicine with a super specialization in calisthenics and gymnastics and strength sports in  general so that's something i i hope that i can help the world with because i feel like there's  a lot of questions that can be answered easily but there's no one that actually addresses them in a  organized manner so i hope i can help people with that because i've made a lot of mistakes in these  11 years trust me and um i've developed myself to uh i'm proud of myself as a calisthenics athlete  for what i've achieved in this training career wow super cool and this is why i'm really looking  forward to this um so you already said like 11 years of calisthenics which is a super long time  um can you share us a little bit um how was your journey how did it go like uh maybe already show  some small mistakes that you did along the way why uh why you could could be like uh in a like  in an even more progress version of yourself if you would have like known what you know today  yeah so uh something um the reason why i started calisthenics was because of the  planche and i feel like a lot of people are super obsessed with the planche and i was the same  and i when i started off it took me six years before i got the full planche and that was  because i was just not i didn't know what the hell was doing and i wasn't super gifted when it came  to the planche on the other side i had the front lever which is something i didn't even care about  and it took me like a year to get it so you can clearly see there is a  this balance in the thing i was interested in and i think i was actually good at  so in this career the first few years i was super obsessed with the full planche didn't get it i got  to the fellow pledge fairly quick so two years and the full from lever i got like after a year and  then uh eventually i got injured multiple times my wrists my elbows got overworked shoulder injuries  and so quick quick reason why that was is because i didn't know what i was doing i didn't know how  recovery worked and as i reached the six years i finally got my full planche and i immediately  lost it because i started spamming it because you see on youtube all these planche athletes doing it  constantly but that's not realistic so that's one of the things i eventually learned and then i got  it back again and then i got like a bunch of other injuries and all of that can be related to uh  knowing the capacity of your body you know your body has a finite amount of recovery and you need  to know that recovery rate and once you know that there's a lot to gain so right now the  things i'm proud of the milestones i've reached uh i can do a fairly good victorian on the ring  so i'm super proud of that i've done a 50 second full front lever so i'm also super proud of that  uh when it comes to planche i only got 10 seconds i say only but if you compare it to the full front  lever which is really up there the full planche is not that impressive as if you're related to  i'm not saying full pledge isn't impressive but if you're related to the full front lever it's not  that great and then when i pull ups i got like 10 one on pull-ups which is something i didn't  primarily focus on so if i wanted to increase that i can also give tips in this podcast on how to  actually improve something like that and i think those are the things that that really stand out  uh when you look at me if you look at me as a gastance athlete i'm more of a static one and uh  i'm a pool athlete who is obsessed with push but gifted the pool so that's a basic uh journey of my  basic summer of my journey as a gastonix athlete nice so like jumping into this thing because uh  people usually in this podcast listen uh who listen to this podcast are uh they hear like  one athlete says yeah like i'm a pool athlete like the other says no i'm more push athlete  what does it mean to be a pull or push athlete what what's the thing what's the meaning behind itso the meaning is um this is quite difficult question if you look at the best  planters and you mean you look at the best full front lever people and there's a friend of us of  you me frank's is actually doing a study on this we notice that some people are just inherently  better at doing pull movements people who are quicker at achieving the full  front lever people who are quicker at doing one on pull-ups these people just seem to  be more natural at that and on the other hand you have people who are pushers  who have a very hard time doing pull movements but then on the other side they're great at pushing  they're doing handsome push-ups as if if it's nothing full planches come in very easy and of  course there's something in between the mix type these are people who are like right in the middle  they can be either great in both or bad at both um and the reason for that is probably because of  uh genetic variation which could be muscle insertions it can be the size the length of  your of your limbs it can also be how the joints connect for example if we look at  something that's very well studied power lifters we can see that asian power lifters have a very  different type of hip joint compared to people from africa uh it's it's just it's night and  day it's as if it's not the same hip uh the same can be true for of course calisthenics  athletes and that's what we mean someone who is more genetically gifted towards the pool  and there's people who almost more who are more generically gifted towards push and then there's  the in-between so that's kind of what i mean when i say you're more of a pusher you're more  of a pulling yeah and you already like teasered it a little bit we're part of a project with our uh  like friends uh friends eric from frink's movement to like bring some clarity and some data into this  topic so i'm also really looking forward to the results of this um yeah so um maybe you can share  a little bit how was your journey as a as a pool person who fell in love with the push movements  um how did you handle this um how did you like uh how did it influence you in your in your workouts  so uh i was doing calisthenics primarily just for fun i was just obsessed with the full planche  and then i think it was around the fifth or sixth year that i woke up in the morning and  i did a full front lever max hold because i was just curious i was like hey how long can i hold  this for at the time the world record was held by alexa steele who had like a 53 second i think  and i woke up in this morning totally not warmed up all my rings in my bedroom back then i think i  was in 1920 or something i did a full from lever and i had 43 seconds a movement that i had not  pursued a movement that i didn't even maintenance that hard it was just something i would do every  now and then at that moment i realized i was gifted at that moment i realized maybe i should  take calisthenics even more serious i was training really hard but at this point i made a switch in  my mind i was