Dr. Kelly Starrett: How to Improve Your Mobility, Posture & Flexibility

00:00:00.000 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.240 | where we discuss science

00:00:03.720 | and science-based tools for everyday life.

00:00:05.920 | I'm Andrew Huberman,

00:00:10.200 | and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

00:00:13.440 | at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:15.340 | My guest today is Dr. Kelly Starrett.

00:00:17.920 | Dr. Kelly Starrett is a doctor of physical therapy

00:00:21.000 | and one of the world's experts in movement.

00:00:23.840 | That is, he teaches people how to move better

00:00:26.600 | for sake of sport, for sake of recreational fitness,

00:00:29.880 | and for everyday living.

00:00:31.680 | Today, we discuss several important topics,

00:00:33.640 | including how best to warm up for any and all workouts.

00:00:37.520 | He also tells us how to improve our movement patterns

00:00:40.360 | for cardiovascular exercise, for sport,

00:00:42.760 | for resistance training,

00:00:44.120 | across the board, how to move better,

00:00:46.720 | and how to improve our range of motion

00:00:49.600 | with the minimal amount of time investment.

00:00:52.040 | We hear a lot about different forms of stretching.

00:00:54.000 | We hear about dynamic stretching.

00:00:55.440 | We hear about passive stretching.

00:00:57.200 | Dr. Starrett explains how to improve our range of motion

00:01:00.040 | across our entire body in the best possible ways,

00:01:03.220 | as well as how to offset or repair any imbalances

00:01:06.440 | that stem from musculoskeletal problems

00:01:08.960 | or from neural issues, and how to reduce soreness,

00:01:12.680 | how to improve our posture,

00:01:14.440 | seated, standing, and movement-based posture.

00:01:16.960 | We talk about nutrition.

00:01:18.120 | So today's episode covers an immense amount

00:01:20.500 | of actionable information

00:01:22.240 | that I'm certain all of you will benefit from.

00:01:24.240 | Dr. Kelly Starrett has authored several best-selling books,

00:01:27.120 | some of which you may have heard of,

00:01:28.360 | such as "Supple Leopard."

00:01:29.840 | He was actually one of the first people to become synonymous

00:01:32.400 | with the use of a lacrosse ball or foam roller.

00:01:35.120 | But really, even though a lot of people

00:01:36.500 | have talked about those,

00:01:37.940 | what he was really doing there

00:01:39.240 | was to emphasize the importance

00:01:41.200 | of understanding the relationship between the skeleton,

00:01:43.400 | the muscles, the nervous system, and the fascia.

00:01:45.600 | And today we also talk about fascia,

00:01:47.420 | which is an incredibly interesting and important topic.

00:01:50.100 | In addition to consulting and coaching

00:01:51.720 | for various college-level

00:01:53.200 | and professional athletes and teams,

00:01:55.760 | Dr. Kelly Starrett and his wife, Juliette Starrett,

00:01:58.560 | co-own "The Ready State."

00:02:00.360 | And we provide a link to "The Ready State"

00:02:01.760 | in the show note captions there.

00:02:02.800 | They have a plethora of useful information

00:02:04.800 | and actionable protocols.

00:02:06.240 | I should mention years ago,

00:02:07.780 | I took one of the courses from "The Ready State."

00:02:09.620 | It's a really interesting course

00:02:10.780 | that we touch on some of the protocols from today.

00:02:12.960 | It's all about pelvic floor.

00:02:14.560 | So whether you're male or female,

00:02:15.940 | and regardless of age,

00:02:17.000 | understanding your pelvic floor,

00:02:18.640 | how to take care of your pelvic floor

00:02:20.360 | in the context of exercise, posture, et cetera,

00:02:23.240 | is vitally important

00:02:24.600 | for all sorts of vitally important bodily functions.

00:02:27.600 | So today we also touch on that.

00:02:29.720 | By the end of today's episode,

00:02:31.240 | I'm certain that you will be armed

00:02:32.440 | with a number of new highly actionable protocols.

00:02:35.600 | I should emphasize these protocols take very little time

00:02:38.600 | and have an outsized positive effect

00:02:41.040 | on your movement, your posture, and your overall health.

00:02:43.800 | Before we begin,

00:02:44.720 | I'd like to emphasize that this podcast

00:02:46.780 | is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:02:49.520 | It is, however, part of my desire and effort

00:02:51.800 | to bring zero cost to consumer information

00:02:53.640 | about science and science-related tools

00:02:55.680 | to the general public.

00:02:57.140 | In keeping with that theme,

00:02:58.240 | I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

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00:03:11.920 | I've spoken before on this podcast

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00:03:19.920 | That protein provides critical building blocks

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00:05:43.340 | And now for my discussion with Dr. Kelly Starrett.

00:05:46.440 | Dr. Kelly Starrett, welcome.

00:05:48.640 | - Thank you, my friend.

00:05:50.080 | - I've been wanting to get you on here for a long time

00:05:53.240 | for many reasons, not the least of which is that

00:05:56.480 | you've just pioneered so many areas of health and fitness

00:06:01.200 | that I don't even know where to start, frankly.

00:06:04.520 | But let's jump in with the big M, with movement.

00:06:08.920 | You're an expert in dissecting complex movement,

00:06:12.120 | figuring out how people can move better,

00:06:14.600 | and also figuring out how people who are doing

00:06:16.880 | what they think are simple movements

00:06:18.840 | are actually making their life either more complex

00:06:21.060 | or more painful than it needs to be.

00:06:23.320 | So you're also known for helping people

00:06:27.200 | with so-called mobility,

00:06:28.380 | which of course falls under the umbrella of movement.

00:06:31.980 | And I can't see somebody do a foam roll

00:06:34.480 | or anything with a lacrosse ball

00:06:36.560 | where they're loosening up or talking about fascia

00:06:39.560 | without also thinking about you.

00:06:40.720 | So that should frame today's conversation

00:06:42.920 | at least partially well.

00:06:45.020 | To kick things off, when you look at how most people sit,

00:06:49.860 | walk, and do their "exercise," resistance training

00:06:55.920 | and/or cardiovascular, hopefully,

00:06:58.480 | and cardiovascular training,

00:07:00.600 | what are some of the most common problems that you see?

00:07:03.160 | Is it imbalance, like leaning to one side?

00:07:05.720 | Is it that their bodies are trained into asymmetry?

00:07:09.240 | Is there any way to kind of, you know,

00:07:12.560 | mass-diagnose everybody all at once in this first question?

00:07:16.660 | - Let me borrow a couple analogies

00:07:18.480 | from one of my favorite people, Katie Bowman.

00:07:20.920 | And first thing is she will point out,

00:07:24.920 | and it's not a perfect analogy, so bear with us,

00:07:28.360 | is this notion of mechanotransduction,

00:07:31.160 | which means that at a cellular level,

00:07:33.040 | your tissues, some of your tissues specifically,

00:07:35.400 | need mechanical input to express themselves.

00:07:38.160 | You want a strong tendon?

00:07:39.000 | How do you get a strong tendon?

00:07:40.040 | You have to load it, right?

00:07:41.680 | Does it do tendon things?

00:07:42.800 | Is it lengthening under load?

00:07:45.000 | Does it shorten under load?

00:07:46.720 | Does it do isometric holds?

00:07:48.440 | So we can start at that level.

00:07:50.320 | She points out that if you put a,

00:07:52.800 | and again, not a perfect analogy,

00:07:54.120 | but if you put an orca into captivity,

00:07:57.200 | over a while, that orca fin will start to fold over.

00:08:00.160 | Folded fin syndrome, it's nicer than floppy fin syndrome.

00:08:03.840 | It's hurtful.

00:08:05.080 | And what you're doing is when you alter the environment

00:08:08.360 | that this amazing animal lives in,

00:08:10.920 | it's not swimming, it's not fighting, it's not hunting,

00:08:13.600 | you're not loading the base of that fin.

00:08:15.880 | And so what happens is that collagen breaks down,

00:08:18.360 | and we start to see changes in that,

00:08:20.720 | in that expression of that.

00:08:22.280 | So what we can start to say is, again,

00:08:24.320 | not romanticizing the Pleistocene era

00:08:26.680 | when human beings were paleo,

00:08:29.160 | but what is it that we need in our daily dose lives

00:08:34.160 | to maintain the integrity of our tissue systems?

00:08:37.600 | Exposure, so that our brain says, "This is safe."

00:08:40.800 | So that you actually have tendons and ligaments

00:08:43.760 | that can do what tendons and ligaments can do,

00:08:45.680 | and fascia that is, can be springy.

00:08:48.400 | If, borrow another sort of Katie Bowman-ism,

00:08:51.920 | if we have a movement language,

00:08:53.960 | an actual language made up of words,

00:08:56.000 | how many words are you using today?

00:08:58.200 | And most of us aren't using that many words,

00:09:00.640 | so very few words.

00:09:01.480 | So I sit, I stand, I walk very slowly.

00:09:04.400 | I sit, I stand, I walk very slowly.

00:09:06.480 | So everything is just in those few,

00:09:08.240 | and then I go exercise using the same words.

00:09:10.360 | I'm on the exercise bike, right?

00:09:12.040 | I'm on an elliptical,

00:09:13.160 | which doesn't actually ask me to have any hip extension.

00:09:15.880 | And suddenly you can see that our movement language,

00:09:18.480 | which we're really codifying under intensity, load, right?

00:09:22.240 | We're becoming very competent

00:09:23.840 | in these adaptation positions, sitting.

00:09:26.800 | What ends up happening?

00:09:27.640 | Well, we start to see that our bodies

00:09:29.720 | are adaptation machines, and they just begin to adapt.

00:09:32.360 | And so suddenly what we have is a human body

00:09:36.120 | that doesn't express normative range.

00:09:38.360 | The brain may not think that that range is even safe

00:09:40.800 | and put there.

00:09:42.080 | Then we start to sort of minimize the movement choices

00:09:46.040 | that the brain has, the movement options

00:09:47.640 | that the brain has.

00:09:48.840 | So really the question is,

00:09:50.520 | you know, at low loads, let's establish things.

00:09:54.680 | At low loads and low speeds,

00:09:56.640 | you can get away with everything.

00:09:57.680 | Why?

00:09:58.520 | 'Cause this body is rad, and it's designed,

00:10:00.120 | it's durable, it's not fragile.

00:10:02.120 | It's designed to be ridden hard

00:10:03.240 | and put away wet for a long time.

00:10:05.240 | Remember when you were 17, would cut off your hand,

00:10:07.480 | it would grow back the next day, right?

00:10:09.160 | You would.

00:10:10.000 | Think about the falls you took skating,

00:10:11.360 | and you'd be like, "Oh, that sucked."

00:10:12.760 | The next day, you put your shoulder back in,

00:10:14.680 | you just kind of respawn.

00:10:16.520 | So what is it that we need to put into our movement diet?

00:10:21.240 | And then we can start to separate out,

00:10:23.520 | should that be exercise, or should that be movement?

00:10:26.720 | And now the real filter that we should be beginning

00:10:29.160 | these real and earnest conversations about is,

00:10:31.520 | what is it in the environment,

00:10:33.480 | given that I'm a busy working person,

00:10:35.400 | and maybe I have some agency in the morning,

00:10:37.680 | and maybe I have some agency in the afternoon,

00:10:39.240 | but let's take exercise out of it.

00:10:41.200 | The one hour discreet, working on zone two cardio,

00:10:44.200 | working on writing my evidence-based practice.

00:10:46.920 | What should I be doing the rest of the time?

00:10:48.920 | So for example, one of the things

00:10:50.360 | that we're huge fans of in the evening

00:10:51.480 | is sitting on the ground for 20 or 30 minutes.

00:10:53.560 | - In what, cross-legged, squatting?

00:10:57.200 | - Yes, long sit, side saddle, 99.

00:11:00.040 | Anytime you need to fidget, fidget.

00:11:02.760 | What you'll see is you start to accumulate exposure,

00:11:05.360 | which I think in my worldview

00:11:06.760 | is the first order of magnitude in problem solving

00:11:09.880 | is how do we have the human be exposed

00:11:13.320 | to the thing we're trying to change or improve

00:11:15.400 | or restore normative ranges.

00:11:18.680 | - So that would be in the evening,

00:11:19.800 | just getting down on the floor?

00:11:21.000 | - Yeah, that behavior alone,

00:11:23.320 | cultures that toilet on the ground, sleep on the ground.

00:11:26.800 | We start to see fall risk in our elderly populations

00:11:29.920 | attenuate to zero, approximate zero.

00:11:33.000 | Lower hip OA, lower low back OA,

00:11:35.960 | and it may just be that we're using and touching some shapes

00:11:39.360 | and our bodies are saying, hey, let's just keep that around.

00:11:42.560 | Let's normalize what the hip should be able to do.

00:11:46.480 | In terms of your connective tissue,

00:11:48.840 | think about the idea here is that we're loading you

00:11:52.840 | passively, actively, whatever,

00:11:55.080 | that you're saying to your brain,

00:11:56.680 | this is a quote from one of my PT instructors,

00:12:01.560 | and this is really important.

00:12:02.480 | If people take this away, they should listen to this.

00:12:05.160 | Muscles and tissues are like obedient dogs.

00:12:07.760 | At no age, do you stop adapting.

00:12:09.640 | At no age, do you stop healing.

00:12:10.880 | Those things slow down.

00:12:11.840 | It's a little bit harder

00:12:12.680 | to have the same adaptation we did.

00:12:14.440 | We weren't in full-fledged puberty,

00:12:16.600 | but you can always adapt.

00:12:18.440 | In the first order of business,

00:12:19.560 | if you spend 20 or 30 minutes sitting on the ground,

00:12:21.880 | you're gonna start to see

00:12:22.720 | that my hamstrings start to feel better.

00:12:24.280 | My hips start to feel a little better

00:12:26.560 | because I'm just spending time in these ranges

00:12:28.680 | and my body's gonna start to adapt

00:12:30.320 | as I increase my movement language.

00:12:32.080 | - Would you extend what you just said to,

00:12:35.120 | I'm like, if somebody has a hardwood floor

00:12:36.920 | and maybe a little low pile rug or something like that,

00:12:39.600 | and they're gonna, I don't know,

00:12:40.600 | watch a podcast or a movie or a show in the evening,

00:12:43.880 | they stretch out and, you know, like on their belly,

00:12:46.480 | like sort of up dog or cobra or whatever it's called.

00:12:49.640 | So basically any kind of movement

00:12:51.640 | where you're on the ground,

00:12:53.000 | any kind of squatting,

00:12:57.120 | and maybe they start to stretch a bit here and there.

00:12:58.920 | - Oh, so now we're into the real magic, the behavior.

00:13:02.120 | Where are we gonna stack these behaviors?

00:13:04.680 | So if you have to get up and down off the ground,

00:13:07.000 | plus one, right?

00:13:07.840 | I gotta get up and down off the ground every day.

00:13:09.320 | So if you're an older person

00:13:10.240 | who may hasn't gotten off the ground,

00:13:11.760 | I'm older, I'm just talking about over 50,

00:13:13.360 | you may not have gotten up and down off the ground

00:13:15.440 | for a hundred years.

00:13:16.440 | You just don't do it anymore, right?

00:13:18.520 | We wanna hear why I think MMA is so amazing.

00:13:21.440 | You have to get up and down off the ground a lot, right?

00:13:23.680 | If you go to Jits, right?

00:13:25.880 | How about yoga?

00:13:26.920 | How about Pilates?

00:13:27.840 | You're like, "Wow, there's a lot of time

00:13:29.560 | "organizing on the ground."

00:13:30.920 | So a lot of people, Ida Rolfe really said,

00:13:33.560 | "Hey, how do we help the person organizing gravity

00:13:37.720 | "first and foremost," right?

00:13:40.080 | Then we have someone like Phillip Beach,

00:13:42.000 | who is this incredible,

00:13:44.280 | he wrote this book on functional embryology,

00:13:46.280 | which I highly recommend,

00:13:47.320 | called "Muscles and Meridians," I think,

00:13:50.320 | "Muscles and Meridians."

00:13:51.680 | But his hypothesis is that one of the ways

00:13:53.960 | that the body tunes itself is by being on the ground.

00:13:57.600 | Again, restoring native ranges,

00:14:00.960 | re-approximating joints, right?

00:14:03.440 | Kneeling, walking.

00:14:04.640 | And if you just took a step back and said,

00:14:07.000 | "What's it look like for the last 10,000 years?"

00:14:09.480 | You know, when have we,

00:14:11.160 | 10,000 years ago, my understanding is that

00:14:13.560 | I'm a little fatter, your femur's a little longer,

00:14:15.640 | but we're pretty much the same people.

00:14:16.960 | Maybe I don't digest milk yet,

00:14:18.640 | maybe that's the understanding.

00:14:19.640 | But ultimately, what behaviors have changed

00:14:23.160 | were off the ground.

00:14:24.200 | And so this is an easy,

00:14:25.720 | don't need any equipment,

00:14:28.160 | can drop this in, I can answer my emails, watch TV.

00:14:31.960 | That seems like how we're going to improve

00:14:35.040 | and be able to start to untangle this very complex story,

00:14:37.320 | not when people have a lot going on.

00:14:39.440 | - I love this.

00:14:41.040 | And as you pointed out, sorry,

00:14:43.800 | the roller's already there.

00:14:45.080 | So if you're sitting there and the roller's there,

00:14:47.120 | another barrier to adherence knocked out.

00:14:49.000 | So you're like, "Oh, I might as well just,

00:14:49.920 | "what's stiff today?

00:14:50.840 | "What hurts today?

00:14:51.680 | "How could I have some self-soothing input?"

00:14:55.120 | And when we're working at high levels of performance,

00:14:58.000 | like the highest levels,

00:14:59.280 | these range of motion,

00:15:00.920 | like keeping you being able to access

00:15:03.240 | the full sort of arsenal of what you can do with your body,

00:15:05.960 | these movement solutions,

00:15:07.200 | sort of like Ido Portal plus the Olympics, right?

00:15:10.360 | You would see that this is an easy way

00:15:13.200 | for our elite athletes to work and integrate

00:15:15.800 | without having to do another thing.

00:15:17.840 | - So what I'm getting here is that everybody,

00:15:19.640 | regardless of age,

00:15:21.120 | should get down on the ground once a day

00:15:23.680 | and get up off the ground at some point, right?

00:15:26.320 | - You can use whatever you want

00:15:28.480 | to help you get up and down off the ground.

00:15:30.000 | So for those of you who are listening,

00:15:30.840 | you're like, "I can't do that."

00:15:32.320 | You know, there's a test we write about in the book

00:15:37.800 | that if you just do criss-cross applesauce standing,

00:15:40.480 | you should be able to lower yourself to the ground

00:15:42.920 | and stand back up without using your hands.

00:15:45.320 | - Okay, so cross the feet,

00:15:46.840 | for those that are just listening, cross the feet,

00:15:48.960 | and then just slowly lower yourself into a seated-

00:15:50.960 | - Don't collapse.

00:15:51.800 | Just lower yourself to the ground,

00:15:53.960 | and then without putting your hands down or knee down,

00:15:56.640 | can you stand back up?

00:15:57.720 | - And should one be able to do it

00:15:59.080 | with either foot over the other?

00:16:01.080 | - Seems like I should use my left leg

00:16:02.440 | and right leg equally, right?

00:16:03.600 | I shouldn't have a good side and a bad side.

00:16:05.680 | But what's interesting is the data, I think,

00:16:07.960 | is that, like, it's a nice predictor

00:16:09.680 | of all-cause mortality and morbidity.

00:16:11.600 | That's fine.

00:16:12.840 | But what it really hints at is your changes

00:16:16.120 | in how your body interacts with the environment.

00:16:19.040 | That because you've adapted,

00:16:20.640 | suddenly the skill that you've done 100,000 times,

00:16:22.800 | 200,000 times as a kid, sitting criss-cross applesauce,

00:16:25.680 | you suddenly are confronted as an adult

00:16:27.680 | with a skill you can no longer perform.

00:16:29.840 | And it doesn't require massive hip range of motion,

00:16:32.840 | doesn't require full range of motion in your ankles.

00:16:35.080 | It's actually a really fair test.

00:16:37.560 | But if you're missing some of these end ranges,

00:16:39.920 | you're gonna struggle.

00:16:40.960 | And it's nice now that I have this, like,

00:16:43.080 | what's the session cost?

00:16:44.520 | I've become a, I love cycling.

00:16:46.000 | Mountain biking's my jam.

00:16:47.280 | But if I ride my bike a ton, my hips get super tight.

00:16:50.360 | But if I have some assessments, just like vital signs,

00:16:54.000 | blood pressure, 120 over 80, that's not good blood pressure,

00:16:56.160 | but it's a nice, decent reference.

00:16:58.320 | Now I create some movement minimums

00:17:01.160 | that help me understand how my body's interacting

00:17:03.160 | with stress, environment, nutrition, exercise, et cetera.

00:17:07.320 | - For some people, maybe me,

00:17:10.240 | if I were to sit cross-legged on the ground for a bit

00:17:13.400 | and then stand up, if it hasn't been in a while,

00:17:17.040 | I'm like, kind of like, just, kind of ache.

00:17:19.280 | But I consider myself pretty mobile.

00:17:22.080 | Once I warm up, I can run for an hour and a half,

00:17:24.440 | jog for an hour and a half.

00:17:25.480 | Once I get warmed up in the gym,

00:17:27.080 | I can move what, at least for me,

00:17:28.800 | is satisfying amounts of weight.

00:17:31.280 | So I wouldn't say that I'm out of shape.

00:17:32.800 | I wouldn't say I'm in spectacular shape.

00:17:34.680 | Is it normal for us after a certain age

00:17:38.240 | to kind of feel like we creak or ache

00:17:40.680 | as we move in or out of a new movement?

00:17:43.960 | I mean, is that, does it fit

00:17:45.840 | with being still a healthy person

00:17:47.400 | or should we just not have any of those kinds of like,

00:17:50.200 | that was like, the guy that like-

00:17:52.000 | - Dude, I sat on the ground, that was rough.

00:17:53.560 | - Yeah. - That was super rough.

00:17:54.400 | - Yeah, maybe, you know, sitting for 30 minutes

00:17:56.080 | and then standing up and feeling like

00:17:57.000 | you have to kind of open yourself up

00:17:58.200 | with a can opener, so to speak.

00:17:59.840 | - Well, a couple of things there.

00:18:01.320 | One is that you said new movement.

00:18:03.160 | So one of the ways we define best athlete

00:18:05.800 | is who's the person who can transfer the skill,

00:18:08.640 | their current skillset,

00:18:09.560 | and pick up the new skill the fastest.

00:18:11.560 | So what I'll say is,

00:18:13.120 | if you want to test how fit you are,

00:18:14.920 | how good your program is,

00:18:15.920 | go ahead and jump someone else's program.

00:18:17.320 | Let me know how that goes.

00:18:18.480 | Can you perform the skills?

00:18:19.840 | Are you skilled?

00:18:21.080 | You're not kidding. - I'm chuckling

00:18:22.120 | 'cause I joined Cameron Haynes for his weight workout,

00:18:24.760 | which is, you know, high-repetition circuit work

00:18:27.480 | that went on for about 45 minutes.

00:18:29.400 | None of the weights were particularly heavy,

00:18:31.240 | but it's just nonstop.

00:18:33.000 | I was sore, and I normally don't get sore

00:18:35.040 | for more than a half day, if at all.

00:18:37.400 | Soreness hasn't really ever been an issue for me.

00:18:39.840 | I was sore for almost a week and a half,

00:18:41.680 | maybe two weeks, but it was insane.

00:18:44.280 | It was, yeah.

00:18:45.120 | - This is so good.

00:18:45.960 | It opens up the next thing, right?

00:18:47.640 | Founder of CrossFit, Greg Glassman,

00:18:50.040 | one of my earliest influences coaches,

00:18:52.600 | says, "We fail the margins of our experience."

00:18:55.520 | So what you just saw was,

00:18:57.040 | hey, here is this metabolic pathway range work

00:19:01.680 | that I have not inoculated myself to.

00:19:04.280 | And I think we're at an interesting place

00:19:06.400 | where fitness has become hobby.

00:19:09.400 | Fitness has become sort of my personal pastime.

00:19:13.840 | And I can go to the gym, and I can look jacked.

00:19:16.800 | You're jacked and tan.

00:19:17.920 | You're very handsome, 49-year-old.

00:19:20.360 | But what we start to see is

00:19:23.000 | the things that make us look aesthetically pleasing,

00:19:26.240 | or I'm functional enough,

00:19:28.120 | isn't the same thing as preparing for sport

00:19:31.240 | or transferring to new skill.

00:19:33.160 | And in fact, I would say if I had a spectrum of activities,

00:19:36.360 | I'd put like fitnessing over here.

00:19:37.880 | Like I go to a camp, I just do a million reps.

00:19:39.760 | I breathe hard, it's super fun.

00:19:41.080 | I'm in Zumba, I'm mirroring,

00:19:44.080 | and I have positive regard, and I see my friends.

00:19:46.600 | On the other side,

00:19:47.440 | we have very much sports-specific training.

00:19:49.920 | The only goal is to support the sport.

00:19:52.320 | If you're an elite soccer player,

00:19:53.640 | we have goals off season,

00:19:54.920 | but in the season, it's to support your body to win.

00:19:58.400 | But one step back from that,

00:19:59.600 | I call sports preparation training,

00:20:01.640 | which is where we start to see

00:20:03.840 | sort of some really pattern interference

00:20:05.560 | between what the internet says I should do

00:20:08.000 | to have huge quads

00:20:09.440 | and the best way to create an elite sprinter

00:20:11.720 | or an elite footballer, right?

00:20:14.000 | In that sports preparation training,

00:20:15.600 | I can be, think of it, GPP plus looking at positions

00:20:19.920 | and how things transfer.

00:20:21.280 | A Franz Bosch is a great example

00:20:23.040 | of sports preparation training.

00:20:24.960 | He's a Dutch thinker.

00:20:26.360 | His books are great.

00:20:27.280 | And you'll see, understand

00:20:28.880 | that really what we're trying to do

00:20:30.760 | in sports preparation is say,

00:20:31.880 | "Hey, what is this complex system in front of us?

00:20:34.720 | "What's the minimal amount of input

00:20:36.920 | "so that we can still go and project ourselves

00:20:39.080 | "into the world through sport and performance?"

00:20:41.480 | And on the other side,

00:20:43.000 | suddenly we do come up confronted with,

00:20:45.520 | "Hey, I'm doing this thing,

00:20:46.400 | "and I jump in with my friend and I get brutalized,"

00:20:49.840 | which is actually a problem that we have

00:20:51.520 | with people, really good fit athletes,

00:20:53.720 | and I throw them into like a group fitness class,

00:20:56.160 | and they can do so much work

00:20:58.080 | that they wreck themselves for weeks.

00:21:00.440 | And that's probably what happened.

00:21:01.400 | You're so strong,

00:21:02.840 | and you know how to just be uncomfortable,

00:21:05.160 | and then you just did this freakish amount of work

00:21:07.040 | without giving yourself a chance to adapt.

00:21:08.920 | And that happens all the time.

00:21:10.480 | - So going back to the getting down on the ground once a day,

00:21:15.480 | and then getting up,

00:21:17.680 | I'd like to just,

00:21:18.720 | I want to get to fitness and sports training as well,

00:21:21.600 | but is there another practice

00:21:25.120 | or set of practices related

00:21:27.480 | to where we do our profession work?

00:21:30.800 | So I can stand,

00:21:32.540 | I have a standing desk,

00:21:33.380 | I have a drafting table,

00:21:34.360 | and I'll sit stand.

00:21:35.360 | I'll stand for a while, I'll sit,

00:21:36.840 | stand for a while, I'll sit.

00:21:37.880 | I have a stool.

00:21:38.760 | I like to be at a stool

00:21:40.040 | that's where my back is not supported.

00:21:41.940 | And so I try and vary it as much as I can.

00:21:44.960 | - Love that.

00:21:45.800 | - And thanks to you,

00:21:47.240 | thanks to your recommendation that is,

00:21:48.680 | I bought one of those little kickstands

00:21:51.160 | that goes underneath the desk from Rogue.

00:21:53.400 | I don't have any financial relationship to Rogue.

00:21:55.600 | I've sent them--

00:21:56.440 | - No, you're making tens of dollars

00:21:57.280 | on this fidget stand.

00:21:58.480 | - No, I sent them money like everyone else would.

00:22:01.040 | One could probably build one too.

00:22:02.640 | This is a little fidget stand.

00:22:03.680 | I love that thing.

00:22:04.680 | 'Cause it reminds me to swing my foot while I'm there,

00:22:08.560 | even while I'm standing.

00:22:09.840 | So that's what I've done

00:22:10.940 | to try and keep some mobility during the day.

00:22:12.680 | - And I want to double click on that

00:22:13.960 | because that's really amazing.

00:22:15.360 | 'Cause what you've done is said,

00:22:16.320 | hey, I can't control this aspect of my environment.

00:22:18.640 | I have to do some deep work.

00:22:20.120 | That means I might need to perch

00:22:21.800 | or I might have to sit at a conference table.

00:22:24.280 | And then what we can start to say is,

00:22:25.360 | well, what other choices do I have?

00:22:27.180 | And now if we work with a typical person

00:22:30.920 | and you say you have some agency before you leave for work

00:22:33.800 | and then your agency doesn't return until you get home,

00:22:36.520 | what are you gonna do during the day

00:22:38.540 | to keep the body moving?

00:22:40.280 | So that it's easier to escape to your afternoon class.

00:22:43.020 | I think that's the thing.

00:22:44.680 | And what you've just described

00:22:46.040 | is what my wife would call a movement-rich environment.

00:22:48.880 | How do I pepper the environment with inputs

00:22:52.920 | so that I'm not just in a tiny movement language?

00:22:55.580 | I love that.

00:22:56.520 | I want to go back to the sitting on the ground.

00:22:58.600 | Should it be painful?

00:22:59.720 | Should it be sore?

00:23:00.820 | One aspect of your physiology that will not change,

00:23:05.200 | doesn't have to change, is your range of motion.

00:23:08.440 | As you get older.

00:23:09.260 | We should be able to maintain our range of motion.

00:23:12.080 | So what's interesting is that

00:23:13.920 | if we're suddenly confronted with tasks

00:23:15.960 | that ask us to be in certain positions

00:23:18.020 | that we're not comfortable with, we're gonna be sore.

00:23:20.280 | You bet.

00:23:21.120 | You're gonna have to squeeze your butt.

00:23:22.080 | And something you said earlier, like once I'm warmed up,

00:23:24.420 | I love that phrase, right?

00:23:26.540 | Once I've had my 27 supplements

00:23:28.960 | and my coffee and my activation,

00:23:30.460 | I've gotten to my sauna, I can do anything.

00:23:32.120 | I feel great.

00:23:33.520 | The real question is, should I have to do all that stuff?

00:23:36.720 | For high performance, absolutely.

00:23:38.480 | But should I have to do all of this prep

00:23:41.640 | to have native range of motion?

00:23:43.480 | To have baseline range of motion?

00:23:45.480 | Probably not.

00:23:46.320 | I'd like to take a quick break

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00:24:14.600 | The reason for that is,

00:24:15.840 | even though I strive to eat most of my foods

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00:24:24.200 | micronutrients and adaptogens from food alone.

00:24:27.400 | And I need to do that in order to ensure

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00:24:31.100 | I sleep well at night and keep my immune system strong.

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00:24:37.720 | my physical health, my mental health and my performance,

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00:24:44.080 | when I didn't take AG1

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00:25:17.340 | - Well, as long as we're there,

00:25:19.640 | I'm just gonna tell you what's worked best for me

00:25:22.140 | in terms of warming up.

00:25:23.440 | And I'd love to know your thoughts.

00:25:26.520 | Years ago, I think it was a Charles Poliquin poster

00:25:30.120 | or something like that,

00:25:31.280 | where it was suggested to do

00:25:34.160 | relatively low repetition warmup.

00:25:36.100 | - Love it.

00:25:36.940 | - As opposed to going in and doing 15 reps,

00:25:40.120 | then 10, then eight or whatever it is.

00:25:41.960 | And I've found over the years,

00:25:43.840 | what's allowed me to get strongest

00:25:45.880 | and stay strongest for me is to,

00:25:49.120 | sure, I'll go in and do the first set of a movement,

00:25:51.740 | a resistance training movement of maybe eight repetitions,

00:25:54.920 | just to get some blood flowing and remind my brain.

00:25:57.880 | - Practice.

00:25:58.720 | - You know, what the range of motion is right.

00:26:00.780 | Then I'll do maybe just, you know,

00:26:03.480 | five, four, two repetitions of subsequent three sets.

00:26:08.160 | So five, four, and then two repetition sets

00:26:10.480 | with heavier loads.

00:26:12.280 | And it's just to prepare my nervous system

00:26:14.360 | for heavier loads.

00:26:15.240 | And then when I start my actual quote-unquote work sets,

00:26:18.320 | I can get a lot more real work done.

00:26:20.880 | And this for me was like spit in the face

00:26:23.920 | of everything I had read,

00:26:24.820 | everything I'd seen that you need to do,

00:26:25.920 | higher repetition warmups.

00:26:27.640 | And it has allowed me to progress more or less continuously

00:26:31.860 | over the decades that I've been training.

00:26:33.640 | And I'm not a natural athlete.

00:26:35.420 | I'm just not.

00:26:36.260 | I've trained for a long, long time,

00:26:37.160 | but I would never fall under what you would call

00:26:38.960 | like natural athlete.

00:26:40.180 | I don't have a low recovery quotient, all that stuff.

00:26:42.680 | And so for me, it was like a shocker,

00:26:45.480 | but it makes total sense.

00:26:46.580 | Prepare the nervous system for the work you're about to do.

00:26:49.160 | And don't follow some preconceived idea

00:26:50.940 | that you have to do high repetition warmup

00:26:52.600 | or even moderate repetition warmup.

00:26:54.560 | And lo and behold, you get much stronger.

00:26:56.560 | And if you want to grow muscle, you can grow more muscle.

00:26:58.600 | Why haven't we heard more about this?

00:27:00.160 | Why don't people in fitness talk more?

00:27:02.740 | I know you do, and please do.

00:27:04.840 | Talk about the nervous system.

00:27:06.520 | And the fact that it's not just all about warming up

00:27:09.000 | and getting blood flow.

00:27:10.180 | It's really about preparing the brain and spinal cord

00:27:12.980 | and all this stuff in there.

00:27:13.820 | - Yeah, love that.

00:27:15.380 | Let's say a couple of variables there.

00:27:18.460 | What's your training age, right?

00:27:20.260 | If I can take a beginner and you in the same thing,

00:27:22.140 | we can make big jumps.

00:27:23.100 | You and I have been, we've deadlifted together a decade ago.

00:27:25.460 | Like we can just go.

00:27:27.140 | We know our bodies, the patterns are well ingrained.

00:27:30.140 | Our tissues have exposure here, right?

00:27:32.500 | There's some things we can do.

00:27:33.500 | So I love that you're starting to see

00:27:36.660 | that what's the minimal amount of warmup

00:27:38.780 | to do the task.

00:27:40.280 | And on some days you may be sore, maybe stiff,

00:27:42.880 | and it takes a little more time to go,

00:27:44.440 | get right underneath it.

00:27:45.680 | One of the things I think we have this opportunity to do

00:27:49.360 | is put play back into warmups.

00:27:51.920 | So one of the things is that I suspect,

00:27:54.620 | and please correct me if I'm wrong,

00:27:56.640 | you don't find a lot of joy in doing these like

00:27:59.120 | rote A, B, the world's greatest stretch,

00:28:02.160 | wah, wah, wah, do the active.

00:28:04.160 | Like, it's not that fun.

00:28:06.360 | So what, let me talk about my experience

00:28:08.980 | working with a team at Berkeley.

00:28:11.580 | I have this shout out to the women's water polo team

00:28:13.700 | at Berkeley who are my just total family.

00:28:16.820 | These women are incredible.

00:28:18.380 | But I came into the sport and looked around

00:28:21.260 | and I saw really ineffective warmups

00:28:23.300 | that weren't a good use of the time,

00:28:24.900 | that didn't prepare us to get into a fight in 20 minutes

00:28:29.900 | or 30 minutes later.

00:28:31.380 | So if you went through your warmup and said,

00:28:33.700 | "I'm gonna be in a fight."

00:28:36.060 | Am I prepared for that or not?

00:28:37.360 | And that's a nice like rubric to say,

00:28:40.160 | I'm nervous system arousal, I have a little sweat on,

00:28:43.740 | I've practiced, right?

00:28:45.420 | You know, I've touched some positions and shapes.

00:28:48.880 | But you know, what I see is that there's,

00:28:52.040 | in the typical training session,

00:28:54.360 | there's a lot of work to get done.

