Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 717: Squat University Aaron Horschig: KEYS To Fixing Your Feet For A Better Squat!

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Dr. Aaron Horschig is a physical therapist, strength & conditioning coach, speaker and writer. After graduating with his bachelors in exercise science from Truman State University in 2009, he then went on to receive a doctorate in physical therapy from the University of Missouri in 2012. Aaron now works at Boost Physical Therapy & Sport Performance in Kansas City Missouri. Follow Aaron's amazing IG Page: https://www.instagram.com/squat_university/ Buy Aaron's newest book Rebuilding Milo: https://amzn.to/3OcwBQB Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://eatlegendary.com Use Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://verticaldiet.com/ Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% off your first order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

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Again, MerrickHealth.com. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I was going back and forth with James Smith because I'm working on getting him here, the blonde-haired fellow from England. Yeah, he's gone super blonde, like highlight blonde. He went like Eminem back in the day. He kind of went platinum, right? Platinum.

Yeah. Yeah. He said that we can document him going into ketosis. I fuck with him a lot. We go back and forth a lot. I'm like, dude, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm like, not eating a lot of carbs is great. We go back and forth and fuck around.

He said, you can document me going into ketosis. Man, I like James Smith. He had to grow on me a bit because initially some of his shit, I was just like, Doug, what the fuck are you talking about? Why are you trying to trigger people? It wasn't triggering me. Maybe a little bit. Maybe.

Maybe a little bit. But, hey. You would love him. The motherfucker is really smart. Oh, in and out. Can't talk about it. You know what? Can't talk about it. I missed.

It's okay. Mark, we have an entire university on today's show? Yeah, I know. I wasn't talk about it. You know what? Can't talk about it. I missed. It's okay. Mark, we have an entire university on today's show? Yeah, I know. I wasn't much for school. But I guess we're gonna dive back in. And we've got Squat University on the show today. Aaron, I believe his name.

I think this guy actually has a name, right? Aaron? Aaron Horshing. Aaron Horshing. And he's done some absolutely amazing rebuilding Milo. he's done some absolutely amazing rebuilding Milo. He's done some absolutely amazing things with some athletes. I mean, you know, you see the before and afters, and it kind of blows you away. Like, is that real? That guy really have that much of a problem squatting?

And then in the other video, you see the guy's like butt scraping against the ground when he does a squat and you're like, holy shit, you know? So this guy looks like he's found a lot of really interesting things and a lot of, I'm excited to kind of dive into it because we've been trying to figure out how to get a better response from the body for a long time, as long as we've been doing this podcast. Yeah. He's amazing at assessing people. Like, that's what he does. He did some work with a friend of mine, Sam Okunola, who's actually coming here on 420. And he fixed Sam up.

Sam doesn't really have knee pain anymore. And he, I mean, if you see video of Sam squatting now, he's literally, his ass is touching the ground. Big dude too. Big, muscular, six foot one guy, but great mobility and strength now. A video you sent me, it almost looks like he's pulling himself to the ground rather than just squatting down to the ground. Exactly. So I'm curious what Aaron changed about that.

Here we go. What's up, guys? Hey, great to see you. And I'm super excited to get you here in studio someday at Super Training Gym. But this is the way we had to do it because you're a pretty damn busy guy. I am a little bit busy. Yeah, most people don't realize that I still am a clinician working full time, 40 hours a week, seeing patients every single day. So it's a little tough for me to travel a lot at this time. In like a hospital? We'll do it one day.

In like a hospital setting? No, I'm not in a hospital. Actually, if you see a lot of the videos that I have on Instagram where it'll show people obviously still with a mask on doing different specific things as far as the rehab goes. I'm in an outpatient clinic where I'm able to see patients come from all over the United States and the world right now. So it's not necessarily within a hospital, but still hospital based right now. Yeah. now. So it's not necessarily within a hospital, but still hospital based right now. Yeah. We're starting to see like a kind of a, an evolution of like a lot of people talking about movement and functional movement and there's go to, and there's this and there's that out there, functional movement patterns. There's a lot of different people out there and I don't really

care a ton to get in like your perspective on those individuals specifically, but I am interested to kind of learn like what have you seen? Like what are some of the main things that people should be looking for when they're trying to find – because all we're trying to do is get better. And then the people that listen here, like I would like them to be able to get better. here. Like I would like them to be able to get better. And so what should people kind of be looking for as they're scrolling the internet and scrolling through Instagram and how could they maybe potentially like weed through some stuff that might not be great for them to investigate? Man, that's, that's a tough thing for a lot of people because there's so much content out on the internet nowadays and it's tough to find, you know, who's trustworthy, who's something that I should continue scrolling by, you know, who's selling the snake oil kind of thing and who's actually out there that's trying to benefit me and, and help me become

better at what I'm trying to do. So, I mean, I think the big thing is it all comes down to living the life that your body was designed to live, how moving the way in which your body was designed, you know, do you have access to full ranges? Are you able to feel better, move better, live a more comfortable life, have less pain, interact better with your tribe, your group of friends? And I think there's a number of people out there that do that. Then the big thing that I like to really say when it comes to finding someone that is someone that's trustworthy, someone that you can learn from and continue diving down their rabbit hole is they're very upfront and they show the entire process.

You know, they show people that come to them in a particular way and they show how they've gotten better over the longterm. They show the story. They're very good storytellers. They're not just trying to say, Hey, this is the best exercise and watch me because I can do it really well. They're saying, Hey, here's so-and-so that came to, hey, this is the best exercise and watch me because I can do it really well. They're saying, hey, here's so-and-so that came to me, and this is the problem that they were dealing with. And then based on the steps that I gave them, they've been able to get into a much better place. They show the entirety of what they're trying to sell basically as far as their specific methods. And there's a number of people out there that I love seeing the different content that they're creating.

And it's helping people become better in the gym and in life. Every single day, I tell people the type of content that I create at Squat University is designed to help you move better in the gym and in life, decrease your body's aches and pains and find your true athletic potential. And I think when you look at that entire spectrum, there's a lot and find your true athletic potential. And I think

when you look at that entire spectrum, there's a lot of things that go into that. And I think there's a lot of people out there in the Instagram world, the TikTok, the YouTube, and they're trying to do very similar things to that. And when they're very transparent with how they make their content and coming from a good place to empower other people, I think that's what you're looking for when you're trying to find someone to then follow and go down their rabbit hole of methodology. Since we're on that, I quickly want to ask who are some, and we're going to continue talking about what you do, but who are some people that you pay attention to that you're like, fuck, this is really good content. Cause I've seen you do a lot of great collaborative videos with lifters and other people. So who

would, if someone is going to pull up Instagram right now and follow a bunch of pages, who are those pages that you would follow? Who do you think we should be paying more attention to? Yeah. Um, let's see here from a, um, exercise science point of view. I mean, I'm a big fan of Jeb Nippard and the stuff that he does. Um, let's see. I mean, Ben Patrick with, you know, all the stuff that he's doing with knees over toes, um, is awesome. Um, you know, really besides those two guys, as far as like people that I'm investing a lot of time into watching, I don't do a ton of watching and create, you know, um, observing what everyone else is doing. I'll scroll through their stuff and see what they do, but I don't ever want a lot of my stuff to look exactly like someone else's. You know what I'm saying? I really want to make sure that I'm being authentic as possible and not trying to copy what someone else is doing.

I'll say this though, and sort of take your question a little bit different way. The people who I stand on their shoulders, because those are sort of the giants or the goats, you would say that I feel like I'm trying to be an extension of their work. Those are going to be people who are, again, are still producing content. That's going to be Kelly Starrett, right? Mark, I know you know him well. Absolutely. You know, Dr. Stuart McGill, you know, those people, I think Brian Carroll,

you know, those people I think are the people that are putting out so much good content have done so for a long time. I want to stand on their shoulders and continue putting out content that go within, you know, their scope. Um, again, another person that you bring up, uh, Chris Duffin, all the guys at Kabuki strength, I absolutely love their stuff as well. So if you're scrolling through Instagram, go find, uh, any of the Kabuki strength guys. So it looks like, um like maybe you have some of your weapons behind you right there, some of your tools that you utilize. Yeah, a few of them. With a lot of your patients. And sometimes, you know, I don't know, we go to the doctor for our knee bothers us or ankle or hip.

And sometimes the advice that you used to get was, oh, you got to take a couple weeks off. And so a lot of people just avoid going to the doctor. But it looks like you have a different message. And like what kind of spawned, I guess, like squat university for you to kind of want to teach people in this way that strength is going to be probably their way out of a lot of pain. Yeah. So sort of to take you back to the origin story, before I ever got into physical therapy school and graduated with my doctorate, I started competing in Olympic weightlifting all the way back in 2005. And like most competitive strength athletes or people that are just avid gym goers, you're never feeling great all the time, right?

In everyone's pursuit of lifting bigger weights, we're always butting up against small little injuries. You know, I mean, as far as the entirety of someone's training life, there's not always going to be these huge, massive injuries. Every once in a while, you'll get those. But a lot of times it's that achy elbow, that, you know, painful knee, that sore back that maybe went out a little bit. And, you know, I've had those frustrations many times myself. I mean, I remember one time, I've had those frustrations many times myself. I mean, I remember one time it was a couple of weeks before the 2011 senior U S national championships. And my left knee was just killing me. And I remember going to one of my physical therapy school professors at the time, and I'm still, you know, really young at school. I don't know what I don't know. And I'm like,

you know, what can I do right now? Like I've got a big competition coming up. What can I do? And he said, how often are you squatting right now? And I said, well, I'm preparing for this big national meet. Like I'm pulling 10 sessions a week. A number of those are squatting. I'm an Olympic weightlifter. So every day is leg day. And he's like, oh, you just stop lifting so much.

And I'm like that. Were you actually doing 10 sessions a week? I'm sorry. Were you doing 10 sessions? Yeah. Yeah. I was pulling two a days, a couple of days a week. Yeah.

Fuck. I'm sorry to interrupt. I was just, I had to. That's a big influence from Louie Simmons, like West side, right? Like Louie's like, Hey, you need like 12 workouts a week. I'm thinking like, Oh man, there's only seven days. Like, well, what the fuck I gotta do? He's like, you gotta double up smelly. Yeah. I mean, again, Louie Simmons affected the world in many ways than one, you know, and if you look at really elite weightlifters, like obviously I was trying to become one, you know, my, my passion far outweighed my skill as an Olympic weightlifter. But, you know, a lot of times just breaking up and increasing our frequency of lifting is very common to pull two a days, multiple times throughout the week. But again, it came back to, well, just stop lifting so much. And I'm like, that can't be the answer. So getting in and graduating with my doctorate and then getting into the real world of helping patients, I knew that I wanted to take my career into a way to help other people who were in my situation, who be it a power lifter, a weightlifter, a strong man, a bodybuilder, or just someone that loves lifting. I know what it feels like when you get frustrated by these small aches and pains that

limit what you love doing. You can't back squat heavy because you're back. Let me help you. I know what you feel like right now. Let me help you. So in doing that, I started tailoring what I wanted to really learn and go down those rabbit holes. Once I got out, I started tailoring what I wanted to really learn and go down those rabbit holes. Once I got out, that's, you know, when I really got into Stuart McGill's stuff and some of those other greats that have come before me. And then in doing so during an evaluation of any type of person that comes to you, you almost have to be a detective during that evaluation to uncover what the cause is. There's no one-size-fits-all to treat any injury.

So, for example, someone could come to me with a back injury, a hip, knee, ankle. In my evaluation, I have to try to uncover, well, why did this injury start in the first place? Because unfortunately, many people, like you said, Mark, they go to a doctor, and what do they do? Oh, take some time off, take two weeks off, take this ibuprofen, you'll be good. And while that may take a little bit of pain away in the short term, it does shit for being able to actually address the cause. So people go back to, you know, doing the exact same thing they did before. And then a couple of weeks later or a couple of months, or eventually it reoccurs again. Maybe they do go find a practitioner that's going to help them. They think they're going to help them.

They find maybe someone who just does a lot of soft tissue work. There's nothing wrong with soft tissue work. But if all you see is scrape, poke with a needle, do this manipulation, send you on your way, we're not often getting at the root cause of problems again. So in that evaluation, I would ask people, Hey, I just want to see your movement, get up. Let me see you squat. Let me get you see some load on your body because that's another thing. How many times has anyone walked into a physical therapy clinic and where's the squat rack? Where's the, where's the weights, right? This is, this doesn't look like a gym. I see a bunch of old people with total knee replacements doing, you know, heel slides. That doesn't feel

like a gym. That's not what my clinic feels like. I remember I had a lady one time walking to the clinic to see one of my coworkers and she hears rap music in the background. She's a squat rack. And she goes, this place looks like a gym. I said, thank you. That's exactly what I'm going for. Right? Because especially as a strength athlete, you should feel like you're at home. You should walk in and feel like this is the place for me. especially as a strength athlete, you should feel like you're at home. You should walk in and feel like this is the place for me. So again, we get back to the squat and I'm watching you. Load can be an incredible teacher. Sometimes I'll get people out of their shoes. I'll watch how they're moving. And in doing so, that's the first step to uncovering a lot of issues. And what I

found was that a majority of strength athletes who are coming to see me, who are bigger, faster, stronger, right? Are having issues with simple technical problems. And then when I break it down and uncover mobility, stability, we find all these weak links that when changed and when proved upon can allow us to decrease pain, improve our capacity and slowly work back out of pain. So that not only are we getting out of pain in the short term, but I'm empowering that person to understand their body a little bit better, right? The gift of injury, but then also have higher capacity so they don't have this issue reoccur in the future. If someone comes to me with

knee pain from squatting and I go through a proper evaluation and treatment process with them, now everyone's going to be a little bit different as far as how long it takes to build back capacity. I shouldn't see that person for their knee pain again, because they should have an understanding of how they need to be training their body and a better understanding of the injury and training process so that they are empowered to take control of the entirety of the training process in the future. So squat university was born out of this almost deja vu like scenario where time and time again, I was seeing athletes and again, high school, college, professional, elite strongmen, you know, world level weightlifters that were having issues that I could all trace back to just viewing their squat first

and seeing these problems. And I found it was almost this building block within fundamental human movement that they should have capable, right? We always say, you know, move well first before you move big weight. The squat is one of those fundamental movements that I think so many people overlook, especially my strength athletes, because they think about how much they squat before how well they squat it. And what did Louie Simmons always say? A pyramid can only be as tall as it is wide. Your squat quality and your mobility and stability that make that up determine how wide your base of support is. So an athlete with a better technical base has the potential to go much higher. And someone that may have a crazy amount of strength,

but yet their base is more narrow, has a much more limited window for how well they can do, and doesn't take an engineering student to come in and let us know if a storm blows through and we have a pyramid with a really small base, it has a greater potential to knock over. And I see a lot of athletes that have these reoccurring injuries. I think a lot of times it can be traced back to just, they don't move as well as they could.