like yo i'm actually really good at this i'm very gifted i should be doing something  with this and besides i'm obsessed with it anyway so that was the turning point for me i think  around the 56th year when i said this is serious now this is this is my life this makes me happy  and i'm actually good at it and i think i know enough to help people with and i think i'm able  to teach people this and improve the field so that's kind of the journey what what it meant  for me to be a puller so even though i didn't fall in love with pool which i i love it now but back  then i didn't realize that moment when i did that full front lever in the morning changed the way  i thought about calisthenics and what it meant for me as an athlete but also as a doctor true  super interesting and um how like what what mistakes do you see nowadays like when you  and during these 11 days uh 11 days 11 years that you're doing calisthenics what mistakes do you see  people doing in their like playing of the workouts planning of their weeks planning schedules uh yeahso something that i uh often see is that people are overestimate how much they can recover  the thing is for example people who practice statics for example have a lot of straight arm  movements and a lot of people don't realize that for example when you're doing a planche maltese  iron cross there's a lot of passive tissue in your elbows that needs time to recover  i'm talking about ligaments but also about tendons and something that i think a lot of people don't  consciously think about is that there's a limited capacity  muscle tissue recovers fairly fast because there's a lot of blood that goes towards those tissues but  uh ligaments or just connective tissue so also tendons there's a lot less of that going on  meaning it takes a lot more time for those tissues to adapt and you need adaptation  so that it becomes stronger adaptation basically means that the tissue adapts to the stress that  you're putting on it so what a lot of athletes do is they suddenly start doing more of something so  one week they're doing only one planche and then suddenly they start doing it four or five times a  week and what that does is you're adding so much stress your connective tissue is like okay cool  i'm going to adapt to this but then you're doing it again and in the next week and then again in  the next week and it needs six weeks a minimal and that's based on studies it's like six twelve  weeks and if you're not giving it that time you're only damaging it so you're damaging it  it doesn't get the recovery you're damaging it even more it doesn't get to recover any  damage even more it doesn't get to recover at a certain point it just breaks it doesn't like tear  sometimes it tears we see some biceps tendon tears and stuff and then you're basically destroying  that that tendon and i'm not saying people uh you know be afraid i'm just saying be aware  that when you're increasing volume so now we're talking concretely about volume  when we increase volume be aware of what you're actually taxing in your body if you're  doing straight arm movements don't just go out don't do a lot of adding volume out of nowhere  also when it comes to punch push-ups for example you're in a very lean position and then for the  audio people what i'm doing right now i'm in a planche lean sort of and then i'm pushing out  that's a lot of tension on your elbow flexors and those elbow flexors you're repeatedly like  putting tension tension tension which is fine if you're not doing too much of it out of nowhere  so for the people who do want to like still practice full planche  push-ups or straddle punch push-ups or talk plenty push-ups or events like quick shots whatever  but they don't want to like over uh over do their elbow flexors they can do like near lockouts  so some people are going to hate me for this but i'm just saying don't lock out you know just do a  few reps like that and for you know once a week maybe do lockout so you also practice that and  then after a while after six weeks do it twice a week and not of course there's a cap at the  bot at the top but the point that i'm trying to make is be aware that connective tissue takes  a longer time to actually recover and be mindful of that don't just add volume to it like you have  this new movement don't just spam it don't do that it's it's the recipe for getting injured  and one more thing which is more general for every sport once you've rested or you haven't done a  movement for a while don't immediately go back to the old level so let's say i took a deal out week  it doesn't mean i can do everything i did the week before i need to build up again  respect that respect the volume you've done you can't just go in like that and if you got injured  and you're now like oh i feel good don't go full take your time build up again because  again all those tissues need time to adapt to the level that you've built up build it up to  so that those are the two main things i see calisthenics athletes totally well not totally  but they they're not consciously thinking about this and i think if they do a lot more injuries  are like prevented by doing that wow that's uh like super valuable um and i it's definitely  true i didn't know about like it's a super interesting thing about the not looking out um  and i think that's like one difficulty i also see as an athlete is there are so many  things that so many information pieces that are flying around and you need to assemble them and  somehow put them into into one workout because you everybody's limited with their time even  though even if you can take um three or four hours of your day and put it into workout and recovery  and everything it's still difficult to assemble all the stuff that you hear about deload weeks and  um rest and like um yeah a lot of volume a lot of like um intensity etc so how would you approach  this whole topic of calisthenics programming and putting it all into one schedule that fits  your goals that fits your lifestyle how would you approach it with the knowledge that you have today  so there there's a a bunch of ways to actually approach calisthenics training and  depending on your goals there's a bunch of things you can do  there's no one-size-fits-all program but something that generally works is you have to be aware so  first off you need to write down your goals you need to be like what movements do i want  and you can't have every movement like all together at once you need to prioritize so  look at the major movements now let's say you're static guy and i'm also a static guy  and then let's look at our body we're like okay the elbows they have a certain capacity my  shoulders have a certain capacity my wrists have a certain capacity you know let's look at all thatyou look at the prime movers and a lot of people have the full planche in mind that's the end goal  a lot of people have to fall from lever in as the end goal and they