73: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 3

Welcome to the InForm Fitness Podcast series REWIND, a listen back to the classic interviews we’ve had with the high intensity gurus & master trainers… names like Martin Gibala, Doug Brignole, Simon Shawcross, Jay Vincent, Ryan Hall & Doug McGuff.

Adam kicks off the series with biomechanics expert, author, weight lifter, and personal trainer Bill DeSimone. Bill penned the book Congruent Exercise: How To Make Weight Training Easier On Your Joints. Bill is well known for his approach to weight lifting which focuses on correct biomechanics to build strength without undue collateral damage to connective tissue and the rest of the body. In part 3 of 4, Adam gets Bill’s opinion on the machines vs. free weights debate. Then Adam asks the question, just what is functional training today?

Bill DeSimone Website

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Bill DeSimone - Congruent Exercise

https://www.facebook.com/CongruentExercise

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73: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 3 Transcript

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  0:55  
Hello, everyone, Adam here, welcome back to the inform fitness podcast rewind. It's our listen back to classic interviews with high intensity gurus, master trainers, authors and scientists. This is part three of four with author and weightlifter and personal trainer, Bill De Simone. In this episode, I thought I would get Bill's opinion on the old debate on whether machines or free weights are better. But before we got into that, I asked Bill, what exactly is functional training today? A lot of people feel and argue that machines are great, if you want to just do really high intensity, get really deep and go to failure. But if you want to really learn how to use your body and space, then then free weights and bodyweight movements need to be incorporated. And both are important, going to failure within the same machines in a safe manner that may be cammed properly. But that in of itself is not enough that a lot of people feel for full fitness or conditioning, if you will, you need to use free weights or bodyweight movements. So if you have an opinion about whether one is better than the other, they both serve different purposes. And they're both important. Or if you just use either one of them correctly. You're good.

Bill DeSimone  2:19  
Well, I mean, let's talk about the the idea that free weights are more functional than machines. I personally think it's what you do with your body that makes it functional or not. And by functional. That's it.

Adam  2:32  
Let's talk about that. Alright, so what? Alright, so let's, before we even go into the question I just asked, maybe we can talk about this idea of what because even people were throwing around the expression functional training nowadays. So CrossFit is apparently functional training. So what exactly was functional training? Well, see, I don't know what it has, what has it become?

Bill DeSimone  2:54  
I don't know, I don't know what they're talking about. Because frankly, if I gotta move a tire from point A to point B, I'm rolling it, I'm not flipping it.

Adam  3:03  
That'd be more functional wouldn't it.

Bill DeSimone  3:07  
If I have a child or a bag of groceries, I have to lift I'm not going to lift the kettlebell or a dumbbell awkwardly to prepare for that awkward lift. In other words, I would rather train train my muscles safely. And then if I have to do something awkward, hopefully I'm strong enough to get through it to extend it. My thought was like when I started in 1982, or so, 84 83, somewhere in the early 80s, I started to struggle. Most of us at the time were very influenced by the muscle magazines. It was either muscle magazines, or the Nautilus one set to failure type training. But the people we were training in the early 80s, especially in Manhattan, they weren't bodybuilders and they weren't. They weren't necessarily athletes. So to train, business people, and celebrities and actors, etc. Like you would train athletes seemed like a bad idea. Plus, you know, how many times that I hear, Oh, I don't want to get big. Or you know, I'm not going out for the Olympics. Okay, fine. If someone has a hunched over shoulder or whatever, now you're tailoring the training to what the person is in front of you right to what's relevant to their life. You know, if 20 inch arms didn't fascinate them while you're training them to get 20 inch arms, right? Maybe, maybe a trimmer waist was more their priority. So to my functional training and personal training, back in the 80s was synonymous somewhere through since the 80s functional training turned into this anti machine approach. And, you know, functional training for sport was a book written by a guy named Mike Boyle. His his main point in there is, and I'm paraphrasing, so if I get it wrong, don't blame. Don't blame him. But his point was as an athlete, you don't necessarily need to bench heavier squat, heavier deadlift, heavy, although might be helpful, but you do need the muscles that hold your joints together to be in better shape. So all of his exercises were designed around rotator cuff around the muscles around the spine and muscles around the hips, muscles around the ankles. So in his eye, it was functional for sport, he was training people doing exercises, so that it would hold their posture together. So that that wouldn't cause a problem on the field. You know, that material was pretty good went a little overboard, I think in some ways, but generally is pretty good. But then it got kind of bastardized as it got caught into the commercial fitness industry. And it just became an excuse for sequencing like a lunge with a curl with a row with a push up to another lunge to a squat. It just became sort of a random collection of movements justified as being functional, functional, for what, right at least Boyle said it was functional for sport. His point was to cut injuries down in sport, where's the function and stringing together? Again, a curl to a press to a push up to a squat back to the curl like one rep of each. Those ar...