So a lot of times improving their mobility and stability allows them to enhance their basis or improve their capacity, which then when they go with their performance coach allows them to increase their capacity and see so much more potential performance than they ever thought possible before. So that's sort of where squat university was born from. And then I just sort of continued putting out as much free content as I can across every single social media platform, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, blogging podcasts. And again, my goal is to say, like, I feel like there has been this window of opportunity to let athletes into

the discussion of how they can maintain their body much better the way there hasn't really been before i mean kelly start was one of the first to do it again why i call him one of the goats that i stand on his shoulder right when he started his mobility 365 project and letting people know how to fix their hips you know when they're in a specific type of pose and it's going to help their squat. And rather than talk down to the athlete, I want to talk to you because I was that athlete ever before I became a doctor of physical therapy. So I figured let's start just empowering people every single day with all this social media content, give away every single best

piece of content I have. And in doing so, we'll see what it creates. And it's sort of been a fun ride since then. I just want to comment on something you said. I know Anseem has got probably a lot of questions because we're so excited to have you on the show today. You mentioned like fundamental movements, you know, and then we think about like a squat. Like obviously a squat is a very fundamental movement. I mean people have been doing it for as long as people have been around for, right? But it gets to be interesting when we put a barbell on our back. It gets to be interesting when we start to have weight that could represent equaling our own body weight or sometimes doubling our own body weight or some cases tripling or quadrupling our own body weight, depending on how strong an individual is. And something I observed in coaching a lot of people around the country,

I saw a lot of dysfunction happening in the upper body, which shocked me. I just never, I just never even really thought about it, you know, cause as a power lifter, you get in these kinds of like rigid positions and I only need to squat down so low. I don't have to squat down as low as the demands that you had as an Olympic lifter. So it's like, okay, I don't really care. My shoulders are stuck. Not a big deal. I'll just put my arms out wide and I'll have my stance out wide and I'll just do this motion, you know? And I used to think like, Hey, if I, you know, do this and stay in these positions, like I should, I should be able to be relatively healthy and unwinding some of this. Like how hard could it be? You know, when

I get done with my powerlifting career, uh, but now I'm starting to see, and now I'm starting to kind of find out. And it is taking a lot to kind of unwrap, uhrap this, you know, tight ball that I kind of created to do my sport the right way. But my kind of my question is, is like, how fundamental are some of these movements like these movements that we do in the gym? I think we just think they're just these movements, but they're movements that we made up. And like a squat in and of itself is just an interesting movement with the weight on your back and the way that our arms are and now we have the luxury of having really great barbells where you could put your hands in different positions we don't have to worry about trying to you know over arch or under arch or like there's a lot to think about when you do a squat so i guess

my main question is like what are some of the movements that you view as being fundamental? And then from that point, how do you assess and like loading those? Yeah, that's a great question. I think the big thing to understand is why do we call the squat a fundamental human movement? And it's because neurologically, when our bodies are developing, when we're very young, it's a movement that allows us to then explore the rest of the world. You know, you stand, you're squatting to get to that stand. If you watch a little baby, they're squatting down to pick things up, and then you start walking and running. So the squat is a fundamental neurologically developmental movement that allows us to explore the world. Now, the squat then as we are aging, as we're adults, usually

is something that's kept within our movement repertoire. You know, if you go to a lot of different places around the world, people just squat down as they're preparing food. If they're, you know, waiting at the bus stop. My co-author for both my books, Kevin Santana, his parents are from Laos. And he would tell me often that his mom would be sitting in a deep squat just preparing dinner. Yet how many people in America could sit down in a deep squat for more than a minute without feeling just their body just completely on fire? So that's where the movement comes first. And the big thing I always tell people, the squat is a movement ever before it's an exercise for that reason. Now, when it comes

to the exercise, it is then how are we applying load to the movement pattern? And where the implement or load is being placed will change how that movement looks slightly. Now, again, you mentioned that there's many different bars that we have. There's no golden rule that says you have to barbell back squat with a straight bar on your back. That's what the sport of powerlifting has gone to. Thank you very much. I like that. But the squat can be a loaded goblet. It can be a zurcher. There's so many different I like, you know, but the squat can be a loaded goblet. It can be

a searcher. There's so many different ways in which you're spotting again, as an exercise, it just means we're loading the movement pattern. And then based on where the load is, the movement will take on slightly different changes in order to stay balanced. So for one example, I always tell people, if you want to know whether or not you're performing the squat correctly for your body and your current level of mobility, so not like, oh, you need to get more mobility work before you do this. If you have a bar on your back or your chest or over your head, view from the side and watch where the bar's tracking. If your body is doing it correctly, the bar will track over the middle of your foot and your body weight will spread across your entire foot, the tripod

foot, not all your weight in your heel. Obviously not your toes with your heels popping up, but you're balanced. So for example, a low bar back squat is going to have the bar sitting across the middle of your shoulder blade. A high bar back squat is up higher on your traps. Now because of that change where the bar is sitting a little bit lower on your shoulder blades, in order to stay balanced, that chest is going to have to tip forward. You're going to have to incline your trunk just a little bit more. And in doing so, the hips are going to go back. The knees are going to be pulled back a little bit more. It's not going to be as upright as a high bar back squat. Same loaded movement, slightly different change in how that posture is.

It'll be even more pronounced if we compare the low bar back squat to the front squat. Now, all that does is shift where torque is being placed. The quads are still working hard. The glutes are still working hard. Your core stability is still very, very much in tune, but it changes torque because with the front squat, in order to stay balanced again, keep the bar over the middle of the foot when viewed from the side, the knees are going to have to shift forward a little bit more. The hips are going to come forward. The chest is going to be more upright. Now, powerlifters obviously chose the squat, the back squat as the mode of competition. A weightlifter, because they're only working on the snatch and cleaning competition,

often choose squats. Weightlifters, by the way, only asked to do two exercises where powerlifters are asked to do three. So we know powerlifters are superior. But a powerlifter, right, only has to, or will compete in the back squat. Whereas a weightlifter, they'll use either the front squat and or combination of front squats and high bar back squats usually because it will more so mimic the demands of their competition lifts. But again, overhead squats as well, that'll change what that looks like as well. So going back to it, it doesn't matter for just general fitness. If your goal is to load a squat, it can be any type of squat. There is no golden rule that says you have to barbell back squat. But going back to what you were talking about, how you are really, really stiff with the barbell

back squat. And then since you're done competing, it's taken a while to sort of undo that to make you more functional, we'll say, right? In part, the stiffness that you did create though for powerlifting probably helped you excel in that sport to a greater degree. And I'll give you an example of why that's so important. I know you've had Dr. Stuart McGill on the show before. Stuart would always say, you're never going to see a thousand pound squatter touch their toes. Why? The physical adaptation needed in order to hoist a ton of weight on their body requires a ton of stiffness. In the same sense, you're not going to see someone who's great at yoga put a thousand pounds on their back. The adaptation needed to become extremely mobile and flexible has decreased their ability to maintain a lot of load on their body. Now, when we're talking

sports specificity, if you're trying to be the best in the world at powerlifting, you're probably going to see adaptations more so to developing that stiffness. Now, does that mean that I don't need sometimes power lifters to bring their hands in a little bit more, right? Because if you're super wide, sometimes that can limit how well you're locking in the barbell because you're unable to get those lats engaged as well. I made a recent post with Shane Hunt, who's under Instagram, Hunt Power Lifter. We talked about – that's another one to follow. And Shane was talking about we were collaborating on how the upper body is so important to lock that in when you're squatting. A lot of people, they don't know, what do I do with my elbows?

And elbow pain is a huge issue, especially with my powerlifters who squat low bar. And they don't even realize, well, it's because of the way in which you are holding your body, holding the bar. Ideally, we want to see most people have that elbow in line with the back of their torso. Some people have to have that elbow jutted out like a chicken wing. And some people have to go super wide with their hands because they physically can't get that barbell close to their body. Now, there's a few tricks that you can do in the short term without any mobility changes that can allow you sometimes to bring your arms in a little bit closer. You can take sort of that

talon grip where you just are sort of over the top. Joe Sullivan is a good power lifter who shows that right now a lot. And some people will go thumb on top rather than getting their hand under. JP Price, I know you guys know him well. JP would always tell me that that was one of the things that helped him take a little bit more of a narrow grip was to take his thumb out from under the bar. But again, small changes are we addressing the overall big issue, which a lot of times stiff lats, stiff pecs, they're not going to allow that hand to come in close. And for some people, bringing those arms in just a little bit closer can allow you to create a little bit more torso stiffness because you can lock the lats down a little bit more. Now, I'm not saying that every powerlifter has their hand, have to have their hands in real close to their shoulders, but it's

about finding sort of what's optimal for you because the closer you can bring your hands in from a very wide grip, and you can just try this on your own, have your hands out wide, try to lock your lat down, bring your hands a little bit closer and you can just feel that lat kicks on a lot more. That lat is an extremely powerful stabilizer for your entire torso when used appropriately and then you breathe and you brace, you can create much more intra abdominal cavity pressure. Like Dr. Stuart McGill always says, the more stabilization you can create in your core, the more power and force you can unleash in your legs. So it can really help out with that as well. So that's a long-winded answer, hopefully, to your question.

You know, I want to first say, I got your book, Rebuilding Milo, a while ago. And thank you so much. I appreciate that. Everyone's listening. You should fucking buy this book if you're a lifter because it reminds me a lot of what Kelly Sturette did with the supple leopard, like Stu McGill did with back mechanic. It allows individuals to find,

or if they don't have the ability to find an individual that can work with them in person and watch everything, they can do some assessments and figure out what works for them. And you outlined a lot of amazing things in this book. So it's an absolute necessity for lifters and coaches to have. But I'm curious of this, you know, we're probably going to talk a lot about squatting and movement. And recently we've gotten a lot into our feet. We've been working on a lot of stuff. We have the

barefoot spinner Graham Tuttle here, and we're doing a lot of stuff with him and learning a lot there. We wear vivos, we're doing a lot of stuff barefoot. We've been wearing them for a while. And I'm curious, how long has, for you as a clinician, have you been paying attention to feet of athletes? Because I was a soccer player. I wore cleats all my life. But when I was in college, I had to get surgery on my foot because I had a bunionette that formed because of narrow cleats, and they had to shave part of my bone off, which ended my soccer career. If I was paying more comes to their feet? And what are some ways that maybe you have athletes pay attention to those things,

fix them, et cetera? Definitely. Well, first off, I want to say, this is a topic that needs to be talked about much more. And it is way too taboo for so many people right now to talk about. And we need to throw that away because I promise you, your feet are such a key game changer when we're talking about performance and long-term health that when you start to realize it, when you get out of your shoes and you start wearing wide toe box shoes, you start improving your feet, man, you're going to unlock so much more potential out of your lifts than you ever thought possible. And I promise you the first time you put on a pair of wide toe box shoes, you'll feel like you're wearing clown shoes. And literally a couple weeks, months later, you won't be able to put on a pair of Nikes anymore.

You won't be able to put on a narrow dress shoe because it's going to feel horrible. You're not going to want to go back. So first off, when did I first start noticing something about this? I would say it all sort of started because with the evaluation process I talked about, I would get people out of their socks and shoes, right? I want to watch you squat. And Chris Duffin always used to say, load is a very powerful tool for exposing problems. It's a great teacher. So I'd have people squat. I don't care if you squat in shoes. I don't care if you squat in weightlifting shoes. If you're an Olympic weightlifter or you're a powerlifter

that likes the raised heel, I want to see what you look like barefoot because you should have the capability of squatting barefoot no matter what. Maybe your depth is not as deep as before. You should still squat barefoot. Fundamental human movement, right? Too often, you get someone out of their shoes, that feet, you know, those feet are going everywhere. They don't even know what's going on at their feet because they're always covering them up. Okay. It's one of those things out of sight, out of mind. I want to bring it back into the full picture. So a couple of years ago, I was really sort of going down the rabbit hole into foot stability. And I found Dr. Ray McClanahan of Northwest Orthopedics. Now, Dr. Ray McClanahan is the inventor of the Correcto

Toe Spacer, which I believe, and we can talk about that if you want to later, why it's the best one of the different ones out there for specific reasons. But he himself doesn't put out a lot of content specifically under his social media, but Correcto's does do a good amount of social media. So anyone that wants to go into that. But I started diving down and reading a lot of his blogs and it just sort of dawned on me because it fits so well within my why, which is help people move better in the gym and in life, decrease problems and improve your potential performance. And I connected so much with his story. He told me he was a college runner and he was just having so many injuries develop. And he was looking at his shoes and they were just tearing

up. And he was having these horrible bunions that were, that were painful. And he was like, there's gotta be something to this. And I myself realized that too. I played baseball, football, my entire life. Those cleats are narrow as hell. I got into Olympic weightlifting. I got my first pair of weightlifting shoes, the old Adidas from the 1998 Olympics. Those were the first ones I bought in 2001. So they were on the cheap discount back then. And those things are that narrow. I have huge bunions on both my toes. My entire life, my toes have been smashed into a triangle. And when I look at some of the early content I was making for Squat U, I'd be out of my shoes, but my toes would be smashed together. And he told me, take your shoes off. Take the liner out of your shoe. Now, step on the liner. And at the time I was wearing, I don't

know, like a Nike free or something like that. Step on the liner. Have your toes within the shoe liner because that's how it fits within the shoe. And then from there, let your foot collapse back and forth. Pronation, right? And see what happens when you pronate your foot as far as it can go. Look what happens at your knee. Notice how far it moves as well. Now, spread your toes out. Now, for some people, they may need a little assistance if they've been stuck in a narrow-toe shoe for a long time.

