Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1087: Is Mobility Overrated?

Episode Date: August 1, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin discuss the debate among fitness experts regarding the importance of mobility and go over seven foundational movements that every human should be able to perform. Mind Pump here to blur the lines and separate the two camps: Strength side vs. Mobility side. (2:46) Why the human race would benefit from GOOD functioning patterns. (7:55) Why mobility work is so important in unlocking the skills to achieve foundational movements. (11:51) The 7 functional human movement patterns you SHOULD be able to do to MAXIMIZE your quality of life. (18:10) Why mobility is so effective? More important rather than just doing the basic exercises? (24:20) How your body is an adaptation machine: If you don’t practice a skill, you lose it! (30:10) How mobility is a balance between flexibility, strength, stability and recruitment patterns. (38:22) The benefits of full ranges of motion to build a better functioning body. (43:00) Why going extreme on either side is unhealthy and gets you nowhere. (44:50) Why the AVERAGE person can benefit from both sides of training. (50:28) People Mentioned Dr. Stefanie Cohen, DPT (@steficohen)  Instagram Dr. Jordan Shallow D.C (@the_muscle_doc)  Instagram Dr. Justin Brink (@premiere_spine_sport)  Instagram Eugene Teo (@coacheugeneteo)  Instagram Danny Matranga | CSCS | BSc. (@danny.matranga)  Instagram Jessica Rothenberg (@thetraininghour)  Instagram Mark Rippetoe (@CoachRippetoe)  Twitter Kelly Starrett (@mobilitywod)  Instagram   Related Links/Products Mentioned July Promotion: MAPS Anywhere ½ off!! **Code “ANYWHERE50” at checkout** August Promotion: MAPS Prime/Prime Pro ½ off!! **Code “PRIME50” at checkout** Mind Pump 1075: Dr. Stefanie Cohen – From Venezuelan National Soccer Team to 4X Bodyweight Deadlift & 22 World Records Squatty Potty The Original Bathroom Toilet Stool, 7" height, White Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND,IND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, People tend to become very tribal. They get into their camp and then it becomes their way or the highway. And more recently, we've seen a little bit of debate between the strength side of fitness and the mobility side of fitness. You have the mobility guys who are like, it's all about mobility, being able to do all kinds of crazy movements. And you have the strength side that's like, nah, deadlift, squat, overhead press, that's all you need. And it's gone as far as some people saying, look, if you don't feel good squatting,

don't worry about it, there's other exercises that'll build muscle on your body. You don't need to do these movements. And so in this episode, we go deep on that topic. We talk all about those two camps, and we give our opinion, which, as you probably already know, is the correct opinion. On out before we get into the episode, if you get this episode right when we release it,

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So here's a deal. Maps Prime teaches you how to prime your body for your workouts to get better results. Prime Pro shows you all about correctional exercise. So if you have any aches or pains or issues with your hips, your knees, your ankles, your shoulders, or you just wanna be able to move better so you can perform better, maps Prime Pro is that correctional element. And if you're a personal trainer, both of these programs by far are the most valuable

for you to be able to use on your clients. So here's what you do to sign up. Just go to mapsfitnisproducts.com and use the code prime50. That's PR, IME, 50, no space for the discount. And that's 50% off either prime or prime pro. Do it now. You know, I'm actually excited to have this discussion

with you guys. We had the latest live event this came up. This came up after Steffi Cohen was on our show. This always comes up after Jordan shallow makes his appearance on our YouTube channel. This comes up when we talk about Dr. Brink and how brilliant he is as a movement special. This comes up when we talk about,

we have FRC in our facility. And there tends to be this clear division. But as usual. Yes, as usual. Align in the sand, which is why fucking mind pump is here, right? This is why this is why we exist is to erase the line exactly. We build bridges. Yeah, let's blur the lines a little bit because a lot of these people that I just referenced to are good friends of ours.

And we highly respect them and the information that they present. And yesterday I was tagged, all of us actually were tagged in a post by a guy named Coach Eugene Tao, I think. Tao. Tao. And I'm not really familiar with all of his content. I know Danny, our head trainer, as mentioned him before, says he really likes a lot of the stuff he puts out. I respect Danny. Danny says the kid puts out good stuff. He probably puts out pretty stuff. But the post that we were tagged on was him talking to a group of, I don't know, fitness professionals or who they were,

but he's talking about the baby squat or squatting down like a baby and how there's this, you know, memes going around that, you know, we should all be able to sit down like a baby does and he's explaining why a baby can do that and why adults maybe cannot do that so much. And that, you know, is squatting really the foundational or fundamental movement.

And if our goal is just to build muscle and look better, feel better type of deal, that maybe the squat is not a good exercise, and in fact, maybe it's not even close to being a good exercise. And there's many other things that you should do and instead of that. Yeah, now that there's some truth in that, right? Like some of the, some truth is that,

can you build muscle, can you improve your health and your aesthetics and your function and never do squats and never get good at squats? Well, yeah, yeah, you can improve the way you move and stuff. But I think the camps that are starting to develop are camps that are either saying, just manage load

and some exercises don't do them or whatever if you can or whatever. And then the other camp is the mobility camp, which is improve your mobility, improve your function because some movements are foundational in terms of human movement. Some movements are very important that you- It's about recapturing the ability again. Right, and that's where the argument is. I think the argument is, are there foundational movement patterns that humans evolved to have? And what we need to examine is when you look at evolution, I mean, the theory of evolution says that

over millions of years or thousands of years, the human body will evolve to become most efficient at things that it needs to become good at based on your environment. So, for example, one of the reasons why we're noticing now, lots of health benefits from fasting is very likely because humans went through long periods without food. And so we evolved to benefit from fasting. We evolved with that. It wasn't, we weren't necessarily born that way.

