Barbell Shrugged - What Do You Do When Going To The Gym Hurts and Stops Being Fun?- Active Life Radio #5

Episode Date: August 9, 2019

Dr. Bo Babenko has been in the CrossFit world for over a decade as a gym member, a coach, a manager of a gym in Dubai, and most relevantly to this show, as a physical therapist. Bo has a unique ability to merge his analytical approach with a human impact for his clients and he is a massive asset to the Active Life 1 on 1 staff.    Sheila Rixon is a current Active Life 1 on 1 client who exemplifies exactly the type of clients who we are privileged to help. She had spent over $1000 in physical therapy, and years in a CrossFit gym to improve her aches and pains to no avail. She went all in with Active Life and got the life she longed for back.     What would you do if the gym, and your activities of daily living stopped being fun, and started being too painful to perform. You stop seeing your friends as often, you stop getting that emotional release, you lose part of who you are. This is essentially where Sheila found herself. The frustration was at its pique, and she decided to go all in. Find out what happened and how it happened in this episode.  Minute Breakdown:   0-10 - How much is this going to cost? 11-20 - What’s it like to take over a client from another coach? 21-30 - What is crepitus? 31-40 - How to learn breathing and bracing from a distance. 41-50 - Doesn’t it get boring to be on a linear program? 51-60 - The magnitude of getting results. 61 - 70 - How to be present. Work with an Active Life Coach like Bo at activeliferx.com/shrugged Find Bo at @DrBoBabenko Find out more about crocodile breathing here https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz_NQXgHhNR/?igshid=ur1y8vlhnxsu   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/alr-babenko ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ► 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

what's up everybody welcome back to active life radio on the shrugged collective network on today's episode we are joined by both dr bo babenko who is an active life one-on-one staff member and miss sheila who happens to be my assistant, but started as a one-on-one client with Active Life. What we're going to be talking about on today's episode is how Sheila went from being someone who was just dealing with aches and pains every day that made it less fun to be in the gym where she went kind of as like her refuge. It's a fun place to be. You want to get into good shape. You want it to be fun to be there. And once that stops being enjoyable, you don't just lose your workouts. You lose more than that. You lose kind of like the way of life,

the person you thought that you were. It all starts to go through your mind. So on this episode, we're going to break down what Sheila was dealing with and how Bo helped her out of it without ever even meeting. I'm excited to have this conversation, guys. Me too. Glad to be here to share the message. Yeah, let's do it. So let's start off kind of Sheila. Let's hear from you.

Where were you at physically and mentally prior to starting? What was the reason that you were like, you know what? Fuck it. Let's do it. I was at the point where I thought cutting off my leg would be easier than dealing with the pain that I was experiencing in my knee. I mean, plain and simple. I'd go to Tom Hanks in Castaway, you know, when he knocked out that tooth and it was like, oh, finally. I'm like, that's the relief I need at this point. Did you paint any kind of sports equipment in your house

and have conversations with it? I had plenty of conversations with my husband about it, and he was finally like, go do something about it. I'm sick and tired of hearing you talk about it and just be miserable. Nice. Next time I talk to Brian, I'm going to make sure to let him know that you think of him as a piece of sports equipment. Hunky one at that.

That's a honky sports equipment. So you had this knee problem, right? It was knees or back? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So you had these issues, but had you tried anything prior? Uh, I had thrown a decent amount of money at all sorts, muscle work, trying to do things on my own, talking to my own CrossFit coach about what I could possibly do. I mean, I was probably close to $1,000 in and trying to avoid going to see a doctor because I knew my insurance wasn't going to really cover it anyways. So what was it that made you confident that what we were going to do with you was going to work? Because at this point, you weren't working at Active Life. You were another client who came in and paid full price. Well, at this point, I needed some guidance as to who I should see. So I opened up my phone and gave you a call, Sean, because I had been to your Long Beach office for a previous shoulder issue.

And I figured if I couldn't see you, you would at least let me know who I should go see. And upon speaking with you, you let me know that you no longer had the brick and mortar business and everything was remote and you basically explained what it was that you were offering and I remember bulking at the price at first and then the question you asked me was, well, how much have you spent so far and where has that gotten you? And that was when the light bulb moment happened. And I was like, sign me up. I'm glad that that worked for a multitude of reasons, right?

Obviously, get you feeling better. And I don't know what I would do without you helping me manage everything in my life right now. So I'm glad that we did that. Feelings mutual. Thank you. So when we started, I took you on as my personal client. And then along the way, there was a point at which I recognized I couldn't handle all the clients that I had on my schedule. And I needed to start to farm those out to staff

members of ours so that I could focus on growing the company and helping more people. And that's when I decided that I thought the best fit on our staff for you was Bo, who is here with us now. Hey, yo. Hey, yo. So what were your thoughts when I told you, look, we're not going to do this together anymore. I got to send you to Bo. I didn't say it like that, but what were i i don't i think part of it was i had trusted you from having a like a baseline relationship with you moving into this um and like i said i had originally reached out to you to to seek advice in terms of who I should seek, go see for this. So when you said that you were, you know, handing me off to a very capable doctor, I, you know, I was like, all right, let's go. You know, I figured that was going to be my next leveling up in the process.

