Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 494: How to Squat Like a Pro with Dr. Justin Brink

Episode Date: April 20, 2017

In this episode, Dr. Justin Brink chats with Sal, Adam & Justin on what it takes to squat like a pro, increase performance and get the most out of exercise and your body for the long haul. This episode corresponds with our free "Squat Like a Pro" series on Mind Pump TV, our YouTube Channel. Get our newest program, Kettlebells 4 Aesthetics (KB4A), which provides full expert workout programming to sculpt and shape your body using kettlebells. Only $7 at www.mindpumpmedia.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get your Kimera Koffee at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Got a beard? Condition your beard with Big Top Beard Company’s natural oils and organic essential oil blends to make it not only feel great but smell amazing! Get Big Top Beard Company products at www.bigtopbeardcompany.com, code "mindpump" for 33% off. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts! Biggest issues with people and their squat (1:10) o   Mobility issues o   Feet o   Short foot How do you incorporate working on imbalances during the day? Working on your foot mobility? (5:51) o   Teach the person how to stand.... Tripod (heel, big toe, small toe)   o   Then how to walk o   Barefoot – Taking your shoes off! How does he feel about insoles / Feet being too sensitive (16:00) How can someone start to build connectivity, if they have none? (18:55) o   Quad set (tension) o   Stem machine o   Taping Discussion about massage and feeling your body (26:26) o   You are what you eat o   Movement How fundamental is a squat? (28:40) o   Everyone should be able to squat (barring any injuries) o   People don’t want to think o   Butt wink discussion  o Control of lumbar spine o  Owning the movement o   Feel your body o  Slow down and control your movement o  Work within the range of motion that you have o  Slowly use crutches to work in new range of motion and remove when comfortable(connected) o  Tissue change (PRIME your body) – sitting in car (driving) Move more! / Final take aways (51:16) o   Know your limits before you begin anything o   Mind to body connection o   Go to Mind Pump TV – “Squat like a Pro” series

We talked about MAPS Prime quite a bit in this upcoming episode. We actually had one of our favorite guests, Dr. Justin Brink, on talking about mobility and control. We talked a lot about the squat, one of the most fundamental movements. But MAPS Prime is our program that includes a compass test, which is a self-assessment tool, allows you to identify certain issues with how your body moves and it helps direct you to exercise sequences that you can use for your particular body. It's individualized.

For your particular body to prime your workouts better and priming your workouts better makes them much, much more effective. It's a fact. If you prime your squat better when you get in your first set, you're going to. You're gonna be more connected to it muscles are gonna fire better and in the long term Of course build more muscle burn more body fat. Get all those great results that you're looking for you can find Maps prime at mine pump media calm if you want to pump your body and expand your mind There's only one place to go Might up might up with your hosts.

Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. When you sit next to Sal, you have to rub his leg a little bit. No, it's not. I'm not. Play of your, what state of my thinking of the game? I mean, he had to cross his leg. I get a little uncomfortable. You do, you get a little uncomfortable at that stuff.

You don't like that. It'll sketchy. Yeah, he does. I bought a new one. I thought you were open-minded. I get very uncomfortable. You're open-minded. I am.

I'm told. I'm told. I'm told that you don't do it. I'll still rub your leg. It's okay. Whenever I rub his ears or come up and I rub his shoulders, he gets a little... I don't care about the shoulders. The ears is weird. It freaks out. It's just weird. his shoulders, he gets a little, you know. No, I don't care about the shoulders. The ears is weird.

Freaks out. It's just weird. It's just, I mean, yeah it is. It's endearing. I've never had anybody come up and rub my ears. Hey man, first for everything. He's like, I know you exist. Little rubby rub.

I agree. The ears are a little bit different. It is a little bit different. It's interesting to know. It would be like, well I'm a little bit different, so that's how that works. Yeah, if you're a little different, you do a little different thing. I still think the weirdest thing would be to like interlace toes

He'd be all over that Justin Katrina he's worst hey, so I'll fuck with her. I her lane in bed and I'll like spread my toes around hers And she gets all grossed out. That's like it just weird to her so I'd love to mess with her with that No, you can't do that. She'd me great with your toes You can't do that with Justin because he'd fucking just claw you. You'd hammer you with my hammer to it. Like, fuck you. Ah!

Cut you. We got a lot of laughter. We got a blaster in the house today. We came to, we brought it. Dr. Brink. We came down to Dr. Business and she said that we just put him right to work. Hey, Brinkie in the brain.

Brinkie in the brain. Get on the mic. Let's talk to people. Let's help some other fuckers out there, that's what we decided to do. So, you know, we're gonna talk about the squat. It's crazy. Let's go into depth.

That's the thing, it's crazy how many people I did there. Still do this incredibly amazing exercise wrong, but it's not, there's two things, there's a technique. Or they avoid it. Or they avoid it. There's a technique part that people get wrong, but it's not, there's two things, there's a technique, or they avoid it. Or they avoid it. There's a technique part that people get wrong, but then they learn the technique part, but then they don't have the recruitment patterns

and the mobility and the control to really do it right. So they understand the technique, but they just can't do it. I would venture to say, Dr. Brink, you're on the forum. You must get a lot of, I see them, people tag you all the time on their squat. Like watch my squat, I don't know. Oh my god.

It's far more complex than we think. We just did a huge video series on YouTube. How many videos do we end up doing? What was it? 10 part series. As a 10 part series. 10 part series had a squat like a pro. Like a pro and a pro. And what

we tried to do in the series is go through more in more detail, more specific. So not your typical, you know, sit back with your hips and, you know, here's your foot stance type of deal. But like here's how you want to grab the bar. Exactly. Less about the mechanics of the squat and more about addressing mobility issues that most people have. So for example, you know, there's many areas that could be limiting your squat, but the most common areas that are limiting people's squat, I would have to say, and bring, you can correct me if I'm wrong, is ankle mobility, hip mobility, and thoracic mobility. Oh yeah, of course, right? Yeah, would you say those are the most? I think biggest one is definitely the feet the the ankles

Yeah, you know, and that is I think that's one of the probably the most overlooked You know, when it does come to the squat because I mean people squat and what do they do? They lower their head Yeah, and then you know how many trainers out there tell them okay, butt back But they really don't understand what butt back means or what it's supposed to mean I've noticed that you you tend to like that you zone in right away on people's feet and their ankles first. Has that always been your go-to to look at somebody's squats like you really peer into what's going on in their feet and their ankles?

At first, no, it wasn't at first. It was, you know, looking at the hips. And then I think once I started realizing that man, this pattern keeps coming up that they keep doing the same exact stuff over and over and over again. And it's not the hips, you know, because again, I lay them on their back and pull their knees to their chest and they have complete no pain and 100% range of motion of their hips, you know, for the most part. You know, it's like, all right, there's got to be something else going on. So I'm always asking myself, okay, why is this motion the way that it is? You know, and now looking down the chain, well, what's the first point of contact to the ground? Well, that's the feet.

And once those feet are dysfunctional, which no one ever addresses, it's always ankles up, or calves up. They think, I'm doing calf raises, I'm doing what I should be doing. Yeah, but we need to go the other way. So starting from bottom to top, which makes perfect sense. Like you said, that's the part that's in contact with the ground, that's what you're driving off. One thing that was pretty mind blowing for me when we started working with you was really understanding

how when you identify an imbalance or a recruitment pattern issue, when you finally identify it, it never occurs in a vacuum by itself. Never. It's always, of course, everything moves together. If I change the way I grip a barbell with my hand, it's going to change recruitment patterns all the way up the shoulder and it depends on what's moving, but pretty much up and down the kinetic chain is going to be affected. So I mean some of the videos we did some mind pump TV on YouTube. We looked at the ankle. We did show some stuff with the ankle. We did like the wall ankle and combat position and stuff like

that. Data toe squats. We address some you know ankle mobility and foot strength because I think that's the next piece right right? So first, like the ankle mobility, but then even like just the strength in your feet, right? And I think what was huge, I remember when you assessed me and that was, we kind of talked about my feet, and then I when I started addressing them, I realized, well, how weak my feet were

and how disconnected I was, like, you know, when we were trying to do like short foot, and if I was just trying to pick something up, like, can you do short foot now? I can, not as, I have one side that it's better than the other, you know, when we were trying to do like short foot and if I was just trying to pick something up, can you do short foot now? I can. Not as, I have one side that it's better than the other, but I was. Were you able to do it right off the bat or was it? No, no.

