A transcript of my tutorials on using the 21s method on bench press, back exercises, and beyond
Table Of ContentsWhat Are 21s?Understanding Strength Curves21s and the Bench PressFull Body 21s for Fat Loss21s Training in Addition to Your ProgramFinding the Midpoint - Easy MethodFinding the Midpoint - Precise Method21s on Bench for Hypertrophy vs 21s for Strength and Power21s for Back21s Revisited21s and Back ExercisesFull-Body 21s and Other Programs21s and PulloversThe Updated Jim Stoppani App21s and Recommended Number of Sets21s and Crunches21s and Pulldowns21s and Squats21s for Entire Muscle Groups21s - For Bulking or Cutting?21s for Multiple Muscle Groups
Note: This tutorial video was recorded as a live Facebook event. The text below is an edited transcript of the tutorial intended to provide members with a convenient means of referring to and further researching the topics and content detailed in the video.
Transcript
I'll do a little tutorial on 21s to begin before I break down how to actually do them on the bench press. 21s are a famous, old-school technique. I love taking tried and true methods that bodybuilders and other strength athletes have applied for decades, used them well, and then really studied the science of why they work, then sort of expose or—if you will—tweeze out the real positives on what it is about that technique that works.
21s are one of those techniques that bodybuilders love to do—mainly because it's hard, right? That's the main reason. "Oh my god, the burn afterward" is the main reason. Nobody really knows why when you ask them, "What's the benefit?" Let's break down the biomechanics of using 21s.
What Are 21s?
They're a way to break the range of motion of an exercise up into two equal halves, if you will—or fairly equal; you're going to try to estimate most of the time. You don't have to get this down to an exact science. With the barbell curl, for example—and I'm sitting down, sorry for the lack of technical skill here but I'm just a scientist, just trying to educate you—focus on the information. Now, with the curl, with 21s, you're going to break it up into two halves of the range of motion. Starting with full arm extension, basically all the way up to full arm flexion. That's the full range of motion.
If we break up the curl into basically two ranges, going up to about 90 degrees or the halfway point—that's a little beyond mid-pathway, but with the legs in the way it's fairly even when you really think about breaking it up—right here about the 90-degree point. So with 21s you're going to do 21 reps. You're going to do them starting at the beginning of the range of motion, and do the first half of that range of motion. You're going to do 7 reps just like this. Once you've completed 7, you're going to continue with that same exact weight and do 7 again in just the upper half of that range of motion. Once you've completed all 7 with that range of motion, you're going to then finish—without putting the weight down—7 full range reps. So you can see why it's an absolute killer to do.
Understanding Strength Curves
No one really knows why that is. Why do 21s work so well? Of course, they're a way to change up how you do your reps—breaking them up into halves and then finishing off with full reps—so that's more intense. But there are biomechanical advantages here. When you talk about the biceps curl through the range of motion it goes through what's known as a strength curve. You go through the range of motion, it gets stronger here at about the 90-degree point. You're strongest from there on up on curls. So what you're doing when you do a normal curl is you're sort of limiting yourself by your strength here to get the weight going—that's why when you cheat, you kind of throw that start point. You use your legs to get it where you're really the strongest, then you can complete your curls. Much easier. That's why when you do seated curls—although it's a little awkward getting used to doing seated barbell curls—you're actually going to be stronger because you're using the top half range of motion.
Now think about that—we're doing curls, we're breaking up the range of motion, so what are we doing? We're training in that range of motion where we're the weakest—just in that range of motion—at the very beginning of the set, when we're the strongest. We're able to focus and build up more strength on the starting range of motion on that exercise—I'm just demonstrating here on the curl. Then we go into the top half, where you're stronger—the stronger range, now that you've set in some fatigue. And then you finally finish with full range of motion.