00:28:56.320 | So now I think training has become very, very dense.

00:29:00.040 | You know, here's this piece, here's this piece,

00:29:02.120 | now I do the succession work, I gotta hit these,

00:29:04.560 | these cart, and so the warmup for me

00:29:07.480 | has been one of the last places

00:29:08.680 | where I can get you to explore new movements,

00:29:11.540 | something you saw on the internet, play around.

00:29:14.020 | If you came to my gym, you know,

00:29:16.000 | or we came to my house now, I'd be like,

00:29:17.680 | "Let's go throw the medicine ball for five minutes."

00:29:19.760 | And there's no wrong way,

00:29:21.020 | but I want you to start to explore speed.

00:29:22.680 | I want you to explore catching an object and going fast.

00:29:25.920 | And what we haven't done, and I suspect,

00:29:29.160 | I wouldn't say that your warmup is the best way,

00:29:31.700 | I'd say it's one way to get to the thing

00:29:34.300 | that we want faster and potentially you stop doing

00:29:38.040 | what didn't work and what didn't serve you,

00:29:41.040 | which I really want people to understand

00:29:42.800 | is that if you're not blind going through some program,

00:29:46.880 | I want you to say, "Does this serve me?"

00:29:49.040 | Because my experience working now 20 years

00:29:51.440 | with the best teams and athletes

00:29:53.240 | and organizations on the planet is athletes do what work

00:29:56.040 | and they stop doing what doesn't work.

00:29:57.280 | Isn't that interesting, right?

00:29:58.680 | So what I love is that you started to get

00:30:00.600 | under heavy loads relatively quickly

00:30:03.480 | in movements you had real competency and exposure with.

00:30:06.280 | Yes, because what we wanna do is come back to say,

00:30:09.760 | "What's the least amount of work I can do

00:30:11.640 | to have the biggest adaptation?"

00:30:13.680 | And three hours in the gym doesn't fit into your life

00:30:16.240 | and it doesn't fit into the typical person's life.

00:30:18.080 | And theoretically, you're gonna have to go do a sport.

00:30:21.440 | So you're gonna have to recover from this sport

00:30:24.420 | and this training session, right?

00:30:26.600 | You're like, "Hey, I can't even handle this high volume.

00:30:29.000 | You know, it's a ding on me too.

00:30:30.120 | I can't handle the same high volume as my friends can."

00:30:32.180 | So wasting your time in quotation marks

00:30:35.240 | with lots of high volume sets of an empty barbell

00:30:38.180 | might've been useful at some point

00:30:40.240 | and maybe it doesn't serve you as well now.

00:30:42.120 | Or because you have to put so many plates on that bar,

00:30:44.360 | that's just, that's a warmup by itself, right?

00:30:46.760 | - That's not an issue for me.

00:30:47.600 | - So you walked a mile to load those plates.

00:30:49.060 | - No, that's not an issue for me,

00:30:50.160 | but that's a perfect, what you just said,

00:30:51.800 | is a perfect opportunity for me to mention something

00:30:54.440 | that I've noticed, which prompts a question,

00:30:56.640 | which is I noticed that I have some asymmetry.

00:30:59.440 | My right shoulder naturally sits a little lower

00:31:01.200 | than my left, and whenever I get a little back tweak,

00:31:03.220 | it's always on the same side, et cetera, et cetera.

00:31:05.080 | I know this varies for everybody.

00:31:07.140 | And I noticed that I was always picking up the weights

00:31:10.020 | and re-racking them, 'cause I re-rack my weights

00:31:12.680 | like a grown-up, re-racking them on the same side.

00:31:17.440 | So I've made it a point now to switch up, you know,

00:31:20.000 | which side of my body I do them from.

00:31:22.240 | - Yeah, yeah, that's great.

00:31:23.160 | - And notice I'm significantly weaker

00:31:25.620 | on one side of my body.

00:31:26.880 | I mean, not to the point where, you know,

00:31:28.280 | I have to use two different sets of dumb,

00:31:30.280 | or two different dumbbells if I'm doing curls or something,

00:31:32.300 | but just noticing these natural asymmetries starting

00:31:34.800 | to show up because I'm a right-hander or who knows,

00:31:38.120 | or I skateboarded.

00:31:39.080 | So, you know, I've spent a lot of my life, early life,

00:31:41.660 | with my left foot forward and my right foot pushing.

00:31:44.480 | And as a consequence, there are a lot of asymmetries.

00:31:47.040 | So what I've tried to do is correct those asymmetries

00:31:49.800 | in the between movement movements,

00:31:52.520 | but also to stagger my stance during curls

00:31:54.600 | and then switch it each time,

00:31:56.520 | or maybe even overemphasize the weaker side.

00:31:58.880 | I have no professional training in any of this.

00:32:01.360 | I've just found that it's made for better posture,

00:32:04.400 | more evenly distributed strength.

00:32:06.240 | And I must say, all of that is based on teachings

00:32:08.840 | that I read in your books and through conversations

00:32:11.220 | with you about, hey, we have these natural imbalances,

00:32:14.000 | and there are little things that we can do

00:32:15.780 | that take moments that can correct those imbalances.

00:32:18.760 | So if you would, could you sort of expand on the number

00:32:22.280 | and type of imbalances that you most commonly see

00:32:25.040 | and some ways for people to remedy them, excuse me.

00:32:28.000 | - Let's, if we just took the word imbalance

00:32:30.160 | and put it to the side for a second,

00:32:31.440 | because it's sort of a nonspecific term,

00:32:33.380 | like, are we testing your hamstring to your quad?

00:32:35.720 | Like, what's the ideal ratio here?

00:32:38.120 | Like, if you're a professional pitcher,

00:32:40.040 | I hope your arm, right arm,

00:32:41.040 | looks different than your left arm, right?

00:32:43.160 | But what we can say is, number one,

00:32:47.460 | imbalances don't necessarily cause pain.

00:32:51.640 | Let's be clear about that.

00:32:53.640 | We should be using our time in the gym

00:32:56.960 | as training to find deficiencies in blind spots,

00:33:02.320 | in our patterns, in our skill,

00:33:05.440 | in our, you know, in our brains feeling comfortable

00:33:08.920 | with a certain movement.

00:33:09.840 | And what you just hit was that it's, boy,

00:33:11.960 | it's really easy to get a lot of variability

00:33:14.520 | just doing the things I want to do anyway.

00:33:16.040 | So now I'm in a tandem stance.

00:33:17.800 | I skate left foot forward, right?

00:33:20.480 | But, you know, suddenly that's my dominant stance

00:33:23.280 | if you're gonna ask me to do anything of consequence,

00:33:25.360 | I'm gonna adopt that stance.

00:33:26.880 | But suddenly I get to have some exposure here.

00:33:29.160 | So what's the point of the gym?

00:33:30.720 | What's the point of training?

00:33:32.480 | Just to work on some cardiorespiratory output,

00:33:36.600 | you know, that the science says?

00:33:38.680 | Is it to move and to play?

00:33:40.120 | Is it to, you know, if the brain's a, you know,

00:33:42.360 | problem-solving machine,

00:33:43.240 | let's give it some problems to solve.

00:33:44.640 | So you suddenly have a new problem to solve.

00:33:46.880 | And I would even say that weakness

00:33:48.920 | isn't even the right idea.

00:33:49.960 | It's just like, here's a pattern

00:33:51.960 | that I'm not as effective at, as efficient at.

00:33:54.480 | So when we go into the gym sort of

00:33:56.000 | with this great curiosity,

00:33:57.920 | then it's a really rich place

00:34:01.000 | and a really, frankly, the only safe place

00:34:03.960 | because there isn't contact and sport

00:34:06.320 | and we're not fighting and dancing and moving.

00:34:09.040 | And we can really do this controlled formal movement

00:34:12.560 | where we can really see inputs and outputs.

00:34:14.960 | I explained to my mother-in-law a long time ago

00:34:17.480 | what was happening when we were developing our model

00:34:19.640 | to understand movement.

00:34:21.200 | And I was, and I explained it and she was like,

00:34:23.600 | "Oh, you mean it makes the invisible visible?"

00:34:25.560 | That's right.

00:34:26.400 | It's that this is a place to understand

00:34:28.680 | how your range of motion is changing,

00:34:29.960 | how your skills are changing, right?

00:34:32.000 | Over the course of a season

00:34:33.400 | or the course of, you know,

00:34:34.440 | something going on in your life, a season in your life,

00:34:36.520 | suddenly you're like, "Wow, my left hip is a little tight

00:34:38.440 | or my left shoulder is, my internal rotation is going away."

00:34:40.880 | Hard to see when you're swimming.

00:34:42.640 | Really easy to see when we dumbbell snatch, right?

00:34:45.320 | And what we're trying to do then is take the gym,

00:34:48.280 | not only have it be a stimulus for adaptation,

00:34:50.720 | but have it be a really great place

00:34:52.600 | to uncover changes in my movement,

00:34:55.240 | changes in expression of that movement.

00:34:57.560 | And so really what you see, again,

00:35:00.360 | if I just do this one thing over and over again,

00:35:03.000 | that's patterning, that's repetition, that's practice, right?

00:35:06.440 | And what you've done is just said,

00:35:07.720 | "Hey, let me change my brain.

00:35:09.440 | Let me open the door handle with my left side."

00:35:11.280 | And coming into the gym with that curiosity

00:35:14.560 | means that we can have seven bottom lines.

00:35:17.120 | We're working on your fascia.

00:35:18.560 | We're working on these energy systems.

00:35:20.000 | We're working on these movement skills,

00:35:21.880 | but simultaneously we can have fun.

00:35:25.040 | We can work on understanding our range of motion.

00:35:28.080 | So for me, I think it's easier to say,

00:35:31.000 | let's frame mobility as do you, here's my definition.

00:35:36.000 | Do you have access to normative range of motion?

00:35:38.240 | The range of motion every physician,

00:35:39.560 | every physical therapist, every chiro agrees on.

00:35:42.160 | Shoulder, it's 180 degrees of flexion.

00:35:44.800 | - So for those listening,

00:35:45.640 | this is lifting your arm above head

00:35:47.760 | so you can bring your hand basically,

00:35:50.240 | you know, above the center of your head.

00:35:53.040 | - And what you can see right now

00:35:53.880 | is Andrew has his elbow bent,

00:35:55.360 | his head tipped to the side, his internally rotated.

00:35:58.880 | He's solving the problem, which is what his brain is saying.

00:36:02.120 | - Compensation, you're better on this side now.

00:36:04.640 | - If you want to use the word compensation,

00:36:05.960 | I want to put that on you.

00:36:07.360 | But what I'd say is that's an incomplete position.

00:36:09.760 | Doesn't mean you have pain.

00:36:11.400 | Doesn't mean you're not the world champion,

00:36:13.040 | but it means we may have some latent capacity we could chase.

00:36:16.480 | And the next question for me then is,

00:36:18.600 | what is it that's missing potentially in your training

00:36:22.160 | that we're not having this exposure?

00:36:24.000 | We're not doing enough close grip hanging,

00:36:25.480 | we're not doing seesaw press, right?

00:36:27.640 | Where the arm is straight up,

00:36:28.640 | we're always gripping on a barbell, right?

00:36:30.840 | I'm not handling enough dumbbells or kettlebells overhead.

00:36:33.200 | And then we can say, well,

00:36:34.160 | do I need some position transfer exercises,

00:36:36.600 | some mobility work to restore that so we can use it again?

00:36:39.200 | And then more importantly,

00:36:40.360 | how does that turn up for you in a way

00:36:42.840 | that impacts your sport or your job?

00:36:45.320 | That's what's really interesting.

00:36:46.720 | Does that make sense?

00:36:47.560 | - Yeah, so what I'm hearing is that

00:36:49.160 | when we go into the gym

00:36:50.280 | or wherever we do our resistance training work,

00:36:53.240 | that we should think about it as a place to,

00:36:55.240 | yes, perform to exceed our previous reps and sets.

00:36:59.400 | - That's fun.

00:37:00.240 | - Yeah, 'cause that's part of the-

00:37:01.080 | - It's fun and easy to measure.

00:37:02.280 | Hardly see, are you getting better at soccer?

00:37:03.680 | I don't know.

00:37:04.520 | But I put another keel on my bench today.

00:37:06.080 | Like, that's fun.

00:37:06.980 | - Lex Friedman, who of course everybody knows

00:37:10.100 | from the Lex Friedman podcast,

00:37:12.000 | likes to make fun of Americans 'cause he's Russian,

00:37:14.880 | but he's actually American now,

00:37:16.900 | for being meatheads,

00:37:17.740 | 'cause we like to spend so much time in gyms,

00:37:19.760 | working out as opposed to doing sports.

00:37:21.920 | And I assure him that I've also done and do sports now,

00:37:25.360 | but he likes to make that point.

00:37:27.160 | And I think it's a fair one in that,

00:37:29.040 | well, he's a resilient jujitsu guy.

00:37:30.720 | So in any event,

00:37:32.740 | the gym is also a place for diagnosis,

00:37:37.240 | to diagnose where we don't have as much range of motion

00:37:41.740 | as we could.

00:37:42.980 | And that's very helpful, I think, for people to hear,

00:37:46.740 | because most people are time limited.

00:37:48.940 | They don't have...

00:37:49.920 | If they're getting their two or three

00:37:52.340 | resistance training workouts per week,

00:37:53.860 | plus two or three cardiovascular training workouts,

00:37:55.980 | and they're listening to Peter Ortega,

00:37:57.220 | so they're trying to hang from a bar

00:37:58.660 | for 90 seconds or more,

00:38:00.340 | and they're doing some farmer carries,

00:38:02.380 | and they're doing their zone two,

00:38:03.420 | and they're throwing on a weight vest,

00:38:04.580 | and they got either fidgeting under their desk.

00:38:07.600 | At some point, you can start to understand

00:38:09.280 | why people are like,

00:38:10.120 | "Whoa, this is starting to become overwhelming."

00:38:11.540 | What you're talking about is

00:38:13.000 | going and doing your typical workout,

00:38:15.280 | but paying attention to where some,

00:38:19.440 | for lack of a better word, I'll call them asymmetries,

00:38:21.520 | or not full range of motion being expressed,

00:38:25.280 | where that might be happening.

00:38:26.320 | I love, I keep coming back to this,

00:38:27.840 | but this thing about getting down onto the ground

00:38:29.380 | for 30 minutes each night while watching TV,

00:38:32.800 | or maybe even while eating dinner,

00:38:34.560 | or while talking to your family or partner.

00:38:36.540 | I think it's fantastic.

00:38:37.620 | It also gives me an excuse to push the sofas

00:38:39.640 | off to the side of the room,

00:38:40.520 | 'cause I have this weird neuroticism

00:38:42.540 | about furniture in the middle of the room.

00:38:44.100 | So I'm imagining getting mats down on the floor

00:38:47.460 | of the living room.

00:38:48.300 | And suddenly, we're not programming another thing

00:38:51.940 | that's, I think, one of the things that's happened,

00:38:55.820 | and it's a good thing.

00:38:56.740 | It's a feature of the system.

00:38:59.020 | Strength and energy in the last 20 years

00:39:00.500 | has become very sophisticated.

00:39:02.780 | So, Juliette and I, my wife and CEO,

00:39:05.880 | opened our gym in 2005.

00:39:10.100 | - This was the CrossFit gym at the Presidio.

00:39:12.300 | - That's right.

00:39:13.140 | - Beautiful location.

00:39:14.100 | - 21st CrossFit in the world.

00:39:15.980 | But we couldn't buy a kettlebell in San Francisco.

00:39:19.040 | We had to drive to Santa Cruz.

00:39:20.420 | - That says a lot about San Francisco.

00:39:21.620 | I can say that 'cause I'm from the Bay Area.

00:39:23.380 | - But there was one place in Santa Cruz that sold them,

00:39:26.080 | Played Against Sports,

00:39:26.920 | that imported these Russian kettlebells.

00:39:29.160 | Thank you, Pavel.

00:39:30.420 | And we had to make this trek down to buy them.

00:39:33.140 | So, the fitness, I think we,

00:39:35.220 | I bought my first pair of Olympic-lifting shoes

00:39:36.860 | out of the back of someone's car, like a drug deal.

00:39:39.020 | - Olympic-lifting shoes?

00:39:39.860 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:39:40.680 | You just couldn't buy 'em.

00:39:41.520 | - Flat-soled shoes.

00:39:42.360 | - No, actually, an Olympic-lifting shoe with a heel.

00:39:44.820 | But you can buy those at three different stores

00:39:47.940 | in Malibu right now.

00:39:49.020 | You go right over there.

00:39:50.220 | You can buy kettlebells at Target.

00:39:53.920 | So, the world has become much more sophisticated.

00:39:59.060 | Sometimes, like, the overhead squat is a good example.

00:40:01.860 | Fantastic diagnostic tool.

00:40:03.380 | Tells us a lot.

00:40:04.340 | - So, bar held overhead.

00:40:05.620 | - And squat down.

00:40:06.440 | Super simple.

00:40:07.280 | All you have to do is have normal range of motion

00:40:09.340 | and your joints and tissues.

00:40:11.620 | Well, that helps.

00:40:13.060 | Juliette likes to say I was bendy before I was big.

00:40:15.060 | But, you know, the idea here, though,

00:40:16.540 | is let's go ahead and also put skill back into this.

00:40:20.460 | But most people weren't overhead squatting at all.

00:40:24.560 | It wasn't part of their language.

00:40:25.640 | Now, everyone knows what an overhead squat is, right?

00:40:28.020 | Dan John, CrossFit.

00:40:29.380 | All the Olympic lifters have been doing this forever.

00:40:31.820 | But what we are seeing is that the natural evolution

00:40:36.260 | of fitness and strength and conditioning

00:40:38.540 | is that we've become,

00:40:39.900 | we've gotten really decorative in our rooms.

00:40:42.460 | So, we create this room that's just,

00:40:44.300 | every inch has a knick-knack, has an assistance.

00:40:47.120 | This is my tib raise.

00:40:48.220 | This is my neck thing.

00:40:49.540 | It's a very decorative experience.

00:40:51.940 | And instead of asking what was essential

00:40:54.580 | in terms of energy systems and positions that I can train

00:40:57.640 | so that I could go use those credits.

00:40:59.780 | You know, for lack of a better word,

00:41:02.220 | fitness has become very recursive.

00:41:03.700 | I have this zone two, so I can do more zone two,

00:41:06.300 | so I can do more zone two.

00:41:07.220 | Or I have pull-ups because they get more pull-ups.

00:41:10.140 | Instead of, well, how did that make you swim?

00:41:12.500 | What's the minimum amount of time we can spend in the gym

00:41:15.140 | so that you can go express that?

00:41:16.700 | Lex is right, in a sport or an activity.

00:41:19.540 | And look, there are times in your life

00:41:21.300 | where the gym is the only thing you got.

00:41:23.220 | You know, Juliette and I,

00:41:24.060 | when we had two kids and a baby,

00:41:25.580 | or two kids in our businesses,

00:41:27.260 | we did the 10, 10, 10 at 10,

00:41:29.480 | which is like 10 air squats, 10 kettlebell swings,

00:41:31.560 | 10 pull-ups at 10 p.m. for 10 minutes.

00:41:34.720 | And I was like, elite, my fitness is elite.

00:41:36.800 | - Do you do that every day?

00:41:37.640 | - Well, I just did it when I could do it, right?

00:41:39.760 | Because that's all I could fit in.

00:41:42.080 | So, you know, I think what's happened

00:41:43.940 | is we have now sold people this idea

00:41:46.220 | that fitness happens in a one-hour block.

00:41:48.560 | And if it's not an hour, you know,

00:41:50.840 | then it's not worth doing.

00:41:51.920 | And if you kept a bar loaded in your garage,

00:41:55.240 | you could walk out there and do sets

00:41:57.100 | in between making dinner.

00:41:58.680 | You kept a kettlebell in your kitchen,

00:42:00.020 | you could do povals, four swings on the minute

00:42:02.180 | for 20 minutes, and at least have some exposure loading.

00:42:05.340 | So a long way around the barn of saying,

00:42:07.980 | I want to protect your gym time

00:42:09.860 | because it's really sacred, amazing time

00:42:11.780 | where you can have fun, explore ranges,

00:42:14.540 | get strong, get jacked, feel great about yourself,

00:42:17.340 | interact with your friends.

00:42:18.660 | And what I don't want to do is encroach any more

00:42:21.460 | on that magic time because we have a lot to get done

00:42:23.500 | in the gym physiologically.

00:42:25.120 | If we're gonna compete against these other teams,

00:42:27.480 | if we're gonna beat Stanford,

00:42:28.720 | we're gonna need to really maximize that time in the gym.

00:42:31.160 | So that means we need to push out

00:42:33.000 | some of these other behaviors

00:42:34.440 | so we're not stacking them in

00:42:35.760 | and they're eroding the time we could be squatting

00:42:37.840 | or benching or cleaning or running or sprinting

00:42:39.800 | or cutting or playing.

00:42:41.320 | - You mentioned warming up with play,

00:42:42.960 | which I think is a wonderful concept

00:42:45.280 | and presumably brings about more dynamic movement.

00:42:49.640 | - 100%.

00:42:50.840 | - And another reason I like it is that

00:42:53.360 | I loathe warming up aside from the types of warmups

00:42:56.260 | that I just described.

00:42:57.620 | - I hate it.

00:42:58.640 | - And I'm beginning to realize

00:43:00.420 | that the way I've been training,

00:43:01.920 | even though it's been, I would say useful

00:43:04.860 | and successful for where I've been,

00:43:08.460 | I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do

00:43:10.100 | heading into the new year.

00:43:11.420 | This is not like a new year's episode.

00:43:13.620 | This is evergreen because it's you,

00:43:17.160 | but we have a new year coming.

00:43:18.260 | A lot of people are going to naturally mark the time

00:43:21.740 | during and after the holidays as a transition point.

00:43:25.040 | And if one wanted to start to,

00:43:29.480 | not necessarily completely restructure their fitness,

00:43:33.080 | but wanted to start incorporating a few things.

00:43:34.960 | So we've got sitting down in the evening for 30 minutes.

00:43:36.880 | We've got incorporating play into the warmup.

00:43:39.480 | What would that look like?

00:43:40.360 | Are we taking a tennis ball and bouncing it off the ground?

00:43:42.360 | We setting some rule in playing a game?

00:43:44.020 | - Sure.

00:43:44.860 | - What if I'm alone?

00:43:45.680 | Am I playing a little handball type game against the wall?

00:43:49.520 | - Absolutely.

00:43:50.360 | - Want to see something on the internet?

00:43:51.200 | Want to learn a new skill?

00:43:52.020 | This is the time to put it in.

00:43:53.900 | I'm going to talk about my brilliant friend, David Weck.

00:43:57.700 | He has something called rope flow that he created,

00:44:00.740 | and it's just a piece of climbing rope.

00:44:03.480 | And he will talk about all the things that will do for me.

00:44:06.860 | I get a thousand PNF patterns.

00:44:09.220 | I tie my upper body into my lower body.

00:44:13.060 | - Could you explain PNF?

00:44:13.900 | Sorry, acronym.

00:44:14.720 | - Sorry. Sorry, everyone.

00:44:15.820 | That's a model of facilitating movement

00:44:20.820 | developed at Kaiser Vallejo.

00:44:22.960 | It is by Knot and Cabot, I think.

00:44:26.420 | Maybe I'm getting confused in those.

00:44:27.640 | And anyway, the bottom line is this.

00:44:29.800 | How do we help the body restore movement

00:44:31.860 | by using its own positional awareness?

00:44:34.200 | - Got it.

00:44:35.040 | - So if you've ever done a hamstring stretch

00:44:36.800 | where someone holds you and you resist,

00:44:38.640 | that contract relax is a style,

00:44:41.280 | it's a technique born out of PNF.

00:44:43.720 | - Got it. Sorry to interrupt.

00:44:44.560 | - Okay, no problem. Perfect.

00:44:45.380 | - So he's got these ropes.

00:44:46.840 | - And so suddenly, like I use this with all my teams,

00:44:50.440 | is suddenly I'm spinning ropes.

00:44:53.000 | I'm getting thousands of evolutions of the wrist turning,

00:44:56.320 | the elbow turning, the shoulder turning.

00:44:58.960 | I'm generating speed in weird positions

00:45:01.240 | that would be vulnerable and not as effective

00:45:03.000 | at high load, high stakes.

00:45:05.280 | I get to twist.

00:45:06.960 | I can tie my eyes into it.

00:45:08.960 | I can develop my stance.

00:45:10.560 | And in five minutes of messing around,

00:45:12.760 | you're like, "Oh, I feel good."

00:45:15.000 | And we've added some speed to that, right?

00:45:17.060 | Because a lot of the warmups I see people do,

00:45:18.480 | I'm like, "Hey, there was no speed."

00:45:20.540 | You know what sport is?

00:45:21.500 | Speed.

00:45:22.340 | And you haven't added any velocity to your training.

00:45:24.900 | So where are we going to do that?

00:45:26.180 | - I love this.

00:45:27.300 | I'm excited to.

00:45:28.140 | - Dave Weck does a lot of amazing things.

00:45:31.900 | His rope is a foundational piece of my,

00:45:34.040 | if you work with me and you have shoulder pain and neck pain,

00:45:37.860 | you're going to get my shoulder spin up

00:45:39.420 | or David Weck's rope flow every day.

00:45:41.420 | That's part of our homework.

00:45:42.740 | What are we going to do to give you exposure

00:45:45.200 | and restore what you're supposed to do with your body?

00:45:47.320 | - So walk into the gym, use the bathroom, hydrate,

00:45:49.640 | whatever it is you need to do.

00:45:50.600 | And then five to 10 minutes

00:45:52.080 | of some play type dynamic activity.

00:45:54.040 | - Throw a medicine ball around,

00:45:55.560 | jump on a mini trampoline,

00:45:57.120 | pick up a barbell, do a complex,

00:45:59.680 | do some breath hold work.

00:46:01.020 | This is a perfect place to lay in all the breath hold work.

00:46:03.400 | I think they call it dry face breath holding, right?

00:46:06.240 | It's this dynamic apnea work

00:46:07.880 | where you're basically holding your breath.

00:46:09.720 | So for example, with our teams,

00:46:12.020 | we try to, I try to have, this is a magic number,

00:46:14.200 | seven sort of hypoxic events

00:46:17.720 | where we do something on a breath hold

00:46:20.600 | until the athlete has a crisis and has to breathe.

00:46:24.400 | And part of that is I want to get the brain ready

00:46:26.660 | for these high CO2 levels, right?

00:46:29.120 | And I want to challenge respiration.

00:46:31.200 | And it's so easy.

00:46:32.040 | Get on the bike.

00:46:33.160 | Here's something everyone can do.

00:46:35.120 | For five minutes,

00:46:36.060 | I want you to take a 10 second inhale on the bike,

00:46:39.440 | hold your breath as long as you can.

00:46:41.520 | When the bomb goes off in your face,

00:46:43.440 | recover nose only.

00:46:46.040 | Start at the next one at the next minute.

00:46:47.440 | And what you're going to see is, wow,

00:46:48.800 | that was really uncomfortable,

00:46:50.000 | really psychologically preparing myself to get into a fight.

00:46:54.120 | That came from the French free divers.

00:46:55.920 | One of the coaches I was working with was like,

00:46:57.160 | here's something we used to do with our French free divers.

00:46:59.400 | I was like, this is so good.

00:47:01.760 | McKenzie, Laird Hamilton, Wim Hof,

00:47:04.640 | the people who've been exposing us

00:47:06.480 | to dynamic apnea work is amazing.

00:47:08.160 | But that's another example of something I can do

00:47:10.940 | instead of mindlessly just being on

00:47:12.800 | and I got to get a sweat.

00:47:14.280 | Like let's go ahead and just layer in play and destruction.

00:47:18.120 | - I love it.

00:47:18.960 | - Do not lay on the ground in foam roll.

00:47:20.920 | Let me say that again.

00:47:21.960 | Do not lay on the ground in foam roll.

00:47:23.360 | That's the worst way to get ready for a fight ever.

00:47:26.280 | - I'd like to take a quick break

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00:50:35.240 | Somehow, and we can talk about how, it's not a coincidence,

00:50:39.560 | you became synonymous with foam rolling.

00:50:42.580 | - Worst part of my life. - It became synonymous

00:50:44.440 | with you.

00:50:45.260 | That's okay.

00:50:46.720 | I mean, it's not okay, but it's okay with me.

00:50:48.760 | They weren't saying about me,

00:50:49.600 | but I was about to say it's okay.

00:50:51.080 | Anytime somebody goes public facing

00:50:53.720 | and starts to try and educate people,

00:50:56.840 | there's certain things that are sticky.

00:50:57.980 | They have high salience.

00:50:59.880 | Yes, I like to get into a cold plunge,

00:51:01.320 | but how I, how Andrew Huberman became associated

00:51:04.160 | with cold plunging or buying a cold plunge is wild.

00:51:07.100 | I mean, sure, I own one and this sort of thing.

00:51:09.560 | And I think they're great for shifting your state,

00:51:12.280 | but it's hardly the cornerstone of my life or my existence,

00:51:17.240 | but I love it.

00:51:18.080 | I use it, but I think foam rolling,

00:51:20.720 | I think looked different enough

00:51:22.680 | from what people had not seen before.

00:51:25.520 | And these things just, they have a stickiness to them.

00:51:29.780 | Who knows why?

00:51:31.480 | What is the deal with foam rolling?

00:51:33.220 | Is there a utility to foam rolling?

00:51:35.540 | Absolutely.

00:51:36.920 | Is there a wrong way to do it?

00:51:38.540 | No, but there's a way that's not a great use of your time.

00:51:41.980 | Okay. Right.

00:51:42.820 | So what we're all looking at is we have finite amount

00:51:45.660 | of time and what's my goal?

00:51:47.060 | To quickly touch my whole body?

00:51:50.340 | You know, what are we trying to do?

00:51:51.540 | So if I was using soft tissue mobilization

00:51:55.420 | and or using a roller or a ball or something,

00:51:59.660 | what's my goal here?

00:52:01.260 | Well, I think, and the research is very clear,

00:52:03.540 | it can help with pain, it can restore range of motion.

00:52:05.260 | Again, very clear.

00:52:06.300 | And I want to point out sort of one of my research friends,

00:52:10.460 | Brent Brookbush, the Brookbush Institute

00:52:12.980 | has incredible summaries of musculoskeletal care.

00:52:16.020 | Brent is a genius.

00:52:17.060 | And if you go on his site, there's a little hourglass

00:52:20.060 | and you can search like sugar points

00:52:21.780 | and you'll see all of the deep dive research,

00:52:24.740 | analysis of the meta research.

00:52:26.240 | Like you'll be like, okay, this is really excellent.

00:52:28.980 | And it is tricky because, you know,

00:52:31.580 | what doesn't work for my body

00:52:32.860 | or wasn't a good use for time now is useless

00:52:34.940 | and it's easy to shout on the internet.

00:52:36.520 | So what's our goal?

00:52:37.660 | If I was in pain and I was about to exercise,

00:52:41.620 | a quick two or three minute intervention working on,

00:52:45.600 | let's call it desensitization of the tissues,

00:52:48.480 | let's be mechanism agnostic for a second

00:52:51.460 | and say that's a really low level to entry safe,

00:52:56.340 | highly effective way for you to suddenly feel better.

00:52:59.340 | So we create a window of opportunity to move.

00:53:01.340 | That's really cool.

00:53:02.260 | I love that.

00:53:03.080 | No physical therapist in the room.

00:53:04.660 | No one went blind.

00:53:05.820 | You didn't dislocate, right?

00:53:07.860 | So that could be a really excellent use

00:53:10.680 | of some soft tissue work.

00:53:11.720 | The same way a boxer would go or an MMA fighter

00:53:13.940 | or the Olympic lifters in China,

00:53:15.860 | they have people who are giving non-threatening input

00:53:18.820 | to the body to tell the brain it's safe

00:53:20.860 | or to rehydrate something or get some,

00:53:24.220 | again, is it just stimulus

00:53:26.180 | so that the brain says it's safe?

00:53:27.660 | Sure.

00:53:28.620 | Are we restoring how the tissues slide and glide?

00:53:31.260 | Sure.

00:53:32.660 | A lot of times I think if you look at any

00:53:34.720 | of the mobility work, I'll just put writ large,

00:53:37.700 | really comes down to just doing a couple things.

00:53:39.900 | Most of them are just isometrics.

00:53:42.020 | So we have a lot of isometrics,

00:53:43.940 | which everyone can agree is good stuff.

00:53:45.980 | And we do a lot of tempo work.

00:53:47.700 | That's really just moving slowly through range.

00:53:50.480 | It just may be that I'm using a different tool

00:53:53.420 | to have that isometric stimulus

00:53:55.780 | or that tempo moving slowly stimulus.

00:53:59.420 | So we like to say, hey, let's use mobilizations,

00:54:03.980 | mobilizing the tissues.

00:54:05.280 | Why are we doing it?

00:54:06.120 | What are we trying to do?

00:54:06.940 | Well, pain is a good reason.

00:54:08.420 | And again, multifactorial, highly subjective.

00:54:12.060 | Why do I have pain?

00:54:12.900 | Well, I got in a fight with my wife and I didn't eat

00:54:15.420 | and I twisted my knee back in Vietnam

00:54:18.140 | and who knows, right?

00:54:20.060 | But what are the inputs that I have

00:54:22.240 | to self-soothe and desensitize?

00:54:23.660 | And it turns out a ball and a roller is a really good one.

00:54:25.900 | So I can use those to help myself feel better.

00:54:28.820 | Did that solve the problem?

00:54:29.980 | Did that solve two weeks of shitty sleep?

00:54:32.340 | Did that solve my poor nutrition and lack of fiber?

00:54:34.700 | Did that solve the fact that I don't feel safe

00:54:36.540 | in this environment?

00:54:37.380 | No, but it got me a window of opportunity

00:54:39.580 | where I can go feel better in my body.

00:54:41.580 | Is anyone against that?

00:54:42.520 | No, okay.

00:54:43.660 | So what we can also say is,

00:54:45.260 | hey, this would be a great way to do what?

00:54:47.140 | Restore your range of motion.

00:54:48.520 | Use a one tool and a system of tools

00:54:51.600 | to get you to do what?

00:54:52.840 | Have normative range again, right?

00:54:54.840 | For whatever reason, your lats are super stiff.

00:54:57.320 | Again, it's more complicated than that,

00:55:00.120 | but sometimes it's not more complicated than that.

00:55:01.800 | And if I just get you getting some input into there,

00:55:04.720 | maybe I can restore that range of motion

00:55:06.560 | or create a window where you can go use it again.

00:55:09.000 | Lastly, I would say is that it's a wonderful tool

00:55:12.440 | to decrease DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness.

00:55:15.560 | So in the evening, you blow out your quads,

00:55:18.080 | do a little soft tissue work.

00:55:19.200 | And what you'll see is maybe that's blood flow.

00:55:21.960 | Maybe it's non-threatening input.

00:55:24.240 | Maybe it's just massage.

00:55:26.180 | Maybe it's just the parasympathetic input

00:55:28.400 | that massage has, touch, right?

00:55:30.200 | Just down-regulates.

00:55:31.520 | Maybe those are the reasons I feel better.

00:55:33.360 | But the bottom line is, is that a good use of your time?

00:55:35.520 | Yes.

00:55:36.480 | Are all techniques on the roller the same?

00:55:39.220 | No, right?

00:55:40.720 | And I think that's where we've lost our minds

00:55:42.720 | is that if you just rolled up and down on your calf,

00:55:45.200 | didn't do anything.

00:55:46.040 | It's like, yeah, well, you just, what are you doing, right?

00:55:48.720 | What if I rolled side to side?

00:55:51.220 | And so suddenly we can start to layer

00:55:52.560 | in some really complex thinking around this.

00:55:55.300 | How about this?

00:55:56.140 | You have a roller out and I put my calf on there

00:55:59.760 | and I start rolling side to side.

00:56:01.640 | Should that be uncomfortable?

00:56:03.200 | I'm guessing you're gonna say no,

00:56:06.800 | but anytime I've used a roller,

00:56:11.640 | anytime I've used a roller, I'm like, man, that hurts.

00:56:15.680 | I don't want to do, that sucks.

00:56:17.200 | Well, I mean, I don't mind it.

00:56:18.480 | Like, it's not like the kind of,

00:56:19.400 | it's not like level eight pain or anything.

00:56:22.000 | It's just, it's sort of like, it feels very localized.

00:56:25.600 | Even if the roller is a big fat Costello

00:56:28.080 | the Bulldog size roller,

00:56:29.800 | it feels like someone's kind of kneading down

00:56:31.720 | in between my muscle fibers.

00:56:33.080 | And then I started to think

00:56:33.920 | maybe I just have like low fiber density.

