Barbell Shrugged - Becoming a Supple Leopard with MobilityWOD Founder Kelly Starrett - The Barbell Life

Episode Date: July 28, 2019

Kelly Starrett is a coach, physical therapist, author, speaker, and creator of this blog, which has revolutionized how athletes think about human movement and athletic performance. He teaches the wildly popular Crossfit Movement & Mobility Trainer course and has been a guest lecturer at the American Physical Therapy Association annual convention, Google, the Perform Better Summit, the Special Operations Medical Association annual conference, police departments, and elite military groups nationwide. Coach Kelly Starrett received his Doctor of Physical Therapy in 2007 from Samuel Merritt College in Oakland, California.   Minute Breakdown:   0-10 – Travis story recovering from hip replacement  11-20 – Systems that help beginners and world champions 21-30 – You dont know what is happening in your athletes life when you see single movements 31-40 - Fixing knees in when squatting 41 -50 - Spinal flexion in training scenarios 51 -60 - Fixing elbow position in overhead position   Kelly Starrett on Instagram   Travis Mash on Instagram   Please Support Our Sponsors   Savage Barbell Apparel - Save 25% on your first order using the code “BARLIFE”   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   One Ton Challenge Weekend   August 1st - 4th   Find your 1rm in the snatch, clean, jerk, squat, dead, bench.    Add them up to find your One Ton Total.    The goal is 2,000 pounds for men and 1,200 for women.    4 days. 6 lifts. 1 goal. 1 Ton.    http://live.onetonchallenge.com   “What is the One Ton Challenge”   “How Strong is Strong Enough”   “How do I Start the One Ton Challenge”   --------------------------------------------------- Show notes: https://shruggedcollective.com/tbl-starrett ---------------------------------------------------   ► Travel thru Europe with us on the  Shrugged Voyage, more info here: https://www.theshruggedvoyage.com/ ► What is the Shrugged Collective?  Click below for more info: https://youtu.be/iUELlwmn57o ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

The Barbell Life, Travis Mash, he's got Dr. Kelly Starrett on today from Mobility WOD. Really good talk on mobility and how Travis recovered from his hip replacement. I want to thank our sponsors over at Organifi, the greens, the reds, the golds, make sure you're getting your juices. We never get enough of the micronutrients that our body needs. You got to have them. You got to have all the micros, the vitamins, the minerals that make you strong. So get over to Organifi.com forward slash shrug, use the coupon code shrug to save 20%. I'm on the road right now. I'm about to be heading to

the CrossFit Games. I can guarantee that I'm going to have little green packets, the travel go packs, so that when I am in a pinch, I'm in the middle of Madison, Wisconsin, and all the fitness kids are hanging out, I won't have the vegetables that I'm normally eating. Organifi, it's there. It's got all the things for me. So Organifi.com forward slash shrugged, save 20% on your order, and then our good friends over at Savage Barbell. I've been working with these guys for three weeks

now but looking forward to working them for the last seven months they are the one-ton challenge official apparel sponsor and there's one reason high quality we've got great shirts I did a workout the other day with the baby blue shirt on and it says Savage across the front. I got so many DMs. So here's the deal. Head over to SavageBarbell.com and use the coupon code BARLIFE. B-A-R-L-I-F-E, BARLIFE.

You're going to save 25% on your first order. That's SavageBarbell.com. Use the coupon code BARLIFE. Saves you 25% on your first order. That's savagebarbell.com. Use the coupon code BARLIFE. Saves you 25% on your first order. All of our friends that are going to be at the CrossFit Games, make sure you get over to the FitAid Lounge on Friday night from 5 to 8 p.m. The One Ton Challenge live is going down. Savage Barbell is going to be there. Whoop is going to be there. FitAid is throwing the party. It's going to be so much fun. The One Ton Challenge be there. FitAid is throwing the party. It's going to be so much fun. The One Ton Challenge, live

presented by FitAid. Wes Kitts is going to be in the house. He might deadlift like 700 pounds. Clean and jerk, 400. 1000. He's the strongest person in the world. Watching him move weights effortlessly is just ridiculous.

Katie Cork. We've got so many big names coming to hang out. Morgan King, she's an Olympian. It's going to be so rad. So get over to the FitAid Lounge One Ton Challenge 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday night at the CrossFit Games. For everyone that cannot make it to the CrossFit Games, get over to live.onetonchallenge.com We've got free e-books over there. The leaderboard

opens on Thursday. you've got four days to do the one-ton challenge so squat dead bench snatch clean jerk add all those up find your one-ton total and you enter them into the free leaderboard and see how strong you ranks everybody super fun so get over there one live.onetonchallenge.com. Tons of free resources, teach you how to get strong, eat well, be awesome. Let's get into the show. You're listening to The Barbell Life. On this episode, we talk to none other than Kelly Sturette of MobilityWOD. Now, Kelly is widely known as the go-to guy for mobility and movement and the CrossFit and the athletic world. So it was a great chance for us to sit down and pick his brain on everything from knee wobbles to squat stances to a ton of his other thoughts on training.

This one is an absolute must listen. Now here at MASH Elite, we've got our guide all about mobility and recovery. It's called No Weaknesses. And No Weaknesses also features our 30-point muscular imbalance test where you can diagnose and then learn how to address your own muscle imbalances. Now, a lot of people don't realize this, but muscle imbalances are a huge cause of injuries. So No Weaknesses will help you work harder, help you train longer, and prevent injury. And you can check it out at mashelite.com slash no weaknesses. That's mashelite.com slash no weaknesses.

And now I'm Loren Penalas joined by Crystal McCullough and Travis Mash as we talk with Kelly Sturette. Hey guys, if you guys follow me on Twitter, then by now you probably know I have a new BFF who is another big Cheerio in a big bowl of milk. But today we have my new buddy, which most of you have heard of him because if you know me, you for sure know him. But today we have on new buddy, which most of you have heard of him, because if you know me, you for sure know him. But today we have on the supple leopard himself, Kelly Starrett. What's up, man?

If you don't know who he is, you've been living under a rock for the past 10 years. Seriously. Well, it is so fun to be here. And let me just say that I am a fan. I'm a fan of what you guys do. I'm a fan of your athletes. I'm one of your internet stalkers. I just don't make crappy internet memes out of the work that we do,

but I'm a fan. I appreciate it, man. You know what earned my respect right away, and this is me being a meathead, what I'm about to say, but not only are you a PT and you're all into mobility, but you're jacked too because I have a really tough time when somebody is really super, super skinny and has no no muscle and then they want to brag about their mobility and i'm just like of course you are you're a noodle like i don't respect that but you're jacked and

mobile so earned respect right away well uh you know i wish i wish i you know i i think you're right i i i'll i will just throw all my, my skinny mobile friends, Yogi friends right under the bus here. And I, I agree. Yeah. Because yeah, if I have, you know, zero muscle mass, sure. I'm going to be like, like, like a noodle. So, but like, um, all right, so let's get right into, well, I guess because we were talking about it. Let's go ahead and talk about this. He sent me the Mart Pro.

And like, now look, what I'm about to tell you, I get zero money for what I'm about to say. This is total unbiased. I'm just giving you my report on it. But it allows me to rest. Well, let's back up a little. For those that haven't maybe listened to a podcast for a while. I had a new hip replacement. I guess that's important.