How weird was that? Yeah, it's very weird. It sucks. Well, it's frustrating. It's, I use the analogy like, you know, imagine like you're looking at, you know, and you're trying, you know, close your palm on one hand. And you just can't do it on the other. It's literally, it's, it literally felt like to me like, you know, when you fall asleep on your arm and you just can't do it. And then you can't do it on the other. It's literally felt like to me,

like you know when you fall asleep on your arm and it's like totally dead and you cannot summon it. I was trying to do foot and this is no joke. Staring back at you. This is no joke. Brink was telling me to do short foot. Good job, Ra.

And he was explaining it to me. I'm like, what are you talking about? That's not even a movement. That was in my mind like you can't do that. And so he takes a shoe off and he shows me. And I'm like, what? So I tried doing it, it just didn't work. Nothing fired.

The hard part. How weird is that? I think the hard part is learning how to, and I feel like this is something that I'm continuing to go through myself and challenge myself and clients and people that I help out with, is incorporating it into your already normal routine because I find that the foot is kind of boring. You know, it's not very boring.

It is, right? It's just not. You don't have foot days. Yeah, one day's foot days. Yeah, sorry. It's just, everything's foot days. It's just not a sexy, sexy area to have to develop or work on. Like nobody ever tells you like, man, you got great looking feet, bro.

What do you do? What do you do? Do you even hit them feet? Yeah. There's a whole, I don't know, I'm mad at them. There's a whole market online. You were in that, bro. You would know, for sure.

No, like so. Step on my feet. You know, how do you, how do you do this, this, you know, you know, you got an area of disconnect or your week here. Now how do I incorporate that with everything else in my lifestyle? And so, I found that doing it sporadically through the day or like while I'm here on the podcast or taking my shoes off and going barefoot at home, I found that I had, and I'm curious to hear all you guys, and especially Brink talk about this.

When he first told me, it was like, okay, great, this is a problem I have, I need your address. And just like anything else, the first week or two, you're like, oh, I learned something new, I wanna apply it. So I was all about it. I was like, working on it, working on it, working on it. Then over time, it gets boring, and it gets tedious, and then you start to kind of lay off a little bit of it and then you realize, oh shit, like if

I lay off, now I said, and it starts to come back again. I ain't gonna start to pronating again. I start seeing these, my feet start externally rotating. I'm like, motherfucker, I can't just do it for a week and fix it. It's not like that, you know, it's something that you need to continually incorporate into your lifestyle. So I had to regress all the way back. I came out the gates, Gungho, like I think probably a lot of people do when they first learn this. And then I thought, okay, well,

that didn't work very well for me. So now what, what, what are some simple things I can do? And then how do I progress that within my routine? And for me, what worked really well was, I just, I said, okay, what I don't do enough of is just fucking walking around barefoot. I just don't. I don't walk around barefoot enough. Like, you, I have a question about that because we've been talking about that for a while, but I've been me and ask you, Dr. Brink,

is it enough to walk barefoot or should you walk barefoot with intention at first? Because, and the reason why I'm asking this is, because I know when I tell people to do movements, like, okay, just squat more, just, they'll just strengthen their imbalance, they end up moving in their default pattern. So, should you, when you walk, is it enough to just walk

barefoot or should you walk with intention or, you know, change your, I guess, the way your foot hits the ground or whatever? I think the first part is, is we had to stand before we had to walk. Yes. So teach them how to stand first. Go back to the complete basics. So just walk barefoot first.

Well, yeah, you're going to walk barefoot, but teach them how to stand barefoot. Get that connectivity when they're just standing first. And then once they know how to stand, then say, okay, this is how we want you to walk. Own the position of each of your foot and then progress from there. So would you say then just standing, if I'm standing at work or I'm saying, just focus throughout the day while I'm standing

to activate those patterns. Yeah, simple, I give the triangle, yeah, it's a triangle, the tripod. The fat pattern of your heel, big toe, small toe, there's a little triangle in that spot. Yeah, simple, you know, I give the triangle, the triangle, the tripod, you know, the fat pet of your heel, big toe, small toe, you know, there's a little triangle in that spot. Oh, well. You want to have equal amounts of weight. Well, let's talk about that for a second.

Hold on. So you want to do what with the heel? So as you're standing on the ground, again, you are trying to create this little tripod on the bottom of your foot. Okay. So on the bottom of your foot, you've got your heel, you've got the fat pet of your big toe,

fat pet of your small toe. So if you draw a line between those three, it creates a triangle. If you can center your weight over all three points, then you know that your body is probably going to be pretty much centered. And if your body is centered over your feet, there's where your mass is going to be able to accept to weight better. You're more centred, if you will. And you can identify, too, like where, let's say they've added more calluses or like more bunions and, you know, yeah, so that's an obvious sign of where you need to focus a little bit more on, say, like, bringing your big toe into the grounding process, standing up.

Well, not even bringing the big toe into it, but, you know, because a lot of them are using the big toe. So using the big toe, and you see a lot of grippers, you know, and so that big toe into it, but, you know, because a lot of them are using the big toe, right? So using the big toe and you see a lot of grippers, you know, and so that big toe is really hooking into the ground, right? So if they're hooking into the ground, and then that's the last point of contact, and they have that callus on the inside of that big toe, right? You know that that's the point

that's leaving the ground last all the time, you know? So it's like calluses on your hand. Why do you have a callus on your hand? Because that's the point that you're using when you're gripping a bar, you know, well, your foot's doing the same exact thing. So just pay attention to that. Yeah, pay attention.

Again, you want to try and center them because if they're now pushing through the center of their foot versus off the big toe, there's no reason that big toe should be drifting off, you know, in that howlx rigidist or howlx valgus is what it's called. So now you make me feel a lot better about this whole idea that how I regress this and then I started to progress. That's why I said okay I started with

Barefoot just fucking get barefoot more because that in itself you be you be a surprise Some of the people just never take their shoes off to get ready to get in bed Sure, you know we walk around so I said okay I'm gonna start with just being barefoot more so take the cast off first You know take the cast off first get You know, take the cast off first, get reconnected with earth. And so that was the start. Then, then I progressed to kind of like where Sal was going, where it was like, okay, now let's be more aware of how I'm standing on that tripod and then how I'm walking in another little area, which I

for all my men that are listening, pay attention when you stand up and you pee at the urinal. So I actually will, when I'm standing at every time I piss, so I pee a lot throughout the day because I drink a lot of water. So I thought, okay, here's another easy way that I can be- No, I'm not. Getting reconnected here and paying attention to how I stand. Okay, I'm going to, every time I'm standing at this urinal, I'm going to pay attention to ride away my feet

and it's surprising, but right away when you go to do something else, right? So I'm being here, you'll see your feet will, you know, if you have a pronate or externally rotated with that, all sudden we'll get into that position because you're focused on your dip. You fall back into the comfort, yeah. You are, you're focused on your dip.

It takes priority. It does, the dip and where you're, and then where you're shooting, right? Cause for guys, you know, they have the little target on all the journals, you guys know that, right're, and then where you're shooting, right? Because for guys, you know, they have the little target on all the urinals, you guys know that, right? So they put that for a reason, right? We just naturally are like targeting.