If you picked the right weight you should fail on that 21st rep. Most people only focus on those sort of what we call angular exercises—those single-joint exercises like curls—because it isolates that muscle. When we're talking about strength curves of certain muscles you can focus here on the strength curve of the biceps. When we get over to the bench press, we're talking about the use of pecs, delts, and triceps. So how do you talk about a strength curve with all three muscles, when you're really trying to focus on the chest? Well, you don't! And we'll talk about that in a minute.
But let's talk about some more biomechanics with the curl. Now everyone thinks "Well it's an isolation exercise so it's really just using one muscle, whereas the bench press you're using three muscles" No! No, you're using the brachioradialis; you're using the brachialis that's deeper, underlying muscle from the biceps, particularly on initiating the movement. The biceps brachii—those two muscles, the long head and the short head—really don't kick in full-impact until you're close to that 90-degree bend in the curl. That's when those biceps kick in, so it's the same concept. You're using different muscles to assist—in this case, it's just a single joint, but those muscles are being used differently.
So when we're doing this we're basically isolating here the brachioradialis and the brachialis more, allowing them to be used here without the biceps being used much. Then here we're allowing the biceps to take over and be the prime movers, just in this upper range without fatiguing those starter muscles, if you will—the brachioradialis and the brachialis. Then we finish, now that those muscles got a bit of a break when we were doing the second 7 reps. Now we can finish all 7 reps through a full range of motion, because we're fresher here now with those starter muscles even though we're fatigued. So with that, full range of motion—7 reps should be perfect with a little bit of fatigue in the biceps.
21s and the Bench Press
Let's get on with the bench press and a multi-joint exercise. Two things are different about the bench press than the curl: First is that there's more than one joint—you mainly have elbow and shoulder, so we're going to have different muscle groups. However, the movement is completely different. With curls, they're a pulling exercise. We're pulling the weight in, so we're starting with the arms at full extension. Bench press you're going to be starting here, the bar on the chest. Just like curls, that start position is where we're the weakest—on the bench press, that's where everyone fails: Right off the chest. You can cheat it, try to throw it up, use the legs and the hips to get that initiating—just like curls when we're trying to cheat we use the lower body, hips to throw it up just to get through that sticking point.
Here with the bench press, what are we doing? We're going to train those first 7 reps through the sticking point. What else about the bench press—besides it being a sticking point in this first half of the range of motion? It's where the pecs are mainly used, that's really where the pecs are being used the most. Once you pass this halfway point, the top range—a lot of triceps. So we're going to really break the bench press down into the prime movers here—again, like the curl—but we're talking about prime movers of different joints in this case, instead of the same joint.
So with the bench press—again, we've got the first half in the early stage here. First half focusing on the pecs when you're the weakest, that's your hole there—that's your sticking point, have to get out of the hole in the bench press. So this is going to help—you can see how focusing on those 7 reps before we fatigue the triceps can help build more strength in this area of the bench press, which is then going to carry over to the full range bench press.
So bench press, first half—first 7 reps here—the second 7 reps in the top range, we're mainly using the triceps. So down here we're using mainly pecs, delts as well—don't forget the shoulders, they're moving the shoulder joint—when we get into that top half we do still have some shoulder joint movement. But a lot of triceps extension in that top half, so a lot of triceps. And then we finish with the full range of motion.
How do we do 21s on the bench press? Curls are kind of easy. You can look in the mirror, or you know when your arms are bent 90 degrees, that's an easy stopping point, right? The bench press, you're lying down—who knows where their halfway point is? You can just gauge it, but I'll show you how to do it the sort of quick and easy way, don't worry about it. Or if you want to be more scientific and measure it exactly, we'll break that down as well.
For those of you who are just tuning in or if I had any difficulties breaking up, this is a 21s tutorial. I'm going to focus today on how to do 21s on the bench press, and again I'm going to break down those techniques. For those of you who aren't aware, I make my personal workouts available on Facebook every single day—what I'm doing, which days are my rest days—and I explain, I don't just say "here, do this workout because I said so.” I explain what we're doing; I teach you a new technique.
