The School of Greatness - 26 Carl Paoli: The Key to Success in CrossFit, Freestyle Movement and Human Performance

Episode Date: July 27, 2013

A world class movement/ lifestyle coach joins us today on the The School of Greatness. He does groundbreaking work with the fittest athletes on earth, helping improve mobility, economy of motion and to recover faster from injuries. Not only is he an gymnastics expert, he also has an amazing insights into lifestyle, mindset and total body […]

This is episode number 26 with Carl Paoli. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up, greats?

Thanks so much for tuning in today. I appreciate you guys so much. And here is the quick quote of the day. When I let go of who I am, I become who I might be. And that's by Lao Tzu. I always forget how to pronounce his name, but Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher. When I let go of who I am, I become who I might be. Think about that for a minute. Think about who are you holding on to right now? What type of person, what type of feelings, what type of anxiety and stress, ego are you holding on to?

And how is that helping you achieve anything you want to achieve and achieve the greatness you're looking for? And when you let go of who you are, you become who you might be. So I just want you guys to marinate in that for a second and think about what are the things you've been holding on to that isn't really serving you and becoming who you want to be or achieving what you want to achieve or going after the dreams you want to go after or being in the relationships you want to be in, whatever it may be. Start letting go of that BS nonsense that holds you back so you can become who you really want to be. True vision, your true purpose, the true sense of who you are.

So this is a big episode. I've got my good friend, Carl Paoli, in the School of Greatness studios for you guys. Now, if you don't know who Carl is, he is a movement and lifestyle coach. is he is a movement and lifestyle coach. And he's a really cool guy blowing up in the CrossFit community as kind of like the gymnastics coach expert in the CrossFit community. And he talks all about movement. He used to be a big gymnast back in the day and now teaches people about how to move their body the right way and the correct way to position your body throughout

the day and how important the body actually is in achieving greatness in every aspect of your life. So I'm very excited for him to share with you his wisdom, his knowledge. And he actually puts me through a little exercise. This whole interview, you'll see I'm positioning my body in a certain way in a chair because we, as entrepreneurs, we sit in chairs a lot. And when you learn to position yourself the right way, you can actually get more done, be more effective, have more focus and clarity, and feel better while you're doing it. So he puts me through an exercise, and I want you guys to, I want to challenge you guys to actually doing the exercise that he has me do. you'll recognize when it comes up. Doing it and seeing if you can hold it throughout the entire time.

Now, if you're running or working out or on a jog or whatever it may be, then obviously you won't be able to do this. But if you're sitting and you're listening on your car, in your office, whatever it may be, then practice this and see how long you can go through this exercise. And I've got some pictures on the blog as well at

schoolofgreatness.com on the show notes that talk about and kind of show you what he puts me through. So make sure to go back and check out schoolofgreatness.com so you can see the show notes. So again, when I let go of who I am, I become who I might be. That's the powerful quote of the day. A couple of fans of the week. Big shout out to so many people. Man, every day I just get tweets and Instagram messages of pictures where all of you guys are watching the show. And people from all over the world and cities that I've never even heard of, beautiful places, at the gym, in the car, at work, whatever it may be.

And it's just really inspiring to see where you're all listening to it. So here's a shout out for Spencer Nickel, who on Instagram is snicol6. And Spencer posted a picture, just said, listening to School of Greatness on the way to work. And I don't even know where this is located, but it looks like it's somewhere in the Midwest. So thanks for that, Spencer. Appreciate you. And also I saw another one that came in just a couple hours ago from, let me see, it says Paul Carlson, who is Paul underscore SSA on Instagram. And he posted this picture of the sky and the clouds and the trees and says, what is greatness this week? It is about recharging out for some exercise on a cloudy day in Florida

while listening to at Lewis house and school of greatness. So I appreciate you, Paul. Thanks so much, guys. You guys are the fans of the week. And again, keep posting pictures of where you are listening to this and what, uh, what you guys are getting out of these episodes. I appreciate you. And I also got to give a quick shout out because I think I missed this the last time for the review of the week. We got a bunch of five-star reviews coming in lately. And here's one from Craig Boyes who says, addicting and upifting. Amazing podcast, utterly inspirational. Listening to this podcast and hearing other people's struggles and ultimate success stories makes me want to be a better person

in all areas of my life. Thank you so much for finding amazing guests that have truly enlightened view of the world. Keep up the great work. So thanks so much, Craig, for the review. And again, guys, just head over to iTunes. If you want to leave your feedback, review, whatever it may be, we want to hear from you.