So all of a sudden, you're worried about your p-target and you forget about your feet. So for me, I've just- Just don't be under feet, yeah, yeah. Keep the hose in line. So yeah. And even if you're not determined, I'm not saying to go to the,

so let me back up here because I know something, oh, wait, so are you saying that you go to the public restroom without your shoes? No, I'm not going to the public restroom without my shoes on you. But I'm thinking saying to go to the episode. Let me back up here because I know something oh wait So are you saying that you go to the public restroom without your shoes? No, I'm not going to the public restroom I have my shoes on you, but I'm thinking about it inside of my shoes I'm paying attention to that tripod that brink is talking about and I'm just trying to make sure that I'm aware that That actually took some practice because you'll be mindful of it the first few times and then there'll be a lot of times Where you walk over the urinal and you got other things on your mind and right away. And so just training myself to every time I pee, make sure I'm standing on that tripod

every single day, spending 20 to 30 minutes with my shoes off, being connected to the ground and then how my feature that right there, I'm telling you right now, I've seen a huge progression already from that and it's simple, it's easy. It's something that I can build upon too. So I think that's a mistake that I've made at first when I found this new knowledge that bring brought to us, which was, dude, look at your feet, address that, then work your way up. And so I was like, all excited with this new information that I'm like applying all these

exercises, and then what happens, they all start to fall off because everything else becomes a priority. A little bit of a shaper knowledge there. You wash your hands before you touch your dick. Yes, that's right, not after the run. Especially before you touch mine. Yeah, I think I'll say it once. Going back to what you had mentioned before

is you just taking your shoes off. For some people, that in itself is like mind blowing because they wear shoes all the time. Right, and they don't understand the connectivity to their feet to the ground, and what they don't understand is, like a feet have like something like 400,000 receptors on the bottom of them. How many are now shut down because all we've been doing is wearing shoes and socks their entire life? How much are you praying?

Shut down, because you're so... Yeah, how do you feel about insoles saying that? So, again, some people do need insoles. Yeah, you know, I'm not for them, you know, out the get-go. I want you to get your feet to work for you. You know, Dr. Emily Spikle, she's developing a insol that actually has little vibratory things in them. Or not, or I don't even know what they are,

like little nodules. And so it's to create stimulus on your feet, you know, and that in itself is pretty amazing. You know, if you can create that stimulus inside your shoe all day long, yeah, it's definitely going to help you out. Well, here's one thing I noticed for myself because I was, I used to wear socks to bed for God's sake. I used to wear shoes and socks all the time. And one thing I noticed about myself is I've always been extremely,

extremely ticklish on the bottom of my feet, like extremely ticklish. And I realized one day while Justin was playing with my toes, I'm just kidding. I realized that the reason why I may be super ticklish on the bottom of my feet is because the parts of my brain that process, that sensation from the bottom of my feet is then developed. So it's not desensitization.

So it's too much. It would be like always wearing really dark sunglasses all the time, always, always, always your whole life. And then taking them off in this all light is too bright. That's a great analogy, because it's not like you can't see anymore. It's not like you can't feel with your feet before, right? They're two sensitive.

I'm perceiving the bottom of my feet is being too sensitive. So'm perceiving the bottom of my feet is being too sensitive. So like when I walk on like gravel, it's like, oh, I can't walk. It hurts too much. Whereas, it's your little kids and, you know, do it all the time. And people are always barefoot just

running around all the time. I realize for myself, I can't, it's just too sensitive. And so that's one of the advantages of going barefoot is you develop your parts of your brain that work with that. That's got to contribute to other things. I'm sure there's some carryover, right? I mean, think about what would happen if you lost use of one of your arms or legs, right?

You start to lose those connections in the brain. So going back to the squat, with your feet, your feet, you know, is where now you can root your feet to the ground, right? And where people just don't want to be think that, right? That's not the first thing, you know, with you guys as being trainers, is you're not sitting and saying, root your feet to the ground first. It's like, no, butt back. Mm-hmm.

Right? Well, no, let's, how about we root your feet first so we get that connectivity, you know, it's that ground force reaction. I'm pushing on the ground, ground pushing back. What's that going to do? That's going to connect your hip. Your hip is now turned on. You have now your deep pelvic floor that is turned on.

You get your glutes that are now working, how they're supposed to. And now put your butt back. And now let's see what type of connectivity you have in that proper squat. So let's talk about step one. Step one when someone doesn't have, you can be anywhere, right? Feet, hips, knee, whatever. When they don't have connectivity, it's the point where you tell them to activate

a movement or a muscle and it just doesn't even happen. You know, not poor connection, like almost no connection. What's the first step that that person can take to get some connections that they can finally start doing exercises for that particular area? I see it a lot when I'm doing like some ACL reconstruction. You know, we're not reconstruction, but the rehab post, you know, surgery and like the VMO, you know, vastest me out, it's just doesn't fire. You know, so they look at it and they can contract

one side and the other side just does nothing. Wow. You know, so it's like, all right, stare at that thing and I want you to quad sets, you know, I really want you. So what's a quad set? Quad sets just contracting your quad. Just flexing it. Yeah, just flexing it. How long can you hold it for? One second, two seconds, ten seconds. You wait till you see some stimulus. And then over time, as you keep trying to rebuild that connectivity, right? They're going to start to fire a little bit more,

a little bit more, a little bit more. Pretty soon, now we can start to load them. Other than that, if there's no fire and there's no connectivity, there's no reason to do an exercise. You're just, you're an injury right into happening. Now, do you have, a couple of questions, do, do STEM machines help with that, at that point,

help them get connection or is that not help at all? So, STEM machines, there's a lot of STEM machines that are out there. There's, you know, you're interferential. There's your microcurrent. There's your Russian STEM. You know, there's, yeah, there's, there's so many that are out there,

that's the hard part. Russian STEM is the one that has been shown to actually create or prevent atrophy. Russian Stim came from, I think, the 60s when the Russians were in the Olympics. That's what they were using to try and help with their muscle-building techniques. With the tens unit, tens unit is just blocking a pain-gate theory. Micro-current is going after more inflammatory marker. Does it help?

Do they help get a connection, though? Like, let's say I have trouble retracting my shoulders because I got a poor connection to my rhomboid and metropesias. Would putting stem on those areas help me to feel and connect to those muscles so that I can do my own? I feel like you're bypassing the brain and you're creating an artificial brain,

so you're really not. Well, that's what my question is. It's a temporary connection that you're making through an outside, it's not an internal sex through. So, and you're really trying to work on the brain muscle pressure. Well, I'm, so here's what I'm thinking, right?

I'm thinking, that's why I'm asked that question, because I know that part, but I'm wondering if using the stem will help you feel what it feels like to flex it. You know how it's after that, you could kinda like reproduce it internally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost like you can't find,

you know, I'm using my stimulus to, oh, I can, I can tap it. I'm using myself as an example with short foot. I can't even find the muscles to do it. I couldn't even find them. Like I know that I can see them on my eyes, but I can't even find them. And it reminds me of like when I would train clients

and I would tell them to contract a particular area and it would always help if I just touched it with my finger. So they had the external stimulus and then they could be like, oh right there and then they could kind of identify where they need to squeeze. Does that make sense? So I think with you touching it, right,

then they can say, okay, this is where I need to go to because it's that stimulus where I think, and this is just all need to go to, because it's that stimulus, where I think, and this is just all anecdotal on my end, because I don't know, you know? So anecdotally, if we put stem on you, it's the machine doing your fingers job, right? So now, is the brain telling you, or is it that electrical impulse that is firing,

you know, at that spot? And then once you take it off, you still don't know what that is. You just know what those patterns are. Yeah, effective to just literally use your phone fingers. Yeah, just touch it. And you just try and get it to fire. You know, or brushing, you know, for that matter.

And that's where, again, we go back and like a taping. You know, or you can tap, you know, taping is gonna help out because it's a better communication to the brain. It's something that's on the skin itself, which is a huge, you know, sensory receptor just in itself. And if we're touching that area and now it's telling the skin itself, which is a huge sensory receptor just in itself. And if we're touching that area and now it's telling the brain, there's something there, let's get that spot to fire.

Where would you use, where would you find Eastim useful then? More recovery? After a fear, right? Well, again, I think it depends on where you're at. When I first started 10 years ago, we used to stem on every single person that walked through the door. Because it was like, oh, you have it on your neck, on your back, you was like, here, I'm

gonna put you down here, I'm gonna cook you for 10 minutes, put a hot pack on you, and then we're gonna do some rubby-dubby on you and adjust you. You know, I've been to somebody who still does that. Oh yeah. That's why I left. Rubby-dobby. I just didn't agree with that. You know, I saw everyone come through, and they got cooked for 10 or 15 minutes, and

we rubbed on them, and then we adjust them, and I don't see it. I'll see you in today's. Nailed it. They're stupid. Wow. Wow. Now, what was the theory behind that? What did they think they were really doing? What? I don't know what the theory is. I think it's more of a billing purpose on my end.

