Mark Bell's Power Project - The KING of all Exercises, Sprints or Deadlifts? || MBPP Ep. 973

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

In episode 973 , Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the debate between which exercise can be crowned "King", Sprints or Deadlifts. The crew also explains how it's a good idea to be able to do both.   New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://drinkag1.com/powerproject Receive a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs!   ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off Mind Bullet!   ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box   ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢ https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel!   ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

What do you think is the king of all exercise? If you had to pick one, it's do until the day you die. What do you go to the gym to do? You go to the gym to do movements that are normally going to cause some form of hypertrophy. There's building muscle, but there's also not being in pain. And how useful is it for me to really target

like just my quads? I don't know how much sense that makes anymore. For some reason, there seems to be a perception that just because somebody is big and large, that they can't move really well or they're not functional. The squat has been touted as the king of all exercises for a long time, but I would like to argue that the deadlift is. The deadlift and back squat deserve no place on that throne.

With the way that we've adjusted the way we lift now, do you guys think you could have gotten as big? I simply did not know that you could do a deadlift differently. For me personally, my muscle isn't holding me back. I could have done a lot of the exercises probably differently, probably with a lot less weight, probably just gotten just as big. You could gain a lot of muscle, but then you can also move really well. You just can't get separated from doing things that allow you to move. None of these concepts were a thing.

At the age of 60, what would you guys rather have? The ability to sprint or the ability to deadlift? It told you. Yeah. It warned us. Yeah, it gave you all the warning signs. It warned us ahead of time. So we have a topic for today where we're going to discuss.

Oh, I have a question. But before we continue, everyone who's listening, what do you think is the king of all exercise? If you had to pick one, Stu, until the day you die, and then you guys, what would be the one you pick? The squat. I don't know. Would you? That's what everybody gets all excited about. Does it have to be a barbell movement?

No, no, dude. Like, okay, it could be exercise, just a form of movement. What would that be? Sex. That you could, I mean. Hey. That's an activity. But the one thing you want to do for the rest of your life.

Okay. You'd pick sex. Sure. All right, cool. Because I got nothing else. All right, all right, all right. You know, I think if you try to like pick one, you know, movement in a gym, it'd just be really hard to like narrow it down like one thing. I would say that like I guess something that gives you kind of like the most down like one thing um i would say that like uh i guess something that gives you

kind of like the most bang for your buck could be some some form of dead lifting of some kind bend down pick something up um if we're just trying to pick one movement yeah too if you've had to pick one exercise like in a gym it it'd be something like that. If it was something I could do maybe outside the gym, I think like some form of like running, like some form of movement where you're moving around a little bit more than just what you do in the gym. Okay, I do that. You know, maybe we should make more qualifications. A movement in the gym, a movement outside of the gym, or something in the gym and something out of the gym. What would that be?

This isn't my choice, but what do you guys think about like a burpee? Yeah, well, a burpee is- It's not fun, but like talk about like total body movement. A burpee is like one of the most genius exercises of all time. It requires so much energy to lay down on the ground and push yourself back up. And then usually you kind of jump back in the air and stuff.

There's eccentric, there's plyometric, there's a strength component to it. It's amazing. So I agree with you. I think a burpee should be maybe on some people's lists, even though no one wants to do them. Yeah.

You know, if I had to pick movement, maybe it would be in the gym. Maybe it'd be something that, cause then my mind wants a kettlebells, but then it's like, you have to pick one kettlebell movement which you do right so yeah a something lifting like a deadlift of some kind but it wouldn't be like just a standard barbell deadlift it'd probably

a staggered stance probably hex bar um maybe we could say like you could do the lift whatever way you want yeah so you can have 750 different ways that you do the lift but that's the one you got to stick with you know what then i think i would pick kettlebell swing because there's a lot of different ways to swing a kettlebell and you could pop yeah a kettlebell swing of some kind because there's a lot of different ways you could do it you could load it heavy and there's a lot of movement involved outside it would probably be running sprinting that's what yeah yeah yeah i'm gonna agree with what they're running and sprinting yeah what okay so if you can do all that with the with the kettle bell then would i be able to just say like a cable machine and all the movements involved with the

cable machine that's not fair but you could i. I guess now we're outside of these parameters. Yeah. I think what we're getting to though already is like different people do different things with those cable machines. You know, like there's a lot of different, there's like a, sometimes they're called like an eight station

or a 12 station, depending on how many different pieces are coming out of the thing, how many different exercises you can do on there. But, you know, one person might use a machine like that, the cables like that might use it with a lot of good full range of motion stuff. They might put themselves through some squats. They might do things like pull throughs, which would stretch the hamstrings. They might do like rows and pull downs, but they might do all these exercises with really good form while another person might do, they want to go as heavy as possible and they're not using as

good a form and they're doing more partial range of motion so there's you know right away you get into like a squat you know everyone just thinks okay weight on your back traditional feet are lined up just a squat but there's so many different ways to do a squat. You can do a belt squat. You can do a hack squat. You could, the bar can be on your back or it can be in the front or you don't have to do it with the bar at all. You can do it with your toes up.

You know, you just get into like tons and tons of variation. Does mentioning a sled change your mind at all with what you've picked? Like the tank that you have in the gym, pushing and pulling the tank, being able to be lateral with it. So many different movements that you see. Just remember what it feels like to push a heavy sled.

To pull a heavy sled. You can do sprints with that at that capacity. You know what I mean? You can do the same thing as running just with a sled and now it's yeah one of the things one of the reasons why i picked deadlift is like i'm just thinking about like just picking stuff up yeah you know just the ability to like pick stuff up and then the ability to um you know pick stuff up from different ranges because you can set up deadlifts at like different heights and stuff like that um sled pulling is amazing though because yeah it goes into your gait cycle.

It goes into your walk, your run. You can push it forward. You can push it backwards. You can get into more dynamic work. You can walk sideways. You can do twists on there. You can do all kinds of stuff on there. So we have this video, which we're going to pull up from Mind Pump.

Mind Pump, great fucking podcast. Y'all should check them out if you haven't already. But it's from Adam. And then we have this video, which we're going to pull up from Mind Pump. Mind Pump, great fucking podcast. Y'all should check them out if you haven't already. But it's from Adam. And then we have a video after that from some of Adam's biggest fans. Let's go. The squat has been touted as the king of all exercises for a long time, but I would like to argue that the deadlift is.

You get as much of a full body activation. You get just as big a bang for your buck when it comes to CNS and overall total body. On top of that, when we understand as trainers, one of the biggest things you're trying to combat is posture issues with people, like the rounding of their shoulders, the forward head, the closing of their body, and the weakening of all the muscles in the posterior chain. So that's what that's caused from, right? You get really weak muscles in the posterior chain. So that's what that's caused from, right? You get really weak muscles in the posterior chain. You get this over usage, tightening and shortening of the muscles in the anteriors from the front of the body.

And we're rounding for it. That's why when you look at people that are 70, 80, 90 years old, they've got these walkers and they're rounded over. And a lot of that is because that posterior chain is just destroyed. It's weak. It's completely weak. They're disconnected from it. And the deadlift is

the best exercise for the entire posterior chain so i would argue that it is a more important and even better exercise when you talk about the king of all exercise yeah again you know i'm unaware of like the actual conversation that they had because Because you need like more context, right? Like were they just discussing the way we started to talk about, you know, a lift in the gym versus a lift out of the gym? We're talking about the value of a sled, you know, for being outside. And some people could be like, well, a sled's not. A sled's kind of dumb, you know, because they might be just catching like a tail end of what we're saying.