00:56:36.120 | And if I were Mark Bell or something,

00:56:37.840 | then this would feel comfortable.

00:56:39.400 | But, you know, I always feel like the roller's

00:56:41.400 | going down to the bone.

00:56:42.240 | - To the face of LFD, low fiber density.

00:56:45.720 | So, you know, what I think we can do is

00:56:48.360 | let's establish some guidelines for people.

00:56:51.440 | 'Cause this is one of the ways

00:56:53.040 | that we can feel better in our home,

00:56:54.160 | without bourbon, without ibuprofen, without THC.

00:56:57.760 | Like we need to give people some tools

00:57:00.040 | that don't, like that aren't just-

00:57:01.800 | - Without having to buy a sauna.

00:57:02.800 | If you can afford one, great, but not every,

00:57:04.800 | I mean, this whole thing with sauna, love saunas.

00:57:07.040 | But, you know, well, until very recently in my life,

00:57:09.760 | like I couldn't afford a sauna.

00:57:11.560 | Until very recently, you know,

00:57:12.960 | even as a tenured professor at Stanford,

00:57:14.560 | I'll just say that, right?

00:57:15.440 | - You can actually be angry at your parents

00:57:17.000 | for not giving you a sauna.

00:57:18.480 | - You know, when I was a kid, my dad,

00:57:20.040 | and I used to go to the Y in the evening sometimes,

00:57:22.560 | or I was little, and I'd shoot baskets,

00:57:24.120 | or he would lift weights, Nautilus machines back then.

00:57:27.000 | - Yeah, get brutally big on those.

00:57:29.440 | - And then we'd sit in the sauna,

00:57:30.680 | or there was a hot tub.

00:57:31.520 | - And you had a different set of trauma,

00:57:32.960 | traumatic experiences of sitting in the sauna at the Y.

00:57:35.040 | - No, actually, I learned how men,

00:57:40.480 | I learned how men over 40 spoke in 1985.

00:57:45.480 | - There you go. - There you go.

00:57:51.720 | If everyone had a roller and a ball,

00:57:54.360 | there's a lot of dysfunction and discomfort we can manage.

00:57:58.200 | If you push on a tissue,

00:57:59.520 | we expect that tissue to be painless to compression,

00:58:03.080 | or not uncomfortable to compression.

00:58:04.960 | Again, pain is a weird word.

00:58:06.640 | I don't want to set that up,

00:58:08.480 | but you shouldn't be uncomfortable to compression.

00:58:10.480 | What's nice is that if I push on something,

00:58:12.600 | all I'm doing is just creating an isometric.

00:58:14.560 | It's just a vector isometric.

00:58:15.920 | Instead of pulling an isometric

00:58:17.200 | through the length of the tissue,

00:58:19.120 | I'm putting it at a different vector and angle.

00:58:21.680 | So that would just be one.

00:58:22.640 | I could start there, and if it was uncomfortable,

00:58:24.680 | well, guess what?

00:58:25.520 | Now I can get my nervous system involved.

00:58:27.880 | So I can teach my brain

00:58:29.640 | that it's safe to create a contraction here.

00:58:31.520 | So what do I do?

00:58:32.360 | Just flex, flex it, hold it for four seconds.

00:58:34.760 | - This is very basic, I realize,

00:58:36.080 | but for many people, they're either already foam rolling

00:58:38.720 | and doing it incorrectly, or they're not foam rolling.

00:58:40.960 | We want them to do it correctly.

00:58:42.320 | So if I understand correctly,

00:58:44.520 | it's "okay" to flex the muscle

00:58:47.420 | that you have in contact with the foam roller

00:58:49.480 | while you're rolling.

00:58:50.320 | - If I find something that's uncomfortable or stiff,

00:58:53.640 | or doesn't feel like my other side,

00:58:55.440 | I'm going to stop.

00:58:56.400 | I found a place to work.

00:58:58.200 | I'm going to build, take a big inhale.

00:59:00.720 | So I take a four second inhale.

00:59:04.360 | I want to teach myself

00:59:05.560 | that I need to be able to breathe in this position.

00:59:07.880 | One of my friends, Greg Cook, is like,

00:59:10.920 | "If you can't breathe in a position,

00:59:12.200 | you don't own a position."

00:59:13.440 | You know, that sounds very Iyengar, too.

00:59:15.720 | But what we're going to do is we're going to say,

00:59:16.760 | "It's okay to breathe here, and I'm going to contract here."

00:59:20.160 | And then I'm going to slowly relax and soften.

00:59:23.600 | That's tempo that's moving slowly,

00:59:25.680 | and I can handle higher loads.

00:59:27.440 | And what'll end up happening

00:59:28.800 | is if I repeat that cycle two or three times,

00:59:31.040 | guess what?

00:59:31.960 | My brain desensitizes that.

00:59:33.600 | Changes range of motion.

00:59:34.640 | My brain suddenly is like, "That's not a problem anymore."

00:59:37.440 | So we just move on.

00:59:38.800 | And in two or three cycles of that contraction,

00:59:41.960 | breath, hold, long exhale,

00:59:44.120 | that starts to sound familiar, right?

00:59:45.840 | How do I calm down, long exhales?

00:59:49.180 | I'm not trying to spin up.

00:59:50.640 | I'm trying to say, "This is safe."

00:59:53.320 | I've done that with my breath.

00:59:54.560 | I've done that with contraction.

00:59:56.080 | I'm just getting input in, just touch to my body,

00:59:59.960 | especially on parts

01:00:01.040 | that maybe don't bark at me very often, right?

01:00:03.740 | People are shocked to learn

01:00:05.640 | that sometimes when they have knee pain,

01:00:07.240 | how stiff their quads are.

01:00:08.960 | And then we can test it, load it, feel it, palpate it.

01:00:12.280 | And I'm like, "Those things are just stiff."

01:00:13.920 | And when we un-stiffen them,

01:00:15.660 | whatever technique you want to use,

01:00:17.160 | restore sliding surfaces, get neural input in there,

01:00:21.520 | we create range of motion.

01:00:22.880 | Suddenly we change a motion dynamic,

01:00:25.120 | improve deficiency.

01:00:27.280 | The brain says, "Hey, that's no longer a threat,"

01:00:29.160 | or we're experiencing that as a new pattern or position,

01:00:32.040 | that'd be enough to reduce your pain.

01:00:34.440 | But pain isn't the only reason we're mobilizing.

01:00:36.880 | We're mobilizing so that we can reduce session costs,

01:00:40.160 | so we can work out harder the next day

01:00:42.600 | and keep an eye on our minimums of our range of motion.

01:00:47.200 | - Love this.

01:00:48.040 | And another just very basic question,

01:00:50.600 | 'cause I'll be honest,

01:00:51.440 | I haven't foam rolled much in my life.

01:00:53.360 | - And it doesn't have to be a big foam roller, everyone.

01:00:56.880 | Sometimes those big white, those are pool noodles, right?

01:01:00.400 | That's what it was for.

01:01:01.240 | I think like made in Killeen, Texas

01:01:02.800 | is like a manufacturing by-product.

01:01:05.200 | And someone's like, "We could put these in the pool."

01:01:07.120 | And then some physical therapist was like, "Sweet."

01:01:09.120 | Like that thing's way too big and too hard

01:01:11.080 | and too square and too soft.

01:01:13.040 | Like there's a whole bunch of things.

01:01:14.800 | Like sometimes you need an elbow,

01:01:15.980 | sometimes you need a forearm, sometimes you need a thumb.

01:01:18.400 | So you can have much smaller diameter.

01:01:20.200 | I'm a much bigger fan of smaller diameter rollers.

01:01:23.400 | I just think they fit your body better.

01:01:25.480 | - Thank you for that.

01:01:26.840 | Also very helpful.

01:01:28.200 | Let's say I want to quote unquote loosen up

01:01:32.520 | or move out some potential soreness or soreness

01:01:35.900 | from a given muscle, like the quadricep.

01:01:40.160 | Does it make sense to start in the middle of that muscle,

01:01:42.720 | the top?

01:01:43.560 | Like, can you work above and below the knee?

01:01:47.020 | Are all of those things gonna help?

01:01:49.480 | I realize this is a much fuller discussion

01:01:51.320 | than we can have in a few minutes,

01:01:52.640 | but like how should I approach it?

01:01:54.120 | I'm like, okay, you know, my quads are a little sore,

01:01:56.780 | or my back is sore.

01:01:57.800 | Do I go straight to the back

01:01:58.880 | or do I start with another body region?

01:02:01.700 | - I don't think it matters.

01:02:03.240 | What I want interested is inputs and outputs, right?

01:02:06.080 | What I'm really interested in is

01:02:07.440 | what did you do to make yourself feel better?

01:02:09.320 | Did you just hope it would just go away?

01:02:11.560 | And then one day it didn't

01:02:12.400 | and then you had to activate the emergency medical system.

01:02:15.120 | So let's define a couple of things.

01:02:18.360 | What is an injury?

01:02:19.960 | This is a great question.

01:02:21.720 | Injury for us is there's a clear mechanism

01:02:24.540 | of mechanical trauma.

01:02:25.880 | There's a bone sticking out of your leg, Andrew.

01:02:27.440 | Time to go to the hospital.

01:02:28.520 | - Injured.

01:02:29.360 | - Right, you're injured, right?

01:02:30.520 | Heard a snap and a pop.

01:02:31.880 | - Yikes.

01:02:33.840 | - I have night sweats, dizziness, fever, vomiting, nausea,

01:02:36.880 | unaccounted for weight loss, weight gain,

01:02:38.640 | changes in my bladder, bowel function,

01:02:40.520 | problem with coughs, sneezes, or swallows.

01:02:41.720 | Those are red flags.

01:02:42.920 | You're not sore, you're sick.

01:02:45.640 | Let me introduce you to the doctor again, right?

01:02:48.180 | If your pain or dysfunction is so bad

01:02:51.080 | you can't occupy a role in your family,

01:02:53.280 | can't occupy a role in society,

01:02:54.840 | can't occupy a role in the team,

01:02:56.440 | that's an emergency problem.

01:03:00.000 | That is a medical condition that needs medical,

01:03:01.960 | so you come in today, we tweak your back.

01:03:04.280 | It may need, we need to activate EMS.

01:03:06.520 | You need to go to the hospital.

01:03:07.360 | We need to get, because it's so severe,

01:03:09.000 | you can't do your job.

01:03:10.760 | Everything else I want to call non-injury.

01:03:13.040 | I want to be very specific with the language used.

01:03:14.560 | We call it an incident.

01:03:15.540 | It actually comes out of this sort of language.

01:03:20.240 | There was a guy, here's the long way around the barn.

01:03:24.460 | I read this great book called "Deep Survival"

01:03:27.000 | which is Lawrence Gonzales,

01:03:28.800 | which is about why people end up in survival situations.

01:03:32.120 | And it's literally a lot about like,

01:03:33.600 | we got away with it for a long time.

01:03:35.120 | And then I just didn't have a, you know,

01:03:37.040 | I ended up two miles out sea.

01:03:38.340 | I've done it a million times, and this time, right?

01:03:40.160 | That's it.

01:03:41.000 | But there was a footnote in there

01:03:42.240 | from a book called "Normal Accidents" by Charles Perrow,

01:03:45.000 | who's recently passed on.

01:03:46.280 | I emailed Charles 'cause I was like, this has blown my mind.

01:03:49.960 | He calls, a lot of times we'll have trivial events

01:03:53.260 | in non-trivial systems.

01:03:54.960 | So he's taking systems thinking.

01:03:57.640 | He's looking at complex system organization.

01:04:01.360 | And his idea is that an accident, a normal accident,

01:04:05.640 | is actually just expression of the system

01:04:08.160 | if you gave the system long enough to express itself.

01:04:11.100 | The inputs and outputs are so tightly coupled

01:04:13.740 | that it's difficult to see what causes what

01:04:16.400 | and how they influence each other.

01:04:17.760 | That's the body.

01:04:19.040 | So your stiff shoulder isn't a problem

01:04:21.360 | until you fall on the ice.

01:04:22.880 | And then that stiff shoulder

01:04:24.400 | suddenly can't take overpressure and overhead,

01:04:27.200 | and you tear your rotator cuff off at high speed.

01:04:30.280 | You'd say, oh, black swan event, super crazy.

01:04:32.840 | But that's actually just a normal expression

01:04:35.600 | of that shoulder system

01:04:36.760 | if we gave it enough time to express itself.

01:04:40.400 | So he has sort of like incident and accident.

01:04:45.400 | So an incident is,

01:04:47.360 | I want us to start to think about incident-level problems,

01:04:50.520 | are pain, loss of range of motion, numbness, tingle.

01:04:53.360 | We're becoming curious,

01:04:54.840 | why is the brain sending me the signals?

01:04:57.040 | Pain is a request for change.

01:04:58.960 | So if we ask our athletic population,

01:05:01.000 | I just did this with 100 kids.

01:05:02.600 | I'm like, how many of you are pain-free?

01:05:03.760 | 100 high school kids, two hands go up.

01:05:06.560 | - Two, high school. - High school.

01:05:08.480 | So what we're suddenly realizing

01:05:09.800 | is that pain is very much a part of the athletic condition,

01:05:14.100 | the human experience, certainly the athletic experience.

01:05:16.540 | You've been in pain a billion times

01:05:18.080 | and still gone out and done the thing.

01:05:20.520 | So what we wanna do is say,

01:05:22.240 | pain is not always a medical problem.

01:05:23.500 | It's a medical problem when?

01:05:25.400 | The rest of the time we're saying,

01:05:26.520 | how are you using fitness training as a scaffolding

01:05:31.520 | to understand nutrition, hydration, soft tissue work,

01:05:35.560 | desensitization, reperfusion of the tissues?

01:05:39.400 | So that's what we're trying to do in sport and training

01:05:42.560 | is empower people to say, what's going on with my body?

01:05:45.440 | And why don't I feel the way I do?

01:05:48.000 | Or why does something hurt?

01:05:48.960 | And why can't I remedy that?

01:05:50.620 | And then when I run out of ideas, let me go get some help.

01:05:53.920 | - So the rolling we can think of as a way

01:05:58.920 | to move out soreness, prepare us for more work the next day

01:06:02.600 | or something like that. - Sure, love that.

01:06:03.780 | - But is it fair to say that we can also use the roller

01:06:06.600 | as a diagnostic tool? - Sure.

01:06:08.280 | - Like if I'm feeling like an unusual amount of,

01:06:12.120 | well, not unusual, but let's just say

01:06:14.680 | that I'm feeling like a wuss 'cause when I lie down

01:06:17.400 | on that roller and I kinda like slide back and forth,

01:06:20.400 | like I've seen the videos of you and other folks doing that,

01:06:22.600 | I'm like, man, that really hurts.

01:06:24.700 | Does that necessarily mean something's wrong?

01:06:26.760 | - No. - Okay.

01:06:27.920 | - No, it means that for whatever reason,

01:06:31.240 | those tissues become sensitized

01:06:33.600 | and that your brain is interpreting that stiffness

01:06:36.120 | as a threat and it's reading it as pain, right?

01:06:40.360 | And some people, they don't have that.

01:06:42.040 | They just, their tissues feel like this,

01:06:44.480 | but they don't have pain when they do that,

01:06:46.160 | but that's not a normal tissue.

01:06:47.800 | You should be like layers of warm silk

01:06:49.240 | sliding over steel springs.

01:06:50.600 | And what you're seeing- - Is that what quality tissue

01:06:53.280 | should feel like? - Yeah, absolutely.

01:06:55.160 | - Layers of silk over steel springs.

01:06:56.600 | - Layers of silk over steel springs.

01:06:57.920 | And what we see is that we are loading

01:07:00.640 | and training at such high intensity,

01:07:02.320 | so such density now that our tissues get stiff.

01:07:05.800 | I'm just gonna hang stiffness as, for whatever reason,

01:07:09.200 | high fibrotic, high density of tissues,

01:07:12.600 | whatever the reason, the tissues don't behave

01:07:15.240 | the way the joint system should, right?

01:07:18.240 | And that's a problem because my training

01:07:21.080 | shouldn't mitigate or attenuate

01:07:23.120 | or change my range of motion.

01:07:24.640 | It can, but now how am I keeping an eye on those changes?

01:07:28.840 | Or as you said earlier, as I do a sport

01:07:33.360 | and I start to do a sport and specialize,

01:07:36.000 | I'm throwing, throwing, or I swim, or I kick on one side,

01:07:40.040 | how can I start to identify as my body is changing

01:07:43.720 | and adapting that sport so I can drag myself back

01:07:46.560 | to a sort of a greater readiness?

01:07:48.200 | And that's one of the reasons that that mobilization tool

01:07:51.040 | is such a powerful tool.

01:07:52.440 | Again, however you wanna do it.

01:07:54.600 | I think it's useful for us when we have,

01:07:57.320 | I came up with this thing called the D2R2 model

01:07:59.240 | because the other ray was taken, R2D2.

01:08:02.320 | So the first order of business is I wanna desensitize

01:08:04.920 | if something hurts.

01:08:06.120 | Something hurts, let's desensitize it.

01:08:08.080 | I can do that all different ways.

01:08:09.200 | Scraping is powerful desensitization.

01:08:11.760 | Isometrics can be really useful.

01:08:13.680 | Rolling, BFR can give me desensitization.

01:08:17.520 | There's so many techniques to make my body--

01:08:19.360 | - Blood flow restriction.

01:08:20.200 | - Yeah, blood flow restriction.

01:08:21.120 | So that no longer my brain is perceiving this as a threat.

01:08:24.340 | Because if you're in pain,

01:08:26.120 | you cannot generate the same amount of force

01:08:27.720 | or wattage or output.

01:08:28.840 | And your brain is gonna start to truncate.

01:08:30.960 | It's gonna start to lop off your movement solutions, right?

01:08:33.320 | It's just gonna happen.

01:08:34.520 | So we want everyone to be saying,

01:08:36.640 | hey, we don't panic when we have pain.

01:08:38.000 | We just treat it like another diagnostic tool.

01:08:40.680 | Then second, D, right, we desensitize.

01:08:43.880 | And then we ask, is this something that'd be decongested?

01:08:47.240 | So decongestion means that oftentimes,

01:08:50.400 | tissues that are swollen become more easily sensitized.

01:08:54.280 | Tissues that are swollen and congested don't heal as fast.

01:08:57.560 | If you have a swollen ankle,

01:08:58.840 | those collagen fibers will not knit together as fast as a,

01:09:02.200 | right, if you have a joint that's swollen

01:09:04.160 | or a tissue that's swollen,

01:09:05.000 | your brain will shut down force production

01:09:07.400 | in and around that joint system.

01:09:09.600 | Is swelling an emergency?

01:09:11.360 | No.

01:09:12.320 | Is a swollen joint environment really healthy

01:09:15.640 | for the integrity and surface of the joint?

01:09:17.880 | No, we wanna manage that.

01:09:19.840 | But oftentimes when someone comes in

01:09:22.440 | and the tissue is congested, right,

01:09:24.440 | just sometimes we say swelling

01:09:26.280 | and we think ankle, right, only capsular.

01:09:28.640 | But here we have, if you've ever flown on an airplane

01:09:31.200 | and had cankles, those, that's congested tissue.

01:09:34.960 | If we manage that congestion,

01:09:36.280 | if we move those lymphatics along,

01:09:38.240 | we, muscle contraction drives the lymphatic drainage.

01:09:41.240 | The lymph system is the sewage system of the body.

01:09:44.520 | Decongested tissues often express less pain.

01:09:48.280 | And what we find is that in broken bones

01:09:50.560 | or soft tissue injuries,

01:09:51.880 | if we can better evacuate that swelling,

01:09:54.560 | better evacuate that congestion,

01:09:56.240 | not only do we see you're now healing

01:09:58.000 | at the rate of a human being,

01:09:58.920 | we're not rate limiting the healing,

01:10:00.480 | but also we can help you manage that sensitivity.

01:10:02.760 | Then the third one is,

01:10:04.520 | can we get some blood flow in there?

01:10:05.840 | Like you said, once I warm up, I feel great.

01:10:08.120 | Welcome to the power of blood flow.

01:10:09.920 | Tissues become hydrated.

01:10:11.640 | We're shifting blood from the stomach.

01:10:13.160 | All the things that happens, right,

01:10:14.760 | all that venous return is coming back on board.

01:10:17.400 | But suddenly we see that

01:10:18.520 | if we can get something pumped full of blood,

01:10:20.400 | it tends to be less painful.

01:10:21.720 | And that's a really easy.

01:10:22.960 | So if I have an old orthopedic thing,

01:10:24.640 | maybe I spend a few minutes just getting a huge quad pump

01:10:27.480 | on the leg extension machine, then I go squat heavy.

01:10:30.560 | Right, so now I have desensitization,

01:10:32.600 | decongestion, reperfusion.

01:10:34.000 | Whatever tool you want to use for these

01:10:35.480 | is fair game with me.

01:10:36.320 | Just how I've come to kind of conceptualize

01:10:38.800 | these different tools.

01:10:39.800 | And the last one is restore.

01:10:42.400 | Do you have full range of motion,

01:10:44.040 | full normal in that joint, yes or no?

01:10:45.760 | 'Cause that's the last thing that we talk about

01:10:48.480 | because you're still able to perform your sport at college

01:10:51.320 | or do your job,

01:10:52.160 | but we're not seeing how in excess,

01:10:55.200 | your ability to not excess that range of motion

01:10:57.720 | may be limiting your movement choice

01:10:59.400 | and potentially overloading a tissue

01:11:01.880 | by making it work in a less effective manner.

01:11:03.760 | Or even just leading to progressively worse

01:11:06.280 | and worse posture.

01:11:07.480 | Sure. Which is probably-

01:11:08.800 | Well, define posture for me

01:11:10.160 | 'cause I think that's a really great place to start, right?

01:11:11.880 | Yeah, I can define bad posture

01:11:13.400 | as when you catch yourself in a reflection

01:11:15.920 | and you realize, well, I'm starting to look more like a C

01:11:19.440 | than an R. That's so great.

01:11:21.760 | The question is, is that a matter of aesthetics or pain?

01:11:24.840 | Well, certainly for me, it's not pain,

01:11:27.520 | but I- It's not becoming injury.

01:11:30.120 | I noticed that it's not becoming.

01:11:32.320 | I noticed that unless I pay attention

01:11:35.680 | to my posture while sitting,

01:11:37.680 | unless I do like bridge my fingers together

01:11:41.280 | and pull my chin back a few times a day,

01:11:44.200 | that I'm just naturally starting to tip over forward

01:11:46.640 | towards my text messages

01:11:47.640 | that aren't even in my hands right now.

01:11:49.320 | And I think this is the younger generation.

01:11:53.760 | I mean, now that I'm 49, I can talk like that, right?

01:11:56.080 | I mean, it's striking.

01:11:56.920 | Were you born in the 1900s?

01:11:58.800 | They are- Late 1900s?

01:12:00.680 | Yeah, exactly. That's really my age.

01:12:02.240 | They're starting to look like a-

01:12:03.720 | They're shaped like a C.

01:12:05.080 | That it's- And I'm a big believer in people,

01:12:08.640 | especially men, doing neck work.

01:12:10.160 | I feel like if you especially-

01:12:11.960 | How about especially people doing neck work?

01:12:13.840 | Yeah, well, here's the thing.

01:12:15.440 | Anytime- I'm happy to go there with this one,

01:12:18.600 | maybe even at the risk of being politically incorrect.

01:12:20.960 | Anytime I've suggested that women also do neck work,

01:12:23.560 | they say no.

01:12:24.480 | You should see my goalie daughter

01:12:26.760 | because for every pound stronger your neck is,

01:12:30.000 | your reduction in concussion risk drops huge, a pound.

01:12:34.760 | Thank you.

01:12:35.600 | So we keep the iron neck by the door and she walks in

01:12:38.480 | and we have a video in our family

01:12:40.240 | where she's doing her iron neck training.

01:12:41.440 | She looks at me, she's like,

01:12:42.280 | "Dad, this is why I don't have a boyfriend."

01:12:44.200 | Thank you. Sorry, Caroline.

01:12:45.200 | But that's the way it goes, right?

01:12:46.440 | 'Cause she's like, "Look at me, I look like an idiot."

01:12:48.840 | But she loves having a big, strong neck

01:12:50.720 | that can take the shot from the ball.

01:12:52.880 | Listen, I wish everyone would train their neck.

01:12:54.720 | I had an accident where I fell off a roof,

01:12:57.960 | walked away from it, my neck was sore,

01:12:59.480 | but I heard it and felt it.

01:13:00.800 | And I was like, "Oh goodness."

01:13:02.080 | But it was actually from skateboarding stuff and falling

01:13:04.480 | and then I started training my neck years ago

01:13:06.320 | and realized that, wow, when I train my neck,

01:13:09.080 | I'm one of the few people in my age cohort

01:13:12.200 | that doesn't complain about shoulder pain.

01:13:13.520 | Now, maybe I don't have full range of motion,

01:13:15.920 | maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong people,

01:13:17.240 | but anytime I see somebody with really broad shoulders

01:13:21.000 | where their neck is really inside of their jaw line,

01:13:23.760 | it looks like a head was placed

01:13:24.840 | on the wrong action figure body,

01:13:26.720 | I just want to go over to them and say,

01:13:28.600 | "Listen, A, it's aesthetically ridiculous.

01:13:31.040 | "It looks like one of those flip books in the kids

01:13:33.320 | "where you can change the head, the body and the legs

01:13:35.320 | "to be different animals.

01:13:37.120 | "More seriously, it's a hazard

01:13:39.640 | "because it's your upper spine.

01:13:40.920 | "It's clearly not in line

01:13:41.840 | "with the rest of your strength profile."

01:13:43.960 | And the other one is the more incentive-based thing is,

01:13:46.600 | "Hey, listen, if you train your neck,

01:13:48.160 | "everything else gets stronger

01:13:49.480 | "and your brain is going to be safer."

01:13:51.320 | And as a neuroscientist,

01:13:52.200 | they usually listen to the last piece.

01:13:53.800 | - Love it, love it.

01:13:54.640 | - So I'm so glad we're talking about this.

01:13:56.400 | I do bridges.

01:13:58.160 | I know that it can be risky.

01:13:59.520 | With tongue on the roof of my mouth,

01:14:00.680 | I do bridges to the back

01:14:02.240 | and then I do have a four-way neck machine

01:14:03.840 | or I use a plate.

01:14:04.960 | Jeff Cavalier has got a great video

01:14:06.400 | of how to do this that we can link to,

01:14:08.080 | how to do it safely.

01:14:08.920 | You gotta close the chain by having a hand on the ground,

01:14:11.280 | this kind of thing to do it safely.

01:14:12.760 | But I've just found that neck work also serves posture.

01:14:16.400 | Posture serves the ability to make eye contact

01:14:19.720 | when you have those things we call conversations

01:14:22.240 | with people in real life.

01:14:23.840 | And I do think these things stack up

01:14:26.520 | to we won't call it like psychological confidence,

01:14:28.480 | but the ability to meet somebody,

01:14:29.600 | like firm handshake,

01:14:30.440 | you're not trying to crush the other person's hand.

01:14:32.280 | Look people in the eye,

01:14:33.120 | stand up straight, whatever your height.

01:14:35.240 | These things really matter in subtle ways

01:14:39.080 | or not so subtle ways.

01:14:40.160 | I think that I do feel like, yes,

01:14:42.920 | that the younger generation and the older generation,

01:14:45.040 | that they sort of drop,

01:14:46.480 | they kind of drop out of certain elements of life.

01:14:49.040 | If you're looking down at the ground

01:14:50.120 | or your phone all the time,

01:14:51.160 | you can't look people in the eye.

01:14:52.560 | You're posturally not right.

01:14:53.840 | You're in pain.

01:14:54.920 | You're not as strong as you could be.

01:14:56.640 | I mean, these things stack up

01:14:58.400 | to being like in an aquarium full of fish.

01:15:02.400 | You're becoming the fish in the background

01:15:04.040 | that's like, you know, like it was kind of sickly

01:15:06.520 | and the other fish are getting all the good stuff.

01:15:08.440 | And you know.

01:15:09.360 | If you define posture as like the Latin word root

01:15:14.080 | is position.

01:15:15.160 | So we're really saying is I have good position,

01:15:16.880 | I have bad position.

01:15:17.720 | Who brought, I have bad position.

01:15:19.880 | One of the ways I think we've lost the narrative

01:15:22.720 | a little bit is we try to give people these extrinsic cues

01:15:27.720 | to correct their posture.

01:15:29.080 | Shoulders back and down, check your tent.

01:15:30.720 | Like, so all of a sudden you're like,

01:15:31.840 | when am I going to be a human being?

01:15:33.400 | How do I practice this when I'm doing a complex skill?

01:15:36.400 | So the organization of your body,

01:15:38.800 | the organization of your spine, particularly,

01:15:41.440 | really is a reflection of your movement habits,

01:15:43.360 | your behaviors, your self-identity.

01:15:45.200 | There's a lot of things in there, right?

01:15:47.080 | You didn't get the job.

01:15:48.680 | You won the, you got the number from Juliet

01:15:51.440 | or you're sleep deprived even.

01:15:52.720 | - 100%.

01:15:53.560 | - And I'm going to call myself out

01:15:54.960 | 'cause people are going to do it.

01:15:55.800 | There are many times on this podcast

01:15:57.360 | when I go and I look at the,

01:15:58.280 | 'cause I do listen to the podcast,

01:15:59.440 | try and see places I can improve, et cetera.

01:16:02.360 | And I'll be like, wow, my posture.

01:16:03.560 | I'm like hunched over.

01:16:04.960 | And I think to myself, and I'll go and I look.

01:16:05.800 | - You're just reflecting my posture.

01:16:07.600 | - No, no.

01:16:08.440 | And I track my sleep.

01:16:09.280 | So, you know, I'll go back and look.

01:16:10.680 | I'll be like, yeah, I wasn't sleeping as well those days

01:16:12.400 | or whatever it is, right?

01:16:14.240 | I mean, I think that we are all guilty

01:16:16.280 | of not paying enough attention to our posture.

01:16:18.160 | So what we can do is we could define posture

01:16:22.240 | as there is a median range of the joint positioning

01:16:27.240 | where we simultaneously have most access to our physiology,

01:16:31.320 | right, and I'll explain that a little more.

01:16:32.960 | But also those shapes aren't associated

01:16:35.880 | with increased pain risk and increased injury risk,

01:16:38.640 | which is real.

01:16:40.040 | The research does bear that,

01:16:42.160 | that there are positions and shapes

01:16:44.400 | that lead to less effective movement

01:16:46.640 | and are more likely to experience pain.

01:16:48.640 | It's probabilistic.

01:16:49.840 | It's not guaranteed.

01:16:51.440 | There's more likely.

01:16:53.200 | So one of the things that I think you could understand

01:16:56.800 | is, hey, do you want to have access

01:16:58.800 | to all of the machinery?

01:17:00.840 | So go ahead and slouch.

01:17:02.400 | Go ahead with me.

01:17:03.240 | And then just turn over your shoulder.

01:17:04.520 | How far can you turn?

01:17:05.640 | - Yeah, not very far.

01:17:06.480 | - Now watch this.

01:17:07.320 | Get into a position where you take a huge breath.

01:17:09.120 | Get into the biggest position

01:17:10.160 | where you take the biggest breath.

01:17:11.520 | (inhales)

01:17:13.040 | Okay, so that's a pretty rocking shape.

01:17:14.680 | Now turn your head.

01:17:15.880 | (groans)

01:17:16.720 | It goes further.

01:17:17.560 | So by you being cued,

01:17:20.640 | can you adopt a shape,

01:17:23.080 | an organization of your trunk

01:17:25.000 | that allows you to ventilate a little bit more effectively?

01:17:27.560 | You completely change and reorganize your structure,

01:17:30.680 | which led to an improvement in output.

01:17:34.480 | So when I'm working with people,

01:17:36.120 | there's only two things I really can wrap my head around.

01:17:38.560 | One is, do you have normative range of motion?

01:17:41.280 | Yes or no?

01:17:42.120 | What are the tools we have to restore that and improve that?

01:17:44.600 | And does that expression give us greater biomotor output?

01:17:47.840 | 'Cause those are objective measures.

01:17:49.240 | When biomotor output, I mean range of motion,

01:17:51.760 | force production, power, right?

01:17:53.840 | I see that I can express the physiology in a unique way

01:17:57.720 | that makes me more effective.

01:17:59.680 | And that is why you'll see suddenly we have this definition

01:18:03.240 | that is maintaining the physiology and aspects.

01:18:06.340 | I'm not gonna have as good shoulder flexion

01:18:08.440 | with my arm over a head is when I'm sitting up taller

01:18:12.200 | or in a position where I can take a bigger breath.

01:18:14.440 | And I think that's what's really great

01:18:15.600 | 'cause that gets us away from good posture, bad posture

01:18:18.520 | into, hey, that position doesn't serve you as well

01:18:21.800 | in these circumstances.

01:18:23.040 | And in this position,

01:18:24.360 | I'm working with the pararescue team in the Air Force.

01:18:28.320 | The number one reason they were having back injuries

01:18:31.480 | was getting the litter out of the helicopter

01:18:34.560 | because they have a litter,

01:18:35.880 | the soldiers there with all their gear on,

01:18:38.800 | they've got a lift from a totally weird flexed position,

01:18:42.760 | right?

01:18:43.600 | And this just turns out

01:18:44.420 | it's not a really effective posture position shape

01:18:47.880 | that transfers to handle these higher loads.

01:18:50.220 | So what do we do?

01:18:51.080 | We work on the range of motion.

01:18:52.080 | We give them skills to try to organize more effectively

01:18:54.680 | in that shape.

01:18:55.960 | And lo and behold, we can reduce injury risk

01:18:58.800 | and injury incident in those soldiers, right?

01:19:02.360 | So what we're always thinking about here

01:19:04.360 | is let's get away from good and bad

01:19:06.160 | and posture doesn't matter.

01:19:08.180 | And it also doesn't matter at low load, low speed.

01:19:11.360 | And I wanna be very clear about that.

01:19:13.660 | So you can get away with murder

01:19:16.000 | at low velocities and low speeds, but speed kills.

01:19:19.880 | Oh, everyone's fine.

01:19:20.880 | But when that speed wobble starts to happen,

01:19:23.680 | we start to see greater likelihood

01:19:26.000 | of deflection from posture.

01:19:28.400 | Your abs don't work as effectively.

01:19:30.320 | You can't create the same intra-abdominal pressure, right?

01:19:33.720 | Check, check, check, check, check.

01:19:34.700 | So that's why we always are saying,

01:19:36.000 | "Hey, is this true that you're saying

01:19:38.800 | "under high load, high speed

01:19:40.560 | "when there's consequence?"

01:19:41.600 | 'Cause maybe this set of conditions

01:19:43.720 | works under these conditions,

01:19:46.040 | but it doesn't work across all conditions.

01:19:47.800 | And for me, I'm trying to take the best information

01:19:50.360 | I have working in sports and performance

01:19:52.400 | and trying to transmute that to my family,

01:19:54.520 | transmute that to my neighborhood

01:19:55.920 | and to the kids I'm working with.

01:19:58.240 | - I'd like to take a quick break

01:19:59.440 | and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Element.

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01:20:36.760 | of hydration and electrolytes,

01:20:38.480 | I dissolve one packet of Element

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01:20:42.000 | when I wake up in the morning,

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01:20:45.480 | I also drink Element dissolved in water

01:20:47.200 | during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing,

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01:21:32.080 | As long as we're talking about posture,

01:21:35.480 | it feels like a good transition point to pelvic floor.

01:21:39.320 | Years ago, and this is a plug for the material

01:21:43.640 | that you put out online and in books,

01:21:45.240 | but long before we met,

01:21:47.540 | I decided to sign up for your Men's Pelvic Floor course.

01:21:50.640 | - I sold our Women's Pelvic Floor course two to one.

01:21:52.400 | - It was so interesting because, you know,

01:21:55.160 | at that time, one could go online

01:21:57.520 | and learn a little bit about pelvic floor.

01:21:59.020 | Everyone, and we talked about this

01:22:00.800 | with a couple of different guests on this podcast,

01:22:02.480 | including the director of male sexual health.

01:22:06.120 | He's an MD, PhD, or at least an MD, as I recall,

01:22:09.000 | Mike Eisenberg at Stanford.

01:22:10.260 | We've talked about this with Mary Claire Haver

01:22:11.720 | and other people in the female health domain.

01:22:13.440 | - I'm glad we're normalizing this conversation.

01:22:14.920 | - Yeah, we normalize this conversation.

01:22:16.240 | You know that the pelvic floor is rich with vasculature

01:22:19.320 | for blood flow and neural input for controlling muscles,

01:22:22.880 | either passively or actively.