We appreciate you because I build this and I create this specifically for you in mind and your needs. So with that, we've got an awesome guest who's jumping on right now. It's the one and only Carl Powley. What is up greats? I am here in the School of Greatness studio. This is actually the first interview in the new studio and I'm with my good man carl paoli which i always thought it was paoli before but it's paoli so what's up my man how you doing dude i'm happy to be here this is crazy yes it's a paoli it's it's a tricky one right

uh you would read it paoli if you're a true american but uh, uh, that's right. That's right. Uh, but it's, uh, it's Powley. That's just how we, we pronounce it in our family. Um, it's, it's just one of those things, tradition, tradition, but so you just keep it, keep it rolling. I love it. And, uh, you're in town from San Francisco for the CrossFit games all week. Got a lot going on. That's right.

And, uh, I'm excited to actually go. I'm thinking we're going Friday or Saturday because my buddy Graham Holmberg is competing, who won in 2010. So we'll see what type of damage he can do this year. Well, he's looking good and strong. Beautiful man. So beautiful, right? Yes. Happy guy.

Happy guy. He's got a new kid on the way, so all good things. I think he already even had his kid. He had his kid, Storm. Yeah. His name, yeah. So excited for him. A lot of new things happening. He had his kid, Storm. Yeah. His name, yeah. So excited for him. A lot of new things happening.

But we're here, man. I'm excited to do this because we connected probably like, what, a year ago? Maybe a year and a half ago? Something like that. Yeah, we've been talking back and forth at internets. Yeah, Instagram is where I first found out about you. And I was like, who's this guy doing these cool handstands with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background and all this cool stuff?

And I was just like, oh. I was just trying to make it look sexy. Yeah, man. So it worked? It worked. I was like, all right, we got to connect. I love it. I want to be friends with this guy.

I want to be able to do a handstand. I still can't do any breakdancing moves. It's all good. I'm still learning. Breakdancing has been one of those crazy obsessions. I'm a terrible dancer. Are you? Terrible.

But you can make it look cool with the little spins and the flares, right? Pictures are easy. You know, pictures you can get the moment and capture that and just freeze frame it. And act like you know what you're doing?

Exactly. But the break dancing thing has been kind of new so nothing to worry about. But I can show you a couple things now. I got a couple things down. Even for a tall guy like me

with a broken wrist, can I do something? That's totally fine. You know, with a broken wrist, even better because you get creative and you can do some alternative things yeah no one can match that but you know what i would love to learn is like what's it called the butterfly or the uh the flare whether you're like with your legs in the air on the ground you're

like spinning on your back oh windmill windmill yes yes you do that i can do that actually that's how i uh tore my groin a couple months ago no way yeah i was just too excited and i just realized i'm not 15 anymore i just turned 31 recently and uh i just jumped in cold and all of a sudden i was like oh oh my gosh there it goes that's the thing let's talk about injuries really quick because you'm 30. I just turned 30 or 31. And I realized that I really need to take care of my body more. It was about a year ago. I started picking up a new sport called team handball, and I'm on the USA national team now. The goal is to make the Olympics in 2016.

But I remember five years ago, you could just go play pickup basketball, go no stretch, no warmup, and just play full court for five hours. Going cold. And I tried to do that one day like a year ago, and I like pulled my groin, just like doing a small little jump, doing handball, and I was just like, oh my God, I was out for two months. I couldn't really do much. Injuries happen a lot more when you get older if you're not taking care of your proper movement

of your body and all that stuff. And this is something that you teach right now, right? Definitely. You know, I come from a gymnastics background. And gymnastics, even though it's a pretty dangerous sport if you look at it at high levels, has very great levels of progression, meaning you can build up to things and there's a proper way of doing it. And there's a million steps to just get up to the most simple movement,

which is what they call in the world of CrossFit scalability. But it's basically just allowing everyone to be able to participate in one way or another. And I think as a kid, you just take it for granted that, oh, I can do these things. And you may get a little hurt, but you don't really know what pain means or discomfort means, and you kind of get away with a lot. Eventually, you get a little older, and things get a little tighter and stiffer, and you start forgetting that your body is your main vehicle. And you forget to change the oil sometimes, or maybe the tires don't have the right pressure. And then all of a sudden, you're driving, it goes wheels just fell off somehow so yeah injuries are a problem but you know something that I've come to realize is that injuries for me uh when I was 16 I actually