Your big toe should be directly in line with your metatarsal bone of your foot. And when you spread your toes out, likely they will go over the toe liner, the shoe liner, meaning that shoe is too narrow for what your foot is designed to look like. Then, without doing anything else, keep your foot in that toed spread position. Let your foot pronate back down and back. And you'll notice when that big toe spreads out, automatically your foot is unable to pronate moreover. It almost hits an end range. And then in doing so, your knee can't collapse over as much. So the position of your big toe has a direct impact on your foot stability, your ability to maintain an arch and your knee stability, which then impacts your hip, your lifting technique. It all comes down to that big toe and its position and the position it is pushed into with the

majority of shoes today. Most people are wearing shoes that are way too narrow for their feet. And I don't care if you size up or you try to go to an extra 4E wide, they're still too narrow in the toe box. And it all comes down to the way shoes are manufactured. It comes down to fashion. And this is something that this isn't new to the 21st century. Shoes have been manufactured to have a narrow tip for centuries. There's research dating back that looks all the way back at the 17th century in people of nobility of higher socioeconomic class had narrow tip shoes. People who are the working class, right? That's where they had the wider shoes, the moccasins. So for a long time, it has been a fashion standard.

Yeah. What looks better, a moccasin or a woman in a pair of stilettos that's got a sharp point at the end, right? Exactly. They bind a Chinese woman's feet. You know what I mean? Yeah. Why did they do that? It comes down to fashion, to what people believe is the standard for the day. So there's no doubts why Nike developed shoes that are narrow-tipped. It has nothing to do with allowing the foot to function as it should. We put thousands, millions of dollars into research and development for these big companies. And all they're designed to do is find out what shoe you'll buy, not to allow your foot to function as well as possible.

Because here's the big thing that Ray McClanahan told me, and this just sort of blew my mind. He goes, look at your baby footprint that you had, if your parents have it still, from when you came out of the hospital, when you were born. Your toes are the widest part of your entire foot. But as you age and you start putting your foot into normal shoes, they come to a tip.

Your foot starts to adapt to the shape of the shoe. And a lot of people don't believe me, but there are many, many research articles out there in literature documenting this in the scientific community where they go to places around the world where people do not wear shoes. Yes. And their feet are just as wide. the world where people do not wear shoes and their feet are just as wide. Their foot doesn't change because they're not adapting it because of the shoe. Now, some people will say, well, who cares if I have that bunion or I like these Nikes. The drip's got to be there, right? Then I would look at your function, right? You do the shoe liner test. It is no question after doing the shoe liner test that you can have improved stability of your foot, a better quality arch control, and better knee stability when the toe is able to spread out. I think most people, if they were to take the sole out, as you're mentioning, like the shoe liner, and they were just to put their foot on it and not even do anything else, they would find out that their foot doesn't even fit on there at all without even moving that post

that you shared yesterday that i put up yes people like oh that that shoe's too narrow people would be surprised the amount of shoes that they literally took their shoe liners out the amount of times their foot looks exactly like that within their shoes and they have no idea when i was out of mind i was helping reebok years ago come up with a kind of power lifting style shoe um i was just observing a lot of people's feet at the time and i was like i was like well maybe it's just me and my chubby friends at powerlifting where our feet are kind of pouring out the sides of our shoe but then i'd go to coffee shops and i'd look at other people's feet and i was like, a lot of these people aren't overweight. I'm like, that woman over there, she's not overweight.

That person over there is. So it wasn't a matter of like just somebody being a bigger person and they had a bigger foot. I was starting to observe it in everyone that was wearing kind of like a tennis shoe, I guess you'd say, where the foot was kind of pouring out over the sides. And I was like, this is, this seems like a huge problem. pouring out over the sides. And I was like, this seems like a huge problem. Ray McClanahan told me that he believes 90% of people are wearing a shoe that is too small for their feet. Yes. 90%. So yeah. So I started making that transition. That was a couple of years ago. And again, anytime I find someone that I feel like I can connect with their why and understand that it all comes down to mechanics and helping us move better and live a better life, whether

that be in the gym or out, I started going down the rabbit hole. And I want to understand not just where they're reading or where they're writing, but where it's coming from. So I want to read your citations, right? I'm going to be that science nerd that I developed after I got my doctorate, right? And just everything, it just makes so much sense. A lot of people are like, where's the citations for this? Where's the research? Man, go find it. There's so much out there. You literally type in narrow-toed shoes in Google Scholar. You'll find a ton of stuff. And the great thing about it is it can be fixed. Even if you've been in shoes for a long time that are way too narrow, there's so much potential to fix it by just starting to adopt a wider toe box shoe, going barefoot more often. And then for some

people that need a little bit more assistance because you developed that horrible bunion there's different toe spacers like correct toes that allow that you know think about it like braces to the teeth it allows your toes to just have a little bit more assistance in uh in opening up a little bit let's not forget about the socks too you know this sometimes the socks have kind of compression to them. So like I have a pair of Vivo shoes that I really like a lot. Toe socks. But yeah, we've gotten into the toe sock thing. A little bit up, a little bit up.

There you go. And what's interesting about a toe sock is that when people see you in a toe sock or they see you in, you know, shoes that are like that as well, they just like immediately they're like, whoa, like it's so much of them to handle but you're like that's a human foot you know what i mean i know some people think that feet are kind of gross or whatever but you're just like that's no different than seeing my hand like me just walking around with a glove forever and then now you see my hand or you see uh like a something that's slightly over each finger It's the same thing with our feet, but when you wear these things on your feet, you know, everyone kind of chuckles and laughs, but I think the socks are actually a big factor too. And there's something about the kind of almost like

maybe kinesthetic awareness of having something in between those toes that makes you feel like they have a little bit more freedom. So that in combination with having a wider toe box, I think is the answer. Well, you're talking about the feel, being able to let your toe spread out. I mean, you have so many mechanoreceptors within your foot and sensory receptors that allow you to feel the ground, just like your hands. I mean, that's the way our bodies were designed. And when you put yourself only in these really thick shoes, you completely change the way your body is perceiving the ground and again, hindering stability. So right now, like, and you look on my social media,

I don't share a ton of lifting videos, but I'm always barefoot with my, with my squats or my deadlifts. I still put on my weightlifting shoes to do my cleans and snatches. Cause I still train as an Olympic weightlifter, even though I don't compete anymore. And let me tell you, it's a very bad part of my day to put on those narrow ass weightlifting shoes still, because there's no wide toe box weightlifting shoes yet on the market. But as far as squatting, I'm always barefoot and I would never go back because of the feel that you get when you can let those toes spread out and you can feel the ground. If your body's shifting, if your foot's collapsing over, you can instantly feel it and allow yourself to change your technique in real time the way you can't ever feel it if you're in a thick sole.

Pratap Rajak, fam, this episode is brought to you by Vivo Barefoot Shoes. We've been wearing these shoes for almost a year now. They're flexible. They have a wide toe box. They allow your feet to get connected to the ground and they will make your feet stronger and they don't look like like a lot of these other barefoot shoes andrew how can they get them you guys got to head over to vivo barefoot.com and check out enter promo code power project to save 20 off your entire order links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes let's get back to this video you know i want to quickly mention hunt power lifting we were going back and forth in dms he's been wearing uh the vivo type shoes for like the past five years so he's been on that

and he was mentioning how beneficial it's been for him we had dan grigsby on my anecdotal like uh experience with that is i do i did a lot of things barefoot before i was wearing barefoot shoes but the one thing that people are going to realize if they get any type of barefoot before I was wearing barefoot shoes. But the one thing that people are going to realize if they get any type of barefoot shoes, because there's a lot of brands out there. We like the vivos, but there's zero. There's a lot of other things. So get what you like. But the thing you're going to notice is those shoes aren't comfortable. When you put them on, they won't feel, especially if you've been wearing normal shoes for a long time, you're going to be like, God damn, this is uncomfortable. There's not a lot of padding. When I'm walking, I'm feeling a little, there's some people have their feet literally developed

pain in different areas because they're not used to walking in a certain way and putting different pressures on their foot. Right? So my question to you is, have you helped anyone deal with like the different type of things that are going to happen to your feet as they start developing within those shoes? Because even though I've been an athlete all my life, my, my feet have gotten meatier within the past 12 months because of everything. That's a hundred percent true. That happens. Yeah. Because you actually will gain strength and hypertrophy within your foot muscles. They, the intrinsics will actually get bigger. And also in saying that for anyone who wears orthotics, orthotics within your shoes, within 12 weeks of wearing them will actually create a, what's the word I'm looking for?

You'll actually see a smaller muscle size negatively. Yeah. You'll atrophy. That's the word I'm looking for. You'll see atrophy within the muscle intrinsics of the feet. So we're talking about how do you transition to barefoot shoes? That's a big thing because if you've been in a hard Nike and Adidas, certain Reeboks for a long time, your foot has become adapted to that style of shoe and having a lot of cushion basically. You've walked around on marshmallows your whole life and it's going to be different to try to go to a barefoot shoe. The first time you put on a pair of barefoot shoes, for most people, what you'll notice, you go outside, go on a hard sidewalk or walk around on concrete and you'll feel like you're clomping around like a monster. You're just going to hit hard and just plop around. And here's the reason for that. When you've been walking around in a pair of Nikes or a digital life, you've had that

cushioned heel, right? So what do you do? You heel strike real hard. And there's tons of research that shows the difference between people walking in a heeled shoe like that, a cushioned heel shoe and barefoot. You actually hit much harder when you're in that heeled shoe because your body knows it's going to be soft. Therefore, you actually put more load up through your body. So they did this one study where they were looking at people who have arthritis within their knees. They had less forces placed on their knee joints by walking barefoot. Why? Because you can't heel strike hard. You glide when you barefoot walk. So when you have a shoe on now that's a barefoot shoe, you don't have all that cushion right there.

You don't have the marshmallow heel. You got to learn how to walk again a little bit differently. So it's going to take some time to do that. You got to learn how to have that pressure that's more fluid as you're walking. Now, if we're talking about transitioning to walking, that takes a little bit of time. That transition to running with vivos or zeros would take even longer. But again, you got to learn how to crawl, walk, run. Basics, when someone goes and gets a pair of vivos or zeros for the first time, man,

just put them on, walk around for like 20, 30 minutes. Get on with the rest of your shoes the rest of the day. And again, slowly over time, go a little bit more. get on with the rest of your shoes the rest of the day. And again, slowly over time, go a little bit more. Now for me personally, sort of like you mentioned, I was in, I was barefoot all the time outside of wearing my shoes. So if I'm home, I'm never in shoes. Just naturally, I was always out of my shoes. So I picked it up a lot quicker. I know other people though, that they went into it, put on their pair of Vivos or Zeros first day to wear them out to work. Their feet were just on fire. They hurt the next day. It's because you don't have any support there. Your foot should

be the support, but you're so used to the shoe supporting your foot that your foot is weak. It's like a child learning to run for the first time or maybe riding a bike for the first time. It doesn't look real great at first. Well, you've been using something that's been supporting your foot structure for such a long time. Your first time in a barefoot shoe that has no support, it's going to take a little bit of time to build it back up. People always ask me, well, what about arch support? You have bones and muscles in your foot. That is the support. You just have to learn how to use it for the first time. And people will say, well, I have a flat foot or I have a really high arch. Same thing. Most people that come to me and say they have flat feet, they don't have flat feet. They have low arches and they just don't know how to use them.

Yeah. Well, and then they're trying to put an arch in their shoe and it's supposed to be a non-weight bearing part of the body, right? Like we're supposed to be kind of on that outside edge of our foot right that is a great topic that most people don't realize and we can get into the nerdy part of this real quick let's go when we when you talk about an arch okay here's a quiz for both of you if i look at an arch um a straight bridge where's the strong or where's the weakest part of the straight bridge right in the middle yeah dead center i'd? Right in the middle. Yeah, dead center, I'd say. Right in the middle, definitely.

What about an arch? Arched bridge. Same, I guess. An arched bridge actually has the weakest parts sort of at the outside that support it. The weight distribution is completely spread across the entire arch. So an arched bridge is actually much stronger than a straight bridge, right? Your foot was developed,

basically structured like that arch, sort of like the gateway arch here in St. Louis, the Roman aqueducts. You know, there's many, you know, illustrations throughout the world of arches being used for the reason that they create so much strength for the structure as a whole. Now, when most people have problems with their foot and you go to a podiatrist or a doctor that gives you arch support, where does arch support support

the arch? In the middle. Right in the middle. But that's not how arches are structured. They get their strength from the outside. So if you want to support an arch, you structure it better from the outside, because in doing so, it spreads the weight out across the entire structure of it. So from an engineering perspective, propping up the arch from the middle with arch support does not make sense at all. We support it from the sides with what? The heel in the metatarsal base. And in doing so, when you actually get your foot on the ground, The heel and the metatarsal base. And in doing so, when you actually get your foot on the ground, the heel and the metatarsal base should line up in the exact same manner. And then when you strengthen your body in that specific position,

you strengthen the ends and you allow yourself to be in a much more advantageous position for supplying stability for the structure as a whole. But when you put your shoe on, a lot of people, the heel is elevated and then there's toe spring, right? That front part of the shoe that picks up. What that does is it changes the orientation of the arch within your foot and basically takes a lot of the muscles out of the game. It weakens the structure of the foot long-term. The reason toe spring was put takes a lot of the muscles out of the game. It weakens the structure of the foot long-term. The reason toe spring was put into a lot of shoes was because they were developing shoes that were so thick and inflexible that in order to allow the person to look like they at

least had normal gait, they had to open the toes up so they could roll forward. If you have a shoe that is flexible enough, there's no need for toe spring. And when you lift the toes off the ground like that, 18 of your 19 foot tendons connects to your toes. So when you're lifting them up, you're shortening them. You're completely taking those tendons out of the game from being in the structurally sound position from a muscle length tension relationship to providing the most stability in structure for the foot. You know, I want to say this whole topic is so fucking exciting for me because my whole life I was told I had flat feet when I was playing soccer at like

13, 14, 15. Um, my mom had to get me these special orthotics for my cleats because the doc was like, oh yeah, he has flat feet. So let's get in these special orthotics that I'd wore all the way into college. And then I had to get surgery on my foot because it wasn't helping anything. Right. But nowadays, because I've become more aware of this and we've been working on it, like my, my arches are bigger. I think that actually the first time that I learned about how to squat correctly was from the supple leopard when kelly stirret mentioned in the book about creating torsion with your feet because i was always like why am i not reaching depth and why do my knees fucking hurt

and then when you you know when you spread the floor with your feet activate your toes spread the floor you create an arch and your knees go outwards and then it clicked for me and when when i read about that years ago, I was like, fuck, there's a lot here that I was just like totally fucked since I was a kid. Yeah. For people listening that,

that, uh, struggle with some of this stuff. I think an easy thing that can really help a lot is what you said is like, just the, uh, the micro will end up becoming the macro. Like just get out of your shoes as often as you can.

