Barbell Shrugged - Dr. Jordan Shallow: Taking Ownership Of Your Healthcare And The 3 Pillars Of Evidence Based Research

Episode Date: February 6, 2019

Dr. Jordan Shallow (@the_muscle_doc) is a chiropractor and a competitive powerlifter who champions getting movement right, from the outset. Jordan's patients range from world-class athletes to 9-5 weekend warriors. Understanding the needs of each individual and subsequent demand of each of their lifestyles is the cornerstone on which his clinical practice is built. In this episode of Barbell Shrugged,  we talk to Dr. Shallow about research clickbait, the 3 pillars of evidence based research, why he thinks the hip thrust is BS (@ Bret Contreras), taking ownership of your healthcare, why learning terrifies people, and much more.   Enjoy! - Anders and Doug   Episode Breakdown: ⚡️0-10: Sliding into the DM’s and the hip thrust vs. front squat controversy ⚡️11-20: Research clickbait, the 3 pillars of evidence-based research, and why Dr. Shallow thinks the hip thrust is B.S. (yes, he and Bret Contreras have talked) ⚡️21-30: Injury risk management, the problem with the T-bar row, and knowing why you’re doing specific exercises ⚡️31-40: Knowing if you have a glute stability issue, accuracy vs.stability, and why the deadlift isn’t functional ⚡️ 41-50: Dr. Shallow gets FIRED THE F*** UP about Joe Rogan and the problem with getting caught up in your own dogma ⚡️51-60: Personal responsibility in your health care, how to get stupid people to be self aware, and figuring out how to tell someone what the color blue looks like ⚡️61-70: Holding everyone to the standard of an elite athlete and what the book says vs. what you see in practice ⚡️71-80: The place for barbells and machines in a training programs and the importance of context ⚡️81-90: Breathing as a window into the autonomic nervous system, diet identity, and why learning terrifies people ⚡️91-98: Utilizing training to put you in a creative state and why learning how to learn opens the door to success   ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs-shallow ----------------------------------------------------------------------- @organifi - www.organifi.com/shrugged to save 20%   ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here ► 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

Shrugged family we're back! Dr. Jordan Shallow. I'm gonna call him the most opinionated and most yoked chiropractor that exists on this planet. Had a blast! We're at Strong New York at Solace New York with Kenny Santucci and if you've been enjoying any and all of these shows over the last six weeks there's reason. One, Doug and I. Two, Ashley Van Houten the muscle maven she's been killing it as a co-host so much so that now she's got her own show it's starting tomorrow muscle maven radio I'm so excited because we've been friends with Ashley since paleo fx last year in April and we've stayed in touch she takes takes killer back selfies, getting super yoked.

She's got a lot of traps. She lifts all the weights. She eats all the right foods. She lives the life and I'm excited because she likes to talk and we like to talk and we like having a lot of talkers on this network. This Thursday, Muscle Maven Radio drops tomorrow, and we can't be more excited to have Ashley on the network.

I want to thank our sponsors over at Organifi. I literally just woke up this morning, turned on record, and in my right hand, I have the Organifi Green Drink because that's how I start every single day of my life. Make sure you get over to Organifi.com forward slash shrug. Use the coupon code shrug. You're going to save 20%. I am a huge fan of the green and the gold, especially the gold with the pumpkin spice

because it's delicious. And all the micronutrients, vitamins, minerals that you need in your life that you're probably not getting every day because who has time for all of the vegetables that everybody wants us to be eating all the time we don't have time for that we eat the meat because it makes it strong micro micronutrients vitamins and minerals all into one delicious drink over at Organifi.com forward slash shrug. Use coupon code shrug to save 20%.

Make sure you tune into Muscle Maven Radio dropping tomorrow with Ashley Van Houten. Let's get into the show. Should we do the Breck and Trish joke? I've probably already heard it. Oh, I haven't heard it, but please indulge me. Everybody that comes on has the microphone out here, and it's really quiet. And I feel like, can you bring that closer?

And then Doug usually grabs in, shoves it, and I'm like, don't worry. The last person that used that was Breckin Traris. Is that weird people out? If they get it, they're like, ha-ha, that's funny, because he's around hot asses all the time. And if they don't get it, it bombs so ha that's funny because he's around hot asses all the time and if they don't get it it bombs so bad i can imagine and i don't stop using it bombs 75 i yeah i was blown away when i had him on the podcast because if nothing else that he hasn't is this are we recording oh totally okay awesome good i just want to make sure we got this shit on the record

that he i have all the people who could have fallen subject to like sexual harassment in the fitness industry and like there's been a couple bigger cases this year of like right yeah no means don't try harder no means go to your fucking room yeah and he's been like you've been over served yeah exactly i know so many people who've gone down training with them girls and it's like i've never once heard like a creepy vibe no and we had him on the show he's just so like he's got a very long-term girlfriend and we were over there like two weeks ago i was like your girlfriend should write an ebook called trust yeah like that is real that if i if i was receiving the dms that he receives that would be that would not go over well in my house i don't think no good luck

justify it's forifying it's for work Baby, I'm the glue guy You know what my DMs are? My knees hurt You know what, to the point where it's like, you know what, a dick pic I can see that, which I don't know how girls exist on Instagram

Do you ever get anything kind of titillating on the internets? Oh yeah, I get some really bad knee pain sometimes that's what it's good no it's all just like hey it's it's there's like a there's like an ingratiation period like oh like a big fan blah blah blah blah blah and i know they're not because like it's for whatever reason the question they're asking is just about something that i just released on a podcast yeah or a youtube video or on instagram it's like okay i understand you say you're a big fan but i'll give you exhibit a which is something i had just posted like 20 minutes ago so how big of a fan are you but no it's all just like it's not it's not fun it's not fun at all

it's part of the business now though yeah you have to do it yeah i'm more afraid of people knowing that i'm trying to build instagram now than actually caring about. It's weird where you're like, okay, I'm fucking doing it. I'm committing to this thing. You go through the waves where you're like, I don't want to be a 14-year-old right now and try at Instagram. How is it different now that you're

trying? When I first got Instagram for the first two years, I literally would just put the picture up and then underneath it just write the date. And that was it. That's old man Instagram. My dad still signs off dad on Facebook. I was like, this shit isn't working.

I kind of have to try a little bit. The next level of try was just writing one-liners. I realized it's really just like it has become your blog. If you're going to write something it might as well have like proper grammar punctuation a complete thought okay something along those lines which that's a that's really that's differentiating in the current

landscape well stuff that's going around now is shocking well like what well like in my industry especially like like how low rent some of the content is like the green check and the red x crap that goes out like i die a thousand deaths every time i see yeah well actually that's really interesting because what is what do you do with yours like how are you getting information out uh so for me the medium's the message right so it's like i've podcast youtube channel instagram write books and do blogs, that kind of thing. So for me, I always just all my content starts at the highest order. It's going into a book.

It's deep thought. And then from there, I can distill down into, okay, this is going to be a podcast topic or this subchapter or a YouTube video or this single exercise will be an Instagram video. But it's like I find people have a hard time building up. It's like they start at the 60 second Instagram video and then they can't really build up and extrapolate that to a five minute YouTube video or a 45 minute podcast or a, you know, a 75,000 word book. Yeah. So it's like, that's how I do it. It's just start from the bottom and just trickle it back down. Cause Instagram to me, it's like, it's the most open mouth of the sales funnel. That's where we get the most traffic or I'll get the most

traffic, but it's not a high converting medium. This is it. If you want to listen to my dumbass talk for an hour and a half and you're still listening at the end, it's like, okay, if I got something to sell, you're hopefully bought into the system if you're still listening to what I'm saying. I love that most of your shows are 90

minutes. At least. Yeah. Long form is the's way to go we started going two hours pretty regularly and it's awesome i think it's like it's it's a way to differentiate like depth yeah because it's hard to be nuanced in a 60 second video yeah so it's like it'll it'll weed out for us like high value customers right i don't want someone who falls victim to shreds marketing and Photoshop and all this stuff. That's why shreds marketing doesn't exist anymore. Exactly. Or to the same point,

people who are just on the other side of the spectrum now is people that are massaging research data to prove their point. It's the same thing. All these strength conditioning infographics that are coming out now, that's shreds marketing of the academics world. This is better than this. this why because you read an abstract and made a fucking infographic

about it no read the full text yeah i can dive into a full text on on 90 minutes so then it's like for me it's a matter like it's a really good platform to call people out on their bullshit yeah do you do a lot of that like deep dives into research yeah yeah especially like more so in the strength conditioning field because i find that's where like it's most egregious because like when it's one thing to like have straight like the cscs granted like they're trying but it's the driver's license of strength conditioning everyone has a driver's license but no one necessarily knows how to drive right so it's uh's, uh, for me, it's, it's worthy of a little deeper dissection when it comes to like actually breaking down what's

getting passed out. Cause when something is a 47 word peer or 47 page peer reviewed journal or like article on like, or a meta analysis or something, and they try to summarize it to one single post or one takeaway point like it really takes away the nuance from it so that's where i'll go a little bit deeper into like especially when it's it's self-aggrandizing or self-serving like the product that they're researching is like there's clearly like a conflict of interest in the people who are doing the research and putting out the information and making the product so it's like that's where i spend the majority of my time is kind of in the sn. So it's like that's where I spend the majority of my time

is kind of in the S&C world for that because that's like whether I'm in the office treating or whether I'm training myself or training my athletes, it's like that's my highest virtue, I think, is strength conditioning. I can do more changes with like effective programming than really an effective treatment in my office. Have you read anything lately that you thought was really interesting that you could deep dive into?

I mean, I have a couple card like uh like flagship cases like when i kind of like when i teach abroad or when i have like clients online with a mentor it's like okay i'm gonna send you an article tell me what's wrong with it so it's funny we mentioned brett and i've talked to him in person about this before so there's one study that tried to compare the efficacy of front squatting to hip thrusting or no the article was read squatting versus hip thrust hip thrust better for sprint speeds which is like there's pretty good research for like back squatting and increasing like uh like horizontal movement like pda movement and so they did the study that it was titled squatting they referenced back squatting articles, but in the actual intervention,

they were utilizing the front squat to parallel, which is like, okay, if we're looking to, like, have transferable force production through a vector, so like posterior to anterior, like the hip thrust moves the pelvis from P to A, but if you're doing a front squat, let alone a front squat to 90, it's like, that's all knees.

That's all knees, and you're not even going to get to a point where you might have to sit back in the hole. So it's like, you're comparing, you're not comparing apples to oranges, you're comparing apples to fish, right? But at the end of it, you can make the infographic and say, hip thrust better than front squats for, or hip thrust better than squatting. So it's just like really facetious

sleight of hand and a way to like, okay, that's really better. It's great how like researchers are using clickbait. Yeah. Like you're supposed to be doing the real hard work and then in order to get people to read it, they hit you with the clickbait and then you just read the abstract. You're like, cool,

I'm done. Nobody's really going that deep into it. There's got to be a balance there. Like there's the balance of I wrote a paper and I titled it like with a really technical title and eight people read it and i spent two years on it and now i just wasted all of my time and then on the other end of the spectrum doing only clickbait where everyone's looking at it at least like the the two second headline yeah but it's not accurate at all yeah even scientific journals and research can have special interest groups that are quietly,

secretly helping them do the research. And no one knows, like average people who are just trying to learn. I have no idea that this stuff is completely biased or misleading. Right. So I guess we need people that are smarter to. And well, you don't even need to dive deep. It's not like, you know, 50 years later, we're going to figure out that Coca-Cola was paying off sugar ads and stuff like, or sugar research. It's like, you can,

it's pretty on the surface and social media. It's just, people don't, it's really like, I'm going one layer deeper than anyone else. And it's not that deep. It's like, you could scratch a lot deeper and find a lot more crap.