broke my neck wow and in gymnastics or in gymnastics yeah so I that was during a little lunch break I was just goofing off with my friends and i was doing triple fronts off of a trampoline so triple front flips off a trampoline into a foam pit and we had a little mat on top triple flip triple flip off a tramp off a trampoline and then falling into a foam pit it sounds like a big deal but anyone that's in gymnastics like okay triples into a foam pit not a big deal whatever so I was just messing around and then all of a sudden I you know just laughing and talking and not thinking just did this thing over rotated landed on my head and just happened to just pull my head to my butt

almost and I heard something just go very wrong I could move perfectly but broke my neck. And the crazy thing about that was, I was like, Oh, no, this is all over. This is bad. I don't know what's going to happen next. But I realized that I became way more aware of who I am as a person and how I move physically through space and how I perform gymnastics. And I think for a lot of people, injuries at first become something scary that just stops you from performing. Because you're afraid to go back and do the same things you did before. Totally. But what in reality, it really is, is it's an opportunity. And it's an opportunity to take it to the next level. And I feel like every injury I've had is just like a little stumble and no matter how, yeah, it's just a lesson. Exactly. It's just

a lesson. And I've been, I've been really fortunate enough to be around people that know a lot about injuries, just growing up around the national team and having all the best doctors, all the best physical therapists, and now working at San Francisco CrossFit and having someone like Kelly Starrett, who's a physical therapist and has been very, very good at what he does and been able to make very good changes in a lot of people, especially teaching them how to heal these injuries. But all these things have given me a better outlook on things

and opened up a new path that just allows me to see every obstacle is just an opportunity. And these opportunities, when you take advantage of them, you can really change the game. And that's what I'm all about. Right. So let's talk about the efficiency of the body. And specifically for someone who's an entrepreneur or just someone who's getting a little bit older, say mid-20s, 30s, whatever, late 30s, and they start to realize they're waking up a little stiffer, they can't touch their toes anymore, they're, you know. That happens.

They try to sit up from the ground and like feel a tweak in their back, you know, whatever these things are. What are the main causes of this? Is this because we're sitting in our chairs all day long or we're not like efficiently moving our bodies when we do walk or we're not exercising enough? What is the things that make us like start to deteriorate well i think it's uh of course poor behavior but i always set this example imagine you you uh i travel a lot so i i sit on planes and uh you know you sit on a plane and let's say you're taking a six-hour flight after three hours I'm basically just my neck is starting to crank my back is starting to go I'm just like oh I'm so lazy and I look like I'm basically in

like fetal position after a couple hours and once I step out of the plane I'm just like oh my god I feel miserable everything's hurting and and that's a problem so that's just us being a little lazy but now think about it this way. If I stepped onto a plane, I sat down and I just was conscious of, hey, if I get into a better position, which just means get better posture, and I maybe sit upright and my neck is tall. And I think about all these basic concepts that they talk about in every single specialty of movement, like, for example, ballet, everything's about having the longest neck possible. Shoulders are down and back, and back is flat.

The same thing happens in gymnastics. I'm sitting up right now. I'm like, all right, yeah, I'm starting to feel it. We're both having right now a posture off. Long neck. Long necks right now, back is flat. But if you do that, you would feel better of course coming

out the problem is it's hard to do it's hard to focus for like more than three minutes you're like how do you stay in that position yeah because it's like you gotta have the core strength right to really sit up right otherwise you just slouch because it's relaxing in your stomach exactly sitting down is it's easy to be lazy. That's why they make the couches so comfortable. It's so amazing. Right? I got this huge L couch that I just lay on. It's so comfortable. Yeah. You just sink in there, watch some TV and pass out. Yes. But when you have to be active the next day, like you, you're an athlete. Everything you do every second of the day has to be a conscious effort to get you where you want to be in your goal. So that example of sitting on a plane, eventually what you have to get you where you want to be in your goal. And so that example of

sitting on the plane, eventually what you have to do is just you need to make the effort. You may only last 30 seconds at first, but that's your first try. And then maybe you do intervals of 30 seconds every 10 minutes or every 20 minutes. Next time you step up, maybe your stamina has improved and all of a sudden you can hold it for a minute. And then eventually it's five minutes and then 10 minutes. And then eventually it becomes a habit. So tell me, what can people do if they're flying or if they're working during the day on the desk, I guess, six to eight hours a day sitting? When they're flying a lot, what should be focused on? Should it be knees in? Should it be feet forward? Should it be arms?