And I think, you know think same thing with mind pump. I don't know exactly what they were talking about. If you're talking about exercises in the gym, then I would agree with them. Like you have exercises that allow you to overload your body most of the time when you're talking about somebody that is going to a gym. We'll talk more about like movement and different things to a gym, we'll talk more about like movement and different things in a minute. We'll talk more about overall health in a minute. But when you're talking about somebody that's going to the gym, usually they want to try to augment their body. They want to usually try to lose body fat for a lot of people. And a lot of people are

there to get a little stronger and to put on muscle. Right? I mean, maybe there's a mobility aspect thrown in there for a couple people. Maybe there's some people that don't desire to lose any more weight and they want to only get bigger. But for the most part, people are trying to have some sort of body transformation. They realize this is in their best interest to go to the gym. What do you go to the gym to do? You go to the gym to do movements that are normally going to cause some form of hypertrophy. And again, not everyone's in this category, but for the most part, that's what you see because people want to

alter their metabolism if you're playing the long game. The more muscle mass that you have, the more calories you're going to burn. So the muscle that you work on for today, it's burning a little bit of calories, but the muscle that you gain in the future is going to really help you three years from now, five years from now, seven years from now. How do you gain muscle mass? You gain muscle mass by adhering to a protocol of hypertrophy. You have some sort of intensity, which is the amount of weight that you use, and a bench press, a squat, and a deadlift are all really good exercises to overload your body

because you can handle more weight in those. When I went around the country and did powerlifting certification courses for CrossFit, I would ask people, you know, who in here has lifted 200 pounds, 300 pounds, so forth? Sometimes we get up to 500 pounds. Sometimes we get to 600 pounds. And it wasn't in an overhead squat, you know, and people, it wasn't in a, they didn't swing a kettlebell. They didn't, they didn't lift 600 pounds off of some machine. They were talking about, normally it was a squat or deadlift. And in almost every case, it was a deadlift. So why is a deadlift a pretty good exercise?

Well, because it lends itself to allow you to handle a pretty good amount of weight. And when we're talking about hypertrophy, it's not the only thing that's important, but it's important to be able to use some weight. And I'm a big believer that if you simply hone in on your ability to increase your capacity to be able to lift more weight, not just for like a one rep max, but you do it very safely and you take your time with it, it's a great way to add muscle mass. So when you're talking about, you know,

exercises in the gym, I think a squat, a bench, a deadlift, overhead press kind of comes to mind. Some of these movements where you can, overhead press might not be as heavy, but some of these movements where you can actually handle a little bit more weight, like how much are you really getting out of like a lateral race? It's a great great movement it's going to help build up the shoulder but it's like really targeted on just like one spot where i would say that a bench squat and deadlift it works your entire body even a bench press works your entire body in my opinion yeah they're compound movements for a reason they will work the entire body i think there are definitely better ways for me personally. There are better ways to do some of these movements. Like I,

I'll deadlift every now and then, you know, and I, I still can deadlift a lot of weight, but I'm not going to pull the bar like I typically do or like I did in the past. Like I'll probably do a staggered stance because there's aspects of that that just seem to,

I mean, I'm still getting a full body movement and still getting a full body workout, but it just makes more sense for me, especially as I've been doing more jujitsu. Like it doesn't make sense for me to get strong, heel splat on the ground. It just literally, as I'm, as I'm, as I've been working on this recently, I'm just like, this doesn't help me right now. This personally, right. Um, it could be very, it is very beneficial to be able to move a lot of weight. But as time's gone by, like these exercises are still good, but with the functions that I'm trying to build, they don't seem to be that beneficial. They don't seem to give me what I'm personally looking for. Now, if you're just trying to build muscle, which a lot of people are trying to do, these are great movements that can't be disputed.

But I think, and one thing that I think we've all been doing is we've all been thinking outside of the fact of just building muscle. As important as that is, as important for the longevity of your body as that is, like there's building muscle, but there's also not being in pain and moving really, really well, right? And there are certain ways to do these movements so that they don't cause pain and so that they can help the way you move. up a stance slightly, but because I was competing in powerlifting, that was kind of the end goal, you know, was like, let me lift this weight under these conditions this way. However, I did use a conjugate system, which we did implement things that were slightly different, but looking back on that now and with some of the goals that I have now, I could simply, you know, the conjugate system, you're constantly changing the movements almost every single week.

Looking back at that now, I could do something very similar and I can just make small tweaks or small changes to some of those movements that I've always loved and some of those movements that you can handle a good amount of weight on. So someone who's young and just getting into it, I would say, you know, maybe cool it on really being so concerned about the 500 pound deadlift. You got to kind of follow your interest on this stuff, but maybe consider doing sets of 135 and 225 with like a staggered stance, try some different bars, try some variations of some deadlifts to build yourself up in, to have strength in different areas, but also to maybe just be more quote unquote, like functional, be able to move better as you age. But I just want to go back to the point of those movements being great for overload and those movements being great for hypertrophy. Maybe all of that, maybe all of it is kind of like not the right path to go down. Like there's potential because if you think about the human body and the way that it works, I would say that like the,

I would say the best and safest way to probably build muscle would be through some sort of like weighted exercise almost like where you have like weight on you, you're like rucking. I'm just talking about like safety and being able to keep athleticism and be able to move well. Maybe things like dragging a sled, pulling a sled, things where you're not really compressing the spine. And how useful is it for me to really target like just my quads, just for my quads to get really big for 14 years for me to target my quads. I don't know how much sense that makes anymore, especially because, you know, I'm doing something different now. I'm outside the gym, I'm running. So the quads are tight and it's like, I'm trying to get my feet to separate more from each other.

to separate more from each other. But I targeted only the quads. Had I lifted in some other way, maybe did full body exercises or even like wrestled or something like that, maybe I would be able to, I don't know, move into some of these things a little bit faster. But I just think it's very hard to kind of think outside of our gym environment. And so when we get asked a question of like, what's the best exercise? That's kind of like all we can come up with is like something in the gym. And then our RX for everything is something in the gym. Like, what do I do for my back? Oh, try these 45 degree back raises, you know, and then progress to like holding a plate.

And those things can be effective, but maybe we don't like the right knowledge or perspective to think outside the box and say, I wonder if I got this person outside on a track, maybe had them run a little bit or maybe walk barefoot on a football field or something like that. I wonder, I wonder how much that would help. Like if you can think in some other ways and some other movements, that would be great. That's why we've partnered with Good Life Proteins, which also has certified Piedmontese beef on their website. Now, all you have to do is head to goodlifeproteins.com and you can select build a box with all of the proteins that you want. Then you'll select subscribe and save to save money on all of your meat. Enter code powerproject to save an extra 5% on any subscription you select.

So if you want to get your beef every two weeks, you'll be able to save 25% on all of your meat. Again, that's goodlifeproteins.com. Links are in the description along with the podcast show notes. There's also the idea of like, a lot of people are in just different camps of doing certain things. A lot of people are in just different camps of doing certain things. If you're someone who's been doing things in the gym, then that's mainly what you do. You don't do anything outside of the lifts that you're doing in the gym. For example, I think a good example is Nick Bear. Nick is still big. You're still big.