It's just, I think a lot of people, like if they smell something that they don't say something for whatever reason, because I think people are now are conflating research and evidence and saying they're the same thing which they're not like there's three pillars of evidence-based research or evidence-based practice whether you're a strength coach whether you're a chiropractor physical therapist whatever and that's personal like experience as a clinician value of the patient

or the athlete and then the empirical evidence so people come out and say like asinine things like what was the one there was one a couple weeks ago it was it was an md and i'm not going to name names because i don't want to give any more of an audience to spout his fucking petty bullshit on the internet now you have to do i will with an intro like that he needs to be he'll know and if he wants to come over the hill and talk about it i'll leave my home address in the show notes. I don't like when people don't stay in their lane. I've had these issues with PhDs. It's like you don't have a PhD in everything.

You have a PhD in very specific protein metabolism pathways, not biomechanics. And the herniated discs in your lower back are proving that. So maybe when you step into my world, you should fucking check yourself. People are going to be coming to your house with knee pain now if you do that. As long as they're not getting their advice from people are spouting bullshit because it's it's almost like again it's a clickbait like yeah

the thing's red there's no evidence um there's no evidence for corrective exercise it's like really i've been clinical practice for three years strength coach what is your practice pt or chiro gotcha i'm so i mean i say that with like an asterisk because like i i'm a chiropractor but i'm a like i'm a strength coach so that's why i wanted to know we just interviewed contraris two weeks ago three weeks ago and he went on call it 60 minutes straight of why you should fire your chiro and your pt and everybody else that's doing basically corrective exercises and just hire a better strength coach. No, you should hire a better chiropractor.

Right? So here's my thing. So I'm a primary entrance physician. I've got to walk in and I've got to know, and this is what a strength coach isn't going to know, if the pain coming from your lower back is a fucking hemangioma, a benign tumor of the spine, I need to know that. And I need to refer out to an MRI, or I need to know that you're having a referral pain from some sort of like visceral or gastrointestinal, and I need to GI or gastroenterologist. I need to send out

for that. A strength coach is going to sit there and fucking like, Oh, we're going to go tempo work. We're going to do some tempo. We're going to focus on breathing. It's like, okay, all right, thanks. The adults are speaking here now. Can you please kindly? It's like it's staying in your lane, right? Like understanding like you need to look at it more network than just musculoskeletal sometimes. And if you don't have the instruments to receive some of this information

of something that could be more pathological, you're going to be trying to out tempo or unilaterally load something. That's a lot more insidious. And that's when shit really goes bad. So it's like, and this is a narrative that's coming up from, from MDs, from researchers.

Cause they say that there's, again, they're conflating evidence and research. They say there's no evidence for it. It's like, no, no, no,

you guys can't come to a consensus on your research from your six college age fucking males. You guys intervene with for four weeks in a row doing yeah we fucking kettlebell swings yeah but like when the rubber hits the road it's like the best thing we can learn from research is the scientific method if i can have an athlete in control and then i can apply something in isolation and retest against an objective outcome he doesn't give a shit. Like, the UFC fighters, the NHL players, the NFL players, they don't care. They don't care about the peer review.

They don't care about the meta-analysis. They don't care about any research. They care if they can get back on the field. And they're not going to end up in the offices of guys that are just going, like, you know what you need? Better strength coaches. It's like, he's in the NFL. He doesn't need a better strength coach.

And if he does, it's your shit, not you. So, yeah. Got to go's in the NFL. He doesn't need a better strength coach. And if he does, it's your shit, not you. So, yeah. You've got to go back to the glute lab. You need to have them both on at the same time. You know, we go back and forth all the time. What was great about it is I think that he's my favorite time to talk to anybody is when they're figuring something out and they like to do it on microphones.

So they talk you all the way to the end, and he's like, and I don't have a solution. I respect that, though. Yeah. No, I mean, he straight up said it. He was like, this is as far as I've gotten. We should talk about something else. So we instantly went and talked about Mr. Olympia for, like,

20 minutes right after to, like, get it back to a meathead level. I would imagine, though, if Brett came on and you guys had a discussion about this, you'd probably agree on, like, 99% of it. Like, once all the context was in place, I think there'd be more crossover than disagreement. Oh, yeah. We're really cordial. And we end up, like, people know my stance on the hip thrust.

People know, like, people who listen to me. Wait, what is your stance on the hip thrust? Oh, I think it's bullshit. Okay. So what is it? That's what you need to figure out. How are we defining it? All right, so here's the thing.

I just want you to know that we have witnessed. He's seen the evidence. we went to the glute squad and I will let you know that what he does for a living he's very good at and the evidence inside the glute lab while the best in the world the glute squad are going at it the product is there

efficacy versus effectiveness is going to be my first argument and I don't feel there's a lot of ass in there you see a muscle hanging off the back of these women versus effectiveness is going to be my first argument. I've seen some ass. There's a lot of ass in there. It takes me a muscle hanging off the back of these women. I don't feel bad in saying this because I've discussed it with him and we usually, maybe a thread a month, we both get tagged in

and he'll put something up and someone will be like just throw a grenade at Instagram. Like, hey Shala, what do you think of this? Just slowly walk out of the room. But we are cordial when we discuss it. But I think for my purposes in dealing with athletes and in rehabilitation, frankly, like, I think aesthetics has its own place. So I look at, think of, like, whatever your objective outcome is as a product of three overlapping Venn diagrams of, like, let's uh uh hypertrophy isolation is one uh strength integration as two and stability coordination as a third right now whoever your avatar is of what you want to get

out of your training you need to be able to wave in in minimum effective doses each one. So if I'm with strength, load wins, right? Load has to be primary. But I do need a certain amount of muscle hypertrophy, isolation training in order to build cross-sectional layer, you're going to be able to build strength. And I also need a certain amount of stability and coordination to be able to keep that linear progress without getting hurt. I don't need

to be in the Cirque du Soleil. I don't need to be a tightrope walker. I also don't need to be a bodybuilder. So of that three-layered Venn diagram, I load in weight, resistance, progressive overload to build strength

because that's what I want to get strong. Now for aesthetics, isolation would work, right? The problem I run into is the difference between function and action of muscle groups.

So if we look at the glute specifically, it's a broad rush term for three muscles, right? The mid, the max, and the min. Of those three, one actually needs to be strong, and that's the max. And as long as you're not in Westside barbell and you're squatting to depth, rarely are people's weaknesses in compound movements the strength of their glute max.

If that is, it's usually a red herring that their core is unstable, and then they end up in an anterior pelvic tilt where they can't actually utilize the strength of their glutes. Where people really go wrong is that glutes, for the most part, you live and die in the stability of the glute med, not the strength of the glute max. And then stability is a totally separate stimulus adaptation. And where he's just, like, and I hear it in rehabilitation all the time, oh, my PT says I have weak glutes.

And it's just like, oh, for fuck's sakes. So they're either doing like Jane Fonda. Where you guys are on the same page as that right there. Where it's like they just say this shit to people and then all of a sudden now you've got somebody walking around thinking like, oh, I'm just weak. And he has the same look. Well, it's in the language, right?

Because weakness means add resistance to build strength. But strength isn't the answer if weakness isn't the problem, right? And there's a difference between strength and stability. No one looks at me and goes, hey, I bet you Jordan's a good runner. Literally, the hotel's three blocks away. She's like, did you run here? Like, no. I'm wearing Timbs and a sweater.

I'm way out of breath. But it's like everyone knows that strength and endurance are two totally different adaptations, right? It's not obvious to people, especially in the fitness industry, that strength and stability are totally different adaptations, right? It's not obvious to people, especially in the fitness industry, that strength and stability are two different adaptations, right? So every time I see a hip circle or every time I see like a monster walk, loop bridge, it's like you're taking a muscle of stability, something that's meant to resist force, and you're asking it to exert force. That's like, do you speak another language?

Anything? A little bit. What, you got French? Yeah. Okay, so imagine like with the French you knew, we put you in Spain tomorrow, dropped you incelona would you be able to like order lunch and get on a train probably not okay if you were fluent so latin based language the same thing works with like italian french um spanish that's that's fine for the general population if they're

a tourist of physical activity right but if you're an athlete if you're someone who's looking to pursue or you're looking to rehab a little bit more effectively, then you're going to need a specific, you're going to need to speak the right, like physical language, you're gonna have to be physically literate in the adaptation that you're that you're trying to speak. So that's like, hey, tomorrow, she's going to move to Barcelona, and she knows a little bit of French, you might want to Rosetta Stone that shit and actually speak the right language. So most people, if they're detrained, they can do the Jane Fonda hip glute bridge strengthening stuff to muscles of stability. That novel adaptation will take them where they need to go. But if you're dealing with an athlete or you're dealing with someone who's looking to pursue strength at a higher level,

you're going to need to make sure that on the back end you're being physically literate with the adaptations you're trying to make. So that's my biggest gripe is like adding resistance to build stability will only take you so far and research is for it's really for like the masses right so they do this research 20 untrained whatever whatever performed this against the control and that this is adding strength to hip like abduction or external rotation where it's like you know how far i can get with just doing like a single leg rdl like actually eliciting that stimulus of instability because if you think

about stability base of support center of mass you either limit the base of support deviate the center of mass or do both right so you put a dumbbell in one hand their deviation of center mass done right so that's my biggest thing is like and to not to mention that the hip thruster is actually like really good way to emulate a provocative orthopedic test for SI joint pain. It's called the SI compression test. And you're loading that with 300, 400 pounds. Maybe not the best idea, but yeah. From a theoretical standpoint, that very well may be true.

But in practice, I don't know this answer but does brett get a lot of injuries that would come from that one of his biggest things actually is his low injury rate and that he's never well he says that he has never had a low back problem from the hip thrust as long as he is working with somebody and able to keep their chin tucked to achieve neutral spine once he gets to the top. And that is 100% like his thing. Doesn't matter about neutral spine because yes, eye joint works through all three planes of movement at once. So the sacrum, where the sacrum meets the ilium, is an oblique joint plane. God, I need him here because I feel like I'm about to back myself into a corner.

And I would totally go toe-to-toe with him. He'd be like, hey, hold on, No, no, no. And I would totally go toe-to-toe with him. He'd be like, hey, hold on, Anders. Settle down. No, I would go toe-to-toe with Brett. And I relish in the idea of one day doing that. We can make that happen. I'd love to. Yeah, I think he's the man.

And I think as far as, like, intellectual sparring partners go, like, he's a rad dude to just rap with. But for me, like, I see people who are in pain i can draw like cause and effect and a common thing where with like physique and it's chicken and the egg right like maybe they have a pelvic torsion that's pre-existing but if you're not screening for that and then you're loading asymmetrically through like a like a static pelvic torsion you're gonna have issues at the si joint. Do you have any issues with the performance athlete side of the hip thrust?

I train my athletes to die on their feet. We put people on their fucking backs. That's not how I train. I don't want you to develop a movement strategy on your fucking back. That's clever. It rings. There are other ways because it's dynamic correspondence. My athletes,

they have their feet on the ground when they're performing their sports. They don't have their back on a bench. And that's nothing against that. That's a general principle I apply across the board to exercise selection. It's like we need an attenuated, controlled version of the positions they're going to be in. Overload them because at the end of the day, especially with sports like rugby, it's not injury prevention. It's injury risk management. Right. end of the day especially with sports like rugby it's it's not injury prevention it's injury risk management right and i have very little time to deal with what are you know would be widely

considered deconditioned athletes like kids who are amazingly talented like amazingly gifted but they can't move for shit yeah right so i'm not going to necessarily delegate time to an exercise like that i know does that does that apply across the board like the bench press and do t-bar rows or anything like that where it's not? With rugby? No, no. Just you were saying like you don't want people laying on their back as an example. But like bench press, you're laying on your back.