probably have like  handsome push-ups or one-on-pull-ups in there too or or iron cross etc make a decision choose like  one push one pull that you're going to focus on don't do them all at once just take your time you  know we're not rushing towards anywhere then once you've identified those muscles uh those uh those  uh movements look at the muscles they're actually using so for example planche we know there's a  huge delt component there's a huge chest component but also a lot of people don't know huge huge huge  bicycle component of course also triceps but the biceps are completely neglected you're like why my  arms are locked so shouldn't that be triceps well your elbows so for the people who are listening  what i'm showing is that i'm blocking my elbows and so gravity works like this your elbows are  being pulled down so your elbows have the they want to actually overextend and break but what  your bicep does is like nah i do this and they do it isometrically so that's why gymnasts have huge  biceps dude that's why because we we lock out our arms they lock out their arms and they're  able to not break their arms because of those huge biceps so identify those muscles then train them  you can train them first if you're if you're skinny dude you don't have a lot of muscle  you need to make sure you have muscle before you work on the planche so you can just what  do you do you can work on push-ups you can work on dips maybe if you are also a gym guy you  can do some bench press also if you want to you don't have to but as long as those muscles grow  and then you look at the elbows etc you grow all of them okay now we've got that component down  next step and you can do this simultaneously now you need to learn how to planche so what do you do  you have a skill work so what we talked about now is basic strength now we talk about skill  work scale work is actually doing the movement you want for want to do it's the most specific  movement to the end goal in this case for full planche that would be like a planche lean or maybe  a planche with resistance bands so you practice that like one time a week in the beginning  and you do like a lean you hold it for 10 seconds and you do that like two three times  then the next like in four weeks you add another set in that entire week so now you have a second  day where you're doing planche but you're not adding set you're adding day of blanching and  then after another four weeks you're adding a third and i would stop at three four times three  is like four is really pushing it so i would have three and now you have like a pretty nice program  for planche and you need to do the same for for front lever and now you just already have a  pretty general program it's a very basic program but it works and it works because it's a safe  safe way of doing it and obviously in every strength port there's one principle in the middle  called progressive overload progressive means just progressing and overload means adding more load  so you need to make a movement always harder the the next time you do it so you can do that either  by adding more reps or you can do it by adding more weight or by making the exercise harder  so for example let's say i'm doing 8 to 12 reps for something i do like dips let's say  i'm doing 50 kilo dips i get eight nine i get eight reps uh the first time and then  at the second set i also get eight reps the next week i try to get like nine at least nine nine  maybe i get ten ten maybe i get eleven even if i hit the twelve twelve i add some more  weight so that's one way of approaching it there's hundreds of ways of approaching it  this is a very basic way of approaching it if you choose the side of going fully calisthenics  and you're not adding weight but you're making the exercise more difficult  so this is just a step side step be aware by making a movement difficult so let's say you're  doing from tuck planche you're going to advance talk be aware now you're adding more to this  so you need to do that slowly so don't replace all your truck planches with event stock  replace one set first after four four weeks or six weeks replace another set with event stock that's  the safe way it's super conservative i am aware of that but it's the safe way of progressively  overloading when you're making the exercises more difficult now it's very hard to answer this  question in a very organized way because there's a lot that comes into it but i hope i can give like  an idea of how you should be thinking of training it's really not difficult you have muscles they  need to be bigger and once they're bigger you need to learn the movement that you're doing  the hard part is knowing how much time in between and how you're going to do progressive overload  and you can read all about progressive overload it's not a calisthenic-specific  thing it's a strength specific thing and a lot of books cover this and a lot of youtube videos  cover this type in progressive overload learn about it and you're probably gonna  learn a lot just know that's in the center no progressive overload there's no improvement  so i i know i'm talking a little bit from all sides but i hope to give like an idea of what you  should should be thinking about when you're doing when you're setting up a program  definitely i really like the idea of like having a certain capacity per joint uh and per uh like uh  two two and this capacity you have to distribute on on your goals yeah and if you uh like select  too many goals you have like you don't have enough capacity per per skill and per goal that you can  uh uh yeah exactly ask the joint and i want to say one more thing when you're selecting your goals  there are some movements you shouldn't select in my opinion back lever should never be a goal why  back lever puts almost as much pressure on your elbows as a maltese so by doing back leaving  your training you're already draining your elbows and you don't have any time to do anything else  so you're already done and and back lever and you probably noticed too is something you get for free  when you work on planche so just do your plans training and after a while you get a back lever  for free without practicing it but if you practice specifically for it back lever doesn't really  translate well to other movements and it drains your elbows so fast human flag is another one of  those movements if it's your angle fine you can do it but if it's something if your goals are higher  than that you'll get it for free don't worry about it don't waste your time on a movement like that  you'll get it for free i i trust like believe me you will get it for free so movements like back  lever and human flag i'm not a huge fan of because they don't serve a big purpose in the end goal  if that's not your end goal you know you know what i mean that's that's that's why i always say  look at the capacity back lever just destroys your elbows there's no need to do