71: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 1

The InForm Fitness Podcast

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 1 of 4, Bill explains all about being “Joint Friendly”.

Bill DeSimone Website

Optimalexercisenj.com

Bill DeSimone - Congruent Exercise

https://www.facebook.com/CongruentExercise

Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution:

http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen

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71: REWIND / Bill DeSimone Part 1 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, and 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 0:56
Greetings everyone, Adam here. Welcome to our first Inform Fitness Podcast Rewind, it's a listen back to the classic interviews that we've had with high intensity gurus, scientists, and master trainers. Names like Martin Gibala, Doug Brignole, Simon Shawcross, Ryan Hall, Dr. Doug McGuff. And of course, Gary Taubes. This is part one of four with author, personal trainer and biomechanics expert, Bill De Simone. In 2012. Bill penned the book congruent exercise, how to make weight training easier on your joints. Bill is well known for his approach to weightlifting which focuses on correct biomechanics to build strength without undue collateral damage to the connective tissue and the rest of the body. So here's part one, where Bill will explain all about being joint friendly.

Let's explain first and foremost, you wrote something called moment arm exercise. Yeah, so the name itself shows you how technical it probably is inside. Right. So moment am is a very technical term, very specific term in physics, but then you now you're calling a joint friendly exercise. And you will recall that also congruent exercise at 1.0, all synonymous with each other. So please explain what is joint friendly, exercise or fitness

Bill DeSimone 2:14
Its based more on anatomy and biomechanics than sports performance. Unlike, you know, a lot of the fitness fads that the attitude and the verbiage comes out of say, you know, football practice or a competitive sport, what I'm doing is I'm filtering all my exercise instruction through the anatomy and biomechanics books, to try to avoid the vulnerable, putting the joints in vulnerable positions. And that's so complicated, which is why I struggled so much to make it clear. So I started with moment arm exercise. And then I wrote congruent exercise, which was a little broader. But obviously, the title still requires some explanation. Now, as it happened, in my personal training in the studio, I would use all this stuff, but I wouldn't explain it because I was only dealing with clients, I wasn't dealing with peers. Since it's a private studio, not a big gym, I don't have to explain the differences between what I'm doing and what somebody else is doing. But in effect, I do. I've been doing this every day for 15 years

Adam 3:13
You know, I have to say, when you say that, that you didn't explain to clients, I actually use this information as a selling point, I actually explain to my clients, why we're doing it this way, as opposed to the conventional way, because this is joint friendly. I don't get too technical, necessarily, but I let them know there is a difference of why we're doing it this way versus the conventional way. So they understand that we actually are cut above everybody else and how we apply exercise so they don't feel you know, they feel very secure in the fact that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing but

Bill DeSimone 3:47
but you know, what I do is Oh, is any any signage, I have business card, website, Facebook presence, all lays out joint friendly and defines it and kind of explains itself, I would say most of the clients I have aren't coming from being heavily engaged in another form of fitness. There are people who started and drop out of programs or, you know, they joined a health club in January in a drop out. It's not like I'm getting somebody who is like really intensely into CrossFit or intensely into

Zumba or bodybuilding. And now they're banged up, and now they need to do something different. The joint friendly phrasing is what connects me with people that need that. I just find they don't need to. They don't need a technical explanation as to why we're not over stretching the joint capsule in the shoulder.

Adam 4:37
Of course

Bill DeSimone 4:37
why we're not getting that extra range of motion on the benchpress because because again, there's nobody they haven't seen anybody doing otherwise. So I don't have to explain it this one.

Adam 4:48
Yeah, but they might have had experience doing it themselves. It just take an overhead press for example. Having your arms externally rotated and abducted versus having him in front of you. Yeah, there's an easy explanation right to a client

Why we won't do one versus the other.

Bill DeSimone 5:02
But I have to say, I do not get people who even know what behind the neck presses now in Manhattan was a little different, you know, I guess more dense.

Adam 5:09
So so for this conversation, let's assume some people know what an overhead press Okay, they they understand in a way what the conventional is, but we can kind of get into it what is conventional, what's not conventional? So as join friendly, so how was it join friendly? What are you actually doing to make it joint friendly?

Bill DeSimone 5:23
Well, the short answer is I use a lot less range of motion than we got accustomed to, when we used to use an extreme range of motion. You know, if bodybuilders in the 60s were doing pumping motions, and then you want to expand that range of motion, for good reason. And then that gets bastardized. And now we take more of a range of...