T-bar row, you're not necessarily on your feet. I mean you are on your feet, but you're kind of like leaning forward, like being supported by your chest. Like if you're doing pull-ups, if you're on the ground, like how far do you take that concept? So those are good. I'm really glad you used those examples because they both elicit two major problems and the underpinning issue is stability of both of those.

So a T-bar row, the problem, and this is going to be a long answer to a short question. I like long answers. I mean, short answer would be... Keep it less than 90 minutes. Yeah, I'll do those in my own training as a means to progressively overload a certain position, but I understand that any time I'm externalizing

support and stability to an apparatus i need to make that up somewhere else in my training so case in point we'll go the t-bar row first right a really good way to overload the upper back of the lats depending on how pronation supination of the grip or width of the grip is going to dictate where you recruit kind of in your back so if i'm doing that my chest is supported my erectors aren't acting as a role as spinal stability right so a lot of people think erectors aren't acting as a role of spinal stability right so a lot of people think erectors are extensors based off origin and insertion right that's how we derive muscle action right bicep originates inserts action but muscles of stability have a

different function right so people that try and train their erectors and they go through extension no it's a muscle of stability it has a different function to its action it's an anti-flexor so if i'm in this flex, kyphotic, thoracic spine position where I'm purposely rolled forward but that stability is coming from that chest being supported, those erectors aren't working like they would be. So somewhere in my training

I'm going to have to put GHRs, deficit stiff leg deadlifts, bent over barbell rows, or some sort of rowing variation that has that erector act, not in isolation, not in isolation, but not being supported externally. And then I really like the case of the bench press, because this is where a lot of people lose the plot, like function action, right?

Like how sports specific is keeping your shoulder blades together and going through flexion internal rotation. When we flex internally rotate, we should upwardly rotate the scapula, right? And that's the action of the serratus anterior. So it's like if I'm bench pressing a lot, and as a competitive powerlifter I do, it's like my rhomboids turn off my serratus anterior. So it's like it's reciprocal inhibition.

If I have muscle that retracts and a muscle that protracts, they can't both be active at the same time. So it's like, all right, if I'm going to be here while I'm benching, shoulder blades together, at some point I'm going to need to train that serratus in isolation later in my training. So I'm going to go kettlebell, windmill, or something like that. So I'm going to get it in an unstable position and then force it through the function of upward rotation.

So how much of that applies to hip thrust then, where they're not giving all the benefits you're talking about. Can you get those benefits somewhere else, kind of like you're referencing with the T-bar row and the bench press? I'm trying to think. I've racked my brain on where you would need that. Again, I never know someone to have weak glutes from a glute max standpoint. That's a rate limiter.

It's unstable glutes. That's a hip shift in a squat. That's an unstable glute med, and you're reverting to a stable position. What if you do jiu-jitsu and you're shrimping all the time where you're lying you're lying on your back your knees are bent you're pressing your hips up into somebody so you can get your hips out so you can get them back to guard if they're in side control okay anything about jiu-jitsu uh i i know it's expanded in popularity to a point where i can't keep up with it i have like one of my best friends in the world is like a like a black belt brazilian he's going to kazakhstan like fight. And to me, it's just fighting

in robes, so I don't know much about it. We call them martial arts pajamas. Sure. There's a transferability, sure. And then use the scientific method. It wouldn't be what I would do. I can usually

think of seven or eight exercises that are going to create more neural drive if strength is the main output. Because I think having the connectivity to the floor, not being externally supported, if you could find an exercise that does that, like I would say a deficit stiff leg deadlift, going through purposeful spinal flexion under load,

controlled, you're going to utilize more of your, and I don't like the word, so I'll air quote core. And then I think you're just going to get more dynamic correspondence from that exercise than something that's rigged up in a smith machine or on now they got like plate loaded machines for it is right there's all kinds of so so if stability means not moving in the presence of potential change it's anti-movement anti-flexion anti-lateral flexion rotation etc like do you subscribe to mostly anti-movement based core exercises yeah i mean again it's function action right like rectus abdominis is going to say to be

based off its origin insertion of flexor the lumbar spine but when we use that in network we're actually using it as anti-extender think of the plank for example right so yeah it's just it's just a different way of framing it but then you got to go back to that venn diagram it's like you know i have professional bodybuilders i work with like i do do rope crunches right like if that localized stimulus is going to help hypertrophy and they're going to grow and that's what you that's your avatar in the middle of that three like layer venn diagram right sure but if you're a strength athlete i think your ability to resist force because like i think last time we were on we talked about that the kettlebell bottom under press and how like

when you get to the top, your wrist gets weak, but it's not your wrist. It's down regulation from an unstable position that hasn't been trained with functional stability. Imagine that instability is found at every single level of the spine, right? Albeit smaller in magnitude, greater in numbers, you're going to have a cumulative effect of down regulation of force output

because you don't have adequate spinal stability. I know guys that can do the full stack on a rope crunch, but the second you get them in like a reverse GHR setup. Yeah. Okay, girl time, because this is getting ridiculous. The microphone is in my mouth now. Can you hear? Yeah, you're good.

Okay, bringing this back to meathead baseline, because I feel like I'm kind of the target audience for like getting a big ass these days. I'm not, I mean, I'm still more into the bench press, but anyway, that's neither here nor there. How do I know if I have an instability issue as far as my glutes? Like,

can you tell quickly, walk me through a couple of things? You can be like, yeah, you've got an instability issue. Well, I think you just, you hit the nail on the head,

walk, walk you through it. So I look at it this way. Like if I gave you a gun right now and said, all right, I want you to shoot the solace sign. Could you do it? I would totally do it.

I could hit the sign. We're one foot away from it. And this is, yeah, thank you for adding perspective to those listening at home. It's like, I don't know,

it's 10, 12 feet long. I don't know if I could put it in the A. I can almost touch it. But so here's the thing. It's like, let's compare accuracy and stability in this example. So if I gave you a gun and shot that and you hit it

and it was like a binary pass-fail value, you'd be like, okay, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're accurate or a good shot. You could just be clipping the edge, almost missing. We don't really have the means or the tools from this vantage point to really assess how accurate you are. Now if we said, all right, there's a Wrangler down the street parked on the other side of the road,

it's about a mile and a half up. Could you hit the side view mirror? If you did that, you're like, oh, shit. All right, keep an eye on this one. Baller. Yeah. My dad did teach me how to shoot, so I probably could. Well, Canadian, but my dad's American.

Oh, that's why I half like you. Fair enough. I hit a sign as big as that C right there from a kilometer away Well, Canadian, but my dad's American. Oh, that's why I half like you. Fair enough. I hit a sign as big as that C right there from a kilometer away three times in a row. I'm glad you used kilometer. I appreciate that. Check that out. Really? I bet you hit it right.

None of the listeners will know what that means. No one even knows how far away you were. That was like across the street, right? That's across the street. I'll show you the YouTube video. It looks ridiculous. Really? What did you hit it with?

What was that? I want to say it was a.50 cal. I actually don't remember. Fair enough. So the comparison being short range, large range. It wasn't my rifle. With no gun experience. Bow and arrow.

Cross bow. That's right. Bow and arrow. Slingshot. So if we do gate cycle movements, if I just take you even through a long stride walking lunge and see what kind of strategies you come up with in those unstable positions,

for everything from heel strike, if you hit really hard on a walking lunge and see what kind of strategies you come up with in those unstable positions like in like for everything from like heel strike like if you hit really hard on a walking lunge so especially someone your size it's like you shouldn't be fee-fi-fo-fum on your way around the gym it's like you should be able to anticipate react or create a pattern so you don't have to react to the ground forces right where a lot of people they hit hard because they need that ground force to give them some sort of perception of where they're going to move so walking lungege single leg RDL anything where we're limiting a base of support and then a progression would be deviating the center of mass So single leg RDL hip airplane and then add weight on one side depending on what pattern you're unstable in rather rotational or through a lateral flexion plane And there's always one side that's worse than others too

Well, that's kind of the way the SI joints work is as a reciprocal movement. And that's like I usually go on record and say squatting and deadlifting aren't necessarily functional. Like hip function is an equal lesson. Deadlifting isn't functional? You're like fucking with me really bad right now. Well, think about it. Like think of function like. I think we need to define terms.

Yeah. Well, I mean, to me, it's like hip function is more of a lesson of evolutionary biology than it is a biomechanics, right? It's like 3.2 billion years ago when one chimp in the middle of Africa said, all right, this is how we get around now. That's hip function. That's why the SI joint is so unique is because we're ambulatory bipeds, right? So there's a reciprocal motion of like this instantaneous axis of rotation through the si joint so if my hip's an extension this uh ilium is introverted the other one is retroverted and the sacrum sort of mutates in the middle um so assessing hip function means having to go through and dare i use the word

functional movements like walking gait cycle movements that because that's calibrating that's calibrating downrange that's that's doug with a sniper rifle on the roof like a kilometer out, right? Because if he can bring that back in, he's here all day, right? He can hit this no problem. It's like if you don't calibrate downrange with some of these movements, you're slowly going to start trending off course and then you miss. And miss is, oh, my knee hurts when I squat. Or miss is, oh, I'm shifting in

the hole. Or miss is like, I blew out my ACL or whatever, right? So that's how, from an assessment standpoint, it's the simplest thing in the world. Like some people will try and go too far into the weeds and just like watch you walk. It's like any information I could get there is going to be way more visible or apparent

when we just take that gait cycle out and stretch it as far as we can in like a long stride walking launch and see how you react in those positions. So how do you feel about core stability, i'll say mostly instead of only training for people like gymnasts oh um i i don't know if i ever put too much thought into gymnasts as like a subset like i guess is the question do they need it in isolation and by like do they need stability work in isolation on top of their training well

if they're you know if i think about the majority of the movements that are kind of anti-movement oriented you got you got anti-rotation presses pallet presses where they are you have like one arm farmers carries planks etc then you have gymnasts that are doing you know like take just the rings as an example it's like a very basic movement do on the rings you hang on the rings you do like a strict hanging leg raise, like toes to rings type of thing. Like that's not an anti-movement core exercise. You're doing global flexion, but it doesn't fit the category we just talked about, but it's still a great quote-unquote core movement.

So I would look at it like, so I look at the body like three hubs of stability. Two peripheral hubs, your shoulder and your hip hip and then a central hub being your spine it's like and it fits a model of a lot of the way our body's put together as a means of protecting the nervous system like even our brain itself is organized in a way that we protect the most important parts of the brain deepest so like you get punched in the face you get a little foggy you don't feel the next one it's like yeah because sensory perception to like your appendages doesn't really matter. Sensory perception to your visceral organs buried in the middle of your head. So if you get punched in the face and then someone stabs you in the gut, you're still going to feel the stab in the gut because like, okay, I need to tend to this.