Nick has the ability to run and move really well. And he's been doing that for years now. And you're moving and running well too. But Nick has been at that for a while, right? So you can see like everything still functions well and moves well. He's also large. I think for some reason, there seems to be a perception that just because somebody is big and large and muscle bound that they can't move really well or they're not functional and i think that the only way that these people aren't functional is if they don't do other things right so i think that because we're going to get to another video here but there are people on another side of things that don't like many of the stuff that people do in the gym. But it's like, if you just do multiple things and if you, you know, increase the, the, the types of things that you're doing,

you can be muscular, you can be flexible, you can move extremely well, you can run really well. There's no reason why you have to do one thing to be out of pain or to move well or or or function well yeah and i think for some people i think the only the only issue can sometimes be is like they may not want to do anything else and that that i would just uh just encourage you to like try to have an open mind the entire time. Even if you're not doing much of some of the other things, I would just say try to do some of them. Be a little open-minded to myofascial release. Be a little open-minded to not letting your toes get all smashed together.

Because these things later on in life, there's some stuff that like not that hard to fix or repair, like losing body fat. You know, I got really fat for powerlifting at a big old giant fat face with many chins and some titties. Titties were kind of nice. But losing that weight, like, you know, it was, it wasn't always like super easy, but it's something that was, was very much reversible. There's some other things though, that like if had I known myofascial release and stuff like that, maybe I would, maybe right now I'd be a little bit more mobile, maybe, or maybe I would never listen to it. But I just want to encourage people to try to be open-minded because a little bit can go a long way. And then even on top of that like what is

something reasonable that you can do that you like that's just a little different than you just doing a squat bench or deadlift yeah that gets you twisting and moving and like maybe throw around a football or play a little soccer or something there's probably something that you like that might be a little departure from the thing that you really love. Dude, you know, I have a question for you guys because, you know, we're now doing a bunch of things, right? You're running, you're lifting, you're learning a bunch of things. Andrew, you're doing jujitsu and lifting. I've been doing jujitsu for a while now and I'm lifting, but we've all gained a certain amount of size, right? From lifting with the way that we've adjusted the way we lift now. Do you guys think you could have gotten as

big? Like when I think of like the concepts of like deadlifting and squatting the way that I would do them now, if I, if I, you know, were to go back to myself 15 years ago, and I was just like, lift this way, I still think I could have gotten as big. It would just be doing these movements in slightly different ways that were a bit more athletic, staggered stance, squatting. Uh, I would still be doing all the, I don't think there's anything wrong with any of the bodybuilding movements with dumbbells, et cetera, but I don't think I would still be doing all that. I don't think there's anything wrong with any of the bodybuilding movements with dumbbells, et cetera. But I don't think I would have maybe done squatting the same way and deadlifting the same way. Right?

What do you guys think? I think for myself, I got pretty big in the very beginning of my lifting career. Like I didn't get like huge. I wasn't Kenny. I don't have whatever the hell that guy's got. But, you know, he was able to like just put on a crazy amount of muscle in a short period of time. And PEDs aside, like I'm still not where he's at. He's got some cool shit going on.

But for myself personally, I was about the same weight. Actually, I'm 10 pounds lighter now or 15 pounds lighter now than I was when I was in high school. So I wasn't like gigantic and like muscly necessarily. It was combination. But I wasn't fat. I was in pretty good shape. I could run fast. I was really strong.

And so I think that I would be a similar size regardless of the training. And I also, I think when I was younger, I didn't always understand. I thought that you had to get yourself really sore. So for most, even though I sort of knew better in the back of my head, I thought leg day was like, you know. Fuck yourself up. Yeah, you're not going up and down stairs. You know, you got to hold up and downstairs, you know,

you got to hold the railing and you got to walk sideways down the stairs and everything. Like just, I do that all the time. And, um, if you're not limping, it wasn't a real leg day, right? It wasn't a real leg day. And the same goes with, uh, powerlifting. Like, you know, I, I'd loaded the weight up as I got later to my powerlifting career. I started to learn like, oh, wow, I don't have to do that all the time.

And I'm still just as strong. What really tripped me out was, oh my God, when I back way off even more, I'm stronger. And then there was like, you do that too much and then you get fucked up. But when I pulled back i was bigger when i pulled back i was stronger so i would say that um i could have done a lot of the exercises probably differently probably with a lot less weight probably with a lot less volume and probably

just gotten just as big but i don't really know yeah yeah i i think i still have a lot more gains to make oh yeah and i am not gonna go back and train the way i did before we started learning a lot of this stuff so the gains that i'm gonna be making moving forward is going to be with the knowledge that we have now so like it's not gonna be like i know we're talking about deadlifts and stuff but i probably still won't really mess with a straight barbell if anything it's gonna be a hex bar or you know maybe not even that but like it's not gonna i'm not gonna go back to you know whatever uh the push pull days i'm not gonna go back to come on bro i know well i mean the stuff that i do is technically if you look at it is push

pull you know because i will work chest and i'll work lats but it's just not you know the typical like bro split i guess we'll say which does work i'm not saying it doesn't but i just i hurt myself a lot back in the day because i was i just had less knowledge and it's like oh my back hurts today nope the the program still calls for rdls so i'm gonna just put my back in like a weird weird uh position and still go for it so no i'm not gonna go back to that but i'm gonna move forward with what i have now and still go for it. So no, I'm not going to go back to that, but I'm going to move forward with what I have now and still make more progress. Um, if I wanted to, I can pull back on jujitsu and focus more on the lifting and make those gains a little bit faster. But right now I'm just, I'm having fun with jujitsu and my body's still making progress as is. It's just,

you know, my, my main focus is the performance right now. And so with that, you guys saw me today. I was doing David Weck stuff in the gym, and then we were smashing ourselves with just the grip. So it's like I'm always going to be doing this stuff moving forward regardless of any of the gains I've made in the past. Everything's evolving. Yeah. I think a lot of the compliments that you've gotten recently,

like your legs look a lot leaner. You look a lot leaner in general, but I've heard people tell you about your legs and your shoulders. And there's like, I don't know, you might be doing something for your legs and shoulders, but it's probably less than maybe what you were doing in the past. It's probably just maybe more intentional. Maybe the legs, maybe you're not doing a ton. I don't know. But what is it?

What is the case what is going on with those shoulders and legs well i i'm not doing any overhead pressing i'm not doing even a dumbbell lateral raise if i'm gonna do that movement it's gonna be on a cable machine with the stuff i learned from doug brignoli and then the legs i'm not squatting however yesterday i probably did i i wish i could keep track but i just i was squatting for six minutes straight back and forth up and down up and down up and down doing jujitsu like we were doing uh some uh comp uh conditioning work and you know and these are full like i guess it would be ass to grass for me and having somebody under me but it was that

over and over in repetition and the burn that I felt in my quads was very similar to when I do cable sissy squats now it was even more than that because I was I had somebody pushing me and then also that person is moving and so it's like it's there's a different thing going on where I have to balance and there's a lot more stuff going on than just an up and down squat so for the legs it's um the way i i my my game is on when i'm on top it's a i'm kind of always in a squatted down position so i get a lot of leg work every single day at jujitsu and then the leanness is just because i'm working harder than like i ever have for like cardio wise yeah so i don't really know but you know i would just think a guy that's doing something like that because there's a demand for it because you're

in a sport i think you i think uh person to person i think someone would have a harder time dealing with somebody who's doing that kind of work like Andrew's doing versus somebody that's just on a machine versus someone that's just in the gym doing a squat. Potentially it could be different. I don't know. But when you kind of hear like someone say that guy's got like farm boy strength or those kinds of things, someone bailing hay and doing like an activity rather than like an exercise. someone bailing hay and doing like an activity like rather than like an exercise um i think that it's a maybe it's not safer it might not be the word but it seems to be a more functional way to build muscle mass and imagining when you're doing those drills like you know if you're in jujitsu someone's pulling on your sleeve and someone's pulling on your collar and

your neck is getting worked and like your whole body is getting worked. And so I think it's much different than just trying to go after some hypertrophy in the gym. And I know that, I know a few years ago, if I ever heard people talk about like functional type stuff, I'd maybe kind of roll my eyes at it. But as you really do pay attention to people who only do stuff in the gym, right? And maybe if your goal is just building muscle, then that's your goal. Then I guess the way you move doesn't really matter to you. But when you do pay attention to the way people move who are very muscle-bound and all anything they do is in the gym, they don't move well. They don't have a good range of motion. On top of that, a lot of people are in pain.