And, and I'm, this is not your fault, but I'm constantly needing to remind people who come to us looking for doctors that we function as coaches when we work with you online. So it's the credibility of the fact that almost every single person on our staff has their doctorate that allows a lot of people to come in. I mean, a doctorate and then four months of continuing education, then two months of internship and more. There's a lot to it. But so, Beau, what was it like handling the immense amount of stress that we have here and a reason I'm still part of it to this point is because it's intuitive and it was very easy to see where you were going. And like, you know, a 400 meter relay, I was just able to grab the baton from you, I think, and smoothly transition and take over into what you had progressed her towards at the time without, I don't know how much into the minutiae we want to get here, but you were progressing her through some of the birth fit progressions that we utilized, building in a lot of those good habits,

as well as starting the kind of hundred deadlift progression. So I think at that point you'd been doing that for a few weeks. So I took on all that stress of trying to fill your shoes. Size 10. Size 10, right. I'm only nine and a half. So you got to make up that other half of size. But the system that we have with the True Coach application as well as the immersion course that we all go through as active life coaches under the guidance of Dr. Ray Gorman allowed for a very smooth transition of understanding and not having to look at it and be like why is sean doing this but being like okay cool we're at this point of her progression she's i'm able to look back and see this is causing a little bit of a

tweak uh she's handling this really well we're at the rpe we want here so it became very easy to kind of finish the progression that you had started uh and and take her to a point of healing and again, getting us to where we wanted to get and then kind of add my color to it as we moved away from some of the things you had started with her. And if I can be transparent, I had no doubt that Bo was going to do a great job, if not even a better job than me, because this is what Bo does for us all the time. At this point, we still get people all the time who I'm on the phone with and they talk about signing up to work with us or they're talking to Pam about signing up to work with us and they're

like, I want Dr. Sean to be my coach. I'm like, no, you don't. I have staff members who are better than me at doing this and that is where you want to be. And Bo is, is one of our top staff members who has maybe second most clients to Ray, something like that. But you're, you're, I mean, crushing it for us. So when you started with, with Sheila, she was not out of pain yet. She was still dealing with some pain when you took her over. Yes. Yeah. And I mean, to, to, I guess the bigger conversation, she's still dealing with small things. Um, and. And I mean, to, to, I guess the bigger conversation, she's still dealing with small things. Um, and I, I'm sure she'll deal with that her whole life, but the main things that she wanted to like cut her leg off for, yeah, she was still dealing with

those, those more acute, um, higher level issues at the time. So Sheila, you said that it was easy for you to trust Bo because you had come to me looking for a recommendation and then I recommended Bo to you. What was it about the way that Bo communicated from the beginning that made it kind of validated your thought that you could trust him? I have a tendency of being very forthcoming with information regarding my training, how I'm feeling, you know, what I want, what I'm looking for. So right away, Beau responded back to me receptively to the information and the feedback I was giving him. And honestly, I would have assumed I was his only client at that point with the care and the attention he gave me. He certainly was not. And I appreciated it very much. I was not getting what I wanted in the CrossFit gym that I belonged to. And Bo ended up being that coach, albeit remote, that I was in some degree of pain and getting frustrated with it, from the get-go, my programming was intentional for handling the issues that we needed to work through, but it was also

stimulating and exciting for me. So that all together created a package that really allowed me to buy in and set my intention each week. This is what I'm working on. I can't wait for tomorrow's program. Let's get it done. Because even when I would have little, you know, setbacks here and there, you know, tweaking this or not quite ready for this. I still found that we were moving forward, progressing away from pain and creating stability that my body needed. And Bo, what kind of things do you do early on with somebody like Sheila or someone who you get who obviously doesn't come straight from me because

90% of your clients don't come from me being their coach first? What do you do early on to make sure that that trust is built on a foundation of truth and expectation building and communication? We start with a phone call. And again, I've been in, I have my doctorate since 2008 in physical therapy. I've been in the CrossFit space since 2010. I feel like I've interacted with, you know, thousands and thousands of patients, athletes, clients under different umbrellas. And ultimately, that's helped hone that the practice of building that trust. If I'll give Dr. McGill a shout out,cgill uh i've only recently been listening to a

lot more of his stuff but he talks about his kind of fireside chat that he has with all of his clients that come to see him world champions and he sets them down and he has a three-hour conversation about their back pain um i certainly am never one, and not that this is a wrong thing, but to cut any of those new sessions down to like, we only have 15 minutes. So it's 1430, like, let's finish this up. I try to always, you know, make sure that I'm being as genuine as possible and going as thoroughly as possible to understand, uh, the, the full demands of what that person is going through, the sympathy, the empathy.

Um, I think again, that, that, uh, you, that the old saying of no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. I do think that that's kind of one of my tenets that lead me to start that process. So again, with someone like Sheila, when they come to me, whether they come through your portal or any other portal, it's let's have a conversation. Let's see if we're aligned in our values. Because if I'm having a conversation, even if they trust my knowledge base and all my credentials, if they're not bought in to me understanding the process

and my communication with them, if they're hesitant and they're not going to trust everything I'm doing or they're willing to do or they're still planning to do other stuff outside of what i'm saying or asking them to do which i do have with a couple of you know higher level crossfit competitors maybe we didn't establish the level of trust that i thought we needed where they're still doing exercises that i was like i thought we kind of put it in a nice spectrum that you're not going to do this stuff. And they're like, Oh, well, I didn't really fully commit to it. And there's, if you don't have that buy in, it's just not going to work, I'm going to look bad,

you're not going to get the results you want. The company's not going to look good. So just long answer to your question is, I try to have that start everything with that that conversation and getting as much on the paper as possible and going from there and sorting through what's most important and letting that rise to the top well i think that you undersold yourself a little bit when you said that you've been in the crossfit space i mean you were rip regionals um you opened and ran a gym in dubai or kuwait dubai okay you have worked in multiple crossfit gyms it's not that you're a you know you've been in the crossfit space that you've dabbled in it. You were the CrossFit space. Let's be real about it.