If you have the ability to do that in your gym, which you might not have a gym that allows you to do that. If you can do that in your gym and start to do your curls and your overhead presses, and you can do, you can just go down this giant rabbit hole of stuff. But like, if you look up doming on YouTube,

you're just basically doming your foot. You're, you're just trying to, if you just envision like the way that your foot would be, if you were just, if you were sprinting or just even running in some way, how your feet, your toes would like kind of leave the ground to kind of propel you forward. But you can just get up on your toes when you're doing your curls, when you're doing some of your exercises. And this will help tremendously because I've been messing with some of this more recently, and I like looking down these rabbit holes. Tell us more about the correct toes and why you think that those might be really beneficial for people. Yeah, so it all comes down to understanding how the foot structure naturally was formed.

And again, it comes back to looking at your baby footprint, right? And if you look at people who have not adapted negatively to shoes, the big toe is directly in line with the metatarsal. And then you have your other toes and the pinky, again, same sort of thing. The big thing is that the big toe and the pinky toe are the ones that are most problematic for a lot of people. And those are what form the bunion and then the tailor's bunion. Now, again, this is something that Dr. McClanahan has really been a game changer on. He told me that when he first started developing the correct toes, he was trying to space the toes in a number of different positions because again, we have this idea, well, my toes

have all been smashed together. Let me just spread them all apart. Well, when you spread apart all the toes, sometimes you over lengthen certain ones and push them too much in the, in the other direction. And he actually severed, had a couple of ligaments, I believe, or tendons almost snap on him because he was spreading all the different toes and then testing his, his running and how his gait and how his movement would change. And what he found was for most people, just the big toe, getting back out, fixing that bunion, and then spreading the pinky toe out to the side allows the foot to regain its natural function the best. So the correct toes only have, while it goes across all the different toes, the big toe and

the pinky toe are the ones that are spreading the most. And they also have these small little slots that allow you to build up the width to what your foot needs. So it allows you, if you want to take like an old insole from a shoe and sort of cut out a little square, you can put it in there as a spacer to open it up a little bit more. So that's something that I've worn. I've tried other toe spacers. Again, they spread all the toes equally when in fact, we want the big toe and the pinky toe to be the main ones that we spread back out to assume just that natural shape of the big toe and all the other toes in line with the metatarsals. I found a lot of utility too, and just taking my hand and just driving my fingers through my feet.

Yeah. For some people that might be really difficult. So if that's hard, maybe just do one finger at a time and then hopefully eventually you can kind of get them to open up and spread out. But I actually did notice just over the last couple of days, just kind of pulling on my big toe and pulling on my pinky toe seemed to matter the most and where I felt a stretch the most. And then the other toes, they just kind of like, they kind of follow when you pull on the big toe and the pinky toe at the same time and they all just kind of come apart a little bit. Yeah. And the thing with the correctos also is, he would always say, Dr. McClanahan,

is that they're meant to be worn while you're moving. This isn't something you just put your toe spacers on and just go to sleep at night. If you want to actually make a physical change, you got to load the body, right? That's especially the same thing with mobility, right? You want better ankle mobility. Sure, stretching is good.

Sure, maybe some light soft tissue work or some joint mobilizations, but you got to load the body in that range of motion if you want the body to learn how to go there again. So you can space the toes apart, but until you actually load the body with walking, running, wear them while you're squatting, it's not actually going to make a physical long-term change because we need that load in order to create that stimulus for adaptation. Why are the feet so important? You know, when you see, when you hear about the ankle bone kind of collapsing on a squat and you see that valgus knee, like what are the things that are, you know, coming from people just having not great awareness of their feet? Man, like I said before, the foot just sets the foundation for the entire body. And it's one thing that out of sight, out of mind,

we don't even realize most of the time because we're covering up that sensation with our shoes. And we assume that because we're standing up, our feet are doing the function that they need to. And the same way with breathing. I'm breathing, I'm alive. So I got to be breathing correctly when I squat or deadlift, which we know is not the case because you change up that breathing pattern all of a. So I got to be breathing correctly when I squat or deadlift, which we know is not the

case because you change up that breathing pattern all of a sudden, learn how to brace correctly. That's the cheat code for automatically enhancing your performance. The same thing goes with your feet. So the second that you learn how to use your feet optimally, it's a cheat code for instantly enhancing your performance, but also your technique. Like we talked about with the shoe liner test, you get those toes to spread out. All of a sudden you have a much more stable foot and you can instantly feel this connection

with the rest of your body. The second your foot goes, you'll notice your knee starts to get soft. You'll notice that you start shifting around a little bit. You lose that ground connection. The squat, the deadlift, all these things, they're full body lifts for a reason. The squat is not leg day. The back is not dead, just back day. It's a full body movement if done correctly. And the first thing most people need to focus on is how they set their foot on the ground and create that rooted connection. That's a big analogy that a lot of people like and sort of makes sense for a lot of people is when you actually physically root your foot to the ground whenever you're setting up for a squat or

a deadlift, it's like roots to a tree. It's not going anywhere. I shouldn't see that foot wobble around. And if it's moving around, it shows me you just have a weak link in your stability process that when enhanced can increase your potential performance, decrease your risk of injury, and just see so much more future benefit. A lot of people when they see knee cave in the squat, because it's one of the most common faults, right? The body defaults and there's an energy leakage. And we're seeing a lot more horizontal movement than vertical movement. A lot of times we think hips. Now hips are definitely a part of it, but oftentimes we don't realize the knee is just the symptom. The hip and the ankle foot complex are completely dictating what happens to that knee.

Yeah, we yell knees out, knees out, and it's not necessarily from the knee, right? Exactly. It's all about understanding. And the same thing goes for someone that comes to me with knee pain. There's rarely a time that someone comes to me with knee pain and the first thing I'm doing is touching the knee. I sometimes will not even touch the knee at all. I'll look at the hips. I'll look at the ankle foot complex. I'll watch them move. areas of importance. If I can find and improve those weak links, and maybe we're having an issue in tibial rotation or hip stability, or maybe we're not falling out to the side in the Faber test as much, showing we have a hip external rotation and extension issue on that hip, you improve those issues. You allow the body to move a little bit more symmetrically. Then you

reload the body. Issue automatically goes away. So a lot of times people who are failing to fix technique issues like knee cave, and they've been focusing on driving their knees out, drive their knees out, which for some people can be a helpful cue for other people's, it's only focusing them on their knees. They're not even focused on their hip, but maybe it's not a hip issue. It's a little bit of a weak link, but it's not the main problem. Maybe the issue is you're just losing complete connection to the ground. And the second you start to root your foot to the ground and enhance that stability, not let your foot collapse over because you're in a narrow ass shoe, all of a sudden you're going to have a better connection that's going to allow you to move with better integrity.

And better integrity under load over time allows us to build amazing capacity, decrease risk for injury, and see crazy improvements in strength long-term to what potential your body has genetically. This makes me wonder. For the athletes, and a lot of people that listen are powerlifters, but we do have some Olympic lifters that listen. And some of these athletes that are powerlifters

or ollie lifters choose to use Olympic lifting shoes or they've been using Olympic lifting shoes. And let's say that they've been having some issues, right? Maybe issues with their squat, et cetera. There's no Olympic lifting shoe. That's a wide toe box shoe as of yet. And for those people that have fat feet like ourselves, my feet never fit well into lifting shoes, even though I've worn them in the past. What options do they have for their sport if they you know if they've been using olympic lifting shoes well i'll say this without letting the cat out of the bag too much uh that's only going to be a problem for a little bit longer let's go yeah that's all that's all i can say right now but

we'll get to that at another time um train what you can train while you fix what you can fix. I would have someone do as much out of their weightlifting shoes as possible. Assistant work, get out of your shoes. Whether that's a Bulgarian split squad, RDLs, deadlifts, where you don't need that heeled shoe, get out of your shoes. Warm up for your first one to three sets barefoot, just so you can enhance your stability. Put your weightlifting shoes on when it's time for needing that weight raised heel for performance,

because some people do need it for getting into better technical positions, which is why the Olympic weightlifting shoe was developed in the first place back in the fifties and sixties is because it allowed the Olympic weightlifter to sit deeper into the squat with a more upright chest. So all of a sudden you are seeing people that were doing snatches and cleans in competition, get into better technical positions for receiving the barbell. The deeper you can squat with a more upright chest, theoretically, the more weight you can lift in the snatch and the clean. So that's why the race tool was developed in the first place. Now the powerlifter has taken that because it allows, again, some people to

achieve a little bit deeper squat. So if you have someone who already is genetically maybe a little bit stiffer within their body, again, an adaptation needed for powerlifting to hoist tremendous loads, but maybe also has some issues in ankle mobility, it allows them to still hit maybe a better technical looking squat with less forward lean, which for some people could put them into a more disadvantageous position. So what I would say is train what you can train while you fix what you can fix. Improve that foot stability as much as possible outside of that 30 minutes to an hour during the squat day where you're wearing your weightlifting shoes. Enhance the hell out of your foot stability the other time. Be it any assistant exercises, to an hour during the squat day where you're wearing your weightlifting shoes, enhance the hell out of your foot stability the other time. Be it any assistant exercises, under load again, which is what we're trying to do to make that adaptation to improve your foot stability. Wear your wide toe box weightlifting shoes the other so many hours of the day so that you're

not putting yourself right back into a bad shoe and then understand that there may be some uh some relief in the future i love what you're saying there train what you can train and fix what you can fix um and doing that you know kind of uh together because like i like a lot of this stuff i i'm you know i'm getting more into this you know these functional movements and stuff but there's another side of me like it's it's just like, Hey, this is kind of stupid. Like let's fucking lift some weights, you know? And, and I don't want to lose sight of the lifting weights because strength is never a weakness, right? Like having some strength in some of these positions is going to be really valuable. And then also, you know, finding where you got holes in your game and

finding out like, Oh my goodness, I can't even lift my foot off the ground when I'm trying to express this external rotation of my hip. Maybe that's why my hip's been hurting for a long time. So I'm all for it. Like it's great to do those exercises, but a lot of people still, they just want to get after it and they want to do some of their lifts. It kind of reminds me of the saying of, you know, while you're making a living, you can also work on making your fortune. You know, you're kind of doing that on the side. You got this kind of, maybe you're going to make a shoe that revolutionizes the game or changes the game. So you're working on one thing and doing what you can do at the moment, while in the future, you got your eyes set on something bigger.

Yeah. The reason I came up with that saying or so much populated is because I would sometimes hear people based on the stuff that I share, they'd be like, Oh, well, squat university doesn't want you to lift heavy. If you, if you see a hip shift, well, let's go down to the PVC pipe and just only do these baby exercises. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like I'm working with some of these elite power lifters and weightlifters. I'm not telling them to stop lifting. I don't even have a PVC pipe within my gym. The idea is when you're dealing with any type of injury, we don't want to continue bashing our head against the wall and having the injury keep us out of the game. In saying that, sometimes we have to take a step back so that we can take three steps forward. For for certain instances, we need to take a step

back from lifting in order for us to effectively address a problem, be it technique or injury. In saying that, if someone told me, oh, you have an injury? Yeah, just stop lifting. I would go crazy. What am I going to do for most of my week? The gym is my safe haven. That's my drug of choice. The gym is where not only are we physically doing what we going to do for most of my week? Like the gym is my safe haven. That's my drug of choice. You know, the gym is where not only are we physically doing what we love to do, but mentally it allows us to be sane. I know most people listening to this, probably if you just were not out of the, in the gym for a long time, like mentally it would, it would affect you. Right.

And the same thing goes whenever we're dealing with a technique issue that needs to be addressed or an injury. I still want you to train what you can train, but certain things I may have you take a step back on so that we can make the necessary changes to allow for the optimal adaptations so that long-term we can excel and we can be in a better place long-term. So for example, I may have an athlete that comes to me with back pain and at this time they cannot dead lift from the ground. It hurts every time they pick up the bar from the ground. Well, we find

their assessment, their flexion intolerance. So anytime that they're bent over, they can't tolerate high flexion loads. Okay. Let's take a small step back from that. Here's our treatment program of improving stability. Maybe we're working hip mobility, getting those glutes working a little bit more. What can we do? Because not only during my examination do I want to find out what triggers your pain, but what things can you tolerate well? Okay, you can tolerate maybe being more upright a little bit better. You can use a Kabuki transformer bar and get that front rack loaded position. So you can tolerate being more upright, right? Because it's load, but it's not as much sheer load on the spine because we're not in as

flexed posture. You can train that, or maybe you can train a belt squat, right? I'm a big fan of belt squatting. In doing so, we're minimizing shear load on the spine. So let's train what we can while we fix what we can fix so that you can still maintain as much capacity long-term, but still make the necessary adaptations to allow yourself to be in a better place long-term. I'm curious about this actually, um, flexion intolerant. Uh, now when we're talking about squatting, right. Or when most people squat for sport, you know, neutral spine,

you want, you want a brace, you want everything to be neutral going down and going up. But I wonder, is there benefit for athletes doing things like Jefferson curls, doing with light loads, like allowing themselves to load that flexed spine and have that capacity? Obviously not super heavy, but would there be a benefit in working with things like yesterday, Mark and I, where you're just fucking with the strongman stones. And I was thinking, it seems like being, this would be beneficial to learn how to do as an athlete, just to learn how to bear load with a flex spine. What are your thoughts on that and those types of movements in the gym? That is a great question and something many people need to understand. And it all stems from understanding flexion movement and flexion moment. So moment is an engineering term for load, for torque. So movement, obviously, we're creating, here's our neutral spine and we're bend, bend,

bend. Moment just means I may have flexion torque placed on the spine. Now let's talk about first the Atlas stone, because a lot of people will see that flex spine and they automatically assume there to be a lot of flexion movement. Now I actually did a podcast with Dr. Stuart McGill a couple of months ago, and we brought up this very particular piece of research that he did where he had a junior strong man in a very seasoned strongman. And he looked at the actual loads and movement on the spine during the Atlas stone lift. Now, in order to get into an Atlas stone lift, there's no doubt you have to be able to round your back. You can't lift an Atlas stone with a neutral spine. So a lot of people, when I make specific comments on Instagram about