01:22:24.300 | And I'll tell you, the number of people I know

01:22:30.520 | who have urinary issues, sexual dysfunction issues.

01:22:35.520 | I know because they tell me

01:22:37.680 | that they squat heavy in the gym,

01:22:39.800 | they do their Kegels and things like that.

01:22:41.520 | Then I've had guests on like Mike Eisenberg and others,

01:22:43.580 | and they say, yeah, actually,

01:22:47.000 | if you have a tight pelvic floor,

01:22:48.400 | doing Kegels is about the worst thing you could ever do

01:22:51.500 | for urinary function or erection function.

01:22:56.500 | You know, because you're sending it in the wrong direction.

01:22:58.200 | You need to learn to relax your pelvic floor.

01:23:00.080 | Then some women will say,

01:23:01.960 | and it seems to be women that report this,

01:23:03.560 | whether or not men just have this, but don't report it.

01:23:06.440 | I don't know.

01:23:07.280 | I've had people write to me and say,

01:23:08.880 | yeah, you know, I'll do some lower body work in the gym

01:23:11.680 | and some urine is sneaking out.

01:23:13.680 | And it's like, well, pelvic floor.

01:23:14.920 | And you had this great course on pelvic floor

01:23:16.600 | that taught me among other things.

01:23:18.300 | And I will say, I wasn't suffering

01:23:20.560 | any of those particular issues,

01:23:21.800 | but I had prostate pain in my thirties.

01:23:26.000 | And I was like, what's going on?

01:23:27.000 | Went and got my PSA measured, perfectly normal.

01:23:29.560 | Thought, what's going on?

01:23:31.320 | Started researching online, read your work and realized,

01:23:33.760 | oh, I think I might just have tight pelvic floor.

01:23:35.760 | Started doing certain things,

01:23:37.760 | including you taught me how to sit down

01:23:39.960 | and stand up correctly in this video.

01:23:42.040 | It's like, you have to keep your sternum high, right?

01:23:44.680 | You sort of, I think you said it was like a stately-

01:23:46.960 | - Let me just, there's no wrong way or right way

01:23:49.880 | to stand up or sit down, everyone.

01:23:51.420 | But there are ways that reflect increased function,

01:23:55.960 | especially when you're in a dysfunctional state.

01:23:58.260 | - Right, right.

01:23:59.100 | Yeah, right, I don't wanna,

01:23:59.960 | we're not trying to yet tell people what to do or not to do.

01:24:03.600 | But it was like, wow, I'm probably hunched over too much.

01:24:06.380 | I think my hips are back too far when I'm sitting

01:24:08.840 | and maybe I'll move to a standing desk or a sit-stand desk,

01:24:12.920 | which is what I did.

01:24:13.760 | Lo and behold, prostate pain goes away.

01:24:15.600 | And had I not found that course,

01:24:19.180 | I might've gone down the path of medication

01:24:21.620 | or something else, took care of everything.

01:24:23.160 | I also, I will say the other thing I learned

01:24:25.280 | was I tend to have a slight anterior pelvic tilt.

01:24:29.360 | So thinking about the pelvis, like a bowl, as I understand,

01:24:31.480 | like if that bowl could be,

01:24:33.080 | the ridge of that bowl could be parallel to the ground

01:24:35.320 | or tilted forward, anterior pelvic tilt,

01:24:37.680 | or back, posterior pelvic tilt.

01:24:39.680 | Neutral seems like a good idea,

01:24:41.000 | but most people tend to have some natural propensity

01:24:44.120 | towards one or the other.

01:24:45.240 | Started wearing, I pretty much always wore flat shoes.

01:24:47.720 | Adidas or skateboard shoes are pretty flat.

01:24:49.980 | I lucked out there.

01:24:50.820 | - Your shoe game is strong today?

01:24:51.660 | - My shoe game is strong today.

01:24:52.760 | Adidas, still wear 'em every day, love 'em.

01:24:55.680 | Or no shoes, which is great.

01:24:58.800 | And I noticed, okay, that corrected

01:25:01.560 | some of that prostate pain too by making,

01:25:05.080 | oh, excuse me, what helped correct it

01:25:06.680 | was to make sure that in the gym,

01:25:09.360 | I did something that turned out to be glute ham raises

01:25:11.880 | that would take my pelvis through

01:25:14.480 | a fairly full range of motion from posterior to anterior tilt

01:25:19.480 | and I've come to love the glute ham raise.

01:25:21.760 | We're talking full range glute ham raises

01:25:23.960 | as one of the most useful tools

01:25:25.440 | just posturally for pelvic floor.

01:25:27.840 | So it's not about having huge hamstrings.

01:25:28.680 | - Beautiful, addressing stiffness in the system,

01:25:31.120 | resetting it, high neurologic component

01:25:33.560 | to actually do the thing.

01:25:35.220 | One of the things I hinted at earlier

01:25:37.720 | is like I've chased biomotor output, right?

01:25:40.040 | Intra-abdominal pressure and being able to have

01:25:42.520 | a pelvic floor that works for you is part of that system.

01:25:45.640 | Like, again, we can take the physiology

01:25:47.560 | and goose it up and down.

01:25:49.520 | What's interesting about, I had a famous friend

01:25:52.480 | who was filming a TV show and we were working

01:25:55.360 | on his internal rotation of his hip.

01:25:57.040 | So if you imagine someone on your back

01:25:59.360 | and I bring your knee to your chest

01:26:00.840 | and I swing your foot away from your midline, right?

01:26:05.400 | The femur rolls in, that's internal rotation

01:26:08.200 | of the femur for everyone.

01:26:09.480 | And I worked on his internal rotation of his femur

01:26:11.400 | and just improved his hip flexion, knee to chest,

01:26:14.260 | just got those things going.

01:26:15.840 | I get this text that night and he's like,

01:26:17.800 | "Bro, what is up with my boners?

01:26:21.320 | "They're out of control.

01:26:22.640 | "What is going on?"

01:26:23.880 | - Out of control in the positive direction?

01:26:26.240 | - Positive.

01:26:27.080 | And I was like, "Well, there's this thing called blood flow.

01:26:29.120 | "And when we improve blood flow,

01:26:31.620 | "turns out reperfusion is on the list

01:26:33.720 | "of things that we chase."

01:26:35.160 | - So he'd been crimping the hose, so to speak.

01:26:37.480 | - It's just stiff, right?

01:26:38.600 | And I think when we start to see

01:26:40.560 | that endopelvic fascia as a system,

01:26:44.200 | it's so easy for us to be reductionist.

01:26:46.360 | Like, I wouldn't even say you had prostate pain.

01:26:48.480 | I would say you had pain in your prostate area.

01:26:50.440 | - Right, and in fact, that's what it was still,

01:26:52.040 | the prostate region, right?

01:26:53.780 | And because-

01:26:54.620 | - So you're like, "I don't know where my prostate is.

01:26:55.860 | "Okay, that's pain in my prostate."

01:26:56.700 | - Well, I mean, in a general sense,

01:26:58.080 | and I also saw that PSA level was well within normal,

01:27:01.280 | actually low range.

01:27:02.600 | And I was like, "What in the world is going on here?"

01:27:04.420 | And you start, you can find some pretty scary stuff online

01:27:07.080 | about spinal cord injuries and this kind of thing.

01:27:09.660 | Did what we just talked about,

01:27:12.280 | and boom, it's never been an issue again.

01:27:14.300 | - We have all the Olympic lifting gyms, even our gym,

01:27:17.480 | we kept a towel on the platforms

01:27:19.960 | so that women particularly would pee themselves

01:27:23.360 | when they would receive a heavy clean, heavy snatch.

01:27:26.360 | And we would just wipe it up.

01:27:29.160 | - They'd actually urinate on the platform?

01:27:30.680 | - Oh yeah, that happens all the time,

01:27:32.040 | all over the Olympics, everywhere.

01:27:33.080 | You'll see that.

01:27:34.040 | That is bladder incontinence is not normal, right?

01:27:38.160 | Totally normal to poop yourself before a fight.

01:27:41.080 | That's what animals do.

01:27:42.480 | Totally not normal to pee yourself.

01:27:44.280 | Peeing yourself is a sign of dysregulation, for sure.

01:27:47.560 | So what we're, as you're seeing is though,

01:27:50.040 | hey, I can't manage this high intra-abdominal pressure

01:27:54.040 | I'm creating.

01:27:55.200 | And what ends up happening is we pee ourselves.

01:27:57.560 | So we can start by saying,

01:27:59.000 | well, are there positions and shapes?

01:28:00.700 | Theoretically, I want your pelvic floor to work

01:28:02.200 | in all the shapes.

01:28:03.040 | It's maximally, and there'll be some shapes

01:28:04.240 | where it just doesn't work as effectively.

01:28:05.960 | And if you're a man, so we're getting into it.

01:28:08.360 | If you go pee, you'll see a lot of men

01:28:10.460 | will put their hand on the wall

01:28:12.040 | and they'll adopt a anterior pelvic tilt to pee.

01:28:16.120 | And what they'll do is basically

01:28:18.520 | just turn the pelvic floor off.

01:28:20.080 | And so if you stand up and do a big anterior pelvic tilt,

01:28:23.760 | your pelvic floor will lose some of its tone

01:28:25.520 | and it's easier to initiate a string.

01:28:27.040 | - So anterior pelvic tilt, again, folks,

01:28:28.860 | is imagine your pelvis is a bowl.

01:28:30.480 | You're tilting it forward

01:28:31.320 | like you're gonna pour water out of the bowl,

01:28:32.720 | which is a fair analogy here.

01:28:34.080 | - That's right.

01:28:34.920 | - You're saying, ideally, they keep a neutral pelvis

01:28:38.720 | and use the force of their muscles controlling their bladder.

01:28:41.400 | - No, no, no.

01:28:42.240 | I'm saying that it's much more difficult to pee

01:28:45.440 | in this position where we have high control

01:28:48.840 | over these systems.

01:28:49.960 | And what you'll see is that most people will adopt a shape

01:28:52.720 | where they basically inhibit their pelvic floor

01:28:54.360 | so they can pee standing up.

01:28:56.160 | - I can't believe we're gonna dissect urine posture,

01:28:58.560 | urinating posture, but I think it's really important.

01:29:01.520 | Let's contrast that to the famous sculpture

01:29:05.640 | of the boy peeing and he's like leaning back, leaning back.

01:29:10.640 | - Same posture.

01:29:12.480 | His pelvis is forward and he's leaning back.

01:29:14.600 | That's the same posture.

01:29:15.840 | - So people with sons will know this, right?

01:29:19.720 | So, you know, when you're a young kid, young boy,

01:29:23.460 | you can like, it almost feels like you can pee

01:29:27.200 | over a car if you had to.

01:29:29.120 | Maybe I tried that.

01:29:30.120 | - I'm just saying.

01:29:32.440 | - It was a Volkswagen.

01:29:33.260 | - One car, one car.

01:29:34.100 | - Right, right.

01:29:34.920 | So, but here's, so is there a proper posture for peeing?

01:29:37.520 | - No, no, no.

01:29:39.280 | But initiating a stream, maintaining a stream

01:29:42.880 | is like, that's a sign of sexual health,

01:29:46.240 | of functional health, it's your general health.

01:29:48.680 | And what's nice now is notice how we got

01:29:51.300 | to this very nuanced conversation

01:29:53.680 | about erectile dysfunction, about bladder insufficiency,

01:29:57.600 | about, right, peeing ourselves.

01:30:00.320 | We got there through performance, right?

01:30:02.720 | We'll have athletes who literally had a whole bunch

01:30:04.920 | of babies, suddenly have difficult time creating

01:30:08.760 | high intrapabdominal tone, will jump rope and as soon as,

01:30:11.960 | and pee, and as soon as they come back

01:30:13.960 | to a more organized position that allows them

01:30:16.560 | to transfer energy more effectively,

01:30:18.600 | recruit better musculature, have better organization,

01:30:21.400 | peeing stops.

01:30:22.540 | So what we suddenly--

01:30:23.380 | - This is female athletes?

01:30:24.220 | - Are women athletes, so you recommend that they jump rope.

01:30:26.680 | Well, yeah, absolutely.

01:30:27.760 | Eventually, I need to challenge that for,

01:30:29.720 | that's an easy way to do it.

01:30:30.560 | But what we see is, can you squeeze your butt

01:30:32.880 | and jump at the same time?

01:30:34.040 | And what you'll find is that a lot of people,

01:30:35.920 | as soon as they adopt this anterior pelvic tilt,

01:30:38.920 | glute goes off and they don't have that glute control.

01:30:43.040 | So that can be problematic for a whole host of features.

01:30:45.920 | So imagine, I was hoping we were gonna get

01:30:48.760 | to hip extension eventually, but you know,

01:30:50.440 | what we see is that stiffness in the front of the quads,

01:30:53.840 | anterior line of the fascia, stiff front of the capsule,

01:30:57.440 | whatever the mechanism is, we do a lot of sitting,

01:30:59.480 | we're just, we're squatters.

01:31:01.800 | My inability to take my knee behind my hip,

01:31:05.040 | we call this knees behind butt, knees behind butt guy,

01:31:07.600 | that's what I wanna be known as.

01:31:09.120 | Knee, but goes behind your butt like you're in a lunge.

01:31:11.200 | That's right, sorry, Ben.

01:31:13.000 | And then what you're gonna see is a lot of times

01:31:15.160 | when we put people in those positions,

01:31:16.320 | they can't get a good glute squeeze.

01:31:18.400 | - Okay, could one practice this?

01:31:20.080 | I'm thinking about it, it's been a while

01:31:21.000 | since I've taken a yoga class.

01:31:22.440 | - And squeeze your butt, you would be like,

01:31:23.600 | I can practice this.

01:31:25.200 | - Okay, so there's a pose in yoga

01:31:28.040 | and I'm not an advanced yogi,

01:31:29.440 | but I've taken a few yoga classes in my day

01:31:31.440 | where you're on your, you're basically propped up

01:31:34.920 | sitting on your knees.

01:31:36.040 | So it's sort of like in the camel.

01:31:37.520 | - High kneeling.

01:31:38.360 | - Yeah, high kneeling.

01:31:39.200 | And then-

01:31:40.040 | - Hard to squeeze your butt there, isn't it?

01:31:40.880 | - It's hard to squeeze your butt there.

01:31:42.000 | And then-

01:31:42.840 | - Because of all the forces yanking you anteriorly,

01:31:46.680 | those fascia lines, the quads,

01:31:48.920 | you're basically in that high kneeling position.

01:31:51.000 | And because the lower leg is bent behind you,

01:31:53.720 | you're being dragged forward

01:31:55.360 | and it's difficult to squeeze your butt

01:31:57.000 | and extend over backwards.

01:31:58.200 | - So there's that, do they call it camel pose

01:32:00.080 | where you reach back and grab your heels

01:32:01.560 | and then you're supposed to look up at the ceiling.

01:32:03.160 | - That's a gnarly one.

01:32:04.120 | - It's a gnarly one.

01:32:04.960 | If you do it in the Bay Area, the teacher will say,

01:32:06.440 | "Don't be surprised if some emotions come up."

01:32:08.400 | - No, very fair.

01:32:10.440 | - If you do this in Austin, Texas,

01:32:11.960 | they just say, "It's supposed to hurt, keep going."

01:32:14.120 | I'm just joking here.

01:32:15.000 | This is like regional humor.

01:32:16.160 | But in any event,

01:32:17.680 | I think that's actually accurate by the way.

01:32:19.960 | But in any event, it is a slightly unusual

01:32:24.720 | for most people who aren't accustomed to it

01:32:26.880 | to do that pose.

01:32:28.000 | Again, doing that pose, I bring it up for a reason.

01:32:32.720 | - And if you don't do that pose,

01:32:33.560 | you might do kipping pull-ups.

01:32:34.520 | That's a global extension position.

01:32:36.280 | All we're doing is taking the spine

01:32:37.640 | and putting a huge global load in it

01:32:39.840 | instead of a localized load.

01:32:41.480 | So an anterior pelvic tilt,

01:32:43.200 | you might think of localized extension and flexion

01:32:46.240 | where I have one or two segments doing the lion's share.

01:32:48.840 | We, whenever we can prefer

01:32:50.920 | to have global flexion extension

01:32:53.080 | 'cause the spine maintains its integrity

01:32:54.920 | a little more effectively.

01:32:56.120 | - So doing things like wheel pose.

01:32:57.800 | - Awesome.

01:32:58.640 | - Putting your hands up near your ears,

01:33:00.000 | pushing it flat on the ground,

01:33:01.840 | pushing up into an arc shape on the ground.

01:33:06.840 | - Great diagnostics, awesome.

01:33:08.680 | - Is this something that most people should be able to do?

01:33:11.840 | - Yes.

01:33:12.760 | Can most people probably do it?

01:33:14.120 | No.

01:33:15.160 | Can we then break down the components of it?

01:33:17.320 | Yeah, absolutely.

01:33:18.160 | Even Iyengar, yogi master started to bring in props,

01:33:23.160 | blocks and belts because he was seeing that his students

01:33:27.520 | weren't able to achieve some of the base shapes.

01:33:30.120 | And what they were doing was human Jenga

01:33:32.480 | to get into those patterns.

01:33:33.640 | They were just solving the problem.

01:33:34.840 | And he was like, hold up, let's not go around the problem.

01:33:36.840 | Let's support you while we load you

01:33:39.280 | and breathe in these positions and shapes.

01:33:41.960 | - Given that most people don't have a ton of time

01:33:45.240 | for movement, designated blocks of time for movement.

01:33:50.240 | If one, we're going to do, let's say some attempt

01:33:54.040 | toward wheel pose practice or camel pose practice,

01:33:56.880 | or any number of the other things

01:33:59.280 | that we're talking about here,

01:34:00.120 | which are taking the body into positions

01:34:02.200 | that we're not naturally putting it into

01:34:04.640 | given our activities.

01:34:05.600 | - Yeah, great way of saying it, you nailed that.

01:34:08.360 | - Would you suggest doing these

01:34:09.400 | at the end of a resistance training workout?

01:34:11.640 | - When does it work for you?

01:34:12.800 | At some point you need to be exposed in this position.

01:34:15.160 | When are you going to get exposed to this position?

01:34:16.720 | If it happens to be able to be clumped in

01:34:19.360 | with your training, fantastic.

01:34:20.680 | If it's at home in the evening, fantastic.

01:34:22.600 | If you've done sun salutation before, it's old school.

01:34:26.960 | It's almost like they were like,

01:34:28.000 | let's get this system going a little bit.

01:34:29.960 | So later on in the day, it's a little bit easier.

01:34:32.640 | So at some point we need to expose you to some positions.

01:34:35.640 | We have something called the hip spin up.

01:34:38.000 | And typically for my athletic populations,

01:34:41.400 | my teams, especially, I'm like,

01:34:42.480 | hey, I want you to do one of three things in the morning.

01:34:43.960 | You got 10 minutes, that's all I'm asking.

01:34:45.400 | Eight to 10 minutes.

01:34:46.680 | Hip spin up, shoulder spin up, or breath spin up.

01:34:49.040 | Just do one of those.

01:34:50.480 | If your back hurts or knee hurts, you get hip spin up.

01:34:52.880 | If your shoulder or neck hurts, you get shoulder spin up.

01:34:56.080 | And then if not, just cycle through those.

01:34:58.080 | So at least in the morning,

01:34:59.000 | we're starting to touch some of these crucial shapes

01:35:02.960 | that you're never in.

01:35:04.320 | And if you do the hip spin up and suffer,

01:35:06.160 | I'm like, well, that's telling me about

01:35:08.560 | your movement history, your injury history,

01:35:11.200 | your movement diet.

01:35:12.360 | And again, nothing that we do on the ready state

01:35:15.800 | is related to supernatural levels of range of motion,

01:35:19.440 | just basic range of motion.

01:35:21.720 | The range of motion, again, that everyone learns

01:35:24.040 | in med school, everyone learns in physical therapy school.

01:35:26.520 | So what's fun about what you've said

01:35:29.080 | around this pelvic floor health piece

01:35:32.640 | is that when we get people doing some mobilization,

01:35:35.080 | really brought to my attention of Jill Miller,

01:35:38.280 | is that we start mobilizing the endopelvic fascia.

01:35:41.560 | We just land a ball, just anywhere from your pubic bone

01:35:44.480 | to up to your diaphragm process,

01:35:46.640 | but particularly belly button south,

01:35:48.600 | you'll see that none of that should be uncomfortable.

01:35:50.680 | And one of the reasons we see high incidence

01:35:52.840 | of pelvic floor dysfunction,

01:35:55.160 | but also high incidence of sports hernias

01:35:58.400 | is that we have a hip that doesn't work very well

01:36:00.880 | and ends up dragging that pelvis into positions

01:36:04.480 | where it's not muscularly very strong, right?

01:36:07.000 | I can get out of position where I have a lot of good

01:36:09.840 | sort of activation or access to those positions.

01:36:12.680 | Then I have fascia and musculature that's super stiff

01:36:16.360 | because every time you do abs,

01:36:17.760 | you celebrate the stiffness, right?

01:36:19.320 | You do abs, you're like, oh, I'm sore today,

01:36:20.800 | I'm gonna go have some ice cream.

01:36:22.280 | When's the last time you managed your hamstrings

01:36:24.120 | or quads?

01:36:24.960 | Probably yesterday.

01:36:25.780 | When's the last time you rolled out your abs

01:36:27.120 | and your obliques?

01:36:28.720 | Never?

01:36:29.560 | - Previous life.

01:36:30.380 | - Right, previous life before you respawn.

01:36:32.320 | So I think one of the things that we're seeing is,

01:36:34.880 | again, that'd be a perfect time to do in the evening.

01:36:37.120 | Don't go to the gym and lay on the kettlebell

01:36:39.120 | and be a creepy guy.

01:36:40.560 | Instead, pull out that volleyball at home,

01:36:42.920 | pull out that princess ball you got at Walgreens

01:36:44.920 | and start having a conversation with your pelvic floor.

01:36:48.480 | Turns out, you know, your abdomen,

01:36:50.200 | your pelvic floor can also be mobilized.

01:36:53.520 | So we just, it's really simple.

01:36:55.480 | Front of your pelvis is your pubic bone,

01:36:58.440 | that's the front of the pelvic floor,

01:37:00.320 | the back is your coccyx,

01:37:01.680 | and each ischial tuberosity or sit bones is the side.

01:37:04.300 | Everything else is your pelvic floor.

01:37:06.400 | So you can take a ball and just stay away from the holes,

01:37:09.360 | and if anything hurts to compression,

01:37:12.120 | you found a problem,

01:37:13.400 | so you can contract and relax and apply that same tissue.

01:37:16.940 | - So I might be on my side,

01:37:18.400 | I might be rolling with the ball right underneath me.

01:37:20.560 | - You would just be sitting down on your coffee table

01:37:22.880 | and just putting that,

01:37:24.320 | sitting that ball in and around your pelvis

01:37:27.280 | and around your glutes and around your pelvic floor, right?

01:37:30.120 | You might be dangerously close to your grundle,

01:37:32.640 | you're welcome.

01:37:33.600 | So the idea here though is, you know,

01:37:36.080 | oftentimes when we'll have athletes with back pain,

01:37:38.660 | we're not looking at their pelvic floor or hip pain,

01:37:41.400 | but you have six short hip rotators, right?

01:37:44.480 | You don't just have a couple rotators,

01:37:46.480 | you have a huge rotator cuff of the hip,

01:37:48.660 | and some of those things are congruent

01:37:50.160 | and kind of part of that pelvic floor.

01:37:52.800 | So it's not that I need to go after my pelvic floor every day

01:37:55.040 | 'cause again, let me just add another thing to do your list,

01:37:57.860 | but if something changes,

01:37:59.860 | I suddenly wake up and I don't have an erection.

01:38:02.080 | I suddenly are discovering that I'm peeing myself

01:38:04.520 | 'cause I'm an elite cyclist, right?

01:38:05.960 | And something's happening that I'm like,

01:38:07.280 | "Oh, I know what to do here.

01:38:08.480 | Let me start to work on my belly.

01:38:09.680 | Let me see if I can work on restoring my positions.

01:38:11.920 | And can I do a little pelvic floor mobilization?"

01:38:14.240 | And that's a great place to start.

01:38:15.360 | And which doctor was involved? None.

01:38:17.760 | Which pelvic floor therapist was involved? None.

01:38:19.340 | In fact, if you carry that to your specialist,

01:38:22.840 | they're gonna be like, "All right,

01:38:23.760 | we get to have the real conversation now

01:38:25.200 | 'cause you've already done the other stuff."

01:38:26.920 | - One thing that frightens me and maybe unnecessarily so

01:38:33.000 | is when I see men in particular doing crunch work,

01:38:38.440 | like ab work, crunching with ankles crossed.

01:38:44.160 | A, because people tend to cross the same ankle

01:38:47.940 | over the other one.

01:38:49.000 | They don't symmetrically switch sides.

01:38:53.120 | - That's my good side, bro.

01:38:54.080 | - And my other understanding is that this can also lead

01:38:58.500 | to some pelvic floor issues and asymmetries.

01:39:01.000 | Simple solution could be to not cross the ankles

01:39:03.600 | while doing like repeated contraction work of the abdominals.

01:39:08.600 | Am I being silly?

01:39:10.640 | - I would put that lower on the list of problems I have.

01:39:13.760 | Right?

01:39:14.600 | Like, I think if we went into the world right now

01:39:16.640 | and looked at people doing curls, curl ups,

01:39:20.600 | the real thing is, is that your only way

01:39:22.960 | that you're training the abdominals?

01:39:24.320 | You know, do I have a bigger range of motion of the trunk?

01:39:28.920 | There are so many ways to be thinking about

01:39:31.240 | what the trunk should be doing

01:39:32.920 | and reducing it down to this one curl.

01:39:35.880 | I think if one of the things that we're looking at,

01:39:38.240 | like I'd much rather you hang from a bar and curl up.

01:39:42.000 | - Yep. So this is pretty much,

01:39:44.640 | I won't say the only ab work I do.

01:39:46.040 | I do some anti-rotation work by staggering my stance

01:39:48.440 | when I do curls or anything else,

01:39:50.100 | 'cause it's a very time-efficient way to do it,

01:39:52.000 | making sure my belly button is staying straight.

01:39:53.580 | So you're resisting the temptation to rock

01:39:55.640 | from side to side and you get the anti-rotation work,

01:39:57.560 | obviously switching up the stance,

01:39:59.480 | but doing what you described,

01:40:00.720 | hanging from a bar, doing pikes.

01:40:02.620 | To me, you're also getting grip work.

01:40:05.360 | - Yes, you're hanging.

01:40:06.200 | - But just for time efficiency, it just seems like-

01:40:07.400 | - You're also not just separating the abs

01:40:10.280 | and working with the abdominals with the knee to the chest.

01:40:13.080 | 'Cause that's really what we're seeing is that,

01:40:15.200 | do you only need your abs working in this position?

01:40:18.440 | So basically you're reproducing another seated position,

01:40:21.400 | except you're crunching your chest to your seated knee.

01:40:25.960 | And that's really what that position is.

01:40:27.720 | Do we do it long?

01:40:28.680 | What happens if you do it long lever?

01:40:30.400 | Short lever means the elbow is bent.

01:40:32.440 | Long lever is the elbow is straight.

01:40:34.200 | Short lever is the knee is bent.

01:40:35.440 | Long lever is the leg is straight.

01:40:37.320 | So why aren't we working in all those patterns and positions?

01:40:40.000 | And then being creative.

01:40:42.000 | There are so many great resources.

01:40:44.320 | The kids at Dave Durante has a free ab workout.

01:40:48.800 | He's an Olympic gymnast from Stanford, superstar.

01:40:51.920 | But you can go on to, I think it's Iron Monkey.

01:40:54.680 | Sorry guys.

01:40:55.600 | And what you'll see is there's so much fun way to play

01:41:00.600 | and think about what the role of the trunk should do.

01:41:06.000 | And I think we're moving beyond, thank goodness,

01:41:09.160 | this, like I have to be a rigid robot all the time.

01:41:11.840 | And that we need to ask, what is the trunk supposed to do?

01:41:14.640 | A good way of thinking about this.

01:41:16.040 | And I think your sit up is a good analogy.

01:41:19.120 | Really a book that makes the rounds from time to time

01:41:22.720 | is a book called "The Spinal Engine" by Serge Grachovetsky.

01:41:27.120 | And he really talks about the trunk as a driver of power,

01:41:32.120 | not just as a chassis of which the big engine moves.

01:41:35.160 | And that really is a nice conceptual way

01:41:36.880 | of simplifying movement.

01:41:39.000 | But if we define functional movement,

01:41:41.280 | most people agree it works in a wave of contraction

01:41:43.320 | from trunk to periphery, from core to sleeve,

01:41:45.640 | from axillary skeleton to peripheral skeleton.

01:41:48.160 | But that means, boy, there are positions

01:41:50.080 | where I'm really effective and can generate a lot of force

01:41:52.800 | and there'll be positions where I can't.

01:41:54.640 | But if my spine can't handle flexion, it's not a spine.

01:41:57.640 | If it can't handle extension, it's not a spine.

01:41:59.960 | If it can't rotate and be into these complex

01:42:02.040 | positioning shapes, I'm like red flag.

01:42:04.320 | So how are you training that thing?

01:42:06.200 | And if your only rigid dogma is straight up and down,

01:42:09.480 | which is a great reason to do mobility work,

01:42:11.560 | is suddenly we can side bend and we can twist.

01:42:14.560 | And am I exposing myself to some of those shapes?

01:42:18.720 | And so we call that work,

01:42:20.200 | borrowing from one of my Olympic friends,

01:42:22.320 | Stu McMillan, spinal engine work.

01:42:24.800 | Putting PVC, side bending, playing with different shapes.

01:42:28.560 | And again, if you get into the David Weck ropes,

01:42:31.720 | if you threw medicine balls,

01:42:33.280 | you would suddenly see you're like, you're right,

01:42:34.680 | I can't be a rigid piece.

01:42:36.240 | How am I training the functionality of my trunk

01:42:39.160 | beyond just my six pack?

01:42:40.760 | 'Cause straight curling will certainly give you a six pack,

01:42:44.280 | but that doesn't necessarily mean

01:42:45.400 | you're gonna surf with power,

01:42:47.160 | run with power, punch with power, et cetera.

01:42:49.160 | I mean, look at what would just happen with those fights,

01:42:51.800 | right, with the women fighting,

01:42:53.600 | just the rotational power that they have.

01:42:55.680 | You can't get that from just crunches with your legs.

01:42:58.400 | - The fight right before the Tyson Jake Paul fight

01:43:02.400 | was arguably the best fight

01:43:03.840 | and people had seen that a long, long time.

01:43:05.920 | The spirit of it and just the,

01:43:07.520 | I mean, they were just incredible.

01:43:09.400 | - Everyone watch us women's sports.

01:43:11.200 | That was really great.

01:43:12.160 | So I think what's great now

01:43:14.360 | is if we can get people to start to be curious and to play,

01:43:19.160 | and I'm not saying you need 10,000 different movements,

01:43:21.720 | but instead of just hanging from the bar

01:43:23.760 | and doing knees to elbows or toes to bar,

01:43:26.160 | what if you brought your right foot to your left hand

01:43:28.880 | and you started adding in a rotation to that

01:43:31.320 | and suddenly you're like, I suck at this.

01:43:33.200 | And ultimately what I wanna do

01:43:34.920 | is I wanna uncover every deficiency in this play

01:43:38.200 | because I'm still gonna deadlift.

01:43:39.800 | I'm still gonna swing.

01:43:40.640 | I'm still gonna lunge.

01:43:41.480 | I'm gonna do all the things that I know

01:43:42.680 | that makes me feel robust

01:43:44.440 | and makes me ride my bike better and be a better kayaker.

01:43:48.080 | But simultaneously,

01:43:48.920 | there's a lot of play on either side of that.

01:43:50.840 | - I love that you're defining progression

01:43:52.920 | as incorporating these novel movements, exploring.

01:43:57.280 | - Dude, that's Westside 101 with Lou Simmons.

01:44:00.560 | I mean, like, hey, this week we're squatting with this bar,

01:44:03.240 | then we're squatting with this bar,

01:44:04.360 | and then we're changing your height,

01:44:05.400 | then we're changing your stance.

01:44:06.800 | I mean, Westside Barbell has been doing this forever.

01:44:09.920 | - I didn't realize they did that.

01:44:10.840 | I knew they were like crazy gnarly,

01:44:13.040 | like in there all the time. - Every bar has its own max.

01:44:16.000 | Right, and so what they've done is said,

01:44:17.800 | hey, the squat pattern is the thing we're training,

01:44:20.440 | but how do we put another twist to the pretzel?

01:44:22.040 | Now the weight's in front, now the weight's behind,

01:44:24.120 | now it's out, and now it's too deep,

01:44:26.160 | and now we're box squatting.

01:44:27.360 | I'm like, wow, you're gonna have to be

01:44:28.880 | a really competent, skilled squatter to handle all that.

01:44:31.480 | - It seems like in so many sports,

01:44:33.000 | not just for resistance training,

01:44:34.720 | but in so many sports, there's this shift now

01:44:38.120 | toward being an ATV, an all-terrain vehicle.

01:44:40.500 | Like, you can't afford to just be good at one thing,

01:44:43.600 | you know, and the cool thing about it is that,

01:44:46.600 | you know, the more dynamic range that people are expressing,

01:44:48.980 | the more kind of evolution you see of any kind of sport,

01:44:52.400 | and I think we're gonna see this with fitness too.

01:44:53.920 | I'm realizing this as we have this conversation,

01:44:56.000 | that what you're really suggesting

01:44:57.000 | is that people explore their movement patterns.

01:44:59.400 | I love this thing that I've heard you say for years,

01:45:01.320 | and I know McKenzie harps on this too,

01:45:03.140 | which is, Brian McKenzie, that is,

01:45:05.440 | you should be able to breathe well in every position.

01:45:08.240 | It's such a fun test, actually.

01:45:09.880 | It's such an easy test, you know,

01:45:11.160 | squat down like you're gonna get something

01:45:12.440 | out of the cupboard, see if you can take

01:45:13.540 | like a full belly breath there.

01:45:14.380 | - How simple is that?

01:45:15.200 | - See if you can get your belly going out

01:45:16.720 | on the inhale there.

01:45:17.760 | I like to do this test myself every once in a while,

01:45:19.800 | hanging from the bar, you know, those pikes.

01:45:21.980 | I don't get very many of them.

01:45:23.000 | Admittedly, I'm doing like five sets of five.

01:45:24.960 | - Awesome.

01:45:25.780 | - Occasionally, we'll try and twist a little bit,

01:45:26.960 | and as my grip strength improves slightly,

01:45:29.320 | maybe I'll be able to get more.

01:45:30.280 | Usually, my grip strength goes first.

01:45:31.120 | - If you had smaller legs, it would be easier.

01:45:32.740 | (laughing)

01:45:34.400 | - I'll take that as either a compliment

01:45:35.800 | or an insult coming from you, Kelly.

01:45:37.600 | Kelly's exceedingly strong.

01:45:39.880 | He deadlifts 600 pounds on the regular.

01:45:42.560 | He's exceedingly strong, and he has incredible endurance.

01:45:45.400 | You're actually more of an endurance guy.

01:45:47.040 | I think this is worth mentioning,

01:45:48.720 | that you have more--

01:45:49.560 | - That's why I'm not very strong.

01:45:50.400 | - You have more of a, right, but--

01:45:54.000 | - Have you seen my strong friends?

01:45:55.520 | I'm not deflecting.

01:45:58.200 | Your physiology is definitely biased towards certain things,

01:46:02.360 | like unequivocally, and what I am not good at

01:46:05.600 | is being brutally strong.

01:46:07.200 | Oh, I've been training for 20 plus years.

01:46:09.440 | Hard training.

01:46:10.520 | Longer than that, 30 years,

01:46:12.560 | and this is all I can deadlift?

01:46:14.040 | That's pathetic.

01:46:15.280 | Have you seen my strong friends?

01:46:17.320 | So what you see is that I've been cramming a square peg

01:46:19.720 | into a round hole because I really like it,

01:46:21.560 | but really, I should be at probably 190 pounds,

01:46:24.640 | and I should be an aerobic athlete.

01:46:26.200 | - Right, like if we threw a 100-pound backpack on you

01:46:30.000 | and went backpacking, you'd be fine.

01:46:31.840 | You'd be like, even now,

01:46:33.640 | you're sitting at somewhere like 240, right?

01:46:36.480 | You're like 6'2".

01:46:38.160 | You can go for days.

01:46:39.920 | Like you're naturally an endurance athlete.

01:46:41.640 | - Absolutely.

01:46:42.480 | - And I think it's worth saying,

01:46:43.320 | because if people are listening, Kelly's a big guy.

01:46:44.760 | - All my training is biased towards,

01:46:46.160 | you cannot believe how much conditioning I do.