Full Body 21s for Fat Loss
Well we're in the middle of 21s. This is the best way to try—this is the 12th technique that I've taught the JYM Army since 4th of July weekend, when I started doing the Train with Jim series, where I just sort of posted my personal workouts—I do full-body workouts, definitely is best for muscle growth without getting fat. Not overall muscle growth, though there is some research that suggests it may be better—but I'm saying when you're trying to really stay lean or even get lean while building muscle—when the main focus is leanness—it really helps maximize your metabolism.
For those of you who also aren't aware, I suffered a horrible accident and completely severed my quadriceps tendon. I had four surgeries through April and May, was still recovering in the hospital—if you've noticed, I gained no body fat. In fact, I got leaner, most people say, and bigger. How did I do that with zero cardio? By doing full-body workouts almost every day of the week. I typically take maybe one day off a week and that's it. But you guys can follow along with me, learn those techniques, apply them and get the same results.
21s Training in Addition to Your Program
You can do that as your main workout or you can just use those techniques that I'm teaching you and insert them—maybe on one exercise, or maybe on one muscle group in whatever workout you're doing. Or as some people are doing—there's one member out there killing it doing the No Limits Challenge, and also doing my Train with Jim series workouts. So how do you do that? You just tone down the intensity of the Train with Jim. You keep these as little mini-workouts. If I'm doing 2 sets for a day, do 1—don't go to all-out failure, just go through the movements—but targeting every single muscle group every single day, right now really appears to be the best way to get all the benefits of weightlifting.
Finding the Midpoint - Easy Method
So now, back to 21s, breaking it down. How do we break it into two halves for the bench press? You can eyeball it. Get a training partner to help you out maybe, to just say "Ok, that looks like about your halfway point." Have them mark where you are at the start, top position, then the bottom position, and then eyeball where the halfway point is. This is my first half so I'll stop somewhere here in those first 7, and then the next 7 I'll do from the top position. And then I finish with 7 through a full range of motion.
That's the quick and easy way to do it. If you want to just do it on the regular bench press, if you don't want to get on a power rack, and eyeball it, great. If you have a second set of eyes helping you—boom, that's all you need. Don't worry if you're exactly in the midpoint. Look guys, this stuff—it's a science, trust me I'm not trying to dumb down science here, but if you apply the science, you don't have to get to the exact—if you watch my video on doing the curls I'm not stopping at the 90-degree point every single time. That's not the point. The point is breaking up that range of motion, training the muscles differently. Remember, change is really what it's all about for continual progress.
Finding the Midpoint - Precise Method
So now here's the sort of complicated way, if you really want to mark it out. Now I've pre-marked out my power rack. I've got a white power rack so I just took a black Sharpie—hopefully you guys can kind of see where those marks are. But you'll see where the bar lines up. Here you kind of need—unless you can really eyeball it yourself by watching the holes—it would help to have somebody mark where your spots are. So I'm going to say that my top range here—let's see if I can find where I am on here. Right here, so I'll say right around this—just above where I have the hooks.
And now the bottom position is where it lines up on my chest. I want to do a full range of motion here obviously. So let's see where I am, I'll come back here a little more and eyeball it and you can kind of see where it hits right on the chest. And so I've got this marked off right here as sort of the bottom hole. Now if I count how many holes here to find the midpoint—this is six, so I'm going to fall somewhere right in between these two holes here, is my sort of midpoint.
I could just do this and sort of use those as sort of—in my periphery which doesn't really work out too well unless you put it here on the sides so you can see when you look out to the side as you're doing the bench press—as just a sort of a guide. You could do it that way, or I'm going to show you how to do it with the safety latches.
21s on Bench for Hypertrophy vs 21s for Strength and Power
Now there are different benefits here to each version. The first version, where we just sort of eyeballed it and we just stopped manually here in the first half position, is really going to help more on the muscle growth—time under tension as we're stopping it in the range of motion, supporting it before we push it back up. With this version, we don't have to worry about supporting the weight as it's sitting there in that midpoint—it's going to be resting on the safety racks, so we're really allowed to focus on exploding.
