How & Why to Skip for Speed, Mobility & Health | Dr. Andrew Huberman & Stuart McMillan

00:00:00.640 | yesterday we didn't sprint but we did a lot of skipping let's talk about skipping and yes i'm

00:00:09.760 | talking about skip skip skip this okay this thing i'm not gonna sing the rest of that

00:00:14.000 | skipping is such a natural movement for people most people and it feels so damn good

00:00:23.120 | and it's actually a bit more taxing than people believe and i came out of that workout skipping

00:00:29.360 | yesterday from skipping yesterday feeling like my hips were nice and open tons of extension my

00:00:35.760 | posture is up i feel like i grew an inch i i was strong in the gym this morning i just feel incredible

00:00:43.920 | what is it about skipping and why do you have sprinters skip so much we skipped a lot because

00:00:48.960 | the reality is you could not sprint and that is the reality for almost everybody because we stopped

00:00:56.160 | sprinting when we're whatever age some people stop sprinting at 15 sometimes some people it's 20.

00:01:02.720 | but very few people are actually sprinting through their 20s and next to nobody is sprinting through

00:01:07.840 | their 30s so we know that the movement of sprinting or running fast and we kind of know what what this

00:01:15.520 | does and why this is good for you right we know that yeah moving our body intensively with intensity

00:01:22.880 | is probably something we should be able to do for as long as we possibly can but we can't because

00:01:29.040 | typically we've still got pretty good engines into our 30s and 40s and 50s but we don't have the bodies

00:01:37.440 | to be able to handle the stresses and the forces that this engine could put into the body so our tissue

00:01:44.720 | and our joints just is not able to handle all of these forces if you were to go out and sprint

00:01:49.920 | yesterday even if we did you know we ended up warming up for how long an hour and a half warm-up

00:01:54.640 | if we did a let's say a real proper warm-up we warmed up for 30 minutes and then i just said

00:01:59.760 | andrew i want you to sprint as fast as you possibly can for 50 meters that's not going to end well for

00:02:05.040 | most people maybe you could get through it yesterday but for most people that wouldn't end well you end up

00:02:09.200 | with a pull or a extra strain or a couple days of just feeling not well because we just don't do that

00:02:13.920 | and we don't have the tissue capacity to be able to handle that anymore or the joint capacity

00:02:18.000 | you know there's so many people assuming they they have to run really quickly somewhere and they just

00:02:23.120 | didn't know that they had to do it or they're playing backyard basketball or football and they tweak

00:02:27.680 | a hamstring or tweak a calf or something even worse right it happens all the time we just do not have the tissue

00:02:33.360 | capacity anymore to handle those forces so what do we do instead and i i typically recommend two

00:02:40.960 | activities one is running up hills there's a lot less stress on the tissue and the joint system

00:02:47.200 | by sprinting up a hill than there is on sprinting on a straightaway but second i think more important is

00:02:52.800 | actually skipping and i and i'm with you i don't know why we stop skipping i think it's associated with

00:02:59.280 | uh only childlike behavior but that's like saying jump rope is only associated with childlike behavior

00:03:04.720 | and i'm a big believer in skipping rope we'll talk about skipping rope but i think that's it um yeah

00:03:10.720 | i mean maybe this conversation or this portion of the conversation could be titled you know um let's

00:03:15.840 | normalize skipping yeah for adults absolutely it felt awesome yeah you can cover a lot of ground quickly

00:03:23.680 | heart rate gets up but not to an outrageous degree you're not sucking for air but it does feel a

00:03:29.680 | little silly if you're not on a track but you've mentioned uh you've what's the longest distance

00:03:35.600 | you've ever skipped 10 miles did you get some funny looks i got a few nice and you're a real tall guy

00:03:41.440 | you're 6'3 so you can't really uh hide no uh very easily that was in the park so there wasn't a lot of

00:03:47.600 | people okay but i skipped for uh 20 minutes every morning on the roads i get a few honks

00:03:52.800 | that's okay i mean they could be honks of approval could well be yeah or something else but you think

00:03:58.240 | about it like it's you you're actually taxing the coordination patterns and the tissue and the joints

00:04:04.080 | in pretty similar ways as if we were going to sprint we're working on pushing the knee behind the hip

00:04:11.280 | getting into this knee behind butt pattern this hip extension pattern which is so important and

00:04:16.880 | i know this is a a topic of conversation that you had with kelly when kelly was on here the importance

00:04:22.560 | of getting your knee behind your butt and finding and searching for opportunities to do that more often