Now, you look at other animals, they don't necessarily benefit from fasting, but humans did. And it's probably again, because we experience these long periods of fasting, so the bodies evolved to become efficient. If you look at a lot of our modern chronic health issues, modern health issues come from most of them or many of them come from the fact that our environment no longer matches our bodies. I mean, modern life, really if you look at the whole time that modern humans have been on Earth, modern life, you know, post, I guess, maybe, even post-agricultural revolution, which was thousands of years ago,

but even, you know, especially the industrial revolution. That's like a blink of the eye when you look at all the time that we've been on Earth. And so our prehistoric bodies evolved within a particular type of environment. and the environment has changed so radically that we're developing all these chronic issues and fundamental foundational movement patterns were patterns that we've been doing for thousands and thousands of thousands of years we may not necessarily do them a lot today

But that doesn't mean that You know we don't benefit from being able to do those movements. Our bodies evolved to be, and that's my belief, as our body evolved to do some of these movements. So a good example, and this is a little bit of a different subject, but if you look at the feet of modern humans, our feet compared

to hunter-gatherers, modern hunter-gatherers, our feet are incredibly underdeveloped, modern hunter gathers, our feet are incredibly underdeveloped. We don't have good connection to our toes and our feet, the muscles of our feet don't work very well. Tows are smashed together. Yeah, and that's mainly because we were put shoes on our feet as soon as we could walk and so we adapted or our feet never achieved their full capacity. Would we benefit, would we have benefited from

doing a lot of barefoot walking since we were children? Well, do you think you'd benefit from having better and better develop feet, better shock absorbers in your feet and the muscles better develop, better function? Absolutely, we wouldn't need all these correct correctional shoes, we wouldn't have a lot of these issues. So that to me is the, that's the argument. And if you look at like this clip you're talking about

on Instagram, Adam, he's talking about the squat. Well, is this, is it sitting in a squat a foundational human pattern? Is that something that we evolved to be able to be good at? I say yes. I would 100% argue yes. Absolutely. There's a few different things. There's a few different reasons why. Yes, humans sit and yes, hunter-gatherers sat as well. But in order to sit on the floor,

it means you're in a completely non-alert, relaxed, not, you know, active situation. Many times hunter-gatherers probably sit in a squat because it allows you to move if you need to. It allows you to get up. So if you're observing or if you're sitting around and not quite sure of your environment, you're probably sitting in a squat. And you see a lot of people even in modern times do this, especially in a lot of third-world countries, where when people are waiting for things, there aren't benches or whatever,

rather than sitting on the floor, they just sit in a squat. It's also the most healthy and effective way to poop. It just is. The squatty potty now that everybody uses, that is putting your pelvis in a position to better get rid of waste. Well, that's probably how humans pooped. We didn't invent the toilet till much, much later. It's how women best tend to give birth is to sit in this squat, allow gravity to do its

thing, puts your pelvis in the right position so that the baby can move through the canal. It is, for all intents and purposes, a very foundational human movement. I would say it may not be as foundational as like walking and running, but it's up there. And it's funny because imagine a different modern future. Imagine, I don't know, 500 years from now, and we just invent these levitating shoes or something. We invent this anti-gravity pants.

We no longer have to walk. Now we just literally think and we hover and fly everywhere. It won't take very long for generations of people to completely lose the skill of walking. You're just not going to be good because you never practice it. And I bet you there will be people who will argue if it is something we need to learn. Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is, you can get away with a lot of moments throughout your day with probably not squatting,

like you can use momentum and you can kind of use bracing and help yourself kind of get in position to sit down without properly squatting and expressing that foundational movement. But is it ideal? Is that a characteristic, a function that you want to maintain and preserve? I say 100%.

That's something that I've always fighting for that ability to be able to get up out of a position, have strength from my legs and to really drive up and have abilities. And I don't want to lose those abilities. And as we get older and we age, these become even more paramount. And the big argument is, okay, fine,

if you want to get better at squatting, just keep squatting, modify the load, and just keep squatting. Yeah, there's some truth to that, right? If you want to get better at squatting, you definitely should squat. That's the skill that you're trying to learn. But let's say you're like the average person.

And you haven't been squatting your whole life. Most people don't. And you kind of lose the ability. I'll tell you what, I can't, I would say nine out of ten, maybe even ten out of ten clients, that I've trained my entire career who came to me to hire me as a personal trainer, could not do a proper squat. They would come see me, try and do a proper squat. Most of them just couldn't do one. Practicing a skill that you can't do isn't really a great approach. We're going to be practicing something the wrong way. So what I would have to do is work on other mobility movements to get them to the point to where we can practice squad.

It unlocks the skill. It does, and this is my mobility work. I think it's so important. This is why that side that says the mobility work, doing things like 90, 90s, and hip flex or deactivating movements and whatever. No, that's kind of a waste of time. I completely disagree.

I think if you're talking with an athlete, maybe there's not as much value, although I would argue there's a lot of value there, you talk about the average person. I'm sorry, I've used them and they work exceptionally well. I've used them on myself. Well, the biggest problem that I have with posts like this and statements like this is not that it's uneducated

or incorrect because there's a lot of really intelligent points that he makes that are true. The part that I have a problem with is it I was the kid on the other side listening to that and all you do is you give me the excuse to not improve and work on that. That's what you do. And I was terrible at squatting. I had low back pain any time I did it. I had brisidus in my hips. And you still squatted.