understanding flexion, a lot of people automatically be like, well, what about the Atlas stone lifter? Right. You have, you know, of course you can't lift an Atlas stone with a neutral spine, but the seasoned, uh, strength athlete, the seasoned strong man who is elite understands they get into that, uh, flex spine and they almost make the stone in their spine. One, they brace around it, they They stiffen and then they move about their hips. And it's not until the very last part where the stone actually gets hoisted back up, that's where you see the spine move out of flexion and into extension. So for the majority of the lift, the spine is actually in flexion and it's locked in there. There's a lot of stiffening

that's occurring. The point at which the spine moves out of that extension or flexion into extension, the stone is almost over their foot. So at that time, there's not as much load and inflection on the low back compared to having that person uncoiled that spine when they're much more bent over because of the way in which the forces are acting upon the spine. Does that make sense? Yeah. So if you're very bent over and then you start uncurling that spine, like a deadlifter, you know, starting off in a good position and then letting their back just sort of cat flex, flex, flex, the forces on the back are acting in a much different way than let's say you're just standing straight up, right? With a bar on your back and you're

curling your back. The forces are a little bit different acting upon the rotational part of the joint. The junior strong man saw movement out of their spine much sooner. One thing that Dr. Stuart McGill will always talk about is the difference between understanding flexion moment and movement is so important because it changes power. Power at the spine is not something we want to develop. Now, if you have a power lifter who is lifting tremendous load, but very slowly moving their spine, because when you deadlift, the spine is not locked in one's rigid position. There's a little bit of movement that occurs, but it's mostly locked in place. And then most of the movement occurs about the hips. Anytime there's movement, there's velocity

in force or load plus velocity equals our power. So a power lifter who moves a deadlift well keeps power low at the spine, even though load is very high. Conversely, Tiger Woods swinging a golf club. He's moving his spine very quickly, but he's only moving a golf club, which weighs next to nothing. So power generated at the spinal level is much lower than if he were swinging a 20 pound golf club. Now, the moment you start increasing power at the spine, injury risk goes up as well. So the power lifter who deadlifts very poorly and allows that back to round, round, round, round, we have much more movement, less moment, right? Because we're moving our spine, power is increased at

the spine because we have more velocity with this high load. I like to think of this as like a fishing pole. You know, if you can envision like you got a big one hooked and you start to reel it in, someone with poor form in a deadlift, because you can obviously round your back in a deadlift. I think it's totally safe and totally fine. But when it continues to round, as you're pulling on it more and more, that's where it's like, ah, you're in some real risky territory. You know, you might lose that fish, you know, that fishing rod might snap. Yep. So when it comes back to the Jefferson curl, and again, if you look on YouTube at all the people that are putting out content on the Jefferson curl and you get back to like its

original meaning. Now, first off, a lot of people would say, oh, it's from the gymnastic world, but I've talked to many people in the gymnastic world and they're like, yeah, we never do Jefferson curls. So I thought that's also pretty funny. But the Jefferson curl is meant to be a movement of the spine. A lot of people will stretch the spine, right? If done with very light load, it's more of a calisthenic, right? You're moving your body through full ranges. And I think as long as the load is kept low, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, right? Because you should not fear spine flexion. Someone that is bending over to pick up something off the ground, they can bend their back a little bit, especially if it's a shoe. A yogi would be in big problems if they couldn't bend their back, right? So there's specific

movements that are just natural for the spine to be able to perform. But the thing that we need to understand is the more load you are lifting, the less we want to move the spine for most people to create the most optimal situation for the spine long-term as far as injury resiliency goes. So I don't have a problem with doing Jefferson curls for people that enjoy just the movement aspect. You know, maybe they, they want to just be very bendy. They want to enhance their movement capabilities through the spine. It would not be a good idea for a power lifter to do Jefferson curls because their adaptation that they're trying to create on the spectrum of movement

is stiffness, lots of load. The Jefferson curl is more on this line where it's movement, not a lot of load. The moment you start mixing the two, for most people, it's not going to pan out well. Now, are there going to be some people that can do it? Sure. There's genetic freaks out there in the world. People that win the CrossFit games at the highest level are usually those people that are very bendy, but also very strong and can run a four-minute mile and also deadlift 800 pounds. You know what I'm saying? There's those genetic freaks that, sure, they can do it. Most people cannot. Most people,

if you're going to, especially if you're trying to do very well in one specific area, you're not going to want to mix the two because you're trying to create that adaptation in a particular area. And especially when we look at the discs, discs are the joints within our spine that are very different than the, uh, than the joints within our knees or our hips. The joints of our knees and hips and shoulders, they're meant to develop power. The spinal joints, your discs and the way in which they connect to the different vertebrae are not designed to generate power. Again, getting back to that power equation that we talked about before.

The more load and the more movement that occurs, something usually starts to break down. And this is something that's been backed up by lots and lots of research out there. So we just don't want to mix the two for most people in order to have long-term resiliency. It's really interesting. It sounds to me like when you see a strongman do a stone lift, an Atlas stone lift, that looks more dangerous than a deadlift. But in accordance to some of what you're saying, it almost sounds like a deadlift has potential to be more dangerous if you don't know how to do the exercise correctly. I think it just comes down to technique and understanding the why behind the lift and how

the mechanics need to be very specific for doing it as safely as possible. When it comes to the stone, yes, you're going to have to flex the spine. But when you get down there, you better be able to create that spine extremely, extremely stiff and wrap it around the stone. Become one with it. Move about the hips. With the deadlift, you're not having that implement butted up against your torso. So, yeah, I think there probably is a little bit more wiggle room sometimes. butted up against your torso. So yeah, I think there probably is a little bit more wiggle room sometimes. And for some people, if they're not able to maintain their spine, again, in whatever position, ideally for most people, that neutral spine is going to be the best for most injury

resiliency because it spreads out the load distribution across the entire joint much better. But there's going to be plenty of examples of elite powerlifters and strongmen who have a slight flexed motion or posture. Usually it's gradual and sometimes a little bit more in the thoracic spine. That allows you that when locked in, the majority of motion is about the hips. It can be still done very well. Dr. Stuart McGill would call it second best as far as injury resiliency. And then you have the last one which is the movement of the spine and again you're just playing with fire the more you round

your back movement wise under load now i have a question for you then um because i i like the distinction like if you're a power lifter and you're erring towards stiffness and rigidity to be able to move very heavy loads this is not an ideal thing for you to do. And that, that makes a lot of sense. Now I'm curious for people that let's say that they're not competing power lifters. And these are individuals that are just focused on trying to move better, great longevity, um, trying to just have better longevity for movement as a human being into elderly age. What do you think about the deadlift as a movement versus maybe learning to have a loaded, like something like the Atlas stone, for example, what do you think about that? Because a lot of people are getting into the gym. They're just trying to

get in shape. They're trying to move. And the deadlift is a movement that's thrown at them by a lot of people in the gym, like deadlifts of different kinds, whether it be a dumbbell deadlift or a kettlebell deadlift, et cetera. What do you think from a movement longevity standpoint would be a better movement to try to learn from a strength? Yeah. So it all comes down to just like we talked about with the squat. The squat's the fundamental movement before it then becomes an exercise. And then the loaded tool at which we squat can change.

So the deadlift is mostly considered a hinge. That's a fundamental movement to be able to move about your hips and pick something off the ground. Then the tool just becomes whatever that person needs specific to the individual based on their injury history, based on their morphology, as far as their anatomy goes. There's no golden rule that says you have to straight bar deadlift. That being said, I think everyone should have the capability

of taking something off a low, either that be the ground or maybe a box or having something just a little bit off the ground in building capacity in that specific movement. I think there was a little bit of fear created around straight bar deadlifts for a while. And I think the idea is just understanding it's just a tool when done correctly, there's nothing bad about it. You just have to understand technique first and then slowly build your capacity in that. If you don't want a straight bar deadlift, you only want a trap bar deadlift, nothing wrong with that. It's a different tool. Understand the technique's going to change slightly, but understanding that every tool is

just a tool in your toolbox. You got to pull the right one out for the right person to develop what they want. And when we're talking about capacity to pick something off the ground, which I don't care if you're 25 years old or 88 years old, you're going to have to pick something off the ground, be it a child, because it's your grandkid, a box in your garage to put it up on your shelf, you need to be able to have some capacity to pick something off a low area. Depending on how heavy it is, we're probably not wrapping it around. We're not doing an Atlas stone lift most of the time, unless you're just living in a strongman garage most of the time. You're going to probably want to learn how to lock your back into place and move about your hips.

In that instance, again, it's all about choosing the right tool and what you enjoy doing. If you don't like straight bar deadlift, you don't straight bar deadlift. But I think it's still the straight bar deadlift is still an excellent tool for developing that hinge in the capacity to just pick something off the ground. Because a lot of the lifts that we do for some of us, we're still competing for a long time. That's awesome. But eventually, it's going to be a tool to help you build capacity for the rest of your life. The stuff we do in the gym, yes, it bleeds over into competition, obviously.

But the tools that you use in the gym are there to also help you build functional capacity for the rest of your life. I shared a video just a couple months ago before Christmas time of this commercial that was made of this older gentleman. And he wanted to wake up early every single day. And he goes into his garage and he pulls out this kettlebell, this old kettlebell. And he's like barely even moving it. And his neighbors are looking at him like, what's this old man doing? He's going to hurt himself. He's trying to lift the kettlebell up and he's having a tough time. But over the time, consistency, he's lifting the bell, he's lifting the bell. And eventually he can lift this big kettlebell up and put it up pretty high above his head. Everyone's like that. Old man, you're going to hurt yourself.

And then it comes down to Christmas time and his family comes over and his young granddaughter comes up to him. He goes, grandpa, can you help me? He picks her up, puts her up to the tree, and she puts the star on the tree, right? He was training not because he wanted a big deadlifting competition. He was training the functional capacity to be able to hinge over, pick something up so that he could live the life that he wanted,

which was picking up his granddaughter to put the star on the tree. And it just shows that what we do in the gym has so much more to do with just lifting for those three white lights, but also living the life that you want to live for the rest of the days that you're on this earth. Who has like some of the best technique that you've seen, maybe out of some of the recent lifters and maybe out of some of the old lifters in terms of something like a squat? Like who's the dean at squat university? maybe out of some of the recent lifters and maybe out of some of the old lifters in terms of something like a squat, like who's the Dean at squat university.

You know, I, I love sharing Ed Cohen stuff. And I know obviously Ed had a very particular way of, of squatting, or particularly with his deadlift that looks a little bit different than some of the wider sumo deadlifters today. But the reason I love watching Ed lift is because he took his time and he had patience every single time you watch his, his deadlifts, right? There's a video that I'll share sometime. It's like a eight 75 deadlift or something like that. And I mean, the man, by the time he approaches the bar, it's another 20 seconds before he pulls the bar. He's taking his time. He's wiggling into place. He's stiffening

his core. He's setting his body. He's taking his breath and then he's going. Same thing with the squat. And he would always tell me, you know, I would place my hands on the bar, the exact same, no matter if it's the barbell or 900 pounds, walk it out, take the exact same steps, breath, brace, exact same movement. So that when I had it in competition, it's not going to be any different. I'm going to practice it the exact same way I want to perform in a competition. So even though there's not a lot of videos of Ed lifting in competition, obviously, because his career was much more before the boom of social media, I love watching him lift. As far as other lifters nowadays, gosh, there's so many power lifters that I just enjoy watching.

I mean, Shane Hunt's one of them, the type of stuff that he's doing. I love watching Ray Williams with his squat. When he gets out there and he takes his breath and he's just standing there, you're like, this guy's going to just crush some heavy weight. I love watching Ray lift. Yeah, there's so many Olympic weightlifters that are out there in the game that are doing really well, some young and up and coming guys. Hampton Morris is a really young weightlifter that I think has some excellent techniques, squats to full depth. I work with Mirabai Chinu of India often. She's actually

over here right now. Her and her coach come over from India every once in a while. Mirabai got the silver medal in the 49 kilo weight class just this past year in Tokyo. And it is a pleasure to be able to watch her lift every single day. You know, she's just someone that every single time that she approaches the bar again, no matter if it's the barbell or the heaviest working side of the day, pristine. And it's that attention to detail. I think when you watch an elite athlete, yes, we love to see the big lifts on social media. I like watching their warmups because I like watching how they're approaching the bar and the little things that they do that often don't get the big likes on social media, but will tell you exactly what that person has

on their mind as far as their approach to the training. Because it's the little things as far as how you're approaching your 50%, your 60% that bleed into that person's longevity long-term and their long-term potential as well because they're setting their body up to do the exact same thing every single time. On that note, actually, it's something I'm happy you mentioned there because, for example, right here, we're standing for the podcast and we've been doing this forever since its inception before I got here they were standing for the podcast too right and it's a habit that we've built we don't really sit that often um we walk often right it has me thinking when athletes if you're forced to go to a job where you're sitting at a nine to five and

then you have to go and you have to get yourself warmed up and ready to do a squat bench and deadlift you do this every single day what are some pillars some of the things that athletes should be doing or should try to think about doing with their parameters outside of the gym that can potentially be big things for the help to help them move better and develop more strength like we already talked about the feet and being barefoot. That's a huge deal. What else? Man, I'll tell you, the big thing is we always say movement's medicine.