Well, there are many, many things. You want to start with with the base so where you're sitting is basically where your pelvis is so you're sitting on your butt and your pelvis is right there which is just that little bowl that is part of your hip joint and so not slouching back or into your seat right it depends on that who you are right but let's say the optimal way the most optimal way of sitting uh so you would say you're sitting in that bowl is just straight up and then ideally the spine should be in the most vertical position possible so sitting tall it's almost like you're imagining someone grabbing you from the head and just pulling you up and making that neck really long like a little puppet yeah and here comes the ugly one. You want to pull the chin in a little bit and then let it relax.

That double chin almost? You desexify yourself. Right? Okay. It doesn't look very sexy. And then the shoulders are just slightly back, and then hands, if you thought about it, would be palms up. That would be almost like you're…

Not down. Not down. But you will be typing with your hands down. You would be almost like you're not down, not down, but you will be typing with your hands down. You'll be writing with your hands down. You'll be cooking eventually with your hands down. You'll be driving your car with your hands down. Everything happens with hands down. But what we do in training is we exaggerate what we're about to see in competition. Right. So in this case, let's say we're training for sitting. You'll be training on sitting up tall. You have no backrest.

Someone's pulling you from the head. Shoulders are back. Palms are up. Now the feet are a little bit different. Here's, yeah, you could go wide in the stance. Right now, Lou is sitting with his wide stance. He looks like a sumo wrestler. It looks good.

But one of the things that you can do, and if you've ever been training and done any squatting, one of the most common cues is knees out. You've heard that before. But that's a hard thing to do. Especially if you've got a lot of weight. Yes. To push them out when you're going back up. Totally.

So when you have a lot of weight, knees out is a hard thing to do. So one of the things that you can try, if you're sitting on a chair right now, just bring your feet together for me and glue your feet completely together. And now just relax there. Just relax, let the legs relax, you'll see that the knees automatically drop out. So that knee out position is a more stable position at the hip. And that will actually stabilize the pelvis, which is that bowl, which is the platform for your spine okay so you need to have all these things uh kind of checklist out so feet together knees fall out belly is slightly on probably slightly what just turned on a little bit so belly slightly turned on the back's kind of flat shoulders back and down palms are up chin in so the neck is long from the back and then relax the chin to see if you

can just let it drop down so that the jawbone kind of just relax yeah take a breath and blow it out and just and hang there and so sit in this position for as long as you can while you're sitting yes how does that feel challenging it's challenging because you're like you're feeling my lower back it's like really activated right now so let's actually talk about that's a great that's a great point you know as a strength conditioning coach and gymnastics coach and now just focusing on movement one of the things that we realize is that just like injuries we run into these walls like oh i feel like pain here. For you right now, when you're sitting, you're like, oh, I feel some stiffness in the back. That's an opportunity. Why are you feeling stiff in the back? Is it because you've never done this before? Not for long. Not this

long. Not this long. I got 10 seconds in. It's tricky, but what you'll notice is that you can take advantage of this and be like, hey, maybe my hips are a little stiff. Maybe I'm a little tight here. Maybe I should be mobilized. Maybe I'm just not strong enough. I need to train this thing. So this is up to you to kind of figure out, hey, what is it that I'm missing? And if you can kind of acknowledge what that is or use the sitting position as almost like

a diagnostics tool, then it's an opportunity. And I think that's what this is all about now can you diagnose other people's position and see what their flexibility can you know what they're lacking or is it just based on what i'm saying and feeling you through experience you can go through a checklist of oh you know probably right now you've never done this before so you're probably getting tired because you are fatiguing right basically you don't have stamina you're not strong enough okay we test that and then you're like well i am strong enough i can do all these things i can deadlift 500 pounds whatever it is then you know the most obvious thing is your hips are probably a little stiff tight i have my physical therapist

my crossfit physical therapist dr trish she uh comes twice a week and works on my hips. And the mobility from the beginning was like putting my foot outward. This one was like 5% when she first started. Now it's like 20% angle. So it's slowly increasing. But, man, they were tight. Yeah, so your stiff hips. And you now can say, oh, Carl, you're a genius.

Exactly. You know, it's funny. Every time I coach, people are you now can say, oh, Carl, you're a genius. You know, it's funny. Every time I coach, people are like, oh, my God, Carl, you're a genius. I'm like, no. You kind of know what everyone has, though. Like everyone has the same issues, right? Everyone has the same thing. But I think where the genius comes in is how do you talk about it, right? Why would you care about posture?