Same with when we have the bottom half. We don't have to focus on going "Oh I’d better stop, is that the midpoint?" Here you're going to know—you're going to hit the safety. So you're going to be able to slam that weight until you hit it, so long as nobody minds in the gym—a tip I'll show you, you can use bar pads or wrap some towels so it's not banging metal to metal. This allows you to really focus on exploding out of the bottom position of your bench press, which is where your sticking point is.
So 21s is not just a technique for bodybuilders. This is the point I was making earlier. I love taking these old school techniques that people still use—you'll see people doing 21s on curls in the gym, but that's it. That's all you'll see them doing. Ask them why they're doing it, "The burn, man. Crazy burn, and I get results when I do them every so often. I don't know why." I'm telling you why, but now I'm also telling you, along with that why, “Here's what else you can do with that technique.”
Perfect example is the bench press. And you know, that's why I get so frustrated with people saying "Oh just lift, just lift. That's stupid." No guys, when you're trying—yeah just lift if you want to get just okay results, but I work with athletes of every level, from normal guys like myself—I'm not a professional athlete by any means—to the world class athletes. The one thing we all have in common—those of us who are truly driven? We want results. We want true results. So we'll do the little breaking down, because we know how it can help. If you're one of those guys posting your "Oh just do the bench press, Jim" Yeah, good luck guy. Good attitude, you'll go far with that attitude.
Now for those of us who want to actually learn and get results—which I'm showing you, not just telling you how to get results, showing you the results I'm getting—this is how we get more strength on the bench press. This is how you work on the sticking point in your bench press. So now we have a guide marked out here—my starting point, my finish point, and my midpoint—and now I'm going to show you what to do.
First 7 reps, we're going to do in the first half of the range of motion. The nice thing here is this takes a bit longer to do than the other version, which is why this one is more focused on strength and power gains. That's how you get better strength and power—with rest. Here you're going to get more rest because you have to set it up, do the first 7, get up, move the bar around, set it up, then do the second 7—you get a rest, so you really get to focus on your strength in each one of those ranges of motion, without too much fatigue. It's the best way to gain strength.
Basically, what I need to do now is get the safety to this level, so this can be my ceiling. I'm going to be benching from down here, up to the safety. I'm going to be hitting the safety. It's a little tricky; much easier when you have people helping you. So 8 holes up, that's going to be—when I hit right here, to come up, that's going to be the halfway point for me. I won't have to worry about stopping the weight. Remember, you're trying to focus on building explosive power, last thing you want to do is have to stop the weight yourself.
As you can see here I've put the hooks from the rack a bit lower, under here, because obviously if the bar is on top it's going to be a big problem doing the bottom half. This is going to serve as my ceiling. Now, this gets a bit loud, so like I said if you want you can wrap the safety with towels or those bar pads that wrap around the bar. Then also, like I said, the other thing about doing that wrapping the towels is it can get you a bit more accurate on where your midpoint is. Right here my midpoint is somewhere in between these two holes, so with this bar—it's fairly thin—it's a little higher than my halfway point. But if I put on the pads it'd probably stop me precisely at the halfway point. So good idea to wrap, if that's sort of where your halfway point lines up in the middle of where the safety bar will go.
So here we go, first 7 reps. Now remember, with weight selection for this, to be able to do all 7 on a typical 21s style like the curls where you're just doing it and not getting any rest, you use about 60% of your 10 rep max. So whatever you usually curl for 10 reps, you're going to use about 60% of that, so a little bit more than half if you want to do it the easy way without getting out the calculator.
With this style, like I said, we're getting a break in between each one of those rep ranges, so you're going to have to play around with this. You may actually be able to go right with 100% of your 7 rep max here to work it, because by the time you get fatigued here at 7 reps you're going to move up to the top half where you're strong. So play around, let me know what's working for you guys on the percentages on this one. Here I'm just demonstrating with 135lbs for illustrative purposes.