I have a brand new hip, a new right hip. Years of squatting, hundreds and hundreds of pounds. I was whining on Twitter, and Kelly reached out, which was amazing and really showed me how awesome this industry truly is. A lot of times we hear a lot of the negative stuff which you know a few bad apples can make it they can really ruffle some feathers but really what i've learned is how amazing it is because you know like the people who reached out to me and just let me know that you know my life is on the right track because uh when kelly started reaches out to you that's cool like i feel like i'm impacting lives but he

knowing it you know reached out and said you know like a lot of you did and i appreciate it you know like we hope you get better he gave me some ideas of what to do and then he's like hey do you have a mark pro and i'm no he's like let me send you one and now i'm addicted to it i take it to work with me it's like my man purse it comes with my favorite part it comes with a little purse. All right. It does kind of look like a man purse. Yeah, I like it. It's my man purse. So I wear it all the time. Jacked man purse.

Yeah. Get a tan with that thing and you are winning. Yeah. So let's talk about like here's we were having a conversation and got so deep that we had to stop it because I wanted the people to hear. But it's tell us the difference in that and just a regular regular TENS unit you might get at a chiropractor's office. Well, I'll tell you. Let's step up a second and look at this unit you have, this thing you have is different.

It's not a digital unit. It's old school analog. And that's one of the reasons it works so well. So basically, through electricity, it creates this really great waveform that gets this non-fatiguing muscle contraction. And you cannot look, I have had every complex, every power dot, every other thing, those things, if you're interested in using like Russian tens, like, Hey, we're going to put this on your hamstrings. We're delifting today. Those things work great. They're the best, right? They're

really good, but that's not the intention of this thing at all. And the intention of this thing, in fact, the parent company is actually all about chronic pain and is deep, deep, deep into the chronic pain community with this idea. And what's interesting about this device is I came to it through a guy named Gary Reinhold. And, you know, because we were still saying, hey, look, how are we addressing congestion and swelling, you know, and the old models will shut the swelling down by icing it. Right. And that was, I mean, since swelling is a problem, it's causing pain. Let me stop the swelling, right? The house is on fire. Let's put out the fire. Instead of

asking like, well, what is that swelling doing? Is that a mistake? Should I be limiting the healing of my body through ice or ibuprofen or some other mechanism? Or should I be dressing the swelling? And that's really the magic here is that by getting this non-fatiguing muscle contraction, look, all these other units, again, fantastic for what they do. But you can only wear them for about 30 or 40 minutes and they start to become irritating. And one of the things that's amazing about this technology and this company that I love because it's really changed my life, it's changed my athletes lives is that you can rock that thing 24 hours a day. And from a performance standpoint, and literally, I mean, the people who wear these things and what's going on. I mean, let me tell you, we've had a, we have a story of a friend who was in the Navy. He fell out of a helicopter, dislocated his knee towards ACL, MCL, PCL, meniscus was. Dislocated knee, flew him back. And

they're like, we can't do surgery until your knee's not swollen. And he was like, what do we just do? So we sent him a unit and then he literally was ahead of his swelling 24 hours, just pumping, just getting the muscles to dump the lymphatics, which is how the body works. This is why we say motion is lotion, why you got to be in constant motion and why we got to do things like walking and, you know, non-exercise activity and dumb aerobic work. And, you know, it's just for the health of the tissue. Right. And he goes back in and they're like, how come you have no swelling? And he's like, well, I've been using this thing. And then he does the surgery and they're like, you can't start physical therapy until your head and your swelling, his knee was swollen up. And

so 24 hours later, he shows up again. They're like, what happened? How are you doing this? And once you understand that it's not this, the magic is how do we get the garbage out, bring the groceries in, in a way that's comfortable and realigns the fibers and strengthens the attachments. And as you're rebuilding these fascial lines and muscular lines, you cannot have access to the correct collagen placement until those muscles and tissues are being loaded the way they normally load. So once you understand that, we started originally, we came in through this door of rehab. And now anytime you have a surgery, we feel like if you're not ahead of your swelling in 24 hours, it's a failure.

Like you're behind in my rehab protocol. And actually, we have athletes have surgery, wake up, put the pads on. And so we were a little bit late with you, Travis, but put the pads on and they're pumping in the hospital on the way home. And they never have any swelling issues. So from a couple of things that happens, we don't lose this neuromuscular connection. So we don't ever lose quad mass, for example, like when we have an athlete who has ACL surgery, everyone's always worried about the calf or the quad shrinking down. And you've seen that. I don't know how many times you've seen that where athlete comes back and they've, you know, the leg is basically ejected all the

structure proteins and we keep all the quad mass which is incredible and we don't have to do any of that dumb rehab where you're doing all this neuromuscular straight leg raise isometrics we don't do that and we don't why because we don't need to because the the knee or the tissue or the system is always plugged back in and because the athlete doesn't have any pain because they've got a lot less swelling, almost no swelling. They only have surgical site pain, which means that you just don't load it. You'll get the feedback. And when you don't have pain, you don't take medicine to block the pain. And guess what? You can actually hear when your body's like, don't do that. That's sketchy versus all the other things. And so what we've found is that from this rehab side, that blew us away.

And in full disclosure, my wife has had two hip replacements. She had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and was a world champion and blew out her hips. And this was our protocol. So when I saw that you had having this, I was like, oh, you can get so much further ahead on this thing and really get your life back fast. But then we started using this tech on the other, just to have our athletes be able to handle sort of super maximal volumes, like literally our pitchers and, you know, can pitch a hundred pitches and then be recovering and their elbow feels good the next day because it's not swollen and it's healthy and decongested. So what we've been able to do is actually realize that our

athletes weren't working as hard as they were capable. And I love that, that narrative. Anytime I have a technology or a thinking or a plan that, you know, is the thing that I teach kids and it's the thing I work on Olympians and it's straight through in the thought, then that's a win for me. If I have technology or ideas or rehab language that goes from, you know, rehab all the way back to winning a world championship or say American record. That's, that's what we need to be doing. And, and, and for me, I always say, Hey, look, all methods are valid, but I only want to speak one language. I don't want to have to learn three languages to solve one problem.

I agree with you, man. And like, here's some, some awesome feedback is like, so on day 13, I, uh, well actually, well, actually day, let me back up, so five days before that. You came back on day seven. Are you talking about when you did the air squat? Did my air squat and actually held a 25-pound kettlebell. And I did it with a better technique than I did before I got surgery because my hip had gotten all deformed and like I couldn't squat with my normal stance it did uh there was like there just

wasn't a lot of motion left it had actually squared off like my ball had like the um he thinks it was a growth plate injury like from high school because it was it is squared and so there was no motion so I couldn't squat you know i normally squat about shoulder width about you know the average place but i was like super close his heels were almost almost touching and so um so like day seven i was able to do like a normal shoulder width air squat to right above parallel then like day uh is like day 10 i was able to do a barbell and to to that was like i slightly below parallel and then now yes you know yesterday which was day 13 i did a you know 120 kilo deadlift and so i got so many messages triple right yeah yeah triple

sorry triple and eccentrically controlled and i had had a lot of messages saying how far ahead that I am or am according to where they were at this point. And so it's pretty cool. And people are like, oh, you're pushing too hard. I promise, Lord God, listen. I'm not pushing it. I could have gone way heavier on the deadlift, but I am like holding back purposely.

Like I'm definitely at a six or five RPE. Like I could have, I'm common. I could have deadlifted over 400 yesterday, day 13. Yeah, and this is, you know, the conversation you have ultimately between, like every athlete's unique, but you know, the real issue is like, you got to do the time. That's what you're doing. And if you're my patient athlete, you're squatting every day

after hip surgery. So, you know, it's, it's just exactly what you're doing. We just, I put a little load on you. It's volume, volume, volume, volume, volume. Let's re let's re just connect. Let's make you feel better. Let's, you know, keep your glutes engaged, but like, that's the thing. And you know, that hip, you know, what we got to do is just heal the hip capsule. And, you know, that thing is cemented in. Otherwise, they wouldn't let you walk home on that first day. The only issue is like, hey, you're not allowed to do, you know, mini trampoline or pogo stick or ski for three months. Why?