Oh wow. But you know, it is, they feel good because people manage here right now. Well, they get to come in and they get to lay down for 10 or 15 minutes and feel good. Yeah, they get to relax. So it's more like a massage like parlor than it is anything else. Yeah, I'm not really correcting much. You're just kind of so so there is there is benefits, you know, let's say acute issues. Let's say an ankle issue, you know, someone comes and they roll their ankle yet it's going

to help sort of pump some of the swelling out of there. That's good. You know, is it help decrease some of the pain? Sure it is, but I could kick you in your other shin and you're going to forget about the pain to have anyways. So I think it's just we're trying to bypass that pain point, so they feel better once they leave.

Here's what's the long-term studies. I really don't think there's really long-term stuff. Here's how I look at that kind of stuff. The way I look at it is, like massage, for example, if you look at a good massage therapist, without any other, you know, additions in terms of techniques or exercise or whatever, can massage alone help in the long term? Now I think it can, I think by itself, it's not super, it's not nearly as effective

as when you combine it with other things, But on its own, maybe it would help the person move differently now, which then will change the recruitment pattern. And I think that maybe what the chiropractor of all we're doing was, let's adjust you, let's massage you. Now you're moving differently. And some people that may help them long-term because now that they're moving differently, they create different recruitment patterns. But it was incomplete, right? Because you didn't have them showing them the right exercises, had to connect, had to correct those recruitment patterns.

Yeah, because when you combine all of that, man, now you got, yeah, there was no, there was no intent post treatment, right? It was, treatment was here, you got it, you feel better, you leave, we see you in two more days, right? So the intent for them to move better was never there, because they were never educated educated how to move better.

Their body dictated how they moved based on their muscles being either tight or relaxed. So if they're relaxed, they're moving a little bit different than they did before. So yes, they are going to move different, sometimes worse than what they did before. Well, this is where I see a big gap to physical therapy going into training in the gym, right?

Yeah, there's a whole process. I think there's a gap between all of healthcare. Yeah. And all of healthcare is missing the movement components to it. And they're missing the part of, here, let's teach you to do something better for yourself. You need to have the intent for yourself, not come in and get the drug for me,

the simple six step exercise to make your back feel better, the adjustment, or go in and get a massage there. That's a good topic. Because I feel like this is a big step that people just skip right over in general as far as trying to get muscles to fire first, right? Like learning that process of connectivity and learning how to feel your body

and feel the response you're supposed to get. That's the key, feel your body. No one understands their own body. I mean, you said it, you know, so, you know, about your foot, you sat there and stared at your foot and it did nothing. So, you're highly connected to your body.

You're just missing a large component to what's going on and that's the foot. You know, we talk about gut health. How many people actually large component to what's going on and that's the foot. We talk about gut health, how many people actually pay attention to what's going on in their gut or in their brain. Or, I mean, there's so many different avenues that we can take on that. We wanna go to someone and let them fix our problem. And that's one of the biggest things I tell people,

I'm not here to fix you. You will fix you. What's right, so fresh in when people come to see you, right? And if they don't like what I say, they never come back. You know, it's funny because you're right. I mean, Western medicine does that, right? You get very specialized in one area and then that becomes your scope. And you forget about all those other areas. I actually had a conversation the other day. I don't remember where I was on Instagram and I had commented someone had asked me something about, you know, how food can affect their skin, you know break out or whatever and so I was talking to them.

And then boom, a dermatologist gets on there. There's no evidence to show that avoiding certain foods will make acne get better and blah, blah, blah. Food really has no impact on your skin. And I mean, I know that they believe that, but how can they believe that? It's got to be one of the most bullshit things I've ever heard of my entire life. How can what you eat every single day, not impact everything?

Yeah, everything in your body. Your mood, your fucking eyesight, your brain, your brain, your skin, are you really gonna tell me what I eat doesn't affect my skin? Are you gonna say, it makes up your mass? It just, it's just insane.

And we actually had this conversation yesterday about movement and how people don't think that movement can affect how you feel emotionally or mentally. Of course it does. There's a whole feedback loop going on there. I think yoga is supposed to be doing, or Pilates, or any of that type of stuff that's out there. Why do kids feel amazing all the time for the most part these days? They don't, because they're out freaking playing all the time. They're out moving.

How many of us actually go move? If we went to go move and we just did something for an hour, besides get off, you know, sit on the couch, and be like, oh, I'm too tired again, do it. You'd feel freaking better. So on that particular topic, let's talk about the squats. So we're on that topic of the squat. How fundamental would you say is being able to squat

or sit in a squat for a human being? Well, it's a fundamental process. You should be able to squat. Every single kid does it. Every you look at populations, Asian population, African, Hispanic, you look at a lot of these populations, that's what they do. Right?

Whether they're sitting in the fields or sitting by a campfire, Western society, we don't squat anymore. We sit 90 degrees and we wonder why we can't go. And then I can't go over to that. Dude, this is a part that drives me fucking crazy. Like my best friends do that. We grew up since childhood together. And I see this happening where, and I know they're the majority where people just,

because they can't, and that kind of almost feels like it happens overnight, because you don't really pay attention, right? Like if you're young, you're playing sports, you're doing all that, then all of a sudden, like life hits, right? You're married, you have kids, you get a job, you're sitting at a dance all day long, then all of a sudden, you know, 30s roll around or whenever, doesn't matter, right? It rolls around that you decide, oh shit, I need to start exercising or doing something to fix this. Then all of a sudden they realize, make up a process. Well, then they go to do like a squad or do something

and it hurts. You know, I just got a post or an inbox from somebody saying that, you know, they're following maps at a ball like they're like 50 years old and their knees hurt. What are some, what are their movements can I do instead of the squats, and the dead lifts? Squat more. Yeah, right, and so this is hard for us virtually.

This has been one of, this is part of what motivated us to do the podcast to where we can explain ourselves more, because I know that if I gave that, like the old trainer to me, the 22 year old version of me, would give them some fucking easy exercise to do in replace of the squat so that could build their legs still or you know, work their hamstrings into the comfort versus, you know, what they need.

Exactly, but then the, you know, older me knows that, oh my God, I'm doing more of a disservice to them by just answering that question the way they want me to answer it. What I need to tell them is like, no, that's a big flag for you that this is an area we need to approve upon. The brakes on, let's address this and work on this specifically now.

But what I think though is people don't want to think, right? They don't want to think about what they should be doing. My knees hurt when I squat. Okay, if you want to go be a better cyclist, you're not going to go be a runner. Go cycle more. You know, I mean, it's not rocket science,

but they want to do that. Oh, my knees hurt. Well, why? Why do your knees hurt? What's going wrong? And this goes back to, you know, first also being aware with what is it you really want, and then actually trying to connect people to health

and wellness versus this always being aesthetically driven because most people who bought a program or decide they're going to start to exercise, it's driven because they feel fat or they're not happy with the way they look. And so then they hire a trainer or they buy a program and then the program has movements in there that they can't do and then they want a replacement for those movements instead of going like whoa this is a big deal like these are basic movements that everybody's body should be capable barring that you don't have some crazy fucking limitation like you're missing a part of your limb or you had a major something's torn or whatever

yeah yeah there's exceptions to rule but for the the majority, they go to do these movements, they can't, or it hurts, or it bothers them, and then they look for a replacement right away just so they can just keep trucking towards this goal. It's just, for me, it's insane because when you look at the squat, it is so fundamental to human movement. Look, the squatty potty, you guys know what that is, right? That's that little step stool that you put your feet up

when you sit in a toilet and poop. And it works. It actually works or studies the show that using a squatty potty, we should put that in the show notes at the end of this one. So now that I'm selling it. But you do a video. Yeah, it's using a squatty potty helps people have better bowel movements, but it's not the invention of the squatty

potty. It's because of me. It's sitting in a squat, puts you in the right pelvic tilt, relaxes the muscles that open the colon and allow you to use the bathroom. That's how we pooped for most of human civilization. You know, you just you just reminding me of something that I want to ask Frank while we have him here because that plays into the big debate over the butt wink too. So there's this there's this big argument in the fitness world right now with squatting that when you go below 90,

that the pelvic starts to tilt forward. And for some people, for most, if you at most people, if you sit all the way down. It depends on where, what angle you're at. Right? We'll have this kind of natural tuck when you get to the bottom, which is, that's what allows you to poop better, right?