Right. And the thing that I didn't squat very much though, because every time I did squat, all these things would occur. And so I loved hearing someone like this come forward and tell me like, you don't need to do squatting. It's not, yeah, it's validating you. Right. It does. It validates the reason for me not to be doing it. And I could just be leg pressing and lunging and doing these other exercises that don't bother me as much. And so that's the problem that I have with it is because I know the people that are listening to it that would probably greatly benefit from them working on, on their mobility versus just either eliminating squats completely or just talking about low.

And it goes back to this argument right here. If would a trainer today, if somebody had issues walking, would they say to them, well, you know, if you can't walk, everybody's different, we have different joints in different positioning and you don't need to wear a rascal skaters. Yeah, you don't need to walk. It's not, it joints and different positioning. You don't need to walk. We have a rascal scooters. Yeah, you don't need to walk. It's not that important. You could do other forms of cardio. That's the point that annoys me that they make is that,

because yes, you're right, all of us are extremely different. There's no such thing that what I will agree with, there's no such thing as a single perfect squat because of our structures are so you can get different. But that doesn't mean that that person can't perfect Their squad to me. It's no look. It's like a monkey who can't climb a damn tree, you know Sorry, you evolved to climb the tree So if you can't climb a tree, it's important that we figure out why and work towards what are the limiting building that it?

Yes, our bodies evolved to do certain things Like I'll give you another example, okay? Humans do a few things physically very, very well compared to other animals, not a lot, but there's a few things. One of them is we throw with accuracy, very, very well. Would throwing be considered a foundational human movement? I think so. In fact, if you can throw really well, and I don't mean like you're overworking or are, In fact, if you can throw really well,

and I don't mean like you're overworking or are, am I just mean you can throw really well and it feels comfortable, your odds of developing shoulder problems is probably low. It's much lower. That is one of the, what I would consider foundational human movements.

I don't even consider that as foundational squatting. I think squatting is much higher on that list. So if you can't squat because of pain or because it doesn't feel right, it's a very important you figure out why and work towards doing it. Now that's not a guarantee you'll ever be able to squat, by the way.

I've had lots of IZotrain clients in advanced age who'd come see me and they had either surgeries or problems or maybe just so far gone in terms of mobility that you know for two or three years we're working on mobility and stuff to get them to be able to squat and we never get to the point where they can really do a good squat but you know what always happens they they're they improve their health tremendously along that process so it's not really even a guarantee, although I will say this, most of you listening at some point will be able to do a good squat if you just work on those

types of things. And so, and that to me, that's the argument. Do you think squatting is a foundational human movement? If the answer is yes, you think that that's something that humans should be able to do, then telling people, you don't need to squat and don't do it, don't worry about it, is the wrong information, in my opinion. Well, I also think that we have to take into consideration how things have changed just in the last 20 years, that he does touch on the point too about,

you know, people try to point towards the, oh, we're sitting down on desol, day long, and that's causing all these issues. And, you know, I would argue that. I would say that, you know, the behaviors that we are, the behaviors that we, the things that we're doing as humans in the last decade to two decades,

maybe three has greatly changed. And we're in the mix. Right now, we're right in the middle of watching something that I continue to try and predict on the show that it's gonna be a major conversation. Is this phone time? I mean, you just didn't see that 10 years ago where people are sitting in this rounded position

headway forward looking down at a screen for hours on hours every Sunday. If you don't fucking think that's not going to change all of us and how we move, and if you don't think that you need to be doing those little boring-ass tedious mobility issues to combat it, you're gonna be in a world of fucking pain in the next 10 years, you'll see.

Totally, totally. Yeah, let's talk about some of the foundational, you know, functional human movement patterns that you should be able to do when we're talking about, you know, maximizing just your quality of life and just the movement. We talked about squatting. I think, obviously, look, again, if you're a hunter gatherer,

you gotta go poop, you're gonna squat, you're having a baby, you're gonna squat, if you need to sit down, but still be alert, you need to be able squat. I think you should be able sit on the floor comfortably. A lot of people think that sounds silly, but I bet you this right now, you take 10 average people off the street, have them sit on the floor,

and see how uncomfortable they get within 20 minutes. Most of them can't sit on the floor for very long. We didn't have chairs for most of human civilization. Most of us sat on the floor when we're sitting down and we're very relaxed. I think that's an important thing that you need to examine. If you can't sit down comfortably, either too tight, don't have the mobility to do so or don't have the strength to support yourself while sitting on the floor. Lunging, that splint stance, lunge position, extremely functional and conditional. Very functional.

Very much so. Yeah, that's one of those things. It applies to any pursuit because as we're walking, we're always putting a preference on one leg towards the other. So to be able to stabilize properly in a split stance is everything, but now to add strength to that movement, it's gonna benefit you on all different levels of movement. Right, rotating, you gotta be able to rotate,

your body, twist, maybe even twist with force. Every time you run or take a step, there's rotation that happens. You'll notice when you take a step forward with your left leg, your right arm moves forward to counter it. In fact, yeah, in fact, this is funny. I had this conversation with my kids and I was trying to explain to them, control lateral movement, but you're using different terms for them. And I said, try walking with the same arm and the same leg coming forward. And you could see them, like trying to do it, it's really weird because it's not natural. Like a tin soldier or something. Yeah. That rotation,

rotation is a, is a foundational human movement. Being able to push, be able to push things away from you, either horizontally or overhead and vertically, being able to pull, be able to pull your body up or pull things towards your body. Of course, gate, walking and running are foundational human movements. If you can do all of these things really, really well, the odds that you'll be in pain, the odds, hip-hinging is another one, by the way. I forgot all about that one.