Because if you fall off that thing, you know, it's not, it's not. But that's not what we're talking about here, you know, it's not, it's not, but that's not what we're talking about here. You know, we're talking about motion and when people feel good and we actually can see what's up. And also, you know, we don't, there's this notion where we're like, we don't trust people, you know, and I, and I get that because they eat like jerks. They're not sleeping. They don't move well. They don't have healthy tissues and strong. And you have all of these things lined up. And if we can pull the pain meds out, so you can actually hear what's going on. The second you had, you know, you know, a hundred kilos in the bar,

you'd be like, well, that doesn't feel good. I don't trust that. I don't like that. Right. And, um, you would get that feedback that things weren't working, you know? And I think that's really what this is trusting us and saying, Hey, look, if it doesn't feel good, it may not be linear, trust yourself. But, um, you know, what this really does is interesting is you laid out is it sets up a way of thinking, Hey, you couldn't squat. You were having to squat a certain way because of the way that your, you know, your mechanics had evolved. Right. And you, so you couldn't get into what we knew was the best position possible to generate the most force possible, but you were getting to the shape that was working for you.

And that really starts to means that we can kind of pick that scab on a lot of our athletes and ask like, well, why are you doing that? You know, is this the only shape available to you or is this a choice? And you know, that's the only shape available you know like i'm like look if that's a choice then i'm let's let's make a choice especially around a sport right like olympic lifting is a sport we're not talking about using the tenets of weight lifting to become a better athlete right which which really different but very different you know similar principles but different right like there's just some things that we just think about differently, comma,

you know, the real issue here is, you know, what is it about these shapes that we should be able to get into that put us into the best shape possible? So turning your feet out when you're in the receiving position under heavy clean that you can easily stand up because it's a sub-maximal front squat. That's different, right? But if you're turning your feet out and you're saying, this is the way we jump and land and cut because I play soccer, that's a different conversation. But if that's a choice that you're making versus I don't have any dorsiflexion, my hip is limited,

right? I have poor technique. This is the only shape I can wedge myself under the bar. Then this opens us up to a different conversation. And I think that's what's really great about this thinking is that you're like, suddenly you get your hip back and you're like, oh, look at all the options that are available to me. Which option do I want that allows me to correctly solve this motor pattern or this motor pattern or this motor problem based on my body's geometry it's good to hear you say that because you know like

because because we've never been you know in the same room together you know I always you probably hear this is what he says when you don't even know what I really think and I've heard like things that you've said and I really don't know but but now I've heard it from your, from your mouth that yeah, like in weightlifting, like you're probably going to turn your toes out slightly simply because you're probably going to get a little bit deeper. And that's, that's the name of the game. It's not really health at all. It's like, you know, what kind of weight can I get under at all costs?

And because that's the sport, you know, just like hitting a baseball is hitting or is throwing a baseball a hundred miles an hour over and over and over good for you? No, not at all. Like you're going to have hurt shoulder and elbows eventually. But like that's what we have to get into to get into the deepest catch position possible, as fast as we possibly can. But like for a healthy person, are you talking about athletics, about, you know, keeping the feet you know pointing

more you know straight ahead let's let's talk about that like i'm excited to hear like what are your thoughts and like why is that you know why do you want to be more you know straight as far as the foot goes well let's let's make a couple assumptions first of all is that i don't just strength and power don't solve all problems, right? You need to have access to that strength and power, and you need to be able to apply that strength and power. And more importantly, we sometimes fail – and this is, I think, a testament to just old school, our old strength coaches.

They'd say things like, I like the bench. It ties the arms to the body. And you're like, okay, I don't know what that means, coach. But that's correct. It does. Kids who could bench really well had more stable shoulders when they tackled. That makes good sense, right? Yeah.

Well, what is it about benching that allowed that athlete to learn how to create torsion, to break the bar, to be able to tackle with an elbow in and thumb up, that those kids, in order to handle those large loads, had to figure out the technique that did that. And then suddenly we realized, well, hey, every time a kid benches and flares their elbow out, what are we really reinforcing? It's not just getting stronger. We're actually teaching and reinforcing the default position motor plan, motor program. It's not practice. It's making things perfect.

It's giving ourselves a motor solution. So if you are swinging kettlebells and turn your feet out and you're jumping and landing and turn your feet out and you're doing everything with a turned out foot, then what is going to happen when you cut and plant and jump and land, and you're going to go to the position that you have reinforced through thousands and thousands of reps under big, big loads. And so the real question is, hey, which shape translates better as a practice shape to running, hopping, jumping, dunking a basketball, cutting all those things. And it turns out that most of the stable force generating positions, you know, have again, not sub maximal positions, have foot in a much more straightforward position. And when you test the function of the hip, you'll see that the hip has some tolerance, right? I mean, humans, you know, it's not like you're walking around on railroad tracks, right?

The foot needs to be able to turn and move and do all these things and the hip with it. But what you'll see is that if I test your ability to resist abduction or adduction, the bottom position of the squat, even a high squat with your foot straight and out to about 12 degrees, 12, 15 degrees, you'll still be able to maintain your hip function. As soon as you turn out past that, and then I test you actually become weaker, which means you can't cut as effectively. You can't control the hip or knee as effectively. Right. And so we can, you know, what we're, we're, we're saying is, Hey, I'm going to make this conscious compromise or this movement

compensation to solve this other problem, because it really unwinds me and I can get into this bottom position you know but what again the way we think about is hey how are we using these sports and positions to translate to make them better athletes and it turns out you can only run and sprint with your feet straight right so that's what happens yeah well Well, how about, how about, yeah, not even the word sports specific, but just best geometry, best function. Okay. Right. And giving, giving people access to the best positions and what we have, we're going to have to do, and we're going to have to own this is that, you know, sometimes it's easy to say, turn your feet out. You know, it's, oh, everyone got down. You know, meanwhile, knees are all wobbly arches are collapsed feet are destroyed i'm like what what are we doing we're basically putting athletes

into shapes so they can hit some arbitrary depth even though they don't have any dorsiflexion zero hip internal rotation right missing hip flexion don't have the motor control they can't even just you know they don't even have the motor control. They can't even just, you know, they don't even have the basic language. And we're basically starting to turn and twist the shape of the, of the transmission of the car. So, you know, what ends up happening then? Cause, you know, I just saw a really good, this is a good, perfect idea. I just saw a really strong power lifter who is a physical therapist. She's a great human being. She's squatting 315 and she's posting about this knee wobble and how people are obsessed with it.

She's right. She's like, stop obsessing about the knee wobble. It's Debbie Cohen, dude. I was reading that this morning before I left the house. I was reading all the comments. It's definitely one of those things that, look, she saw that too. you know, Hey, heavy loads. Is this something we can't stop? Does it happen at low loads?

Does it happen at all speeds? How much of it is okay? What happens if the foot is turned out and your knee comes in and then your hip turns off and you can't stop that? Well, it turns out that girls are tearing their ACLs at six to eight times the rate of men. Right. Right. And, uh, I'm like, you know, that, that valgus knee position with a foot turned out and no control is a problem. If I have a world champion world record lifter who gets a little fatigued or makes some makes some mistakes once in a while or her knee wobbles. But she doesn't round her back. She doesn't overextend. Her arch doesn't collapse. I mean, like and she's able to chase it back out. She doesn't just lock it in and stand up.