it it doesn't destroy  i don't want to be negative about it but i'm just saying it takes up so much capacity of your elbow  do you really want to spend like so much money on that elbow by doing the back layer i wouldn't  personally want to do that yeah but it's it's the same as in in life in general you have to decide  for a few things like we as a company we have the motto for for ourselves we can do anything we want  but we can't do everything we want and it's like um perfect um because you only have this limited  time per day and you only have like a limited time you can spend a week and stuff like that  and you just have to spend it wisely and it's the same for as you say for joint capacity and that's  super super interesting and maybe also eye-opening for a lot of people because there are so many like  and this is the beauty about our sport that you have like uh 20 different push movements that  you could learn uh 30 different pull movements and like there are so many things it's like a  video game where you don't know where to run in which direction but you have to decide exactlyyeah you have to decide yeah um how do i deal with and this is something i just realized when you  talked about progressive overload how do i deal with a bad day and maybe even a bad week like um  having like uh slept didn't sleep well or at work we i have to work a lot and i don't feel  good at after work how do i manage mentally and physically uh a day where i can't go up like  and i should go up with progressive overload do i still go up and just maybe you can that's a great  question so if it happens once in a week don't worry about it just try your best and if you don't  finish it it's okay like don't be mad at yourself if it happens the second time you should be asking  yourself a question am i over training am i like doing too much right now did i sleep enough did i  eat enough is there something wrong in my training because chances are if you if you have it twice in  a week and even a third is like a definite then that's like done that's there's something wrong  um you need to address that so it could be that you're over training now and now it's time to do a  deal out and that's okay note that down write down for yourself after how many weeks did i get tired  that's valuable information because next time you set up your program you can look at that  if it's like after six seven weeks that's pretty good you know you can be like oh  that's nice but if it happens after two weeks you're doing something wrong your progressive  overloads may be too fast or maybe you're not sleeping enough so note that down note the  reason down analyze it look at yourself be your own coach you know or discuss it with your coach  look at the reasons be like yeah you're right you know what i only slept five hours a week  of course i'm not gonna make any progress and that's another thing a lot of people  sorry for another side step a lot of people work so much on uh recovery in the sense of like saunas  massages etc uh doesn't matter if you're not sleeping enough you can do everything everything  you want does not even matter like it's it's only like five percent what you're trying to do so if  you're an elite elite athlete it matters but the sleep that's the most important because that's 50  or more i'm just throwing percentages i don't have data for this but it's so ridiculously important  sleep there's i always say this there are three pillars a lot in the training that's important  you need to have good programming if you don't have good programming then you it doesn't matter  and you need to have good nutrition so you need to be eating enough or deficit if that's what  you're planning for either way it needs to be good and three you need to be sleeping enough  slash resting enough if one of these pillars falls you're not gonna make progress treat every pillar  as as equal as the other so you can't just be like all focused on amazing programming if your sleep  is bad doesn't matter you can be focused on sleep only if you're not training doesn't matter you  can't be sleeping and training perfectly if you're not eating enough it doesn't matter all these  three things need to be checked before you can make your next step nothing else matters saunas  doesn't matter ice bath doesn't matter it doesn't matter that you're improving your programming as  long as all these three things aren't checked so i see a lot of athletes there they're like  in the weekends they start drinking alcohol and everything which is fine you don't like i'm not  saying don't do that but be aware that you need to be sleeping enough you need to be getting enough  food you need to be and you need to be training properly those three pillars one of them falls  your whole foundation is off oh and and that's the reason why i brought that up is because if you're  having multiple bad days then there's something wrong with those one of those three pillars  so that's what you should be doing once that happens analyze it look at it why interesting  how do i um manage to put like front lever and planche because these are the two most common  skills that people ask for how do i combine these two into a one workout program like into one week  um can you tell us more about like even if you like when you picked  uh your three exercise one push one pull i don't know what the third was  um but if you decide for these like how do i combine these into one weekso the beauty about planned gym von leaver is they're sort of like opposites um meaning you  can even superset them so you can practice them within the same day but if you want you can split  them you can have a full front lever day and you can have a full plunge day so that's the beauty  about it what you should be thinking of is first you need to know do i have again like i said do  i have enough muscles because if you don't you need to be working on the basic strength so you  need to have a pull day you need to have a push day or you can combine them because again they're  they're opposites so you can actually do them at the same time something i do now myself  which isn't scientifically the most efficient way of training but the reason why i do it is  because i was injured and i'm recovering so everything works then so i might as well do  something that's fun is i do three full body basic strength days on the on the tuesday i do a 2  8 to 12 rep range day where i do horizontal push so that can be bench press push-ups or planche  push-ups something that's as long as horse on the push i have a vertical push movement that can be  overpressed handsome push-ups or anything that's overhead i have a vertical pull that can be one on  pull-ups weighted pull-ups or just normal pull-ups and or lat pull-downs and i have a horizontal  pull which is like rows whether that's from lever row or cable row anything and i hit those four  and i do that on the tuesday for 8-12 reps on the wednesday