I self-felt that, right? If someone like tees off and then hits you in the chin again, it's like, all right, whatever. You can get some more teeth, right? Perspective. Right? Well, that's what I just kind of pay attention. I'll do it tomorrow. i'm gonna watch a movie first so you use like you know like the the global flexion or i think if you need to be able to

have an ability to buffer forces of stability at the two peripheral hubs so that we don't have to have such a extra physiological demand at the central hub right i see that a lot with with powerlifters or with olympic weightlifters or even like amateur crossfit athletes that are trying to get into some of these more complex overhead positions and they don't have either the mobility or stability in those positions and the demand goes centrally into that central hub so if you can't buffer peripherally at those two hubs the shoulder and the spine uh then you're going to have issues in that central hub and even like even someone who has like rock-solid stable core, if there's extra physiological load coming in because you have a shoulder injury,

it's hard to train for that. It's really hard to train for the extra physiological demand that's going to be incurred in a position where you're loading through a peripheral hub that can't hang, that can't kind of hold its weight. What's the breakdown of your clients in terms of the sports that they do or even high-level athletes versus more amateur? A lot, I would say a lot higher performers. I don't necessarily just exclusively work with high-level athletes,

but even more in the business realm, people who are just very type A, want to get shit done, which a lot of times is competitive athletes. And the nice thing about working in the Bay Area is that you have access to five major sports teams plus a pretty big gym that manages a lot of UFC camps. So like you do get access to a lot of high end athletes, but I appeal more to a mindset

than an avatar athlete or anything like that. Like I'll have probably equal number director, CEO, lawyer type as pitcher, fighter, hockey player, football player, thing like that. And what about breakdown men and women? Do you get a lot of women? As equal distribution as they're found in that mindset without overstepping any PC role.

So, yeah, I mean, women athletes are women CEOs and in equal numbers that they represent in the general workplace or in the sport marketplace. Do you find that there are just high level kind of overarching different needs or challenges between the men and the women in terms of just physically what they're looking to improve on? No, I mean, I'm very performance based. Like pain has a natural history. Performance doesn't. Like if you wake up and your neck kind of hurts, it's like the average chiropractor, physical therapist job is to beat natural history, which is like, okay, natural history, 14 days. If you didn't really do anything and it wasn't a structural damage, like you kind of slept weird, you'll be fine. Right. That'll, that'll pass. If you go see a chiropractor, a PT, the goal is like, all right, let's get them better in like six days. Let's see if we can do that. Let's see if we can beat natural history.

That's fine. But pain is such a subjective measure where it's like subjectivity and strength rarely go hand in hand. Like some of those some of the biggest numbers I put up where I really didn't fucking feel like doing it. But no one no one cares how you feel, right? And so I like dealing with people that are very performance-based because then that metric of my intervention has a number to it. It's seconds off a 100-meter time. It's pounds on a bar. It's distance from the javelin or something like that.

So that's how I look at it. So I wouldn't say gender plays a difference. And I would say the same thing across the board in training as a whole. It's like I don't think there's a fundamental difference in, I mean, obviously lower body strength is going to be greater in females, upper body is less in females. But it's whatever, if there was a difference, it's up here, like between the ears as far as what they want to get out of it, right?

Like that's why how many guys were in the glute lab that day other than you? None are invited. We got the backstage passes. None are invited? Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. We're the only two dudes that have ever been to it.

Are you serious? His wife needs to write the e-book about trust, and he needs to write the e-book about lifestyle design. That'd be too much, man. Brett's doing it right. Yeah, actually, when we asked if we could record there, because we did his show after the Glute Squad, and he was like, yeah, I guess you guys can come,

but try and, like, not be seen. He kind of gave me the, like, I'd really appreciate it if you weren't there early, but, you know, you'll be all right. He's the Hugh Hatcher of the fitness industry. Like, he likes us, so it's like, yeah. That's a good way. We have an awesome relationship with him, but yeah, it's pretty tight. Is there not an entire section of people that are missing out?

Like men need to have strong asses too. He's not interested in that. Have you seen his Instagram? Just niching it down. Disappointing. That's very disappointing. Quick question about the chiropractic world. So I think the average person on the street, if you walk outside right now and said, like,

what do you think about when you think about chiropractors? They're going to say, like, pop on my back. That's what people think about when they think about chiropractic world. So I think, I think the, the average person on the street, if you walk outside right now and said like, what do you think about when you think about chiropractors? They're gonna say like, pop on my back. Yeah. That's what people think about when they think about chiropractors. So, uh, from your perspective, like how often is that necessary for you, for your clients? Like what, what is it really for? What is it not for? Like, just go down that road. I've been to many chiropractors. Yeah. I've actually never interviewed a chiropractor or really talked to many that I thought were really intelligent like you. And see, I told you, Dr. Jordan Shallow, the muscle doc, is loaded with the opinions and loaded with the muscles. Hey, do me a favor right now. Get over to 30daysofcoaching.com.

T-H-I-R-T-Y, daysofcoaching.com. I've compiled 30 emails, 30 days of coaching delivered straight to your inbox every single morning. Tips on Olympic lifting, getting leaner, meal prep, adding lean muscle mass, CrossFit. I'm taking all of the podcasts we've done over the last six and a half years, all of the technique wads, all of the articles that have been written for our website. We've compiled them all into the best, most important, principal information that you need to get you started on your strength and conditioning journey. 30daysofcoaching.com, T-H-I-R-T-Y, daysofcoaching.com.

Enter your email address. You're going to wake up every morning to me. That sounds pretty awesome or scary. Also, make sure you take a screenshot. I'm at Anders Varner. I love hearing from the audience. Make sure you shoot me a DM. Take a screenshot of the show.

Hit me with the hashtag, go long. I love getting to events when everybody comes up to us and they're talking about how great the long shows are. We actually had somebody, I hope he's listening to this, it would be so rad. He came up to us and he fights terrorism. He loves hearing our long shows. I'm like, dude, in your earpiece, you're supposed to be listening to the bad guys, not the good guys at Barbell Shrugged. You're supposed to be following the bad guys. Listen to me later. Listen to them now.

Protect us. We appreciate you, dude. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for everybody that comes up to us at events, and I really, really enjoyed everybody talking about how much they've been enjoying the longer shows. So, take a screenshot. Hit me at Anders Varner.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, you don't have any questions or concerns, I don't think. Shoot me a DM. I love hearing from the audience. And tag me in your photos at Anders Varner. Let's get back to the show. Joe Rogan. Bring it.

Bring it. No, I'm just interested. Fucking bring it. No, I know. Bring it. You have some bullshit, I'm just interested. Fucking bring it. Bring it, Joe. No, I know. Bring it. You have some bullshit second-rate fucking scientist. But answer his question first.

He's a chemistry teacher. Yeah, I know. He's a fucking chemistry teacher. Answer his question first. I would go toe-to-toe all day. That was the most fucking... Is this the kind of thing about how chiropractors are all fake? I know what you're talking about.

He'll listen to moon landing conspiracy theorists. He'll listen to fucking Mormons. I didn't mean to... I only wanted... No, bring it the fuck up. Hold on. Answer Doug's question. Let him keep going. This will reach his ears fucking Mormons. I didn't mean to. I only wanted. Bring it the fuck up. Hold on. Answer Doug's question. Let it get going.

This will reach his ears one day. I just didn't want him to creep on your question. If I get a seat at the fucking table, I'll just. Because there's no. She's a fucking chemistry teacher, first and foremost. Consider the story. He will hear another side. People out there smoking fucking peyote, calling themselves shamans.

It's like, dude, you're a drug addict. You're a fucking drug addict. You're not a shaman. But he'll hear the other side to every fucking story but and like you don't understand the power that guy we talked about jiu-jitsu earlier dude like jiu-jitsu would not i don't want to say it won't think it wouldn't exist because it's existed for so long but a large part of the prevalence and popularity of jiu-jitsu now is because his podcast. Totally. And psychedelic drugs. Does this mean you don't want to do

ayahuasca with us later, Jordan? No, I'm busy that day. Sorry. Whatever day that is. Because he'll hear every other side. He'll hear every other side and then all of a sudden he's dead set on something with something he has zero fucking education on. It's like,

where did you learn that? On the set of news radio? Do they teach you that in Fear Factor? No one at that table knew what the fuck they were talking about. But they were talking about it and it reached however many millions of people. It's bullshit. It's like, dude, you take 60 minutes and you

bend them over your fucking knee. Your practice sounds a lot more like a PT to me than sit on this table, let me crack your neck real quick and peace out. You've got the forward head tilt. Let me crack your neck and rub your shoulder here for a second. You should be

good in eight visits if I can put you on a recurring membership here at the office. But the thing is, they were talking specifically about dangers in chiropractic and spinal manipulation without knowing dick about the research like a goddamn fucking thing that stroke is happening when you have a vertebral basal aneurysm if you look at the research above a certain age are likely to go to an md and die back and out of their fucking driveway below a certain age a little bit more conservative in their healthcare, their neck hurts? Yeah, because two of the three layers of

an artery in your fucking head are splitting and blood is going through there. Yeah, your neck is going to fucking hurt. Someone goes to a chiropractor, they die on the table. Someone goes to the fucking golf course, they die on the backswing, right? The event is actually happening.

So without understanding that and just spouting and espousing bullshit over some fucking podcast, totally ass-knocking. It was so irresponsible. It was the most, it was like, and I like his show. Isn't the chiropractic, hold on, the part that he was talking about where how the chiropractic, the whole thing was created by some like dude that believed in like mythical creatures and it's basically like Scientology.

How did your first president die? How did your first president die? How did your first president die? How did George Washington die? I don't know. I wish I knew. He was bled to death. Went to the chiropractor. Yeah, he went to the chiropractor.

Chiropractor broke his neck. Broke his neck. Let me just lay you on this table. Dead. Right. Or the actual story was he was bled to death by his physicians. Bloodletting. He came down with something.

It's like, all right, let's cut him. Hypovolemia. That means you run out of blood and you die. Poor guy. Poor guy. That was how you treated your president. Typical, by the way, that the Canadian knows more about American history. Yeah, we're just not children left behind.

No, so it's like here you have a profession that's more in its infancy and then all of a sudden like you know you have these unqualified we'll call them scientists because instagram handle tells us we have to saying that it's it's dangerous and it's again so if you go back to the the founding the origin story it's like yeah it out there. Call it chiropractic history. Don't call it chiropractic philosophy. But, you know, we don't have to look that far into, like, medical history to see some pretty, like, bad shit. You guys know what thalidomide is? Right?

Do you guys know how many fucking flippers? Hold on. Go back. I'm going to say no. Okay. So thalidomide was an anti-medic that was made in, like, the 1950s. Thalidomide was an anti-emetic that was supposed to cure morning sickness in the 1950s. The only problem is they rushed

it to market and then there was 10,000 kids in East Germany that had birth defects. I thought it was more than that. But yeah. Yeah, right? And that's medicine for you. So we all got fucking problems. When was that? 1950s. I know a lady that has that.

Now that you say what it is. Alright, so let's pretty quick to call the kettle black, right, from the conventional medical field, right? So I think if that's your straw man argument you're going to bring to the table, you're going to have to come up with something better than that, right? Is this basically the same thing as powerlifters being like, I fuck those weightlifters, like they're not very strong, and the weightlifters are like, I fuck those guys,

like they can only move their arms from here to here. No, weightlifters being like i those weightlifters like they're not very strong and weightlifters like i those guys like they can only move their arms from here to here and like weightlifters are elitist so like the car factors don't like the pts and the pts don't like the medical doctors and nobody likes personal trainers and that type of thing no it doesn't matter as long as you like the patient right like that's like i worked multidisciplinary i worked in apple's corporate wellness center next to some of the smartest fucking doctors, physical therapists, acupuncturists, dermatologists, dentists in the world. And like they're smart enough to know when they don't know what they're talking about. Right. Like if someone has like a peripheral radiculopathy or something or a peripheral like nerve.

Oh, my God. It's Lola. Sorry. The dog. That was literally the only reason I flew to New York. They have some sort of peripheral nerve entrapment or something like that. Or they have some sort of like dysfunction. They know they don't know function. They know structure.