Getting up and moving. Now, one thing that I think Kelly Stratton does really well is he's preaching about this ability of just moving in your workstation recently. You know, him and his wife have really put out a lot of really cool videos about this, you know, and whether or not you're standing at a desk or sitting, being able to move constantly throughout your day is key because it's not that standing is better than sitting, but standing gives you options. You can prop your foot up, you know, you can lean on one side, you can, you know, sort of shift your weight, you can have access to more motion. But when people are stuck in a chair for a long time, they're not moving well. access to more motion. But when people are stuck in a chair for a long time, they're not moving well. So I think the biggest thing is, you know, whether or not you can get a standing desk or just move as well as possible, you can't throughout your day. One thing for people that sit at a desk throughout their day, one cue that I really tell them that makes them laugh at first,

I tell them, go get a big jug of water, just drink water throughout your day. Why? You have to get up and go pee like every 30 minutes. What are you doing? You're after that's move, right? You're getting up and you're moving. So things like that literally can make a big difference in the longterm. Cause think about it. If you're up and moving, then every half hour through your full day, you're accumulating a lot more steps. You're accumulating a lot more movement. You can get up. Once you get out of the bathroom, come down, sit down in your squat for two seconds, you know, before move around before you then sit down again. So it's that movement is medicine mindset of not just being in those static postures throughout your day. That'll bleed over into so much more benefit long-term. Yes. I think, see if you can take your laptop

or your phone and just sit on the ground. Yeah. Don't have a desk at all. Like don't have any other support other than your own body. And then what you'll find is you're, you're like, you're going to be kind of uncomfortable and you'd be like, I got to move out of this position, but that's healthy because then you kind of keep getting on the move. When it comes to like, we were mentioning some of the other people that are out there. What do you think someone like Joel Seidman has maybe found that maybe is a positive take home for some people? Or maybe what is maybe something that you might feel is kind of missing from some of

the message that he may have? I don't know how much of stuff that you've seen from him. You know what? I haven't gone down the rabbit hole in a lot of his stuff. Again, because obviously people send me a lot of his stuff. Squat to 90 degrees is the most optimal. I'm not the person that is going to, A, be up for debating him. I'm going to tell people. I'm going to give you my information, my thoughts. I'm going to back it up with the science that I truly believe in,

standing on the pillars of the giants who have come before me and my experiences. I'm going to show you my day in and day out methods and how they work. And I'm going to let the chips fall where they may and let history be the ultimate judge long-term of whose methods are best. let the chips fall where they may and let history be the ultimate judge long-term of whose methods are best. I will say the one thing I remember when I think you had him on your podcast a couple months ago. And the one thing that stuck out to me, and this is again, this goes for any social media person out there, a content creator, is he said something like, if you realize that a lot of the stuff that he puts out there, he's like, he's doing it for social media. And that's one thing I caution everyone against.

Because when you start getting into a pattern of creating content for likes and comments, you start down this rabbit hole of not showing the true story and being your authentic shelf. And in turn, it ends up hurting people long-term who follow that methodology. If you're going to tell me that 80% of what you do is the nuts and bolts basics, and that's not sexy, there's a problem with that. And maybe the way you're delivering the message. And again, I'm not here to debate anyone or call anyone out. But let me tell you, a squat done with good technique is very sexy. And let me tell you about the techniques that do it well.

And again, it all comes down to storytelling and how I'm going to show you that fundamentals can be sexy if we talk about it the right way and the education the right way. We both probably use bamboo bars and they're excellent. I got some behind me, but it's not 100% of what I'm doing out there. I want people to see the full breadth of what I do from the mobility work to the loaded stability work, to the technique work, to the performance work. I want you to see it all. There's no secrets from where I'm trying to tell people about, to the performance work. I want you to see it all. There's no secrets from where I'm trying to tell people about my story on social media. And I'm also not

trying to create content that's going to just be made for the purpose of getting more likes and comments. Because I think long-term integrity speaks a lot more when it comes to stuff like that. And again, that's just my own personal point of view on something like that. So like the short of it from what I gather from Joel Seidman, which I think he has some decent points on, is he just feels like you're giving up some body positions. And so I think his message, and I could be messing this up, but I think some of his message is like when you squat with a load and you're doing a squat, a barbell squat, you know, you got the weight on your back and you're squatting down, you're going to give up positions at a certain point. And so he's just like, hey, why not just make this more of a partial range? What are your thoughts on something like that? Like, is that, do you feel like if we got weight on our back, even with good mobility?

Because I've been watching people squat for a long time. And it's very rare for me to see anybody do like, maybe my expectations of a squat are not correct, but it's rare for me to see somebody do like kind of what I would consider a flawless squat as they go lower and lower and lower. And as they get their butt closer to the ground, I see like the feet are twisting. They're getting on the inside of the ankle bone, like just a lot of weird stuff that's happening.

You said a squat is sexy, and I agree. A well-done squat is a beautiful thing. But it gets to be real ugly when people start to get below parallel. So do you think there's anything to justify like maybe these more partial range of motions just being safer or sports are kind of played up in those ranges too? So, you know, I don't know. What are your thoughts? Here's my take is I think if you are a power lifter and you have a very specific requirement for depth for competition, you should squat to that depth, right? Other than that, you should squat to the greatest depth possible while maintaining

appropriate technique capacity. And the problem is, like I mentioned, going all the way back to the why behind squat university, a lot of people have issues when they go deeper because fundamentally they have a performance pyramid that is lacking appropriate width. They have fundamentally flawed mobility and stability. So for those people, when you do go deep, yeah, there are going to be technique compensations because your body doesn't own the movement that you're trying to then build up and wait. When you do a good quality depth squat, you have to have adequate ankle mobility, tibial rotation, foot stability, knee stability, hip control, pelvic control,

good thoracic spine extension, good core control. You have to have all those things. And if you don't, things will break down. So yes, in that stance, a power lifter's depth going to parallel for some people would be less injury prone than someone squatting to full depth if it again compromises their technique. To say that an athlete should only squat to 90 degrees because they're never going to get pushed into it is ridiculous. You should squat to full depth. Squat deep to the point at which your body can tolerate maintaining good technique and then work on those weak links. But to squat to partial depths like that is not

ever something that should entitle the totality of someone's training. There are only very few studies, again, that will show that partial depth squats have any advantageous factors over a full depth squat. In fact, we find that squatting to full depth actually increases your resiliency because of the wrapping effect around the knee with all the different tendons and muscles and fascia. Full depth squatting has been shown to be extremely advantageous for knee stability as far as injury resiliency goes. Also, to say that squatting to a partial depth is the best for even focusing on muscle hypertrophy is completely flawed as well. And I know Dr. Mike Israeel touched on stuff like this as well. There's plenty of studies that have

shown that the deeper you squat, the more specific muscles are activated to a greater degree because they're placed on greater stretch. So not only are we seeing that there's not a one size fits all when it comes to squat depth. So to say that 90 degrees is optimal for everyone is ridiculous. Squatting to greater depths can elicit greater muscle contraction, muscle hypertrophy, greater strength gains. You're also seeing that sometimes squatting to a full depth is also going to be better for things like jump performance and things like that and sprinting. You know, there's only very few studies that will show that partial depth squats have a better advantageous factor in long-term outcome than a full depth squat. And even then, if you only squat

to that full depth, you are partial depth. You are only strengthening your body within that partial depth. When you do an Anderson squat, so your setting depends at a very specific place. Again, nicknamed after Paul Anderson, one of the greatest strength athletes of all time. You are creating a scenario where you are strengthening your body at that specific level. You're not going to strengthen your body at full depth. Same thing with like an isometric bench press or an isometric squat. You're going to just strengthen your body at that position, just maybe slightly above or below. You're not actually going to see carry over to that full depth. So the second as a football

player, let's say you get pushed into full depth, you don't have capacity to handle it because you've never gone there. You need to strengthen your body through the full ranges it has capable to it, given your anatomy and your mobility levels, because it gives you ownership of your body's full movement capabilities. That's my big takeaway, I would say. Yeah. What about expressing those movements unloaded, you know, with very, very light weights or just your own body weight? Do you think that that would, because what I'm noticing from like Ben Patrick with the knees over toes stuff, you got like loaded partial range of motion, backward sled, and then you have basically a lot of body weight exercises, you know, kind of thrown together. He does some strength training. And when he was here, he actually can demonstrate very, very good strength.

He deadlifted like 465 or something like that on a trap bar. The guy's a beast. He has built a very resilient body. But you don't really see even like a lot of weights being used. But the exercises that he's choosing are really challenging. He'll do like one legged, uh, uh, hyper, um, 45 degree back raises. He does, uh, those, uh, what are the leg curl things called? Uh, the Nordic hamstring, Nordic hamstring curls and things like that. So what about kind of blending those two things together? Yeah. I mean, I think that's sort of the idea behind sort of the physical therapy approach

that I have as well with some of the movements that I have people do. Like I'll have people do a touchdown single leg squat rather than a full pistol, right? I'll say a single leg squat is essential for anyone to be able to perform. That doesn't mean I need you to pistol squat because that requires a ton of ankle and hip mobility. as a ton of ankle and hip mobility, but a touchdown single leg squat technically is a partial range of motion exercise where maybe you're having a stack of plates that's eight, 10 inches high, and you're just hinging, performing a small squat, tap down, back up. A single leg RDL, right, is technically a lightweight partial range of motion movement compared to like a full deadlift or something like that. So I think having, and especially this goes for single arm and leg movements, having those different exercises that allow you to expose imbalances and then fix those small issues in mobility and stability, I think go hand in hand very well with your traditional lifts, your bigger exercises that you're trying to do.

Having a great single leg squat or a single arm dumbbell press is not going to give you a 500, 600 pound squat, but it can give you the ability to have better coordination, mobility, stability that can then enhance your longevity within your double leg squat, I think. Because the big thing that we see with a lot of athletes, particularly powerlifters, is a majority of their training is on two legs or with two arms. So they are often not exposed to the single arm, single leg movements and don't realize there's imbalances there until sometimes it's too late. So I think if we're talking about creating the most optimal training environment, having some of those partial movements, single arm, single leg, some of those movements that, yeah, they don't look that tough, but you do them correctly.

They're going to get you sweating. They're going to make you burn. Like those, I think do have a very helpful place within the totality of an athlete's training. Because again, I like to call them longevity exercises. Having a great single leg squat's not going to give you a 600 pound deadlift. Having a great single leg squat or single leg RDL is going to show you, hey, my right hip sucks control-wise compared to my left hip. I can't maintain a neutral pelvis and I twist to the side every time I do a single leg RDL, there's probably an issue. And in fixing that, that should be able to help support, build that base so that when you do build up your deadlift, it allows you to build it even higher. Again, build the base of your pyramid allows you

to have that greater potential to build a higher potential pyramid. Power Project Family, how's it going? Now on this podcast, Mark Andrew and I, we talk about fasting a lot. We talk about the ketogenic diet and a lot of different types of diets. But Bubz Naturals has a product. They have the collagen protein, which is amazing. They have these apple cider vinegar gummies, which are like crack. But they have these MCT oil powder packets that I've never used to do this. But in the morning, I'll wake up and I'll put it in coffee.

And the smoothness, number one, in terms of the mixing is amazing. But the consistency of my energy through the day because of the MCT oil powder is peak. Andrew, how's your experience? Yeah, no, that's exactly it. It's like the best way to start the day. You're satiated, you're energized, and you're just ready to crush the day. So if you guys want to get in on this MCT2 oil powder head over to bubsnaturals.com and at checkout enter promo code power project to save 20 off your entire order again bubs naturals promo code power project to save 20 off links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes you know i have a question

um since again you work with people all the time you've been doing this for years now um you know when ben came in he started – I think he, for most people, popularized training the tibialis. And something that I personally noticed is as I started focusing on training my tibs more, when I go and squat, I literally could feel myself pulling myself into the ground with the tibs, which is something that I've never really felt before when squatting. And I've squatted heavy weight in the past. with the tibs, which is something that I've never really felt before when squatting. And I've squatted a heavy weight in the past, but like now I feel my, like I feel myself pulling down with the tibs into depth, which was very odd. So it makes me wonder what are some other weak links that a lot of lifters may not be paying attention to? Like the feet is something that's another weak link that a lot of people don't pay attention to that is going to make a big difference. What do

you see that maybe lifters should like put their eye on that, start paying attention to this? What are some of those things? I would say the first one is a really small single leg squat. And I promise, I shared sometimes that touchdown squat where, again, you're up on a couple plates, you hinge, you get into the glute, and then you squat straight down. You tap the ground very lightly, like there's an eggshell down there. Don't break the eggshell and then come back up. And again, with that hinge, you should feel the glute kick on if you're doing it appropriately. Squat down and back up. You should be able to have great control of that. And again, I'm not telling people they need to pistol squat. I get this misconstrued a lot that I say you

should be able to single leg squat. I mean, just perform a basic squat on one leg, not a full pistol all the way down. That is one area where I find a lot of weak lengths with my strength athletes. And in improving that, man, you see some very big changes. As far as upper body goes, I think just like an upside down kettlebell press and stuff like that can be really helpful as well. What you got brewing over there, Andrew? You must have some questions. I got a fun one for Mr. Squat University. I haven't squatted with a barbell on my back probably in over, I mean, at this point, probably over a year now. Just trying to get a stronger back.