Here we go, we're going to get under the bar, and the first 7 reps we're doing just the bottom half of the range of motion. Now obviously that's too light for me, but you get the picture. I wasn't exploding as much as you'd want to, I just didn't want to make a huge racket for you guys listening with headphones on. But you put the towels on like I said, it won't be as loud. So you did the 7 reps. Now what we're going to do is the top half of the range of motion for 7 reps. Here we don't even need these hooks, we can just have the bar resting on the safety bars here where the halfway point is. So I'm going to basically drop the bar one so that the halfway point is now at the top of the safety.
So right there is right about where my halfway point is. Now here we're just going to go from that halfway point straight up to full arm extension. And again, we can really explode out of here as well. Now I'm going to finish with 7 reps with full range of motion. Obviously, 135lbs is going to be too light but just to demonstrate.
And the final 7 are just full range of motion reps. Remember I use an open grip, and I'm using my biacromial distance technique here for width on the bench press. And then you can also use—like I said, this is too light for me But that doesn't mean that was a wasted set, because remember building explosive power is about speed. So yes, it's also about moving mass with speed. Most importantly it's the speed, for power. So here, you could—if you go too light—doesn't matter because you're still focusing on that explosive power. Even in the full range of motion here, I was able to get 7 explosive reps, focusing just on those fast twitch muscle fibers which—you don't need to fatigue them, that's not the point of training for explosive power. Fatigue is more about going for endurance as well as muscle growth.
So that's my tutorial on 21s. I'll take a look here—bear with me—I'll take a look at what we have for questions.
Question: "Do you do 21s with a flat back or an arched back?"
It's your call. Whatever your bench press style is. If you can do more of an arched, powerlifter style where you're up on the balls of your feet, back is arched, then that's the way you want to bench. That's going to be for more strength. If you want to bench more for muscle size then you're going to be a bit flatter on the bench.
21s for Back
For those of you who have been following along with my Train with Jim, I'm using 21s—but remember 21s you can use any way, throw these into any one of your workouts. Even if you're following say my No Limits Challenge. Take curls for example, or even the bench press, and do a set or two as 21s style.
21s Revisited
Now for those of you who don't know what 21s are, they're basically—as the name implies—21 reps, but what you're doing is breaking that rep range of motion in half. So you have a starting half of the range of motion—so in the curl it's from the bottom to about 90 degrees—and then the second half of the range of motion is that top half—from 90 degrees up. So what you do is the first 7 in the starting range of motion, the next 7 you do in the top range of motion, and then the final you do through a full range of motion.
21s and Back Exercises
I've talked about doing the bench press—how it's different because with curls you're pulling in so the arms start at full extension and finish close to the body; with the bench press it's the opposite: You're going to start with the bar close to the body—that first half of the range of motion—the second half of the range of motion is at the top, and then you do a full range of motion.
So when it comes to back training, you'd think it'd be similar to training for biceps because it's a pulling, right? Back is a pulling move—so you'd think, like curls, you're going to start the first half of the range of motion. But to really get the best benefit out of 21s when it comes to training back, you actually want to do it the opposite as you would think would be intuitive.
You're going to do the first 7 reps in that range of motion where it's closest to the chest, to your body. You're pulling it in, halfway point to the body; the next set of reps you do from full arm extension to the halfway point. Why is this? Why would I do it this way? Well it comes down to one of the benefits of 21s, as you're breaking up the range of motion into where you're strongest and where you're weakest. Typically on most exercises it's the starting point that you're weakest on. So for curls you're weakest in this area; on the bench press you're weakest in this area.
With the back, you're weakest as you get closer to the body. Just like with the bench press—it's almost the reverse of the bench press—this is the weak spot for both the bench press and the row, pulling from halfway to the chest. So with 21s, because it actually allows you to focus on your weak area in the range of motion on the first of those 7 reps before you take it to the full range of motion and fatigue all the muscle fibers, this way—with the back—you're doing your weakest range of motion while you're your strongest.
