Sam Sulek: My HUGE Concern

If you have been watching fitness on any form of social media lately, you probably have head of Sam Sulek. In this edition of “AX Jeff,” I am going to dive into my thoughts and feelings about the up-and-coming social media fitness influencer Sam Sulek. I am going to cover not just his training but I

Jeff: All right, Jesse So what  do we got, an Ask Jeff today? Jesse: We do have an Ask Jeff today, and you’re  probably going to love the source of which this one comes from. Jeff: Okay. Jesse: TikTok. Jeff: You’re trying to make me angry?

Jesse: Maybe. Jeff: Tiktok Shitness, I mean, TikTok fitness question. Jesse: Something like that. Tell me how you really feel. Jeff: Okay, go ahead.

Jesse: All right. So, this one  comes from CallOfAdam22. Jeff: Okay. Jesse: Hey, Jeff, do you know anything about Sam Sulek? Bro  s a beast and has some cool workout advice, and me and my buddies all watch him.

I wanted to know your thoughts on him and his training. Jeff: Oh. I’m going to break it into two parts, can I do that? Jesse: Yeah. Jeff: And I’m going to be as totally as  open and candid as I can be, because as soon as I hear his name, I do get flashbacks of a  different video that I made not too long ago.

Jesse: Which one was that? Jeff: The one about Jo Lindner. Jesse: Oh, okay. Jeff: But let me let me get into it because, again, I want to be as fair as I can. So, we’ll  break it into two parts.

Let’s talk first about his training. Jesse: Okay. Jeff: Okay and about him himself. I just want  to start by saying that Sam Sulek is a one of one. I had a chance to be around a lot of athletes  and he’s 20, 21.

How old is he? I think he’s 21. He’s a one of one. He’s a Brock Lesnar of  bodybuilding. You could do every single thing Brock Lesnar did and never beat Brock Lesnar.

You  can copy everything he did and never beat Brock Lesnar. And there’s a few others like that Michael  Jordan, LeBron James like these, these one of one type athletes and I think he’s an athlete for sure  He started off I think swimming or something. Jesse: He’s a diver, right? Jesse: I think so. So, the idea, though, is that thinking about just copying it is not  necessarily your key to Sam Sulek like gains.

Jesse: Okay. Jeff: Okay. That being said, he does some very unique things. From the  videos I’ve seen, I haven’t seen a ton of them, but from the videos I’ve seen, he does some very  unique things. Sometimes, I mean, they would, I would say they look a little bit outrageous.

Jesse: Like a little goofy? Jeff: Yeah. So, for instance, I’ve seen him doing  like a cable crossover type movement where he kept his arms in front of him. Like really short range  of motion, kind of pumping out kind of end range repetitions, not even crossing over throughout  full adduction. You know, a lot of the things that we preach here about the science of exercise,  they’re not really being applied to— Jesse: What he’s doing.

Jeff: —what he’s doing on the surface. I’m going to get into this in a second. He’ll also do like leg curls, standing leg curls on a leg extension machine. Jesse: How does that work? Jeff: I mean, he made it work, right?

But,  but even then, using a very limited range of motion to do the exercise, so kind of  pumping out mid-range repetitions. Jesse: Yeah. Jeff: But I believe that things that sometimes seem  unintentional can be incredibly well intentioned, almost intentionally advanced. And I believe that  along with this one of one physique that he’s building, we’re going to talk about how he built  this as part two of what we’re talking about here, because I do not believe it’s been without  heavy assistance of drugs to get there. Jesse: Yeah.

Jeff: He has the ability to intuitively train and do things that his body needs and responds to in  that moment. I’ve seen a video of him where he was doing leg extensions for a set, then got off and  just decided, I don’t feel like doing this anymore and went and did something else and then came  back to the leg extension, very much seemingly unplanned. But again, what I’m saying is I think  the gift he has is his lack of plan, is actually coming from the gift of being able to know  exactly what his body needs at that moment. So, if he feels like he best responds  in these short-range repetitions, that’s probably because he does best respond to  those short-range repetitions. Doesn’t mean that you would best respond in those short-range  repetitions.

It doesn t mean that you should go into the gym with a lack of an approach where  you’re just sort of moving from machine to machine or exercise to exercise and not necessarily  having the game plan that others might have that would be much more prepared, right. Jesse: So, you’re saying it’s better off for most people, especially our audience, to be going  into the gym with an attack plan, with a workout plan that they can follow from step to step. Jeff: Yeah, most people benefit from having structure to what they’re doing for sure. It doesn’t look as structured, but again, I’m not going to discredit him because I do  think that Sam is a very intelligent kid. Like, we’re not talking about a dummy here,  okay?

He seems to be very intellectual instead of some kid thing. Like I look past some  of the younger talk, you know what I mean? Jesse: Immature things. Jeff: Immature stuff. Yeah, because I don’t know if — I, I — like I’m not thinking  that that’s what’s guiding him.

I think that was guiding him. Is this intuition to be able to train  that way Now, some of it leads to this next part, and that’s ego lifting. Jesse: Okay, Jeff: Saying how good ego lifting is and how much  more favorable ego lifting is for results. I, I don’t — I think that’s maybe the, the,  the kid in him talking. You need to have, and I preach this all the time, you need to  have a stable foundation.

I think when you’re talking about half repping and using machines for  purposes that aren’t necessarily the purpose of the machine, you can get away with that more when  you have a solid foundation first. I think a lot of the kids and people that are watching him  right now think that this is the way to build your foundation. Jesse: Yeah. Jeff: That foundation is going to betray you down  the line. I could tell you there was actually a recent study that came out that was talking  about bicep tears because I was looking into it because of my own bicep tear.

And they  were saying how one of the most influential contributions to bicep tears was a lack of full  range of motion training. And I do think that at times I might have cut short that kind of really  bottom portion of the curl, and I was doing a lot of heavy repetitions there, that might have  contributed to setting the stage for that. That if I had built a foundation around really  full range of motion curls, because that was one of the big exercises I relied upon as a kid,  like maybe that wouldn’t have happened. So, if you’re going to build all of your foundation  around shorter range of motion because you think this is what’s most impactful for him, you  could be setting yourself up for even bigger problems as you age. Jesse: Right.

Jeff: Not to mention you’re just getting away with  a lot of that shit when you’re younger. Now his topic of his nutrition comes up too. Jesse: Okay. Jeff: So it’s kind of built into  his whole training here and people talk all the time about the quality of  his nutrition being pretty poor. Jesse: Yeah.

Jeff: And whether or not some people think it’s real or more for the camera or for show. I  will be the last person to criticize his nutrition because I did not have good, proper nutrition  for the first 16 years of my life. I ate a lot of shit, a lot of junk food, and I turned it  around towards the tail end of high school when I was playing sports and realizing that when I was  reading these bodybuilding magazines that they were eating much better than what I was. That  by making those gradual sw