“Optimal” Bodybuilders Are RUINING Fitness 🤡🤓 

I’m so optimal that I watched this video sitting down with a belt, knee sleeves, wrist straps, and 3 spotters

This is why Leon Edwards has the most aesthetic physique in the universe

Absolutely agree with you. I changed my training completely from stupid bodybuilder traning to athletic/functional bodybuilding by prioritising workout that engage my core, ditched all the stupid machines and focused on my overall strength particularly the core strength. As I play soccer I noticed increase in my speed, stability, ability to change directions, shot speed since all those come from core strength

Rate my Top 10 favorite Exercises (no particular order) 1. Barbell Squat 2. Deadlift 3. Overhead Press 4. Split Squat 5. Lateral Raises 6. Pull Ups 7. Tricep Extension 8. Barbell Curl 9. Farmer Carries 10. Bench Press

Starts: 00:00 Ends: 24:03

I gotta say, after watching this guy for months, I originally didn’t like his style and opinion on bodybuilding, but after a while, I finally see a huge problem in the community. It’s time to make fitness better... 🔥

Thats why Daniel Cormier has the most aesthetic O-taper.

Really has changed my training style, has improved my sports a lot, has found myself stronger, and has better muscle endurance. I've never felt better and I even picked up a new sport which I was ready good at already because I was training athletically which made me more athletic. Thank you Rios brothers.

Hope it goes viral Edit: about full ROM, I personally do every exercise with the fullest ROM. So yes, full ROM is important in terms of elasticity of the muscles, which I also train by stretching the trained muscles immediatly after every training session.

Martin your absolutely right and I can definitely relate from following most bodybuilders logic. Now I’ve changed up my training to be athletic and with more cardio and plyometric training along with weights.

I actually disagree on limiting factors. If you spam lot of freeweight heavy exercises, your lower back will become overtrained much quicker than the other bodyparts bcz almost every compound is lowerback/core + a respective muscle group. Not going balls deep on every freeweight/barbell exercise is probably a good idea bcz if your lower back is fatigued af, you cant even use those compound movements to build muscle effectively bcz your lower back is gonna fatigue before the targte muscle group. I personally do all the freeweight stuff (bench, OHP, barbell row, deadlift) except from barbell squat which I swap for hacksquat. When I barbell squatted my lower back always felt tired af bcz I essentially had lower back day every day due to spamming too much compouinds at high weight.

Glad to see the Rios brothers influence on the fitness community is finally subsiding.

This is why Martin Rios is the most humble person in the entire solar system

Bro calls them nerds for saying some tips are better for hypertrophy based on studies and right after compares studies to support that free weights are better than machines

Top 10 exercises (no order #1 Pull ups #2 Bench press #3 Planche #4 Front lever #5 Dips #6 Barbel Squat #7 Military press #8 Deadlift #9 Standing Bicep curl(explode then hold at the top 3 to 6 reps per set) #10 Deadhang (I do variations of each exercise like rdls or wide grip pull ups)

Good info, but you are not looking into grey áreas. Compound exercises should be everyone's basis for strength and muscle growth. However, when you want to get you strenght to new levels, isolation exercises are important to strengthen weak links. When you are focusing on maximizing strength and hypertrophy on a weak link, stability is key and finding ways to isolate as much as possible is a good strategy. Regarding the lengthen position of the squat, the study only refers to quad growth. The lengthen position also helps maximize glute and abductor strength and hypertrophy.

Trusting the information provided by those optimal bodybuilders said about full ROM without actually searching for those not so legit articles raised some questions now, thanks for actually stating the facts

Hey martin, id like to point out that stretch media hypertrophy is not necessarily overstretching the muslce, but rather making sure to stretch the muscle at the bottom position; by this i mean to slow down the eccentric and get a good stretch at the bottom rather than going down more than neccesary, while some bodybuilders are advocates for overstretching the muscle most people like me are talking about controlling the eccentric and getting a good stretch. No hate, i respect your training philosophy and you make a lot of good points just wanted to clarify.

yo Martin great video btw i would ask if you could do a vid or a short on improving ankle mobility. Because i cant squat to 90 degrees without my heels elevated on a plate and im trying to improve it. i dont know if it is ankle mobility thats the issue or if it is something else and if it is i would like to know what it is and how to improve it. i am quite new to the gym and i have squatted a lot but without the plate, my feet and form just breaks down mid squat. this is an issue for me, and probably for others too. Great video and thanks for the helpfuul content (:

Yeah hateing on straps makes no sense

Nice vid

I have to say after watching your vids and Mario's vids, I've started to do more exercises standing up/demands the core more. For example, I was doing seated bicep curls now switched to standing ones, same for overhead presses and other exercises. I never really used belts for lifting from the beginning even for deadlifts and squats. Some buddies of mine are Stoopid(I still love my homies) don't do deadlifts cuz "it will injure their lower backs". I'm still trying to convince them lmao🤣.

Actually dumbbells and free weights rock beacuse you build a great body without many expensive nor fancy equipments/machines😎 I changed to free weights and my athleticism and strength skyrocketed.Moreover I'm less injury prone 😊 thanks Martin

Hey Martin! Can you make a detailed video to cure Knee Valgus aka Knock Knees? Will be hella grateful if you made one!

Martin i stopped training for sometime but i did sprinting alot 6-8 seconds, i noticed that my explosiveness and anaerobic endurance skyrocketed

Look at his buzzwords "ultimate athletic bodybuilding program" 😂😂 what a joke.

I love these videos 😊

Martin is a legend. Definitely recommend their program :)

I’ve never seen abs in my life while being skinny fat, i’ve been now training with core engaged for my whole training, and now, at my fattest in a bulk i’m seeing abs, crazy.

btw is it ok to use lifting wraps cos my wrist isn't firm and benching heavy loads gets difficult without lifting wraps

Hey, I've been a fan for a while of both you and mario and was wondering that what do you think about cables? I rarely ever seen them being talked about but I think they're amazing

i live in a small town with only one gym. it only has two lat pulldowns and a cable machine, but lots of bars, dumbbells and weights. i used to feel bad about this cause my friends who dont live in my town have gyms with lots of machines. you and your brother really changed how i see fitness and my training goals. im grateful for being forced to do lots of free weight movements. next month im moving to a city. gonna keep training with free weights even if my new gym has lots of machines. thanks

As a teenage lifter who never used wrist straps,belt,knee sleeves,elhow sleeves and everytime i got an injury,instead of just ignoring it and using all this stuff i use my brain and take some rest off or lower the weight by half(i also never used smith machine)

Good job, Rios twins, perfectly executed it had to be said

this is why mario rios and his brother luigi rios are the best fitness influencers

Do a vid on elbow and tricep tendinitis. I think a lot of people who workout suffer from one or the two(including me) and it would help others to prevent this injury as it is annoying to deal with. Thanks in advance

4:45 most humble rios alive😂

Using Stretch mediated hypertrophy gives you a more athletically functional exercise for strength but its hard to see if full range of motion builds more muscle mass for bodybuilders. Throughout this whole video you compare bodybuilding to athletic development witch both have different goals, although I agree that the way you teach is best for athletes its not necessary better for bodybuilders who don't care about functionality

Mario, with what compound lift i could replace leg extensions. Already doing squats

18:24 This reminds me of an old video by Pete Rubish where he said he found that low bar squats (just below parallel) grew his quads more than ATG high bar squats. He reckoned this happened simply because low bar allowed him to use far heavier weight.

Raw squat< Seated smith machine squat with knee sleeves, squat shoes, lifting belt, knee sleeves(to limits the limiting factor),elbows sleeves wrist straps and dont forget lifting strap, because grip strengh is a limiting factors.

How do bodybuilders complain and speak negatively about free weight exercises, then when you look at their "motivation" compilations, it's filled with Ronnie Coleman? The best bodybuilder of all time built his physique with heavy bent over rows, squats, deadlift, and barbell bench press. I've even seen videos of Jay Cutler training with very heavy overhead presses and RDL's.

Hey Martin I’m a big fan but I have a left club foot and can’t get full ankle mobility. Whenever I squat I tend to fall forward and can’t do much weight. Should I still squat or would it be okay for my to use something more stable such as the hack squat?

Fax I always start my workouts with Squats , deadlifts and bench without belts followed by a body weight workout like dips, pullups or pistol squats

Yo Martin, I like you and your brothers content. I am now training my self in an athletic format. But can I ask you something. Could you please make a video that focusses on Basketballplayers. I play basketball myself and want to go d1 someday. Which movements shoud I prioritize? How can I jump higher? Etc. Anyway, thanks for making fitness great again.

does anyone have the studies he providied via link?