i do or thursday depends on how days go  i do 20 to 25 reps and on a friday or saturday i do two to five reps and the reason why i do that  is one for fun it's just really fun of training it works and um and then in between these days i have  skill days where i practice from the full front lever i look at my form i try and max hold i do  victorians i try to fix my false grip maybe reduce false grip i look at my planche again film it make  sure my hips are straight if they're not straight like why is that happening try to improve it try  to do presses and that's what i'm doing in between these days so for me right now the main goal is  getting my muscles back but at the same time also reintroducing these movements what i'm going to do  afterwards is i'm going to kick off one of these strength days probably going to be the 8 to 12 day  and i'm going to add another one of those skill days that's how i do it again 100 ways of doing  it this is not the most efficient way that i'm doing it i used to do it more efficiently  but this is one of the ways and for most people who are listening to this you're not  a world champion or anything like there's only a few whole champions so don't worry we're talk  all these little details that we're talking about are slightly better than the other we're talking  about maybe two or three percent which for you as an athlete isn't huge but for the world champs  of course is huge for so for the majority of the people listening all these other details don't  really matter you can you can't screw this up so full front lever and full planche can be easily  combined in a program it's actually beautiful to do that but when you have multiple pushes that's  when you need to be thinking hey i have multiple pushes that i'm pushing for when i planche when  i do planche training i always have over a press because you need to make sure that you're balanced  in all that's why i said horizontal push holes on the pool house vertical push vertical pull  always make sure you cover all of them but the focus is on one of them like more one of them so  i hope i answered that question definitely are these days no worries are these days where you  do the skills are these also like fully structured because you said that you play a little with your  full script and stuff like that uh these days um like structure do we have like i have to do 10  sets of front lever 80 hold or like are these more for fun and you just listen to your body  so i used to do extremely structured and i recommend everyone to do that if you haven't  been training for five plus years um so i used to be like very rigorous i would be like okay  i need to do a planche progression that i can hold for at least six seconds but max 10 seconds  and i do two sets this week in two weeks i'm going to do it in four weeks i do a third set  and i only go max four sets in total that's how i used to do it um and i would note down  everything and i would write down i would look at the previous week and if i would see with  declining like hey why is it declining i would look at the pillars and et cetera et cetera  right now because i'm training for 11 years i know my body really well so i know what my capacity is  and you'll notice that people have been training for very long can't do this  but again beginners cannot do this even if you can already fool maltese you're one of those freaks  that has been able to do that within a few years you don't know your body as well it's because  you don't you didn't have the experience it's impossible to learn your body to know how your  body works like that so it's nothing to be ashamed of it's something you just learn when time comes  so for everyone listening probably is i would recommend note down and like i said bear in mind  there's progressive overload when something is locked be aware of how much adaptation  there can be and just try to progressively overload try to hold it longer and longer  once you've had hit the 10 seconds for example add a harder progression if you can't try to find  a mid progression build it up again and just etc etc etc that's one way of approaching it  when you start with your exercises like um of course you have the priorities  uh of the of your goals so for example for you like front levers more important than planche  um or other way around but with what exercise especially when you talked about super sets um  with what exercise do you start like um as an example i can do the one i pull up with  my right side but on the left side i'm stuck at like something around 75 and i can't get my  chin over the bar but for me my goal is to be balanced to not create any disbalances to fix  stuff like that so do i start with the left side um or do as do i like do the right side first  so i don't have any uh like data on this this is just me doing what i do and i'm also very ocd for  keeping things very uh symmetrical start with the weak side then match with the strong side  so that's that's a simple way of doing unilateral things when it comes to prioritization of like  which movements you're interested in start with the movement you're most interested in and then at  the end of the workout do the ones that you're you know a little bit less interested in there is a uh  there is though i don't do this i'm more interested in planche but i still start with pull  ups first why because i noticed that when i do pull ups first my shoulders are better warmed up  and my push movements do better so there are some re some exceptions to this rule but generally  you want to be moving starting with the thing you're actually most interested in but again  if if bulls feel better in the beginning just do pulls first you know it's it's it's and and  again these differences don't matter that much in the grand scheme of things uh at the end if  you're still doing progressive overload once you've completely rested so you've had a de-load  you will still be very strong when you're rested so like um what i mean with that sentence is  even though you are always weaker because you're doing these movements later on in your training  once you're rested you've still added the same amount of stimuli every week and every week  in this weaker state so eventually even though it's a little bit less efficient you will still  have very good results when you're completely peaked out ready for a competition okay  so for a uni so sequels doesn't matter okay okay that's that's good to know uh for unilateral  skills or moves like like the one on pull up or also like human flag  um when i have like one weaker side and i want to uh create the balance and i don't manage to do the  move and the skill 100 with the weaker side is it more intelligent and more smart  to do for example the left side with a resistance band and the right side like without or like how  do i fix these disbalances because i see a lot of athletes who also fee feel like um the  the results of like