Right. And they're happy to ship it off. Like I think the infighting is in people who get caught up in their own dogma. Like I know chiropractor or I know physical therapists. And I've worked with and been contracted by physical therapists to teach them spinal manipulation. Because now, to your point, the mechanism of correction there, I think, is actually... You need to understand how the muscles of the spine really work from a neurological perspective. Flex your calf. Flex your bicep.

These are all voluntary control, right? Ventral spinal nerves, we can create a motor pattern in the prefrontal cortex, we can dish it out, we can create like an afferent, like, okay, we can re-coordinate that pattern, we can do it again. I said flex your multifidus. I'm doing it right now. Every one of them? Yeah, so

the thing is, there's a dorsal root that comes off, and the dorsal root of the spinal column is actually reserved for sensory input but it has a special motor branch some muscles of the spine right those these are your erectors these are your multifidus these are your intertransversary eye these are your um your rotatories your transversal spinalis like these muscles that we don't train in the gym so they must not exist but still have an origin and insertion just like a bicep just like a calf just like a hamstring so i propose that when you get like passively mobilized and adjusted in the spine what you're

doing is like you're rapidly creating a stretch reflex of the golgi tendon organ between the origin and insertion of multifidus origin multifidus insertion like if for whatever reason you've had to resist force in your spine and these muscles have been called upon very acutely to react and they stay in spasm because you don't have the ability to contract and relax them yourself. When you adjust someone, all you're really doing, depending on where in the spine you're doing it, is where in the spine is going to dictate kind of how

in the vector you're going to do it. When you do that, you're just rapidly just shifting origin from insertion of these muscles, a stretch reflex and then it cools out so it's not it shouldn't be your first order intervention by any stretch of the imagination but you can't deny like if you like if you have like

acute torticollis in your neck and you get adjusted and you walk out you're like holy fucking shit I couldn't back out of the driveway now all of a sudden I have full range of motion it's like one of those muscles in your neck or a group of, because that's the thing, you usually strain ranges of motion and then the muscles that contribute within that range of motion get affected. So it's like if someone's adjusting your neck,

they should also be doing some sort of muscle work in your trap or your levator or your scalenes. Because it's like it had to get through those muscles first to get to that deepest order muscle of the multifidus or the erectors or whatever so the adjusting the going down the research route and throwing the baby out with the bath water is like like killing a bunch of kids with thalidomide going all right we're done with pharmaceutical interventions here we're done no no more drugs we got a bunch of flipper kids. A bunch of people died. We're done here. We can reappropriate the mechanism of correction.

That's how Viagra was made. It was like blood pressure medication. It's like, oh, fuck. It's not working. What the hell is going on? It's been four hours. I'm going on the doctor. The best marketing line of all time? Yeah, by far.

If you had an erection that lasts longer than four hours please consult your doctor that's the marketing line of the fucking everyone that's taking it hasn't had one that's lasted four seconds my bone is gonna last too long beautiful i need two of those i'm calling the wife i'm not calling a doctor that's right yeah so that's my biggest thing with chiropractic. How do you – we have all these different professions. Like if you go to a nutritionist, the answer is always eat better. If you go to a chiropractor, it's like a stereotype. From a second to go, the answer is to pop your back. If you go to a personal trainer, you've got to go lift weights, on and on and on.

Like everyone has their specialty, and the answer always lies within that specialty. People do refer out when it's obviously beyond their scope and all that but like how how do we find a way in the future to combine all these things where you can go somewhere and you you can get directed to the right place and someone's not just like well this is what i sell so i'm going to give you only what i sell well you got to fix how people get reimbursed right like i think insurance company is a big part of that like and that's i do i filed one bill to blue cross blue shield once and it's like you know you can like you bill off of usually customary rates for your area code. Like Mountain View and Palo Alto, California.

You want to talk area codes? I'm getting paid. I've got a couple of them for you. Right? And it's like, so what happened was I sent the bill. I was fresh out of school and I like waited a month and didn't get anything. I was like, what the fuck?

Called them a few times. I'm like on the non-provider out of network. Like this is definitely an Indian call center. That's the route I get put on. And it's six months goes by and it's like i never filed another bill since i'm all cash yeah right because it's like if i want to chase people down for my fucking money i'd still sell drugs for a living like it's bullshit so it's like i think once it becomes a meritocracy then cream's gonna rise to the top because that chiropractic rack and crack model that don't get me wrong, it fucking exists. There's a reason that buddy on the street is going to say that.

Like, oh, yeah, just crack your back and come back in three days. That's a really good business model if you can sell it. Well, it's a tangible thing where the customer can be like, I definitely know he did something. I heard it and I felt it. Something happened. My money was well spent. Yeah.

And people like things that feel good but is it really making long term change yeah it's definitely transient at best and I would be the first to agree it's an adjunct right I use it I use it as sparingly as I'll use oh jeez I don't know any corrective exercise I'll

use if it fits the need of the patient sure but when it comes to like integrative care i think it has to come down to the money man like i don't think i can't go to school to know all those things like and i'll be like hey here the best we can do is like let's if i'm a structure function guy like even if you have herniated disc majority of people have many ways and are asymptomatic let's assess or come at this from a gold standard functional approach rather than just looking at MRI results, which are going to give us a gold standard structural approach. Right.

If we can't outrun bad structure, if we can't out function bad structure, you're in the wrong place. So it's like I'll have a decreasing order of likelihood of where I know they need to go. But as far as like a one stop shop, it's like I'll have a decreasing order of likelihood of where I know they need to go. But as far as like a one-stop shop, it's like that's weird. I think more kind of generally speaking too, I think it's more of a shift towards holistic, functional, sort of proactive approach to health in general instead of waiting until you're fucked up and then going to whoever. You already don't like this. He got triggered. You see him? He said holistic.

He said holistic and He said holistic. He said holistic, and he started crying. Triggered. Look, that could be like a trend word, but I think what I'm trying to say is a high-level approach that encompasses all of these things you're talking about. Nope, you said holistic. I heard it.

You said holistic. It's a word to describe what I did. I just described it in more words. I understand what you're saying, but even that becomes predatory. All of it can be, though, right? I mean, that's why you have to educate yourself and do your research. There's a spectrum to all of the things. There's shitty strength coaches.

There's shitty chiros. There's a lot of woo-woos out there thrown around, holistic. I think the idea of trying to stay healthy rather than fuck around until you're hurt or sick or fat or whatever and then seek somebody out to help you. How about we put some responsibility on patients and individuals and people take some

self-control and research and don't find a healthcare practitioner the same way you'd find a diner in some town you've never been into. Yelp called me three days ago. By the time I was done, I had four reviews taken down off my yelp page because i just teed off on the guy like a it's a hipah violation and b it's like i don't want yelp patients i don't want people who care so little about their health care that they want to know the opinion of random yeah and that's a five-star back crack right there and but dude that sells

people yeah so it's like at some point it's like let me put the ball back in your court, right? Rather than being like, oh, you know, how can you be like the be-all, end-all or how can we find a system? It's like people don't like to – like people like to be sold. People are constantly sold problems and the products are an afterthought, right? Like when marketing is predatory, obviously, but what they're selling you is here's your problem and look what we have here. What a solution, right? People don't like to hear that their problem

is that they're stupid. That's a large part of your problem. And if you can take on that as your own personal responsibility and educate yourself, then all of a sudden you can start to help expedite this process, this turnover rate of like, okay, I'm not going to go see the guy who's going to adjust me eight times in a week and bill me for $1,000.

I'm going to see the guy once and he's going to give me a bunch of shit to do and I'm going to do that. So how do you get stupid people to be self-aware then? How do you fix stupid? I think people have a very small capacity. Red check, green X. That's how you do it. Infographics.

Put the lacrosse ball here. Oh, sweet Jesus. Kelly, bless your soul, man. You sold more lacrosse balls than the game of lacrosse. He definitely did. There's no way that, yeah, he definitely did. People in California don't even know what lacrosse is, but every cross-thrower has got a lacrosse ball.

They ran out of places to put the lacrosse ball. Yeah. I'm sure there's a... Well, they just changed the shape of it. Look what Rogue puts out. Look at some of that stuff. This is the silliest thing I've ever seen. And don't even get me started about that.

If you melt two of them together, that's a new product. I don't even know what you're not getting started about. Oh, the Theragun? You should totally get started about it. Do they suck? No, hold on. Yeah. Hold on, the Theragun...

Are they a sponsor or something? The Theragun? No. I would love for them to sponsor because I don't care if it works or not. It feels amazing. Yeah, so is heroin. It's entertainment. What are your thoughts?

I want to hear it. Yeah. I think if – the problem is it's in the language, right? Like you create a dose-dependent model when you say you're breaking up scar tissue. It's like, listen, not to toot my own horn, if there's a manual therapist who's capable of breaking up scar tissue, it's me.

It's this guy. I would never in a million years have the fucking audacity to tell someone that I can break up scar tissue with these. So don't tell me. Like, you want to break up scar tissue? Take off that little tennis ball end and throw on a three-quarter inch jigsaw blade. It's the only way you're going to break up scar tissue is if you're going in there with a fucking

saw. And the problem I have with that is because it's in the language, like I had, I'm not going to name the company, reach out to me, hey we want to send you this thing. And I sent like a very long and polite like thanks but no thanks. I know how this game is played. I have an Instagram following. You're going to send it to me. I'm going

to post about it. I'm not going to do that that you can send it to me and i can try it and if you're confident in the fact that you think i'll like it which i'm not going to then i'll promote it we can talk send it to me collect it dust for like three weeks and then they're like hey man like what do you think i'm like i think exactly what i thought i told you i was going to think like it's not it's there's no feedback there's nothing it's not dynamic it's just it's a passive it's an external stimulus and what i'm trying to do is drive an internal stimulus it's like imagine imagine you're trying to tell someone what peanut butter tastes like heaven heaven awesome what does blue look like to someone who's colorblind jelly with it there you go but like if someone's colorblind and they've never seen the color blue how would you describe it my job if i'm trying to access

the nervous system is to translate kinematic proprioception which is our sixth sense right this fucking jackhammer is not going to do it so what people do is like dose dependent if some is good more is better and they're not the only thing in the fitness industry guilty of this this crime but when people come in or with like the smart tool thing and they come in like like they've been like third degree like they got fucking assaulted on the street with a bat and like yo check out like the scar tissue i broke up it's like uh okay so then scar tissue if you have it you're just fucked forever no you can load it dude you can you can get great results of scar tissue especially eccentric load like there's great research on like achilles tendon um like

surgery like post-op actually a friend of mine strength coach for the stanford men's basketball team just had his achilles rupture he's six weeks ahead of schedule reinstate passive range of motion active assisted active active resistance start eccentrics and you'll see you can literally see on the mri where that scar tissue starts to form in conjunction in a linear pattern with the striations of the muscle. Load. Why? Because we're creating an internal stimulus with the nervous system. We're not just framing a

fucking house. It's so good. But it's novel, right? Because the majority of people don't need specific... Hey man, whatever floats your boat. It makes you feel better. You're putting blood flow to the area. But it's external. You know what else does?

Eccentric lower puts blood. You live in the world of healing people from pain, and most of the shit's made up in their brain anyway. No, I don't because I deal with performance metrics. I don't deal with head cases. I don't want to live in that world, man, because I don't want my interventions to hinge on the axis of belief. I don't want you to believe in what I do.

Isn't that the majority? Like if you say I'm going to the chiropractor, the majority of the people that you would be talking to are not in the mindset of the people that you work with. So how do they go about it? So anything that they're going to input is a novel adaptation. So think of it like I always use a nutrition standpoint because it's easier because I know less than nothing about nutrition. But think of it this way. Like if you sat on a bus.