And again, she's not under a one rep max load in the Olympics where she's testing everything, right? We're starting to see the limits of position. So the question here is, again, what's your intention? And of course, that's not going to be a problem on an elite athlete who, you know, is tired or fatigued. And it's important. I think this is so important is that you don't know anything is going on in an athlete's life when you see a move, right? You don't know what her injury history is, right? You don't know if she has full dorsiflexion. You don't know if she's blown out from playing three matches in the world cup. You don't, you don't know anything. Right. So, you know, is she making this mistake over and over again? So before you comment on anyone's technique ever, you know, if I ever got up and bashed you and then you're like, Oh yeah,

I had a hip replacement jerk. I'd be like, Oh, sorry. No wonder you were squatting like that. I don't know why people do that. I know. I'm just saying that like, first of all, pipe down. Second of all, if someone's arch collapses in the bottom of the squat and their foot, they lose the arch and the foot totally collapsed and the vicular bones on the ground for me, I'm like, Hey, well, that's a less valuable athletic position. So, and I think that you're solving this movement compensation. It's a compensation. So, you know, it's not good or bad. It just may not be the most effective position to generate the most force. And I think that even

helps us to sort of not touch the third rail of like, this is good, this is bad and say, hey, does this athlete have full access to her positional capacity? Let's just all the things we agree on, you know, to then is it, you know, is she in a stable position where she's able to reclaim? Is this something she's practicing? Because if this is a technique she's practicing, then when do you start practicing that with your little kids? At what point and what loads does that become? Okay. So if I jump or I think, Hey, I'm only running at 60% speed, so I can cut and have my knee coming in a little bit. Does this hold true in all of these situations? Right?

All of a sudden we can, you know, we can say, Hey, maybe we don't have to get wrapped up in this, this ridiculous debate about does your knee come in a little bit, you know, because what we're talking about is versus, Hey, I'm seeing someone pull or push and knee slams in and stays in. Right. And then we're like, come on, you've just, you know, if someone's lifting their, you know, heavy load and they round their backs, you know, their spine isn't going to likely explode on that rep. For me, I look at that spinal position and I say, Hey, that's not as athletic or doesn't translate to as many other sports. And you can see it.

I mean, this is why even, you know, why all my Olympic lifting coach friends don't love heavy deadlifts because it potentially changes the pulling and the back positions and the movement pattern that we're trying to train for our sports. So, you know, what I would say is, hey, if you're squatting like that and you want, you know, and that's a choice, then I'll make my choice over here by putting the athlete into better shapes that translate to more real duty, which isn't necessarily the recursive business of powerlifting, Olympic lifting, right? I agree with you. And even with Steffi's, her squat, if you look closely, I mean, it appeared that she was just, you know, more externally rotated than she should have been to start with.

And knee basically came back to neutral and like. That's right. Yeah. So like that's a big difference in like that versus like true knee valgus where when it goes inside, you know, like I consider neutral pretty much like, you know, the knee tracks with the the first two toe two or three toes and like anything inside that becomes a problem and so well and what we can do is you know we've been realized that um you know we haven't done a good job as a strength condition or coaching community sort of identifying what that means like what are the landmarks so because i'm like go ahead and squat wide for me really wide now make sure your knee tracks your foot and you're like it doesn't it can't for me, really wide. Now, make sure your knee tracks your foot. And you're like, it doesn't. It can't. Put your feet together and squat. Make sure your knees track your foot.

You're like, it doesn't. It can't. So what's the relationship that I watch there? Well, in an athletic stance, and when I say athletic, that's a position where I can drop all the way down and land. Right. And like land gets stapled to ankle. For me, that's, that's my most valuable squatting stance because it translates to the most sport. That's why Olympic lifting nails it. Like if my kids can front squat and snatch under a bar, man, I, we're going places. Why? Because I've got this control. My kids can jump and land and

decelerate through the full physiologic availability of the range. They're not going to end up powerlifting wide and turning the feet out and knees coming in because they don't have any more tissues to get there. Not that we don't also squat wide, but the idea here is we haven't said this is a good shape. If you're standing, and we can be super clear about this, so everyone is understands what we're talking about, because, you know, when we don't give people clear examples, then they can still interpret it any way they want. But we do see people way too far knees out. And how do I know that? Well, guess what? Your big toe is off the ground and the knuckle of your, of your big toe is up off the ground. That, that first met head, you don't have any pressure through that thing. And if I look at your ankle

and your ankle isn't in the middle of your foot, then that joint force isn't centrated for the foot. And what you'll see is if you go in, it's fortunately you can go to any of the great lifting websites and, you know, and, and hook grip or all those guys and watch all of the world championships recently right and um notice where everyone's pulling their ankle is square in the middle of their foot right and so as they push from that position that force that huge amount of force is centrated right into a very balanced very stable system so if your knee comes in and if you're standing there and you bring your knees in, so that it'll kind of like look like they're valgus or touching, look down at your ankle and you'll see that your arch is collapsed and your ankle is biased towards the inside of your

foot. So now go on the knife edge of your foot and you'll see that your ankle's on the outside of your foot. Now put that ankle right in the middle of your foot and you may have to create an arch and have to shove your knee out a little bit but when our athletes figure out what that neutral position is that's the force the position where they can generate the most force and to your point if someone's too far out then that knee coming back in is a correction of the body to say no no this is where the most force is best served through this limb through the fasciacia, through the muscle, through the system. And it just turns out that all the best lifters in the world, their ankles do not collapse and their arches are engaged and their ankles in the middle of the foot. So it becomes really simple.

How much knee out do I need? I need to create enough torsion and enough stability in the system to maintain the integrity of the system. How much bracing do I need in my spine? Enough stiffening of the spine in the best position available to me to maintain that position, right? And that's going to change based on what the task is and my skill and my abilities. But what's nice is, you know, if I put you into a good squat position, it's like ankle in the middle of your foot, check balance between ball of foot and heel check, right? You're not way too far on your heels. You're not too way too on your toes. Everyone's looking left and right right now. No one's looking front and back. Right. And I mean, what, one of the things that we're having to do a lot of with

our athletes, because everyone was on their toes and had heels off the ground for so long is now we're basically like saying, Hey, we've been telling people for a decade, heels, heels, heels. And now I'm like, Hey, those are your toes. You need to be balanced on the ball of your foot and your heel, right? You teach pressing for pushing from the ground that first and push second push through the full foot. No one teaches jump on your heels and dunk a basketball, come up on your toes and dunk a basketball. We don't do that. And so we got to look side to side. So that ankle in the middle of the foot and then front to back, we don't chase the bar

around. We don't, we, you know, we get much better, longer pushes. Our athletes can translate other skills into, you know, into all the things that matter to more quickly, et cetera, et cetera. So I think you're absolutely right. If someone's setting up too far out and then that knee comes back in, look at the ankle position, and now we can begin to say, ah, they should probably have their knees in or knees out a little bit more.