I've had some back issues in the past. So what I have done, which I'm curious to get your take on, is a lot of cable sissy squats. This is stuff that I learned from Doug Brignoli and he has many biomechanical reasons for why they are superior in regards to like, you know, the way our muscles pull and all that good stuff. But I'm curious for yourself, like what's your take on cable sissy squats? So a sissy squat in general is going to be very isolated to certain parts of the body. It is not a, what we would consider to be the fundamental version of the squat because

you need the setup to be able to perform the sissy squat. In my opinion, having that squat where you are spreading out the coordination, the balance, the control between the ankles, knees, and hips is something that long-term, again, it's not just for the gym. It's carrying over to the way in which you move throughout the day. So long-term, that would be a progression for me. I think there's plenty of reason for certain people to use the sissy squat within certain training regimens based on if they're trying to load certain muscles, certain tendons, based on if they're trying to load certain muscles, certain tendons, recover from certain injuries. The Sissy squat is very similar to the Spanish squat hold, which for someone dealing with quad or patellar tendinopathy, which most powerlifters are not, tendinopathy is actually going to be more so geared towards the young jumping athlete,

like a basketball player or a volleyball player. A Spanish squat hold of five sets of 45 seconds has been shown in research to instantly decrease pain dramatically and increase the body's ability to contract the quads a little bit better. Um, so in saying that a sissy squat is similar in regards to how that movement's being performed. But again, I think long-term we got to get back to the squat and understand, well, why can't we squat if it's due to something like pain? And understanding that the hips are a big factor in a lot of people's back issues. There's rarely someone that comes to me with a back issue that doesn't also have a hip issue that may or may not even be symptomatic. So checking out hip internal rotation side to side, checking out the favor test, which is looking at external rotation and rotation side to side checking out the favor test which is looking

at external rotation and extension side to side and understanding if there's a big imbalance side to side it can limit the way in which the hips are then supporting the low back and creating uneven stress distribution at the back and being a trigger for some people's pain when they go into a double leg squat variation. When it comes to the low back, how far into the customer service tree do you start looking at the feet? Because we've been talking about a lot of the feet stuff for athletes, but a lot of people that listen to the show are just like us. We'll learn something and then we'll utilize it. Oh shit, that worked for me. I got to tell everybody about it. But not everybody is looking at trying to get a new level of performance. Maybe we just know an older uncle or somebody that's trying to get out of back pain. So when it comes to back pain, how quickly do you start looking at the feet or do you even look at the feet? Well, I'll tell you this, no matter who you are, if you're coming to me for back pain,

I'm going to be watching you perform specific movements with your shoes off. And it doesn't matter if you're a 25 year old power lifter or a 68 year old grandma, that's dealing with some issues. I think you can still benefit from optimizing everything from the ground up. If you look at a number of different research articles that cover fall risk as we get older, it all stems back to our feet and our stability. And the better we can improve our foot stability, the better balance we can have and the decreased fall risk we can have as we get older. So not even talking athletics, not even talking performance, getting out of our Nikes, getting out of our Adidas and actually having a better foot function

in relationship to the ground enhances things, not only performance wise, but just our functionality and balance for the rest of our life. So obviously if I have someone that's coming to me, that's 65 years old and they've been wearing these specific shoes for a long time, they may be a little reluctant to make those big changes long-term, right? You got to change all your different shoes. You're not going to be able to wear those nice little dress shoes that you're so used to wearing. So it's a difficult conversation for a lot of people to have. In those instances, sometimes I'll just talk to them about, hey, when you're doing your different exercises at home, get out of your shoes. Like let's improve your foot stability because no matter the type of

exercise you're doing, whether that's a loaded squat of 700 pounds from my heavy, heavy hitter power lifters or grandma that's learning how to squat because she wants to be able to get up and out of her chair, off the toilet, pick up the grandkid, you need the functional movement of the squat in the hinge. And both of those start at the feet, grabbing the ground, enhancing foot stability, and then moving the rest of the way about the hips. So it all starts with the foundation. So my same conversation is going to start with a powerlifter and grandma the same way. I may split off in different ways based on that person's interest and what they need to really go down their specific rabbit hole, but it all comes back to the fundamentals. And there's very specific pillars that matter for us on a human

level before it becomes a sport specific level. What about getting the heavy squat stimulus? A lot of, well, not a lot, I'll say some people, you know, will kind of identify with their big heavy squat. And when it comes to recouping or repairing their back, they don't want to let go of that. And they'll just kind of keep running themselves into a brick wall. Um, but do you have any like advice for some, some, somebody that is trying to repair their back? Um, you know, like, Hey, like maybe pre fatigue or do something and then go hit a back squat or maybe get rid of the back squat and go straight to a belt squat. Do something. So that way they don't feel like they're, they're completely giving up and they still feel like they're making progress strength wise while still repairing their back. progress strength-wise while still repairing their back? So this is a big conversation I have to have with a lot of my bigger strength athletes when it comes down to injury, because as I've experienced myself in my own injuries in the past, even though I'm not on that elite level athleticism-wise,

my love for the gym is still there. And when you have that injury that keeps you from doing what you love to do on whatever athletic level you're at, you know, it's a big hit mentally to take a big step back. So I have had to sit down with a number of athletes and be like, look, here's the deal. If you continue to push into this trigger, it will not get better. You have to have that sit down, come to Jesus, talk with some athletes and be like, look, we need to take a step back. If you want to take three steps forward. Now I will get you there and I will lay out that plan and show you the route, but you got to take the first step and stop pushing yourself into that trigger. And for some athletes, it takes a long time to get this. And some athletes are not willing to take that back. And unfortunately they're the ones that

deal with these long-term injuries that just cycle, cycle. And we all know those athletes who have made a great spark in the game, whether that be weightlifting, strongman, powerlifting, but they're only in the game for a couple of years because injury takes them out. They weren't willing to take the step back. Now in saying that there has to be, what else do I do? I talked before about train what you can train while you fix what you can fix. Please go and find someone who can give you the best route to then get out of pain, to illuminate the road of what to do, because it can't just be take a step back. The doctor that says, hey, just stop lifting and take these pain meds isn't giving you the right route. They're not telling you what to do. That breeds more anxiety because you just see the weight sitting there waiting to be lifted, right? You need something

that's going to tell you, here's what you do next. So go and find a physical therapist, chiropractor, athletic trainer, someone who knows the route of where you're wanting to go and can give you not only the steps to take to get out of pain, but also what you need to do to continue training to maintain as much capacity as possible. For some people, that's going to look very different. For some people, it's, we got to take a complete step back. I know you guys are a big fan of the show with JP Price. JP and I worked together back in 2017 when he was first having his big injury at the start. Now we've been able to collaborate with other great minds, Dr. Andrew Locke. If anyone's listening to this and not following him on social media, go follow him, and Stuart

McGill. We've sort of three collaborated with JP in the past. JP had to take a complete step back. He had to basically stop lifting as a power lifter. He could not continue pushing big weight because he was very load related. Other people, it's let's just take a small step back in this particular lift. Go have fun with these other lifts and you will be able to therefore continue building up capacity in those ways. So it's different for everyone, but it's got to be that conversation on that level of

saying, hey man, I know you're frustrated. I know this injury sucks in that this is where your goals are. I want to do everything in my power to get you back to lifting heavy ass weight. Cause that's what you'd love to do. But here's what we got to do in the short term. You know, Andrew mentioned the belt squat, uh, and we had Brian Hennessy on the show, uh, who obviously invented the, the squat max. And I was curious cause like, you you know when you're going on the squat max because the way the load is distributed it feels amazing and for a lot of people that like let's say they they love squatting but squatting just isn't working well for them what i've heard your opinion on the squat max before but i was wondering if you could tell us more about why

it feels so good to squat on that thing and how uh right there you guys can see it yeah so yeah so the squat max why is it so great uh first off unlike any other belt squats the weight sort of dangles below you a little bit it's not pulling you forward on a specific track so uh it allows the most freedom of movement in your upper body with less sheer load on your spine so for certain people that have certain types of back injuries it allows you to assume the position that allows you to place the load on your lower body as well as possible without affecting your upper body. So it's as far as understanding the biomechanics of the squat, you can, if you're more inclined, like you're a low bar squatter, you can assume that same position. If you're more upright, you're front squatting, you can do it

with weightlifting shoes on. You can still have the weight travel in that very similar manner. Again, the load going through the middle of your foot, um, more so in the way in which it would be with a barbell on your back. You got a baby on the way, right? Man, I do. Word travels fast. Yeah. The, uh, first child is, uh, it's coming this July. Oh my God. Enjoy the time you have now because once that little monster comes out, it's all over with. Don't put that shit in his head. What's that?

I said, don't put that shit in his head. I'm excited for the new chapter in life for sure. Where can people find out more information about you? Where can they buy your book and that kind of stuff? Man, first off, thank you guys for having me on. I really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure to talk to you guys. I'm a big fan of the show.

I've listened to many, many of your episodes before. So it's been a big, awesome opportunity to be able to talk to you guys today. Great, thank you. Squat University, anywhere on social media, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, any single social media platform, I'm on it. As far as the book, Amazon, anywhere across Barnes and Noble, Walmart, but Rebuilding Milo

and my first book, The Squat Bible can be found on almost any different platform out there. But thank you guys also for talking about it today. I really appreciate that. I got one last question, which might take about four hours to answer. But when someone comes in and they, you know, they're, they had this injury, they had this mindset, you know, we've been working a lot on mindset, even for myself, like with certain things. I'm like, I got a good hip and a bad hip. I'm like, how do I reframe that so that, so I'm not so attached. How attached are people to their injuries and this kind of pain that they have?

Do you end up being like a psychiatrist a little bit in a way and have to use a lot of philosophy? Like this is more than just, hey, do this movement and you'll get better. This is like a whole big integrative thing, right? The big thing I try to tell people is that I want you to leave our first day knowing what triggers your pain and what specific route you need to take to feel better. And what I'll do often is I'll do this test, retest method that Kelly started always to talk about, right? We do some, maybe a deadlift, right? And they come in and, all right, let me see your deadlift.

Maybe not really heavyweight. Let me see it. How much did that hurt? Five out of ten pain. Okay. Let's go through our methods. Let's do our different tests. Let's find our specific triggers and then let's come right back to it. I want you to deadlift again. How's that feel at the end? Feels better? That's how we know that there's a path. Psychologically, that creates buy-in because they know that what I did that day can help change the pain that they're having

with what they love to do, which is lift weights. Not gonna fix it in one day. It's not magic, but it sets the path for them to follow. Psychologically, so many people come in and they've been told, you have a bulging disc. You're never gonna be able to lift again. You have a bad hip. You've got a bad knee.

No, you've been given bad advice. You should be able to lift the rest of your life. You just need to learn how you need to do that right now. And it's going to be a little bit different than the route you've been taken. So let me show you what we can do. Let me teach you about your body. I want to not do something to you. I want to teach you how you can do something for yourself.

That's the difference between the way I practice and the way other medical and rehab practitioners do things to you. You're not going to come to me and get a pop pop scrape or dry needle. You're going to come to me and you're going to squat. You're going to deadlift. You're going to do some things that are challenging, but don't look that tough. You're going to do a single leg squat or a single leg RDL or these small banded drills. But then my goal is to have you bench press, deadlift, squat clean. Before I'm done with you, I want you lifting heavy ass weight again, because that's my goal with getting people in and out of physical therapy the right way, especially for my power lifters out there a lot that are lifting here. I want you to be able to lift heavy weights for the rest of

your life. And in doing so, you need to be empowered to be able to take control of your body. That's not something I can do to you because then that creates dependence. You've got to come back to me all the time. I want you to understand your body and that you have full control out of making your body worse or making your body better.

But here's the path. And it's just about education and talking to someone on their level. Not trying to get that ivory tower speak and speak down to you with all this educational hoopla. I want to use words that Kelly startup would talk about, right? Oh, this gristly elbow. They don't teach that in PT school. PT school teachers are waving their head at that, right? But let me talk to you in a way in which that gym speak can actually carry

you over and have some empowerment to illuminating that road, give you that peace of mind. Leave that first visit going, hey, I know what I need to do to get back to deadlifting heavy. I got to take a small step back, but I got this plan and then I'm going to be able to do what I want to do for the rest of my life. And that's really what I want to try to do

with Squat University and give that empowerment to people through one minute social media videos, a $50 book, free YouTube videos. It's about trying to create that change so that people can also pay it on. So they go, hey, I saw this on SquatU's channel. You got to do this test first because there's no one size fits all for creating deep pain. Try this test. Okay, you got this issue. Here's something that may help you. And let's create a better world in the strength world because of of it thank you so much for your time have a great rest of your day appreciate it

thank you so much thank you guys for having me on thank you damn that was some good stuff yeah yeah i want like a squat university varsity leather jacket actually that that'd be pretty sick it would be right yeah yeah squat you dogat you. I love the rabbit hole that we went down on feet. That Ray McClanahan and his correct toes. I want to check that out. It's great to see how the understanding of feet, it's going through the industry right now. You see a lot of people starting to pay attention to it um because it makes a lot of fucking sense you know like when i first learned about the idea of creating torsion from supple leopard back in like 2012 2013 it literally

transformed the way that i squat and to transform the way that i deadlift too when i was deadlifting because i still kept that concept of rooting the foot into the ground. And you feel everything activate throughout your quads, your hamstrings, your glutes. It makes a big difference having activation of your feet. I'll never forget the first day going to Kelly Strett's gym, which wasn't a gym. It was the parking lot of dreams that he had next to the Golden Gate Bridge out there in San Francisco where people were outside freezing their asses off. But it was the first time I had a conversation with him in person. And we were talking about the squat

and we were talking about screwing our feet into the ground. And it just, going through some of this with Aaron today and hearing some of the language that he's using, I'm like, this is so incredible. I was there on the ground level, seeing Kelly like, this is, this is like, this is so incredible. Like I was there, uh, on the ground level, like seeing Kelly Sturette, like talk about this stuff, uh, very early on. And I think that, um, Jesse Burdick was there as well. We were just all like sharing ideas and Sturette was smart enough to recognize, Hey, these big Ophie power lifters, I think they have

something to say. And I was talking to him about screwing the feet into the ground. Like, I think that I kind of created that. And then Sturette was talking about, oh, what that does is it creates torsion. And me and Burdick were like, huh? Like, we don't know what you're talking about. But he's like, that's how you get rooted into the ground. You create torsion. And it was just really neat. And then to kind of see all this stuff just keep coming back around and back around.

And I'm trying to get into, like like being able to move my body around more but at the same time i'm also conscious of like hey don't forget about that shit that you used to do because that still has a ton of value there's a lot of people that actually lack that and that's why they're in pain because they're not just simply not strong enough and so like kind of marrying all this stuff together is is getting to be really interesting yeah absolutely i'm checking out the uh the correct toes website what do they look like i'll pull it up right now but it's funny they have a wall of shame and i'm like what is this i thought a product i thought it was going to be wrecked feet or something but no it's um they have like i guess if your dog chews up your correct toes you can submit a

picture and then they'll put it on their wall of shame i thought that was hilarious my puppy's chewing up a fucking everything he's starting to piss me off i want to put his ass down this motherfucker's gonna die soon oh no my shit up i'm joking i want everyone to know that he is joking. 1000%. People legit don't understand. A kid or a puppy or something. Holy shit, man. They will get into everything. And their noises.

Their noises. They pierce your soul. You're like, I cannot. Oh, my son yells now. Yeah, you're like, I just cannot. As he gets older, that's a good thing to like really like just do your best to like figure out a way to not allow. Because like that's the worst. Yeah, I'm doing this thing where he'll scream.

He's too young to really do anything. Right, exactly. But he's like right here. He is like high-pitched screaming. And whatever I'm doing, I'm just completely ignoring him. Just a little wrist flick. Yeah, smack that ass a little bit. He's got a diaper on.