I'm going to talk about it then later. I want to talk about nutrition. Okay. All right. If you sat on a bus and like say you didn't know anything about nutrition. Like I drove a railroad spike through your brain. You just forgot everything you knew about nutrition. And some sat next to you it was like 700 pounds and he's like hey dude i want to lose some weight any advice i don't know man salads take the stairs like and that's a very novel a very novel input a very novel adaptation

that he'd make if he did that and held to it and that was a change you make it everything else stayed the same he'd likely start to trend downward, right? Energy and energy out. That's basic. If you got on the same bus two weeks later and you, there was Usain Bolt. It was like,

Hey man, like I want to get my 19, 19, 200 meters down to 19 flat. Any advice? What salad? Take the stairs. Like that's not going to fucking work.

Right? So it's, it's novelty versus specificity, right? It's adaptation versus optimization. So I think a lot of people, they're, they're so dysfunctional that any little input, like the fat guy eating a salad on the stairs, like, yeah, we'll start in a trend in the right direction. But over time, that's not going to work anymore. Then there's like, oh, if it worked before, it's like, wait, more salad, more? It's like you got to know when to switch, right? Like when are you starting to like outgrow the potential benefit of novelty and when do you need specificity? And then because that's where a lot of people lose the plot is like they think,

you know, oh, glute strengthening helps low back pain patients. You could search that in PubMed and find a thousand different things. And that's fine because it's novel but not specific it's not specific to like how our hips function but it can be enough to eclipse the pain threshold and get mrs robinson out of pain enough to get her to soccer practice or whatever right but if she keeps at it we always bring up like the most pathetic person miss robinson and her soccer maybe she has a very fulfilling life we don't know yeah she's what's that movie what's uh what's the dustin What's that movie? What's the Dustin Hoffman movie? Yeah.

She's the MILF, right? Basically. I love that you do that. I'm not allowed to say that. Yeah. Okay. You're allowed. But anyway, so.

I'm proud of you. Thank you. I'm Googling this. Will you stay with us all weekend? You guys don't know? Come on. All right. It's knowing when to switch graphs.

Or just starting off on the right foot. Right? Like, if your problem is a fundamental instability, let's start with a very attenuated version of that and progress on this road rather than going like, okay, we're going to do strength for a bit until we reach the end of that, and then we're going to go a hard pivot into integration and stability, and we're going to go there.

That, for me, is the main line in the sand that you need to draw is understanding that everyone should be held to like a standard of an elite athlete whether or not they get there at least they're on the right track right this is problem they have with like fundamental strength training programs that are like starting strength like that it's like starting strength needs to end and then i need to unfuck people from squatting like idiots and now i need to teach you how to actually squat to get strong right with it's fine for the early you know neurological adaptation period of 13 weeks and you drink a gallon of milk a day and all this nonsense and you put on a bunch of

weight you get fat and you get strong then you fuck yourself up and then it's like okay rip it so pissed off at you right now that's fine that's fine they can send another season sorry what is doing what is doing a specific program have to do with squatting incorrectly or correctly in this case wait specifically the starting strength uh so what does the programming of the starting strength program have to do with the technique of the squatting in this example well they're all one they're all one thing right like you're you're starting off with like the weights are so low that it doesn't not like if someone's just starting it doesn't necessarily they're not at a high risk necessarily of injury like if they're starting

with the empty bar and adding two and a half pounds a week until they've just gone through that uh that motor unit recruitment process now it's like once we start to actually build load with that and there's a thing it's what there's what the book says and then there's what i see in practice and it's like the amount of disconnect between what the book says what i see in practice means that we got to check the book right that's with starting strength that's with some religions. You can call it a thing of peace, but if I'm not seeing peace, there's a dissonance between how this is being taught in real life without getting too

geopolitical on it here. What I'm seeing is the squat, it's all one thing. Here's the progressive overload pattern. Here's the squat pattern. The looking down at the ground thing. It's like, all right, you want to end up there sure look there so that's that would be a comparison i would draw is like and what about the starting strength idea of overhead press does that drive you crazy the like

arch the like super arch it's like a jerk but we only do it with our thoracic spine in a really bad position but we act like we have a big barrel gut and a super tight belt to actually say it's healthy. Yeah, I mean, it's easy to have an argument when you know you're not wrong. Like, the second you see that ribcage flare, you know your spine's going into extension. Well, if the function of the core is anti-extension, right? Like, we're holding a plank, trying to keep the ribcage down, keeping that lumbar spine from going into extension. The second I see that under axial load, it's like, dude, you're playing with fire.

So you don't like the deadlift as a functional movement? The way they squat sucks and the way that they teach the press sucks so nobody should ever read Starter Strength. I didn't say that. I didn't say that because I don't have good enough lawyers. I like the deadlift.

It's probably one of my best lifts. I just think from... You're trying to build a corner behind him. I would have knocked him right into this. Stand here. I just think everything... There's a requisite amount of thought that you need to put into this

without being considered like, oh, he's overcomplicating things. It's like, no. This is the exact level of detail you need to think about it if you want to do this kind of shit long term. Is there a potential that you have just been in the gym long enough

and tried enough things that you can pick apart each of these principles and right and wrong when actually maybe all the principles do work? Like all the principles are, or all the programs work really really well but you've seen enough patients and you've seen enough clients that there's individual like your your sample size is really small because you're dealing with like the top one percent of the top

one percent but on a population-wide starting strength could be a great program for somebody to learn how to do this stuff i feel like that's basically what you just said. It all works in context to some extent, but there are often better paths to take. Yes to both of you. I just think I like to resonate with a principle understanding of fundamental biomechanics. That's what dictates a lot of my decision making

because it's when one of these tenants is not followed that's when something goes wrong so starting strength can be a great like linear progression progressive overload sure yeah that works it's undeniable it works especially in early adaptations and training does what i see as portrayed and i hate it's slow hanging fruit at this point like it's been done to death but like starting strength for an example like is that squat pattern well that doesn't for me necessarily what i see when it's executed and again there's a dissonance in the book and i'm going to be very careful so my lawyer hears me say this that there's a diff there's a distance between what i see and what's written in the book what i see is a fundamental disconnect in that biomechanic that overarching

those are overarching tenets to things like programming and progressive overload. You can do that in good positions and be fine. You can do block, you can do any sort of, you can do small off, you can do shako, you can do any program and you're going to increase

the success of that program and decrease the likelihood of injury if you're abiding by these overarching tenets of biomechanics. It's when the program starts to step into this realm and teach you how to squat. What are your general thoughts on barbell movements in general? I guess like the back squat

in general. Yeah, so I mean, I'm a competitive powerlifter. Yeah, that's kind of why. He likes it. Yeah, clearly you do. You're different. You're built to move the heavy things around over many, many years of moving the heavy things around.

Squatting, for example, I think there's ground forces and there's the applied load. You need to make sure that those are connected. I'm not going to do a wide stance front squat. that's silly i'm accepting ground forces in a way that i would have to if the bar was in a lower position because i

have to appease the center of gravity right so i think they're they're fundamentals to each one like i think like a pattern like front squat is probably way more we're going to quote functional uh as long as you're kind of like keeping a more of a neutral pelvis and not hyperextending and losing the core. I think if the goal is load, you're going to have to low bar squat, get technically proficient at the low bar squat, and the second you're technically proficient to the point where I could wake you from a dead sleep

and you can execute your low bar squat is the exact moment you should get off the low bar squat. I think you stay in that burning building too long because you start to yeah at both ends of the spectrum it's like okay let's look at the knees the hips and the back as like this pendulum swing of the squat it's like if i have a like a really far anterior load like if i'm counterbalance squatting it's like pendulum swings way knees minimal hips no back my back

can stay totally upright and then when we bring that load into our base of support up and over into more advantageous positions structurally into the low bar position that pendulum just starts to swing so my low bar squat a lot of back more hips and a bit of knees so it's just like i think as long as you understand that yeah squatting is squatting is great like it's very it's a very economical exercise it doesn't necessarily mean it's functional. Like, every time I see, like, oh, it's like the picture of the baby. It's like, listen, I got a big fucking head. It's not the third of the size of my body yet, right? That changes things a little bit.

That little fucker's... Baby spines are so long. You got 300 bones. I have 206. How am I supposed to compete with that, right? Or, like, the sagittal plane, like the stick figure drawing, or why people, like, who have long femurs try and explain how shitty their squat is in one dimension of a joint that moves in three dimensions.

Like, that's weak, man. That's a real weak argument. Generally speaking, not sports specific, what do you think about dumbbell strength work versus barbell? So like benching, shoulder press, all that kind of good stuff. Yeah, I mean, just the medium is the message, message right just like we talked about the content stuff earlier like you're gonna look at like think of like a switchboard uh that's not a great example but think of like a like a big like you go into like a proper music studio and there's all the different sliders like imagine each one of

those was capped like each one of those has a there's 10 across the board and you can go to 10 and we can only have 100 output it's like rather than just looking at volume and intensity as like the two sliders that we can go through it's like oh i'm going to go light for more so we drop one down we crank one up and we have 100 output and then if one moves up the other moves down and the output still subjectively the same look at range of motion look at like medium barbell kettlebell dumbbell as a way to either attenuate load like increase the amount of weight or decrease the amount of weight or increase the amount of stability or decrease the amount of stability you can look at uh tempo like eccentric loading versus like explosive concentrics is the goal hypertrophy is the goal

is the goal time under tension is the goal building strength is it building resiliency in tendons that need to be under tension longer so the more things you can conceptualize on this little switchboard the more variance you can make and the more specific you can be on what where that output goes and to what direction it goes i just think the antiquated notion of volume and intensity loses a lot of people. So that's why you're doing lots of cool, badass dumbbell stuff with Ben to get stronger for your powerlifting stuff. Yeah, and I think go back to the three-layer

Venn diagram thing. It's like, you look now at the guys. When I first started powerlifting, I was one of the bigger, more bodybuilder type. Now I'm in the warm-up room and it's like, dude, I've competed against Larry Williams a handful of times. I competed against I was there competing while he was competing.

He was kicking everyone's ass in the whole world. We warmed up near each other. Yeah, exactly. I warmed up on the platform and he warmed up in the back. He laughed at me. I was done competing and then he was warming up. But I think dumbbell work is,

A, it's a great way to build stability. It's a great way to build stability because you're scaling down. It's not as unstable as a kettlebell, but you have more load. I'm trying to get strong. Load is kind of king when you're trying to get strong. So it's where and how you put it in. The flat bench is a little bit more stable than a higher incline position. So it's like, okay like okay do i want to

how do i want to scale this maybe i go you know four weeks on a flat then four weeks on a 45 and then four weeks on a dumbbell overhead by the time in that overhead position it's like i have a longer range of motion but i'm more unstable and i have an unstable medium it's like okay that's i could still build strength but what i'm likely going to benefit from is adapting in an unstable position with an unstable position with an unstable load so then when I go back onto a stable medium the barbell I've accrued a lot of that stability in the overhead position where my shoulder is most unstable then when I come back down stable position stable medium on the barbell I don't necessarily have to worry about

tilting the scales of stability in my accessory movements because I've just done an increasing overload not necessarily of weight. One would argue that you'd actually get stronger or weaker as you get into the overhead position, but an overload of instability, right? It's almost like when my mom used to blend my vegetables up in my spaghetti sauce. It's like it's not just doing this banded corrective exercise work.

It's built right into the programming, right? So it's like now when we go back to bench, like we can do a six-week block, bench twice a week with varied intent and not really have to worry about succumbing to injuries from shoulder instability because we just did this progressive load of instability through range of motion

rather than just progressive overload of resistance or volume. To take that further down the continuum, you know, what place do machines, the ultimate 100% stability on doing, doing you know a machine bicep curl or whatever it is like what is the adductor machine better than a bridge machine it's great yes no the yes no machine that's right so happy uh what what what role do machines have in the world of performance hypergb bodybuilding etc, etc. Heard of that or not? They refer to them as the good girl, bad girl machines in my neck of the woods.