And they're in pain. If you don't move well, that's one thing. But if you don't move well and you're in pain, that's awful. And here's another thing. As much as I love, I think deadlifting as a concept is great. But if you're deadlifting and you are always complaining of lower back pain and you keep deadlifting despite continuing to complain about your lower back pain, why are you deadlifting? Or why are you deadlifting in the way you're deadlifting? It's not working.

You know, like there's a video we're going to get to. As much as I dislike the dogmatic way of which functional patterns puts forward some of the things that they put forward, I respect what they do. I think personally that there are ways that you can implement a lot of different things along with what they're doing because we've done it. I'm not in pain. My function has gotten better and I'm doing a lot of different things that we do in the gym. my function has gotten better and I'm doing a lot of different things that we do in the gym. But they do have a point where some people, exercises like they're, they're over-exercising. Like if, if your, if your goal is trying to move better and stuff in the gym isn't working well for you currently, why are you continuing to beat that horse? Why? Yeah, I think people just get addicted to it, unfortunately. And, I mean, if there is something to be addicted to, I guess it's good to be addicted to exercise.

But, like, I mean, long term, you might want to add some different things into your routine that might just help you feel better. I think maybe there's a misunderstanding. Like I said earlier, like a little bit can go a long way. A little bit of walking can go a long way. A little bit of keeping up on like your heart in some way, you know having, you know, high cholesterol and high blood pressure and like all these different things, these things are, they're very reversible that, you know, but if you have it for two years or three years or five years or seven years or 12 years and so on now you're starting to get like into your 40s or 50s and maybe things aren't you know what i mean you could have prevented it probably by just like i'm talking small practices

you know just little practices not anything crazy maybe you get rid of some of the sugar that's in maybe you don't like ditch drinking soda because you like it. Maybe you don't ditch it completely, but maybe you only have it like once or twice a week. You know, shit like that. Like wherever you can pick up a little bit of points, maybe the walking that you did, maybe the walking that you started doing last year at 33 years old is going to make a huge difference when you're 73. If you keep it and they check your heart and there's not you don't have calcification you don't have all these things so we again i think we we tend to like be so excited about like what we're doing in the gym the weights that we're hitting in the

gym and we're not really we're just not really thinking outside the box at all yeah there's that and then to answer the question like why do you keep you keep doing it? Keep doing it. When I like when I got an online program from Joseph Rakich, it was like a very one way street. It was like, this is your program and this is it. Hopefully it's different now because he still has a very successful business. But I simply did not know that you could do a deadlift differently. So if I were to see somebody doing like a split stance I'd be like oh that probably hurts or there's no way I could do that or oh a hex bar isn't as good as a straight bar because everybody touts the straight bar deadlift as like the king of all lifts and the hex bars that's not that's not that's not good to get strong at that one it's better to get strong at that one so I'll just do

that I had no idea that you could still pull off a hex bar i had no idea what wagon wheels were i had no idea that you can just pull a hex bar and then go for a walk with it like you know none of these concepts were a thing so all i had was my back hurts when i deadlift but i have to do that so here we go that's why tools are great bro like all everything that like all the tools that we have at our disposal as far as exercise is concerned we don't just have to deadlift it's not the only thing we're able to do i think innately we all want to push ourselves right so well if we have as many tools as possible that we can exert ourselves, we feel good. If I can do, right, some like a good kettlebell complex, I feel good. I don't have like, if my, but if my only thing that I felt

like I was pushing myself or I was, you know, giving some to myself was with deadlifting, squatting and benching, then I would beat those things into the ground because like, I want to, I want to exert myself. But if you have the ability to run, you have the ability to sprint, you have a bunch of tools in the gym that you can get a great workout in and nothing causes you pain, then you don't have to do the movement that is currently causing you pain. Power Project family, if you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to a nutrition plan, if you're trying to get fit, pretty much if there's anything you're trying to do for your health, we know that sleep is the biggest determining factor to help you get from point A to point B.

That's why we've been sleeping on 8C mattresses for probably more than two years now. And the main reason is the technology behind the Pod Pro. Now, the Pod Pro is like the Tesla of beds. It will change its temperature based off of how you're sleeping during the night. And if you have a partner that's sleeping on the other side, they could have their own temperature settings. We all sleep hot here. And I used to wake up in a puddle of my own sweat. That doesn't happen anymore because of the Eight Sleep mattress. And I've been getting the best sleep of my life. Now, if you don't want to replace your mattress, you can just get the Pod Pro cover and you can put

that over your current mattress to get all the benefits of Eight Sleep. But if you also need to replace your old nasty mattress, you can get the Pod Pro Cover and the Eight Sleep mattress. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you guys got to head over to eightsleep.com slash powerproject, and you guys will automatically receive $150 off of your order. Again, eightsleep.com slash powerproject. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I feel really fortunate, you know, that we have this podcast and we get to meet so many different people and um i'm not sure where it came from or or what but i i've always been attracted to try to learn

from the best people you know and like okay well let's uh i want to try to learn something about stretching let me communicate with someone that knows a lot about stretching i want to try to learn something about stretching. Let me communicate with someone that knows a lot about stretching. I want to learn more about like not just stretching but mobility. I want to go to like the best person I can go to. And I've been that way for a long time. And I think it saved me in my powerlifting career. Like I didn't do everything right. I did a lot of things wrong.

And I was too immersed in it at times definitely addicted to it at times um would lift injured um would lift you know beat up here and there would lift tired and push push the envelope but you know at the time it's like well this is what i know i'm getting pretty good at it and like i think I think I could be great at it. Like greatness, I think is around that corner. So let me just forget about kind of what's going on right now. And I'm, I'm going to go, I'm going to go chase that. But luckily I knew enough and I was getting around the right people. You know, my best friend, my BFF, my big fat friend, Jesse Burdick, he was really helpful in that process. You know, saying, Hey dude, like, I know you don't like to stretch, but you got to do some, like, you got to do some

mobility, like just take these bands, attach this band to your leg and fucking walk that way and bend down this way. And you're going to be good, you know? And, and then I met Kelly Sturette and things like that, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing now without some of that. And without, I don't have like the most incredible range of motion. There's probably other things I could have worked on, but I did try to do movements from different angles my entire powerlifting career. And every time a contest was over, again, I had great people in my corner. I talked to Ed Cohn, one of the greatest power lifters ever. And Ed would say, hey, whenever you get done with any competition,

you always start back over at the beginning. You don't get to start back over like midway and be like there's another competition in six weeks. You start back over in the beginning every time. Make sure you do everything the right way. Where are you weak? What sucks? What hurts? What hurts? Give that thing time to heal. Don't start thinking about another contest right now.