01:46:48.760 | I am a disciple of Joel Jameson.

01:46:50.800 | I'm a huge fan of trying to look

01:46:53.600 | at where I'm spending my time

01:46:55.160 | in these different heart rate zones,

01:46:56.560 | and then I'm just such a nerd of that

01:46:59.000 | because my primary sport is trying to keep up

01:47:01.000 | with my wife on the mountain bike.

01:47:02.960 | - I think this is really important

01:47:04.120 | because I think we've been talking a lot

01:47:05.440 | about things kind of adjacent to resistance training.

01:47:08.360 | I think it's a wonderful shift now in culture

01:47:11.520 | that resistance training is being used,

01:47:14.720 | done by young people, by older people, women and men.

01:47:18.520 | It's fantastic.

01:47:19.520 | This was not the case 10 years ago.

01:47:21.360 | This was definitely not the case 20 years ago.

01:47:23.280 | - No, for sure.

01:47:24.120 | - It was like bodybuilders, football,

01:47:25.080 | pre-season football players in military

01:47:26.920 | were the only people weight training.

01:47:28.080 | Now it's everywhere.

01:47:29.780 | But you're naturally an endurance athlete.

01:47:33.000 | I'm guessing that most people, I'm assuming, is this true,

01:47:37.920 | fall into the slower twitch,

01:47:39.320 | kind of more endurance propensity than,

01:47:41.800 | I mean, how many truly naturally strong,

01:47:44.840 | fast fiber type people are walking around out there

01:47:47.360 | if we just took the general population?

01:47:48.200 | - The ones that are are sprinters and super springy.

01:47:51.640 | - And you know who those people are.

01:47:53.480 | They're mutants.

01:47:54.360 | I think I was always best at a skilled sport

01:48:00.300 | that used conditioning or used strength.

01:48:03.280 | When I compare myself to my friends

01:48:06.720 | who have huge aerobic engines, it's embarrassing.

01:48:09.400 | I'm always the weakest, fattest, slowest,

01:48:12.040 | smallest person in the room.

01:48:13.360 | If you just want an ego check,

01:48:16.540 | just come out and hang out with me.

01:48:17.640 | Just meet my friends, see the people we're working with,

01:48:19.940 | and you'll see, you're like, okay, genetics is not the same.

01:48:23.200 | I think we've told a little bit of a lie

01:48:25.040 | in the internet sphere that if you eat this way

01:48:28.240 | and you do these, you'll be elite.

01:48:29.800 | And we can certainly say that you have a training effect,

01:48:33.920 | for sure, and you should do that,

01:48:35.280 | but that's not the same thing as being a mutant.

01:48:38.040 | And there are just so many mutants out there.

01:48:40.360 | Shocking.

01:48:41.620 | - Yeah, I think it's actually a worthwhile exercise

01:48:45.480 | to figure out what one's natural leanings are.

01:48:48.680 | - And what do you like to do?

01:48:49.520 | - Yeah. - How about that?

01:48:50.800 | I just think it's important that we remind ourselves

01:48:55.800 | that the whole point of this is to have the most fun.

01:48:59.000 | And what you'll see, he put up a video

01:49:01.840 | of some Chinese elementary school kids

01:49:06.280 | and the Chinese Olympic lifting team coaches

01:49:08.480 | coming and assessing their kids.

01:49:10.520 | And very quickly, they put kids over at squats,

01:49:13.200 | they had them jump on a single leg,

01:49:14.600 | they had them do double jumps,

01:49:15.600 | and they were like, you, you, you,

01:49:17.760 | have your parents call me.

01:49:19.120 | Right, so you can already see that coordination matters,

01:49:22.000 | wiring matters, and they were able to say,

01:49:24.520 | hey, these are the things that we think

01:49:26.340 | are gonna make good Olympic lifters.

01:49:28.000 | So those kids, I think we start to split cohort early on,

01:49:31.160 | but most important is everyone needs to weightlift, period.

01:49:34.960 | And it's not light, two pink dumbbells,

01:49:37.360 | it's real heavy weightlifting.

01:49:39.200 | But how much do you need to do to be better at your sport

01:49:42.520 | or to minimize your spine?

01:49:43.800 | Those are the spine changes or osteopenia or osteoporosis.

01:49:48.120 | Those are great conversations,

01:49:49.560 | but not necessarily conversations about performance.

01:49:52.760 | Right, so it's almost like we need to divide this

01:49:55.000 | into like aesthetics, and I'm keeping myself intact,

01:49:59.120 | in versus I wanna go to the Olympics.

01:50:01.500 | Because what you're seeing on the world right now

01:50:04.200 | is that everyone's an expert.

01:50:05.800 | I'm like, can I see how you work with 40 athletes?

01:50:07.820 | Can I see how you periodize that?

01:50:09.080 | Can I see how you manage travel and nutrition?

01:50:11.360 | Can I see how you were responsible or not responsible

01:50:14.480 | for this team having all its members?

01:50:16.840 | So what we're seeing is that this performance thing

01:50:19.120 | is a really big task, and it gets confused

01:50:22.360 | and watered down a little bit by everyone fitnesses.

01:50:24.440 | Well, I squat, so I'm an expert too.

01:50:26.640 | Not the same.

01:50:29.000 | Our good friend Kenny Kane taught me something.

01:50:32.420 | He's shaking his head.

01:50:34.280 | The best.

01:50:35.120 | The best, he's a wonderful guy.

01:50:36.520 | You're not gonna find him on social media

01:50:38.000 | because a few years ago he just decided to take his gym

01:50:41.040 | and hit himself off social media.

01:50:43.880 | He's a very, very talented trainer.

01:50:44.720 | So we're gonna give you his phone number,

01:50:46.120 | and we're gonna have you call him

01:50:46.960 | because you can't DM him.

01:50:48.000 | Very talented athlete and wonderful person.

01:50:51.040 | He taught me something, I'd say about eight years ago,

01:50:54.440 | that I've found oh so useful for my training longevity,

01:50:59.440 | my enjoyment of training, and it was this, very simple.

01:51:03.640 | 80% of your workouts, Andrew, he said,

01:51:06.940 | are going to be at 80% of what you could do that day.

01:51:10.120 | Okay, that involves some humility.

01:51:13.480 | I like to sweat hard.

01:51:14.460 | I associate intensity with hard work, et cetera.

01:51:17.400 | He said 10% are going to be at 90% intensity,

01:51:21.720 | meaning 100% is the most you could give,

01:51:24.240 | possibly in whatever time is allotted on that day,

01:51:26.640 | given the sleep, given the nutrition,

01:51:28.080 | given the life circumstances on that day.

01:51:30.040 | The readiness for that day.

01:51:30.880 | Right, and then here's where it breaks down

01:51:33.640 | a little bit more.

01:51:34.480 | 5% are gonna be at 95% and 5% across the year

01:51:39.240 | are going to be maximum 100% everything you can give,

01:51:42.760 | do or die workouts that day.

01:51:45.100 | And for me last year, I believe it was,

01:51:47.140 | was that was the Rock Carry Campaigns is podcast.

01:51:50.100 | I gave everything I had.

01:51:52.240 | Had, of course, had the mountain been a little bit higher,

01:51:54.620 | I'd like to think I would have gone a little bit further,

01:51:56.680 | but I gave everything I could

01:51:58.100 | because that rock was slippery and it was muddy

01:52:00.380 | and my hamstring was out the day when we started.

01:52:03.220 | You know, I was in pain when we started.

01:52:05.060 | Anyway, I think that advice that Kenny gave me

01:52:10.180 | was some of the best advice I've ever heard

01:52:13.300 | because my tendency would have been and had been

01:52:16.020 | to come in and go at 90, 95 or 100% every single workout.

01:52:21.020 | It got you a long way, that got you a long way.

01:52:23.980 | Yep, and it also brought me to this place

01:52:25.940 | where after eight or 10 weeks of training,

01:52:28.140 | I would get a cold or I'd get some nagging thing,

01:52:30.860 | a little thing, not, you know, wouldn't put me under,

01:52:33.060 | but then, or I need to take a week off.

01:52:35.780 | Normal accident theory.

01:52:36.740 | Right, so I think I'd love your thoughts

01:52:39.500 | on Kenny's recommendation.

01:52:40.940 | For me, it's one of the things that I pass along

01:52:43.460 | any time, says, "How about some fitness advice?"

01:52:45.220 | I say, "Well, listen, I'm a neuroscientist,

01:52:46.380 | not a fitness guy, but I know a thing or two

01:52:47.820 | based on the mistakes I've made.

01:52:49.220 | Here's a great piece of advice that's really helped me."

01:52:51.860 | 80% of your workouts, 80% intensity.

01:52:54.300 | Another 10% at 90%, then the 95, you know, 5% at 95,

01:52:58.220 | and 5% across the year are the all out,

01:53:00.860 | everything you can give,

01:53:01.900 | leave it all on the mat type workouts.

01:53:04.260 | We could start with a simple idea.

01:53:06.300 | We say, let's be consistent before we're heroic.

01:53:09.100 | Right, look, I, if your intensity causes you

01:53:13.180 | to not be able to show up for the gym for three days,

01:53:14.820 | I'm like, sweet, that was sweet.

01:53:16.140 | And our adaptation response to that is sucky, right?

01:53:19.020 | I much rather you be getting more consistent

01:53:22.780 | and not blowing yourself out.

01:53:23.980 | Remember that, there was a phase where we were like,

01:53:25.540 | "You shouldn't be sore when you leave the gym."

01:53:26.820 | Remember that?

01:53:27.820 | Like, there were people would talk about,

01:53:28.820 | "Hey, leave some reps in reserve.

01:53:30.380 | Like, show up the next day, grease the groove.

01:53:32.620 | That's old Pavel Tsatsalin stuff."

01:53:35.220 | I think that's really good advice,

01:53:36.820 | especially since most people are not 20.

01:53:40.780 | Most people, and when you're 20,

01:53:42.620 | you need to go find out what the limits are,

01:53:44.020 | touch the fence, the electric fence once in a while, right?

01:53:46.660 | - Lick the, lick this.

01:53:48.580 | - Lick all the doorknobs, let's just call it that way.

01:53:50.660 | But you know, what ends up happening

01:53:52.540 | is there's a lot of things have to be in place

01:53:55.100 | for you to be able to go to the well that many times.

01:53:57.300 | And what we know now, because we have all of this data,

01:54:01.980 | is that we can make better progress

01:54:05.020 | not burning it to the ground every single time.

01:54:08.900 | And it's difficult for us because if I'm just fitnessing,

01:54:12.860 | how do I quantify that, right?

01:54:14.780 | It's easy for us to quantify another kilo or another watt.

01:54:17.900 | That's makes it a lot easier.

01:54:19.580 | And what you'll see is the best practices of these athletes,

01:54:22.620 | we do spend a lot of 70 to 80% heart rate.

01:54:26.100 | That's what we call recovery.

01:54:27.580 | In Joel Jameson language, 80 to 90,

01:54:30.340 | we're calling that conditioning, 90 and above, overload.

01:54:33.900 | But what I think is nice is that that gives me a lot of,

01:54:36.700 | there's some days where I touch 78 or an 80%

01:54:39.180 | and it's hard because I am sleep deprived, stressed out.

01:54:43.460 | My nutrition hasn't been great.

01:54:44.660 | I'm sleeping in a strange bed, right?

01:54:46.580 | You know, traveling, whatever.

01:54:48.180 | So I think what you're seeing is something

01:54:51.580 | that one of my early coaches talked about, Mike Bergner.

01:54:55.940 | He says, "When the frying pan's hot, let's cook."

01:54:58.300 | And that means I need to know myself.

01:55:00.340 | And as a coach, I need to know you.

01:55:01.620 | And I'm like, "Andrew, you look great today.

01:55:03.580 | "How do you feel?"

01:55:04.420 | "Great, let's go.

01:55:05.580 | "Let's go chase something, right?"

01:55:07.140 | And when the frying pan's hot, we cook,

01:55:08.980 | but the frying pan is not always hot.

01:55:10.780 | And if you pour in bang energy and jack 3D,

01:55:14.260 | you can't even hear inputs and outputs.

01:55:16.700 | So I think that's such solid, reasonable advice.

01:55:20.780 | And really what we're looking at is

01:55:22.620 | how can we get you to train much more consistently

01:55:25.140 | longer and longer and longer?

01:55:26.660 | You can only go to the well a few times.

01:55:28.940 | And what I'll tell you is that is,

01:55:30.420 | I still love to power clean.

01:55:31.620 | It's like my favorite thing.

01:55:33.500 | And that 100 kilo power clean

01:55:36.060 | is heavier than it was when I was 40, you know?

01:55:38.940 | And I want to pretend like that 100 kilo power clean

01:55:41.980 | is not a problem, but I actually have to progress

01:55:45.380 | and get myself there.

01:55:46.260 | And there are days where I'm like,

01:55:47.100 | "Oh, 80 kilos is my jam today."

01:55:49.660 | So I think that's really good advice.

01:55:52.380 | And difficult for us to say,

01:55:54.300 | "How are we measuring success in our training?"

01:55:58.100 | Subjective experience?

01:55:59.580 | No, no problem.

01:56:00.420 | Let me give you a baby, keep this newborn alive,

01:56:02.740 | and then let's go see how hard your training is

01:56:04.140 | the next day.

01:56:04.980 | You're going to be terrible.

01:56:05.980 | You haven't slept all night.

01:56:07.060 | You're stressed, right?

01:56:08.340 | So I think what's nice is having some objective measurements

01:56:12.900 | around, maybe body composition is one of them,

01:56:15.180 | if that's important to you,

01:56:16.380 | but are you getting faster over the course of a week?

01:56:19.060 | What are you testing?

01:56:20.220 | How do we know inputs and outputs?

01:56:21.980 | And right now we're just doing, we're baking a lot.

01:56:23.980 | We're making a lot of suicides, right?

01:56:26.820 | You know, the old fountain drink

01:56:28.220 | where you just mix all the things.

01:56:29.900 | It's, you know, they always taste the same at the end,

01:56:32.220 | like crap, but that suicide

01:56:33.860 | where you mixed all the fountain drinks

01:56:35.100 | is a little bit of what we're seeing in that.

01:56:37.660 | And one way of protecting ourselves is saying,

01:56:39.140 | "Hey, let's make sure you can train tomorrow."

01:56:42.460 | Suicides.

01:56:43.300 | I was reflecting on that the other day for some reason,

01:56:45.100 | why at a wedding or a party, young,

01:56:47.340 | typically it's a Y-chromosome associated disorder

01:56:49.700 | to feel like you had to mix a bunch of stuff

01:56:52.180 | and then get someone to drink it.

01:56:54.180 | You're not wrong.

01:56:55.020 | Non-alcoholic drinks for young kids, by the way,

01:56:56.780 | but mixing all the sodas, putting M&M's in.

01:56:59.140 | Just something like, "Oh, my male friends are weird kids."

01:57:01.140 | - And I think that's what we see a little bit.

01:57:03.860 | And if you, I am a deep coach nerd.

01:57:08.140 | I love fitness.

01:57:09.340 | I love fitnessing.

01:57:10.180 | I'll jump into any class, any time.

01:57:11.900 | Like, sure, let's go, let's see.

01:57:14.140 | You know, it's so fun, but I need to see,

01:57:18.860 | I do get to watch sort of trends come and go.

01:57:21.540 | Things get very hot.

01:57:22.700 | You know, they get very popular.

01:57:24.300 | And again, fitness has become a hobby.

01:57:26.660 | It's an amuse, and that's okay.

01:57:28.540 | It's totally okay that gym is a hobby,

01:57:31.300 | but that doesn't hint about what's the best way

01:57:34.260 | to develop capacity, elite capacity,

01:57:37.020 | long-term longevity capacity.

01:57:39.220 | Those things almost don't go together.

01:57:41.380 | - Let's talk about hip extension.

01:57:42.740 | - Oh, bless you.

01:57:44.060 | - As somebody who doesn't like the elliptical

01:57:48.540 | or stationary bike, but loves the assault bike.

01:57:51.580 | I love the assault bike.

01:57:52.660 | I don't know why.

01:57:54.180 | Just feels like really good work.

01:57:55.900 | - It is hard work.

01:57:57.220 | But you're not gonna find me on an elliptical.

01:57:59.020 | - Cadian Bill made it harder with the Echo bike.

01:58:00.740 | Thanks for making it worse, Cadian Bill.

01:58:01.980 | - But what is the Echo bike?

01:58:03.300 | - The Rogue Echo bike is even worse than the assault bike.

01:58:06.340 | - The assault bike, by the way, folks,

01:58:07.420 | is the one with the fan.

01:58:08.500 | And I'm not sure if they put, the fan is for resistance,

01:58:11.140 | not to keep you cool, but it has that effect somewhat.

01:58:13.580 | - In the winter, you'll know what the fan does.

01:58:16.580 | - So the Echo bike is a harder assault bike?

01:58:20.100 | - It's just like, imagine doing it on fire,

01:58:23.180 | uphill in the sand with a headwind.

01:58:25.300 | Then you're like, okay, this is,

01:58:26.740 | if you can make it worse, it's worse.

01:58:28.620 | - If you have one of these,

01:58:29.460 | I'm gonna swing by this winter break and try this thing.

01:58:32.140 | - But I love that because high physiology, low skill.

01:58:37.140 | That's great.

01:58:38.700 | - You just described me in a nutshell.

01:58:40.300 | - I can take anyone, not have to know anything

01:58:43.260 | about your range of motion.

01:58:44.340 | I can be like, who are you physiologically today?

01:58:46.860 | Let me introduce this freakish amount of work

01:58:49.380 | in this tiny range of motion that's very safe.

01:58:51.860 | So we can really touch high intensities very safely there.

01:58:56.620 | - Yeah, I like it much more than the skier.

01:58:58.300 | I'll do the skier every once in a while,

01:58:59.820 | but I find that the skier,

01:59:01.260 | if I just sit and stand a bunch of times,

01:59:04.060 | I'd be like, I can just do this for 15 days.

01:59:07.620 | Like, is this exercise?

01:59:09.100 | And I'm like, am I doing this right?

01:59:10.020 | I don't know.

01:59:10.860 | For some reason, it doesn't feel like work.

01:59:11.780 | The assault bike always feels like work.

01:59:13.860 | Always feels like work.

01:59:15.140 | Okay, so hip extension.

01:59:16.700 | The assault bike is not hip extension.

01:59:18.220 | Typically, people tend to be hunched forward.

01:59:21.020 | You can get upright, right?

01:59:22.460 | - Still don't have any hip extension.

01:59:23.900 | - No hip extension.

01:59:24.740 | - Let's talk about if I'm squatting and I stand up,

01:59:27.700 | I'm extending the hip.

01:59:29.860 | - As you stand up.

01:59:30.820 | - Right, I'm going from flexion to extension.

01:59:32.860 | - Yeah, one thing that I think for people listening

01:59:34.540 | that at least is helpful for me

01:59:36.220 | when hearing about squatting is to think about

01:59:38.980 | whether or not it's a deadlift or a squat,

01:59:40.820 | you can imagine taking your hands,

01:59:42.140 | putting your fingers at your hips

01:59:43.260 | and hiding your hands in that joint

01:59:47.700 | between the femur and your pelvis as you go down, right?

01:59:49.820 | Your hands get tucked into the fold between the two.

01:59:53.260 | And as you stand up, it opens.

01:59:54.380 | So it's hip hinge, they typically call it, right?

01:59:56.380 | - And I think what we look at the squat

01:59:58.860 | and the lunge is very, they're cousins.

02:00:00.940 | And the difference is long lever, short lever.

02:00:03.180 | And typically how you're holding the weight.

02:00:05.260 | That's the only difference.

02:00:07.220 | And sometimes upright torso position.

02:00:09.060 | But ultimately, we're really looking at what's happening

02:00:13.260 | with the degree of bend of the knee, right?

02:00:16.420 | That's why they're such elegant cousins.

02:00:18.860 | But if I'm squatting down and I stand up,

02:00:22.220 | people are like, "I'm working on extension.

02:00:23.300 | "Working on extension all the time.

02:00:24.220 | "I'm like, okay, now let's continue

02:00:26.180 | "this extension conversation

02:00:27.540 | "and bring that knee behind your butt into a lunge."

02:00:29.860 | And that's hip extension.

02:00:31.900 | And if there's one thing that I'm seeing

02:00:33.940 | across so many of the populations I work with

02:00:36.780 | is we're starting to see changes and erosion

02:00:39.260 | in this fundamental expression of power.

02:00:42.140 | The only people we don't see it as our Olympic sprinters.

02:00:45.140 | And you'll see that pockets,

02:00:46.940 | like we work with the all blacks

02:00:48.780 | and we're obsessed on maintaining the hip extension

02:00:52.220 | of these very strong athletes because it means

02:00:54.980 | that they can run faster on the field.

02:00:56.180 | Rugby team.

02:00:57.020 | Rugby team.

02:00:57.860 | Am I correct in thinking that hip extension,

02:01:03.220 | we can think of as a partially reflecting

02:01:07.260 | hamstring function where the hamstring is responsible

02:01:10.060 | for bringing the heel up toward the butt,

02:01:11.620 | but also for bringing the femur back behind the torso.

02:01:16.140 | I realize I'm not using the PT language.

02:01:18.300 | No, no, no, I think what's great is-

02:01:19.140 | By the way, the PT's online.

02:01:19.980 | I'm sorry, everyone.

02:01:20.820 | The PT community, the PT's, you guys just crack me up.

02:01:24.340 | In the field of medicine,

02:01:26.300 | there's an analogous subspecialty of medicine

02:01:29.260 | where they have the similar kind of like orneriness

02:01:31.300 | and it's, being a PT is very competitive.

02:01:33.420 | And so there's a, you don't do this, but the PT community,

02:01:35.940 | it's like, you can make a cart,

02:01:38.060 | you can make a whole sitcom about this.

02:01:39.940 | The attacks often range from significant

02:01:42.820 | to like cluster around petty,

02:01:45.220 | not because they're not knowledgeable,

02:01:46.900 | but because there's so much nuance in this field, right?

02:01:50.500 | And it seems that there are a few things

02:01:52.380 | that everyone agrees on and then everything else,

02:01:55.060 | people love to argue in community, out of community.

02:01:57.860 | So anytime I say anything about movement of the body,

02:02:00.460 | I wanted us to just say,

02:02:01.620 | I realize I'm probably not using the correct language.

02:02:04.340 | Perfect, I'm going to use that same defense

02:02:07.180 | of petty clusterness, clustering the pettiness.

02:02:10.020 | I'm sorry, all the physical therapists out there,

02:02:11.740 | I haven't represented you

02:02:13.060 | in the way that you would like to be represented.

02:02:14.500 | I'll say, I'm just talking about my own experience.

02:02:16.300 | It's just differences in nomenclature.

02:02:17.780 | Right, and I'm trying to be very meticulous

02:02:20.940 | in my language today.

02:02:21.780 | I appreciate that.

02:02:23.140 | One of the things that we want to look at is,

02:02:25.620 | and this is a Philip Beach, Muscles Meridians idea,

02:02:29.500 | is that there are contractile fields.

02:02:31.340 | And this goes along with,

02:02:32.980 | if we look at Thomas Meyer's anatomy trains

02:02:35.220 | of seeing the system as a system of systems.

02:02:38.340 | So we start to look at your back and your erectors,

02:02:41.060 | and then we tie that into the glutes,

02:02:43.100 | and then we tie that into the hamstrings and tie the calf.

02:02:45.580 | It's kind of a whole, almost wraps around the door,

02:02:47.740 | the bottom of the foot, right?

02:02:49.380 | The plantar surface of the foot.

02:02:50.220 | So suddenly we're looking at this global system

02:02:54.300 | that's designed to create this mass extension position.

02:02:58.460 | Locomotion, we start to lock some of those pieces down

02:03:02.260 | a little bit.

02:03:03.100 | But one of the things that we've seen

02:03:05.580 | is that when you aren't competent in this position,

02:03:08.940 | your hamstrings, for example, have to do a lot more work

02:03:11.940 | because your butt is no longer working on hip extension.

02:03:15.340 | Your adductors are restricted

02:03:17.940 | and they're not bringing you back into flexion.

02:03:20.740 | So suddenly what we see is that your hamstrings

02:03:23.180 | are having to do the work of calf, butt.

02:03:26.780 | And when your hamstrings are tight all the time,

02:03:28.140 | you don't have hip extension.

02:03:29.580 | So a simple test we do is called the couch stretch.

02:03:33.060 | And all you need to do is face a wall,

02:03:36.500 | then turn away from the wall.

02:03:37.660 | So you're kneeling on the ground,

02:03:39.220 | hands and knees away from the wall.

02:03:40.940 | You're gonna put one of your knees in the corner.

02:03:44.220 | So your foot is going straight up and down.

02:03:46.540 | The knee is in the corner of the wall.

02:03:48.260 | And then I want you to see

02:03:49.260 | if you can squeeze your butt in that position.

02:03:50.540 | Still hands and knees, except one foot now

02:03:53.140 | is kind of in the corner, down the wall,

02:03:55.700 | going towards your butt.

02:03:57.100 | That's position one.

02:03:57.940 | And a lot of people are gonna struggle

02:03:59.340 | with recruiting and activating their butt in that position

02:04:02.060 | because it's what I'm calling positionally inhibited.

02:04:05.500 | We don't know what the mechanism is.

02:04:07.580 | - So you're getting the knee back behind the torso

02:04:10.340 | much as one would if you were sprinting

02:04:12.460 | and the back leg is extended.

02:04:14.060 | - Really we're just flexing the lower leg.

02:04:16.020 | We're flexing the lower leg shank, right?

02:04:18.060 | That lower limb.

02:04:19.420 | Second position is to come up into a high kneeling position.

02:04:22.380 | So you just bring your knee up until like you're kneeling,

02:04:25.100 | except that we have a trailing leg now

02:04:27.380 | with a leg that's going up the wall.

02:04:28.980 | - So front leg is sort of a right angle, right?

02:04:31.580 | Your foot on the ground, right angle.

02:04:33.820 | Rear leg is a knee tucked in the corner

02:04:36.620 | where the floor meets the couch.

02:04:40.500 | Foot is up on the couch.

02:04:42.580 | - Nope, just on the ground.

02:04:43.700 | - Okay.

02:04:44.540 | And we'll provide a link to an image of this.

02:04:45.380 | - Yeah, and I called the couch stretch

02:04:46.660 | 'cause I created this thing a long time ago

02:04:48.980 | and I created it on the couch for my young athletes

02:04:51.740 | while they were watching TV, right?

02:04:53.380 | I just needed some hip extension exposure.

02:04:55.740 | But we can do it on the wall, we can do it on the couch.

02:04:58.260 | Ultimately, what we try to see is,

02:05:00.780 | do you have glute squeeze?

02:05:01.900 | Can you take a breath, right?

02:05:03.020 | If your breath starts to get real small in this position,

02:05:05.340 | I'm like, huh.

02:05:06.180 | So every time your knee comes behind your body,

02:05:07.620 | you can't breathe anymore.

02:05:09.100 | How's that working for you when you run?

02:05:10.380 | Is that good or bad?

02:05:11.380 | Seems to me that your breath should remain pretty constant

02:05:13.900 | independent of what your hip does.

02:05:15.860 | So then we like to see if people can come

02:05:18.540 | to a more upright position.

02:05:20.020 | So that's kind of position three.

02:05:21.860 | So a little bit more upright torso.

02:05:23.420 | We're starting to increase hip demands

02:05:26.380 | as the torso comes upright.

02:05:28.100 | Torso's coming upright.

02:05:29.340 | The knee is moving further away from the chest

02:05:31.020 | on that loaded leg.

02:05:32.460 | And what you'll see is that most people are gonna be like,

02:05:34.180 | wow, that's real stiff or I can't even get there

02:05:36.220 | or I can't breathe there.

02:05:37.100 | I have to banana back to get there.

02:05:38.980 | And I certainly can't squeeze my butt there.

02:05:40.380 | And I wanna tell everyone, this is a low level test.

02:05:43.540 | The real test is your front foot goes up

02:05:45.900 | on a 12 inch to 18 inch box.

02:05:47.820 | So we're not even in the test yet.

02:05:50.540 | - With front leg extended?

02:05:51.980 | - No, front leg just up higher.

02:05:54.220 | So we elevate the front leg into what's called a hip lock.

02:05:58.380 | So that front leg is suddenly taking my pelvis

02:06:01.940 | and rotating it posteriorly.

02:06:03.940 | Knee is running into pelvis.

02:06:06.740 | Pelvis is like tucking.

02:06:08.100 | And now you're really gonna see what's going on

02:06:09.700 | with your hip extension.

02:06:10.540 | - So this is the equivalent position more or less

02:06:13.180 | of front knee sprinting.

02:06:15.860 | Like really like jutted up in the air,

02:06:19.180 | maybe even past the belly button,

02:06:20.500 | definitely past the belly button.

02:06:22.020 | Rear leg behind you.

02:06:24.380 | So this is sort of like a cotton mid stride.

02:06:27.420 | - That's right.

02:06:28.260 | And so suddenly we have this nice test

02:06:31.220 | that allows us to see in our competency there.

02:06:33.180 | And I wanna remind you,

02:06:34.020 | if you do the couch stretch and film it,

02:06:35.340 | your knee is actually in hip extension.

02:06:37.420 | It's not, your knee isn't even behind your butt here.

02:06:39.700 | It's that hard and I'm still biasing it towards flexion.

02:06:42.740 | So what we're seeing is that you have a real deficit

02:06:45.420 | of hip extension.

02:06:47.260 | So that's one way to improve it.

02:06:49.020 | You can just do the test,

02:06:50.460 | camp out there, take some breaths, contract, relax,

02:06:53.140 | breathe, do your resistant isometrics,

02:06:54.820 | whatever you wanna do there.

02:06:56.140 | So many ways to judge that up, rotate, side bend.

02:06:59.460 | The question is,

02:07:02.020 | how are you now loading that thing in your life?

02:07:05.460 | So we can put a band on you

02:07:07.180 | and get you do some isometric standing,

02:07:08.900 | but show me in your movement language in the gym,

02:07:12.500 | how you're reinforcing hip extension.

02:07:15.180 | So when we were talking about dead lifting

02:07:16.780 | with a tandem stance, still not hip extension, right?

02:07:20.100 | I'm extending the hip, but that trail leg is not.

02:07:23.020 | Rear foot elevated split squat.

02:07:24.540 | Ding, ding, ding, ding.

02:07:25.700 | We start to get there, right?

02:07:27.140 | Bulgarians flipping a tire.

02:07:29.780 | Like anytime where I need to be able to,

02:07:31.900 | a big lunge is a good example.

02:07:33.860 | Forward lunge, back lunge.

02:07:35.380 | Tell me about flipping a tire.

02:07:36.540 | So you're talking about flipping a tire,

02:07:37.860 | but then at the top of the movement,

02:07:39.860 | you're doing like a kettlebell swing

02:07:40.980 | where you buck your hips forward,

02:07:42.220 | like you're gonna try and pee over that Volkswagen.

02:07:44.100 | You're pushing over.

02:07:45.580 | Don't try and pee at the top.

02:07:46.860 | That's right.

02:07:47.700 | But you're talking about bucking the hips forward.

02:07:49.380 | That's right.

02:07:50.200 | Suddenly you're upright and that leg,

02:07:51.980 | that trailing leg is an extension in a long lever position.

02:07:55.140 | So we spend a lot of programming.

02:07:56.860 | One of the best persons at this is Franz Bosch.

02:08:00.700 | I mentioned earlier, and he has something,

02:08:02.420 | I've termed like the Bosch snatch.

02:08:05.100 | So if you imagine being in a double stance,

02:08:08.540 | so I'm just like, I'm swinging a kettlebell.

02:08:10.860 | If I took a plate or a dumbbell, doesn't matter.

02:08:13.980 | I'm just gonna basically go from a hip hinge.

02:08:16.340 | And as I go overhead with the weight of the load,

02:08:18.740 | whatever's appropriate for you,

02:08:20.020 | I'm gonna take my front foot and step it up on a box.

02:08:23.900 | So all of a sudden I'm going from a flexed position

02:08:27.620 | in the hip.

02:08:28.460 | C-shaped body.

02:08:29.400 | Right, or upright torso, but hinged.

02:08:31.820 | C-shaped, right?

02:08:33.060 | Weird C.

02:08:34.220 | And then, Veltica C.

02:08:35.620 | And then I'm gonna step forward,

02:08:37.580 | and now I'm gonna have that,

02:08:38.700 | one of those legs is gonna be an extension.

02:08:40.980 | And so suddenly, now we're adding speed to this extension,

02:08:44.260 | 'cause that's not what we do with reverse

02:08:45.740 | rear foot elevated split squats.

02:08:47.400 | We're not loading that in speed.

02:08:49.620 | So we start to add the speed component to what we're doing,

02:08:52.540 | and suddenly we've discovered another way

02:08:54.460 | to challenge our movement.

02:08:55.520 | It doesn't just always have to be heavier,

02:08:57.820 | it can also be faster.

02:08:59.300 | So I'm basically, if you imagine if I was,

02:09:02.100 | here's a great example.

02:09:02.960 | I love pressing.

02:09:03.800 | I think overhead pressing is the bee's knees.

02:09:05.620 | It's one of my non-negotiables.

02:09:06.900 | We're gonna press.

02:09:07.880 | Seesaw press, overhead press, we're pressing.

02:09:10.580 | But, if I take your front foot and put it up on a box,

02:09:14.340 | make sure that back foot is straight

02:09:15.640 | with all your toes on the ground,

02:09:16.560 | and press from that position,

02:09:18.220 | you're gonna find out why you don't have any hip extension.

02:09:20.780 | It's gonna be so, you won't even think about the weight,

02:09:23.040 | you'll think about your groin exploding.

02:09:25.100 | So a lot of what--

02:09:25.940 | Do you recommend people probe that?

02:09:27.780 | Oh, yes, absolutely. Those mechanics?

02:09:29.380 | With very light dumbbells at first.

02:09:30.800 | No, go press.

02:09:31.640 | Go find out how well you can press overhead,

02:09:33.180 | and you're gonna see that, like, wow,

02:09:34.380 | this tandem stance front foot elevated press

02:09:37.420 | is gonna kill you.

02:09:38.380 | Can, there's a movement I do, I'm guessing,

02:09:42.180 | well, I'm curious if it activates hip extension

02:09:45.220 | the way I think it does.

02:09:46.740 | Here's what I've been doing that I've found useful.

02:09:48.860 | I don't know if it's true or not.

02:09:50.900 | But what I'll do is I'll tie a fairly thick band

02:09:52.940 | to a pull-up bar.

02:09:53.980 | I'll squat down, I'll hold it,

02:09:57.100 | like I'm holding like a pole in front of me,

02:09:58.980 | like a pole carrier in a parade or something.

02:10:02.640 | I'll squat down and I'll jump up,

02:10:05.300 | but instead of, but I'll buck my hips forward at the top.

02:10:09.900 | So like feet go out in front.

02:10:11.820 | It's very unnatural movement, actually,

02:10:14.660 | as opposed to jumping and putting my toes down,

02:10:16.660 | pointing my toes down, my toes are kicking forward.

02:10:18.900 | So I'm trying to mimic the top of a kettlebell swing

02:10:21.140 | at the top of this movement.

02:10:22.420 | I would say, you know, one of the things

02:10:24.380 | that is useful for me as I am asked

02:10:27.380 | to come and tear through people's programming

02:10:29.100 | and look for holes in their movement practices,

02:10:32.780 | we look at fundamental shapes.

02:10:36.500 | So what's nice is that, okay, hang on, everyone.

02:10:40.260 | Let me define exercise for you.

02:10:43.060 | Let me just, I'll just give you a little framework.

02:10:46.160 | And I'll start by saying, if something inflammatory,

02:10:48.340 | the shoulder's not that complicated.

02:10:49.900 | It doesn't do that many things.

02:10:51.300 | It goes overhead, it goes out to the side,

02:10:53.860 | goes in the front, it goes in the back.

02:10:56.100 | That's what your shoulder does.

02:10:57.540 | You can bend the elbow, you can twist in all those shapes,

02:11:00.600 | but those are the four fundamental primary organizations

02:11:03.820 | of the shape of the shoulder.

02:11:05.980 | Hip has flexion, extension, right?

02:11:09.580 | Really, I could go laterally,

02:11:11.220 | but that's just a different kind of squat.

02:11:12.740 | But really, like, am I squatting with the foot really narrow

02:11:16.580 | or am I squatting a little bit wider?

02:11:18.740 | So what we can then do is say,

02:11:20.260 | in these fundamental bookends, these benchmarks,

02:11:23.780 | this is what we call archetype.

02:11:25.540 | Suddenly I can ask, well,

02:11:26.660 | how are you loading your overhead position?