I think... I mean, I may have spoken outright about a few things I don't particularly like. I think you can justify a place for it. Do I do machines? Yeah, sure. I'll do some cable stuff. And I think cables, again, it has to be devils in the details.

I'll do a cable bicep curl, but I'll do it here. Why? Because my shoulder's in a really unstable position here. How long have you been hanging out with this Pekulski guy? BPAC? This sounds a lot like what he's got going on. If you guys are training together. It's amazing.

It's like a full-level dissertation. You guys should come down to Florida next week. We're planning on it. No, not next week. We're not together. It's amazing. It's like a full-level dissertation. You guys should come down to Florida next week. We're planning on it. No, not next week. We're not planning on it. Wait, the week after? January. Mid-January.

Son of a... We're going to be gone. No. Oh, damn it. Okay. Wait, where are you going? Me and Ben are doing seminars in Australia. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're trying to match it up while he's in town. Okay, early January. It depends upon what I'm losing, but yeah. Oh, shit. That's right. They haven't released the dates yet, so... Really? Interesting. Oh, shit. That's right. They haven't released the dates yet. Really? Interesting.

Anyways, machines. I think machines are good from an isolation hypertrophy standpoint. And if that's what you're lacking in your strength training, that you're missing pounds on the bar because you're just not big enough, I think it's great. I think from rehabilitation, early stages, just getting people back moving, I think it's good because a lot of times when we get injured, we actually get injured in our structure, right?

Medial meniscus, labrums, these are all inert structural things that offer a structural stability. So if we can externalize that into the apparatus just to start moving again, then slowly kind of weeding ourselves off and getting back onto more unstable mediums like the barbell.

But it really comes down to exercise selection. You mentioned the adductor-abductor machines. You're building strength in positions of stability. A novel stimulus for people who are detrained, but for someone who's an athlete, I'd much rather do a unilateral loaded single leg RDL for the abductor because that's going to add instability to the lateral hip, or the abductor rather,

and a Copenhagen plank to reinforce the anterior obliques. I don't know what that is. Come on. A Copenhagen plank? Copenhagen plank? I don't know what that is. You know what that is. I actually don't know what that is.

Oh my God. I probably know the exercise, but I don't know the terminology. So it's like Copenhagen plank is a side plank where the top foot is on like a bench, and then the bottom foot actually raises up. So it's like if you guys... The tear your groin plank. Right. Well, so it's like if you guys the terrier groin plank right well tear your groin if you have unstable pelvis plank it's like it's splitting

the atom i mean it's splitting the atom it's like if you know you can split the atom one way and blow the world up you can split it another way and you can light the world up but that's like you want to talk good research like if you don't have relative strength in abduction adduction within 75 percent really high likelihood that you're going to have hip and low back pain. Because when we load, it's always knees out, knees out, knees out, knees out. Never any consideration to how that pelvis is going to be stable. To me, biomechanically, that's one of the best exercises ever. You guys read Thomas Meyer's Anatomy Trains?

The anterior oblique sling, which helps if we think of how we walk or run, external oblique and opposite side adductors right that pectineus and adductor brevis pretty much originate right where that external oblique on the opposite side inserts in so what am i doing i'm in that side plank my external oblique is acting to stabilize the lumbar spine and my adductors are acting to stabilize the pelvis core and adductors are both pelvic stabilizers when you think about it so So people who have tight adductors usually have an unstable core first. And the adductors have to, their function is to stabilize the pelvis because they're not getting the pelvic

stability from their core first. So that would be, it's a good starting point. Is Ben coaching you? No. I'm coaching him. We actually have a lot of opposing viewpoints on this. Because he comes at it from a totally different perspective. He's more isolation, I'm more integration. coaching him oh no uh no we actually have a lot of opposing viewpoints on this like we actually

because he comes at it from a totally different perspective he's more isolation i'm more integration he's more hypertrophy i'm more strength um but we meet a little bit in the middle on a few things like the cable bicep curl we were in tahoe for spartan champs yeah we're out there um and we we did about 45 minutes back and forth we were training with um this guy our buddy ours Matt Vincent. And Matt was just sitting there recording it. And it's like we were just talking about external rotation of the shoulder, expressing supination of the wrist.

And he thinks it's one thing and I think it's the other. So it's similar but different. So if you've got really smart people and they don't agree on this? Well, it's not that we disagree. It's like building context, right? It's like if this, then that. It's like really complex's, it's like building context, right? It's like, if this, then that it's like really complex algorithms of like, okay.

Cause that's the thing when you come up with, and that's why it's hard to sell, right? Cause you can come up with something that says, Hey, everyone do this. And then you'll have a certain percent of people who do well and a certain percent of people who don't. And you hope that people who do well do more than people who don't.

And then you have a viable product and you've reached critical mass and you've reached enough early adopters and you're fine. Yeah. Where it's like, if you want to teach people how to teach people, then the context matters, right? So it's a lot of this, if this, then that sort of thing. A lot of his stuff also gets into

a lot of downregulation, parasympathetic stuff. Do you buy into a big piece of that? Love it. Yes. I've been messing around with HRV lately. Yeah. And I'm not a big piece of that yes i've been messing around with hrv lately yeah um and i'm not a big biometrics guy and i actually use hrv to see how how far i can go like how low i could get because i think running away from like a low hrv is you need to you need to flirt with that line you need to fly close to the sun as far as like, okay, if we're trying to reap a benefit from this

sympathetic drive, we need to see how long we can stay close to the fire for. Right? And it's dicey because you are likely going to get hurt. But I think in true sports performance, it's like, that's what really separates a lot of the top end athletes. They can just stay in the fucking ring. They can stay in the ring

and take the fucking punches. Whether it's powerlifters and bodybuilders who must have just adamantium joints by the way they just constantly just load load load like i'd be in the fucking hospital if i loaded like these guys but if i can track to see okay where's my breaking point and i think hrv is a really good it's a really good way of measuring that that parasympathetic drive and it's like we're all gas right like we're all gas pedal whenetic drive. And it's like, we're all gas, right? Like we're all gas pedal when it comes to training. It's like training things like breathing or something like that as an access to the parasympathetic nervous system helps us train the brake. And so knowing

how, okay, how, how quickly can we take this thing to a stop? How, how good can we get these brakes? We got this fucking Porsche that's going a hundred miles an hour. That's all well and good unless it's going into a wall. it's like how quickly can I flip that switch in a deload or a contest prep or a peak and how quickly can I get that back up because the longer I can stay going faster I'm going to win the fucking race but I lose the race

if I end up smashing into the wall so I think there's huge benefit to that they haven't quite figured out I think like they're afraid of that metric like a low rating on an HRV score. People freak out and they deload. It's not meant to be comfortable. In that stress state is where you're going to make the adaptations

that are actually going to make you stronger. It's just giving us intuitive data long-term that's going to allow us to stay there for just the amount of time and then be the last one out of a burning building. So I think there's something to it. How long have you been able to hold on to that without going and just redlining and needing a week off? I can get, like, there's kind of tricks you can do

to actually get your reading back up very transiently, like within the day, like a lot of breathing exercises. He's hacked the system. Are you doing a lot of breathwork training? Half of it's just for, like, the general anxiety of, like, sleeping in fucking hotel rooms for the past six months, just trying not to have a panic attack uh but yeah there's a big because i look at it twofold like i think just as like we can use the eyes to see a lot of like neural behavior like they use eyes

for like concussion testing right like it gives us a a window into what the brain is doing i think using breathing because it's an autonomic and a voluntary control actually starts to give us access to not just not just obviously breathing but it gives us access to all things controlled by the autonomic nervous system right so upper trap low or upper trap low back pain like real spinal level conditions that's where all of it starts like if i have some stressed out ce, I'll give him the corrective exercise. He works 70 hours a week. He's in China and Shenzhen like three

weeks out of the month. He's not going to fucking do the exercise. He's not doing his bird dogs on the plane. Sure. Although they fly him like Emirates, so he's probably got enough room to do it. But if I just give him breathing, it's like, okay, these muscles are autonomically controlled, as we discussed earlier. I've found good results, albeit the process i got there kind of anecdotally

but based off the theory is like okay if breathing is a voluntary window that gives us access to the autonomic we can use that to override maybe other autonomic things we don't have access to so i yeah i use i utilize like a lot of breathing stuff in treatment protocol even in the office what about acupuncture i don't know much about it honestly like i'd be speaking it's been around for a while if it works and you like it cool i've seen it do awesome things and i've seen it fuck some people up but i've seen the barbell do awesome things i see the barbell fuck a lot of people up i i don't really have a dog in the fight one way or another if you find like a good practitioner go for it that's

kind of that's my end game with that i kind of want to talk about this food food part of things because you're talking about like resiliency and training and and i mean i guess you were talking about staying your own lane so maybe your thing isn't nutrition but i want to know how you eat yeah no i mean i i'm like as smart about like i joke about cheesecake a lot and i have vices like anyone else, but like I have to, I mean, it's a weight category sport,

right? Like if I'm either going to compete at two 42 or two 75, that's going to matter. Like I'm not going to try and lose like a ton of weight and leave weight on the platform as a consequence of that. So to me, it's, uh,

it depends on what arena I'm trying to perform in too, right? Like I do a lot of writing. I think, I mean, the big thing is like carbs, no carbs, carnivores, it depends on what arena i'm trying to perform in too right like i do a lot of writing i think i mean the big thing is like carbs no carbs carnivores it's diet identities that are going around and it's like sure man diet identity i love that i had not heard anyone say it that exact phrase yeah but it makes so much fucking sense that you just said that it's it's it's hard to fall it's so i'm just agnostic like i just don't care anymore like the the rogan thing irked me a bit but that's like a six like yeah like i

used to be at 10 all the time with everything but you just you gotta just wait what else were you at 10 about oh just oh like the the rogan thing the chiropractic anything anything that i felt like i had empirical evidence with experience that said someone was wrong, I had no qualms about letting them know. For me, you're a jiu-jitsu guy, and I find this is the best thing with people who enter into combat sports or got their hands

dirty a few times. It's like the end of any verbal altercation is a physical altercation. If you feel confident there, sticks and stones, bring it on. I'll fucking yell your ear off. I don't really care because if you want to there oh sticks and stones bring it on i'll fucking yell your ear off i don't really care because if you want to go the other route i'm game right so i think just but having to focus from a standpoint of being like unimpeachable from like a verbal standpoint like i i think i could hurt people more with words than with

fists sometimes and that's a great skill to have so turning up to 10 has just been my pastime for years just because it's like i'll yell about something i'm passionate about and someone because i just when people do things that are going to hurt people as a means to like make money and like they don't see it right away but like when my office is the end of the road for some people i've tried this i've tried this this guy said it was this this guy said it was this and it's like you know there's a saying like don't explain with malice what can be explained with ignorance but like ignorance is a choice like that chiropractor that physical therapist that strength coach that personal trainer they chose to not pursue because like learning stuff is really scary right that's

the oldest story in the world like i don't know if you guys are religious or not but genesis right forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge they're now eyes are open to the fact that they're naked that's literally learning stuff is really scary because you realize how little you know right you realize how like holy fuck like i don't know anything so when people operate from the choice of being ignorant not necessarily malicious like all these like myotherapists unlicensed fucking instagram myofascial people or whatever. The gurus. Fuck.

Influencer. I bet you like that word, don't you, Jordan? It's just, it's like, where is your malpractice insurance? Where's your $200,000 in student debt? Where's your overseeing governing body? Where's your continuing education? No? Nowhere?

