what's up guys jeff cavaliere
athleanx.com today we're going to cover
11 exercises that allow you to tap into
one of the most overlooked and
underutilized
muscle functions to get better results
it's called the stretch reflex so today
we're going to go through that well why
are you back here again stretch reflex
I'm uh I'm stretching it's not that kind
of stretching it's not no oh this is
gonna make my intro really awkward
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feel good now eleven exercises guys
hand-picked because they provide you
with the best opportunity to tap into
that stretch reflex which creates a
greater potential for muscle recruitment
and an overall better gains so with that
being said we're gonna cover every
single muscle group in the body here one
by one let's start breaking them down so
now the stretch reflex is actually
something we all have it's just that
we're not really tapping into it if you
don't know how to it seems to protect
the mechanism that our muscles have that
allows us to get a better strength of
contraction when a muscle is momentarily
stretched to its limits and we can do it
by actually doing it purposely right
building it into the exercises that we
do so one of the best ways to do this if
we're talking about our triceps is to do
something like the lying tricep
extension now there's a reason why this
works better than anything else because
it takes the tricep muscle to a full
stretch see if you just did this this is
the tricep pushdown you can see that
while I'm getting a stretch because the
elbow is flexing as much as I can I'm
actually not getting a full stretch on
the tricep because the long head
requires that my arm be up and over my
head like this it's not happening here
so the right one is this the lying
tricep extension because here I not only
get the elbow to be bent as much as I
can but I get the elbow up and over my
head that recruits that long head on
stretch so here's what we're going to do
you're gonna take this exercise and do
it one of two ways
either you do it just like this which
means you get down to the bottom here go
into a full stretch and then turn that
around as quick as possible get into the
stretch and add a stretch to elicit that
stretch reflex if you want to do this at
a more advanced level that you would do
this you take your rep all the way down
you come up one quarter hold for a brief
second and then allow sort of a drop
into that stretch reflex and come out of
it becomes a little bit more ballistic
at that point again more for the
advanced people who have actually had
experience with this stretch reflex but
the fact is you can do it either way if
you want to get the triceps to have a
stronger strengthen contraction and
greater overall gains then this is what
you do now when it comes to the five
steps the exercise of choice here is the
incline bicep curl why because it gives
you that opportunity to put the biceps
in a stretch position anything
standing is going to start with your
arms out in front of your body or at
best of the side of your body but if we
can get our arms back naturally behind
our body then we've already started to
tap into that stretch but how we do the
exercise matters see because if you do
your incline curls like this you're
actually never even allowing the bicep
to get into a stretched position at all
and a lot of people will do this they
cut short the bottom range of motion so
to do this the right way what you do is
you make sure that your arms are sinking
all the way back at the bottom and again
you'll want to make sure that you get
out of this position to apply that
stretch of the biceps we can do
something extra here which is another
way to utilize the stretch reflex and
that is to contract the antagonistic
muscle in this case the triceps we know
that if we contract the triceps we have
to momentarily relax the biceps to allow
for a greater stretch that momentary
contraction of the triceps gives you
that relaxation of the biceps that
triggers the stretch reflex which allows
for that greater strength of contraction
out of the bottom and the advanced
version would do the same thing you come
down to the bottom up a quarter hold it
for a brief second drop down into that
position get that tricep contraction and
bounce right back out of it again either
way it doesn't matter which one you do
or where you're starting from they're
both going to work to get those biases
contracting harder so now when it comes
to the back I actually got three
exercise options here for you because
you want to stretch the back out you got
to make sure that your arms up out in
front of your body and there's no easier
place to start than right here on a lat
pulldown but you're not going to do this
you're not gonna do the overhand lat
pulldown now there's nothing wrong with
this I've done this exercise a million
times and loved it but we're trying to
tap into the stretch reflex then you got
to switch your hands to this position
why it's not just about the hands it's
what happens to your arms when you do
that your arms come out in front of your
body and we know that since the lats
attach to the upper arm going from a
position of here to here creates a
bigger stretch on the last without even
doing any of the reps yet in the
exercise so when we do this now we come
down we could do them the same way we
either could do them the standard way of
going into that stretch position at the
top and trying to quickly reverse the
direction back down again remember get
that momentary stretch take advantage of
that built-in function of our body and
get back down into a stronger
contraction on that lat pulldown if
however we want to go and do this with a
little bit more advanced way we can just
make sure that we get
up there again remember pull down just a
little bit hold for a second let it fall
up to the top and pull down again now we
can do this two other exercises one of
the ways I like to do it is with the
seated row and maybe you might have
noticed when Jessi did the exercise the
handles weren't at the level of his
midsection or his chest
they're actually much lower why because
if we allow ourselves to get our hands
down low out in front of us because
we're leaning forward is actually
creating a relative elevation of our arm
more stretch on the lats as you see here
now with me being in this position I can
get that stretch and I can take
advantage of the stretch reflex by being
a little bit aggressive as I get towards
the end of that repetition remember
allow the stretch to take me through
that full stretch and come back into a
stronger more powerful contraction the
second version of this would once again
be get the hands up hold for a brief
second allow it to drop and then come
back into a more powerful contraction
the last exercise is one that actually
credit to my friend and colleague John
Meadows in its The Meadows row but
instead of doing it this way if you want
to take advantage of a greater stretch
reflex than we have to do is just apply
this slight roll out to it so this