02:11:29.940 | So if you're always pressing on a bar

02:11:32.620 | or pulling on a laptop machine,

02:11:34.100 | you actually are overhead,

02:11:36.500 | but you're not in the fullest expression of overhead, right?

02:11:39.620 | Which is your arms straight up and down,

02:11:41.340 | parallel by your ears.

02:11:43.300 | - Hands over the top of your head.

02:11:44.580 | - Stams over your head, right?

02:11:46.020 | So what we can then do is say,

02:11:47.560 | well, what tools do you like to use?

02:11:49.460 | Kettlebells, great.

02:11:50.380 | That's one of the reasons kettlebells are so great.

02:11:52.180 | Single arm, I can't hold it out here, it's gonna fall.

02:11:54.420 | I have to finish over my head, right?

02:11:56.460 | Dumbbell's the same, but the kettlebell is a saw,

02:11:58.460 | it constrains us to express full overhead motion.

02:12:02.460 | I can look at, do you have enough interrotation

02:12:04.540 | with the hand by the side?

02:12:05.980 | Are you doing enough pressing-like activities?

02:12:08.460 | Chaturanga, the finished position of my row, right?

02:12:11.780 | Bench press, dip, running.

02:12:13.420 | Those are all movements

02:12:14.540 | where my shoulder comes into extension,

02:12:17.240 | whether the arm is straight or bent.

02:12:19.020 | So what's nice now is I can say,

02:12:20.440 | well, am I distracting those tissues

02:12:22.380 | or compressing those tissues?

02:12:24.160 | Well, you're like, well, what do you mean?

02:12:25.380 | I'm like, are you pressing or are you doing a pull-up, right?

02:12:28.140 | Pressing overhead or doing a pull-up.

02:12:29.560 | That's compressing or distraction, right?

02:12:31.660 | Very simple ways of looking at these movements.

02:12:34.980 | We can say, well, how are you coming there?

02:12:36.700 | Did you get there from a snatch

02:12:38.700 | or did you get there from a front rack position?

02:12:40.580 | So we can look at start position, finish position.

02:12:42.340 | And suddenly what you're realizing is you're like,

02:12:43.900 | oh, I'm starting to understand the root movements

02:12:46.340 | and root positions that help me improve performance,

02:12:49.200 | predict future performance, and help me get through pain.

02:12:53.420 | Because if I have people not expressing

02:12:55.980 | the highest levels of expression of the movement,

02:12:58.320 | that's something we can improve.

02:12:59.340 | That's a technique, right?

02:13:00.600 | It's not just get bigger and stronger.

02:13:02.220 | It's, hey, let's be more technically proficient.

02:13:04.320 | So I have all of these ways

02:13:05.780 | of looking at the movement selection choices.

02:13:08.700 | Again, what are you comfortable with?

02:13:10.500 | But then I can challenge it with load, make it heavier.

02:13:13.300 | We can do volume.

02:13:14.620 | We could add speed.

02:13:15.940 | We could add cardiorespiratory demand.

02:13:18.160 | You could do more than five and suddenly you have to do 20

02:13:20.420 | and we have metabolic demand in there.

02:13:21.920 | You and I are competing all of a sudden, right?

02:13:24.540 | Now, suddenly I go from open torque to close torque.

02:13:28.240 | I go from giving you a barbell to a dumbbell, right?

02:13:30.940 | I go from open chain to close chain.

02:13:33.140 | Suddenly we're like, holy moly,

02:13:35.060 | block practice, random practice.

02:13:37.860 | I have all the tools for me to understand,

02:13:41.500 | are you competent putting your arms over your head

02:13:43.180 | or are you exposing these shapes

02:13:45.100 | under these different domains?

02:13:46.340 | And I think when we only look at

02:13:49.000 | sort of a few ranges of motion

02:13:51.080 | and we only look at load as the way,

02:13:53.400 | then we lose all the opportunity

02:13:54.940 | and richness of programming.

02:13:56.200 | - Got it.

02:13:57.040 | Well, let me come back to my silly example

02:13:59.720 | of the band and the jump thing and say,

02:14:01.640 | okay, so for getting better hip extension,

02:14:04.960 | which is what I think a lot of people need

02:14:06.680 | is what I'm hearing.

02:14:07.520 | A lot of people are in hip flexion.

02:14:08.640 | - So you're jumping and then coming up.

02:14:10.440 | - Yeah, I mean, or, you know,

02:14:12.120 | we've seen these beautiful images of certainly not me,

02:14:14.360 | but like people doing long jump

02:14:16.040 | where they're kind of like in an arched position,

02:14:18.220 | something.

02:14:19.060 | - Oh, I see what you're saying.

02:14:19.880 | - Yeah, so the idea is,

02:14:20.860 | because with the band it's safe, right?

02:14:22.580 | You know, trying to get the hip into extension

02:14:25.860 | or feet out in front of the jumping.

02:14:28.040 | - It's a kipping pull-up without a pull-up.

02:14:29.960 | You're just kipping on the bar.

02:14:31.200 | - And I don't kip on my pull-ups by the way.

02:14:33.440 | Because I'm a time under,

02:14:34.320 | no, I don't kip on my pull-ups.

02:14:35.960 | I train with Ben Bruno from time to time.

02:14:39.940 | You kip on a pull-up with Ben Bruno there,

02:14:41.520 | you're never gonna hear the end of it, ever.

02:14:44.220 | So I don't, but I don't anyway,

02:14:45.540 | 'cause I'm a time under tension guy.

02:14:48.000 | - That's fine.

02:14:48.840 | I'm gonna say that I love strict pull-ups.

02:14:50.200 | I do more strict pull-ups than you can imagine,

02:14:52.240 | but if you can't kip, there's something wrong with you.

02:14:54.240 | - Okay, got it.

02:14:55.160 | We'll argue about this more offline.

02:14:58.660 | But I love to sprint.

02:15:00.120 | So that's hip extension.

02:15:02.040 | - Absolutely.

02:15:02.880 | - Love to sprint. - You can be.

02:15:04.000 | - Love to sprint.

02:15:05.600 | And I love jumping.

02:15:07.640 | Like I'm a big believer in this maybe true,

02:15:10.360 | maybe not true idea that as we get older,

02:15:13.400 | we tend to jump and land less.

02:15:14.680 | A lot of injuries come from lack of eccentric load.

02:15:17.680 | - There's an old saying out of the Soviet system,

02:15:20.180 | when you stop jumping, you start dying.

02:15:22.640 | - I believe that.

02:15:23.680 | - And the lowest form could be trampolining.

02:15:26.520 | The highest, another low form, jump roping.

02:15:29.340 | Highest form, starting to be really powerful.

02:15:32.100 | I love it.

02:15:33.380 | You're killing it.

02:15:34.300 | And what's great now is you just made the switch.

02:15:37.900 | We started describing your training in blocks of positions.

02:15:41.420 | What position am I training?

02:15:43.220 | What shape am I reinforcing?

02:15:45.420 | Right, that's a really not, it's not a muscle.

02:15:48.220 | Remember your muscles are not wired for movement.

02:15:52.100 | Your brain is wired for movement, right?

02:15:53.900 | You can't, you don't have any selective control

02:15:55.580 | over a single muscle in your body.

02:15:56.660 | That's a mistake.

02:15:57.820 | So you're not really working your biceps.

02:15:59.300 | You're working arm flexion, right?

02:16:02.300 | In a variety of positions.

02:16:03.660 | This squat exercise biases my quads more,

02:16:06.660 | but I'm not actually quadding, right?

02:16:09.100 | 'Cause that's impossible.

02:16:10.140 | - Yeah, I think that the misconception,

02:16:12.660 | the broad misconception is that resistance training

02:16:16.420 | is just to build and strengthen muscles

02:16:18.380 | in a bodybuilding kind of fashion.

02:16:19.980 | And no disrespect to the bodybuilders, but--

02:16:21.660 | - No, we learned a lot.

02:16:22.500 | - But we learned a ton and yet most people

02:16:26.220 | would probably do well to think about functional movements.

02:16:28.460 | In fact, there are a few Instagram accounts

02:16:30.340 | that really like to come after, not just me,

02:16:33.480 | but a lot of people that have talked

02:16:35.300 | about resistance training

02:16:36.140 | and all that talk about functional patterns.

02:16:37.980 | And I have to say, as much as the messaging sometimes,

02:16:41.620 | I think is a little bit abrasive,

02:16:43.340 | I pay attention to these and I have seen

02:16:45.020 | some of the before and afters that they'll show

02:16:46.740 | for people that will incorporate into their training

02:16:49.140 | like throwing or ballistic movements

02:16:53.060 | from fully stop sprinting out the gate kind of thing

02:16:55.700 | and focusing immensely on balancing

02:16:58.980 | the two sides of the body.

02:17:00.020 | And without ever having done those programs,

02:17:01.780 | I have to say like, yeah, like a lot of these people

02:17:03.900 | had some pretty dysfunctional patterns

02:17:05.900 | and they look like they're doing better.

02:17:07.560 | And I think it's because I have to assume

02:17:11.420 | that they're incorporating a much broader range

02:17:15.340 | of movements, more hip extension,

02:17:19.420 | working the two sides of the body,

02:17:20.540 | all the things that you're talking about,

02:17:22.260 | all the things that you're talking about.

02:17:23.540 | And so I think that the bodybuilding piece,

02:17:25.800 | I think is a great thing for getting people out the gate.

02:17:27.840 | I always say the amazing thing about resistance training,

02:17:29.940 | forgive me for going long here,

02:17:30.940 | but I think this is something that

02:17:33.340 | if somebody is not naturally inclined to exercise

02:17:36.160 | or resistance training,

02:17:37.020 | resistance training is one of the few forms of exercise

02:17:39.920 | that because of the blood flow, the so-called pump,

02:17:42.660 | give people a visual and sensation-based window

02:17:47.660 | into the progress they might make.

02:17:49.580 | - Hell yeah.

02:17:50.420 | - Right, I mean, this is unlike going for a run

02:17:52.000 | and getting to like, at the end of your run,

02:17:53.900 | you see a little less body fat

02:17:55.180 | and then two days later,

02:17:56.020 | you've reduced your body fat percentage, right?

02:17:58.140 | Like it gives you a window into your future

02:17:59.980 | when you resistance train that way.

02:18:01.580 | - And a gateway into a conversation that's very complex.

02:18:05.340 | This is all I think about.

02:18:07.180 | And people are like, hey, I just want to feel better

02:18:08.940 | and I don't want to get hurt in my calves when I run.

02:18:10.840 | You're like, okay, it can be really simple.

02:18:12.480 | And also you have a right to look jacked and tan.

02:18:14.920 | I mean, you can be jacked all you want.

02:18:16.560 | - Mark Bell makes this point every single post.

02:18:18.840 | - Look, I think there's something that I try,

02:18:22.320 | we don't ever punch down.

02:18:23.880 | We just don't, you know, we point to what we do.

02:18:26.800 | This is our model.

02:18:28.160 | But any model that someone's on the internet,

02:18:30.660 | a model has to do three things.

02:18:32.440 | It has to explain current phenomenon, right?

02:18:35.520 | It has to predict future phenomenon

02:18:37.680 | and it has to be easily communicated.

02:18:39.960 | So let me see your model, how it works.

02:18:42.480 | How does it explain, if I do your thing,

02:18:45.560 | will I get better at this thing, right?

02:18:47.880 | That's the thing I'm interested in, right?

02:18:49.880 | So what I see is, oh, a lot of recursive fun fitness

02:18:54.240 | where people feel better,

02:18:55.580 | but I still have to go over here and squat

02:18:57.320 | or I still have to go over here and become conditioned.

02:19:00.920 | But you can see the truth of needing to expose people

02:19:05.520 | to bigger ranges of motion and more skilled movement

02:19:09.160 | than some of the things we're getting traditionally

02:19:11.520 | in the gym, right?

02:19:13.300 | And I think one of the things that we saw

02:19:15.720 | with like a pivot towards movement culture, right?

02:19:19.800 | Kind of coined by Ido Portal is that what we were seeing

02:19:23.960 | is that the gym didn't get necessarily better movers.

02:19:27.900 | What we had was people originally doing a skill,

02:19:31.720 | throwing something, running track and field.

02:19:33.880 | We would train and then go do more of that.

02:19:36.040 | And then what we did is we took the gym

02:19:38.840 | or took the sports skill movement out of it

02:19:41.720 | and we just remained in the gym.

02:19:44.280 | And you can see the reaction to that as well.

02:19:46.200 | You're not very elegant.

02:19:47.520 | You can't, don't have any moving solutions.

02:19:49.620 | You don't transfer your energy very well.

02:19:51.680 | You're not, you know, you're not graceful.

02:19:53.800 | You can't, you have no rhythm.

02:19:55.840 | So the real key for us is like,

02:19:58.540 | I think we wanna put playback in there

02:20:00.260 | and you can see what the reaction is to,

02:20:02.480 | hey, if we're just doing bench press and hack squats,

02:20:05.520 | maybe that's not making the best mover,

02:20:09.720 | but it's certainly making a jacked guy who's,

02:20:11.520 | what we call it, what is it in that movie, "Hot Girl Fit"?

02:20:14.240 | Where, you know, it's one of the recent movies

02:20:16.600 | where the guy is, who's the guy from "Twisters,"

02:20:20.000 | that incredible actor he was in, Top Gun.

02:20:22.560 | Anyway, he's swimming and the girl is like,

02:20:24.720 | "Hey, why are you out of breath?"

02:20:26.080 | He's like, "I don't do cardio.

02:20:27.520 | "I just do abs and biceps."

02:20:28.680 | She's like, "Oh my God, you're hot girl fit.

02:20:30.500 | "Like you have this big engine that looks good with no-go."

02:20:35.360 | And I wanna make sure that,

02:20:36.680 | no offense to all the hot girls out there,

02:20:38.440 | but the idea here is,

02:20:39.860 | what is it you wanna do with your body?

02:20:41.880 | Let's start there and then we can start to say,

02:20:45.560 | well, what do you have access to?

02:20:46.840 | What's your training age?

02:20:48.560 | And it's a nuanced conversation.

02:20:49.960 | It's probably why you should have a coach

02:20:51.560 | and develop a coach for the rest of your life.

02:20:54.160 | But let's not pretend having abs and big biceps

02:20:57.760 | is gonna make you a good MMA fighter, right?

02:21:00.660 | And you can see why the resistance of,

02:21:02.140 | "Hey, that made me less athletic."

02:21:04.220 | We wanna be careful of that.

02:21:05.860 | Yeah, I like using the resistance training

02:21:09.980 | to make me stronger and better at running.

02:21:12.740 | Yes.

02:21:13.580 | And that's what's in my mind.

02:21:16.500 | Yes.

02:21:17.340 | I only ran cross country one season in high school.

02:21:19.220 | It wasn't very good, but really enjoyed it.

02:21:21.220 | But I love running.

02:21:22.540 | I've been running for a long time and I'll never be a-

02:21:24.980 | I ran cross country one year in high school.

02:21:27.020 | Maybe we ran against each other.

02:21:28.400 | Oh no, you're a year older than I am.

02:21:29.600 | So I wanna, yeah, well,

02:21:32.080 | I'll tell the story some other time.

02:21:33.260 | It's not, my stories aren't relevant here,

02:21:35.860 | but I use resistance training to be able to run better,

02:21:40.040 | faster, further without pain for me.

02:21:43.020 | That is what I would hope we look at training for.

02:21:47.300 | Now apply a longevity lens, a durability lens, right?

02:21:51.740 | Or as Juliette says, she's like,

02:21:54.560 | don't you wanna just be able to pop off the couch

02:21:56.400 | and go on adventures, right?

02:21:58.360 | I wanna have a body that's capable of that.

02:22:00.680 | I think what we've been pitching in the gym

02:22:03.160 | doesn't really do that.

02:22:04.480 | And even that, I just want everyone to hear

02:22:06.080 | and double click on what Andrew just said.

02:22:07.800 | That framework is that I now have

02:22:09.680 | a third party objective measure.

02:22:12.800 | Does my running get better with my training?

02:22:15.240 | And it's a really great way to evaluate your training.

02:22:18.080 | Am I faster?

02:22:18.920 | Do I feel better?

02:22:19.740 | It's really worked for me.

02:22:20.580 | And it keeps me out of any kind of gravitational pull

02:22:25.280 | toward just trying to get more weight

02:22:26.960 | on the hack squat machine,

02:22:28.160 | which I enjoy progressive overload.

02:22:30.640 | I enjoy doing movements better with more weight, et cetera.

02:22:33.280 | But I find that the gym just becomes this,

02:22:37.200 | when it's a closed loop,

02:22:41.080 | I find that it just becomes this kind of like

02:22:43.440 | endless exploration of like, what am I really?

02:22:45.960 | Also at this age, like I wanna maintain strength

02:22:47.920 | and build some muscle perhaps, but mostly-

02:22:49.880 | - Do you wanna get heavier?

02:22:50.800 | - I don't.

02:22:51.640 | - Isn't that weird?

02:22:52.460 | - I don't know.

02:22:53.300 | - You need as much muscle as you can

02:22:55.340 | because winter is coming.

02:22:56.560 | - My goal is to actually get much stronger

02:22:59.300 | without getting bigger and to keep my endurance going.

02:23:02.520 | I like to do one long rucker run per week

02:23:04.500 | at one shorter run, one sprint type run.

02:23:07.500 | I just figure like I'll be-

02:23:08.420 | - Everyone, what you just described for a typical person

02:23:12.000 | is doing a long piece, a short piece

02:23:14.460 | and a high intensity piece.

02:23:16.780 | That's right.

02:23:17.820 | That is really, that's the crack.

02:23:20.020 | - Yeah, that's what I do every week.

02:23:21.060 | If I'm, you know, most weeks and then I'll lift,

02:23:23.540 | you know, legs one day, you know, torso.

02:23:25.140 | Everyone laughs, torso.

02:23:26.100 | What kind of thing is that?

02:23:26.920 | You know, torso, including neck and abs.

02:23:28.420 | - Let's take it to the next level.

02:23:29.260 | Let's go flank too.

02:23:30.100 | You wanna get torso on flank.

02:23:30.940 | I'm really confused if I work on my flank.

02:23:33.020 | - And then I'll do what could be called distal muscles.

02:23:36.340 | I'll do an extra workout for calves, biceps and triceps

02:23:39.020 | and forearms and grip strength on Saturday.

02:23:41.100 | And that combination of things, right?

02:23:43.560 | This isn't about my training.

02:23:44.540 | To me, meets the demands of life.

02:23:46.540 | Like I can sprint for the airplane with my luggage

02:23:50.660 | and get there and not cough up both lungs.

02:23:53.260 | I can go backpacking.

02:23:54.860 | Like if you say, hey, let's go backpacking

02:23:56.300 | or go Grand Canyon. - You can do that.

02:23:57.460 | - Tomorrow, you're gonna carry 75 pounds sack.

02:23:59.540 | - What a great test.

02:24:00.380 | - I'll be a little bit sore at night, but it'll feel good.

02:24:02.060 | I'll feel good sore, right?

02:24:03.460 | We can go to the gym together and I can put, you know,

02:24:07.980 | what feels to me like a respectable amount of weight

02:24:09.820 | on the hack squat.

02:24:11.060 | We do some full range glute ham raises.

02:24:12.780 | I can hang from a bar,

02:24:13.740 | but I'm not trying to beat a pull-up record

02:24:16.180 | or run a marathon.

02:24:17.880 | I find that anytime I've gone to the extreme

02:24:20.260 | in any one kind of training, I end up injured, sick,

02:24:23.540 | and I'm just not interested in that.

02:24:25.380 | And I like to think, I could be wrong,

02:24:26.780 | I'm projecting here probably,

02:24:27.820 | that I'm representative of what most people want.

02:24:30.300 | I also wanna be able to overeat a little bit

02:24:32.260 | every now and again.

02:24:33.100 | Like Thanksgiving's coming, a little bit.

02:24:34.700 | I also wanna be able to not have to eat all day

02:24:37.460 | and then eat a big dinner

02:24:38.380 | and not dissolve into a puddle of my own tears

02:24:40.820 | because I'm neurotically worried

02:24:42.140 | about something nutrition-based.

02:24:43.820 | Like I tend to, I basically skip one meal a day

02:24:45.900 | just by virtue of my schedule.

02:24:47.420 | It's like non-intentional intermittent fasting.

02:24:49.980 | And the people who are obsessive about protein will say,

02:24:52.680 | well, gosh, that isn't as good.

02:24:53.740 | But yeah, okay, so maybe I get a little bit less muscle.

02:24:55.980 | I'm not doing, I don't wanna be so neurotic

02:24:57.980 | about my training that I'm not focusing

02:24:59.500 | on the bigger missions of my life.

02:25:01.340 | - And notice that what you said was,

02:25:05.180 | I train so I can have fun.

02:25:08.060 | And I just wanna double-click on,

02:25:10.420 | we have sucked the joy and the play and exposure

02:25:14.760 | out of training and out of fitness.

02:25:17.040 | And now it's, I have to have this VO2 max

02:25:19.260 | so I'll live to 150 and I have to do, right?

02:25:22.420 | And you forgot that we, this whole thing

02:25:25.580 | is so you can go spend some credits.

02:25:27.540 | So I like to say the gym and all that really focused training

02:25:30.980 | is spending time on credits.

02:25:32.660 | But one of my coach friends,

02:25:34.260 | Nicole Christensen says, CrossFit Roots,

02:25:36.820 | she's like, we don't nature for time.

02:25:38.960 | Stop naturing for time.

02:25:40.460 | Like this, we're surfing so we can surf all day

02:25:43.140 | and we can surf more waves than the other kids

02:25:45.480 | 'cause you're not fit enough, right?

02:25:47.220 | I wanna go hike and then ride my bike

02:25:49.180 | and play and ski and do all the things

02:25:50.940 | I wanna do with my body.

02:25:51.900 | And that made me wanna hold my kids

02:25:54.240 | or I wanna do my job in this warehouse.

02:25:57.660 | We're starting to train for life

02:25:59.460 | in a little bit more simple way

02:26:01.060 | and it doesn't feel like this crazy burden.

02:26:03.620 | And it also happens to be the best tool

02:26:07.060 | to understand how you're moving.

02:26:09.440 | Because my expert coaches can watch you run

02:26:11.980 | and be like, oh, that's what we're working on.

02:26:13.580 | And I'll go right to the thing, right?

02:26:15.700 | But for the rest of us, we need to say,

02:26:17.980 | wow, my shoulder, that bench,

02:26:19.660 | that fly dumbbell bench was a little bit tricky.

02:26:22.240 | I'm losing some shoulder extension, right?

02:26:24.540 | Or at least I'm touching these shapes.

02:26:26.900 | And that ends up being a really interesting diagnostic tool

02:26:29.860 | where we can really take a shot at improving function

02:26:32.920 | and reducing musculoskeletal distress.

02:26:35.340 | And I think this is the template for it.

02:26:38.100 | - Yeah, enjoying your training

02:26:39.540 | and including enjoying training hard

02:26:41.900 | is one of the best things one can do.

02:26:43.700 | Years ago when I was skateboarding,

02:26:44.860 | I mean, I ruined skateboarding for myself

02:26:46.980 | because got picked up out of sympathy, to be fair,

02:26:50.020 | by a couple of sponsors.

02:26:51.140 | And then got obsessed with the fact that, you know,

02:26:53.540 | I wasn't progressing, then broke my foot.

02:26:55.140 | And, you know, pretty soon I didn't hate it.

02:26:57.280 | I loved it and I loved the community,

02:26:58.620 | but it turned into something else.

02:27:00.680 | And had I just taken a step back from it and said,

02:27:03.060 | all right, I'm decent at this, I could get better.

02:27:05.420 | And I'm just gonna focus on doing it for pleasure

02:27:07.340 | and make a living some other way.

02:27:09.700 | I'd probably be doing, you know,

02:27:11.740 | like, you know, front side inverts and pulls now.

02:27:13.980 | And unfortunately I'm not.

02:27:15.340 | I'm lucky if I get a nice little front side grind on coping.

02:27:17.900 | But whereas with fitness, resistance training, running,

02:27:21.140 | I love resistance training and running.

02:27:23.200 | The cup of coffee before my workout

02:27:24.660 | takes 10 times better because I'm gonna work out.

02:27:26.860 | I love to use it as an opportunity to listen to music,

02:27:29.580 | listen to podcasts.

02:27:30.780 | Like there's so much that's in and around it

02:27:32.560 | that's still just pure pleasure.

02:27:34.180 | Even on the days when I'm like at 95% of output

02:27:36.780 | or 100% of output or 80% of output.

02:27:39.540 | I'm like, I just, I'm having so much fun.

02:27:41.700 | - That's right.

02:27:42.540 | - And I can't wait to get back in there.

02:27:44.900 | - So when we're, we are looking at society health, right?

02:27:49.420 | The first thing we argue,

02:27:51.180 | instead of saying what's most important,

02:27:53.900 | we say, what is it you wanna do?

02:27:55.620 | And who are your friends are gonna do it with?

02:27:57.420 | And are you gonna do it a lot?

02:27:58.980 | Let's start there.

02:27:59.900 | Then we can start to weasel in everything,

02:28:02.460 | especially with social isolation,

02:28:04.680 | with sort of lack of community.

02:28:06.260 | I mean, I feel like sport is the last place

02:28:08.840 | where people congregate, right?

02:28:10.580 | Sports, sidelines.

02:28:11.700 | This is the sort of, you know,

02:28:14.540 | lingua franca of the whole world.

02:28:17.860 | I've taught on every continent except Antarctica.

02:28:20.180 | Everyone knows what a pushup is.

02:28:21.420 | Everyone knows what a deadlift is.

02:28:22.340 | It's not science, sorry.

02:28:23.860 | It's not math.

02:28:24.700 | That's not the universal language.

02:28:25.780 | It is bench press.

02:28:27.540 | Everyone knows and everyone can tell you

02:28:29.760 | how much you bench in any language.

02:28:31.260 | So there are some things there that are universal.

02:28:34.900 | I think when we look at the human as a moving organism,

02:28:39.620 | then we can really start to not feel crazy

02:28:41.700 | about how our world is changing,

02:28:43.980 | but how do we fight back

02:28:45.980 | by setting up more opportunity to move more?

02:28:48.900 | And for me, the whole lens ends up being like,

02:28:53.100 | we basically as we're trying

02:28:54.260 | to parse through complex problems.

02:28:56.340 | So I have a world champion who's injured,

02:28:59.380 | two-time world champion, isn't able to finish a tour.

02:29:02.140 | You know, the first question I ask them is,

02:29:04.180 | tell me about your sleep.

02:29:06.260 | I'm a rough sleeper.

02:29:07.340 | Oh, tell me more about that, right?

02:29:09.260 | Because I can't even tell your inputs and outputs

02:29:11.140 | unless we're getting into sleep.

02:29:12.820 | Then I say, well, tell me about your nutrition.

02:29:14.700 | I eat clean.

02:29:15.540 | Great, find that for me.

02:29:16.580 | I don't even know what that means, clean.

02:29:18.300 | Turns out under-caloried, under-nutrition,

02:29:20.740 | doesn't get enough macros, doesn't get enough micros.

02:29:22.820 | I'm like, oh, we start to correct that.

02:29:24.540 | We start to collect sleep.

02:29:26.180 | When we really start to divide some of the behaviors into,

02:29:29.460 | for me as a 51-year-old,

02:29:31.900 | I'm obsessed with my tissues not failing.

02:29:33.800 | Like tearing an Achilles is like

02:29:35.780 | every physical therapist's worst nightmare.

02:29:37.620 | And I jump rope every day and I have great range.

02:29:40.500 | I do so many isometrics.

02:29:41.660 | I'm just not gonna tear my Achilles.

02:29:43.620 | Now I'm gonna tear my Achilles,

02:29:44.620 | but I'm not gonna tear my Achilles.

02:29:46.060 | So tissue health is part of that.

02:29:48.300 | So now I have to look at nutrition.

02:29:49.900 | I have to look at my blood work

02:29:51.040 | and I have to look at my sleep, right?

02:29:53.060 | So that I can really define some of those things

02:29:56.220 | as that creates a readiness, tissue tolerance, health.

02:30:00.060 | Then I can be looking at the other things.

02:30:01.660 | And that's really, as we start to get, again,

02:30:04.260 | the framework of sport or framework of play

02:30:07.660 | creates this place where I can suddenly start to understand

02:30:11.260 | inputs and outputs and how to take care of this carcass

02:30:14.060 | so that I can do what I want with my body,

02:30:15.660 | which is our new definition of mobility.

02:30:17.640 | Can I do what I want with my body and can I be pain-free?

02:30:20.620 | - Am I correct in my very non-scientific assessment

02:30:24.620 | of Instagram accounts,

02:30:26.080 | whereby when I see a 80 to 100-year-old person moving well,

02:30:31.920 | that person tends to be doing something

02:30:36.240 | sort of gymnastics related.

02:30:38.480 | There's this incredible video guy,

02:30:40.440 | Chinese guy, very tall Chinese guy doing essentially

02:30:42.560 | skin the cat and then into a pull-up.

02:30:44.400 | Skin the cat, people can look it up.

02:30:46.440 | It doesn't involve actual cats, hopefully.

02:30:48.680 | It shouldn't.

02:30:50.440 | 85-year-old woman sprinting.

02:30:54.160 | So we're talking gymnastics type movement.

02:30:56.120 | - Didn't stop. - Sprinting movement.

02:30:58.820 | Rarely, sometimes it'll be somebody in a gym

02:31:01.940 | lifting a heavy weight, but more often than not,

02:31:04.940 | it's gymnastic type movement.

02:31:06.980 | Pull-up, dip, parallel bar, balance beam, sprinting.

02:31:11.300 | Is that what got them there

02:31:13.900 | or is that just the expression of what-

02:31:15.780 | - Genetics, do they feel safe?

02:31:18.180 | Show me nutrition, show me their training age.

02:31:20.300 | But what's noticeable there is that we have disciplines

02:31:24.140 | that require greater range of motion

02:31:25.980 | and skill of body control and high power output, right?

02:31:30.620 | Huh, so one of the things that we do

02:31:32.900 | in our programming for adults

02:31:34.540 | is I make you sprint once a week, like sprint,

02:31:37.700 | 'cause people have not sprinted.

02:31:38.940 | And I don't mean you can go out and run.

02:31:40.300 | I don't think you're capable of that.

02:31:41.900 | But I'm gonna put you on a bike,

02:31:42.940 | I'm gonna put you in control,

02:31:44.180 | and I'm gonna see what your peak wattage is, that sprinting.

02:31:47.940 | So ideally, I would love you to be able

02:31:49.660 | to do some hill sprints and repeats,

02:31:51.660 | but I don't think you have the tissue tolerance

02:31:53.620 | or the range of motion for that.

02:31:54.900 | And I know what the outcome is gonna be,

02:31:56.900 | but I can put you on a bike and say,

02:31:58.660 | can we hit this peak wattage?

02:32:00.140 | And what you just discovered there was,

02:32:02.380 | hey, I still need to maintain my ability to move quickly

02:32:04.940 | and have control through great ranges of motion.

02:32:07.420 | That is a recipe for why if you did yoga

02:32:12.060 | and did some sprints, you're gonna be pretty badass.

02:32:15.700 | You know, that's a pretty good way.

02:32:17.140 | - And why people who just do the elliptical

02:32:19.060 | and the little small dumbbells, they're fooling themselves.

02:32:23.460 | - It's a lot of busy work.

02:32:24.420 | There's a lot of busy work out there.

02:32:25.740 | It makes people feel like they're involved in a program.

02:32:28.780 | Again, the way we wanna take our feelings out of it,

02:32:32.820 | how do you progress those pink dumbbells?

02:32:34.620 | 1,000 reps is 2,000 reps, right?

02:32:36.900 | Show me progression.

02:32:38.020 | Suddenly, I can't progress and regress those things.

02:32:40.860 | The other thing I wanna say is like,

02:32:42.740 | is it making the thing better?

02:32:44.660 | What are we training for?

02:32:46.380 | And you know, I think it feels decorative to have busy work,

02:32:51.300 | and I do all this prehab corrective exercise.

02:32:54.060 | I'm like, hold up.

02:32:55.340 | Why don't we do the thing we're doing

02:32:56.620 | and regress and progress that

02:32:57.940 | and ask if you have native range of motion, yes or no?

02:33:00.620 | But you know, if we look at the typical person,

02:33:03.380 | especially someone listening to this podcast,

02:33:05.140 | they don't have two hours in the gym.

02:33:06.660 | So if your program is requiring two hours of me, I'm out.

02:33:10.020 | If it requires an hour of me, I might be out.

02:33:11.900 | You know, I'm so busy that sometimes I eat lots of 30

02:33:14.860 | and 40-minute pieces peppered throughout

02:33:17.100 | plus a lot of other play, and that's good enough.

02:33:19.580 | So we really do need to look at how people

02:33:21.620 | are finding themselves in their environments

02:33:23.500 | to ask, is this appropriate for you?

02:33:25.660 | And what's essential?

02:33:27.140 | And it turns out a lot of this, you know,

02:33:29.940 | 20-something playing around videoing yourself in the gym

02:33:33.140 | is great when you have three or four hours in the gym.

02:33:35.660 | - Yeah, listening to an entire album or podcast

02:33:38.540 | or book chapters in sequence, I think is, if I may,

02:33:42.980 | far more valuable than allowing oneself the opportunity

02:33:47.660 | to text and be on social media during a workout

02:33:51.260 | because it just becomes a very distracted thing.

02:33:53.500 | I think the workout of any kind is also an opportunity

02:33:56.180 | for building concentration, and one can listen to podcasts

02:34:00.260 | or books, et cetera, or an album sequentially through,

02:34:04.740 | but I find, at least for myself, if I work out in a way

02:34:08.820 | that's interrupted by social media or texting or email,

02:34:12.940 | because it's available there, that it carries through

02:34:15.340 | into the rest of the day, that I'm more distracted.

02:34:18.140 | - I believe you.

02:34:19.660 | How about that?

02:34:20.500 | - I believe you, and that's what's so great,

02:34:22.140 | is you're like, "Hey, that doesn't work for me."

02:34:24.140 | You know, I find that my best thinking is done

02:34:28.780 | under enormous aerobic load.

02:34:31.020 | Like, I literally am like, "Oh," and I often will jump up

02:34:34.100 | and write something on the whiteboard

02:34:35.180 | and then go back and do my thing,

02:34:36.380 | 'cause, you know, it creates flow state,

02:34:39.460 | and if I'm distracted, I can't really hear what's going on,

02:34:43.340 | and there's a time when I wanna distract myself, you know,

02:34:46.140 | and there's a time when I wanna be amused, so that's fine.

02:34:48.260 | You know, I've got a two-hour ride,

02:34:49.980 | getting ready for a four-day backcountry ski trip

02:34:53.100 | here in February, but notice,

02:34:56.220 | I've already been getting ready for it

02:34:58.140 | in the beginning of November.

02:34:59.220 | I am ready, it's taking me, gonna ramp up,

02:35:02.220 | and so much of my training now is going towards,

02:35:05.140 | can I successfully do these four hard days

02:35:07.340 | the way I want to?

02:35:08.380 | So some things come down a little bit,

02:35:10.060 | strength dials down, I change my body composition,

02:35:12.020 | I'd like to be a little bit lighter, I'm playing,

02:35:13.820 | but there's some times where I have to get

02:35:15.540 | two and three hours in of steady work done,

02:35:18.420 | and I'm like, headphones, you know what I mean?

02:35:20.420 | So it's okay to be amused.

02:35:22.220 | You don't have to be a monk doing what you're doing,

02:35:24.300 | but I really like what you said.

02:35:26.180 | I feel distracted.

02:35:27.020 | Yeah, let's use it as a concentration time, right?

02:35:30.900 | Let's use this as interaction time.

02:35:32.780 | The gym shouldn't be the loneliest place in the world.

02:35:34.340 | If you're not making eye contact and talking,

02:35:35.900 | high-fiving, get a different gym.

02:35:38.380 | - I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about fascia.

02:35:41.060 | You and Jill Miller were some of the first people

02:35:42.860 | that I ever heard talk about fascia in an elaborate way,

02:35:47.220 | in a way that allowed me to finally understand

02:35:49.380 | what this incredible aspect of our physiology,

02:35:53.140 | the many things that it's doing.

02:35:54.940 | I realize this is a vast discussion

02:35:56.820 | that could take several more hours.

02:35:58.580 | - I'm not a fascia researcher.

02:36:00.180 | - Right, and yet I think, as I recall,

02:36:02.940 | you're one of the first people to talk about

02:36:04.780 | the relationship, telling people that there's fascia,

02:36:07.460 | that we have this thing called fascia,

02:36:10.060 | clearly an important part of our physiology,

02:36:12.540 | our ability to move.