00:04:28.240 | because we lose that so easily so skipping allows us to do that secondary to that is the coordination

00:04:35.280 | aspect between how we coordinate the flexion extension at the ankle the flexion extension

00:04:41.440 | at the knee and the flexion extension at the hip and we do that in a very similar way as sprinting

00:04:47.200 | where each of them stiffen at this at this time that is um uh considered throughout the entirety of the

00:04:55.600 | system where it's just like the spring the leg acts as a spring where if you think about when we jog

00:05:01.200 | when we run we're kind of running on our ankles and knees a little bit we don't feel like we're really

00:05:05.680 | using our hips when you're running a 10 minute mile it's all it's a lot of stress through the foot

00:05:11.360 | it's a lot of stress through the calves and by the way i'm not anti-running or anti-jogging i jog

00:05:16.160 | and i run and i still do all that stuff i'm not saying now stop doing all that and just go and skip

00:05:21.200 | i'm just saying find some opportunities to also skip because skipping where ashley can tax the system

00:05:28.800 | in very similar ways as pretty high intensity sprinting i want to hover a little bit on knee

00:05:34.560 | behind butt so knee behind kelly starrett shout out kelly starrett i mean if you think about this

00:05:42.000 | folks like knee behind butt means into extension so the hips are opening so to speak i know in yoga they

00:05:49.040 | say hip opening means a different thing but hip extension generally means posture is more elevated

00:05:55.200 | chin away from chest generally i mean you could get knee behind butt with your chin down but it's

00:05:59.680 | tougher just the sternum comes up kind of naturally puts us into external rotation so think thumbs out

00:06:07.680 | to the side like the fawns as opposed to inward and then you think about the the typical sitting standing

00:06:14.880 | walking jogging pattern of everybody yeah especially if you're a commuter um doesn't matter if you're on a

00:06:23.360 | subway bus um car or otherwise or plane you're you're folded in and so what i'm starting to realize is that

00:06:32.240 | knee uh knee behind butt ankle elevated sternum up i mean these are the hallmarks of locomotion yeah and so

00:06:42.240 | it's interesting that walking well jogging in particular seems to follow this kind of like

00:06:48.240 | forward folded kind of like almost like falling forward kind of thing i'm not trying to beat up on

00:06:53.760 | jogging because i also like to jog but i wonder if minute for minute

00:06:59.280 | skipping would be a much better activity than jogging for people who want to elevate their heart rate you know

00:07:08.240 | all the standard general adaptations that occur with exercise improved insulin regulation etc etc

00:07:12.880 | um do you think for the person who has not skipped in a while to go out and

00:07:17.360 | skip for a couple minutes is the way to do it or should they skip for a lap and then walk a

00:07:22.640 | lap what would be the way to break into this yeah i think i think probably the the worst thing to do is

00:07:27.280 | go out for a 10 mile skip don't do that i think we start off with like a 30 second skip 30 second jog 30

00:07:34.720 | second skip 30 second jog or 30 second skip followed by a 30 second walk and the difference is you'll

00:07:40.640 | feel this right if you think about when you skip and we talked about this a lot yesterday i was asking

00:07:45.600 | you to be expressive express yourself think about what your posture is and how you're holding yourself

00:07:52.400 | you don't really feel you don't seem to think about those things when you jog you just jog and

00:07:57.200 | as you said you're kind of closed and small and short and you're just trying to get through it

00:08:01.040 | right the heart rate gets up to whatever it is and yeah you get some good exercise but skipping here's

00:08:06.240 | your opportunity to truly express yourself be big and free and open and bouncy and rhythmical all of

00:08:12.400 | these things that were at one point in our lives pretty important to us and we lose and that's what's

00:08:18.720 | that's is what we get from sprinting right the best sprinters are the ones who can express themselves

00:08:24.000 | truly maximally like totally let go and it doesn't have to be like massively powerful like the skips

00:08:32.480 | that we were doing yesterday were what we call low amplitude skips where we're just sort of skipping

00:08:36.320 | back and forth but you're still asking you to be tall and expressive and swing and be stiff on the

00:08:41.600 | ground and i feel like like there's as i said there's so many different benefits to this whether

00:08:47.840 | it's just been the plyometric benefit whether it's the fascial benefit whether it because this is such a

00:08:54.480 | a cross-body coordinative aspect there's all sorts of brain benefits to that as you know it's uh i mean

00:09:02.320 | it's just it's just there's so much more benefits to skipping than there is to just jogging so the on-ramp