I mean, three quarters of Americans, at some point, will deal with chronic low back pain. That's oftentimes if you have good course stability and ability to hip hinge properly, it will prevent that. If you could do all those things that I just listed and you can do them well, the odds that you'll have chronic pain and injury are far lower. They just are the far lower. Now the question is, what about mobility movements that, you know, like

things like the 90, 90 for example, like what is their role in these? Because a lot of the guys will argue like the Jordan Chalos will argue they're they're they're a waste of time. We don't need to do them. I mean, how do you guys feel? No, this is something that I feel really passionate about because it was a game changer for myself. So I had percitus in my hips, which I really didn't even understand how or how that came a be came about and a simpler way to explain it or like breaking down what you know, brink had like explained to me is it, you know, think about the hip and what it's supposed to be able to do, right?

It's a multi faceted joint that allows it to go through all these different planes. It's, you know, the hip and the shoulder are probably the two most complex joints in the entire body. Two ball and socket joints. Right, and it has this ability to go in all these different planes. Now, what ends up happening as we get older is, you know, we limit that.

We stop playing like kids. I'm not rolling around. I'm not running left and right and jumping and twisting and doing all stuff. I'm moving in the sagittal plane all the time. And so what ends up happening, the brain starts prioritizing it that way. It says, okay, Adam, if you're not going to do

this rotational movement or move the hip in this direction, it starts to kind of shut down all those muscles that are responsible for doing that. And then what happens when you occasionally ask the body to go to these areas, it's not used to going anymore. Other parts of your body starts to overcompensate. And when other parts of the body start to overcompensate, then also you get these achiness or strains

or issues that start happening like the presidus. And all that is is fluid that's being sent there because my body recognizes like, oh, something's wrong or there's an injury or something going on there. And so it starts sending fluid there. And then I get these, you know, fluid sacs that are in my hips

that feel like someone's sticking a blade in my bone. They're crazy. And I'm like, where did this come from? And it feels like there's something wrong that's in there or something that's injured or hurt. But in reality, what it is is that it's my body has been overcompensating for so long that it does, it's not working and moving properly.

And what I needed to do was to get reconnected to these muscles that help take this joint through its full range of motion and all of a sudden all that shit went away. And I don't think, you know, like back when we were younger, like this was as much of a concern. This is not something that it definitely took the time of repetitive patterns to catch up

to where this started to speak volumes to me. I did have problems with tightness in my hip that in overcompensations from just daily activities or daily things where I'm sitting too long or I'm in traffic too long. And the tightness and the compensations as a result of that had created pain now that stem from hip into the lower back.

I can see a lot of these messages on Instagram and on these social media outlets from younger coaches that are stressing the points of managing your load properly and really just going through the mechanics are going to solve it on their own versus over time, really looking at what these patterns result into. That's why I have a little more weight in the mobility camp. Here's why I like, one of the reasons why I like mobility. If you think of an injury that happens, now aside from like obvious stuff, like I got in a car accident

or someone ran into me or I got hit by baseball, whatever, aside from those types of events, a lot of injuries happen like this. I go to the park and I throw a frisbee. Oops, I hurt my shoulder, or I'm in the car, kids are screaming, I'm at a stoplight, I turn around to do to tell him to stop or whatever. Boom, I throw out my back. Now, why the fuck does

that happen? Why do we keep hurting ourselves with the silliest of things? And this is more common than the extreme hard injuries, like I said, like getting in a car accident. It's more common like that. And those you listening right now, you probably can relate, you probably hurt yourself that way. Now, how did that happen? Well, what happened is you moved outside of a range of motion that you owned. That's all it was.

You didn't own a range of motion, so you moved in it, and because you moved in something you didn't own, there wasn't a stability and support there, and an injury happened. Now, why is mobility so effective? And why is mobility important versus just doing the basic exercises?

Mobility movements give you connection that exceeds the range of motion of the common exercises. You actually gain control over ranges of motion outside of where you might get with a traditional squat or Traditional lunge now. Why is that important like why would I want to own? More of a range of motion than I'm gonna get with my squat because in real life Sometimes you're gonna go an inch deeper than you normally do or you're gonna twist a little bit faster or a little bit further Then you normally do and you want to be able to own that. So mobility allows and makes you safer

because it gives you ownership over larger ranges of motion than you're normally gonna practice. Then when you go practice your movements, you're gonna be better in the range of motion that you own to begin with because you own the outsides of that, you own the borders if that makes any sense.

That's why mobility work is so important. Now, there is truth in what the strength side says, which is that strength is the foundational pursuit, that strength is what gives us stability. Without strength, there is no mobility. I'm also going to argue that mobility training is strength training. Yes. That's the key now. That's true mobility training, not flexibility training. Now, I understand the other side though, when you see the extreme mobility guys, and they can do crazy, ridiculous movements,

but they can't even squat their own body weight. They can't deadlift their own body weight. Okay, fine. I get that. Yes, there's benefit to having more strength, but that doesn't mean there's no benefit to doing the mobility stuff. The only thing is you're looking at the extreme versions of each. It would be like me looking at the strongest man competitors or powerlifters and saying, oh, look, torn biceps, torn pecs, back injuries, strength training,

no good. It's the same thing as looking at the mobility guy who's like hyper-mobile, and I'm like, he can't even deadlift his own body weight. Right. Mobility, no good. Taren ligaments. No, that's wrong.