That's what opens that up. As soon as that rotates and tilts it, that opens up that canal and that you can ship better, right? So, you say, you say that, it's funny, because I do have clients, I'm Indian clients, right? That I, and when we show them how to squat, like, oh, yeah, that's what we used to do. We used to go take a crap on the street or something.

No. All right, well there you go. You need to think about that. You do that because have me squat. Right. Now do you still let it out? Yeah. Also, there's a debate, right?

There's a debate. Some people say if you have a butt wink, you need to correct it so that you don't have a butt wink. And other people are saying no, a butt wink for some people structurally how their body moves when they get that low. It's a structural thing. It has nothing to do with, for some people, it has nothing to do with muscle type type. And I'm guessing, you're gonna say there's both sides.

I think there's both sides. You know, you can look at, do you have tension in that upper hamstring? That right, when you're getting to that lower point, is it tugging, sort of pulling, you know, you under at some angle, you know, that you're finding that, do you have a lumbar instability, you know, L5S1? You know, so if you're losing stability,

what's gonna happen is other muscle gonna recruit, you're gonna tighten up, you know, whether5S1. You know, so if you're losing stability, what's gonna happen is other muscle gonna recruit, you're gonna tighten up. You know, whether it's now you're so as, pulling into your fibers, is it, you know, again, hamstrings, is it your glutes working differently? Is it your quads? You know, yada yada yada. You know, do you have control over the movement?

So, what are some simple tests or things that you do when you see that? So let's say I drop down into a squat, I hit below 90, and I have what might look like a butt wink, but maybe it's right on that borderline where it doesn't look excessive, you're not too sure. What would be the first, like, go to test or way you would assess for it? Borderline butt wink. Take it.

To figure out. I'm going to go, I'm going to go make sure that you have control over your lumbar spine first. You know, do you, can we go into that cat, you know, cat camel and then create more of that like a segmental spine? You know, can you get the intrinsic muscle to work? If you own sort of that movement and you're still butt winking, in my opinion, you own your spine.

Everything else, whatever, you know, I'm okay. Ooh, that's a good one. So, you know, if you can get yourself still down there and you're still butt winking, but yet I know that your spine is safe, I'm okay with you getting down there. So that's a good one. So, you know, if you can get yourself still down there and you're still butt winking, but yet I know that your spine is safe, I'm okay with you getting down there. So that's a good point there. That's why I wanted to ask you. There's a good point there.

It's about owning the movement versus the movement owning you. Correct. It's like that, it's like when I'll present an exercise, especially when I do core exercises, people lose their fucking mind because I'm showing people how to go into posture, pelvic tilt and activate their core and everybody freaks out. And really it's about owning, owning that particular position.

I'm not falling in that position, you know what I mean? I'm not letting my ligament support me. It's my muscles that are supporting me. So it's basically what you're saying. What about like the upper thoracic area? Because I feel like you could have good control in the lumbar and the hips, good mobility. And maybe you don't have a butt wink, but because your thoracic curves, could that contribute to a butt wink as well? I wouldn't see why it could not.

But now you're working up the chain. Yeah. So maybe it can, you're probably gonna be, not even worried about the butt wink at that point because you're so far leading forward, it doesn't make a difference because you don't have the extension that's necessary to sit as upright as you need.

Yeah, because with a resistance training, barbell squat, we've now added another component, right? We're not just squatting body weight, we're actually supporting a barbell behind our back. And in that case, you want good scapular mobility and good thoracic mobility. And I see a lot of guys, especially on the Facebook and stuff where they're posting their squat and they're wanting me to look at their hips and I'm going to comment on their shoulder. Because I see one hand that the wrist is straight and the other one is cocked.

So again, it leads me to believe that, well, maybe their shoulder mobility on that left-hand side, right-hand side, you know, is just not what it should be. So can they squat with their wrists sort of in that parallel position all the way up all the way down? And they'll notice if they can't, you know, they go, I'll take them as low as they can go until they start losing their wrists and then just hold that spot, you know, and squeeze harder, pull harder, try and put themselves in that corrective position. You know, we recently were asked on the podcast, we just did a Q&A, and they, somebody asked like the things that we are focusing on, each of us individually.

And I was kind of vague about what I've been doing, but the more I think about it, this has really been like the major goal for me over the last year has been just like perfecting my squat. And why I did it that way, because this is just how my brain works, right? Like I tend to have to have like some sort of a goal. It's like when I competed, it's like that was easy, right? It's like I had to get in the best shape of my life

and be down a body fat. So, you know, I've just go, go, go, go, till I reach that point. Well, now for me, my workout and my programming is completely centered around getting better at my squat. And it's crazy how many little things that you, I mean, I think the average person might look at my squat and go, oh, it's a pretty good squat now,

but it's really, to me, now I see all these things that are going on, like I still don't have the shoulder mobility, my wrist are still breaking, sure I'm getting, I got away from my ankle pronating, I have good connection now with my feet, I have great hip mobility, so I are still breaking, you know, sure, I'm getting, I got away from my ankle pronating, I have good connection now with my feet, I have great hip mobility, so I'm getting good depth, the tracking of my knees lined over my, you know, so these things are starting to come together, but as one thing comes together really well for me, then I start to realize another area that has to be addressed. So I think instead of being frustrated, I think

the reason why I'm sharing this is to have people be okay with, hey, you can't squat very well right now, but instead of just chalking it up as you can't do it and avoiding it and going to something else, maybe treating that as a goal in itself and a way to program. And that's really like how we designed prime. Was prime was designed so people could see areas where there's dysfunction and say, okay, these are your fortification sessions. These are your mobility drills. These are these things that you need to integrate into your workout and potentially become mainly your workout. So, you know, sometimes the test of the exercise. Right. And that's kind of what that came from you. You know, that was something that you really tattooed.

You know, I remember when you were first showing me all the stuff that had going on, and right away my trainer brain goes, okay, a little show me all the movements that I need to do to get better so I can pass this test. That's the competitive side of me. And then you're like, well, sometimes you just need to just keep doing the test. Keep doing that, and that's part of it.

And I think about like, wow, that's so true. You don't have to over complicate it sometimes. Sometimes just putting a barbell and getting it in that position and then doing squats with no weight on there and then addressing each one of those areas we're talking about. So I'll squat down and go like, oh wow, my wrist are breaking. I'm slightly rounding forward. My left ankle is kind of pronating. Okay, so boom, barbell gets re-racked.

Now I go down. I start priming some movements, doing some of my drills, go back to it again. Oh, look, this is still happening. These movements, this, go back to it. You know what I'm saying? And just going through the checkpoints. And then as you go through the checkpoints,

you see what stands out the most. And then that's where you can kind of go spin off of that and work directly on, say it's a shoulder mobility issue. Let's really address that a bit deeper. And that's why it's sometimes it's hard for people to just slow down and to notice all those things. They just want to rip through the wraps and get through the workout. There's too much noise going on.

Yeah, right, again, they're not paying attention to them. Right, so they're not listening to what their body's actually telling them, they bypass that. I've been told I gotta do this. Right, and that's all I have to do. And I can't do this, so I'm going to do XYZ. Well, whoa, whoa, hold on here. You'll just back up a little bit. Yeah. You just try this and show me that you own that first. And let's go to B. And then let's go to C.

And then let's go to D. Right. But they get so frustrated because they can't pass A. They just give up. Right. Yeah. So. And I think that's a lot of what. So if you don't have prime, obviously prime was designed. The program was designed for this. But if you don't have prime, obviously prime was designed, the program was designed for this. But if you don't have prime, we did this YouTube series. And this was kind of the direction we were trying to go with it was, okay, which by the way, if you haven't subscribed to the YouTube channel, I mean, we do a new video every single day. So this was a whole series that we did on this particular topic. But we went into things and details that you don't see, almost anywhere else. I mean, these are videos that we saw,

nobody was making. So it's a lot of the stuff we've learned with Dr. Brink and things that are not like your typical, you know, sit back when you squat and, you know, do your box squats and that kind of stuff. It's not typical at all. No, and we wanted to give things, you know, practical things that you could take, you know,

so you do your squat and you realize that that here's an area that you don't have good mobility or you can't perform the squat without these things happening. So here are some simple movements that will address. And we just, we honed in on like three of the major areas like we've been talking about, the whole thoracic mobility, the ankle mobility, and the hip mobility.