Yeah. I was also a level three coach, which is relatively rare distinction. At the time when I was in Dubai, I was the only one in the region. And what else? I did work with seminar staff for a little bit, CrossFit HQ. That didn't work out. But yeah, I definitely spend my main livelihood, I would say, I definitely believe in the process. But at the same time, I saw a lot of the problems with it. And having opened a CrossFit gym also showed me a lot of

the limitations, and I didn't quite get to do things the way I wanted to. Uh, and coming back from Dubai is when I actually linked up and made sure one of my first stops back to New York city, um, where I, where I'm from and where I moved back to was to come out to Island park and meet up with these active life guys and see what they're all about. Cause I'd seen their stuff online. And I said, I want to align with, with this vision. Cause I see there's a huge gap in the space, especially in the CrossFit space. I didn't see anyone else doing it quite right. I have all the respect in the world for Dr. Kelly Starrett and Mobility WOD, and he's definitely changed the game. And like you just had that post the other day, we're standing on the shoulders of those giants.

But at the same time, the system was not there. The one-on-one work was not there that I felt was required to go past a simple, your ankle hurts, here's some stretches you can do. There's this huge gap between the CrossFit space, the gym and the doctor's office. And I keep hearing these stories. And I think that's currently what we get a lot of. A lot of the clients, I don't know, at least 75% to 90% of clients I think I'm currently working with are folks who are in this space, who have tried physios, chiros, medical doctors, orthopedic surgeons, and they're exploring all these options, and they aren't getting the relief they need, or they're telling them to stop doing CrossFit and there's a disconnect there. So I saw it as a way to fix a lot of those issues that I felt passionate were there. And again, I'm just reiterating how excited I am to be part of this company and be doing this thing that I really believe in. Well, so let's get into

Sheila's case specifically so do you by any chance have her programming out in front of you i do perfect so when you took over how how long was she with us for uh at that point it's actually we were just talking about this before the call started i believe she had been with you for two months, maybe a little less, maybe a month and a half. Okay. And do you have in there when she started to tell you she was out of pain? I don't have that exact like, no, I don't have that. I mean, again, to me, it was all, yeah, it's all very fluid.

And I'm sure if I look through and saw the comments, I don't know if we'd have a specific day where it was like, oh, I have no, my back feels amazing today. I'm sure that we could find a couple of those. Some of this, she still had crepitus in her knee. I'm just looking at random kind of dates here, but some crepitus in my knee, under my kneecap on, this is last May. Sheila, you wrote crepitus?

She spelled it wrong so uh crepitus for those of you listening is actually just a sound that a joint is going to make it's a grinding of a joint associated with with like a light clicking sound and it's it's not something to be concerned with in a sense that if you feel the popping and the clicking in your joints as they move through space, it's not a cause for major concern. It is a sign that there's room

for the way that that joint moves to improve. Bo, would you agree with the way I described that? A hundred percent. Thank God. And so, Sheila, do you remember about how long it was for you from the time you started to the time that you said, wow, the first thing that's really pissing me off is better? I'd say it was probably within that first month or two.

Okay. And something as simple as the 100 deads for time, 100 deadlifts for time. I remember initially when I was doing the testing that we did in terms of joint range of motion and left versus right and push and pull and all of that stuff, there was the deadlift test, and I went to go do it. And within a couple of reps, my back seized up, that low back grab where all of a sudden you just drop the bar and fall to the ground. And that was like an oh, fudge moment.

I'm pretty sure you can curse on this podcast. You can. It was an oh, fuck moment. But I'm pretty sure you can curse on this podcast. You can. Then it was an oh, fuck moment. Perfect. But then, you know, within a month, I see in my notes that I kept, you know, I was already up to 115 pounds for that 100 deadlifts for time. And, you know, I don't think i have to look back just for some reference sorry to cut you off the birth what's up sorry i was just i was just looking at when you started that

100 and you started at 75 in your first session uh so just giving some some uh again color to that of i think within a month you were you you, you, you added 40 pounds to the a hundred reps. That's pretty fast. So before in one moment, what I'm going to do is I'm going to explain to everybody what that a hundred reps for time actually looks like so that they're not thinking that we're out there saying grab a weight and clang and bang for a hundred reps. But first we're going to take a quick commercial break to tell you how awesome we are and give you an opportunity to work with us. If that's something that you want to do.

What's up, Shrugged Nation? Are you enjoying this episode? I bet you are. I'm going to keep this brief. We'll get you right back to the show in a moment. In the meantime, if you're interested in anything that we're doing at Active Life, make sure that you head to ActiveLifeRx.com slash shrugged. You want to be a better coach. You want to help your clients better. You want to get out of pain, but you don't want to

go to the doctor or miss the gym. Activeliferx.com slash shrugged. That's where you need to be. We'll see you when you get there. there turn pro here we go back to the episode all right we're back so the hundred reps for time let's talk about that the hundred reps for time that we give to clients in a situation like what sheila is describing is not the hundred reps for time that you're used to in your crossfit gym the hundred-meter time that we give you is going to be at a very specific percentage of your one rep max with the intention of that percentage being a weight that you can move without fatiguing your central nervous system. So every rep is done with a faster concentric, slower eccentric tempo, meaning you are faster up and you are slower down.