You wanna be the mixed martial artists of fitness and see that there's value to all of these things. And, you know, it's like this. Like, if you wanna get better at running, you just wanna be a runner. You wanna be the best runner in the world. You just wanna get better at running. Most of your training is gonna be running.

The vast majority, and it should be. The vast majority of your training should be running. Does that mean that there's no, you wanna get no value from cross training, that you'll get no value from doing things outside of running. Of course not. We know this to be true. It used to be the belief that you just, if you want to be a boxer, you just box. You want to be a runner, you just run. But

now we know that if the runner does some swimming, a little bit of strength training, specific core work, he's going to be a better, here she's going to be a better runner. So if you want to get better at your squatting and your deadlifting, you definitely need a squat, you definitely need a deadlift, but do some stuff outside of that. In my opinion, the best stuff you can do is targeted mobility work.

What I mean by targeted is individualize it for yourself. Work specifically on your ankle mobility outside of what the squat challenges or what your you know, your favorite exercise that's what happens. One of the worst things that I think we can do too is to because we're not good at, or it gives me pain or whatever to eliminate a one of these foundational movements. Exactly. To me, that's what bothers me about posts like this is not that the person who's putting it out

there is an intelligent isn't bringing really, really good points. I just happen to know from my experience and I know you guys the same way when you talk about thousands of average Jane and Joe's that are exercising and working out that should be working towards improving their squat and because we know the benefits that come with that, I hate to see a message like that because it just gives those people that excuse. It gave me that excuse. It gave me, it let me go, like, oh, I don't need it.

I can just keep leg pressing or I can just keep lunging. I can be doing these other things that don't bother me. Instead of going, wait a second, why does this bother me or why is this so difficult for me and can I work towards improving that? And then what sucks about that message is it's not sexy and it's boring and it's not cool for Instagram and it's tedious work.

But the reality of it is those things when you talk about overall health and longevity and improvement of how you feel that working towards the most important thing? 100%. It's the most important, look, when I was a kid, okay, before I get into the story, I need to explain this, the body, your body, and your brain are constantly, constantly adapting. And what they're adapting towards

is becoming better and more efficient. Now, how does it know what to get better at and more efficient at? Well, it knows by the signals it receives. In other words, what you do, the stress as you place upon it, that's the signal that your body gets. That's the signal that says, get better and more efficient at this. Now your brain and your body has a limited capacity to be good and efficient at things. For one, some things are competitive. Like in other words, if I want extreme endurance,

I'm gonna have to train, I'm gonna have to trade some strength for extreme endurance and vice versa. But the other thing is that there's just limited space, limited storage space in the brain. And your brain is constantly getting rid of shit that it thinks it doesn't need. So when I was a kid, I grew up in my house

and I spoke mostly Sicilian, or also Sicilian to both my parents. Now when school started and I went to school, they had to put me in English, ESL classes, English is a second language. And because I was doing that, my mom said, oh, you know what, we need to start speaking to Sal, and only English so that he doesn't have to do this.

So then at home, all I did was speak English. Okay. What ended up happening is I've lost my ability to speak Sicilian fluently. Now if I go to Italy and visit my family, within a month or two, it starts to come back. But I lose it because I don't practice it. And people listening right now know exactly

what I'm talking about. You don't practice that skill, you'll lose it. Something even as fundamental as language. Okay, if you stop squatting, you know what's gonna happen? You're gonna lose the ability to squat. And I don't care how much you leg press or how much you hack squat or how much leg extension, leg curls and all these

other exercises you do, they might help slow down the process of losing the ability to squat because at least you're strengthening the muscles and you're doing similar type movements, but you will lose the ability to squat. And again, you have to ask yourself, is a squat or a lunge or rotating or pushing or pulling or a hip-hing or whatever? Are these foundational fundamental human movements, and if they are, I probably should not or prevent my body from losing those skills. And here's the thing, the longer you allow your body to lose those skills, the harder it becomes to gain them back.

Because those neural connections in your brain, your ability just to do them. It's funny. I remember when we did start a mind pump, and I met Adam and Justin for the first time, and we're doing this, and we're all learning from each other. One thing that I learned from Justin was on how to do certain exercises and movements. And I remember we started talking about the functional, you know, the functionality of a windmill and how I mean, old school, you know, strength athletes, the windmill was like a staple exercise and being able to rotate while hip-hinging and supporting weight.

Like, yeah, there's a big deal back in the day. And I'm a big fan of old time strong men and stuff. And I remember just in doing windmills and I'm like, okay, let me give it a shot. I could not get into the position. I could not. Now it wasn't because I was necessarily too tight or weak or too weak, I just couldn't do it. I didn't have the skill.

It's unfamiliar zone. So I started practicing it and then lo and behold, now I can do it. I can do the skill of windmilling. This is just like anything else. So if you're with these people, it's like, oh, I can't squat, squatting hurts me. I'm watching this Instagram guy say,

oh, that's okay, just do leg presses and stuff. I'm gonna tell you right now, don't squat. Keep not squatting. That ability will slip through your fingers, and it'll be very difficult to gain back. It'll take a lot of work and a lot of effort and a lot of practice. And you'll have to do a lot of targeted and specific type of mobility work,

which that's the value of it. The main reason why I pushed that message so hard on my Instagram where you see half of my posts are sitting down is because I was on the other side. I've not been a big squat guy in my whole life and I've been pushing this agenda because I've been good at squatting my whole life.