02:36:13.940 | To what extent do you think that tight fascia,

02:36:18.380 | quote unquote, I'm probably offending

02:36:19.900 | many people in this moment,

02:36:20.940 | tight fascia restricts our movement

02:36:23.340 | and that working on fascial release,

02:36:26.140 | or maneuvering fascial-- - How about mobilization?

02:36:28.220 | - Mobilization, thank you, can allow us to move better,

02:36:31.860 | maybe better posture, maybe even feel better.

02:36:33.980 | And there are a lot of theories,

02:36:35.500 | some probably wrong, some probably right,

02:36:37.900 | about what fascia can and can't do for us.

02:36:40.420 | But what are some things about fascia

02:36:41.660 | that you find particularly interesting

02:36:43.300 | that you'd like to pass along?

02:36:44.780 | - I think what we should do is,

02:36:47.620 | if you pull fascia out of the human movement equation,

02:36:49.820 | human doesn't, it fails to stop moving, right?

02:36:52.140 | So the recent, like, we've just discovered fascia,

02:36:54.860 | we're like, mm, that's not really entirely true.

02:36:57.660 | There's a really, like, 20-year-old set of videos

02:37:02.060 | by a guy who was, he describes himself as a vasomonaut.

02:37:05.180 | His name's Gil Headley,

02:37:07.220 | and he did these live dissections on YouTube.

02:37:09.500 | I don't even know if he's still there.

02:37:10.540 | But he basically did all of this gross anatomy

02:37:13.380 | for free on the internet.

02:37:14.660 | And he describes himself as one of the first people

02:37:17.460 | to really describe fascia as this sort of incredible,

02:37:21.460 | you know, connective tissue network that envelops, wraps,

02:37:24.460 | you know, stores energy, communicates, is tensionality.

02:37:28.860 | In full disclosure, I went to school in Boulder,

02:37:32.260 | and I may have dated a girl who went to rolfing school

02:37:35.140 | and was a rolfer.

02:37:35.980 | And Ida Rolf was one of the first people

02:37:37.780 | to really talk about how can we mobilize fascia with touch?

02:37:41.300 | So I was introduced to fascia in the '90s

02:37:44.660 | when I had rolfing done on me.

02:37:46.580 | So when I'm trying to help someone think about pain

02:37:49.860 | or restore position, and this is overly gross,

02:37:52.100 | but it'll create a framework for people,

02:37:54.140 | we ask, is this an environmental problem?

02:37:56.400 | Are you poorly hydrated?

02:37:57.740 | Because your tissues need to be hydrated to slide.

02:38:00.420 | Are you inflamed?

02:38:01.380 | Like, that's why we talk about nutrition

02:38:03.180 | and we talk about sleep.

02:38:04.340 | Okay, so we have this environmental piece.

02:38:06.100 | Then I often will say, hey,

02:38:07.700 | do we have just a movement problem?

02:38:09.280 | Do you just have crappy technique?

02:38:11.220 | Like, let's fix the technique first.

02:38:12.960 | Let's get you moving to the highest expression

02:38:15.220 | of the movement first.

02:38:16.860 | Hey, turn your foot straighter.

02:38:18.400 | Let's re-centrate that joint.

02:38:20.900 | Can we have a better organization?

02:38:23.400 | Then we start to say,

02:38:24.240 | 'cause sometimes it's just a movement problem,

02:38:25.420 | just you needed some cueing.

02:38:26.820 | We say, is this a joint capsule problem?

02:38:28.860 | 'Cause capsular stiffness,

02:38:30.020 | the joint capsule is a bag of connective tissue

02:38:31.660 | that surrounds all your joints,

02:38:32.860 | and it can account for huge chunks

02:38:34.580 | of your range of motion limitation.

02:38:36.020 | So a lot of what we do is we,

02:38:37.260 | after we try to mobilize the joint tissue,

02:38:39.420 | and again, that's my own bias.

02:38:40.820 | The way I was trained,

02:38:41.660 | I was an Australian trained manual therapist,

02:38:43.380 | this Maitland school.

02:38:44.840 | Then we say, well,

02:38:45.680 | is this just a good old-fashioned muscle restriction?

02:38:47.860 | And we call it muscle dynamics,

02:38:49.340 | 'cause that includes high tone, stress, fear,

02:38:52.600 | but trigger points are a well-documented phenomenon.

02:38:55.020 | Muscles get stiff, they become fibrotic, right?

02:38:58.620 | You could have high tone trying to protect you,

02:39:00.380 | all those reasons,

02:39:01.200 | but that still could limit your range of motion.

02:39:02.500 | And lastly, we say sliding surfaces.

02:39:05.140 | So instead of kind of talking about

02:39:07.140 | all the different layers of dermis and skin and fascia,

02:39:10.080 | we say, do the things that slide, are they sliding?

02:39:14.780 | So if you grab your skin on your forehead,

02:39:16.620 | it should slide in all the directions.

02:39:18.980 | Notice that the skin should slide

02:39:20.560 | all the directions over your tendons, right?

02:39:23.400 | If I grab your typical person's Achilles

02:39:26.300 | and grab the skin over the Achilles, it doesn't budge.

02:39:30.060 | It's like they have an exoskeleton

02:39:31.740 | that's that fascial kind of compartment,

02:39:34.860 | and it's seized, it's adhered,

02:39:37.380 | it's bound to the underlying surfaces,

02:39:39.900 | which creates tissue restriction and higher tension.

02:39:42.980 | So when we're mobilizing these tissues,

02:39:45.100 | we're trying to keep tissues sliding and gliding.

02:39:47.320 | That's an easy way of thinking about it.

02:39:48.620 | Nerves have to run through nerve tunnels.

02:39:51.140 | Taking huge breaths keeps all of those,

02:39:54.100 | you know, aspects of your trunk moving.

02:39:56.780 | And we just need to be thinking in like a systems approach.

02:40:00.380 | So sometimes if you went and saw an ART practitioner

02:40:04.660 | and it didn't solve your problem-

02:40:06.100 | - This is active release therapy?

02:40:07.500 | - Yeah. - Okay.

02:40:08.780 | - It may not have been a fascial problem, right?

02:40:11.760 | If you went and saw someone who only worked on the muscles,

02:40:14.540 | it may not have been a muscle problem.

02:40:16.020 | If you went and saw a chiropractor

02:40:17.180 | and they worked on your joint structures, right,

02:40:20.660 | or a good physio,

02:40:21.740 | it may not be a joint restriction problem.

02:40:23.860 | If you saw a coach and they couldn't cue you out of it,

02:40:25.940 | it may not have been a...

02:40:26.940 | So what we need to do is we recognize

02:40:28.460 | that if more squats just solved all the problems,

02:40:30.580 | wouldn't we have solved all the problems?

02:40:32.100 | If rolling on a roller had solved all the problems,

02:40:34.420 | seems like we would have solved all the problems.

02:40:36.100 | So I think what ends up happening

02:40:37.420 | is we want to put fascia equally

02:40:40.180 | as an important part of the system.

02:40:41.700 | And one of the ways that we can directly impact that

02:40:44.980 | in a free way at home is to begin a conversation

02:40:49.480 | of just some simple myofascial mobilization.

02:40:53.260 | In fact, myofascial means muscle fascial,

02:40:55.820 | but there are osteofascial connections.

02:40:57.780 | Does the fascia glide over the bone there, right?

02:41:01.380 | We can look at the tendinous fascial connections.

02:41:04.740 | And again, do these tissues slide and glide

02:41:06.740 | the way they're supposed to slide and glide?

02:41:07.860 | And that's a much easier way to look at it.

02:41:09.740 | And I'm gonna test and retest, not with subjective pain,

02:41:12.780 | but how is your range of motion

02:41:14.660 | and access to your range of motion?

02:41:17.020 | - Thank you for that.

02:41:17.860 | I've wanted to try rolfing for a long time.

02:41:21.720 | And then a friend of mine,

02:41:22.980 | who's a former SEAL team operator,

02:41:25.620 | told me that at some point during the rolfing

02:41:28.660 | that he received, that they put a glove on

02:41:31.860 | and went up his nostril and did some fascial relief

02:41:34.780 | on the release, excuse me, on the inside of his nose.

02:41:37.560 | And quote, it was the most painful experience he ever had.

02:41:41.380 | And I was like, all right, well.

02:41:43.540 | - I don't even know anyone in Naval Special Warfare,

02:41:45.500 | but they're so soft.

02:41:47.180 | - Right.

02:41:48.420 | I didn't say that, Kelly said that.

02:41:50.780 | - You know who you are, my friends.

02:41:51.940 | But I confess, it's not like I avoid pain at all costs,

02:41:56.940 | but that made me think that I might not wanna do rolfing.

02:42:03.300 | I also don't want someone putting their finger up my nose.

02:42:05.860 | So I'm assuming that I could say,

02:42:07.300 | hey, I wanna try rolfing and I don't need to get,

02:42:11.020 | because you hear this stuff like,

02:42:12.380 | oh, there's all this emotional release,

02:42:14.300 | which there are other ways to get that.

02:42:16.300 | I guess, is it always painful, is the question?

02:42:20.260 | Does it need to be painful?

02:42:21.420 | This statement is pretty severe.

02:42:24.020 | - Let's pull rolfing outside, 'cause I'm not a rolfer.

02:42:26.180 | But let's just say that mobilizing your tissues

02:42:27.940 | doesn't have to be painful.

02:42:29.060 | In fact, it's likely that you'll experience some discomfort.

02:42:32.580 | But let's talk about a couple guideposts for you.

02:42:35.540 | Number one, you always have to be able to take a full breath.

02:42:37.780 | So if I'm mobilizing you, or you're mobilizing yourself,

02:42:41.240 | and you suddenly stop breathing, you're going too deep.

02:42:45.100 | So an easy way for you is to say,

02:42:46.900 | hey, can I breathe here?

02:42:48.540 | Number two, I like to have volitional contraction.

02:42:51.780 | So if I'm mobilizing someone or someone's doing something,

02:42:54.100 | I should be able to flex them out.

02:42:55.580 | I should have control over that.

02:42:56.660 | If the pain or depth or pressure

02:42:58.700 | is putting too much load on the system,

02:43:00.220 | where I literally lose neuromuscular control,

02:43:02.580 | what am I doing, right?

02:43:04.420 | And then those two pieces, can I take a breath here?

02:43:07.940 | Do I have control here?

02:43:09.340 | Those go a long way to keeping me in the balance.

02:43:12.260 | And then we tend to not work on a tissue

02:43:14.140 | longer than five minutes,

02:43:16.000 | just because I wanna get the rest of it tomorrow.

02:43:17.940 | And if you give me 10 minutes of work, that's incredible.

02:43:21.140 | We like to put the soft tissue work before we go to bed.

02:43:23.860 | And what we found was that we had better adherence.

02:43:26.620 | No one's doing anything productive in the 10 minutes

02:43:28.940 | before they go to the bedroom.

02:43:30.460 | Number two, like a child, when you put a child to bed,

02:43:33.660 | you're like, first we take a bath,

02:43:35.740 | then we read the book, and then we go to bed, right?

02:43:38.100 | Your brain is like, I know what comes next.

02:43:39.980 | So if you do this rolling or on your soft tissue work,

02:43:42.980 | self-massage, you are training your brain

02:43:46.420 | to know what comes next.

02:43:47.900 | We find that when people have engaged in massage

02:43:51.060 | or self-massage, they don't stand up

02:43:52.620 | and wanna fight anyone.

02:43:53.520 | They're very relaxed.

02:43:54.820 | If you've ever gone to a spa and had a massage,

02:43:57.380 | you don't go out and snatch or get into a fight afterwards.

02:43:59.500 | You're so chill, bro.

02:44:00.900 | So we found is a great way to, as Jill Miller says,

02:44:03.580 | switch on the off switch.

02:44:05.600 | That's a beautiful way of talking about that.

02:44:07.340 | How do I tell myself to shift out of this,

02:44:10.380 | you know, fight or flight into coming down?

02:44:13.100 | Five minutes per body part, start anywhere on the leg,

02:44:16.660 | start anywhere stiff, what's asking,

02:44:18.580 | can I breathe, can I contract?

02:44:20.660 | You're gonna see that that's a really simple way

02:44:23.180 | to start getting some input.

02:44:24.340 | And not all your tissues are the same.

02:44:26.660 | If you come to me with knee pain,

02:44:28.580 | I'm gonna wanna be able to look at your positions,

02:44:31.800 | but I'm also gonna wanna be able to stay on your quads.

02:44:34.020 | I mean, my full body weight.

02:44:35.180 | And if you can't take that, I'm calling that incomplete.

02:44:38.540 | And those people out there who are gonna be like,

02:44:40.620 | whoa, that's heavy duty.

02:44:42.020 | You have not worked with my population

02:44:44.140 | who have monster thighs, are thick and fibrotic,

02:44:47.140 | and it takes real weight.

02:44:48.300 | So we all have different sensitivities,

02:44:50.340 | but if I respect your ability to take a breath and contract,

02:44:54.060 | then all of a sudden we're upregulating.

02:44:57.580 | What I recommend is you go to Thailand,

02:44:59.940 | you get a Thai massage from a 65 year old master woman

02:45:02.980 | who weighs 109 pounds.

02:45:04.860 | And when she is working on your quads and you tap out,

02:45:08.380 | she's like, no, I'm not done here.

02:45:10.300 | You felt your quads,

02:45:11.460 | you're gonna realize how low the bar is.

02:45:14.260 | - All right.

02:45:15.100 | Heat and cold.

02:45:18.660 | You were one of the first people that told me,

02:45:20.840 | hey, listen, cold's great.

02:45:22.060 | Cold plunges, cold showers are great

02:45:23.540 | for shifting your state, for resilience training.

02:45:27.040 | - It's fun. - It's fun.

02:45:30.260 | - I swam with Laird's pool this morning.

02:45:32.060 | Did the breath hold cold laps?

02:45:33.420 | It's fun, I'm gonna put in quotation marks.

02:45:35.340 | - Yeah, it's- - Sometimes it's type two fun.

02:45:38.180 | - It definitely will shift one's state

02:45:40.860 | for many hours afterwards, for reasons we now understand.

02:45:44.100 | But you were one of the first people to point out to me

02:45:46.340 | that for injuries, oftentimes,

02:45:49.220 | it's better to perfuse the tissue

02:45:51.260 | and that heat sometimes, perhaps,

02:45:54.020 | is the more favorable tool if you had to pick one.

02:45:57.580 | - That's right.

02:45:58.420 | So you, I think, have even talked about

02:46:02.760 | that there is research to show that cold water immersion

02:46:07.220 | can attenuate training effects.

02:46:09.300 | - If done in the six to eight hours

02:46:11.720 | after hypertrophy and strength training,

02:46:13.780 | because of its potent anti-inflammatory properties,

02:46:17.300 | prevents some of the inflammation

02:46:18.620 | that would prompt the adaptation response.

02:46:20.980 | And put simply, if your goal is bigger muscles

02:46:23.660 | and getting stronger,

02:46:24.540 | don't do immersion-based deliberate cold exposure

02:46:28.460 | in the six to eight hours after your training.

02:46:32.100 | Fine to do it on other days, fine to do it beforehand.

02:46:34.700 | In fact, athletes at Stanford do that

02:46:36.220 | on the basis of a lot of work from Craig Heller and others.

02:46:39.300 | Fine to not do it at all if you don't wanna do it.

02:46:41.180 | Again, I'm not a, I'm not a,

02:46:43.120 | I'm not gonna die on the sword of cold plunging,

02:46:47.580 | but it can attenuate or even prevent those adaptations.

02:46:51.300 | But at other times, it's a great tool

02:46:53.120 | for reducing inflammation,

02:46:55.500 | shifting one's mental and physical state

02:46:57.220 | in the right direction.

02:46:58.780 | Look, it always sucks to get in the thing.

02:47:00.080 | The whole point is you feel much better when you get out

02:47:02.180 | than you did before you ever got in.

02:47:03.940 | That's the simplest way to put it.

02:47:05.140 | I am a middle-aged guy who wants to be

02:47:07.300 | the best middle-aged mountain biker in my neighborhood.

02:47:10.300 | Is my timing of my plunge going to affect my ability

02:47:14.780 | to be that mediocre athlete?

02:47:17.540 | No, so stop it.

02:47:19.340 | People are like, when's the optimal time?

02:47:21.580 | I'm like, when's it work for you?

02:47:23.280 | Does it, is that first thing in the morning?

02:47:24.840 | Juliette found that if she got hot

02:47:27.460 | and plunged it in the night,

02:47:28.580 | she was like woken up and fired up and ready.

02:47:31.780 | She's like, I'm not going to sleep now.

02:47:33.180 | And I get hot and cold, hot and cold,

02:47:34.660 | it's like someone hits the emergency brake, right?

02:47:36.860 | So first of all, when's it work for you, right?

02:47:40.180 | Second of all, if there is a performance concern,

02:47:42.140 | we try to put it as far away from training as we can.

02:47:44.140 | That's what we say.

02:47:45.020 | Training in the evening, plunge before.

02:47:47.080 | If you like, you've trained in the morning,

02:47:49.060 | plunge in the evening.

02:47:49.900 | Like get cold, that's cool.

02:47:51.160 | But what you hinted at is the same reasons

02:47:53.260 | why we don't ice injuries,

02:47:55.420 | because it limits our body's ability to heal.

02:47:59.700 | So it rate limits,

02:48:00.860 | and it might do it by phasal constriction.

02:48:03.500 | Your body, eventually your body is going to warm up anyway.

02:48:05.820 | So one of the things we like to say

02:48:07.180 | is your body either heals at the rate of a human being,

02:48:10.260 | or it heals slower.

02:48:12.340 | So there's no such thing as a fast healer.

02:48:13.860 | You're just, oh, you're really good at healing

02:48:15.460 | at the rate of human physiology,

02:48:17.260 | and the rest of us are doing dumb things

02:48:19.220 | that are rate limiting our healing.

02:48:21.020 | Nutrition, sleep, right?

02:48:23.420 | When we are talking about anyone after surgery or injury,

02:48:27.540 | our benchmark in the line of the sand

02:48:29.660 | is eight hours of laying in bed

02:48:31.700 | without looking at your phone.

02:48:32.720 | That's minimum.

02:48:34.100 | And I don't care if you're sleeping,

02:48:35.380 | 'cause resting is the next best thing,

02:48:37.220 | but I can't actually understand inputs and outputs.

02:48:40.940 | And let me be super clear.

02:48:42.260 | If you're trying to grow a body,

02:48:44.020 | learn a skill, change your body composition,

02:48:46.700 | get stronger, heal, that all rhymes with eight hours.

02:48:50.820 | We look seven as our minimum.

02:48:52.580 | And of course you're a human being, you're going to get by.

02:48:54.500 | I was stressed out last night

02:48:55.700 | and wanted to come on this show with my friend, Andrew,

02:48:57.500 | and do a good job.

02:48:58.340 | Like I didn't get great sleep,

02:48:59.820 | but I'm a human being, I'm still going to show up.

02:49:02.300 | So what's nice then is we can start to say,

02:49:05.680 | okay, what can we control in terms of managing

02:49:08.660 | and upregulating, boosting maximal healing rate for humans?

02:49:12.300 | And it turns out cold water may not be the best.

02:49:16.220 | Icing something might suppress prostaglandin release, right?

02:49:19.580 | Which means that you can think of it

02:49:20.860 | as you have these circulating stem cells.

02:49:22.820 | And again, sorry everyone, get this just very cursory.

02:49:26.620 | And we need the chemical signalers

02:49:28.980 | from the injured damaged tissue

02:49:31.180 | to call those things to be.

02:49:32.600 | But if I ice that and suppress that,

02:49:35.060 | some of those cells can go swinging on past.

02:49:37.420 | There was a great study I saw a million years ago,

02:49:40.620 | and it looked at ibuprofen usage

02:49:43.860 | in Australian military tactical athletes

02:49:46.780 | who had bad ankle sprains.

02:49:48.460 | And those athletes who were given ibuprofen,

02:49:51.100 | which does the same thing as ice,

02:49:52.700 | suppresses prostaglandin release, right?

02:49:55.780 | Cuts off some of those chemical signals,

02:49:57.060 | were back faster than their counterparts

02:50:00.420 | who did not have the ibuprofen,

02:50:02.380 | but they had chronic ankle instability

02:50:04.240 | because they did not have a sufficient healing response

02:50:07.900 | because they had shut that healing response down.

02:50:10.340 | So what we find is, look,

02:50:12.620 | your body will wait until it warms back up.

02:50:15.700 | But if you think you're gonna do angiogenesis

02:50:18.420 | and make new capillaries and modulate all these things

02:50:21.440 | by slapping a nonspecific ice pad

02:50:23.600 | for a nonspecific amount of time over a nonspecific tissue,

02:50:26.540 | you gotta be kidding me.

02:50:27.700 | And so it's really Mickey Mouse.

02:50:29.580 | Does ice help for margaritas that are warm?

02:50:31.700 | Yes.

02:50:32.540 | Open heart surgery?

02:50:33.460 | Yes.

02:50:34.300 | Right?

02:50:35.140 | - Waking you up in the morning.

02:50:35.960 | - Waking you up in the morning.

02:50:36.800 | Hey, I have a kid who needs a placebo.

02:50:39.580 | I can numb that thing and give my kids some placebo ice.

02:50:42.280 | That's great.

02:50:44.020 | Definitely can work for pain control

02:50:45.660 | because as soon as you're numb, you can't feel anything.

02:50:47.900 | But what's gonna happen when you pull that thing off?

02:50:50.160 | We're gonna come back.

02:50:51.000 | So we have found that we have much better.

02:50:52.540 | And again, instead of saying, that's bad,

02:50:55.400 | we're turning out and saying,

02:50:56.420 | we have so many better tools now

02:50:58.660 | to manage congestion,

02:50:59.980 | 'cause that's really what we're trying to do

02:51:01.180 | with ice and healing,

02:51:02.540 | is we're trying to stop swelling, right?

02:51:05.900 | But is swelling a mistake by the body?

02:51:08.940 | And the chances are, it's not really a mistake.

02:51:11.060 | Again, two and a half million years of evolution,

02:51:12.580 | this stuff's pretty awesome.

02:51:14.140 | But what we know is failure to move

02:51:16.300 | and evacuate that swelling is a problem.

02:51:19.060 | So when we get people on non-fatiguing muscle contraction

02:51:22.140 | NMES devices like the H-Wave or something like that,

02:51:24.980 | we find that we can actually decongest

02:51:28.060 | and keep moving in controlled ways.

02:51:31.740 | And we have much better clinical outcomes

02:51:33.460 | than we do if we ice.

02:51:34.420 | - What about heating pads, hot water bottles, sauna?

02:51:37.420 | Do you sit in the sauna?

02:51:38.460 | - Yes, I do.

02:51:39.360 | Love the sauna.

02:51:40.200 | - How often are you in the saunas?

02:51:41.260 | - Whenever I can.

02:51:42.860 | And sometimes it's short sessions

02:51:44.260 | and sometimes it's super hot sessions.

02:51:45.900 | And sometimes I just get hot and cold a couple of times.

02:51:48.420 | And I try, like you said earlier,

02:51:51.460 | I'm not after some specific adaptation response.

02:51:54.940 | The sauna is a great way for us to chill out

02:51:57.060 | and hang out.

02:51:57.980 | And sometimes we're bored and we got to make dinner

02:52:00.100 | or move on.

02:52:00.940 | So I try to sauna.

02:52:01.980 | If there's anything I do, I sauna a lot.

02:52:04.620 | Bigger the engine, the bigger the brakes.

02:52:06.300 | And for me, it's such a big brake.

02:52:08.020 | - You mentioned Laird.

02:52:09.860 | I've seen Laird drag the assault bike into the sauna,

02:52:12.500 | something most people probably shouldn't do

02:52:14.340 | 'cause they would die of hyperthermia.

02:52:17.100 | - We call that Restrepo.

02:52:18.580 | It's the worst place on earth.

02:52:20.860 | - It's an interesting tool though, the heat.

02:52:23.820 | I find that if I get the sauna uncomfortably hot

02:52:27.900 | and then force myself to breathe super slowly

02:52:32.180 | only through my nose so that I don't actually feel

02:52:35.060 | like a burning sensation on the inside of my nostrils.

02:52:37.220 | And I just do that for 10, 15 minutes

02:52:40.220 | that it's wonderful stress resilience training.

02:52:43.220 | - How great is that?

02:52:44.060 | - But very different than the cold plunge

02:52:45.620 | where you can either muscle through it

02:52:47.020 | or distract yourself or whatever.

02:52:49.420 | In the heat, your heart rate's going up

02:52:52.100 | and there's this temptation to follow that heart rate

02:52:56.700 | toward a more elevated stress state.

02:52:59.420 | And so I find that you can get very, very hot,

02:53:02.540 | obviously be safe about this folks,

02:53:04.540 | but still maintain a lot of calm.

02:53:07.980 | And I think it's a wonderful tool,

02:53:09.740 | but you have to kind of work at it.

02:53:11.260 | And I enjoy this by the way.

02:53:12.340 | So people are probably thinking, here you go again,

02:53:13.740 | like why not just enjoy the sauna?

02:53:15.860 | But I like to listen to Gregorian chants

02:53:17.700 | or something in there and do this like very like,

02:53:19.580 | how even and calm can I stay.

02:53:22.300 | - Oh, I love that.

02:53:23.140 | - At 215 or 220.

02:53:24.980 | And I wear the cap so those higher heats

02:53:27.980 | don't register to the brain.

02:53:29.780 | - You will drive yourself out.

02:53:31.020 | Eventually your brain is gonna just,

02:53:32.700 | what drives me out of the sauna now is I retch.

02:53:35.500 | I actually like feel like I'm gonna vomit

02:53:37.660 | because I've gotten so hot.

02:53:38.940 | My brainstem is like, bro, you can just override.

02:53:42.460 | So I'm like, got to get out and I get out of the sauna.

02:53:46.020 | And then one of the reasons I love the cold so much,

02:53:48.420 | which I've been our pool or a cold plunges,

02:53:50.460 | I can get back in the sauna.

02:53:51.660 | - Right, right.

02:53:52.820 | It's the contrast of, I try to do it once a week.

02:53:54.900 | Sauna cold, sauna cold, sauna cold.

02:53:56.700 | Once a week, you know, again,

02:53:58.820 | not training for any specific thing,

02:54:00.380 | except to be able to go back to Jocko's house

02:54:02.220 | 'cause I did sauna at Jocko's house

02:54:03.700 | with some family members of his and friends.

02:54:06.180 | And I think they wanted to see when I would tap.

02:54:08.780 | - They wanted to crush you.

02:54:09.620 | - So they went, I think they cranked that thing

02:54:11.020 | to like 220, 230 and they caught, he got me on this.

02:54:16.260 | I ended up down on the floor, you know,

02:54:18.940 | and they were teasing me

02:54:20.100 | 'cause it's obviously cooler down on the floor

02:54:21.980 | than it is up top.

02:54:23.020 | And so they call that the Huberman spot, the wimpy spot.

02:54:26.260 | But yeah, he's a beast with the sauna.

02:54:28.920 | - Everyone, it's not a contest.

02:54:30.700 | - It is in the willing household.

02:54:33.420 | I'll tell you, it absolutely is.

02:54:34.260 | - One of the things I like about the heat and the cold

02:54:37.860 | is that it informs me about my readiness state

02:54:40.980 | because just like my CO2 tolerance,

02:54:43.160 | my breath holds are very short when I'm stressed.

02:54:46.040 | And under recovered.

02:54:47.780 | My heat tolerance drops dramatically

02:54:51.060 | and so does my cold tolerance.

02:54:52.820 | It's easier to pick up really fast.

02:54:54.820 | I start shivering right away.

02:54:55.780 | I'm like, whoa, I've been in here for 30 seconds.

02:54:57.740 | I'm already shivering.

02:54:58.820 | I'm like, huh, another piece of data that says

02:55:00.540 | maybe I need to make it a 70% day in the gym and move.

02:55:04.160 | I don't have to take a day off.

02:55:05.800 | We believe, Juliet and I believe

02:55:07.780 | in this thing called desire to train.

02:55:10.060 | We wake up every day like you,

02:55:12.020 | probably self-medicated with some exercise as kids, right?

02:55:15.220 | And we start thinking about what we're gonna exercise.

02:55:17.480 | What are we gonna do?

02:55:18.320 | We're gonna ride our bikes.

02:55:19.140 | What are we gonna do?

02:55:19.980 | What are we gonna lift?

02:55:20.820 | Like when we wake up,

02:55:21.640 | we start thinking about when are we gonna do it?

02:55:22.760 | And we wake up on some days and it's not there.

02:55:25.400 | And what we ask ourselves, is it not there?

02:55:27.360 | Why is it not there?

02:55:28.200 | Is it me?

02:55:29.020 | I should be there.

02:55:29.860 | We should go train anyway.

02:55:30.680 | But we really try to listen to that voice.

02:55:32.480 | And when there's no desire to train,

02:55:34.520 | it's really strange how it correlates

02:55:35.880 | with crap heat tolerance, crap CO2 tolerance,

02:55:38.520 | crap cold tolerance.

02:55:39.920 | And I think it's a nice way of understanding yourself

02:55:42.840 | from sort of a third party objective measure.

02:55:45.160 | Especially as you get good at this,

02:55:46.280 | you're like, wow, that really sucked today.

02:55:47.900 | - Yeah, I love that.

02:55:48.740 | I think assessing one's degree

02:55:51.880 | of kind of forward center of mass for effort is great.

02:55:55.800 | I'm borrowing this analogy from somebody else.

02:55:57.600 | I didn't come up with this.

02:55:59.200 | He said, with all things, you're either back on your heels,

02:56:02.040 | flat footed or forward center of mass.

02:56:04.880 | And I think we've heard a lot about,

02:56:07.040 | trying to encourage ourselves

02:56:08.080 | to always be forward center mass.

02:56:09.320 | What I'm hearing today is that great to do that sometimes,

02:56:13.200 | great sometimes to back off,

02:56:15.440 | but to just explore the full range of,

02:56:18.640 | for lack of a better way to put it,

02:56:20.020 | sort of emotional range of motion, you know.

02:56:23.320 | - Yeah, and remember,

02:56:24.840 | ultimately all this is supposed to be additive, right?

02:56:27.520 | And it's supposed to inoculate me

02:56:29.060 | by creating a framework that makes more durable

02:56:33.680 | my body and my relationships.

02:56:36.560 | I mean, we didn't even talk about the fact

02:56:38.280 | that the sauna is like, it's just glue for people.

02:56:41.560 | It allows people to come together.

02:56:43.080 | I think one of the things I've noticed with my male friends

02:56:45.600 | is that it gives us a place like once a week

02:56:47.600 | where we get together because it's so hot.

02:56:49.320 | We're all super vulnerable.

02:56:51.120 | - The truth barrel.

02:56:52.160 | - We talk with our friends and we kind of share stories

02:56:56.400 | and can we talk about our lives.

02:56:58.600 | And so it creates a framework for that.

02:57:00.480 | And if that was the benefit of the sauna, I'm in.

02:57:02.840 | Just that alone, right?

02:57:03.960 | That my wife and I feel more connected

02:57:06.360 | after taking a sauna together.

02:57:07.680 | I'm like, oh, who cares about the heat shock proteins

02:57:10.680 | and Alzheimer's?

02:57:11.760 | That's probably important too.

02:57:13.160 | But I like having a lot of bottom things.

02:57:15.000 | And I think it's easy for us to sort of so hyperscience

02:57:19.520 | and hyper tactic things that we forget the whole point

02:57:23.320 | of the brain is to be around other brains.

02:57:25.220 | That's it.

02:57:26.060 | That's why the brain exists.

02:57:27.160 | And then those brains go do rad shit in the world together.

02:57:30.000 | And sometimes it's that simple.

02:57:32.160 | And when we start throwing that filter on,

02:57:33.960 | it becomes a lot more sustainable.

02:57:35.220 | I'm not interested in being 110.

02:57:37.000 | I'm interested in being durable enough to take the hits

02:57:39.280 | on my way to 110.

02:57:40.560 | - I love that.

02:57:41.720 | Some of my best friendships have been forged in the sauna.

02:57:44.600 | - That's true, right?

02:57:45.440 | - And not by pushing ourselves necessarily.

02:57:46.920 | Just become the thing, you know?

02:57:49.600 | - It's so cool.

02:57:51.160 | I know that some of my New Zealand teams have a kava.

02:57:55.160 | They call it recovery.

02:57:57.760 | And sometimes they'll share, have a kava ceremony

02:58:00.240 | and drink a little kava and then jump in the sauna.

02:58:02.240 | And boy, it really binds the boys.

02:58:04.680 | You know, that really creates a down regulation effect.

02:58:07.760 | I mean, it's, so, you know, I think, again,

02:58:11.880 | my own bias, because I love this stuff,

02:58:14.120 | is that I think all of it is about physical input.

02:58:18.240 | So if we took a sort of macro step back,

02:58:21.280 | what you say is, what does your physical practice look like?

02:58:24.080 | Tell me about your physical practice.

02:58:25.320 | Well, I get up and move my body and I try to eat a fruit

02:58:28.600 | and some protein before I get out the door.

02:58:30.160 | And I walk all day long.

02:58:31.280 | And I try not to sit in one period of place

02:58:33.360 | for a long period of time.

02:58:34.660 | And then I get home and if I'm lucky enough to exercise,

02:58:37.240 | I do, and then I sat on the floor and I roll a little bit,

02:58:40.000 | but that's a full practice.

02:58:42.440 | You walked, you got sunlight, you know what I mean?

02:58:44.600 | And that, I think, is a much better way

02:58:46.600 | of thinking about this versus sort of,

02:58:48.440 | let me add another line of code to your programming

02:58:51.600 | where now you're doing three sets of 10 in this thing.

02:58:54.960 | What are your thoughts on nutrition?

02:58:57.320 | You seem to be pretty balanced about this.

02:59:01.040 | Before we started recording,

02:59:02.400 | you were talking about some meatloaf recipes

02:59:04.600 | that sound pretty amazing.

02:59:06.280 | Clearly, you love food.

02:59:07.320 | I'm not gonna say I'm the best at meatloaf,

02:59:08.680 | but I may be seven out of 11 times

02:59:10.900 | bamboo terrace bench champion.

02:59:12.840 | I'm gonna get a tattoo, but it's fine.

02:59:15.820 | You enjoy food.

02:59:18.000 | I love food.

02:59:19.480 | So you like to eat and you cook a bit as well.

02:59:23.200 | Most people feel, I think, kind of overwhelmed

02:59:28.880 | that the discussions about nutrition.

02:59:30.160 | Now we're trying to get a gram of protein

02:59:31.500 | per pound of body weight, which I subscribe to.

02:59:33.700 | But if I'm supposed to spread that out across the day,

02:59:35.580 | sometimes I'm doing that, sometimes I'm not.

02:59:37.480 | I like fruits and vegetables.

02:59:39.040 | Do you feel like a failure because you didn't have a gram?

02:59:40.640 | I mean, honestly, it can feel for people like,

02:59:43.960 | oh, I didn't do it.

02:59:45.480 | No, I think if people make getting high quality,

02:59:48.640 | high protein to calorie ratio foods

02:59:50.600 | as the foundation of their diet,

02:59:53.240 | and then eating some vegetables and eating some fruit.

02:59:55.980 | Whoa, bro, what about the peels?

02:59:57.680 | You're gonna kill people.

02:59:58.520 | And then, I love that spot.

02:59:59.960 | Bananas, dangerous, son.

03:00:01.440 | I'll eat the orange peel if it's a really good orange.

03:00:03.520 | I will.

03:00:04.360 | I mean, I've gotten some wide eyes at meals

03:00:06.520 | where I'll take the lemons out of my drink,

03:00:07.960 | I'll just eat the whole thing down.

03:00:09.080 | I don't care.

03:00:09.920 | Someone will tell me why it's gonna kill me,

03:00:10.840 | but I don't eat the seeds, but I'll eat the peel too.

03:00:14.120 | So some vegetables, fruit, and then some starches

03:00:17.240 | per energetic requirements and/or real life.

03:00:22.120 | Like, I'm not gonna stay away from the sourdough bread

03:00:24.420 | because I don't need a starch there.

03:00:25.860 | I'll have a little bit of it.

03:00:27.480 | I feel like we've lost our rational approach to eating

03:00:30.820 | because people feel these quantifiable metrics

03:00:34.000 | of calories and protein, they're important, clearly.

03:00:36.900 | But I've always known you to be somebody

03:00:39.660 | who's very balanced about the occasional ice cream,

03:00:43.500 | yes, steak, but also vegetables.

03:00:45.420 | I mean, A, why do you think that the nutrition conversation

03:00:48.900 | has gotten so distracted, even contentious?