not being balanced in the straddle planche which is like um tending to to  go to one side and stuff like that so um how do i fix um fix these uh disbalances  so first of all be aware that the asymmetry is very normal and there's a chance that it will  forever be there actually it will always probably be forever there so you can't completely fix it  and i wouldn't over having that bearing that in mind i would just not make it too complicated  just try to do the weak side first and always match with the strong side so your strong side  is going to be under stimulated most of the time eventually that will be brought a little  bit more in the middle but there's a huge chance and it's very likely that the strong  side will always be the strong side and that's okay there's nothing wrong with that there's  a reason why we have a strong side that's just how our bodies work we are not symmetrical being  symmetrical beings we we like to be but we're not and that's okay for movements like flange  which is a very which is like a bilateral movement just look film yourself try to make corrections  and if it doesn't hurt and if it's like acceptable like within within like uh the margin of error  don't don't like overanalyze don't get uh over obsessed if it doesn't  cause any problems and only you notice it maybe it's not that important okay just enjoy your plan  you know be happy that you can pledge nice okay cool so in the beginning um switching topics now  you talked about uh you said that most people don't know how recovery works um so  my question now is how does recovery work what uh what's your uh what's your advice on thatso in a nutshell what happens this is very very uh simplified uh let's take the muscle tissue  for example you do a movement that's stimulus stimulus causes like microfiber uh micro um  micro tears in in the fibers and so what your body thinks is hey we need to repair that and  there's probably going to be more of that more of that coming sooner so you recover  so stimulus now you recover you rest your rest takes a few days your body adapts that's the  third step adaptation your body fixes those micro uh fibers and even makes them stronger than before  so now you have those tears they're they're improved they're even stronger and they're  ready for the next one what do you do you're like okay whatever i'm gonna add more weight  another tear your body is thinking okay [ __ ] another tear repeat the process you rest you adapt  when does it go wrong is when you start doing the stimulus again before the adaptation happens  so here's the here's the i'm not gonna because there are audio listens so you have to stimulus  again uh the tear is there and now you're doing the stimulus again you didn't recover yet so now  the tear is even deeper your body's like hey hey calm down come down and now you're doing it again  so the tear is even deeper and now a micro tear starts actually  having effect on how the muscles work now you're injuring your body muscles have a very short curve  stimulus recovery adaptation curve we call that in this in sports uh principle so this is actually aa term that's used in sports science when we describe how adaptation works when stimulus  recovers adaptation and that curve for connective tissue is much longer that's why i mentioned  the six weeks it's not exact but for for a connective tissue it takes six weeks and so  what prioritization like critization is a method of um having periods of different kind of training  what smart people do when they do periodization is they look at the curve and they try to plan around  it six weeks i'm not saying do a plan should i wait six weeks and do it again you're gonna do  stimulus again when the recovery happens there's that's just how life works and you're gonna keep  doing it so the curve goes down down down down at some point you need to be like now i'm gonna  do deload so the curve can come all the way back up now it's recovered and you can start over again  so that that's an important thing when you have the stimulus recovery adaptation thing  it's important that you don't do too much stimulus but also not too little stimulus so  you're always going down with the curve when you're doing training so you're always not  recovering slightly just enough and after six to 12 weeks or something it really depends on  the type trading you need to do deload once you've done the deload now you're fully recovered  and now you can start the process over again people who don't do the deload and will keep  pushing and pushing pushing keep going down down down down down they never get enough recovery  they get injured so that's kind of how recovery works so it's again just just to make this a very  disorganized story organized you have stimulus which is the training you have the recovery  which is the resting time you have adaptation which is improving whatever that was stimulated  and as you train it goes you get more damage than damage and after a while you need to take a week  like a week break and then you come back again and if you train biceps every freaking day  that's way too short within a week you will tear your biceps well not probably  not terrible you will have so much pain that you didn't recover enough and if you do  too much of it like within weeks like three three three three which out of nowhere again  you go down so fast you're doing probably too fast of everything so you need to be rethinking  look at the pillars etc etc so that's kind of how recovery works in a very nutshell  it's that curve and if you can you can look this up if people are interested look up stimulus  recovery adaptation curves sra curves just look that up it's it's a very well described principle  uh mike isatel has it also in his book who is uh who has a phd in in sports science and he also  describes this for power lifting but power lifting is also strength sport and so is calisthenics it's  not that different the only difference is exercise selection wow super cool um super interesting and  i really feel this is the bottleneck for a lot of athletes out there like um they want to um invest  time and like energy into the sport and into their professional like into their sports career  but like being disorganized and not having this this information it can easily like lead to  injuries and to um yeah to not an effective investment into your your sports career so super  super interesting really um something that goes along maybe with this topic and i was also like  um a frequent question when we did the instagram survey before before this interview was um muscle  inflammation so we also had like an elite athlete um asking uh you in in the in the instagram poll  um what how do i in uh like avoid and also cure afterwards like muscle inflammations um yeahmuscle inflammation has a very negative tone towards it  and it's actually very positive thing without inflammation we can't improve that record that  