Sometimes you come off of a contest and you did really poorly and you're upset and you kind of want retribution. You're fired up. You're like, I want to compete. When's the next one? When do I get another shot at this? And then sometimes you compete and you kick ass and you're like, oh my God, I'm like all the shit I'm doing right now is working perfectly. I got to go

compete again. And so it's kind of like a never ending cycle, but you got to be really careful because it can chew you up and spit you out. And you know, at 30 or 40, you might not be able to do a lot of the things that you love to do or you might not be able to even discover them. I wouldn't even have been able to discover running otherwise. Yeah. You want to play this next video? I'm ready.

So the video you're playing, is it the one number two? Yeah, it's the first response. Let's play the second response. Second one, bar good meat what are you in the pizza one i got the i'm still working on the hamburger one okay i finished both yeah hamburger yeah the hamburger you know what maybe let's uh let's play both fuck it let's play this first one and then we'll play the second one after that just two minutes I think this is enjoyable. I like internet beef.

Beef is. All right, let's go. The squat has been touted as the king of all exercises for a long time, but I would like to argue that the deadlift is. You get as much of a full body activation. You get just as big a bang for your buck when it comes to CNS and overall total body. On top of that, when we understand as trainers, one of the biggest things you're trying to combat is posture issues with people like the rounding of their shoulders the

forward head the deadlift and back squat deserve no place on that throne if there's a king of all exercises it's sprinting and this is why a well-executed gait cycle involves all dimensions of motion from the transverse frontal and sagitt sagittal plane. When you deadlift and back squat, you are primarily compressing the spine and negating the functions that your spine needs most when you move around. And this is the problem with the fitness industry, the prioritization of deadlifts and back squats, flexing and extending the spine, staying in the sagittal plane without accounting for the rotation and other functions that are present when you walk, run, and sprint. There is nothing more impactful than a well-executed gait cycle and we have routinely shown this with our results at functional patterns and taking someone from crippling pain barely able to move getting them

to walk run and eventually sprint pain-free this is the territory that the fitness and rehab industry avoids altogether and let's be frank the majority of these fitness influencers bodybuilding coaches weightlifting gurus have a chemical dependency to exogenous substances. That's a bunch of bullshit. Let alone recover from their workouts. So ask yourself, which path of wisdom are you going to follow? Dude, well, I mean, congrats to Mind Pump for being fitness influencers and what do you say, bodybuilding gurus or something like that? Yeah.

That's cool. Yeah. This guy's name is John Marshall Nielielsen you guys should check out his instagram what do you think well that was the first response but we'll play the second one serious too yeah i think i think he's got a lot of good points i think it's i think uh trying to navigate like what you're supposed to do what's the most optimal what's the healthiest thing to do is very debatable and that's how we get into these situations. I love lifting. I love power lifting. I love traditional lifting. You know, when I say like some of the best exercises in

the gym are the ones that you can, you know, handle a little bit more weight with, I don't mean all the time. I just mean that when you're new, sometimes you're not very strong and you curling, you know, 10 pound dumbbells is really probably not a lot of bang for your buck in terms of your arms growing the way that you want them to grow. Things like pull-ups and things like, you know, lat movements where you're pulling very hard would work your biceps tremendously. Things where you're pushing very hard and pushing good amount of weight in any form of a press, not just necessarily like a bench press, but there's all the variations of machines and all the different things that you can do in the gym when it comes to that. And when it comes to a

squat, I mean, you have so many different machines for that as well. Like I think those things deserve some credit as well. But sometimes when people are in in a gym what i've seen over the years a lot of the older a lot of the older dudes are they can only do the machines yeah they can only do the cables and it's unfortunate because they used to be able to do some of these other things and they loved doing those things they loved bench now, you know, shoulders a little weird. I can't bench. I can't incline. It dips. No, no go. You know, so now it's like, what are we left with? We're left with like a cable crossover, maybe a couple pushups with like a slingshot on or something. You just end up with a really compromised workout. And then what happens? And then you go to reach

for something in your cabinet one day and you're like, oh, man, it's like super stiff here. You ignore that. You don't pay a lot of attention to that. You start to lose. You can't get your arm up the same way. You start to lose these capacities. You just end up in a really compromised spot. Yeah.

And, you know, the gym is fucking amazing. The ability to gain muscle is is dope some people will look at a bicep curl and be like that's not a functional movement when were you ever going to go and do something like that or even something like uh i don't know what else would be deemed a non-functional movement i guess laying down bench pressing is kind of bench pressing right but you know having us having done this stuff and we've delved down the functional side of things, we've all increased our ability to move, but now we're doing that and we still have all this muscle and it doesn't seem like for me personally, my muscle isn't holding me back. Like I have

all the range of motion. I have the ability to create stiffness. I have the ability to move in whatever way I want, but now my body is just way more resilient than the individual that hasn't lifted and is only doing the functional things. Functional, right? That's why I understand, I believe that you can absolutely, absolutely do both of these things. You could gain a lot of muscle, look as aesthetic as you want to look, right? But then you can also move really well. You just can't get separated from doing things that allow you to move. I think doing jujitsu has been something that has been a big benefit for me because it's allowed me to do something that has allowed my body to move in all these ranges of motion outside of just the sagittal plane while still maintaining all that muscle. So I think rather than saying, okay, you know what, fuck lifting, it's non-functional, it's not going to be good for me. Lift in a way that respects

the way your body can move, right? Lift in a way that doesn't cause you pain, but can still allow you to hit those tissues and do other movements that will give a different stimulus to your body so that you can still move well. There's no reason why you can't do both. It doesn't need to be one or the other. But I do see their point because again, you look at people who are only lifting and are only talking about lifting. You watch them move, they probably can't run, they probably can't sprint. There's a problem there. Maybe it's not a problem for them because that's not their goals. But for people who do want to be able to move well, it's going to be a problem. I think I heard someone say the other day, and the percentage is probably even higher,

but I heard something like 80% of people don't sprint once they're over the age of 30. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of interesting. It's just something like you probably just never even really thought about it. It's not really a knock on people. It's just like, well, what would you have sprinted for? Like, what would you? But I think it's a good idea to think of things that can mimic that. Mimic a sprint or mimic, I guess, like real world conditions.

Even just the ability to go into a gym and get on an assault bike and be able to go all out and to be able to watch the amount of watts that you produce and over time be able to produce more watts that's another level of fitness like that's important to be able to do that it's important to be able to have a really good output like that and if and if you don't it's a sign of weakness in a way so you you should be it should be something that you could work on over time and you can increase just like you can with weights. But I think some of the stuff that functional patterns shows, I have done functional patterns. I've been instructed on it many times. And I love a lot of the stuff that they do.

times and I love a lot of the stuff that they do. I've, um, I think I've gotten a lot looser by doing some of the things that they've shown. Like a lot of the movements they show, they're in respect to the gait pattern. And, uh, when you do something like if I wanted to do like a curl and it was through functional patterns, you actually would just try to figure out a way. And I don't know exactly all the different ways. I'm not an instructor by any means, but they would figure out a way to have you almost walk with the weights. So rather than, and it might look insane when people watch it, people will watch the, you know, some of these videos that we're going to play and some of the things that are taught through functional patterns. And you'll, you'll be like, that's not, that's not lifting. That's not hitting that muscle group.