We're asking that the client stop two to three reps prior to when they feel like they would need to stop. We give them what we call a biofeedback test that allows us to know if the client's central nervous system is fried or not. The goal is that they do these reps without frying the central nervous system. I would explain that to you on this podcast, but I think that that would get too into the weeds. Then we ask the client to continue doing those deadlifts or those squats or those presses or whatever the exercise is that they have until they've completed all of the reps and to provide us with the rep counts of each set and the total time required to complete the workout. That's what 100 reps for time in this part of a program looks like. Right? Yeah, correct. Good. So, so when, when Sheila's doing that, she's not allowed to experience any pain. She's not allowed to feel like she's

squeezing out that last rep or two. It's all about being able to complete these reps with complete control, slower down, faster up. Yeah. The only thing I would add to that is maybe, and I don't know if you're going to go down this path, but it's a lot of it is just reprogramming a lot of bad behaviors. So in my experience running the original testing that we do in our first week, where we ask people to find kind of a five to 10 rep, uh, deadlift weight that they feel comfortable with, with that same faster up, slower down tempo. A lot of people tend to ignore that faster up, slower down. I have to, so they send me videos and I'm like, I think you missed that part. Um, but a big, a big part of,

no matter, even if they follow the instructions, uh, very, very clearly, it's still then goes into, if we're trying to fix that movement pattern, if there's an imbalance between squat and hinge, whatever the rationale that ends up leading us there, the ultimate to me thing that I want people to understand as the intentionality behind this is that it is retraining your brain of, again, Sheila, at that point, I believe you've been doing CrossFit for six years correct so it's it's kind of retraining six years at least of that probably poor movement pattern that we've identified and this is our way of taking again it might just be a little bit off just like if your handwriting is a little bit off and we just want to you know change it just a bit this is our our way that i found

and the way i like to describe it of changing that movement pattern and that's ultimately going to be what gets you out of pain as a side effect of moving better in this thing that you want to do i think that's a great point and a simple example for you to think about with a deadlift if you're listening to this at home is let's just say, for example, on the eccentric portion of the lift, meaning you're bringing the bar back down towards the ground. If your knees bend before the bar gets below your kneecap, you're putting too much load through your knees and your lower back. You're not hinging. You're squatting your deadlift. Really, really, really simple way to

think about it. On the way up, your knees should be extending most once the bar is past them. It's the same idea. So a hinge means that you're moving at the hips at a rate that is faster than the ankles or the knees. A squat means that the knees, the ankles, and the hips are opening and closing at relatively the same rate. When we have you doing a hundred reps twice a week, maintaining the technique that we want you to maintain, and we're doing that for a few months, you're putting more reps on your system than you put in for the rest of your life in the right way. That's the goal. Good call, Bo.

So take me through some of the progressions. What were you looking to see once Sheila had completed the progressions that I gave her? Now you're like, okay, well, I'm going to start to build my own out. What are you looking for? How are you deciding what to do? On a big picture scale, I always have an avatar in my mind. I go back to, again, our strength ratios that we have. To me, as we mentioned before, there's always going to be a little bit of pain here and there, aches, and that communication where we have that trust, where Sheila feels comfortable and not that she's bothering me if she tells me you know her left ear is kind of tingling when she does this or

something weird like that but bottom line is if she she feels comfortable and saying hey my ankle's a little wonky you know at some point we were really focusing on the lower body and I remember you know she she mentioned hey my like right shoulder is kind of bugging me. So then we go down that path of seeing what's going on. And again, we have that trust built up. We've gotten her out of pain. And so there's always an assessment going on in everything I send. To me, again, I'm always trying to throw in as much nutritious movement as possible is what I refer to it as, which is kind of – I like that.

Yeah. So I think of it as kind of veggies. You can't eat too many vegetables. There's a couple of exercises in my mind that you just can't do too much of. You can't get fat off of eating too many vegetables. You can't get too healthy. You're not going to get your joints too healthy. You're not going to get your joints too healthy. So getting people to understand that, um, you know, we send this kind of PCS performance care segment once a week, generally

it's on the active life Instagram, and I will include different versions that I create myself to my clients once a week. Um, so I got a nice library that built up. And to me, again, that's 20 minutes. Sometimes I make it 19, sometimes 21, just to see if people are paying attention. But to me, that's nutritious movement and ways that we can keep building, again, healthier joints. And out of that, the communication piece where, again, I respond to every single one of my clients within 24 hours. I just have my day set up that way that I can get back to that kind of attention to detail where if active leg lowers as an exercise caused a little bit of a funky sensation in someone's knee, that tells me

something and I'm going to keep building, whether it's Sheila or someone else's database in my mind and directing me of where to go. The other way I think about it is to this point of the deadlift. Let's go back to that for a second. I have this model where I like to make sure that they have competence in the movement. So that's where we have the assessment, and that's where we start to clean up the movement pattern. So Sheila definitely had a pretty good base, and then she showed that she can be competent in the movement. This is another hesitation I get from a lot of people who want to work with me online. They're like, I'm used to a coach in person.