But if you slam your knees in, arch collapses, I'm like, well, maybe that's not a great shape to go dunk a basketball in. What about the thoughts of like – there's a lot of – if you go to the World Championships or you just go to hook grip you go the easy cheaper much cheaper route you know go on to hook grip and you see like a lot of world champions when they're catching like a heavy clean a lot of times they will experience valgus you know on the way up however if you test that same person like either under a light load or they definitely their body weight like you know they're definitely control their knees so i've heard of people talking about it being

like almost like you know like something they don't even think about but like the body you're asking it to stand up with a crap ton of heavy weight and now it's finding like a second stretch reflex to stand up. Have you heard of that? Well, we'll get back to the podcast in just a minute, but I did want to take this opportunity to say thank you. We want to thank our sponsors who are supporting our nonprofit weightlifting team, and we want to thank you for supporting those sponsors. Be sure to go pay them a visit and let them know that you appreciate them supporting a nonprofit weightlifting team. If you're in the market for barbells, plates, all sorts of

equipment, go check out Intek at www.intekstrength.com. That's www.intekstrength.com. And for the best pre-workout and post-workout supplements, give Hack Nutrition a visit. They can be found at www.haknutrition.com. And if you want to enjoy the recovery benefits of transdermal magnesium, it is amazing, make sure that you get some MG12. You can find out more about them at mg12.com. That's mg, the number 12, dot 12.com well thanks for your support of these great companies and now back to the podcast you're asking it to stand up with a crap ton of heavy weight and now it's finding like a second stretch reflex to stand up have you heard of that

yeah and i think that that could possibly be it i also see world record set where there's no wobbles in the knees totally you know yeah like me i can't like in my best like i can't do valgus if i want to it's just like i'm locked in my knees can't go in so what's interesting about the the olympic lifting right is your opener is what something you think you're gonna to make. Right. Your next one's your PR. And then it's your like, your third one is like your aspirational goals.

Yeah, you got to stand up and remember what you got to do. Yeah. Right. So, I mean, young Ron, I'm not an Olympic lifting coach, right? I just know Olympic lifting coaches. But what I can say is, wow, let me see what it looks like

at your near maximum speed when you run. And let me see if there's any technique deviations. Wow. That's, that's a lifetime's work right there. Right. And I don't know how that athlete is feeling, but I can tell you that Olympic lifters are some of the most miserable people I've ever met because their bodies are always under the largest CNS training load. It is crazy what Olympic lifters do to themselves. I'm like, oh, you think you're dedicated? Come lift with us for a month.

Let me know. I'll show you what dedication feels like, right? Yeah. Your third session for the day. Yeah. And so remember, number one is I don't know. Again, I think you said it. Like, hey, we don't see it in any of their loads.

We also, for me, I'm like, well,'t if it's if it's really so good there why don't why don't you why don't your knees come in when you pull you know like oh well it's not the strong okay so there's something that is often the whole knees in when you pull i mean at least i know i know well and and again i say hey if you if i have you jump on one leg and your knee comes in that's the you get a letter home from me that your daughter is going to tear ACL. I totally agree. Yeah. I agree.

So what we're seeing is the snapshot of an athlete under huge stress, under peak physiologic experience, and we're seeing small deviations in their technique. I'm like, well, that seems reasonable. That's what happens. And we also sometimes see athletes where it doesn technique. I'm like, well, that seems reasonable. You know, that's what happens, you know. And we also sometimes see athletes where it doesn't happen. So it's not 100%. Right. And so and also it may not be the limiting because it is not their maximum, you know, front squat position. And what you'll see is that oftentimes when athletes can arrive in a good position right from the top down we don't see that silly wobbles you know they

can put their feet into good stable positions right where they can create enough stability through the through the whole chain so you know yeah i think it happens more there are a few athletes out there that are actually able to clean and jerk pretty much their maximum squat which makes that stand up harder than their front front squat because, obviously, you've done the pull first. So, like, believe it or not, we had an athlete, Tom Suma, who's been on Team USA several times now. But that dude, when he was younger, he clean and jerked 165 kilos when his front squat was 160. And then we have Simba garcia who's the same normal these are very elastic like they their elasticity is so amazing and tom had a lot of valgus oh yeah

tom and if you take two athletes tom i'm about to agree with you i know right now you think i'm going opposite of you but i'm gonna bring it home just wait so and you have December who is the exact same athlete very elastic like so they can get up under weights that most people can't and they can bounce literally they use that you know the stretch reflex you know better than anyone oh gosh I think I can find a three or four times she can find a way up so does that mean I should leave it alone I've determined i disagree i agree more with um what kelly's saying so what we've done is that we took um cal deets is um trifasic and so we've really worked on her eccentric control and guess what she's gotten a ton better in the last few weeks but she hates life right now yeah i mean but like yeah but like so but now yeah well

she catches her weight. She's way more stout. Cal's work is heavy and hard. I mean, so much respect for Cal. And some of the genius aspects of the training that doesn't go on underneath that, that gets lost. You're saying those heavy eccentrics, man. I mean, she is hating life right now, but you can suddenly say, hey, that's sort of missing sometimes from a lot of our programming and working with weightlifters and not to pick a band. I don't

know what the best way to train weightlifters is. What I can tell you is that I know a lot of really good weightlifter coaches and you should go find the coach who's best fitting for you. And I think that there are a lot of roads that lead to Rome, right? In terms of arriving. And that's why there are different kinds of coaches. But what I would always say is, hey, if those positions get worse as my athlete fatigues, then that's a liability. If I have athletes who are always chasing, something's always stiff or their SI is lit up, right? Or they're getting these telltale signs that something's up that I'm like, well, maybe, maybe that's that compensation is only going to work a little while. And as we came back from the original pieces, what is the intention of our lifting? And what I'll say is why do I like Olympic lifting as my mode of choice for teaching athletes and even kettlebells

for that matter? Because you have to be elastic to do this sport. You can't just grind, you know, from point A to point B. You have to know how to absorb force and generate force on a moving object and be springy, you know, and, you know, the Russians nailed it when they were talking about how do you develop springiness in your athletes, you know, and, and, uh, it's nice. It's nice when someone's big and brutally and strong, but I'm less impressed by your 400 pound crappy back squat than I am your ability to, you know, snatch a hundred kilos, you know, that's just, that's more impressive. I agree. And, and translates to all the shapes that matter. You got to have your torso upright. You got to know where straight up and down is. You got to be able to generate force more quickly,

right? All of the reasons that we all love weightlifting in the first place they're not powerful thoracic spine has to be in place you know your scapula has to move correctly yeah i agree the end of the spectrum where we run at risk is being too elastic and like having no control and that's where you get some of the valgus. And I think that, I think instead of just saying that's just, you know, I think a lot of weightlifting coaches who hopefully are listening to this,

and I've been one of them in the past, I'll be the first to admit, but like something I've learned in the last few weeks of like, after talking to Caldeets and after seeing December go through this is like, instead of just saying, that's just the sport, like, you know,

let's try to like limit it, you the sport like you know let's try to like limit it you know and like let's try to get better at that instead of just saying ignoring it because there's so many you know once you get to the top level like all my most 90% of the athletes I coach are that you know the top of the echelon December's one of them Tom's one of them but like instead of just saying that's the way they lift let's try to like address some of their issues so guess what they can lift longer at a very quality rate you know and get better and win and so I've definitely noticed it man like you know with addressing her eccentric control like when she catches the weight they used to just look like she was being you know bombed in Japan or something now she catches it stable her knees are more stable

and it's definitely been yeah and if she ever goes really heavy and goes valgus she's probably got more capacity to do that that's the goal is because she hasn't been right over using that in training right just like uh stewart mcgill used to say you know like yeah you know because you're talking about rounding the back like uh some people would say that you should do you know rounding back in mornings and sir mcgill would be like i don't know about that because like he's found under his research that the people who do good mornings with you know a proper hinge and a neutral spine even when they're in a compromised position have less risk of getting injury mainly because you know over time they haven't done so many bad movement patterns so you know like really

all you're doing when you're doing a running back good morning he would say is weakening the chain in the first place but so well i think you know a i'm stewart stew mcgill is my man and um i also would say that um you know we get confused sometimes because i'm like hey your spine doesn't flex at all ever in your training and i don't think we have to go immediately to like heavy you know jefferson curls is our default but normal language of the spine is that it's got to be able to flex and if all we're doing is extending extending extending extending extending that's a problem and if you can't even do a forward somersault or round your back unloaded,

that's an issue, right? I agree. And so what we can kind of skip back and say, well, does the joint do what it's supposed to do? And if you have athletes who can't flex their spines, we have a problem. And then what you have to be saying is, well, okay, well, what's my warmup, my movement practice? You know, the other, you know, so when I'm looking at an athlete's volume and their movement patterns, I'm looking at, you know, do they touch these shapes in warmup or in existence work?