I was fucking terrible at it. And because I was terrible about it, I had issues with my low back and I had hip issues. When I started to address the mobility, the lack of mobility I had in my ankles and in my hips, it totally changed the way I felt. And I got stronger along the way too, which is great. That's the side benefit. But really, the reason why I pushed that agenda so hard is because I know I'm not alone when I hear messages like this all the time. And I know there's a bunch of kids because I read underneath like a post like this, you

know, and there's 200 and something people call me like, yes, I agree. And finally, someone who's countering the message of like the whole squat thing, everybody squat and cause it looks cool for Instagram. You want to feel good about not being able to do something well. I mean, that's really what it is.

That would be me. I would have totally. And I was that kid. Yeah, I would jump on that camp too and agree with him right away that I don't need to be doing that because at that time in my life, I didn't see the value in it

because all I cared about was way like, and when you look at my stage photos when I was competing as a pro, my squat and my pain was crazy. Now, to the average person looking at me, they would look at me and go like, Oh, that's fine. Yeah, look how awesome he looks.

He's built symmetrical everywhere, it looks great. But no, I wasn't great. I had low back pain and I had presided to my hips at that time. And besides being able to squat more, this is important now, being able to squat better and easier at them. Do you generally just feel better?

That's the biggest difference. Yeah, I can, I used to. That's important now, because people might think, I don't give a fuck about squatting. This is no exaggeration and I know there's somebody who's listening right now. And the funny part too, while we're talking about all this,

it's, it is kind of funny when you, when you see the people that are, are touting this, they tend to be between the ages of 20 and 35 at the tops. Oh yeah. You don't see a lot of 45 year old plus people. No man, that are touting. We've been through life already.

Yeah, that are touting this information. It's somebody who's young and hasn't been, that hasn't dealt with shit like this. Now, I couldn't drive 30 minutes without this excruciating pain, radiating down my hip. And I would have to get up and I'd pull the car over and I have to go down and do like some stretches

and kind of move a little bit because the pain was so bad and then you get back in the car. I live like that for fucking years, dude. Just assuming that I've got... And you were working out, you were like pressing, you were doing a rip. Fome rolling, I'm doing all the things,

I was putting band-aids on all this stuff. I was still extra sick. And that's what this is to me. This is a band-aid for a deeper issue that most people have. Most people have lost the ability to squat really deep, not because they don't have a big head like a baby anymore. It's because they've lost the ankle mobility, they've lost the hip mobility, and now all

there, now all we're doing is encouraging them to do other exercises like leg pressing and lunging, which isn't taking them all the way through that for. It's not challenging the ankles, it's not challenging the hips like a squat, a deep squat would. And so all you do is you tighten up, tighten up, tighten up all around these areas that don't have good range of motion. And guess what, if you do that for long enough,

like longer than 25 years of your life and you keep going, eventually what happens is- It starts to carry over. Chronic pain. It starts to not just- You've turned it out. Yeah, it goes from, I can't do a squat, whatever, who cares, I'll do all these other exercises too.

Man, now I can't sit for longer than an hour without hurting. Oh no, now I can't walk very long distance because things are, oh no, now when I bend over, that's the point that I wanted to make at them was, it wasn't just that now you can squat better. It's that now because you do squat better, everything else feels better.

And that's because it's a fundamental movement. It's not like doing a bicep curl, or other exercises that I wouldn't even consider fundamental movements squatting if you can get yourself to squat better, the carryover is tremendous. I was talking with Jessica yesterday, we actually worked out together,

and she used to travel with the Cirque du Soleil. She worked for them for a little while, and so she knew a lot of these performers, and she also worked with, like these contortionists, someone, contortionists have the extreme ranges of motion. And one of the guys that she worked with, who is this guy who could just fold himself in half

or whatever, all constantly had shoulder problems. And she's like, you know, it was weird because back then, I didn't understand why he had shoulder problems because he was so flexible. He had the greatest range of motion that I've ever seen. But now I realize that mobility is a balance between flexibility, strength, stability, and recruitment patterns.

You have to have a balance between those things because like you said Adam, you were tight, but someone else may be very flexible, still have lots of pain because they don't have the strength to support it. That's where mobility work comes into play. Mobility work, the goal and mobility work, is to balance those things out.

So what does it look like? Well, for someone like me who's tight, I'm just tight, very, very tight. I'm strong and tight, right? Mobility work for me is connecting, but also lots of stretching. There's lots of increasing range of motion with it, because if I get into a normal mobility movement,

I'm feeling lots of stretches. Now, to somebody who's very loose and weak, who also has issues with pain and what not, because that means they're unstable. Mobility work, there's a lot of connecting, intencing, inflexing, and strengthening because that's what mobility work does. Balance is those things out so that you can move better. It's not about being too tight or too loose or not about having not good recruitment patterns.