So I'm going to demonstrate here on a dual cable station doing standing pulldowns—now like I said, you would think that with 21s you're going to do the first 7 reps from the starting range of motion. Here it's about the halfway point, but with the back to truly take advantage of the benefits that 21s offer with increasing the strength in your sticking point or your weakest area in the range of motion, this is going to help you increase your overall strength on any type of rowing. So we're going to start, first 7, halfway point to the finish. I'm using about 60% of my 10 rep max. Now I go into the next 7, from full arm extension to the halfway point. And then we're going to finish with 7 full range of motion reps. And there if you chose the weight properly you should fail on that 21st rep.
Now let me see what questions we have. Love sharing information with you guys. Any specific questions?
Full-Body 21s and Other Programs
Question: "I'm hooked on this 21s concept, I’m going to have to develop a full-body 21 to split over 5 days. Legs will get done a special day. I tried 21s and calves yesterday, and wow."
Yeah, definitely kills you on calves. You see, this is the nice thing about these techniques. Now, you're following along, you can see he's taking—he's been trying all these techniques along with me, and now he found one that really hit home with him: The 21s. He really feels that and wants to spend some more time on 21s, so now he can add that to his normal weight workout and even develop his own program.
That's a great thing about the Train with Jim series: It's really exposing you guys to so many new techniques that you wouldn't actually try, because you're doing a program for however many months or weeks, one of my programs, and you're only using that one style of training. Here you're getting to see every week or every 5 days or sometimes every 4 days—I'm changing up the technique, giving you guys all sorts of—21s, Speed Sets, we did the Giant sets, we did my Power Pyramid, we did Supersets. It's a lot of techniques that we're covering here, and that's going to continue.
You have to try these out, sort of take it for a test drive if you will. And even other members are following my No Limits Challenge but also doing the Train with Jim as a second workout. Now, if you want to do that, you can lower the intensity and lower the volume; if I'm doing 2 or 3 sets do 1 even, just to go through and try that technique. Don't worry about overtraining, it's only going to help you. They're definitely not overtraining—if anything they're only speeding up their results.
21s and Pullovers
Question: "What about pullovers?"
With pullovers, if you want to do it 21s style it's going to be the same concept. With 21s and pullovers, you're going to be doing them either straight arm—which is going to be more back; or with bent arms—which is going to focus more on the chest, with the range of motion here where the arms are basically back behind the ears, if you're thinking about when you're lying down and doing pullovers. Now from there to almost about this middle point is mainly involving the chest. From here down, we're now getting into lats, and don't forget that long head triceps is also involved in pullovers.
So if your question was how to do pullovers for 21s and what the range is, well that's going to really depend. It's a bit different because you're targeting more pecs and more back, so I would do the same concept here, do that range of motion here that's focusing on the lats and then do the starting range of motion here, then finish with a full range of motion. And that's the same for if you're doing straight arm pulldowns—remember pulldowns are also very similar to pullovers, it's just that with the cable you don't have to change your body position to fight gravity.
Question: "21s really helped with my arms"
Definitely. Like I said, you get like with the calves, try 21s on calves, it's absolutely brutal. That's the thing, not only are there advantages to the way it breaks it up for the biomechanics but just because you're targeting the muscles differently, it makes a big difference in your results.
The Updated Jim Stoppani App
Question: "Love the new app!"
Awesome, man. Remember guys I've got a new app. The new app has been developed, we literally rebuilt it from the ground up so that the app provides a whole new, different level of functionality. You'll see, you'll be able to record your sets, your weight, your reps, get all of my workout programs, all my articles as well. So, glad you're loving it. And I'm continuing to evolve the app, just like the supplement line. I listen to you guys—this new app, you're going to see, I've been listening to you guys. You can see all the things that I've added based on what the JYM Army's been telling me. But keep giving me honest feedback, if there are things that are missing let me know. I'm going to continue making it better for you.
