I pretty much ignore any advice Jeff has to give about diet and supplements. He’s not a nutritionist and I’m not a fan of supplements as a rule. Also, he’s selling a program and I’m not the least bit interested in that either.
That said, a few things:
the bicep focused chin-ups are not for beginners but I don’t think Jeff is suggesting that it should be. He is generally very good at differentiating between beginner and advanced techniques.
for me, they have definitely been effective.
with respect to overhand vs underhand tri pull-downs, I don’t view Jeff’s advice as being egregiously wrong because while underhand is a weaker grip, it has the benefit of reducing internal shoulder rotation.
for me, limiting existing shoulder impingement injury is more important than maximizing tri load.
Is ATHLEAN-X the ultimate authority on exercise? No, and nobody is saying that. That said, are you suggesting that because he may be wrong about some tri technique, therefore he’s a quack?
Great. Plenty of reasons to avoid him. However, you don’t because apparently you can pick the wheat from the chaff. I don’t recommend him because I have recommendations to others where wheat picking isn’t necessary as their advice is mostly wheat.
Unless I missed it- he didn’t make any differentiation. He simply declared that exercise the fastest way to build bis. Other times, other exercises were fastest. The “fastest way to build blank” videos are not my cup of tea and neither are other types of videos he posts, and IMHO, should be avoided by those looking to learn about muscle/strength building.
Great. Most exercises are.
I disagree. With an underhand grip strength/awkwardness is going to be a limiting factor as to how much one can put into the exercise. Not so with other grips that aren’t going to force one to internally rotate shoulders as claimed, nor would it make that much of a difference if they were.
Shoulder impingement with pushdowns? How?
Oh for crying out loud. I said I didn’t recommend him. I was asked why and gave some reasons with limited time.
From the beginning and end of my post:
I probably won’t have time to respond anymore today, and I probably won’t want to. I made my case and people can take what’s IMHO or ignore it.
Spotting is much less necessary with dumbbells - if you get stuck it’s much easier to drop them than roll the bar down your front and sit up, which is what I heard recommended if you are stuck under a bench press you can’t complete.
Of course dropping the 'bells is hard on the floor, but at least they don’t roll up and strangle you or compress your chest.
I don’t go to failure as a rule - I am too old, and I want strength as much as size, and you don’t go to failure when training for strength. Same reason I don’t do forced reps - never practice missing a lift.
I miss the days where I could go heavy two or three times a week and still be fresh on Mondays, but those days are long past.
And WADR, most of the arguments about “what’s the best way to build biceps FAST!” miss the point. Supinated grip chin-ups are a perfectly good exercise. Are they better than curls? No. Are curls better than supinated grip chin-ups? No.
The better exercise is the one you like doing, that you can do consistently enough to progress. Beginners (and old people like me) should be doing mostly compound movements, so chins are “better” than curls. Unless you like curls. In which case, knock yourself out. I don’t do triceps kickbacks and I don’t do triceps pushdowns. I do close grip bench, and dips. Why? I like them, and I can go heavier on them (kickbacks are limited by the strength of my rear delts). Is that wrong? No - if I only did palms-up pushdowns I would have been bored to tears ten years ago. And I need to combat age-related muscle loss (to the extent possible) in the large muscle groups more than I need an extra quarter-inch on my arms.
You cannot change the resistance with gadgets like this. If you buy it, and find you are not strong enough to bend the thing, you are doing isometrics at one angle, and those are not ideal for building strength over a range of motion. If you are strong enough, pretty soon you go over the 8-12 range of reps that are optimal for building muscle. Plate-loading barbells and dumbbells can increase in resistance with no upper limit, and a lower limit of the weight of the empty bar.
Training has to progress over time or you don’t improve. You have to do more than you are used to doing, so your body adapts to doing more, then you do more, the body adapts again, and so on until you reach your genetically preset limits.
It is usually (for the intermediate lifter - someone who has been training for more than 6-12 months) to switch exercises every training cycle or so - that is, every 6-8 weeks. If you are doing bench press, do dumbbell bench press, or incline press, or dips, or whatever. Most of your adaptation takes place early in the cycle, so you get more bang for your buck spending most of your training time taking advantage of that.
If you like the bendy bar thing, and you have access to one, knock yourself out. If you can choose between that, or free weights or even machines, you are generally better off with weights.