And, you know, we've got a video about to launch just about are we really afraid of flexion? And the chances are not because if you can sit in the bottom position on the squat and poop, like you're just hanging out in the bottom position, chilling, looking, looking at the video, your back's rounded. If you do a pistol, your back is rounded. If you climb a rope, your back is going to be rounded. If you kip, your back is rounded. And so what we're seeing is we actually don't teach formally the really good positions of rounded back. Like this is normal spine. You can't throw a baseball and not round or block a ball at the net or dolphin kick in the pool. You've got to have the spinal flexion language. But if that becomes your default, when you are tired or your technique

is supporting that, what I'll say is you're going to get beat by my athletes because that is your, your movement solution. It's not a choice, right? So if you round or get soft on every single pull, I mean, may or may not hurt your back, but let's stop having that conversation. What I know is that with that flexed spine, you can't take a breath. You can't jump as high as you would and dunk a basketball. You can't put your arms over your head. And I think that the other piece that gets missed here is that, you know, we have to load our tissues. You've got to load. And my athletes are under a barbell a lot. They have strong, big, strong discs, right? Because they're always loading those discs. So a little bit of

roundedness to pull them into those positions and restore their motion. That's just like taking the hip and end range and doing an end range Bulgarian split squat with an isometric. That's the same thing. It just happens to be the language of the spine. And so, you know, what we can say is, are you taking your joints through the ranges of motion they should have normally? Not that's specialized for your sport, just normal range of motion. I agree. And if you can't, then let's support that with some movements that restore the normal language of your spine. So in lifters, we see that lifters actually don't spend any time with their hip in extension.

They extend their hip, but they don't actually spend time with hip in extension. Maybe a little bit in warm-up, maybe on their jerk, split-jerk side, right? But, you know, it's a deficit in the language of, of weightlifters. And if you can't extend your hip, actually take your hip into extension, then you're not going to have full access to the capacities of the hip, even though you don't ever really live in that position very much. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. That's what you, uh, you, you were telling me with, um,

I was asking about Hunter. And so we started doing the, um, the rear leg elevated you know split squat that caldees talks about with the safety and you can see the genius of deets is programming there in that split squat even you know even mike boyle you know was like hey we're not going to squat we'll do this splits foot elevated foot split squat right and i was like that's not squatting that's lunging and all of a sudden you're like oh that makes a lot of sense no wonder that's really effective because you're loading this lunge shape which is so endemic to every athletic position we're in

well and when you think about the sad principle and you think about then you think about athletics especially like you know you know once once an athlete has a couple years under their belt and they've developed that general physical preparedness and they have those basic strength levels, you know, handled. Like I have to go with, you know, specificity is always going to rule, you know. So like if you're a guy who runs a lot, probably, you know, a unilateral split squat is going to work a little bit better than a bilateral. That's exactly right. And it makes me sad because I love just a big, heavy bilateral squat, but it's just the truth. But here's the deal.

If you can't squat down with your torso upright, red flagged, what do you mean you can't front squat? I'm not even talking about can you get your shoulders into position and hold the barbell. What do you mean you can't keep your torso upright and squat down? Like, you're a human being. Want to know why we see so many – one of the reasons we've seen so many concussions, kids are just tackling with their heads down.

They can't actually tackle with their head up. Right. Which means they can't tackle with their torso up. Why? Well, they can't actually create enough rotation or have the hip control to squat, strap it down. So if you're one of my youth athletes, we front squat, we front squat, we front squat, we front squat. And yes, you can move bigger poundages, but I'll

take my 14 year old goal who can front squat like a boss over your 16 year old boy who can back squat like a douchebag, you know? I agree. And it just, it turns out that that upright torso position is vital. I mean, just vital. And then all of a sudden, when I teach my kids to dip and drive, to push press, not even push jerk, just push press, I can see their capacity to control that knee and that foot during the dip. And that is the deal breaker. So if you're squatting, and sorry, someone's blowing out there. If you're squatting and your knee comes in under peak loads i'm like okay let me see what your push press

looks like and if your knee comes in when you push press then i see that that's not a choice you just have bad bad programming that could be getting better and that's the way we think about right yeah because that's definitely some maximal load and so that's a problem i mean you're oh you're just doing this because it's learned now. Like you love to slam your knee in because, you know, what people forget is that, you know, on the spectrum of motor control, when we see kids with cerebral palsy who have incomplete, you know, aspects of their brain that make motor control more difficult, that's the definition of cerebral palsy. you know, aspects of their brain that make motor control more difficult. That's what, that's the definition of cerebral palsy. They walk with the foot turned out, knee slammed in,

hip internally rotated position, because it's a position where the body can find more mechanical stability with less actual motor control to support that position. So it's almost like when your hip comes down, it may be the stretch reflex, but when your knee comes in, what's really happening is that your brain's like, oh, we've overexceeded our ability to be stable here. Let's jam the leg in, which closes off that femur goes bone on boat. And I don't need my musculature there because I'm being supported by the actual structures of my position, you know? And that's why we don't let kids hyperextend their knees when they stand. And that's why we don't let kids hyperextend their knees when they stand. And that's why we don't let our athletes with hypermobile elbows just jam their elbows into overextension when they snatch. You've got to learn how to press that out and have some control and end range

because you can't just take a joint to end range and live there. Right. So you get an athlete that just brought a whole new topic. You get the hyperextended elbows all the time whole new topic um that you know you get the hyperextended elbows all the time and really if you look back at the russian literature that's actually something they look for because right a little little overextension is good right yeah so but you would like you would try to correct that and you think that you think that it's actually possible well what i say is that when i have a hypermobile athlete who's got that extended elbow

and most of our good lifters do right they can extend the elbow a little bit beyond into that range of you know five ten degrees but if they're living off of that joint and they don't have the musculature to support it and that elbow starts to get pissed who that is a difficult bell to unring yeah right because what's happened is you've got an athlete who's living off joint end feel instead of using all the systems. And we were talking earlier about being fascially springy, right? Having that elasticity. Well, joint end feel, there's no elasticity there.

That's just me hanging on the joint capsule and the bony structures and hoping that that's, you know, that's like stopping your car by, you know, parking it into a wall. That's what that is. It's better to use the brakes and decelerate a little bit. So we have to teach our athletes where that end range is and how to control that. And that is really a difficult task, you know, because it's much easier just to not, you know, not, it's much easier just to slam your elbow into extension.