I don't know how you're going to fix my technique. I'm concerned that I'm going to round my back when I deadlift. Again, we have the video component and we have the directions pretty clear. And a lot of times it's just about saying go a little bit lighter and make sure you're feeling this. You don't feel anything in your low back, specifically for deadlifts. And here's what I'm looking for, kind of the great detailed explanation you gave earlier, Sean, about the deadlift of. Make sure your hips aren't moving until the bar gets past your knees or anything that we want to focus on there. We can go again down the rabbit hole of external focus versus internal focus. Are you

trying to jump as high as possible if you're doing some kind of jumping technique or are you focusing on pushing through the floor so you're focusing on kind of an internal, bend your knees more and make sure you squeeze your glutes. Um, so external internal, again, this is going all into the weeds. I apologize. I do this. So that's okay. I mean, the, the idea that you're describing is that we're giving them a very specific cue to follow one cue. So I want you to keep your knees straight until the bar is below them on the way down. If you do that at this weight, the likelihood of you hurting yourself is very low. And we're going to build that up.

Correct. Yeah. And the truth is, look, if they came to you and worked with you in person, they would be better off than working with you online. That's the reality of what we do. I'm sorry. Go on. Bo's making faces at me. Sheila.

I have to jump in because I have to say that in this last year that I've been working with Bo remotely, I've had better coaching than I have in the six years prior when I was actually in a CrossFit gym, in a class with one, maybe even two coaches on the floor. And I would add to that, philosophically at this point, Solid. Then that turns into, because a lot of times in traditional physical therapy, which is my background, I will, you know, give you a home exercise program. I might send you some videos, but it becomes very difficult to follow up with that. So I do feel at this point, and this is something I'm still working around the marketing and messaging, but that I can give you more benefit from doing a lot of stuff remotely. And it's overcoming for the client that barrier, the mental barrier of, you're not here to tell me what's going on. These videos take a while to watch, to see the instructions. But my goal ultimately is I can

assess competence for a lot of things online, remotely. And then my platform or vision of that is then, as we were talking about with the deadlifts, was for Sheila to build confidence. So I get to a point a lot of times where I'm like, I think we're ready, based on what I've seen and based on what I know, to jump an extra bit of weight or to go for a five rep max, which in her mind with a quote unquote bad back, uh, would not have been possible, you know, three months prior or whatever. And there is that hesitation. So we're going from competence to confidence, and then we can start building the volume of capacity, which is kind of where we're at now, um, when we jump ahead there. But to your point, Sean, I think, I think I am at a point in my career where I certainly feel confident that I can provide amazing assessment and things in person. But I

also feel like at this point remotely, I can do just as much, almost cut through some of the chaff, if you will, if anyone's familiar with that term. Old school term, I think. But I feel like there's so much, I keep pushing people to the online model. Even if I see them in person, I say, cool, let's get you on this online model now. I think, you know, I end up- I'm with you. I'm with you. I think what I was more referring to was the ability to monitor and change technique is better in person than it is online. Of course. That's a reality.

But there are a lot of advantages to not having to work with your coach or your client in person. I mean, let's be real. There's less emotion. There's less small talk. There's less of that stuff happening online. And there's more, I need you to do this. Okay?

Yep. Got it. So Sheila, at a certain point, someone who's been doing CrossFit for six years at the time that you started, there had to be a moment of like, God, this is really similar day to day. And there's lack of excitement to similar every single day when you're used to constantly varied. What was that like? I'm glad you brought that up. There were, I'd say within the first, you know, month or so, it was kind of like, uh, uh, you know, the drudgery of doing the basics. Um,

and at some point it may have been a conversation, um, you know, a remote conversation or just following your Instagram posts. I had this another aha moment, an epiphany, if you will, where I realized that the six years that I had been progressing through CrossFit, I had a lot of holes in my game. And if I was going to reap the benefits of what I was investing my time and energy in, I needed to go back to my foundation. And my foundation was broken, broken on the fundamental breathing level, on the bracing level. And I had what I like to call a lot of dead bodies buried within my body, old injuries that, uh, I got stronger around, but never appropriately addressed. So it was when I saw, actually, I think it was by month three when I had progressed to the point where I hadn't had any incidents of my back blowing out again, or the

pain in my knee went away. And I was recognizing I was not just getting stronger, but I could do things like sit on the ground with my son and hang out and, you know, build Legos with him. And sitting crisscross applesauce or, you know, Indian style, whichever you prefer. That's definitely not PC anymore. Well, Native American Indian. Used to really, it would drive me crazy. I, you know, I probably couldn't sit for a few minutes. And I remember one of the things that I did initially was like a three minute bird dog, like just alternating.

And I was burnt out within 30 seconds of doing, you know, bird dog. So I knew right then and there, it smacked me in the face. I needed to go back to basics. I needed to learn how to breathe. I needed to learn how to brace. And then I also had to get my mindset straight too. One thing that active life, your coaches, your Instagram posts bring up a lot is, you know, this idea of a bad knee. I have a bad knee. I have a bad back. I don't have a bad anything. I just have, you know, imbalances that need to be corrected. I have movement patterns that need to be fixed. And I need to really learn how to move well, in order to be able to add weights and, and build that confidence in my body. So, so, so, you know, to that, I was

willing to be patient with going back to the basics, doing the same movement pattern week after week for several weeks, building on that, because I did feel relief. I started enjoying life again. And I knew that the intention that I was setting on a particular day was going to pay off for my long-term future. Well, so Bo, she mentioned early on there that her breathing and bracing needed to be helped. And I know that I didn't do all that much with Sheila on her breathing and bracing. How did you know that someone who was in, well, I guess at that time in the same state, but not in the same room as you, needed to improve her breathing and bracing? And just to be clear, we were both in New York State, not in the same mental or physical state.