That's not to say other issues could, and we have plenty more YouTube videos that we can do. But I thought, you know, we came together, said, hey, we talked about all the different clients that we trained over the years and the issues that they have. And like, we're the most common things that we have to fix and address.

Let's pick a handful of movements that we give to these people so they can start to help this or get reconnected to these areas or disconnected. And so that's what the YouTube series was all about. So, one thing you said, Dr. Brink, about five minutes ago was when someone is doing a squat and you were talking about when the wrist breaks

or whatever, to go down until that happens and then just become, you know, better connected to that. Yeah. What do you mean exactly by that? Like, what, let's say I'm getting into a position and I'm trying to become more connected within that position. What am I focusing on? What am I doing?

Like how do you explain that? Well, I know for that person, if it's a wrist issue, shoulder issue, elbow issue, they're not thinking about that anyways. They're just, they're thinking about how low can I get into my squat? For me, I'm like, no, no, I want every part of your squat to work for you at 100% through every range of motion that you're trying to achieve. So if I know you can get down, then hey,

let's get you down into that position, but let's make sure everything is correct in that entire position. You know, let's make sure your head is retracted, you're not turtling through the neck. You know, let's make sure your shoulders are retracted. Let's make sure you've got good movement through your elbows, through your wrists.

So you're not pinning your wrist underneath the bar, you know, or your left side, you're not pinning your wrist underneath the bar or your left side, you're rotating out a little bit differently. So the slower you go, the harder it is. We don't like to go slow. So are you doing like a checklist? Like if I'm sitting at the bottom of a squat, I'm doing the checklist.

This is what I do, at least I'm doing a checklist. I'm going like, okay, feet, boom, like ankles, knees, hips. You see that? You see at the bottom of the squat though, it's too late. Because if you already failed, and you've already boom, like ankles, knees, hips, back. You see it at the bottom of the squat though, it's too late. Because if you already failed and you've already failed at the bottom, I'm gonna work top down. So go down until you're okay. So feel your body.

You know, when you are squatting, where do you feel some asymmetry's at? Can you see yourself in a video? Do you have someone that's watching you? Watch you from the front, watch you from the side, watch you from, you know, from the back. Where do they see that, you know, an elbow is tucking, you know, on the left side, the right side, watch you from, you know, from the back. Where do they see that, you know, an elbow is tucking, you know, on the left side,

the right side, where do they see you rotating out? Where do you see your feet starting to rotate out a little bit more? Slow yourself down and start to work those movements and try and prevent that, that, you know, abnormal mechanic and try and work on correcting that mechanic. Now something that was cool for me to kind of learn from you was the difference between range of motion

and control. Would you mind explaining that a little bit? I mean, we all have range of motion. Do you have control over that range of motion though is what I asked, majority of all my clients. I use the example, my fighters have great strength, but they don't have a lot of range of motion because their muscles are so tight. Until they're warmed up and then they get into their certain positions, then they're good in a butterfly or whatever position they put themselves into. My dancers on the other end, highly flexible, no strength. My dancers now have a lot of flexibility, but they don't have

control over their end range of flexibility. I have a kid right now, high level dancer, stretching his right leg over his head, left knee just buckles. Tours Patel attendant, fracture, femur, and all he was doing was doing a natural little stretch. But it was like he was doing the splits with his right leg up above his head. You know, well, what happened? He lost control over that knee and the knee just buckled. Well, how many thousands of times had he had done that in the past, you know, and now this one time, just boom, see you later. So now we're teaching him control. As we're teaching him control, he's struggling

because he's still highly flexible, you know, as his dancer, but he doesn't have control of those end ranges that much. So he's strengthened it, right? So this reminds me of, I actually think we did a, we did do a YouTube video on this, the 90, 90, like, foot and heel lift. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that particular video,

I think it was like number six or whatever, seven. This was a trip, we had actually gone off to write some programming with Dr. Brink, and he put me in a 90, 90 position. Now, 90, 90 is when you're sitting on the floor, one leg is out in front of you, one leg is out behind you, and they're both bent at 90 degrees. So if you can kind of imagine that.

One's into external, one's into inter-roach. Yeah, so one foot's behind me, one foot's in front of me. And he told me to rotate my back leg so that my foot comes off the floor while keeping my knee in contact with the floor. And I was able to my foot comes off the floor while keeping my knee in contact with the floor. And I was able to lift my foot off the floor, maybe a half an inch or an inch, like barely hover it. And I'm like struggling, like I'm sitting there and I'm, I'm squeezing and lifting and he's telling me, okay, lift it higher, lift it higher, lift

it higher, drive your knee to the floor, lift it higher, and I just can't, like that's it. I'm getting, you're getting an inch and you're not getting any more, there's nothing else. And, you know, he's, and then he me, like, why can't you go up any higher? And I said, well, I don't have the range of motion. I said, I have that range of motion. And he goes, actually, you do have that range of motion. He says, go get back in 1990. So I get back in the 1990, he takes my foot,

and he rotates, internally rotates my hip. So like my foot, I mean, I could have fucking smelled my own foot. It was like, it wasn't way up here. And it my own foot. It was like, we're way up here. And it was fucking weird. It was weird to see my leg up there because it looked like it was almost scary. Like, uh, am I, am I hurt? There was no pain.

It was rip it off. Yeah, there was no, it was very eerie to see that. But what he had proved to me was that I have that rotate that, that range of motion. I just can't do it. I just don't have the control within it. So one of the things that Brink showed us was, try first work within the range of motion that you have. So I did, I would lift my foot up and inch off the floor

and I'd really just focus on trying to get it even higher and higher and I couldn't, but just to try, right? That's part of connection, just to try. Then the second thing I would do is I would use a pillow or something to lift my foot up just a little bit higher. So now I'm outside of the my control, right?

Like I have the range of motion, I can sit with my foot there, but I can't lift it there myself. Now I'm in that position, and then what I do is I try to hold my foot there while pulling the pillow out from underneath it. And the first few times I did it, like my foot would just drop every single time, but little

by little I was able to support my foot within that new range of motion. So is that then, I mean, that's a great technique. I guess you can apply it pretty much anything right now. It's to get in a new range of motion, supported by someone or something, like a wall or the floor or somebody holding your arm or leg out and then try to connect to it. So then when they let go, you can do it on your own. Sure, yeah, yeah.

So, okay, so I was just, yeah. I've gained quite a bit of range of motion there. I couldn't barely even get my, like Sal, I couldn't barely get my foot up there. I can actually get my foot a good solid, probably a foot and a half, two feet off the ground now. It's weird, it's such a weird feeling to feel your body become connected in a new way. Yeah.

You know, it's the same muscle, same muscle, same movement. Everything's the same. You have connection. And that's the thing about muscles. I think people need to realize that I didn't realize. I didn't realize it's such a revolutionary concept. I think it's, I mean, it's been around, it's just like, we're coming back to it because we're realizing we understand it better. Yeah, we understand it better in a better way to teach it. And also, if you think of sports injuries

and just different ranges of motion on that level, there's techniques like this that you can actually prevent a lot of these injuries or like build strength in positions where you're not just in a fixed kind of squat position. Like you're expressing your width of your feet a little bit further. Like there's just more you can do to kind of prevent and prep your body better to handle like different forces and different ways of adjusting and operating optimally. Well, I think like Sal was just saying is,

he had great range of motion through his hip. He just didn't have the connectivity to his hip to be able to allow his foot to go into that range of motion because he's never trained there. You do jiu-jitsu or you've done it in the past, right? It's all external. Your body was always into external rotation. So it never had to go into internal rotation.