Yeah, that's not. It's totally different than anything you're used to seeing. But we are seeing more and more people in the space doing exercises that are similar. We're seeing more people just being willing to explore. And there have been people that have been doing this type of stuff for a while. Yeah. Like David Weck. He's been doing this rotational functional type stuff for a very long time also.

Oh, yeah. So it's not like this stuff is new by any means, but they've done a very good job of putting it all together. Like things like animal flow. And I mean, there's all kinds of movement practices that people have been working on all kinds of different things forever. Again, I think United States, or if we're into bodybuilding and we're in a gym again, like that, you're just, you're just like so focused on these exercises,

you know? And I always like what you, a lot of what you say is like, well, why not just do both? Like, that's kind of the, I think that's awesome.

Like if you, if you really love using the preacher curl and you love training arms and you want to get your arms huge, you want to be the next CT Fletcher or something like that, that's great. But maybe once in a while, you do something a little different,

do something a little more athletic so you don't lose some of that. Let me ask you guys a question real quick and then we can also play the next video because the next video is where the beef starts. But at the age of 60 what would you guys rather have a skill to do at a high level if you had to pick one the ability to sprint or the ability to deadlift i would say sprint i think yeah i'm 100 picking sprint yeah i feel like if you can sprint then you'll be able to deadlift but if you can deadlift you might not be able to sprint

you know like let me i don't even want to get this twist i fucking love mind pump and adam's great so but i i do agree with this guy you know what i mean like at the age of 60 70 80 90 i would much rather have the ability to sprint you know and and again if you can sprint you can probably deadlift but we know so many people who can deadlift and who can deadlift some crazy amounts but if you want them to sprint they're going to pull a hammy or pull their back right and you hurt so homie john has a point if you have knee pain or lower back pain the initial thought is that it's probably coming from the knee or the lower back but have you ever thought that it could actually be coming from your feet most people wear shoes like this they are narrow they are not flat they are inflexible so it's almost like your feet are stuck in casts all day long.

And if you imagine that your hand was stuck in a cast all day, well, your fingers are going to become weak. But then your elbows might start feeling a little bit wonky because your fingers don't move. And then it might travel up your shoulder. That's the same thing that happens with your feet when you put them in normal inflexible shoes. That's why you want to throw those out and start using some vivo barefoot shoes they have shoes for hiking on their website working out in the gym they have casual shoes like these novices right here but the difference with vivo is that they have a wide toe box so that your feet like my wide ass feet can spread and move within the shoe they're flat so that your feet are doing the

work when you're walking and they are flexible so your feet have the freedom to move the way they need to move so that they can be strong feet. That's why you want to get yourself some of these. And Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at vivo barefoot.com slash power project. When you guys get there,

you'll see a code across the top. Make sure you enter that code at checkout for 15% off your entire order. Again, that's at vivo barefoot.com slash power project links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes guys. Look at this Look at that. I could stick that in my mouth. Do it. I'm not gonna come on No Wait before I want to I want to read this text that's about to pop up on screen

from So like go ahead and play the video And then we recently made a video breaking down why dead lips are garbage and that sprinting is the actual king of all exercise here's the creator that video had to say typical either or sprinting is great too nice try also you probably don't want to start a war with people who have good intentions for the average person the real problem with the fitness industry we coined the popular act of that term, by the way, and insecure egos like yourself.

Oh, I'm so smart. Look at me. Big words, big words. Blah, blah, blah. The truth is people and posts like this confuse and divide. Thank God you all have,

thank God all you have is your Instagram account and not much else influence. Yeah. Shots fired. Shots fired. Keep going? Keep going. you have is your instagram account and not much else influence yeah yeah shots fired keep going notice how they complain about us using big words and breaking things down while presenting the argument that deadlifts are good for the average person if deadlifts were good for the average person and they did what everyone thinks they do we'd all be running like usain bolt because usain bolt was made by deadlifts right now don't get it twisted we're not saying grandma needs to get up head to the track and hit a few sprints we're

talking about the scaled progression of exercise that enables one to walk run and eventually sprint with sprinting being the blueprint for that exercise and this is what we do at FP to close this out deadlifts promote fake strength here's johnny eblin hasn't touched a barbell in over five years trains exclusively fp notice how he throws these gentlemen through the air another example pal dake multiple time world champion same principle applies the motion is non-linear fp trains you for real strength so we recently it's really difficult when you talk about an athlete you know because what if that athlete gets beat by a guy who does use a barbell you know what i mean like again like maybe why don't you do both like maybe it's not like uh just totally detrimental to your health

to use a barbell here and there yeah so you So, you know, what he said, I think something that like really popped out was deadlifts promote fake strength, you know? And I kind of understand what he's saying there. Because, again, you can take somebody that can deadlift a lot of weight. That doesn't necessarily mean that person can move very well at all. That can mean that they can deadlift a lot of weight. That doesn't necessarily mean that person can move very well at all. That can mean that they can deadlift a lot off the ground. But it's like strength for what? You know what I mean? Like you are strong for a barbell.

That's good and you're probably very strong picking up multiple things. But I mean outside of that, what are we looking at there? It doesn't always build a great capacity. what like what are we looking at there it doesn't always build a great capacity you know uh you see cam haynes you know taking a uh an animal dragging an animal out of the woods on his back can cam haynes deadlift 500 for a set of five reps maybe i don't know no fucking way no no he's pretty strong though but he's very strong he's incredibly strong, though. He's very strong. He's incredibly strong. I mean, the shit that he does, I can't do any of it. He's unbelievably strong. But that's my point is that he's not some big deadlifter.

He does the exercise in the gym. He does a lot of these things. Trains very hard. I had the unfortunate case to go and work out with him, and he just absolutely killed me. But I think a deadlift doesn't really build a capacity for what people might think. However, being incredibly weak at a dead lift, um, you know, being a 200 pound guy and not being able to lift 135 pounds, I think there's like, there's some sort of issue going on there. Maybe there's some sort of pain or something like

that's something that you, you know, I think might need to address. But I don't think a deadlift is a deadlift, a bench, a squat, some of these movements that we have in the gym, people try to label them as like, you know, non-functional or functional, like a squat is a functional movement and a bench press is a non-functional movement. I don't really believe that there's any movement that's non-functional. I mean, your body can do it, so it must have a reason or purpose. Your shoulder rotation, your hip rotation, the way you can move your feet and your toes and all these different things. I don't believe that there's a non-functional way to move. You might move in a way that might be more dangerous, especially with particular weights and things like that. But how much have we explored where we lift?

Is it a family guy where he does that crazy deadlift? It's like, twist your spine. Yeah, he's got to bend at the hips. As crazy as those instructions are, what if you do that with really light weight? I don't know. It might not be a bad practice to be able to move that way. Yeah, if you move the goalposts, they can all be right.

I get what he said, too, about it's fake strength. And then he shows an MMA fighter and then a wrestler. But what if I'm not an mma fighter nor a wrestler and i don't care about that stuff and i just want to focus on i don't know pulling up as much weight as possible now it's no longer fake strength so it's kind of like i i feel like they're both right like honestly but like it's just funny like the art like this is where like the arguments back and forth get weird because it's's like, well, no, you're changing the goalposts, you know, like it's, it's moving, right?