I know. And it's such a structured thing. So, you know, a lot of them are like, you know, like we, I used to coach Maddie Sasser, who's we all still love her very much, but her elbows are so high. It's so crazy, bro. Like when she jerks her elbows in front of her head, the bar is not, but her elbow is, it's a, it's the strangest thing,

but like, um, which is, so I tried to do my best to you know strengthen that joint through pressing through you know basic it's hard yeah but it's when it's heavy and fast i mean this is why you know weightlifting is a cruel mistress and why you see in the olympics every once in a while someone exceeds the capacity of their elbows snaps it you know yeah and uh that's you know that's a bad deal. And so, you know, I think we can say the tenets of weightlifting belong to everyone. It makes a almost near complete movement pattern. You put some benching in there or some dips, you put some lunges in there, you're going

to be a hundred years old if you can continue to weightlift, but you don't have to be at 90%. I mean, those that's for our weightlifters in the sport the sport. I mean, if I just get my kids at 70%, 80% all the time, we're cruising. It's such good stuff. And I've become so reasonable in my old age. I'm like, you don't need to pull from the floor. Just do everything from the hang. What are you doing? Why are you making yourself a worse athlete by wedging yourself into some crappy shape?

I agree. Wait till you remark on Saturday. Do you think you should be able to get there yes but can you get there no but athletically like the the hang clean is probably way more specific than a clean from the floor because that's the athletic position and you're doing that counter movement like you would in a vertical leap so it's yeah yeah or off blocks which would be more of a starting stance. And we don't have athletes in these compensated positions where their back is starting to, you know, like, cause here's the deal. As long as we're like, the bar is this high, get to the bar, people will get to the bar any way they can. Yeah. And the body will do what it has

to do. Right. However, they solve that problem, you know, and people are miraculous in their abilities to solve crazy patterns. But we know that that's going to be a dead end in terms of force production or the health and longevity of your system. So what we try to do is say, hey, look, is this a position in a shape that lasts forever? You know, can you continue to move this way when you're 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 and 70? You know, maybe you're not going to be a springy when you're 70, but I hope you're still front squad when you're 70 and 40 and 50 and 60 and 70. You know, maybe you're not going to be as springy when you're 70, but I hope you're still front squad when you're 70. I agree.

You know, one thing I want to, because we're getting close to the end, but I want to point out what you said, but you said it so quickly. I want to make sure people heard your point. But, like, if you throw in movements like lunging, benching, some dips, you know, will it make your snatch or clean jerk grow you know increase right in there no it has nothing to do with it but what it does allows you to continue to snatch a clean jerk longer into your life and the guy who can do it the longest at a very high quality and high rate it's going to be the guy eventually wins and so

like people are always like why are you doing this it doesn't't, you know, translate to your snatch and clean and jerk. I'm doing it so they can snatch and clean and jerk a lot longer than your guy can snatch and clean and jerk. So eventually I win, even if you're winning now, which you're not. Boy, that long game, I really appreciate you saying that because it is – it's difficult. It's easy to get the quick gains, you know. I put my athletes into wretched positions,

and they get some gains for a while, and then they get injured, you know, and then, or they get burned out or it doesn't hurt. They walk around or the technique doesn't serve them. So we try to make decisions based on what we think one is, does this transfer to the most shapes and is it the most utilitarian? Well, it turns out that's also the shape that the body likes to be in to generate the most force. So it's not really a compromise ever, right? We may have to work to get there over time. That's okay. But to your point, how long does it take to become brutally strong?

A long time. And, comma, we're not even talking about being a good competitor yet. We're just saying, oh, you can snatch or clean and jerk at a high level in training. That's cute. Now let's go do it in where it really matters, where you got to get six white lights. Good luck with that. There's a lot going on there. I don't think people even understand all of the coaching, the competition, the one kilo battles. All of that, it is so crazy what goes on behind the scenes of a weightlifting meet and the, you know, the chess that's being played by everyone. Oh, by the way, you got to go out and hit this maximum load also, you know, and that's amazing.

And it takes decades and decades to become competent at that. It's how long it takes. You don't peak as an aerobic athlete and as a man until you're like 32 to 34. That's how long it takes you to develop that engine. Forget competing. Forget anything else. It takes decades to be that good and just to have the tissues that can handle that. Workload, volume, et cetera.

We've got a lot of youth athletes that longevity and continued interest is a huge part of it. It's a bigger part than anything. So we do a lot of, you know, you come here any given day and we'll do a lot of things other than snatch, clean and jerk and squat. And, you know, we have, you know, two, at least two and maybe like more than that. No, we have about five of the best youth and juniors in the entire country. And so, yeah, I think we're doing something right. More than that. No, we have about five of the best youth engineers in the entire country.

And so, yeah, I think we're doing something right. Yeah, and you've got to coach with that long eye. You know, it's not a – you know, and I'm really trying to go around, and as I'm talking to these high-performance organizations, I'm like, hey, have you ever developed a kid and seen him through to a master? Like you actually, in that situation, you own that kid. If you coach someone for a decade, because you can actually see the inputs and outputs of your program. Right? And that means all of the overuse injuries you own as a coach.

That's on you. All the injuries, you own them. But most people don't. You get someone for a year or two, and you pass it on, and you're like, oh, you know, you can sort of say, yeah, smoke this cigarette, you get this little chocolate, don't want to see vodka shots, because you're not going to be my athlete in a year or two or four years. So it doesn't matter today because you're a human being. And really that long, long game really changes the way you think about your responsibility to athletes.

And I think it's easy to lose track of that. And it's also easy to lose track of the fact that, you know, the goal for the average person is not to go to American open or world champion or be a national record holder is to use the principles of weightlifting to become better athletes, which means if you're doing presses and pulls and front squats and the tenants of weightlifting good now get out of the gym and go be an athlete. Like do not, you know what I mean? It's gotten crazy. And I love the gym.

I love it. But people have forgotten why we're doing that in the first place. I 100% agree. And like my biggest pet peeve, you know, a 40-year-old guy comes in your gym and says, hey, I want to look and feel better. I want to get healthy. And you're trying to make this dude you know snatch 100

kilos and like maybe but like but like is there even a reason like can the dude squat his body weight but can that guy can that guy press you know 135 yet for five like what are we even talking about man can i mean like can he put his hands above his head with that with nothing in it can he do an air squat? Yes, the whole point of this whole health thing is to, like, is to take this human being and, like, help him start a healthy lifestyle, which, yes, you know, like, if you can get him, you know, doing air squats, kettlebell squats, eventually front squats and some pulls, awesome, but he doesn't even care about that.

I promise you that dude doesn't care. But if you get him out there all of a sudden running with his children and outside throwing football with his son, he can run bases and softball again, you've changed his life. And now that person is impacted forever. He doesn't care about snatching, but let's see, maybe that one in a million guys is like, hey, I want to take up Olympic lifting at 40.

I'm a accountant, but that's what I want to do. But are yeah but like let's just get them healthy y'all that's what i think my my old man power clean weight is uh exercise weight is i just you know power clean 100 kilos this is like that's my i finally realized like i have a bad knee injury from skin and you know and i'm like i can power clean 100 kilos with my heart rate at 190 like so i like that's this is my this is how i i use you know heavy cleans i use it aerobically and i there's something you know like you want somebody to pull over 500 very often deadlifting why because i'm like i'm good enough right i try to you know it's about touching those shapes restoring those positions shapes and here's the test case because we don't just talk about it we're about it you know my wife

is age 45 had her second hip replacement last year just went down to Argentina and won the world championships again so why why does it matter that she's brutally strong has a big set of lungs so she can go compete still or go do her sport in her life it just turns out the reason we are all enamored with weightlifting is that it's super fun and you cannot lie you cannot lie it is the greatest lie detector test in the world yes and it is so easy 500 yesterday what's that you just pulled 500 yesterday wasn't that you yeah that was me that's good i mean yeah i just i gotta touch it i'm like i can pull 500 fine and what you don't know is the day before i did a brutal bike workout because i am like a old

paddler cyclist guy you know i'm now the the weakest of my strong friends and the fattest of my aerobic friends it's great i just live in this in between horrible state bro i'm all about that that's the state i'm trying to get in i want to be able to like at least hang out with some aerobic people and them not laughing me and i won't but i don't want to go to my gym and my athletes look at me as weak and so like travis dude you you've been putting up with that hip for so long and right now your your expectations and goals for yourself are so low you're like i just i just want to walk around and i have my hip hurt and then in two weeks you'll be like yeah if i can't clean 400 i'm a failure the day that he had the surgery i texted him

don't tell him oh no no i texted and i was like how we doing and his wife sent me a video of him saying i'm coming for the boys i'm gonna hit to reach Morgan first and then Nathan. The day he had surgery, I still think he was drunk. Fresh out of the knife. Talking junk. Eight Cone Squad at 300 kilos after total hip replacement. I'm going to go 305. I think that's really reasonable. Here's why.