03:00:52.020 | And B, what do you do?

03:00:53.460 | And if you were gonna raise a kid, you've raised kids.

03:00:57.100 | If you were gonna raise a kid and say,

03:00:58.700 | "Here's what balanced nutrition looks like to you."

03:01:02.820 | Okay, I'm not calling you a nutritionist.

03:01:04.220 | I'm saying to you, how do you see this picture?

03:01:06.220 | - Well, what I wanna point out

03:01:07.500 | is that if we're gonna have a conversation,

03:01:08.980 | remember my real job, day job, is high performance.

03:01:12.420 | I'm gonna have to talk about body composition.

03:01:14.220 | I'm gonna have to talk about fueling.

03:01:15.940 | Do you have enough carbs on board

03:01:17.420 | to do what we're gonna do?

03:01:19.140 | Are you eating to recover, to reduce the session cost?

03:01:22.260 | How do we minimize the physiologic cost

03:01:24.860 | of this training and this competition?

03:01:26.380 | And that's all wrapped around nutrition.

03:01:28.500 | I already hinted at, I'm gonna have to talk

03:01:30.780 | and ultimately ask you to get a blood panel

03:01:32.460 | and make sure that you have everything on board

03:01:34.780 | so that your tissues are tissues

03:01:36.660 | and can handle the loading we're prescribing them.

03:01:38.260 | So I didn't wanna get into nutrition at all

03:01:42.740 | because it's always about body composition for me.

03:01:44.580 | And I'm like, that's the most boring reason.

03:01:47.700 | Like we, Shawn Stevenson, wrote a beautiful book

03:01:52.380 | about creating a table culture

03:01:54.980 | and a culture around eating for your family.

03:01:57.100 | So for me, the functional unit of change is the household.

03:02:00.460 | That's the place where I wanna make

03:02:02.100 | and put all my energy and time.

03:02:03.380 | That's how we'll transform society,

03:02:04.540 | one household at a time.

03:02:06.340 | But sitting down with your kids,

03:02:07.740 | the research around eating with your kids

03:02:09.500 | like twice or three times a week is phenomenal, right?

03:02:12.260 | Like cooking is beautiful.

03:02:15.580 | I have to become more nuanced

03:02:18.420 | because if I have a team I'm working with,

03:02:21.180 | like we had a tournament two weeks ago at Stanford,

03:02:25.380 | we played four games and that's four collegiate,

03:02:29.780 | nationally ranked teams that were playing badasses.

03:02:33.540 | How do I fuel those women?

03:02:36.420 | How do I get them?

03:02:37.260 | What do they wanna eat?

03:02:38.340 | What makes them feel good?

03:02:39.740 | What makes them feel bad?

03:02:40.980 | How do we balance all of that?

03:02:42.380 | Like I found out that putting food on a table

03:02:47.020 | with a tablecloth increased calories.

03:02:49.580 | Again, as a high performance for me,

03:02:51.700 | I'm like, how are the ways that I can be thinking about this

03:02:54.780 | from a practical standpoint?

03:02:57.460 | My personal thing is that we focus on trying to create,

03:03:01.700 | this has been really useful for Juliet and I,

03:03:03.420 | an objective measure, 0.8 to one grams of protein,

03:03:05.620 | which means I don't measure anymore.

03:03:07.500 | - Per pound of body weight.

03:03:08.340 | - Yeah, I'm 51 years old, per pound body weight.

03:03:09.980 | So what does that mean?

03:03:11.180 | It means that I really try to prioritize protein every meal.

03:03:13.540 | Super simple.

03:03:14.380 | And I try not to eat one protein.

03:03:15.200 | I try to eat all the proteins, right?

03:03:16.960 | That's probably better.

03:03:18.260 | I try not to choose personally very fatty proteins

03:03:20.980 | because my genetics don't really support it.

03:03:22.900 | If I wanna see triglycerides and things go through the roof,

03:03:26.100 | then I'll, you know, watch me eat eggs and butter and steak,

03:03:28.700 | like keto gives me diarrhea.

03:03:31.020 | So what I'll say is I try to go for leaner proteins there.

03:03:35.700 | And then on the fruits and vegetables,

03:03:37.740 | because I think we have a real problem

03:03:39.940 | with not enough micronutrients,

03:03:41.260 | again, talking about tissue health,

03:03:42.460 | and definitely not enough fiber.

03:03:44.520 | Those are huge problems.

03:03:45.900 | And if I get 800 grams of fruits and vegetables,

03:03:49.120 | this is a nutrition strategy promoted by our friend,

03:03:52.340 | E.C. Sienkowski of @OptimizeMeNutrition.

03:03:55.380 | She put this 800-gram challenge based on some research,

03:03:58.700 | and it changed everything.

03:03:59.980 | Because suddenly I was like, "Oh my God,

03:04:02.260 | "I gotta eat more food.

03:04:03.100 | "I have to eat more fruits and vegetables."

03:04:04.740 | And I was stuffing myself with fruits and vegetables,

03:04:08.060 | getting enough protein that I was like,

03:04:09.120 | "Oh, I guess there's no room for a cookie."

03:04:11.360 | You know, and what I really liked about that,

03:04:13.260 | it was agnostic about your cultural preferences.

03:04:16.300 | It didn't matter if you were a vegan,

03:04:17.820 | didn't matter if you're a vegetarian,

03:04:18.860 | didn't matter if you were a carnivore.

03:04:19.860 | You wanna do carnivore plus berries?

03:04:21.600 | Knock yourself right out.

03:04:22.860 | It gave people permission to have their food identities,

03:04:26.540 | but it also met the minimums.

03:04:28.860 | And then we can dose up and dose down

03:04:31.380 | based on what your performance needs are.

03:04:33.460 | - And this is 800 grams, not of carbohydrate.

03:04:35.940 | This is 800 grams of- - Of fruits and vegetables.

03:04:37.780 | It's like four big apples.

03:04:39.180 | - Gotcha.

03:04:40.020 | - A banana is like 80 to 100 grams.

03:04:41.900 | - Okay.

03:04:42.740 | - Yeah, if you wanna be real dangerous,

03:04:43.980 | you ate eight bananas today, you could die.

03:04:46.420 | I mean, you could die.

03:04:47.720 | - And a big salad with, you know, less cucumber, tomato.

03:04:51.880 | - Probably, probably two to 300 grams.

03:04:54.520 | - Okay, so then you'd also wanna get some fruit,

03:04:56.440 | maybe another, maybe some cruciferous vegetables, et cetera.

03:05:00.320 | - Check this out.

03:05:01.400 | Again, I'm just gonna do some boy math here.

03:05:04.080 | Starbucks cookie, delicious.

03:05:06.600 | - Really?

03:05:07.440 | - 300 calories, I'm just gonna call it delicious, right?

03:05:10.600 | A pound of cherries is 230 calories.

03:05:13.720 | So eat a pound of cherries and tell me you're like,

03:05:15.840 | "Ah, I still want something sweet."

03:05:17.440 | A pound of melon, what is it, like 220 calories?

03:05:19.380 | A pound of melon?

03:05:21.240 | So calorically, not very dense, right?

03:05:24.980 | But nutritionally, super dense.

03:05:26.800 | So we end up loading a ton of more food on

03:05:30.700 | and it really does prioritize those things.

03:05:32.600 | And from a performance standpoint,

03:05:34.540 | one of our friends is this incredible nutritionist

03:05:36.880 | at Michigan football.

03:05:39.420 | Abigail is amazing there.

03:05:41.300 | And she will tell me about how she's using nutrition

03:05:45.620 | as intervention for sports performance.

03:05:47.300 | And she'll have men come up to her and say,

03:05:50.040 | "Abigail, I pooped today."

03:05:52.980 | And she's like, "Yeah, that's great.

03:05:54.420 | "You know, you should poop every day."

03:05:55.340 | And they're like, "No, no, no, you understand?

03:05:57.040 | "I pooped yesterday too."

03:05:58.780 | And it's the first time these kids have pooped consecutively.

03:06:03.180 | They don't poop regularly.

03:06:04.580 | And I think, again, if I'm just trying to get out

03:06:07.860 | in the weeds and talk about what's normal and not normal,

03:06:10.580 | we should talk about you didn't eat fiber.

03:06:13.060 | And she's like, "Wait until you poop twice in one day."

03:06:15.940 | And they were like, "That's crazy.

03:06:17.440 | "I've never in my whole life."

03:06:19.060 | And what was the difference is they started eating fruits

03:06:21.540 | and vegetables and fiber.

03:06:22.940 | And when we start to create those benchmarks,

03:06:25.700 | it's a lot easier for me to see inputs and outputs.

03:06:27.820 | And then we can argue about,

03:06:29.540 | can you choke down a hundred grams of carbs an hour?

03:06:31.780 | 'Cause you're my elite cyclist.

03:06:33.420 | I think you'd be shocked at how a lot of my athletes

03:06:36.920 | have changed their relationship around food

03:06:39.100 | because it serves their needs.

03:06:42.060 | It's not their identity around control.

03:06:44.220 | And something that Julie and I have been very cautious of

03:06:46.580 | is if you have two daughters, just speaking,

03:06:48.440 | we're really concerned about creating dysfunctional patterns

03:06:51.820 | or relationships to food,

03:06:53.260 | because in this fitness space, it can be real gnarly.

03:06:56.860 | - Yeah, I see the progression from sitcoms of the type

03:07:02.060 | that we grew up on to reality TV shows, to social media,

03:07:05.700 | where social media can do so much good education-wise,

03:07:10.100 | et cetera, connection.

03:07:11.780 | But it's basically a reality TV show

03:07:14.680 | that everyone's been able to cast themselves in

03:07:16.660 | if they want.

03:07:18.060 | And certain characters are casting their physique.

03:07:21.640 | Certain viewers are casting their outrageous behavior.

03:07:24.140 | And we're all in this reality TV show called social media.

03:07:27.660 | - I think that's really the best way to describe it.

03:07:30.180 | - When people start to feel like,

03:07:31.700 | oh, wow, these people are getting attention

03:07:33.460 | for this reason or that reason,

03:07:34.780 | it creates a gravitational pull

03:07:37.080 | toward people behaving a certain way.

03:07:38.660 | And then obviously some of that

03:07:40.620 | can be really self-destructive.

03:07:42.180 | - Do you win health?

03:07:45.060 | I mean, this is a great question I ask people.

03:07:46.620 | So like you shredded down super dysfunctional eating,

03:07:50.940 | can't go out and eat with friends.

03:07:52.560 | You don't drink anything with calories.

03:07:54.580 | Like it's really gnarly to be hyper lean.

03:07:57.860 | And then what I'll say is when you took your shirt off,

03:08:00.180 | did you win Instagram?

03:08:01.060 | Did you win?

03:08:02.060 | Because you got another 60, 70 years on this planet.

03:08:04.820 | How does that work?

03:08:06.340 | We don't really diet.

03:08:07.380 | We'll manipulate macros to take weight on

03:08:10.020 | or put weight off players in season, out of season.

03:08:13.260 | You know, we'll have really good athletes say,

03:08:14.820 | I think I should lose four pounds

03:08:16.020 | the next two weeks for this thing.

03:08:17.180 | And I'm like, hold up.

03:08:18.700 | I'm not gonna put you in another stressor

03:08:20.820 | when we're trying to like,

03:08:22.280 | let's go ahead and talk about body composition

03:08:24.660 | after the season.

03:08:26.060 | But ultimately when we really get people on board

03:08:31.060 | with how food has the potential

03:08:33.500 | to enrich their relationships,

03:08:35.620 | how fun it is to cook, how fun it is to prep,

03:08:38.500 | how fun it is to serve other people,

03:08:40.520 | then we have this really different relationship

03:08:42.780 | with feeling and that's really remarkable.

03:08:45.660 | But it is really easy to say I won.

03:08:48.140 | And now I'm like, okay, so this 90 day fast,

03:08:50.980 | there are so many fitness things out there

03:08:54.100 | where they start with a fast or brutal calorie restriction.

03:08:57.700 | And I'm like, that's your jam to get people lean fast

03:09:00.980 | is just to slam off the calories.

03:09:02.980 | We know what's gonna happen.

03:09:04.460 | How many people have done some kind of 30 day, 90 day thing

03:09:07.860 | and the next day it's like, they're off the rails.

03:09:10.540 | So if you're doing some body recomp

03:09:12.540 | and then you're off the rails for me,

03:09:14.160 | I'm like, I don't think that was very good

03:09:16.060 | because this is a long season we're playing.

03:09:19.020 | - I think I have to be careful here

03:09:20.460 | because I realized this gets into some issues.

03:09:23.100 | When I did an episode about anorexia,

03:09:26.160 | I learned that first of all,

03:09:27.620 | anorexia has existed for centuries.

03:09:30.500 | This idea that it's more prominent now with social media,

03:09:32.780 | actually the numbers don't bear out.

03:09:34.420 | What does bear out is that it is the most deadly,

03:09:38.020 | the most deadly by far of all the psychiatric illnesses.

03:09:42.600 | It leads to death in a far greater percentage of cases

03:09:47.600 | than any other psychiatric illness,

03:09:49.400 | including bipolar where people often commit suicide,

03:09:51.860 | a much higher percentage of people commit suicide

03:09:55.780 | who are bipolar, et cetera.

03:09:57.760 | So it's a really serious thing.

03:10:00.220 | And yet we assume that social media has made that worse,

03:10:04.180 | but there's this now cluster

03:10:06.020 | of all these different eating disorders

03:10:07.560 | that don't qualify as full-blown anorexia nervosa,

03:10:10.260 | sort of like ADHD now,

03:10:11.460 | we understand people are having attention deficit issues

03:10:13.500 | that might not be clinical ADHD,

03:10:16.100 | but that cluster around it

03:10:17.420 | and like people's adults and children's inability

03:10:19.580 | to hold their attention on an idea or a topic

03:10:21.460 | for any appreciable amount of time.

03:10:23.200 | So it's a very serious thing.

03:10:24.580 | I love that today you've talked about

03:10:27.740 | enjoying your training,

03:10:29.460 | like really enjoying your training, all aspects,

03:10:32.060 | the resistance part, the cardiovascular part,

03:10:33.580 | the mobility part,

03:10:35.220 | in the evening, getting down on the floor,

03:10:37.020 | also enjoying eating with people, enjoying the sauna.

03:10:40.860 | I mean, I think people see the big guy that you are,

03:10:43.220 | the amazing track record you have

03:10:45.220 | of working with all these incredible athletes

03:10:46.740 | and you're quite accomplished athlete yourself.

03:10:49.340 | And I think this is the first time for me anyway,

03:10:52.100 | that I realized like you are thinking about

03:10:55.380 | how to make this whole thing pleasurable

03:10:57.340 | and mesh it with real life,

03:10:58.740 | which I'm realizing now shouldn't come as a surprise

03:11:01.020 | because you have a family, a flourishing family,

03:11:03.340 | in addition to a flourishing business

03:11:05.300 | with the ready state and so forth.

03:11:07.500 | I think if there's one message that really comes through

03:11:10.060 | over and over again today,

03:11:10.900 | it's like, how can you make fitness and nutrition

03:11:14.300 | and health part of your life,

03:11:17.140 | but not let it take over your life or your mind

03:11:19.300 | in a way that isn't healthy?

03:11:20.960 | Yeah, thank you for that.

03:11:24.160 | And if that's coming across at all,

03:11:25.580 | I think we're doing a better job.

03:11:28.140 | And I would say certainly tempered

03:11:29.860 | as I've gotten more reasonable.

03:11:31.700 | You know, I think we get older and you can see

03:11:33.420 | a little bit more of the horizon

03:11:35.260 | and you start to wrap your hands around,

03:11:37.300 | how are we going to solve these problems

03:11:39.100 | in these different places and what is sustainable?

03:11:42.340 | You know, I really think that that's,

03:11:44.180 | we see quick inputs and outputs

03:11:47.060 | that are high levels of sports performance.

03:11:49.140 | And simultaneously, again, I wanna take those lessons

03:11:52.620 | and transmute them to my own household

03:11:55.760 | in a really sustainable, fun way.

03:11:58.460 | The nutrition piece is such a dangerous one.

03:12:02.060 | And young right now, Julia and I are very obsessed

03:12:04.380 | with youth sports and spending time with seeing

03:12:07.100 | if we can improve that experience for families.

03:12:10.060 | So they come out unharmed.

03:12:11.940 | And, you know, REDS, Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport,

03:12:16.420 | you know, is where we start to see that kids

03:12:18.540 | are not eating enough to fuel activity

03:12:20.820 | and their growing body simultaneously.

03:12:22.420 | And it's really hard on their physiologies.

03:12:24.780 | And it starts to show up with lost periods.

03:12:27.420 | It starts to show up with stress fractures, right?

03:12:29.820 | And we start to see sort of this,

03:12:31.420 | some degradation in sort of the body's tissues,

03:12:35.300 | but can really crash a lot of problems.

03:12:37.860 | And, you know, Stacy Sims is probably the first person

03:12:40.060 | to really put it on my radar of,

03:12:41.540 | hey, you're a physio coach.

03:12:43.300 | I need you to become an expert

03:12:45.740 | with the people that you're working with.

03:12:47.020 | You know, are you eating enough support?

03:12:48.460 | And I see some of the elite women I work with,

03:12:51.740 | elite women, really battle,

03:12:53.940 | this is what the body I need to get paid

03:12:55.860 | and to win world championships.

03:12:57.340 | And that's not the body that people want on the Instagram.

03:13:00.460 | And, you know, should I have a salad after this training?

03:13:03.100 | I'm like, we just played for three hours.

03:13:04.500 | No, you're not gonna eat a salad.

03:13:06.100 | I'm like, go get this big ass burrito.

03:13:07.780 | And then we'll talk about your salad next, you know?

03:13:10.380 | - So it sounds like the athletes are under eating.

03:13:13.140 | - Yes. - And my understanding anyway,

03:13:16.020 | the statistics- - Also under fueling,

03:13:17.700 | which I know is confusing,

03:13:18.820 | but, you know, potentially not thinking about food

03:13:22.160 | at the right times.

03:13:23.620 | - And within the general population of non-athletes,

03:13:26.380 | especially youth, however,

03:13:27.640 | it seems that people are over-consuming calories.

03:13:30.620 | So there seems to be two populations clustering out here.

03:13:34.380 | - This reminds me, we have a rule at our house for dinner.

03:13:36.980 | We have a three vegetable rule.

03:13:39.140 | This is from a woman we work with, Margaret Garvey,

03:13:41.460 | who cooks a protein, whatever that is,

03:13:44.100 | and has also three vegetables.

03:13:45.900 | And that's where she starts.

03:13:47.740 | And I have one daughter who is like a gourmet chef.

03:13:51.260 | Georgia is just a total bad-ass, you know, G.

03:13:54.520 | And then I have Caroline,

03:13:55.360 | who is the pickiest human being on the, like,

03:13:56.900 | "Is it brown? I'm not eating."

03:13:57.980 | You know, and she's getting better.

03:13:59.920 | But when we had three vegetables,

03:14:02.160 | suddenly what we saw was that she might eat one, right?

03:14:04.780 | And we could start to have exposure.

03:14:06.220 | But I think if we crowd out some of the,

03:14:09.340 | 'cause we don't wanna have a restrictive house, right?

03:14:12.220 | But, you know, if we crowd out some of the other foods,

03:14:16.620 | we found that it was a lot easier for us to say,

03:14:18.500 | "This is what we're eating.

03:14:19.780 | And we eat this together as a family."

03:14:21.820 | And then if there's other foods,

03:14:23.540 | I mean, your teenagers are gonna leave the house

03:14:25.060 | and eat whatever they want.

03:14:25.980 | Just be clear, everybody.

03:14:26.980 | So you might as well stuff 'em with the good stuff at home.

03:14:29.940 | - I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about supplements.

03:14:34.180 | These days, we hear a lot about creatine.

03:14:37.300 | Creatine, creatine, creatine.

03:14:38.980 | I like creatine, been taking it for years.

03:14:41.620 | We'll occasionally do a washout

03:14:42.840 | where I just kind of let a bunch of water out of my body.

03:14:45.020 | Why not? And then get back to it.

03:14:46.220 | I don't do it for any specific reason.

03:14:47.860 | I just do it.

03:14:48.700 | - I travel and forget to bring creatines.

03:14:49.660 | I'm like, "Okay."

03:14:50.500 | - Yeah, but most of the time,

03:14:51.320 | I'm taking five to 10 grams a day.

03:14:52.620 | Okay, we've heard about the body benefits,

03:14:55.020 | the brain benefits.

03:14:56.080 | For athletes and just "exercisers,"

03:15:00.380 | the typical person listening to this podcast,

03:15:02.620 | do you recommend creatine?

03:15:04.580 | What are some of the things that in your household,

03:15:07.140 | I'm getting this picture, and I've been in your home,

03:15:09.060 | and I will say that the spirit in your home

03:15:11.540 | is a wonderful one.

03:15:13.340 | Brian McKenzie and I showed up more or less unannounced

03:15:15.500 | at one point, and it's a delightful thing.

03:15:19.220 | Like, people's spirits are up.

03:15:20.540 | - It's a space station.

03:15:21.660 | It's a space station of stoke.

03:15:23.660 | And if you want to be part of it, you can come in.

03:15:25.820 | - Thank you.

03:15:26.660 | It's a great environment,

03:15:28.740 | and it was very warming to see that

03:15:30.980 | and the way that you embrace

03:15:32.180 | all these different aspects of life.

03:15:34.060 | It's busy, and it's hectic, and it's fun,

03:15:36.000 | and people care for one another,

03:15:37.440 | and they're direct with one another,

03:15:38.800 | but in a way that's really supportive.

03:15:40.100 | It's really, in my mind, a great model for a home,

03:15:43.340 | and it's really, it stayed with me,

03:15:45.220 | and it's really a pleasure to reflect on it.

03:15:46.620 | - High five, J-Star.

03:15:47.540 | Yeah, it's a team effort in there for sure.

03:15:50.460 | So, I'll just ask this.

03:15:53.900 | What supplements do you think are,

03:15:57.460 | if not necessary, then highly desirable for most people,

03:16:00.300 | and then for athletes?

03:16:01.460 | And maybe, 'cause we get this question a lot now,

03:16:03.100 | especially after Stacey came on the podcast,

03:16:05.140 | for the female athletes you work with in particular,

03:16:08.740 | are there supplements that add on to that initial batch?

03:16:12.540 | - So, I think we can divide these things

03:16:14.940 | like into food-like things, right?

03:16:18.980 | And then sort of performance.

03:16:19.820 | - Yeah, like whey protein is just a protein replacement.

03:16:22.420 | High quality, high protein to calorie ratio.

03:16:26.500 | - That's right, and if you don't handle whey,

03:16:28.500 | like my athletes, I'm like,

03:16:29.460 | "Let me introduce you to these vegetarian proteins."

03:16:31.100 | And that's because you're having a hard time

03:16:33.460 | timing your meals or just getting enough protein,

03:16:35.860 | 'cause sometimes you just don't feel like it.

03:16:37.540 | So, great, great utilization there.

03:16:40.860 | For Caroline, she gets omegas at night,

03:16:45.220 | 'cause she doesn't wanna have

03:16:46.260 | any accidental fish burp at school.

03:16:48.380 | She's a teenager, so she takes 'em before she goes to bed.

03:16:51.180 | And we're really interested in brain health.

03:16:54.060 | And there's some early research,

03:16:56.580 | and again, not my expertise,

03:16:58.060 | that I've heard of, read about, talked to people about,

03:17:00.980 | that vitamin D, creatine, and omegas

03:17:03.780 | might help attenuate symptoms of concussion

03:17:06.780 | if they get hit, right?

03:17:08.420 | So, post, pre, so those things are on Caroline.

03:17:11.780 | She gets creatine every day, she gets an omega every day,

03:17:14.140 | and she gets vitamin D.

03:17:15.580 | And some of that is,

03:17:17.180 | probably gets enough vitamin D during the summer,

03:17:19.140 | 'cause I could pull it out,

03:17:20.820 | but we live in northern climes, and they're indoors,

03:17:23.980 | and there's good research.

03:17:25.980 | I think Dan Garner had a great piece

03:17:27.580 | just talking about vitamin D supplementation in the military

03:17:30.420 | and the decrease of risk of fractures in the foot

03:17:34.420 | just with vitamin D.

03:17:35.760 | So, that's the start for me.

03:17:38.660 | I take a good multi,

03:17:40.300 | because I'm like, I'm just gonna cover the bases, you know?

03:17:42.900 | And then you can look,

03:17:46.380 | I think the next sort of valence of interest is,

03:17:48.980 | have you had a blood panel?

03:17:49.820 | How are your vitamin B levels?

03:17:51.620 | Is there anything we need to do

03:17:52.900 | based on your environment or your genetics?

03:17:54.660 | And then I think it gets real in the weeds past that.

03:17:58.740 | And again, play around with that.

03:18:01.740 | One of my super smart friends was like,

03:18:04.380 | I think you should take a statin,

03:18:06.820 | a small dose statin once a week.

03:18:09.940 | And I was like, all right.

03:18:11.460 | So, I was like, better take some CoQ10 with that.

03:18:13.620 | It's an experiment I'm running, right?

03:18:15.220 | Downsides are low, I'm getting my blood panels,

03:18:17.380 | talk to my physician.

03:18:18.820 | But so, CoQ10 is on the menu for me,

03:18:21.020 | just to make sure I don't have anything.

03:18:22.420 | And so, I think suddenly what we should be looking at is,

03:18:26.140 | how do I round out, my family doesn't eat fish,

03:18:29.100 | so we're not getting enough sort of omegas

03:18:30.780 | from those sources, and no one will eat walnuts,

03:18:33.580 | but I'm the only one eating walnuts.

03:18:34.660 | So, how do I round out my nutrition

03:18:37.260 | with some supplementation?

03:18:38.940 | And is there a benefit for some other things

03:18:41.740 | that with my genetics or with what's going on,

03:18:44.980 | like JSTAR has a mutated MTHFR gene, right?

03:18:49.980 | And so, we're always watching B vitamins for her, right?

03:18:55.300 | So, because we know that. - Poor methylator.

03:18:56.540 | - Right, poor methylator, exactly right.

03:18:57.740 | - JSTAR is his wife.

03:18:58.740 | - That's right, sorry, JSTISL, CEO.

03:19:01.740 | - You guys have such an awesome relationship.

03:19:03.460 | You guys have poked fun at one another,

03:19:05.300 | you're clearly awesome companions to one another,

03:19:08.180 | and you do great, great work together.

03:19:10.100 | - I am the broken anchor of the relationship, I like to say.

03:19:12.700 | She is, you know, what's really interesting is I have,

03:19:17.420 | I'm a little bit like you, I think I'm excitable.

03:19:19.860 | I get obsessed with things, it's super fun,

03:19:22.180 | go down rabbit holes, I like to experiment.

03:19:24.660 | And JSTAR is like the true North,

03:19:27.420 | like, no, that sounds fishy, we're not doing that.

03:19:30.220 | You know, like I came home one time

03:19:31.820 | and I was like, you know what,

03:19:34.220 | this cow's milk is out of here.

03:19:35.660 | Our family's only drinking goat milk.

03:19:37.580 | I only had the best goat milk, I just had the best goat milk.

03:19:39.580 | And Juliet was like, sure, that's gonna last.

03:19:41.860 | And I gave some goat milk to Georgia

03:19:43.620 | and she's like hucked it across the room, she's a baby.

03:19:45.660 | And then I drank the goat milk and like vomited

03:19:48.140 | into the sink and I had goat milk on my lip.

03:19:50.340 | And Juliet just is so patient by saying,

03:19:53.340 | huh, I wonder if that's a good idea.

03:19:55.340 | I wonder if we'll stick around, so.

03:19:57.420 | - So she's the rudder.

03:19:58.580 | - She is 100% the rudder.

03:19:59.900 | She is a three-time world champion, everyone.

03:20:01.700 | She's a rower at Cal and she is my training partner.

03:20:05.140 | She's the greatest training partner I've ever had.

03:20:06.820 | We use training as another way of spending time together.

03:20:09.620 | - I love it.

03:20:10.860 | Thanks for sharing a little bit of the picture of your home.

03:20:12.860 | It matches exactly my experience.

03:20:14.740 | - Chaos.

03:20:15.580 | - And chaos, a little bit of chaos and a ton of love.

03:20:20.580 | And I've been quoting him a lot lately.

03:20:23.420 | I cannot take any credit for this,

03:20:24.900 | but Naval, who's, you know, famous on various podcasts.

03:20:30.620 | He says, you know, what are we really shooting for in life?

03:20:33.780 | It's a fit, energetic body.

03:20:37.880 | This is Naval, not me, by the way.

03:20:39.260 | He said fit, energetic body, a calm mind and resources.

03:20:44.260 | We gotta have resources and a home full of love.

03:20:48.380 | So I don't know from, you know, that's the list.

03:20:52.100 | - Spend the rest of your life working on those

03:20:53.620 | and you're gonna have a really, it's gonna be really fun.

03:20:56.200 | And I just wanna remind people, you hear me say it again,

03:20:59.140 | that this should all be enjoyable and it is fun to track.

03:21:03.460 | It's also, you know, which devices am I wearing right now?

03:21:06.740 | I'm not wearing a single device, you know,

03:21:09.140 | 'cause I wanna feel and sometimes I track

03:21:11.580 | and sometimes I don't track.

03:21:13.220 | How am I feeling?

03:21:14.060 | And ultimately everything is really coming down to

03:21:16.940 | how do I come to understand my own process

03:21:20.300 | and my interaction with the world process?

03:21:22.860 | I think I'm getting better at 51

03:21:25.140 | of knowing I don't need six cookies

03:21:27.580 | and I really need to get more fruits and vegetables

03:21:29.660 | and sleep, and I don't need a device to tell me that.

03:21:32.820 | - Love it.

03:21:34.420 | Well, Kelly, Dr. Starrett,

03:21:37.820 | thank you so much for coming on here today

03:21:39.940 | and sharing with us so much wisdom.

03:21:41.660 | We covered so much, you covered so much.

03:21:43.460 | I mean, pelvic floor fascia, cold heat, movement patterns.

03:21:47.540 | You give us a ton of practical tools,

03:21:49.060 | getting down on the floor, sit stand and on and on.

03:21:52.100 | But a small portal into the vast amount of knowledge

03:21:56.620 | you have in that head of yours.

03:21:57.740 | And I just have to say that, you know,

03:21:59.820 | it's been a delight today because these little bits

03:22:03.380 | have come through about who I know you to be

03:22:05.660 | in the rest of the world.

03:22:07.740 | This is the real world.

03:22:08.580 | We just happen to have microphones in front of us,

03:22:10.020 | the rest of the world.

03:22:11.140 | And you've been at this a while,

03:22:12.780 | this business of trying to help people figure out

03:22:16.580 | best ways to move, how to be a better athlete,

03:22:19.340 | how to, you know, improve one's fitness,

03:22:21.620 | how to take a rational, fun, hardworking approach at times,

03:22:26.260 | but also fun, playful, recreational approach

03:22:28.700 | to this really key aspect of our health

03:22:31.940 | and many key aspects of our health.

03:22:33.380 | So I just want to thank you for coming here today,

03:22:35.740 | for doing the work that you do.

03:22:37.500 | And, you know, you are one of the real ones, as they say.

03:22:41.220 | - Oh, my brother, thank you so much.

03:22:42.860 | - And you walk the walk.

03:22:44.340 | You're strong, you can go far, you have fun doing it.

03:22:46.860 | You're a great husband and dad,

03:22:49.580 | and you've been a great friend to me.

03:22:51.220 | So thanks for coming on here.

03:22:53.100 | Let's get you back again.

03:22:54.620 | And just thanks for being you.

03:22:56.780 | - My pleasure, any time.

03:22:57.820 | And thanks to all the great Huberman,

03:23:00.380 | people that make this thing possible.

03:23:01.500 | It's really a thing.

03:23:03.460 | Thanks for brother.

03:23:04.300 | - Thank you.

03:23:05.180 | Thank you for joining me for today's discussion

03:23:07.060 | with Dr. Kelly Starrett.

03:23:08.460 | To learn more about Kelly Starrett

03:23:09.860 | and the work that he does with his wife,

03:23:11.300 | Juliet Starrett at The Ready State,

03:23:13.340 | as well as to find links to Dr. Starrett's excellent books,

03:23:16.700 | please see the show note captions.

03:23:18.780 | If you enjoyed today's episode with Dr. Kelly Starrett,

03:23:21.100 | and you'd like to learn more about the science

03:23:22.660 | of exercise physiology and the protocols

03:23:25.100 | that can best serve you in your fitness,

03:23:26.620 | athletic and other goals,

03:23:28.100 | you can go to hubermanlab.com,

03:23:29.940 | enter the word fitness and Galpin,

03:23:32.260 | G-A-L-P-I-N into the search function.

03:23:34.980 | And from there, you will find links in all formats,

03:23:37.020 | YouTube, Apple, Spotify,

03:23:38.180 | to the series that we did on exercise with Dr. Andy Galpin,

03:23:41.300 | who is a true world expert in this topic.

03:23:43.380 | And it covers all the things you could possibly imagine

03:23:46.180 | related to fitness and exercise

03:23:48.400 | to meet your fitness and exercise goals.

03:23:50.860 | If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast,

03:23:53.400 | please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

03:23:55.260 | That's a terrific zero cost way to support us.

03:23:57.780 | In addition, please follow the podcast

03:23:59.880 | on both Spotify and Apple.

03:24:01.580 | And on both Spotify and Apple,

03:24:03.020 | you can leave us up to a five-star review.

03:24:05.500 | Please check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning

03:24:07.660 | and throughout today's episode.

03:24:09.260 | That's the best way to support this podcast.

03:24:11.620 | If you have questions or comments about the podcast

03:24:14.060 | or guests or topics that you'd like me to consider

03:24:15.980 | for the Huberman Lab podcast,

03:24:17.500 | please put those in the comment section on YouTube.

03:24:19.960 | I do read all the comments.

03:24:21.760 | For those of you that haven't heard,

03:24:22.900 | I have a new book coming out.

03:24:24.100 | It's my very first book.

03:24:25.700 | It's entitled "Protocols,

03:24:27.140 | an Operating Manual for the Human Body."

03:24:29.260 | This is a book that I've been working on

03:24:30.460 | for more than five years,

03:24:31.580 | and that's based on more than 30 years

03:24:33.940 | of research and experience.

03:24:35.460 | And it covers protocols for everything from sleep

03:24:38.540 | to exercise, to stress control,

03:24:41.020 | protocols related to focus and motivation.

03:24:43.460 | And of course, I provide the scientific substantiation

03:24:46.860 | for the protocols that are included.

03:24:48.940 | The book is now available by presale at protocolsbook.com.

03:24:52.820 | There you can find links to various vendors.

03:24:55.160 | You can pick the one that you like best.

03:24:56.960 | Again, the book is called "Protocols,

03:24:58.720 | an Operating Manual for the Human Body."

03:25:01.440 | If you're not already following me on social media,

03:25:03.440 | I'm Huberman Lab on all social media platforms.

03:25:06.360 | So that's Instagram, X, formerly known as Twitter,

03:25:09.320 | Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

03:25:11.120 | And on all those platforms,

03:25:12.260 | I discuss science and science-related tools,

03:25:14.380 | some of which overlaps with the content

03:25:15.880 | of the Huberman Lab podcast,

03:25:17.320 | but much of which is distinct from the content

03:25:19.420 | on the Huberman Lab podcast.

03:25:20.720 | Again, that's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms.

03:25:24.380 | If you haven't already subscribed

03:25:25.560 | to our Neural Network Newsletter,

03:25:27.120 | our Neural Network Newsletter

03:25:28.640 | is a zero-cost monthly newsletter

03:25:30.600 | that includes podcast summaries,

03:25:32.000 | as well as protocols in the form of brief

03:25:34.200 | one-to-three-page PDFs.

03:25:36.200 | Those one-to-three-page PDFs cover things like

03:25:38.480 | deliberate heat exposure, deliberate cold exposure.

03:25:40.720 | We have a foundational fitness protocol.

03:25:42.760 | We also have protocols for optimizing your sleep,

03:25:45.120 | dopamine, and much more.

03:25:46.400 | Again, all available, completely zero cost.

03:25:48.760 | Simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the Menu tab,

03:25:51.880 | scroll down to Newsletter, and provide your email.

03:25:54.200 | We do not share your email with anybody.

03:25:56.600 | Thank you once again for joining me

03:25:57.880 | for today's discussion with Dr. Kelly Starrett.

03:26:00.560 | And last, but certainly not least,

03:26:02.960 | thank you for your interest in science.

03:26:04.980 | [upbeat music]

03:26:07.560 | (upbeat music)

Dr. Kelly Starrett: How to Improve Your Mobility, Posture & Flexibility

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