Like it's getting weird, but I think they are both right. What are you looking to do, dude? Like, are you looking at, are you competing? Right. You're not, you're fucking strong if you're deadlifting 600, 700 pounds in competition. And even outside of competition, you're still a very, very strong person. Look at our boy, Jimmy House doing-jitsu. Recently deadlifted 800 pounds sumo. You can't tell me that's fake strength. But I think the thing that's being

missed here is we're paying attention to the people's inputs. Someone like Lane Norton, his main inputs are powerlifting and lifting in general. So what's getting spit out is the skills to do those things. But if you give yourself different inputs, then the strength that you've built, being able to utilize deadlift squats and some of these other movements, right? Can potentially help you express movement in another way. If you give yourself the inputs of rotational movement,

running, sprinting, et cetera, these things can be beneficial if you learn how to put them together. I don't think that just, sprinting, et cetera. These things can be beneficial if you learn how to put them together. I don't think that just, you know, functional patterns, a lot of people that tend to comment back whenever I mentioned anything, it's always to the fact that like, oh, you're destroying yourself. The things that you're doing are not, um, beneficial for the human gate and the way that we evolved to move. It's, it's all. And just like bitch do you know how i move have you seen me move you don't realize that these things have helped me become an extremely powerful athlete and i sound like such an asshole right now or

like i'm tooting my own horn but at the same time like you cannot hold a candle to a lot of extremely strong people who are also athletic, who do things functionally. You can't. So why not build a resilient body while also increasing your ability to move? You can absolutely do both. You don't have to do one or the other. You don't have to be so dogmatic.

But if you want to build a system that people follow, that people are only doing what you're doing. Then you build a dogmatic cult-like following. A lot of stuff is awesome, but it's also cult-like. And it's just like, come on now. Fake strength is an interesting thing to say. I think he's probably just throwing that out there just because he's mad and frustrated. But, you know, it's the body.

The body responds to it responds to both. It responds to good and bad inputs. But your central nervous system and your muscular system, when you do deadlifts and you go from 400 pounds, you know, someone that deadlifts 400 pounds is going to look quite different than someone that deadlifts 700 pounds. And the person that is able to pull 700 pounds in that particular movement, they are stronger and most likely they're bigger. And again, maybe that's their goal. So to them, it's very real because that's the end game for them. That's what they're after. In functional patterns, it seems like they're after, they're really into somebody having a really clean ability to move.

And that's their kind of, their North Star is, you know, somebody kind of running on a treadmill. But having really good picture perfect form and seeing good turnover and everything like that. Different people have different goals and sometimes we're going to go after stuff that might have a little bit of danger. But I think what the interesting and the really cool part is every once in a while you run into people where there's, they're,

uh, they run into something where they have an accident, where they're unable to come back from it. But most of the time, 99.9% of the time, you can fuck yourself up or you can lift a little recklessly. You can do things a little recklessly. You can do things at a really, really high level, super competitive. You could be kind of rolling the

dice a lot. And luckily, you're going to be able to, a lot of times you're able to come back from these things. People tear muscles, you know, in a baseball game even, you know, someone's running from first to second, fucking tear their hamstring. People tear stuff in powerlifting. People get hurt doing almost anything people get hurt sprinting all the time because they're you know maybe not used to it and things like that but i think just to try to say like you know this is our north star you know movement how you move through space how you sprint and i don't i don't disagree with that. I like that notion. That actually is really awesome.

That actually maybe should be even taught like in school. That'd be kind of neat. Like, hey, we should be able to move really well. Here's how you run. Here's how you walk. Here's how you stand. No one ever really went over that with you, you know? So that would be really cool.

However, you can't make that goal everyone else's goal. Can't force everybody to really love that. If somebody wants to walk a little slouched or if somebody wants to walk with their lats way out because they're super yoked or whatever, that's their prerogative. That's what they want to do. And maybe they don't mind. Some of us don't mind a compromise. We know alcohol is not great. We fucking drink it. You know, we know that some of these things aren't always great for us. There's, we're just kind of sometimes just want to have a fucking good time. You know, life is, imagine life without having some of these

goals. Imagine life without having some ways to measure. Like, what am I going to measure if I'm just working on my gait? I go out and sprint and try to like work on my 40 every day or something. Like, I don't know. Okay, cool. I feel good. I don't, I'm not in pain, but I actually love pain because pain is like a, it's like a mentor. It's like a teacher. That's like, oh shit. I, okay. I did that a little too much. I got some soreness there. I have some pain there. Oh, wow, like that movement I did the other day,

like, man, I got a little something in my back. I don't know what that is. I got to pay more attention. It teaches you stuff. And all of us have family members. All of us have people in our lives that we really love, and we tell them the same thing over and over again every time we see them, and they never listen. And all of us, not just them, but we're in fitness. So we're going to

promote them to go to the gym and do their walks and do these things that we deem as being healthy. And they're not going to listen. They're not going to listen. They're not going to listen. They're not going to listen. They're only going to listen when they're in pain. And for a lot of people, they have to be in so much pain that they nearly die. They say that people don't change their habits in terms of their nutrition. They a lot of times have to have three episodes. Three episodes of like calling the doctor or going to the doctor or going to the hospital before they make a life altering change. So it takes a lot for people to all of a sudden just change and be like, yeah, okay, I'm going to go along with this goal. You know, I'm going to, you can't just try to force everyone to go after the same exact thing, even if it is healthy.

It's the same exact thing, even if it is healthy. Yeah, exactly. If your goal isn't to run or sprint, who cares? But one thing is if somebody is in use of all of this, right? Say they're 50 and they're in pain, right? FP is a great place for them to go straight up you know 100 i mean the gym could be but if they start doing things if they if they if they don't get the right direction right and let's say someone just has them start deadlifting and maybe that does help them get stronger in those ways that's

not something that will necessarily always help them to be able to move better. Right? So that's what I'm saying. FP is great and the gym is also great. It just matters what somebody does. What are their inputs? What are they giving themselves to be able to feel and move better if that's their goal? And I think that's most people's goal. Most people want to live without pain. They probably want to gain some muscle and they also want to move really well.

Am I wrong in that? What do you think? No, I think you're right. I think the idea of throwing a sprint in there as the king of all exercises is just kind of ridiculous. It is a great exercise, and it might be the best exercise, but that's not what these guys were talking about. Like this guy, they hijacked their content to start talking about something different, to start talking about their own agenda, in my opinion. And I do understand that they can think that squats and deadlifts are dangerous, and potentially they are.

A lot of people do get hurt doing them, so maybe they got a lot of good. We could debate back and forth on that. A lot of people get hurt doing sprints. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they're on the proper gate you know you could go back and forth on some of this stuff um you go back and forth on some of this stuff all day long but i think that it's uh i think it's a mistake you know, in this case of kind of like hijacking that post because those guys weren't talking about like what's the best movement, you know, period. They were, I think they were having a discussion about stuff in the gym, which is just way different. And then you're hijacking it by talking about like sprints.

It's like, oh, you dummies, you're not as smart as me because you forgot about sprints. It's like, well, I wasn't, we weren't talking about everything. We were talking about stuff in the gym. And again, I think that's where functional patterns can come in and really help a lot of people though, because most of the time when someone has an ailment, somebody has something, we're thinking gym, gym, gym. We're thinking of all these exercises that they could do in the gym. We're thinking of all these exercises that they could do in the gym. And traditionally, they might be standard exercises of variations of squat benches, deadlifts, and the various machines that you see in the gym. All those things are great.