Hey i have a question so I’m a baseball player and I mean I care about aesthetics but like my main goal is to be good at baseball. In the professional sport guys are hitting 450 foot bombs left and right. Swinging a bat is not one of the basic movements of the body so does this “athletic bodybuilding” still apply to baseball, granted that most of these guys are benching like 315?

Can you send me this study links I also want to study.

I use squat shoes but I stretch everyday and I will eventually stop using them when I can and the only equipment I use is a belt for 1-3 reps on squats or deadlifts. U think that’s fine?

Fucking love you man. Saved me from the body building matrix

I disagree with the idea of always standing up to engage your core. I would rather do seated shoulder press and burn them out entirely and do a separate core exercise. Is this really such a bad idea? - it’s not as though I play hardcore sports outside of the gym anyway

Making fitness great again baby

Dude you need to clean your apartment, a clean background is optimal for an atheltic aesthetic video

bro had imbalanced grip width with the incline 😂 i had the same problems with it thank god im not alone. btw i do barbell OHP and barbell OHP is freaking GODLY i had struggles in the concentric part of the movement it felt unstable specially to my left delt like it doesnt had fluidity to begin with. may i ask what I did wrong ? thank you.

5:29 love it when Martin was being this serious

They are trying to look good for a bodybuilding stage not everyone wants to be as athletic as u bru💀

Im glad this guy exist, You really help me learn from this videos

Why you need super strong core for your daily activities? If you aren't a proffesional athlete than is no real reason to do all of your exercises standing and in a less stabile way, just to make it more "athletic". If you do squats, some version of deadlifts and barbell bent rows, there is probably enaugh core activation for a normall person who's not an athlete to live the best quality life and for the "daily activites". At that point you don't have any addional benefits to do cable rows standing or some similar nonsense. Just sit down and do it proper way with maximal stability. Most of the newbies in a gym have a goal to look easteticly more pleasing and simply have more muscle not to have the strongest core possible. So you may not doing fitness "great again" if you ask a majority of regular gym goers. And there is no such thing as funkcional and not funkcional exercises. If you have stronger quads because of doing hack squats I think this will help you in a real life, so that exercise is pretty funkcional isn"t it?

8:14 damn bro your forarms are 🔥 and the veins too 🔥🔥

goated vid

Can you do a guide on an HITT program please?

Very underrated video

1. Bench press 2. Incline press 3. Overhead press 4. Dips 5. Farmer Carrie’s 6. Chin-ups 7. Barbell rows 8. Squats 9. Trap bar deadlift 10. Lateral raises

This entire video is just strawmans (Outside of the standing vs sitting argument)

The irony of this critique shows how great your lack of self awareness is. You and Mario push your own kind of ‘optimal’ training except you call it ‘athletic bodybuilding’, which is fundamentally the same thing as ‘optimal’ training. The whole premise of ‘athletic bodybuilding’ is that if you do anything except for standing free weight exercises then you aren’t ‘optimal’, or as you would say not ‘functional’, not ‘athletic’, or ‘lazy’.

I think another thing about 'optimal' is that optimal can be very different from person to person.

I literally only trained squat/bench/deadlift and occasionally threw in shoulder exercises, but not those stupid machine/isolation/sitting variations. And if I would've done shit 'optimally' I bet there would be no difference in my physique, but there would be in my kickboxing.

W vid bro

you should make an anime physique tier list.

What position did Mario play in soccer

I'm studying for being a trainer, free weights train stabiliser muscle and make your core stronger and also, this muscles need to be stronger because you can have a chance of injury and pain in other areas. I seen people having injury doing overhead press en benchs. I agree with everything you say, also everyone is jumping to social media to give advice when they don't have any studies or true knowledge. It's a shame.