Okay. All right. That's where I draw the line in the sense. Okay. So this went off the rails real fast, but short answer is you eat more carbs when you're training harder. Yeah, sorry. As you skate past your quest, you know everything. I just have a very, like, it's like I like to see what athletes and honestly bigger people generally think it's more interesting.

Like, I just want to know how you fuel yourself. Oh, I keep carbs around my training most days. Like, I'm pretty much like meat and nuts kind of guy in the morning. And then Charles Poliquin styles. Just got to pour it out for the homie, man. I still don't squat more than six reps on a front squat. Cause an article I read 10 years ago,

there was one, there was like six months where I was just like mega dosing vitamin D. Cause that was all the Poliquin's article. I was like radiating like the sun, but no, I, I, I,

are you yellow? I think it's jaundice i think that's what it is um i know so i'm kind of meat nuts in the morning and then if i have to train then it's carbs um but if i have to perform cognitively i'll just go like kind of keto all day or if i'm traveling like i mean especially if i'm going overseas or i'm competing or something like that and i do have to worry about weight I want to keep as much water retention food retention at altitude off as I can so I just that'll be a no like yesterday when I was I took a red eye yesterday it's like I didn't train it's like no train how often are you competing uh well I'll do two a year two three a year maybe depends I did more earlier kind of in my powerlifting career,

just because when you start getting some of the invites, you're not going to turn them down. So like I did, I did two meets, uh, 21 days apart. I did the Arnold's in Australia and the U S open just cause like, listen,

like you're not going to, they're going to not call one day. So you get your fucking ass on that platform and you just go compete. Yeah. Um, but now it's a little less just cause I travel so much for, for work. It's hard to get like the training in but um yeah so that would be the answer to the question sorry it's just more more protein fat usually what are some ways that you kind of stay resilient physically when you're traveling literally all over the world and you

have to perform physically and mentally and at different times and it's kind of all over the place like how do you keep yourself from getting sick and being anxious constantly in your hotel it's the it's the incredible hulk trick where it's like how do you how do you how do you control it he's like like oh the trick is i'm always angry so it's like the trick is i'm always tired so it's like it doesn't really matter what time zone i'm not getting and i don't want this to come off like it's a badge of honor because i really should be getting more sleep but i'm sure you guys know and like the field we're in, it's like you're going to have to sacrifice some sleep if you want to make ends meet. Right.

So it's not like a badge of honor that I say that I get four hours of sleep at night. It's like I'm doing this now. So hopefully in like a couple of years I could maybe get six. But like a real answer to question, like a lot of, like a lot of movement stuff on the plane. I usually have alarms set. Drinking a lot of water when I travel helps twofold because I'm up and down. Like I have to get an aisle seat because I'm, I'm up to the bathroom every 30, 40 minutes. And that's by design.

It's like stay hydrated. Sure. While you're at altitude, but B it, it's a, it's an alarm for me. If I drink a lot of water, then it's like, I have to get up. I can't just sit and coach for six, eight, hours however long i'm flying for um and then biggest thing is train second i get off the plane i find a gym and whether it's just movement stuff whether it's on the barbell like sometimes i get off a plane and all everything to the contrary i should not feel good but if i feel good i going to strike while the iron's hot,

and I'm going to get in there, and I'll do a heavy session. I have no apprehension. With the way I structure my mobility and stability work, I have some screens that I'll do for myself. And if I pass those kind of functional tests before I train, I have no reason why I shouldn't be able to open up right now. Do you have any pre-competition rituals? You don't strike me as the superstitious type at all,

but I do see you doing those deadlifts with the earphones in your mouth. So talk about that. I would say the biggest thing for me is music. I'm very specific with what I listen to, both good and bad. Like, I have actually – there's a Hex song. So I've torn my Peck and my Quad in the last year and a half, and it was to the same fucking song. Okay, tell us what it is so we can have this as your kryptonite.

It's a Smashing Pumpkins song. Something with a bullet, Butterfly with a bullet. Such a good song. Bullet with butterfly wings. That's what it is. That's a great jam. It is a great jam, but it's dead to me. If I hear it out in public, if I'm in the grocery store, I just stand still.

Get out of here. Don't move. Yeah, exactly. It's just like some Final Destination shit. It's like, oh, fuck, something's going to break off the bones soon. But you can't listen to music when you're actually competing, right? That's just in the background getting warmed up. Yeah.

Some meets, the director will be like, hey, third attempt, what do you want? And then that's the same every time. It's Johnny Cash, God's gonna cut you down ever that's the only superstition i have that song has to be playing either in my headphones or on the platform that's that's just i don't know that's that's it because i used to be a goal like i was a goalie like that was my initial kind of intro into sports and the better goalies are the weirder they were hockey yeah of course like i wasn't that weird so i wasn't that good but that was music was always kind of one of my superstitions when it came to like performance just kind of gets because it's like i would do the same thing when i studied like if i had like a big test i would just listen to the same thing as i i would

listen like a jack johnson album when i studied i don't know physiology and then when i get to the exam i would just start singing the album in my head. I go one song all day. One song all day. And it usually is like not just a day. It's usually like two months of the same song. I respect that. If you are talking to me during the day,

you probably interrupted the second month of Meatloaf. I would do anything for love all day long. I respect that. Seven minutes long. And I would do. That's the ultimate song to get stuck in your head, too.

It's the best. I heard it somewhere, and then I was like, you know what? That's the song for the next two months of my life. And then you never listen to it again. Yeah, it's usually just at the bottom after that. What about when you're writing your books? And then you never listen to it again because... Yeah, it's usually just at the bottom after that. What about when you're writing your books? What kind of rhythm, routine, schedule do you do for that?

Yeah, that's been something I've been more cognizant of lately. I find, and this is going to sound odd for me to say, but I find I'm most creative after I train. So if I have menial data entry stuff to do, I'll do that any other time than right after I'm done training like when i endorphins are flowing feel good fairly energized probably still heavily caffeinated or stimulated in some way then i'll sit down and write um and then i i actually a lot of my day is reverse engineered from that point and then any other like email stuff like that doesn't require creativity that'll get pushed elsewhere in the email stuff that doesn't require creativity,

that'll get pushed elsewhere in the day. But right now where I'm at, that's my highest priority. I'll train just to get me in a good mindset to write or to record or do something like that. This is the way to... Did you read Stealing Fire? I'm sorry? Have you read Stealing Fire? I listened to it.

Yeah, I listened to it as well. But that's one of the little hacks to getting into the flow state of creativity is train, have a cup of coffee, smoke weed. Well, this is why all the best writers, too, if you've ever read this book, what's it called? Daily Rituals or something, and it's talking about sort of like the daily routine of all these famous writers and almost every single one of them. I mean, a lot of them are alcoholics and stuff, too, but almost every single one of them. I mean, a lot of them are alcoholics and stuff too, but almost every single one of them had a walking practice. They walked for hours a day and then they'd write or they'd write and then they'd walk and then they'd write again. So this is the gripe I have. I don't like reading those kinds of books.

I like to read the books of the people that were like, why am I like, if someone is like stealing fire, like why am I listening to this author? Okay. What was, what was his motivation? What did what did he read right like the seven steps to highly effective i know a billion unaffected people who have read that book or uh carnegie's uh how to win friends and influence people come on i know people who have read that who are the most unlikable fucking people of the planet have to implement but it's like i think you the idea is you don't want to learn what to learn you want to learn how to learn the best way to do that is learn how people like i did like a six-month kick of like deep world war ii stuff like primo levy like first-hand accounts holocaust like it was fucking brutal like not exactly like they were page turners but man you want to

question some shit like and you can derive so much from that experience i find like and there's such a market now for this petty fucking like you know everyone's everyone's a business fucking coach now and like sign up for this group or whatever and it's like give me strength man i just can't buy into it stephen king's book on writing is a good one and that's one that um is very widely given out to other writers. I mean, you'd read that because this guy was a fucking successful writer, and basically his advice is read a lot and then write. Just do both of those things as much as you can.

Did you read War of Art? Yes. Did you like it? Yeah. I thought it was a little like... It's more of the... It's one of those books where it's like, I felt like it was like this like motivational video. Like, get out of bed in the morning and put the pen on the paper.

Oh, like the Jocko Willink book? Oh, I can't do Jocko. I can't do Jocko either at all. I like, I just, he's too intense, man. I just want to give him a hug. Every story is like, and then I was in Whole Foods. And I was like, oh God, what Whole Foods is he going to do? With a four minute like pause.

Yeah. Broccoli. Yeah. Just like, oh, God, what Whole Foods is he going to do? With a four-minute pause. Yeah. Broccoli. Yeah. Just like, I just can't. Next. My life is way too stressful as it is. But if he was laid back and chill, he wouldn't have a brand. But, I mean, at least that's founded in something, right?

Like, that's founded in experience. That's who he is. There's so many people try and put that on as a shtick. Like, it's not. That's who he is. And that's what and put that on as a shtick. That's who he is, and that's what makes him so authentic, and that's what makes him so successful. I think a lot of people try and put on this. Total aside, but that's a big gripe I have with the current state of the fitness industry.

Anyone who ever uses the imagery of, oh, man, we're going to war. It's like you're lifting weights in an air-controlled room. Let's fucking tone it back on the war imagery war. Functional fitness on these rubber mats. Do you know anyone in the military? Like for primal animal flow. It's like, yeah, you're an animal and you're low on the fucking food chain.

When the world ends, I'm going to eat your fucking dumb ass first. So we're going to wrap on that. Yeah, we're going to do that. We've got another one coming up and we're an hour and 40 minutes in. Are we actually? Time flies,

man. Lots of fun. For sure. Where can people find you? All that fun stuff. Oh, yeah. Best place to find Instagram at the underscore muscle underscore doc. Website www.pre-script.com.

Office in Mountain View in Dublin, California. If you guys have questions, shoot me an email at jordan at themuscledoc.com. When do you put your show out? So we're going to be in Australia in January, and we're looking at Dubai and Rome later in the year. So we're going to do Sydney, Gold Coast, Perth, Melbourne from the 7th through to the 7th. Are these seminars?

Yeah. I was talking about your podcast. Oh, podcast. Oh, yeah, that too. RX Radio, Spotify, and iTunes. We do a Monday release. Usually sometimes we double up on Thursdays But yeah you can find us there

Ashley Where are people hanging out with you? Oh on Instagram Where I'm posting about my glute We didn't even get to that discussion We're going to have to do that later At the Muscle Maven on Instagram And my website ashleyvanhouten.com

We'll have to write that out in the show notes because no one can spell my name. And soon to be on the show collective. We'll just tease that. Doug Larson. For sure. You can find me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. Keep it simple. At show collective. At show collective. I'm at Anders Varner because I'm Anders Varner. Six shows a week. See you guys on Wednesday.

It's the right amount of shows. Shows. Shows. Shows. Shows. Shows. Shows. Shows. Shows. Shows. Reminder, tomorrow, Muscle Maven Radio dropping with Ashley Van Houten,

episode one on The Shrug Collective. Incredibly excited to have her be on the network. And just lifting weights, hanging out with that chick. She's so radical. She's got so many good things to say and so many good takes on a life in strength and conditioning. Make sure you take a screenshot. Hit me with the hashtag go long. I'm at Anders Varner. Make sure you get over to Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. Use the coupon code shrugged to save 20% on all of your green and gold juices with the pumpkin spice. And 30daysofcoaching.com. Also, make sure you hang out with my buddy, Doug Larson at Doug Larson Fitness.

He's got all kinds of fun products over on his personal website. We are going to see you guys next week. Peace out.