All those things may help strengthen somebody. But it might be a little bit of a false strength. And it might be you're building up some muscle. You're building up some strength, but you still might be very susceptible to injuries. Oh, yeah. And so I think that some of what they teach

at Functional Patterns can help build resilience. Are there other ways to get there too? I believe so. I don't believe that you have to just follow one particular system. I don't believe that you have to be so dogmatic.

I do think that you can do your deadlifts and eat your cake too every once in a while. And there's a lot of awesome people like there's Weck. Every goddamn Dre is showing a lot of amazing things with kettlebells that aren't – have you not moving in the sagittal plane, right? Landmine University, Vernon Griffith. The stuff like with rope flow, I think is an amazing thing, an amazing thing to learn to help you get some spinal rotational movement going. And then also with some of those movements, there's a lot of stuff that ends up happening with the shoulder that help you again, move kind of in 3D outside of twist, right? So the thing is, is like,

all these answers are out there. It's like FP doesn't, isn't the only one who's talking about these things. Right. Many of the guests we've had on are talking about very similar things. And it's, it's cool to see more and more people embracing that embracing getting purely out of just the sagittal plane with movements in the gym. So, yeah. I do love the fact that FP has worked with a lot the gym. So, yeah. I do love the fact that, uh, FP has worked with a lot of people.

Um, when you see their Instagram and you see some people that are, um, it looks like they have debilitating injuries, sometimes debilitating diseases. Um, it looks like people are just are in a really, really bad spot and it doesn't seem like there's a great place for people like that to go. And so when I, when I's a great place for people like that to go. And so when I, when I have people that are hurt and people that are in pain, I, I recommend functional patterns all day long.

I don't know if anyone ever takes me up on it because when you look into functional patterns, you start to see what they do. You're like, what is this weird voodoo stuff they're doing? What is this? What's going on? And maybe when you look at the people that are doing

functional patterns, maybe they don't look like the typical people that you might see or that you might think that you would see in a traditional commercial gym where there's people that are like bodybuilding and mainly concerned about, not mainly concerned, but concerned about their physique and wanting to build a bigger body. When you look at FP, you're not seeing people that are necessarily having those same goals. Aesthetics aren't the number one goal. The aesthetics aren't the number one goal, but I've seen also too with functional patterns, I've seen the aesthetics of many people change for the better. And people make tremendous amounts of progress because they are still doing stuff weighted.

It's just different than what you might think. And because it's different, I think people have a tendency to try to keep it at arm's length and like, I don't know about this, but it looks like they're correcting a lot of imbalances. There's that ball. I know you like doing that thing. I love the parable.

Parable. Yeah. But I mean, that's, that's a big thing of like, if we're just going to say it very simply, they're helping people learn how to organize their body and have everything work together. So rather than just working your biceps, it's like, how does this work in correlation with the way that you move? And then because like, you know, with some people, things are disorganized.

They help people organize their body to all work together. And that's something that like, if you, if you, you know, if you're someone who lifts and you just go through their page, that can be something that can help you experiment with some of the things that you're currently doing with your workout routine. How can you make a certain movement? How can you turn a certain movement into something that your whole body is doing? Right. I mean, that's a really good concept to tour around and think about. Yeah, they have a 10-week online course that people can take. And more so than anything, that 10-week course just taught me the importance of myofascial release, which

I already had a decent understanding of it, but I didn't really fully understand or didn't embrace it. It wasn't like an everyday thing for me. And now it's, I do myofascial release every day almost without even thinking about it because it's like a form of hygiene at this point. Yeah. Yeah. So even though, like, again, they are pretty dogmatic, but it's, it's good stuff. It is good stuff. I just think again, that doesn't have to be the only thing.

Anything else, Andrew? same same thing dude like i i think like i said they're both right depending on the the goal or whatever it may be um i i don't like when let's say just say somebody's for the deadlift the response is like oh you're not going to be walking when you're 60 years old or whatever it may be you see a lot of that shit bro it's just like man can you take a step back and like first off there's evidence of people that have been dead lifting for many many years that are just fine but also like it's just i don't know it's just such a weird thing to pick a side and like just go super hardcore with that you know it's tough when we had uh ben patrick's stuff and when you saw people like talking about some of his stuff you'd see some of them say help yeah you, you're going to get your knee replaced in 10 years. If you keep going into that,

uh, that deep knee, like deep knee flexion too much. Right. And it's just like, yo, can you let people have their fitness in peace? But I mean,

I mean, I, I do get it, you know, I do get it. It's just like, man, if there's anything realized,

it's like, you can do a lot of things to help yourself move forward. It doesn't have to just be one thing. I would just say kind of in wrapping shit up over here, I think try to stay connected to a sport. Because a sport will handle a lot of things for you. We were watching that girl in the previous podcast just killing all those dudes in a jujitsu class. And the activity that the guy was doing to try to get away from her, you know, manipulating his legs with her legs and stuff. It just looked, I was like, holy shit, that's got to be, A, it's got to be really

tiring. But I was like, what an amazing amount of work for your feet and your calves and your shins. Oh yeah. So simply by, you know, having a ball to chase, you know, going and kicking a soccer ball, throwing around a football. I mean, you don't have to even necessarily be like in a sport. Like don't make it, it doesn't have to be so serious. But if you're in a sport, that would be, that's even better.

But fucking get out on a bike ride, you know, go. If you hate running, can you take your bike around the block every once in a while can you do something a little different just to try to hold on to or maintain some sort of athleticism pickleball pickleball i think the biggest issue and people are getting you know pretty wrecked doing some of this stuff because they haven't done stuff in a long time a bunch of old fat white guys out there just fucking hurting themselves. Pickle balls are the new cancer. Yeah, it is, right? Oh, my God.

But I think what I've seen over the years is people have way too much distance between their athletic career. You know, the people that have played sports, people that did it when they were young, they maybe did it, you know, through elementary school, maybe did it, you know, for five, six years. And then they haven't done anything remotely close to that. They haven't taken an aggressive step forward. They haven't tried to jump. They haven't, I mean, remember when you were a kid, you tried to jump and like touch everything. You try to like, you know, you, I mean, you would try to jump up and touch the basketball rim or something like that. You might try it like 20 times in a row. And when you're really a little kid, you're hopping around even more than that. But as we get older, we have a lot of people have a lot of distance

between the last time they did something real athletic. It might have been, you know, at age 10 and now they're like 40 and now they're trying to do stuff. And now maybe you do learn about going to the gym and deadlifting and stuff. And that's where I think it has potential to be super dangerous. So you just kind of have to really take your time with getting yourself back into it. But I think the main point of this podcast, hopefully the take-home message that you get, is that I don't think that lifting is enough.

I think that I want to encourage you to do something else. I'm not knocking you if you're only lifting because that's great. That's cool. But please try to work on something else because I think it will help save you in the long run. Dude, a movement-based sport, I think it would be great for everybody. I mean it all depends on which goals are. But if you could just have some type of movement-based sport in your life. And again, there are adult leagues out there, right?

So it's like pickleball. I think I mentioned pickleball. I don't do it, but I see why people love it. Like there's this lateral movement. Much slower version of tennis, that's for sure. Right, exactly. A little too fast, you know? But then there's the hand-eye, which isn't something that you, you don't do much of that on your own, right?

There's the swing component of it, right maybe volleyball too again just if you can do something like that i think that could it's fun but your your body's doing all these things that you're probably not thinking about that are going to be so good for you in the long run so strength is never a weakness weakness is never strength catch you guys later bye