So you look at kids, kids own for the most part, all their range of motion. They're out there playing the general kind of stuff. All they long. Free form. Yeah, so their hips are always moving into internal and external range of motion. So when they do sit in a squat position,

it doesn't hurt them. I just read an article. I actually just posted it on our forum this morning on at Google, Hunter Gatherer, did you see it? That's on the bone, yeah. So I, I, I, there's two, yeah, those two articles I posted. So I looked up Hunter Gatherer feet and then I hit images because I wanted some ugly as feet. Not that, well, you know, it's funny, dude. We have ugly feet.

We're just used to our ugly as deform feet. And so we think their feet are ugly. When in reality, when in reality, we, it's a trip, I don't even have to see, I didn't see it before they had their feet are all spread. Their toes are all spread apart. Their toes are spread, their feet are muscular looking. You can tell that their feet are functional.

Then when you look at a foot like ours, we have atrophied, weak, deformed feet, toes going off to the left and the right because of the shoes that we wear, like, all this crazy stuff. I'll smash together. So I looked it up and I'm looking at all these pictures so I was going to do a post. So I was going to take a, I was going to take a rip one of these off the internet and do a post about it. And I saw this article where, I guess there was a study with some anthropologists who went and studied some of these hunter-gatherer societies,

and they were looking at their abilities to move, how they moved, and how much, how different it was from the way that we could move as modern humans. And in this one particular tribe, the people were tree climbers, so they could climb trees and they would get honey and fruit.

And during the rainy season, this is kind of cool too, little side-fac. And the rainy season, this particular group of people got up to 80% of the calories from honey. So that's what they did during certain seasons, cause it was plentiful they go up there and there's a lot of beastings. But they were showing, they climbed these trees,

which are, I don't know, they're not like palm trees, but they're kind of not huge, huge, not a huge tree trunk, but where they can kind of reach around it. But they climb it like a chimp does where it's almost like they're walking up the tree with their feet, with what their hands are on the back of it, and they were demonstrating a dorsiflexion, that was that flexion or extension? Am I going to have that extension there? Sorry. Well, with the foot.

That's dorsif. There you go. So they were demonstrating a flexion at the ankle that was at a degree that would break most people's ankles. Well, think about that. Like if you're climbing up a tree and you need your foot here, my knees are going to be pretty close to the tree. That's what they were able to do.

They were able to get their knees really close to the tree and have it all nice and much of their, yeah, most of their foot was on the tree and they're just, they're just bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-clamming all the way. Yeah, because you'd think it's just like their toes and they're getting most of their foot on there. Well, that's what a chimp looks like when they climb in. And so what they did was they examined their gastrox and their solias and they found that their fibers within their calves were much longer than in the average person. And it wasn't because they had some genetic advantage.

It's because this is what they did. In fact, the young are just going to say, did you do you think they adapted that way? No. No, because that's with this question that they asked and they showed that because the younger generation within this tribe stopped climbing trees so much because I think they were starting to get some of these foods from other areas And so the best climbers in the tribe were the old men because they were the last generation to really climb that way So kind of trip off that. So tell me what happened then the what happened to their their their gas truck and Solius did it the fiber shorten fibers shorten or did they actually change?

No, the reason why they had longer fibers was because they had been climbing trees since they were children and their bodies had adapted to that. They had learned how to do it. That's what I'm saying. So the other generate more normal. Okay, more like the average person,

although they all had great, I'm sure they all had great feet. You're talking about the feet. I mean, think of a sports car, right? The faster the car is it the more narrow the tire, or the thicker the tire. Yeah. Right? Same thing.

If we want to run faster, we want more surface area. Let's take, if you were to do a handstand on the ground, do you put your fingers together? Do you open up your hands? Yeah. Right? But in society, we want these nice, narrow, slender feet, and we want a wire feet suck.

Well, also, so here's an interesting one for me even, is I did yoga for a very short period of time, but one of the things that happened to me when doing yoga is because there was all these downward positions, was that my wrists, my left one in particular, would hurt at the top of the wrist, where the back of my hand meets my arm. And it would hurt, and I couldn't figure it out,

so I started using my fist, and I grabbed something, and I couldn't figure it out. So I started using my fist and I grabbed something and I tried all these props. And then I noticed one day when I was in Downward Dog that if I pulled my fingers up, like I was trying to get my fingers off the floor. I'll actually put my wrist into extension even more, the pain would go away. Like I activated some of the muscles that were there

and then I started realizing like, oh shit, I just got to like don't relax in that position. Like I activated some of the muscles that were there. And then I started realizing, oh shit, I just got to like, don't relax in that position. Like learn how to be active. So like the trip with the combat position where you have those pull those toes up. I wish I would have known that. Like video nine. Well, yeah, like, I mean, as far as addressing things

like that constant pounding, you know, on the ground, like having like shin splints and having all these different things, I'm not connected to it, it becomes a, on the ground, like having like shin splints and having all these different things. I'm not connected to it becomes a inflammatory on those. So what is happening break on a like on a neurological level or like what okay, so like that you know what I put together same thing with my hips So I have got like brisidus in my hips and when I sit and drive in a car for like an hour or longer It's oh man, it feels like someone is taking a knife and just sticking it in the side of it. And I have to get out and go move.

But if I fucking do my due diligence and I actually do some of my movements before I sit in that car, you try it ahead of time. That's exactly. So I'll be doing all this internal external rotation in my hips and I'll take it to the bolt again, ends of extreme and just intensify as hard as I can

and then internally go to it and intensify as hard as I can and then internally and intensify as hard as I can. I do that four or five times in the car. Fucking fine. What is happening? Well, remember, you're changing tissue tension. You're changing the loads, right? You just sat for an hour.

Your hip didn't move. It sat on the gas pedal and the brake. Gas pedal brake, right? So as your body sat there, I mean, you've started to create some tissue change. And so now, whether it's in a good position or a bad position, your body's letting you know. Which is in a bag, because I'm sitting in a car. So that's not true.

Sure. I mean, that's everyone. I mean, my job is to tell all the desk jockeys move every 15, 20 minutes, get your butt up and go move. You know, just, I, whether it's for 10 seconds or 30 seconds, I don't care what it is, just shake your body out. So then what am I doing then when I, if I actually take the time to prime my body like I do, and then go on the car ride, and it doesn't bother me,

what am I doing by doing that? Just probably sending a better signal to your hip, saying hey, we're gonna turn on, we're gonna activate, we're working, you know, working how we're supposed to versus not doing anything, and just hanging out. Do you also add them when you're in the car, and you're sitting there, do you also try to activate them without moving your obviously your driving?

So you can't like swing your lay out and stuff. But do you ever sit there and just try to activate the internal external rotators just to fire them while you're trying? Yeah, that makes a big difference. Well, that's kind of what I'm doing before and after and during is like when I'm aware of it and I'm trying to stay on top of it, no problem. But if I just get in my car. Is it your right hip or left hip? It's my right. So think about that, right? We talk about the foot exercises, which you create a short foot, which creates connectivity to your hip, right?

When you're doing any other movement that you choose, now I said you're sitting in a car and what's the movement that you're doing? Gas pedal. Gas pedal, but you're now working your foot. So now you're creating a fascial line tension, right? On an anterior fascial line or a posterior fascial line that's now causing tension up into your hip, that's your causing pressure in because you're sitting, and if you have a gangster lean or whatever as well, right? Now you're putting a little more tension into that hip. So why? Because your left hip is doing the same thing as your right one,

it's just not doing gas. Yeah. So now something that right hip is taking the brunt. So it's the tension line that's happening. So you're probably creating a lot more facial tension right through there Which is sending all the signal to your hips. Which now that makes more sense why me doing the priming is really helping it Yeah, because I'm winding yeah Yeah, I'm waking it all up stretching it out and then I'm going in there and then I'm doing that so it's not it's not It's not causing that tension. Yeah, yeah, ah makes a lot of sense now Yeah, yeah, it's interesting right because I think we're coming together like butt cheeks. I know.

Sometimes they come apart. You've been healed. I think it's interesting because we're taking exercise and we're taking it back to what it really is, which is... Fundamental movement. It's movement and it's movement. Like all movement, you practice it.

And you get better at it. I think when we... and this is the core, we're gonna get a little isoteric here, but you know, part of the problem with fitness and exercises is that it's so aesthetically driven, that we forget that. All we think about is the what it makes me look like after. Muscles are there for a reason.