adaptation part is actually uh done by your immune immune system that that's actually the system that  makes sure there is adaptation there there's been multiple studies on people taking ibuprofen which  is a non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs these people who take that chronically and i think it  was above 200 milligrams you need to have at least that until you see this effect that i'm going to  describe is they don't have any muscle growth when they're training or at least it decreases by a lot  so people chronically take anti-inflammatory stuff have a lot less progression so when  i think of muscle inflammation it sounds very negative but it's actually essential to training  i'm i i don't know what uh what he means with muscle inflammation but i think what he means  is that he's just not recovering enough and that's the pain the delayed onset muscle soreness which  is a sign that you just haven't recovered enough but muscle inflammation is essential for  adaptation and a lot of people don't know that it's very essential so don't try to take a for  example ice baths is something that's also done frequently but we say to see the exact same thing  when you do ice baths there's less adaptation it's actually not a good idea to do to do ice  paths if you're trying to improve ice pats are great though for if you're doing competition after  competition after competition when you're doing a competition routine you're not doing that routine  so that you become stronger the next time you're doing the chill off you know that's the purpose so  then it's okay to do a nice bath so that you can do it again the next time so you don't get injured  but it's not a good idea to do it regularly after a workout because it's going to prevent you from  actually adapting the whole adaptation that you're working so hard for it's not happening anymore  so i hope that kind of answers what i think about when someone says muscle information definitely so  stuff you can do about it stuff that still brings uh like progress would be nutrition i think this  is something how you can uh like uh yeah so that so yeah so how can you improve recovery  because that's the actual question so how can proof recovery it's the three pillars nutrition  get enough nutrition in which means getting enough protein in getting enough calories in  if you're cutting be aware that also means your recovery is less good so when you're cutting  change your program you're you're now recovering less be aware if you're not then that's fine you  know but nutrition needs to be good you need to be sleeping enough sleep also make sure that  you're doing adapting faster because that's what's happening so you're recovering faster  and good programming so making sure it's paced out perfectly or not perfectly good enough so  that it's not like you're doing it five times a week bicep curls like that's how you can improve  muscle inflammation but again muscle inflammation is a good thing we need that you need to recover  your recovery so you can do it faster nice and that's the that's how you can do it awesome  well like i learned so much in this uh this interview like in this podcast uh thanks a  lot for sharing so so openly and so honestly so um yeah i still prepared some some quick questions um  for the end of the interview um it's not that quick questions quick answers like we usually do  but i thought like of some some questions that i think are super interesting because they are  questions who are like us really frequently maybe you say it's a it's a stupid question  um there are no stupid questions but there are like questions who uh who have to who could have  asked like differently anyways i will just ask them um hey what's the best exercise for plancheso that's a question i often geti mentioned earlier in this in this podcast that there's multiple factors when it comes  to planche there is the basic strength aspect which is purely made to increase the muscle mass  and then there's the aspect of actually learning the movement so there  so the inherently i can't say there's one exerciseand then there's the individual aspect so for some people bench press is excellent for for planche  some people it sucks it's the worst exercise for planche so to answer this question you need to  find out for yourself what the best thing is for the skill part i can give a good recommendation  though for the skill part you want to do something that's as close to the end goal as possible  so when you're doing full planche you should be thinking of a full planche lean but also you  need to add a movement that actually requires balancing so maybe like attack planche event  stock or shuttle planche something that requires balancing flange lean isn't the end-all be-all  it's a great exercise because it's the same lean angle or at least it's getting close and then you  need the other one to actually learn the balancing and then of course you need to work on the presses  because that really helps and you need to work on the pushes then the push-ups  so it's no exit one exercise it's multiple exercises so look at your basic strength which  is a very dumb movement can be bench press can be push-ups something like that or dips and then  look at the scale once which is like something like planche lean but also an open movement  a balancing one and some presses and some uh push-ups cool um  so no one next yeah true maybe we can still like um answer this for front lever um  same same things like um one strength exercise which can be uh what cannot beyeah you can do rows so you can do like cable rows or if you're casting exactly you can do body rows  and if that's too easy you do it with weight and if you don't want to do weight you can start doing  advanced stock rows or talk talk from level rows so that's a good way of doing the basic strength  and then for the specific one if you want to be specific you want to be doing like advanced tuck  front lever and there's also like a planche lean equal from lever you can put your legs  against the uh like a like a bar or something get into the position and slowly get your feet off  also it's like a plane just lean same principle uh and then you have like umof course the open movement just like so you have to planche lean sort of but that fall from  leveling and then you have like the tuck front lever advanced stock and then you have the full  front lever pull and then of course the full front lever pull like rome which can be done  again in tuck as van stuck which again can also be used as basic strength but it can also use  be used as like a skill specific one so sometimes there's overlap it's not  black and white okay but those are the exercises that i think of when  when teaching some from someone i don't know what i'm going to do it looks intelligent  here damn this looks looks so smart yeah like you could have you could have taken it like okaywhat's the most useful calcinex