It's about, or not connecting. It's about an imbalance of all of those different things. Well, that causes the problem. That's quite a gross motor movement. You need all those things harmoniously to work together. And that's why for me too, like, you know, the 1990 going back to that conversation, like a lot of times that internal rotation for me, I just don't find myself doing exercises that express that enough and that's a major part of the stabilization laterally in my squat. I need that and I don't think a lot of people realize little things like that

like you need to incorporate intentionally in order to maximize the performance output and also just the placement of your bones in the joint. You need that all to stabilize properly so everything can function the way it's supposed to. Look, it's funny. It's like, I used to do it with clients. It's funny when it happened to me, but I would ask a client, reach your arm up above your head

if I had an elderly client and they would only go so far right, they had a difficult time straight in their arm out. And then I'd say, and then I grabbed the risk and I'd say relax now, just let me lift your arm for you. And then I'd be able to straighten their arm out above their head. Not always, sometimes it was a joint issue,

but many times I would be able to do it and I would tell them, this is the range of motion that you actually have, you just don't have connection to it. It's like you're dead in this extra two or three inches. And so my goal now is to give you that extra that control to that extra two or three inches. I happened to be with Brink. I went to Dr. Brink's office. He had me sitting in 90-90 position. So my back lathe was internally rotated. And then he told me, while keeping your knee on the floor, see if you could pick your foot up. And I'm like, ain't going to happen. Well, you're talking about it. Yeah, it's like, you might as well ask me to float like I don't have an X and then, and, but now I didn't understand this.

So I just thought, that's not possible. I'm too tight. Doesn't work. And he said, no, no, no, stay here for a second. And he grabbed my foot. He pushed my knee down so my leg didn't raise. And he rotated it to the point where my foot was almost next to my head. And it looked so weird that it actually looked, I almost felt like it was in my foot. I had that weird, like, disconnected feeling, like, oh my God, that's, is that really my leg? How's this happening?

And he said, this is the range of motion that you have. You should be able to move your leg into this position yourself. The problem is you've completely lost connection. You've inhibited it. To this. Now, you tell me common sense, okay? If you're listening, I don't care if you have a background

of fitness or not. Do you think it's better to own the range of motion that you possess? I'm not even talking about getting a more of a range of motion. I'm just saying being able to own the range of motion that you possess. I'm not even talking about getting a more of a range of motion. I'm just saying being able to own the range of motion that you possess, that your body can do. Well, yeah, you better fucking believe it. That's going to reduce your risk of injury tremendously, but I want to take it even a step

further. If you just want to look a better, let's say you just want to build muscle. We know that range of motion and greater ranges of motion contributes to better and faster muscle development. We know this. Now, there's some benefit to keeping tension and getting a pump and all that stuff as well. But we take average people and you compare them group versus group.

This group over here does a full range of motion bench press. This group over here does a half range of motion bench press. This group over here does full curls. This group over here does half curls, who's going to build bigger biceps and pecs and more strength, the people doing the full range of motion. Okay, so if you just want to look better, then it makes sense to be able to own larger ranges of motion so that when you go to the gym, that's how you train and then watch what happens to your body. Yes, you're going to feel better.

Yes, you're gonna feel better. Yes, you're gonna have less risk of injury. You're also gonna build a better looking body. You're gonna build a better moving and a better looking body. So even if your goals are entirely aesthetic driven, and you could care less about mobility, you could care less about injury prevention

because you're like, whatever, I don't care. I'm 20. You wanna build more muscle? Yeah. Mobility is going to help you build more muscle. And then of course, like we're saying in the podcast, if you don't work on mobility and you kick the can down the road, at some point,

you're gonna be forced. You're gonna be forced to have to work on mobility. A lot like we've been forced to do. And is moving like a Puma that necessary? No. Okay, like that can get ridiculous. No, I'm glad you went that way too, Justin, because I feel like we definitely kind of picked on

the Eugene guy for a while. Yeah, let's pick on the other side. And that camp and I think he's fucking, I think his shit's really good. So I just want to put that out there. I'm sure this will make its way over to him and, you know, I don't want to. No, he has a good page.

He's smart guy. Yeah, very, very smart guy. But there's definitely, there's a division here and we have friends on both sides and we got asked a question at the live event because they were referencing Mark Ripto. And the truth is that a lot of what they have to say, there's a lot of value and truth to that.

But there's also a lot of truth and value to what the other side has to say, which is like the Andro spinas and that side and the Kelly star ads and the mobility camp people. But the extreme mobility side is also too much in their camp, right? Right. Yeah, too far. Right. That's the idea you need. Honestly, what both those camps would do would fucking benefit from each other greatly.

Isn't that usually the case? It is. I mean, if the, if the, the ripped toe, the Steffi Coens, the Jordan Shalows, that, that side who just, just, just scoff at mobility, if they actually were to introduce a little bit of mobility more work into their routine, they would greatly benefit from it. It's what's funny to me is it's like having this debate with a bunch of people and you're like, what's better, cheeseburgers are pizza

and they make you think like, you can only fucking eat pizza. Have a cheeseburger pizza. Yeah, or you can only eat cheeseburgers, right? Yeah. Why not both? Why not do a little bit of both? Yeah, kettlebells are better than dumbbells.

Ah, like hold on a second, just cause you like dumbbells isn't mean you can't throw some, no, the fuck cares. You can throw in some, don't know what the fuck cares. You can throw in some dumbbell work. So there's definitely value in either one. It's when you become too extreme in one area. Well, I want to have to start to lose her. And what drives that extreme, and why I feel blessed

that I've been on both sides, is what ends up driving extreme is because you've had some sort of personal success, would it be personal with yourself, or personal as a coach, with other people, where like I've taught a bunch of these people had a load manage and strength train and I've changed hundreds of lives this way, all that other stuff.