exercise you can see is a great way in a
closed chain environment to train your
back but as I get the bar down to the
ground I simply roll it out to again
allow myself to get a greater stretch
and quickly roll it back and right up
into the rep more powerful contraction
more muscle fiber recruitment better
muscle gains in the long run so now when
it comes to the chest maybe you're
thinking I II know Jeff's not going to
go to the chest fly well sort of I mean
I'm not going to do an unsupported
dumbbell bench fly because I know the
vulnerability of the shoulder in that
position and we won't want to play
around with the stretch reflex of that
exercise in fact we don't even do the
exercise however you could do the
standing version here which is the 3d
cable crossover we have the
opportunities just the traditional way
here where we get that stretch and then
explosively come out of it or we could
take it up that Cordova way drop it back
down a little bit more ballistically
again under control always come up back
up to the top with another strong
contraction but we don't have to stop
there we can apply this to a bench press
also in the form of a dumbbell bench
press we have a couple of things we want
to make sure that we do to make this
even more effective the first thing is
utilize what I've covered before
as the chest master tip whenever you're
training your chest you want to make
sure that you take your traps you
depress them because when you depress
your traps not only is it setting your
shoulder blades back and down but it's
taking your shoulders from a position of
dominance from here and it's getting
them out of the way so that the chest
can do more of the work but I've also
given myself a greater stretch on the
chest touching the outside of your pecs
with those dumbbells and driving and
I've every repetition more forcefully of
course you've got the opportunity to do
that extra quarter rep if you so choose
to get that more ballistic extra push to
make that repetition even that much more
explosive so you might be wondering well
Jeff what about a dip a dip is a great
exercise for the chest that actually
does place a good stretch on the pecs
especially those lower PEC fibers
however I wouldn't use it as a choice
here because you're already in a
vulnerable position at the bottom of a
dip so going into a bottom a dip more
aggressively it's just taking already
vulnerable shoulder anterior capsule and
placing more stress on it so a good
exercise that does place a stretch on
the chest but not for this particular
use so when it comes to the shoulders if
you want to create more width in size
the middle Della's where you should
probably focus your efforts however the
side lateral raise you can see here has
its limitations at least as far as the
stretch reflex recruitment goes because
you never really get there you see if
you want to stretch your middle delt out
you're gonna have to bring your arm
across your body and the only way to do
this it's utilize either cables or to
change the way you do the exercise and
the positioning of your body when you do
it and we can do this here with this
incline side lateral raise you can see
as I lay myself on the bench in this way
I don't get stopped by my own leg in the
lateral raise I can go across my body
further out in front and get that
stretch that we're looking for and again
we can do this pin that one on a quarter
way take it up just a little bit and
then drop it and more forcefully coming
out of the bottom here the choice is up
to you it depends on your level of
experience but this is the way to do it
if you're looking to take advantage of
this and apply it to your shoulder
training so now when it comes to the
legs we can apply the stretch reflex
here as well think about it a squat
because it's a great opportunity to do
this however you might be thinking oh
we're hitting our quads right no the
stretch reflex when applied to a squat
is actually placing it on the glutes
because if you think about what happens
at the bottom of squat you realize
there's there's not enough stretch on
the quads to actually take advantage of
the reflex you see if you get to the
bottom of the squat you were to simply
lay yourself on your side you'll see
that this is not placing the quads on
any type of significant stretch even
though your knee is bent it's not bent
enough and of course to get a greater
stretching your quads
knowing that the rectus crosses the hip
as well you'd have to get your leg
behind your body so this isn't gonna cut
it there but we do know that because
we're in deep hip flexion at the bottom
of a squat
we're going to have a great stretch on
the glutes we're gonna get a stronger
thrust out of the bottom of the squat
the hardest place to perform the lift
now that being said that doesn't devalue
the pause squat as a matter of fact the
pause squat is done for a different
reason remember there's other aspects to
your training this is not the only thing
you should be pursuing the stretch
reflex because at the bottom of pause
squat you're learning to take the
stretch reflex
out of the equation so you can get more
strength and just overall ability to
overcome the inertia of being at the
bottom of the lift so that way you go
back and add the stretch reflex to it
now you get the benefits of both of them
and finally here we can hit the
hamstrings with an exercise like the
single leg RDL or we can hit the glutes
you see how you do this exercise will
actually change whether or not you're
going to shift the focus from the
hamstrings to the glutes a lot of people
will do this exercise like this and this
might be good if you're trying to create
a stretch on the hamstrings you see
because as you lean forward you're not
getting any real loading of the hip
because you're not allowing yourself to
go into hip flexion at all you're just
simply bending for it the waist which
creates that stretch on the hamstrings
this is the best way to perform the
exercise if you're looking to get that
stretch reflex on the hamstrings but if
we wanted to ship the focus to the glue
so if you sit back you see you create
the hip flexion by hinging at the hips
and when you do hinge that will load the
glutes up preferentially recruiting them
over the hamstrings because the focus
isn't so much on keeping a straight knee
as it is I'm maximizing your hinge again
whichever one you choose here guys the
way you do it's going to be the same and
the idea is recruiting more muscle
fibers to the task at hand by taking
advantage of a reflex you're probably
overlooking right now so they have a
guy's 11 exercises prime to help you to
get better gains
start to implement them
use them yourself to start to see better
games in the meantime if you're looking
for a program that builds in all these
exercises at the right time to get you
the right results they're all in our
athlean-x programs over at athleanx.com
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better intro from Jessie alright see you
soon
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