Yeah, yeah, you know, exactly. It's not just there for looks. Not just looks, in fact, it's not even there for looks. It's at all. It's there. It's all in our head. It's there to do something else. But I guarantee those guys climbing the tree, look, they weren't big muscle bound dudes either.

No, they were long lean, you know. Have you ever looked at pictures? I can Google it right now. You ever see, there's some old pictures of like hunter-gatherers or abridging or whatever. And these men are like under 50s and 60s. They look like me. Yeah.

And I lift weights all the time and I'm like trying to be lean or whatever and they fucking just sitting there. I know they've never even seen a weight in their entire life. Right. I mean, it's pretty amazing stuff. I told the buddy of mine, Ricky, you know,

the other day, because he was asking about, you know, same sort of stuff. And I said, I want you to go out and just play on a jungle gym for 55 minutes. And I'm like, I bet you're cooked in 10. He's like, but I can do a wad. I'm like, I know you can. I'm like, but you can't do anything that's truly functional. I was like, I think fitness has...

Oh, wow. What a smack in the face for the crossfit. It's been fucking picking ass at his wads, right? Oh, I mean, special eyes. What's awesome is he's taken that to the next level and he is now definitely working on all of his mobility, functionality stuff and he's now trying to work out and do that, which is amazing to see, you know, and just sort of watch that transformation.

But it's like you look at us as a fitness driven society like Sal was saying is we are so aesthetically driven. What does aesthetics give you if you still suck at movement? If you're still in pain, I don't care what you look like. You still have back pain, you still have a neck as you have a bad shoulder. You still don't do what you're supposed to do. Well, I'll be the first one to admit that.

I mean, I've been saying that on this show for fucking two years plus now is that when I was in the best aesthetic shape of my life, I was probably some of the furthest away from being in the best physical actual shape or functional shape of my life because I was so aesthetically driven that I neglected all this stuff.

It didn't matter to me. I didn't pay attention to anything. Yeah, I wasn't paying attention to it. I was too busy weighing and measuring and counting calories and making sure I'm burning an X amount and building an X amount that I wasn't paying attention to how well I was performing anything. And now you look at my physique now,

my physique now compared to what it looked in to the average eye who's looking at it with, oh my God, the other guy looks so much better, but I'm way better shaped as far as functional, no pain, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, training with just aesthetics in mind creates a disconnect between the mind and the body. And we forget that there is a very strong connection

between the mind and the body. In fact, it's all one and the same. And if you don't believe me, the number one place where you have serotonin receptors is in your brain, and the second place is in your gut. Your gut has a tremendous amount. This way, you feel shit in your gut. By the way, there's another place. You have lots of these other types of neuronal receptors.

Your heart. This is why you feel shit in your heart. It's crazy. You actually think in your body, not just, your heart. This is why you feel shit in your heart. It's crazy. You actually think in your body, not just in your brain. And we sever the two and we think that they're different. And when we just focus on aesthetics, where we just train the body to look a particular way, we're actually creating problems with everything else,

not just the way we move, but even the way we think. I talked about this with the guys yesterday off air, that I just way we move, but even the way we think. I talked about this with the guys yesterday off air, that I just learned to say that this is fucking fascinating. Did you know that when they give people Botox treatments on their frown lines, that their rates of depression go down because they can't frown as much? But there's also the side effect of,

they also lose their ability to empathize. So they smile either. This is actually a real thing. They're actually studying this. What people will get like, classic surgery and stuff like that. What's the effect on the psyche independent of the fact that you look different? And they're finding in fact that by making faces or not making faces or altering the way we look and the way we move, it affects the way we fucking think.

It's this whole feedback feedback. Everything's connected. It's all connected. And so when we view exercise just for aesthetics, what you're doing, and I know this because I was this way as well, you are training, you're actually strengthening a disconnect between the two because what you're doing with your body. I think about that, right? You're creating a very, very strong disconnect to the point where, and it might even rival the disconnect of the couch potato because the couch potato is disconnected

because they just don't do shit with the- They're completely unaware. The guy who lifts, the guy who junks, he's aware. Yeah, they're just working out to look a particular way and that may involve using, you know, anabolic hormones or supplements and may involve, you know, for the woman implants and other kind of things, you are creating this separate entity of this body that just looks a particular way.

And of that, that Netflix, the physique or something, or that show on that, which is that realm, you know, of things. And you're just connecting from it. This is what I got. So the other day I went on a rant because somebody asked a question about This is what I got. So the other day I went on a rant because somebody asked a question about competing. And, oh, what do you do during contest prep when you fall off the wagon and you binge? Or what do I thought?

And I was talking about that we have no business competing at an elite level or doing a sport if you haven't done the fundamentals first. Like otherwise, and I love, I think that's why I brought this up or doing a sport if you haven't done the fundamentals first. Like otherwise, and I love, I think that's why I brought this up because what Sal saying, this is where it's so true. You're actually creating more dysfunction, a bigger issue, more problems because you think you're aware,

you think you're doing the things are right, but you're really not, you're getting further away from the truth on how the body should move and what you should be doing. And it's like, you first should learn that. You need to understand and understand your body and what you're not doing, the functional things that you're not. Like if you can't sit down and squat, like that right there should be like, let's figure that out.

Let's. And I post that, you know, on the forum quite often, right? A lot of the same stuff. I have my movement prerequisites that I throw up there. Someone asked me something, it's something strong here. Check A, B, and C first. Does that make sense? You want to sit there and load your body with all this crazy weight, but yet you can't

even squat with no weight. Now the irony of all this is, I'm telling you this with all the experience I have as a personal trainer and I guarantee you these guys will back me up. For the vast majority of people listening right now, if you viewed movement and exercise in the ways that they should be viewed in which you're trying to get your body to move optimally in these fundamental ways and patterns and different planes of motion, the awesome side effect of that is you're going to look incredible. It's hard to find someone that can move in all these amazing ways with good

connectivity and all these different ranges of motion who doesn't look like they really work out. So that's one of the side effects of it. Now on the flip side, if I train just for aesthetics, I can get an aesthetic physique. But the side effect of that is disconnection to my body. It's severing the mind, the body, link. It's actually putting a wedge between the two and causing lots and lots of problems, not just physical problems, but like I said, they're now showing that there's mental issues

that can arise from not being able to move a particular way. I see these bodybuilders in the gym who move like they're fullest cement because they're so stiff and their shoulders are rounded forward. I'm I'm I can't wipe my ass movement. I'm telling you that will have an effect on their mood on the personality and the way they think and science is confirmed this power postures look up the science for power postures when they put people in particular positions they can measure in real time like certain hormones are going down, other ones are going up and we've got these feel good chemicals coming

out and to the point now where you got fortune 500 companies that are investing money in some of these positions so that they can get their employees to perform better. Well, so here's the deal. This is why we did this. So here's your takeaways. Here's what you do right now. Right now you go over to YouTube, you subscribe to the Mindpunk TV. If you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel yet, something's wrong

with you. Seriously, a new video every day, and they're awesome. But this is what we're trying to do. What the hell, man? Something we've always promised when we created this business, it'll always be evolving, always be changing, and we're always trying to get better. We're always trying to provide more for you guys. And so we started to put together a series that kind of coincide with some of the podcasts that we talk about. So, you know, we wanted to address the squat. We wanted also give people things

that they can actually take and go apply to help improve that. So if you are not able to sit down in a squat all the way down like a baby, go on there, follow this series, please comment, tell us things that helped out. What you like are, yeah, well what we can improve on for sure, like we'll respond to that. That's right.

So that's what we're trying to do with it. If it helped, if it's something that helped you, share it. Share it with somebody else, keep it going. This is something that we'll continue to evolve and we'll continue to be doing more podcast episodes where we can give and help you guys out. It's totally free.

Go to the Mind Pump TV YouTube and subscribe. That's it. Also, if you want to ask us questions that we can answer in our Quatt episodes, the place to do it is on our Instagram page. You can find us at Mind Pump Media. Now, we all also have personal pages where we provide information. And sometimes we offer some pretty cool coupon codes and stuff like that. My personal page is at Mind Pumped South, Adam is at Mind Pump Adam, and Justin is at Mind Pumped Justin.

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps on a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout nutrients in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having sal and an adjusting as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price.

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