Anyway, yes. Again, that's a very foundational thing that in my practice, like I alluded to earlier in working with thousands and thousands of athletes, it's incredible to me how often breathing gets overlooked. And I want to shout out Dr. Lance, now doctor, just graduated, uh, deep roots. So he, one of our other staff coaches, um, he, he had the podcast too also, right? He was the first shrugged episode. Yeah. Right. I just downloaded that. I'm excited to listen to it. He has his own podcast as well. So I'm going to shout him out, but i it's incredible how many people have very basic core breathing patterns um i believe i was able to identify it with sheila through some of the deadlift videos that she sent

um and and that's something i always look for when any of my clients send me videos we also have built in a very simple test you can do. I'm at a point where I believe on my own Instagram, I'm putting some version of this breathing reminder and test that I'm just going to be putting it up once a week because it's so such low hanging fruit and it has so many implications for your, especially low back pain, which everyone is going to suffer from and in the remote setting again it's easy enough to start getting things moving the right way when you start talking about in the right language when you start having that conversation with someone especially like Sheila was very

open to it and and not just you know poo-pooing it. You know, I've also had a similar thing for feet. I've had, you know, I have some basic foot exercises, and I have clients come back to me, and they're like, what is this? What is this for? And that's maybe on me for not making it clear enough of what the benefits of that are. Maybe people can see it better with breathing. But back to the point here is, yeah, breathing remotely, it's something that needs to be addressed.

There's very few people I've seen that I'll be like, you look like you breathe great. Like the very few ones are probably performers, singers, actors. They know how to breathe through their diaphragm and very efficiently. Even them, a lot of times we can work to improve a little bit. But there's something there where if you're coming to me for back pain, I'm going to definitely 100% be looking at your breathing and addressing that one way or another. And crocodile breathing, for those of you who haven't done it, that's just laying down, face down. It's very relaxing. So people who try to meditate, I also make it akin to three minutes of kind of hacking meditation.

What I'm going to ask you to do is send me a link to one of your Instagram posts where you describe crocodile breathing, and I'll make sure to get it into the show notes for this episode. Sounds good. That's been one of my favorites too. I love doing three minutes of crocodile breathing. So it's interesting to hear you say that because I think when I hear somebody say to me i'm going to teach you how to breathe online that's like teaching me how to hula hoop online like have you ever tried to teach someone

how to loop who can hula hoop it's tough enough in person yeah oh well i guess everyone sheila knows is really coordinated it must be nice so but but, the idea is, you know, it's like, no, no, no, you're not moving your hips. Move your hips. It's a very, very tactile thing. So when Bo gave you breathing things to do online, were you like, what the fuck? Like, why am I being asked to breathe? I can breathe. I'm in my forties. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I'll be 46 so I've been breathing for 45 years at this point I know how to do it how much of that for you was like all right uh honestly I I was immediately receptive to it because again going back to the six years prior of being in CrossFit gyms with coaches, I don't think I've ever had a coach who, when I was, you know, taking a rack and a barbell or pulling from the floor, you know, did anything other than say, you know, tighten up your corset and be like, like this, you know, kind of a thing. So what I think made it easier to digest was that it was

coupled with a lot of the so-called the birth fit movements. So, you know, the bird dog, the dead bug, even the crocodile breathing, giving, you know, putting like a five pound weight on my low back while I was doing that for a little bit of biofeedback. And I found that I struggled initially to do simple movement patterns coordinated with my breathing. And it really, really helps that if you want to get better, if you really, truly want to find success with with with anything, you can't just, you know, fork over the credit card, you have to have the intention to buy in totally and wholly. And, you know, it goes back to that trust, I was like, Okay, this is something I need to work on, I saw it right away. And, and because I then set my intention to improve these skills, it carried over immediately to my other movements. You know, my, the, the single leg step-ups got

easier. I found even going up the stairs in my house, taking the stairs two at a time. You know, I, it wasn't that long before I was bracing properly automatically without having to go through the processing of the steps of, okay, do this, do this, do this, do this. So now, you're not totally out of pain. There's still some stuff that bothers you day to day from 46 years of an extremely active lifestyle. Cool. You've been working with us now for a year and like three months, if I'm not mistaken. Correct. What is the advantage of continuing when the big stuff has gone? You know, like at this point, it would be more fun to just jump into a gym class again and never have

to think about doing any crocodile breathing or tempo deadlifts or, you know, lightweight front rack step ups to exhaustion? I think one of the things that Bo mentioned is the nutritious movement. There are aspects of my weekly programming that I am getting that fill me up as far as those, you know, high intensity AMRAPs. Bo will sprinkle that into my programming, whether it's doing in, you know, a 12 minute EMOM rotating through three movements or, you know, maybe a 15 minute AMRAP or something. So I'm getting those little hits, those little doses that I need, you know, to work out the adrenaline, drop some adrenaline. But I love feeling like I'm moving well. I love being able to drop into my gym and rock out my program and feel fulfilled and know

that there's continual carryover. I'm not getting any younger. I want to continue to build muscle the proper way. I want to make sure that my left and my right are well balanced. I want to make sure that all those, you know, the pushing and the pulling or the squatting and the hinging, I've come to recognize that you need to balance the work that you're doing. And, and again, where I live, I can't say that there's an active life, uh, you know, CrossFit gym anywhere near me that would provide me the fulfilling programming that I am receiving through active life. I could do this forever. As long as we got it, we got to get know, we got to get a gym near you doing our stuff. That's what we got to do. Exactly.