00:09:08.800 | for me when i talk to people about the benefits of skipping is just to put it in their jogs so i was

00:09:14.080 | talking to one of your photographers yesterday and said how do i do this i usually jog and i i'm going

00:09:20.160 | like 10 minute mile pace i said well next time you jog just in you know go for your jogs you know go for

00:09:25.600 | about a mile or so when you're doing a typical jog and then just go back and forth between skipping

00:09:30.320 | and jogging every 30 seconds or so and i guarantee you that you will feel better with every skip that you

00:09:37.040 | do every single one because there's this again the self-organizing coordinative aspect to it where you

00:09:43.280 | start feeling a little bit more bouncy a little lighter a little bit more coordinated a little bit

00:09:48.160 | more rhythmic which feeds your jogging so for me that's probably the best on-ramp is just to work it

00:09:54.240 | into your current jogs and then from there start getting a little bit more powerful with it a little

00:09:59.600 | bit more expressive with it now we start driving the thigh up and back and get again a little a little bit

00:10:04.640 | more hip extension start being you know now we can start talking about skips for distance

00:10:10.240 | where you're trying to say okay from here that tree that's 50 meters away how many steps do i need to

00:10:16.320 | take to get to that 50 meter away tree so doing things like that yeah i'm fascinated by activities both

00:10:23.200 | physical and mental that facilitate the transition into a more difficult activity physical or mental

00:10:32.240 | i started to think about this when i started working on my book in earnest it's very hard to

00:10:39.600 | just jump into writing but i noticed that if i did some drawing listen to a lecture while i was

00:10:46.240 | drawing and i do anatomical drawings very easy to transition into writing i enjoy drawing i'm not

00:10:53.200 | trying to accomplish much with it but it's a very natural activity for me and just very easy to drop into a

00:10:59.520 | deep groove for writing for hours really and then i started talking to a musician friend of mine who

00:11:05.520 | he's a songwriter very accomplished songwriter and he does the same and then i saw a post from joanie

00:11:10.400 | mitchell that she would paint before she would sing and i think these transition activities that are

00:11:15.200 | natural for us that don't feel as constricted by distance over time or you know sometimes i put my

00:11:21.360 | drawings on social media but they're really for me their way of kind of thinking about the biology from a

00:11:26.480 | circuit standpoint it is very personal and kind of abstract um as you talk about skipping it seems a

00:11:33.120 | little bit the same where you know skipping we're not necessarily trying to become the fastest skipper

00:11:38.640 | in the world or beat our yesterday's skipping time we're just trying to skip with more as you said more

00:11:45.280 | expression more enjoyment but perhaps it sounds like indeed it can help transition into a faster gate

00:11:52.240 | with what we're doing for jogging or for running or transition us right into into sprinting and i think

00:11:59.120 | that these um transition points for physical and mental activities are very important because these days

00:12:05.520 | there's so many tools and protocols you know dare i say and people start to feel like oh i have to do all of

00:12:12.240 | these things how would i do this right how am i supposed to meditate and get sunlight and do you

00:12:16.480 | know i already exercising a ton now i mean now you want me to skip the way you describe it is completely

00:12:22.720 | different it's saying no you're still doing your cardio quote unquote but maybe you do your zone two

00:12:27.200 | cardio and you incorporate some skipping which will make your zone two faster for you yeah or your your

00:12:33.120 | your high intensity interval training more um you'll feel more pliable yeah more explosive

00:12:38.640 | mike that yeah i think that's that's part of it i think step one is incorporating in so you can

00:12:43.600 | actually be comfortable skipping and step two is now can we add a little bit more speed force

00:12:48.880 | velocity to that skip where it becomes in and of itself a workout where you're skipping as hard

00:12:54.480 | as you can for 50 meters and walking back and doing that 10 to 15 times is that would you consider

00:12:59.280 | that a solid workout for skipping that would be a great skipping workout skipping 50 meters walking

00:13:04.240 | back yeah doing that 10 to 15 times yeah because that's that is safe if you warm up i'm not saying

00:13:11.760 | go out and do a maximal effort skip for 50 meters without doing a warm-up do a good warm-up first that

00:13:17.280 | includes some low amplitude skips and maybe some jogs and some stretches do that for 10 or 15 minutes

00:13:22.720 | and then do some maximal amplitude skips or over 50 meters that's a great workout in and of itself like

00:13:28.880 | a lot a lot of really beneficial plyometric work being done there

How & Why to Skip for Speed, Mobility & Health | Dr. Andrew Huberman & Stuart McMillan

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