Fantastic

i agree, but you dont gotta diss em so hard

I remember in primary school PE we didnt do no basketball and not a lot of fun stuff

this is why you should wear a belt during ab exercises to prevent the core from being a limiting factor /j

That’s why you simply train the abs, obliques, and lower back with machines instead of hoping they get indirectly trained enough from compound movements. Training a muscle directly will ALWAYS make it bigger and stronger than letting a compound simply involve it especially when it comes to the “core”. Not saying machines are better, they’re just more efficient at hitting muscles you want to strengthen and grow. All forms of resistance training give equal results if they are taken close to or to failure when it comes to muscle and strength.

i want to se you going to failure for 4 sets of squats

it is true that most bodybuilders are optimal and afraid of a barbell but when is the think they enjoy doing and do that as their career I dont blame them, BUT is still better than doing nothing all day. Martin whats your opinion on strongman like Eddie Hall? Sorry for a bad english is my second lenguage

Bro fr went gawkgawk on the mic 7:09

“Limiting factor” yeah like their brain 🤣

It's almost as if they are training specifically for hypertrophy.

I don't know why brickhead bodybuilders so vehemently oppose core engagement. You're only as strong as your core since you draw your strength from your core.

Can you do a video about a workout for footballers/soccer player

Bro, you're attacking guys who are training for hypertrophy, for trying to optimise their training for hypertrophy. That's like Cbum coming out and making a video criticising you for trying to optimise you're training for athleticism. Except for the fact that Cbum is actually respected in his field. Also, there's a couple of issues with the study you cite against full ROM (And how you use it) A) Half/Quarter squats in this instance would be the final range of motion, so shown to be less effective than deep partial squats. This article also supports stretch-mediated hypertrophy, so you can't really say somethings inconclusive considering the whole evidence base, but then cherry pick a study from within that evidence base to make a point. As far as machines and whether or not they are better for hypertrophy, the studies that suggest they are equal train the subjects at the same distance from failure. The reason "Optimal Bodybuilders" tend to advocate for machines is that you can get closer to failure safer/easier. And lastly, as always your misrepresenting your "targets" and what they value in their training. You can't really go out their and call KneesOverToesGuy and Garage Strength "Optimal Bodybuilders" The first one has a similar philosophy to you in terms of valuing exercise as a way to improve longevity snd function, and the second one is an S&C coach eith multiple Olympic and professional athletes in his programs. He advocates squat shoes cause some people don't necessarily have the ankle mobility to squat safely without out them. Squatting (especially heavy or deep squatting) is only ever a general preparation exercise. You're better off adjusting the movement to see the benefits than trying to exactly replicate the desired end product movement in the name of specificity.

A takewondo black belt calling people nerds🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I’ve seen athletes use machines before. Jordan Burroughs, an Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, uses a machine to work his back since that’s an important muscle group for wrestling. I’ve seen some Sprinters use smith machines and lying leg curl machines. Even your boy Leon Edwards did dumbbell rows lying on a bench in a men’s health video. Sure a lot of athletes mainly do movements standing up and prefer free weights over machines, but it’s not like they stay away from them as a whole

Keep preaching Martin

That is why my grandma fell down the stairs and is currently in the ER

I am waiting for dr mike response How can I mention someone in youtube comments xD

Great 25 minute reason why I need to give you 100 bucks

@milo wolf needs to see this vid 😂

As a half qualified physiotherapist, you shoulder fix your misaligned shoulder before posting chin ups clips.

Lifting straps on leg machines are diffrent level of optimal

Man’s calling him lyoto machida 😂😂😂

About time anyone says anyyhing about Aesthetic god Mike Israetel

you sound like mario with a deep voice dlc update.

Can you make a guide for getting girls?

You complain about "limiting factors" as nonsense but you literally wear versa gripps/wrist straps... which help remove the limiting factor of a weaker grip compared to the large back muscles.

I mean, unlike some people i do value functional training quite a bit, but still this argument "free weights are better than machines because core engagement" is well not so valid because well there are ab crunch machines that do a far better job at targeting the abs, and even rotator machines that target the obliques. So really it heavily depends on the invidivdual and the machines wich is better, but one unique advantage that applies to many people of free weights is that they tend to target more muscles at once wich makes them more effective if you're triyng to save time by hitting more muscles at once. And why are you roasting people giving tips to make exercies better for hypertrophy? They're litterarely helping people achive their goals, so what's your problem bro? And if you're wondering yes i am using some free weight exercies for functional purposes but i also use machines because yeah in a lot of times at least for me they are better for hypertrophy, especially the cables.

Martin barely looks like he works out