The analogy I use for kind of what Sheila was alluding to, or the way I think about it is it's movement literacy. So again, when we talk about not being able to breathe, that's like, not to put a judgment to it, but's kindergarten stuff like it's it's low hanging fruit it's basic stuff uh as we get better at deadlifts now we're talking about whatever high school level reading right uh the idea is you know she's not yet speaking in a shakespearean tongue we but but she sees that long term like she wants to be able to get there. And we are maybe the best way to get her there. And the benefits of that, again, are that she's going to continue to improve and speak

better and better. It's a practice, just like physical therapy practice, medical practice. It's a movement practice. So that's my way of thinking about is this movement literacy where, you know, where are you? What's your reading level now? And how do we keep progressing you to learn more SAT words? And, you know, it can be a never ending process. Some people are fine reading, you know, at a sixth grade level, the rest of their lives, and dealing with that other people are not. So I guess that's the question I put out there to, to whoever's listening to this is, are you happy with with your reading level currently? And if I could just jump onto that. Sorry, Sean, to cut you off. But I am a lifelong learner. I want to continue developing my best self. And I have found that

in this past year, I've been game to try things like water skiing. I water skied a couple of months or so ago for the first time in probably 20 plus years. Had no issues. Wasn't even sore the next day. It was awesome. This coming week, I actually signed up for a surf camp that I'm going to do for the entire week. Because I've always wanted to try surfing. I have no hesitation now of testing things out. Slack lining, paddleboarding.

Like I'm ready and willing to try anything that comes my way because I have such trust and confidence in my movement ability now. So do you think a year and a half, two years ago, you would have hesitated to sign up for these things? Yes. Yeah. Because of the pain? Because I was afraid of her getting hurt either because i wasn't i went through this like three month cyclical pattern where i'd have an awesome month i push it the next month my back would go or the knee would blow up or shoulder or something and then

i'd spend the next month trying to rehab it. And since committing to active life and working with Bo, it's been a continual progression forward, upward, onward. You know, little hiccups here and there, something that might be a little irritated, but nothing that took me out of the game. And I want to play, coach. Put me in the game. I want and that I want to play coach, put me in the game. I want to play. I'll play wherever you want me to play. I'll run the ball. I'll pass like whatever. And I'm at the point now where I don't care if it's my nine-year-old son or other 40 year olds

or whatever. I'm going to be first in line to volunteer to let me try that. That's cool. And Bo, when you're coaching your clients, do you recognize in the moment, do you think the gravity of what that means? I mean, Sheila just described essentially the life that she would have liked to have been able to live three years ago that now in large part due to your guidance she's able to live you have somewhere between 30 and 40 clients right now if i'm not mistaken and every single one of them wants that do you like do i do i appreciate the gravity of that well i know it, but I mean, like when you're programming for somebody, when you're sitting down and looking at it, does that ever hit you? Or is it hard in the moment to recognize that?

I think it is a bit of a challenge to recognize it. I think that, like we talked about building that trust, that first conversation, we, you know, there's, there's deep levels of goal setting we can go through and you try to have these conversations. I don't think when we started with Sheila that she necessarily had the awareness of saying, I want to try surfing in a year. It might not even been a thing. She, she was just focused on let's get out of pain. I think again, having my experience and working with so many clients and things over the years um that that that is an underlying thing to me and my bigger picture concept to the nutritious movement aspect of it is if we can get you moving better you can then do all these things like that's

always the the long-term picture if i have somebody who's with me month to month i know that it's going to be a harder sell because they're more concerned of what this is bothering me now. Like I every post is I want myself, I want you to be healthier 10, 30, 50 years from now. You know, I think we need to be thinking about that 80 year old version of Sheila. Um, and that's always my vision. Sometimes it doesn't connect with the client who's in pain. So there's something to be said for that. So the moment uh i i sometimes we we it's on it's there but it's not it's not always appreciated so i do like to go back to that and um it's always very rewarding when that moment happens which some for some people it happens three months down the line for some people it happens a year down the line where they're finally like, I'm so happy that we're doing this. This is the first time I've seen the light.

Those things are very rewarding to get. I think they're more rewarding to not think about it until it happens. So, yeah, I love what I do. Well, I love that you do it. And, Sheila, to kind of put a bow on this thing, when you hear your coach talk about thinking about the 80-year-old Sheila, how much of you is like, yeah, that's cool, and how much of you is like,

but I'd like to focus on the 46-year-old Sheila who can still do all of these things things that foster my happiness, which will then hopefully allow me to live long into my eighties, nineties, and who knows how much farther than that. but yeah, that's, that's definitely my, my longterm goal. Uh,

you know, I have a son at some point, I hope he gets married and has kids. Like I want to be, I want to, I want them to be chasing me. Cool. grandma. Yeah. You know, it's, I take tremendous pride in the intention that I set for myself in terms of living a full, happy, healthy life. And that goes beyond just my fitness. And I know that my fitness that I'm developing and

continue to develop with Bo and Active Life is such an integral part to the whole of who I am. So I can't wait to get into the gym, you know, on Monday and next month and a year from now, because I know it's going to allow me to say yes to a lot of things that I'm going to come across in the coming years. And I want to be able to say, yes, I want to do things. I want to do more things. I want to be able to hike and swim and bike and walk and tumble. Who knows? Maybe, you you know next year i'll do that what's on the west side of manhattan they've got the trapeze thing how cool would that be to do the trapeze thing dude we got trapeze in long beach oh that's and they're building that uh ropes course over by uh joan Jones. Yeah. Adventure stuff. I don't want my, I don't want to have to sit there when asked if I want to join in on something and be like, I, you know, I don't know, I'm going to be 46 or