I won't bother too much. He's got a lot of junk in his trunk, too. Big old butt. But anyway, I used to react right away. Like, whoa, dude, stop freaking out. What's your problem? And then he's like, oh, that worked. So now I just completely ignore him. It sucks it like pierces my soul and i'm just like

oh please stop and one day hearing in the comments that's like you shouldn't you shouldn't do that they're gonna have that reaction they're gonna choke on their coffee i can't believe you would leave them alone like that but anyway then one day you throw a chair across the room and it totally explodes or you punch your steering wheel and the horn goes off forever and then they they bring it up every time yeah my son because it was when quinn was like a baby she was crying and like i don't know they were both like fucking around or whatever i was home by myself and i just i just like i don't know i i wanted to like hit something i'm obviously not going to hit them and I just like kind of hit this chair out of frustration but I like

scooped it and it slammed against the wall and turned into a pile of just like of wood and Jake's always like remember that I'm like don't don't bring that shit up testing it's durability it's not my fault

anyway here's the correct toes. Can you show the picture of the white people's feet? White lady's feet? I mean, they're just feet, but. No, no. These are really cool because I have some toe spacers from this company, the Toe Spacer. But this one's very interesting. I'm very interested to trying this one out because it's different from that one.

It looks. A little extra space on that toe. Let's see what Graham has to say about it. Yeah, Graham and I were just – we were just working on a bunch of stuff. Well, the interesting thing about what he said about this guy is this guy wants you to walk around like this for a while. He wants you to like experience this. Some people are like, oh, yeah, put it on and you just fall asleep. But I agree that it's good to get it kind of under load.

put it on and you just fall asleep. But I agree that it's good to get it kind of under load. You know, aside from these, like all these different tools, yes, follow Graham, follow Barefoot Sprinter. Graham and I were working on something this morning where you just simply, if you have a bear, you know, you just take your shoes and socks off, push your toes down into the ground and you're staying off your heel. And then just turn your foot like you're kind of putting out like a cigarette and you'll notice your toes will splay no matter how

whacked out your toes are. They'll all splay, they'll spread. And then what you could do from there is you can start to kind of think about just more like the big toe and get that big toe because you do want that big toe to have a little bit of a range of motion. I know some of this is, I know you guys are listening and you're like, what the fuck?

Dude, I used to love this show. What the fuck happened? These guys are talking about feet. They used to talk about benching. Now they're talking about big toes. Yeah, but this is really important. I mean, I don't want to see people out there with hurt knees and hurt backs.

And I also want to see people to be able to just be able to produce a ton of fucking force and do whatever they want like you're one of the best athletes I know I want to see you be able to exhibit that in every possible way I don't want you to have any limitations in in uh your matches and stuff that you have coming up you know dude I'm feeling like during this whole podcast with Aaron I was just like I know some people are probably going to see the video and see me like doing some weird shit behind the desk but I'm I was just like – I know some people are probably going to see the video and see me like doing some weird shit behind the desk. But I was just legit just standing on one foot.

Just feel like the amount of proprioception I have with my feet now, it's wild how big of a difference has been made. And I can feel that athletically when I lift. I was at jiu-jitsu yesterday night. I was like, god damn, like this shit is wild. lift i was at jujitsu yesterday night i was like god damn like this shit is wild when you actually tune in to like the deficiencies that you have in terms of your feet and then everything starts to click it makes you wonder what other it just makes me wonder what i could have done athletically when i was in college and when i was in high school well so for you you have the soccer background which is a big part of it but now with jujitsu, you're going against some

dudes that know how to use their legs probably better than their arms even. And like, it's going to be so helpful to you to be able to flex your adductor or to flex your hip flexor in a certain way, even though you're not necessarily thinking about that. But what if you increase the way that you're able to do that and where you're able to express that through some of the stuff you do in the gym via the way you, uh, are messing around with some stuff with your feet via some of the hip movements that we're starting to play around with and mess around with. Now you can kind of wrap yourself around someone even harder or you can get out of, get, get out of holds even easier. It's just, I think that we don't recognize how,

like stuff isn't even necessarily weak. It's like you don't know how to activate it. Most people's feet, like they can't. Your toe is a great example. Like just right now, people right now listening, try just to move your pinky toe. You know, see if you can move it. And you'll feel like Uma thurman like in kill bill

move big toe and she's like can't move it because she's like just got fucked up or whatever and now i can move my pinky toes just like i can yeah it's hard i can i can spread my pinky toe here and there but it kind of happens like when i'm not paying attention almost yeah the more you think about it i feel like i'm gonna just cramp up it's like like it's really uncomfortable for me yeah yeah but you'll be able to do it if. Yeah. But you'll be able to do it if you work on it, you'll be able to do it pretty quickly. Yeah. And, and it's, it's, it's crazy. So like, you know, there's more stuff I want to mention before the episode ends, but the, when you guys get yourself a pair of Vivos, right. Understand that the way you walk is going to

change. Like as, as Dr. Horshinger, Aaron mentioned, like most people are wearing these shoes that number one bind their feet in, but you know, they don't have that level of support. So you might start to feel like your knees like start to hurt a little bit more. You got to give yourself time with this because it is crazy. Your body is adjusting to moving the right way to moving the way it should and shoes although it's been something that we've been overlooking for hundreds of years now right we're starting to understand that this stuff is actually fucking most people up and once they what you'll unlock when you start to fix that it's it's exciting for i want us i can't wait to see more people see what they do athletically and just in life.

I mean, it's interesting when you talk about a moccasin or something like that. You're like, if you saw someone wearing that, you'd be like, what the hell? That looks so lame. That looks so weird. That's not trendy. But it's like, hey, I just needed something to wrap around my foot so that my foot doesn't get completely smashed by the elements outside. But the other thing too,

what I like for people to think about, especially for anyone that's like starting to get over the age of maybe 50, think about your mind. Like your mind has to be sharp because you have to track everything that you're about to step on. When you're in like minimalist shoes and stuff,

so your eyesight has to, I mean, I think your eyesight, your mind, I think this is all really good stuff. I think you go on a hike and you're on a hiking trail and you're wearing like Vivos and stuff, you got to pay attention. You know, it does take a while to get used to them and stuff like that. Your feet are going to be totally fine, but you do have to pay attention to what you're about to step on. And I think that's a big factor in staying youthful. Yeah. Yeah.

I forced myself to exclusively wear Vivos. And dude, that first two weeks, I was like, man, I don't know, maybe this isn't for me. Because I remember after the first day, my feet were sore the next day. Yep. Like they were legit sore, but that's where I was just like, wow.

Like if we were in the gym and we did whatever lat raises, anything, any movement, and you're just like, holy shit, I am so sore off of just doing that one movement with basically no weight. That would be such a huge eye-opener to be like oh wait i have such a big deficiency yes so when i recognized that i was like oh i can't take these off like i mean you know i mean i can't wear my other shoes anymore and now it's it's awesome it's funny i was just thinking about this during the podcast my feet used to be so ticklish because i was hecka sensitive down there you know any tiny little thing i would feel it and i'm not saying like i'm desensitized now i actually have better control over it but like yeah like i don't know my feet are not as ticklish like because my daughter

did try to go after him and i was like oh nice that used to be my weakness she'd go after him like leave me alone yeah not so bad i put on some other shoes the other day like so i i wear a specific pair of shoes to skateboard with my dog or longboard with my dog and it's like now my feet hurt in those shoes because my like my feet are wide already but like they have become girthier you know what i mean so it's just like using other shoes is now more uncomfortable i'm just like if i wear these i only can wear them for a little bit. And then I got to take them off and go barefoot, you know? So, you know, that's, that's crazy. People that are listening that might have feet that are like bothering them and messed up. I mean, with the, the only exception I can think of is somebody that's very, very heavy. Like if

you're very overweight and your feet hurt, I would just use Aaron's phrase there. You know, what'd he say? Kind of work on what you can work on and fix what you can fix. Still work and do a lot of the things that you normally do with the type of shoes that you have, but also fix what you can fix. Get out of your shoes a little bit more. But for most people, aside from somebody that's very heavy that like uh other medical conditions around just their feet hurting um i would just say look i think that a big answer for you is to get out of your shoes is to look into getting a pair of vivo barefoot shoes look into getting some toe socks you know just investigate some of this stuff like we're you know we're we're super excited about this and

it's i know it's I know how it can sound. But I know what it's like to have my feet hurt. Like when I first started walking and stuff like that, like my feet would hurt so bad that it almost brought me to my knees many times. Andrew and I have talked about, I've had like calluses and different things on my feet where it's like, it's almost embarrassing to talk about

because it was like this tiniest,, it's almost embarrassing to talk about. Cause it was like this tiniest, tiniest pain or not tiny pain, but it was like this tiny area that hurt really bad. But it's cause my, a lot of my shoes don't fit correctly. And I was able to work around that. I don't have that problem anymore. Um, I used to have to get that area. Uh, I used to have to go to a foot doctor and they used to have to take this like. I used to have to go to a foot doctor, and they used to have to take this callus thing off every six months. It was a pain in the ass. And like I said, it was severely painful.

I would be walking, and I would be fine. The next thing you know, that would flare up, and I would feel like it was going to bring me right to my knees. So anyone dealing with pain in their feet, the answer isn't to put a lot more cushion around your feet. The answer is to get rid of all that shit. I had something similar on my right foot and it just feels like it was connected to something.

What was on your right foot? I don't know. It felt like an extra toe was growing. Yeah, it's weird. I just thought it was just like a callus and then I would start to shave it off and then I'd get toe was growing yeah it's weird because i know i just thought it was just like oh it's just like a callus and then i would like start like to shave it off and then like i'd get like shocked almost like oh shit there's like something connected like i better not do that again because i always

just thought like oh like shoes kind of suck like they hurt you know like all shoes hurt oh wait they don't uh the this last trip to ohio was the first time that i didn't have to take my shoes off during a flight normally they would just swell up and i'd be in so much discomfort i was gonna say pain it's not really the pain but like you know when you're i don't know when you're all knotted up and then you kind of let go it's like oh shit i didn't realize how bad that hurt. I used to have to take my shoes off every single flight. And I wore just my Primus 3. I think that's what they're called. Primus Lite 3s? Yeah.

I just wore those the whole time and I didn't have to take them off. That's these babies. Yeah, those bad boys. I like these ones. These are the Finisterres. They look really dope. But just so you guys know, we'll talk about this in some shorter videos at some point. But the Primus Lite 3rees are great in gym shoes i personally wouldn't run in these ones but they

have some trail running shoes that are primus light three all weather trail or whatever they have a grippier bottom and i'll jog in those are black yeah have you tried i'm not running them yet you have not running them and and just like a said, it's going to take a while for people to get used to running in those. But I've been jogging in them. And it's like those – you can get used to that over time. And I also use those in the gym too. But these ones, I wouldn't run in these ones because they're – I'm still getting used to like walking in those.

And it's feeling good. But like it's hard to describe it, but it feels amazing when your feet are stronger yes absolutely like you just feel stronger like your whole body feels stronger yeah there's a really cool video that we did it's at vivo barefoot.com slash power project you guys get some more information all that good stuff there and see how we've been utilizing vivo barefoot shoes and of course if you guys want to shop and look around, find something you like, enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 20% off of that entire order. I cannot recommend them enough.

My whole family is wrapped around in Vivo Barefoot Shoes now. Peeps, let us know in the comments if you want us to talk more about this and go down this rabbit hole more. And a lot of the people that listen to this show are very astute. So if you have a recommendation of somebody that you want on the show, let us know who that would be. Come on that Discord,

because on the Discord, we have almost 600 people in Discord right now. That was quick. People have been chatting in there as well. I go in there, I'm like, God damn, y'all are talking so much. Can't keep up. Good shit.

But people have been recommending stuff in there. Defend me, okay? Defend you? You go in there and defend me. defend me i try man but they're talking shit on you they are especially this guy matthew balcom we'll turn maddie on all he's talking emotion he's calling you fat he's saying well he can say whatever he wants because he paid for a lot of the stuff that i have he's uh he's our most amazing customer ever seriously yeah but now the discord is popping so there's a link down below for you guys to check it out make sure to check it out um i gotta try that single leg squat that aaron was talking about i'm so curious about it i gotta go to his ig and check

it out do you know if we can pull it out i mean i can't seems like we're getting out of here oh oh you got a kitchen thing coming up i do but i want to see oh let me see let's single leg help me if you see call it touchdown yeah if you see it let me know squats are sexy i like that i think i might do one of the good yeah doing a blue sweater squats are sexy uh touchdown squat yep he's saying stuff oh there he is he's barefoot he wasn't lying it's cool to see him come out with those olympic lifting barefoot shoes though that's gonna be dope that's gonna be allegedly that's gonna be sick yeah why i mean the fucking olympic lifting shoes are they're terrible oh yeah they're fucking they're horrible i don't think anybody like i mean they i they like them for squats but they fucking hurt but when you're used to putting your foot in a cast for years like

your your foot like your foot is desensitized now with this movement is so that's literally all it is just hip hinge back one leg and then touchdown or something that's all maybe we'll find a better one because that athlete's knee hurt i wonder if he has another athlete we'll throw it up in a we'll find it yeah in the future oh right there single leg squat right all the way to the right blue shirt blue shirt bam aha okay oh this is uh uh ian what the fuck was that guy's name? Ian Danny? No, Ian... Fuck. Anyway. Ian, that one guy.

This is a very popular squat that had a guy's name on it years ago. Very cool. Very cool. Just any form of a one-legged squat, it looks like. Cool. But yeah, what's interesting is when you go to do a movement like that, yeah, how much wobbling, how much you'll have. And you also lose confidence too. Like when you try some of these things, if you try like a single leg, like RDL, where

you just like touch the ground and come back up, if you're not athletic or if you view yourself as not being athletic, you're going to go like all over the place when you first do it. But if you just walk into it a little bit more confident saying, that actually looks fairly easy. Oh, I'm just on one leg. I'm just going to bend down and reach the ground. You'll actually probably find that you can do it quite easy.

Take us on out of here, Andrew. All righty. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. Please hit that like button and subscribe if you guys are not subscribed already and follow the podcast at mb MB Power Project all over the place. That's Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, all that good stuff.

My Instagram, TikTok, Twitter is at IamAndrewZ and Simo, where you at? Once again, I do suggest get yourself Rebuilding Milo. Get yourself Kelly Stretz,

Supple Leopard. Get yourself Steve McGill's Back Mechanic. We'll link everything in the description there. That's a good fucking book. This guy is a genius because if you look

on the back here, he's got a hip circle on while doing his squats. I think that's a hip circle. It's a hip circle. It's a good fucking book, bro. This guy is a genius because if you look on the back here, he's got a hip circle on while doing his squats. I think that's a hip circle. It's a hip circle. It's a hip circle. I think the logo's inside out. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never a weakness.

Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later.