21s and Recommended Number of Sets
Question: "How many sets of 21s do you do?"
Check out my article, it's free on JimStoppani.com. Read my Full-Body 21s. I break it down for you. If you're doing the full-body style, you could do anywhere from 2 to maybe even 3 sets, but if you're a beginner or you're doing other workouts in addition, even 1 set is ample.
21s and Crunches
Question: "How do you do 21s for crunches?"
So, crunches I will demonstrate for you here—let's see if I can get this low enough. So crunches I would start—again you could either do them from the start, first 7 here, and then finish in that top. Or if you want to do it where the toughest part of that crunch for you is that top position, you could do it reverse much like the back where you're doing the top half as the first 7, bottom half which is a bit easier to do as your next 7, and then finish with the full range of motion.
21s and Pulldowns
Question: "What about the pulldown?"
Same concept. I was doing the standing pulldown, so if you're doing just a standard pulldown, arms overhead, same thing. You're going to start from the halfway point down for 7, then you're going to do from the start to the halfway point next 7, then you're going to finish with the full range of motion.
Question: "Just hit up Circuit Maximus"
Nice job. Another one of my full-body workouts. That one incorporates 100s with the Circuit Maximus.
Question: "21s for the long head?"
That's going to be overhead, so you want to do overhead triceps extensions.
21s and Squats
Question: "How's it work doing squats?"
Sort of the same concept. You have two options here with the squat. With a squat, you tend to be weakest in the hole, so I can't really demonstrate because of my knee surgery. On a squat, you know you could do the first 7 at the top half, but you tend to be stronger in this top half of the squat. So really for squat, you don't want to be doing this part of the squat first because that's really not the start. It's like a bench press. The squat, you're starting in the down position.
With the squat, you're weakest in the hole, so you want to be starting down and doing this first half from full depth where the legs are at 90 degrees—I can't go that deep yet because of my knee surgery—but from 90 degrees or deeper up to about that halfway point. And then do the next 7 from the halfway point up, that's where you tend to be strongest on the squat. And then you're going to finish with full range of motion.
21s for Entire Muscle Groups
Question: "Is there any 21s workout for chest?"
Variety—bench press, cable crossover, same concept. If you want to focus on just one muscle group you're going to go grab 2, 3, maybe 4 exercises and then do 2 to 3 sets each in this style.
Question: "Can we get an ab check?"
Definitely. So just for accountability. One of the best things I love about the live feed is—as I say guys I'm not one of these athletes who bulks up and then leans down or has to go off his cycle of drugs and loses all his muscle so I have to cover up. As you can see, year round—guess what? I'm shredded to the bone every day. Living shredded, full-body training and intermittent fasting.
21s - For Bulking or Cutting?
Question: "Are 21s to build or cut?"
Both! Increases strength as well, as I mentioned about breaking up those biomechanics into the two different ranges of that motion. So strength, muscle mass, and of course if you're using it with my full-body program you'll enhance fat loss even further.
And I just want to say to everyone saying thank you for sharing the knowledge, thank you guys. I definitely—if you think I get tired of hearing thank you, no. It's great to know what I'm doing is being well-received, so you guys are very, very welcome. This is my responsibility to you guys. It's a pleasure to know you guys are enjoying it and using it well.
21s for Multiple Muscle Groups
Question: "Do you suggest mixing up 21 arms with 21 lats with 21 chest in one visit to the gym?"
Yeah, that's what my full-body—go to my, well you should be right here on Facebook, go to my Facebook page and check out my Train with Jim Full-Body 21s. I'm literally training the entire body 21s style 5 days in a row.
Alright well listen I've got to—it's getting close to dinner time, so I've got to finish up some stuff. I'll be back. You guys can start expecting some guerrilla education coming up with this Facebook live feed. So hope you guys enjoyed this little time. Check your phones for my live feeds for a little dose of fitness education. Alright, guys, I'm going to take off, stay JYM Army Strong.