like, I don't want hesitation because of something that's kind of nagging or lingering still. And if I can jump in on that. So a little bit off of the previous question about the process of intentionality with each session. My wife and I, Dr. Maha Nasrallah Babenko, she's downstairs right now. Spell that and say it five times. Well, we just moved to Southern California. So she's been having to spell that for everyone. I think it's 16 letters. So the last name alone. And it's a tricky one. But

we're in the process of putting a company together that brings her. She's a sex and relationship therapist. There was also a great Shug collective episode with another sex and relationship therapist who's in LA who we're trying to link up with. So if she hears this before we contact her, get in touch with us. But she, we're putting a company together and the name we've come up with, which we've gotten a lot of hesitations about because it's not the cleanest word, but it is the only thing that we have found that exemplifies what we truly believe in, which is the word is energia. And it's spelled E-I-A at the end. So the spelling is a little tricky. The pronunciation is a little tricky, but the idea is basically being in the moment, being in the process to what Sheila was

talking about. It's every session is exciting. It's not just three months from now, I expect to be out of pain. Uh, the, the it's an, it's actually comes from an Aristotelian Greek philosophy thing. It's in the book, the courage to be disliked, which is an awesome book. Um, I highly recommend to almost everyone who wants to, you know, get a little better with, with how they deal with other humans. And so Energia is kind of the opposite of kinetics, which kinetics is if you want to get to the top of a mountain, you can take a helicopter to get there, right? Or you can learn to climb the mountain and you can enjoy each day, even if it stinks, to be dealing with the wind blistering in your face.

But you learn to love that process because you know that your goal is to get to the top of that mountain. Again, you can spring for the helicopter that'll get you there and you got to the top of the mountain. Or you can do it day by day and go through the process. And sometimes, yeah, it's great to take a pill or a shot to get out of the pain. But it really is, can you do it the right way? And there's so much to the journey. So I don't know if that resonates with you, Sheila, and your journey. And I think we might have even touched on that at some point, but in our conversations, but that's where we're at. And hopefully that resonates with some folks out there. 100%.

It resonates with me too. As the guy who's supposed to lead this company we have some great months and we have some months where I'm like what the fuck why is that what's going on right now and if I was only signed up for the great months then this would be the wrong job you know having fun

and the bad ones too it's just a different kind of fun that comes across sean sends a monday email uh to the company and uh you can you can tell that no matter what's going on no matter what uh setbacks with with he just had his third kid and that's not a setback well your sleep took a step back true true true true, true. All that came across. So not a setback. Definitely a great, great step forward.

And that's another thing, the same thing. You can say getting to the top of the mountain. That's one of the other analogies for this. You can get a kid and have a plan of how to get them from birth to 18 and get them out the door and hope that you raise a good kid. Or you can sit there and say, I'm changing this diaper and it stinks. And I just got peed on and pooped on or whatever, but like, and I don't have kids. I'm the only one on this call. It doesn't have kids, but, um, my dog kind of counts, but you can to sit there and enjoy that process somehow. I think that's, that's a, that's a huge difference. We only have so many hours. We only have this one life, you know, one, one of my biggest pet peeves that again, drove me to this concept is so many people on Facebook who say,

Oh, Monday, can't wait till Friday. Like you're living five sevenths of your life in misery or, or hoping for the next thing. And then you can't even enjoy Sunday because you have to dread going to work on Monday. Like I'm not telling everyone to quit their job, but there's something there. There's something to finding enjoyment in what you have in front of you. And, yeah, that's kind of where my head's at, where I'm growing as a brand or whatever with my wife. So, again, you guys said it resonates, so we're going to push it despite a little bit of negative feedback to the word itself. But I really believe in the word. And anyway, stay tuned for that. Hey, if people are asking what the word means, then people will remember the word. Just make sure you say it enough times to them. So I want to, I want to thank both of

you guys for coming on to this episode. I hope that it was valuable for people to listen to the idea of this show in general is that you guys are able to hear that people who before maybe couldn't get the results that they were looking for can get them. Now, whether that ends up being with you working with us or you finding somebody local to you who can elicit the same kind of result, awesome. But we don't want you to quit on what it is that you're feeling day to day because you feel like you've tried everything. Sheila, Bo,

thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having us. My pleasure. And Bo, I will make sure to get your Instagram handle into the show notes. Is there anywhere else people can find you? Or is that, um,

we're building out that website for hopefully, uh, we have the copyright and all that before this airs. So no one steals it, but so you'll, you'll, you'll,

you'll let me get that. And if it's ready, I'll put it in the show notes. Sheila, if people want to find you and talk to you, where can they find you? Instagram is probably the best way. Mrs.

G Ricks, M R S S H E R I X on it. All right. Thanks guys. It's been real. Thank you. Be well. That's going to be a wrap for this episode of active life radio on the shrugged collective network. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please head to wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a five-star rating as well as a great

review. If you really love this episode, make sure you're sharing it with the people who need to hear it. Value unshared is value wasted. And of course, if you're looking to get more from us, whether it's coaching courses, one-on-one coaching from one of our staff members to help you get out of pain without going to the doctor or missing the gym, head to ActiveLifeRx.com slash shrugged. We'll see you then. Turn pro. Thank you.