And it's timing, right? Like a lot of times to like the message hasn't been in the forefront as much about, you know, mobility athletes have been like really getting after it and like adding a lot of intensity in their workouts and like it didn't stop for a moment to, you know, assess their joint function. And so now this camp comes in,

it's like this savior of like, I'm gonna alleviate all this pain and your performance is gonna increase substantially just by doing like our product. It reminds me of, I love, one of the things I love about that we've been doing this for so long, is you see trends just kinda come back.

And sometimes they're not the same exact trend, but it's similar enough. So as a trainer, so I started training people and I believe it was 1997, I think it was the first year I trained. And it was about, I don't know, six years later, I wanna say early 2000s, that stability ball training,

standing on unstable surfaces, doing everything on one foot. Became like this big thing. And the reason why it became a big thing is there were studies that were coming out showing that implementing some instability training was reducing injury risks with athletes. And so when it ended up happening,

is like what's happening right now with mobility, is trainers went so far off that everything became instability train. I mean, I am not exaggerating. I manage gyms with trainers. I would see trainers do everything on a dynodisc, a balance pad, half a foam roller, or a fisiable, everything. Nobody was bench pressing anymore,

they were pressing on a fisiable. Nobody was doing a fucking curl anymore Everybody had to stand on one foot balance on something and doing curl They went so far that they lost all the value and benefits from the traditional resistive training So they so rather than implementing the unstable surface stuff and gaining some of the value and adding it to what they were doing They threw away all the good stuff over here and just did all the instability training, which then I went in the opposite direction,

and said, you guys are morons, and in fact, some of our earliest mind pump episodes, we made fun of that kind of stuff. Well, that's what's happened with mobility as well. You've got guys with mobility where it's all mobility. Don't lift heavy weights. It's all about being a hyper-mobile. And look at me, I'm on the floor,

and I could scratch my, the back of. I'm on the floor and I could scratch the back of my head with my toe and you know I could do all kinds of weird shit. Okay, it's impressive. It's cool. I get it. Is there value? Is there a lot of value in a training like that for the average person? No. They're going to value from throwing some of that in, but also getting strong because you got to be strong too. You got to be able to lift heavy weights. I can see where you people get caught in these. I can see how Someone like me could have become like the mobility gothwards because when you I tell you what when you have something like low back pain Or chronic hip pain like I had for years and years and years and then all sudden you meet a movement specialist like like Brink and he sits down and he makes me do all these tedious

90 90 and combat stretching and all the stuff that I think is just like super lame, but then all of a sudden I start feeling different and all the pain starts to go away. Real easily I could jump into that camp and become the mobility guy and just be like, fuck all that weight lifting and all that crazy weight. It's like when you went keto for the first time and you're like, oh my God, I lost 10 pounds.

Keto all the time now. I am a keto, yeah, zealot or whatever. They're just, oh my God, I lost 10 pounds. Keto all the time now. I am a Keto forever. Yeah, zealot or whatever. They're just becoming zealots, they really are. First is, just like in great analogy, by bringing in the Keto point, is like instead of it being the diet or the modality that is so, modality of training that has been so amazing

for me is that, oh, maybe there was a neglected thing here. Maybe I was not dealing with my hip mobility and my ankle mobility, and that was a major limiting factor to my squats, and it was also a major contributor to my low back pain and hip pain. Oh shit, maybe if I address that ankle mobility, address that hip mobility, all alleviators, it doesn't mean I can't intend into that same skill,

that squat. Now it enhances that entire movement. Now here's why it's important to just not practice the movement over and over again, because some of the arguments are like, look, just go lighter and practice more squatting, and that'll work on your ankle mobility. The problem is, if you have an issue squatting,

then what you'll be practicing is going to be a movement pattern that's not ideal. And so sometimes you have to move out of that movement pattern and do a specific other form of mobility, like you said, Adam, the combat stretch or whatever combat activation. You get into that position, now you can challenge and work on ankle mobility and connect to it differently. It's really no different than how we would use priming.

It's like, look, you don't feel your butt firing when you do squats. Okay. The answer should not be to squat more and just slowly focus on your butt more. That's one strategy, but it's a very difficult strategy. What's a better strategy, and it's a bit of a shortcut, is to have you do these other exercises over here that are easier for you to connect your glutes Maybe that is beneficial as a squat when done properly, but beneficial to connect now you can feel the butt now you go squat Now you can connect to what you need to connect to it's really no different

It's no different than the way we would use priming and people even argue against priming and say oh, it's a waste or whatever No, it's not and the thing you need to understand that I want people to understand is this, our experience is not working with a majority of athletes. Our experience is not working with mostly power lifters or bodybuilders. A lot of these guys on Instagram who are in these camps work with a majority of a particular type of individual.

And I'm gonna tell you right now, if all my nutrition advice was working with bodybuilders, I would be an IIFLAM calorie monster. That's all I would ever talk about because in that camp, that kinda makes sense. Our experience, we worked with everyday regular people, most of you listening right now, are everyday regular people. You may be a fitness enthusiast, but you're more like an average person than you are like an extreme bodybuilder, powerlifter,

or you know, fallen to one of those categories. And so the advice that we're giving right now on our opinion is based off of that. And when I work with everyday average people, there's tons of value in traditional strength training and there's tons of value in mobility work. And it's not either or. No. The answer is both. Both. It's both. And with that, go to minepumpfree.com and download one of our guides. They're all absolutely free. You can also find us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal. And you can find Adam at Mind Pump Adam.

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps and a ballad, maps for performance and maps aesthetic, nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin

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