Put your joints into a really stable position. Your mechanics are good. for my old guys who have bad hips we just slow down yeah you know like you know like there's only you know people try to make it so fancy i'm like look you're either decelerating accelerating you're stopping and if you i have a motor control problem for you you get this thing called tempo right and if your bottom positions suck you get this thing's called asymmetrics and that means you're just going to do a paw squat like dude the language has been

there forever i have learned more from weight lifting about rehab than any other thing because the language was already built in to the way we solved and made better athletes yeah i mean i'm excited like i'm thinking my best squat when i was like doing that really really close stance i squatted 700 pounds raw with my feet super close so i'm thinking to think to get kind of close to that with really good stance is not out of question i don't know we'll see the main thing i think one day at a time one day right now i'm just yeah i've only squatted the bar so like i don't know what's funny. Is Travis?

Oh, shucks. I'm just happy to be here. Oh, is that your little, is that your gym record? Oh, let me snatch that. Well, Travis posted a video yesterday for sponsors, like a squat video of 200. It was like something from, I don't even know when it was from, but people were like, is he already squatting that?

Like two weeks post-surgery? No, I was not. I promise. No, not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Next week. Next week.

Yeah. We got to get him on more drugs, obviously. That's what it's all about. But, you know, let me just say that, you know, I really appreciate. I don't think there's enough coaches, you know, seeing kids through all the way to their master's athletes. We need to keep, you know, there's not enough of us. seeing kids through all the way to their Masters athletes. There's not enough of us.

As I texted you, we're not meeting enough kids. I just started coaching my daughter's water polo team. We just do some overhead squats and jump ropes. I got two kids out of 40 who can hit that shape. I got two kids out of 40 who can do a polo.

Believe it or not, I've coached water polo before too. When I was in Chicago. Interesting group. But don't try to get in the water and fight them. Don't do that. I only make these girls feel bad about themselves with their squats on the land because they'll just drown you. But I'm like, hey, can you not recognize

that putting your hands up over your head when you're in a squat position is called treading water, you know? And, uh, all of a sudden you can see the light bulbs go off in the kids. So, you know, the, the point is that the bar is really low for us. And, um, you know, uh, one of my coaches, this guy named Travis Jewett, uh, we were so lucky to work with him. He was in an old gym that had the bigger, faster, stronger posters for high school up there, the standards. Man, we were strong in the 80s, 90s. There were some strong kids around. You know, I don't think there are many kids unless you grow up and, you know, Mike Bergner is your dad or Travis is your coach.

You know, you're going to hit those basic standards, you know? Yeah, kids are way different now. Well, I mean, luckily we have a decent culture at a gym. I think here's the thing is if someone goes into a gym, all of a sudden you've got Morgan who's 15, you know, squatting 550 and clean jerking 400 pounds. You've got this kid, Tate, who's a D1 recruit. He's a four-star recruit

running back and he's you know he's cleaning now like 275 pounds but he's he's also uh 15 but so when you're in that culture a lot of times it's easier to get stronger because you see it so then what your norm is different it changes like you know you get a kid that's a normal weakling and you're like well i gotta at least do 100 kilos you know and so we're lucky to have that and so i don't have to really say a lot the other kids see these kids and they're like well i at least need to do 100 yeah right or you got you know you don't want to i tell you what bro it's like i wish i'd grown up in my gym i would be a much more humble person because the girls would be stronger you know when you got a girl who can out clean you as a young teenage boy that'll

straighten you out quickly you know yeah you get your head on straight oh we have some hey can I can I warm up with your uh max there thanks yeah you will you got Morgan's mom deadlifting 400 pounds. That would be me. Yeah, so like, dang. I love it. At 40 plus, by the way. Yeah, that's the only time it actually starts to count. I'm like, oh, I'm like, enjoy that 25. Let me see how you move when you're 45. Yeah.

Because it's a different day. My husband and I argue over who Morgan got his genetics from. Well, you get your mitochondria from your mom. A little bit of both. A little bit of both. We'll just leave it at that. Hey, bro, so how can people find out more about, there's so much you do, so tell them.

Yeah, where they can go to learn more about you and learn more from you. Well, I tell you, we're on the interwebs at Mobility WOD, Mobility Workout of the Day. And we're really in the service of trying to clean up a lot of the low-hanging fruit so that people can go get coached and coaches can get back to the job of coaching. We really try to be movement agnostic. A good place to start with some of the things that we're really proud of right now is we just launched. We have this little kind of radio podcast project, my wife and I. And first season was a little mixed match.

We just bulk drop them. We put eight or nine episodes out. Second season, we talk about pain and the brain, which is really we have like eight or nine interviews there. But we just put out this week or last week our episode about kids. And like we interview people like Nick Gill, who's the head strength and conditioning coach for the All Blacks. He's a mate of ours. How do we have better kids? So if you want to see the way we think and how we sort of are managing what seems like the complexity and you want to see us chat and kind of strip down, you know,

it's not just about stretching 24 seven. No, you can see that we're we're you know we're out there trying to work along with coaches like you guys trying to solve this set of problems so we can actually get better humans i love it well cool man yeah thanks for being on with us oh super major pleasure thanks you guys can't can't wait to get out there and uh and be in the gym with you guys well thanks so much to kelly for being on with us he broke so much down in such a simple way. It was amazing. I hope you guys got a ton from this one. If you want to hear more podcasts like this or check out our free articles,

and of course, we've got e-books and coaching for you as well. All of that can be found at mashelite.com. That's mashelite.com. Well, thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. That's a wrap, friends. Travis Mash, Kelly Starrett. Super smart people hanging out, talking about getting strong, talking about getting bendy.

Our sponsors, Savage Barbell. Go over to savagebarbell.com. Use the coupon code BARLIFE, B-A-R-L-I-F-E, and save 25% on your first order bar life b-a-r-l-i-f-e savage barbell.com save 25 on your order and then organifi.com forward slash drug save 20 on the greens the reds the golds you're gonna love them they're delicious micronutrients you need for your body to be healthy strong sexy all the, all the things. Make sure you come see us at the CrossFit Games. We're going to be

floating around. One Ton Challenge Live presented by FitAid at the FitAid Lounge 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday night. And if you're just kicking it around, we are going to be at the FitAid booth doing shows all weekend. If you don't come over and say hello, I'm going to be mad at you. Not really mad. I just will be disappointed

because I'll wish that I had met you, taken a picture, high-fived, found out where you're from, how your training's going, and also get over to CrossFit Big Day, and that's where we're going to do training. So many cool things going on at Madison this weekend, and hope to see you there.