equipment that you know and that you use for  for your own progress and for your clients progressuhmaybe if i can rephrase the question uh if there's only one equipment i can bring with me  to ireland it will be rings because it's the minimal  thing you can do pull-ups you can do dips to it you can you can do every exercise you can imagine  it can all all be done on rings so rings okay cool um what's the best warm-up advice that you havefor warm-up uh it's very highly individualistic and also time specific when i say time specific  i mean are you injured now are you not injured are you feeling fine are they nothing for me  some days i do like a lot of shoulder rolls etc some days i literally just sit down  i breathe in and out and i visualize the movements and suddenly i'm warmed up  it's super weird like i can't describe it to people i just sit down and i look at the  movement i'm like yep ready and i can just start doing my stuff that's that's sometimes  how it works it's very highly individualistic you just need to make sure that this there's a  few things important about warm-up it shouldn't fatigue you too much  and it should just get you make you feel good so that you can do the movement that's the two things  it needs to be able to do if you're doing freaking 100 push-ups etc that's too fatiguing and if  you're doing something that doesn't even make you feel better at the end then do something else okay  so yeah that's that's the two things they need to suffice with the same question  for mobility like uh how important and what's your best advice about mobilityhow important is mobility is a good question uh you need to have enough mobility so that you can  do the movements you want to do you don't need a split for a planche you don't need a front split  foot planche you don't even need to be able to touch your toes for your planche so if your goal  is planche then there's no mobility required maybe wrist mobility but then again you can do  some p-bar planches and then you can reduce the wrist mobility so look at your movement look at  what you need if you're doing a lot of handstands you know just try to improve your overhead like  your shoulder uh flexion and if you're doing like for um movements such as yeah like i said planche  working your wrist etc so and if you do mana of course then that's a whole different question  you know then there's a lot of mobility you need to take in but is mobility required  there's no evidence to suggest that mobility actually reduces the chance of getting injured  i think as of now uh that last time i talked about this like was three years ago i think back then  there was no evidence maybe something changed but there's no real evidence showing that you  actually reduce the amount of injuries there is of course some syndromes or some cases where a muscle  should be more stretched so that the balance of that joint is better but mobility inherently  as a as like a very uh isolated thing doesn't necessarily improve recovery or reduce injuries  that much okay so only do it if you need it okay nice awesome um last question of the day  uh what's your general advice to the listeners so what's something that you want to give to  to um to the community what's something that you think everybody should know and be aware ofuh be aware that calisthenics is both complicated and easy and when we look at a lot of these  elite athletes be aware that you're not them okay so i can give you my front lever  program that i did back then and i guarantee you ninety percent of you guys won't get a full  front lever because of that and the problem with a lot of elite athletes that make programs is they  teach you how they learned it and the reason why they're elite is because they're genetic  freaks i am a genetic freak i admit this for full front lever i am a genetic freak does that mean  i can teach you food for later yeah because i i acknowledged it i i don't give you the same method  that i would give to myself um so be aware who you're talking to there's no one-size-fits-all and  what victor kaminov does and and i know that he actually teaches people not the way he does it  but he teaches like in a smart way but what he did for his own training doesn't mean it works for you  okay what i did for friend liver doesn't mean it works for you everyone is individualistic  just hold these principles that we talked about today uh maybe try to keep those central  and i get there's a lot more that we could talk about but it's it's not that serious  it's like it's it's not that complicated um all these improvements that we can talk about  for hours and hours like you already covered 90 of you did if you do what we talked about today  if you want that 10 because you're a world champion then okay then yeah then it is serious  but chances are you're not that level and that's okay so it's not that complicated for most people  that basically awesome thanks a lot for sharing really i really appreciate it i  really appreciate your your approach to the sport and like talking about studies and  really the scientific way um and also like looking for symmetries and stuff that you can learn  from powerlifting and from gymnastics and other sports so uh yeah big big thank you for your time  yad i really uh deeply appreciate it and i think people appreciate it a lot  also especially those who stayed with us for such a long time in in the interview  um so yeah before uh we end the episode um how can people get in touch with you how can they continue  learning from you do you offer any coaching is there anything you can offer to to the peoplei don't do any coaching now because i'm just way too busy you can follow me on my instagram which  is yada's week for now it'll hopefully change one day to dr yad but for now it's yada's week  but if you're listening after to this after october it's probably doctor yad nice and  um uh my plan is basically to work on my youtube channel so you can type in my name yad muhammad  and i i really want to give to the community so i'm working on just a bunch of free content  uh where i teach the planche in detail from lever in detail and everything but i i'm just  very busy but that is my goal so i'm trying to give as much back to the community as i can  by making those videos so it'll take a while but hopefully i can i can do that so that's that's  where you can find me awesome we will put all the links in the description no matter if you listen  on uh on podcast platform or on youtube you will find all the links from yard in the description  thanks again uh to yuyat for your time thanks to everybody listening to this till the end i deeply  appreciate everyone like uh investing so much time into getting better into learning and improving so  yeah big thank you if you want to support the episode give it a thumbs up it helps a lot and  apart from that yes you can end the episode and thanks again to you thank you man have a good day.