You may be able to sit all day, but you're an athlete. And to be honest with you, you're like, it doesn't affect me what I'm sitting really right now. Maybe I feel a little discomfort, but what you really care about is I want to make the Olympics 2016. Yeah. So I need to make that relevant to you that way. And I think one of the big things that I think we're talking about here today is really helping people understand that everything we do has to be dialed in to meet where our goals are taking us. And if we can do that, then it's a very powerful thing. I think that's what I do best as a coach. I make things relevant to people. And same thing with this. Yeah. Well, you're known as one of the top, I guess,

mobility gymnastics coaches in CrossFit in the world right now. And you're starting to really blow up, and everyone's bringing you in for seminars and coaching. And you've got a book coming out, which we'll talk about. You've got DVDs and everything. So you've had the experience over the last few years to really see thousands of CrossFit athletes who are some of the top athletes in the world, arguably, physically,

with working out. You've been able to witness what their weaknesses are, what their strengths are, and help take them to the next level. It's important. It doesn't matter if you're a CrossFitter. I love CrossFit, but it doesn't matter what you're doing. You guys are here to learn about how to achieve greatness in your lives. Everyone listening is here to learn about greatness, whether it be business, sports, relationships. It doesn't matter what you're doing. You guys are here to learn about how to achieve greatness in your lives. Everyone listening is here to learn about greatness, whether it be business, sports, relationships.

It doesn't matter. But it's important. Your body is your most important asset. And without having an amazing body and achieving greatness with the most important thing first, it doesn't matter what you're doing. It's going to be subpar unless your body is in perfect alignment or at least striving for perfection. That's right. And you're constantly aware of where you're positioning, your health is at. And I don't care how big your business is,

you're not achieving greatness if your body is not where it needs to be. That's fully correct. And we can all work on it. We both are in great shape. We look good, but there's certain things about our posture. I'm sure you're aware of certain things. No doubt. That we can all work on. And I know, you know, I've had injuries and it's like there's constant improvements and constant adjustments we can make in order to strive for that greatness.

That's right. What else can we learn about our bodies? What else should we be focusing on throughout the day or when we're working out? Is there any do's and don'ts? There's definitely do's and don'ts. I do a lot of the don'ts, clearly. I'm guilty of that, but I think that's how I learn. Well, I think, first of all, for me, and you may suffer the same thing,

is I've done gymnastics since I was five. Of course, I quit gymnastics 13 years ago in Spain, you moved over from Spain, right? That's correct. I was actually born here in the US, Swedish parents grew up in Spain. By the age of five, I was doing gymnastics. And it was something that my parents put me into because I was this very scared kid. I was just scared of everything. And they're like, we'll put them in here. Wow. So I started doing gymnastics. And that actually really molded me as a person, which was awesome to hear from my mom just recently, actually. And this is just an aside kind of story. I was sitting having breakfast with her in Spain just a couple months ago.

And she told me that the first time I competed, she was so worried that I would just have a complete breakdown, not be able to make it. But right when it was my turn to compete, as I stepped out on the floor, she noticed that I was this completely different character. And this character that showed up was confident, ready to go, had no fears, knew exactly what he was doing. This when you were five? I was probably, that competition go, had no fears, knew exactly what he was doing. This was when you were five? I was probably, that competition, I was probably six.

Okay. Ever since then, gymnastics just became my safe place. Right. Even though I was scared of many, many things. As you go into the harder elements, things get pretty crazy. But that really helped me understand who I was as a person, and especially physically. And talking about these do's and don'ts, if you go to any sport, you do a lot of drilling, a lot of practicing, you go

through a lot of progressions. And one of the things that you see in high level sports is that because they have a method that works, they just throw that method at you. And it's almost like throwing a bunch of eggs at a wall. Whatever egg survives, that's the egg that makes it to the limit. But not every method works for every person. It's all different based on what you're currently at, right? Exactly. So I think I was one of those eggs that would break. Nothing came easy. Wow. And it's funny because everyone tells me, oh, everything comes so easy to you. You're so good at everything. I'm like, oh.

If you only knew. If you only knew. The pain I'm going through. It's the struggle. It's a struggle. But physically, I learned a lot of things about me. And I learned what I could do and what I couldn't do. I learned that I just couldn lot of things about me and I learned what I could do what I couldn't do I learned that you know I just couldn't throw things right away I couldn't just you know chuck a triple front flip into a foam pit while having fun I had to focus on it yeah so it's just small things like that it's being um conscious of who you are as a physical being it's it's very simple it's what

do you want to look like what do you want to look like? What do you want to feel like? Act like that. Once you start acting that way, that becomes part of who you are. So I think from the time you get up in the morning, if you're a normal athlete, you're probably a little stiff. And you're like, oh, things are cracking. Oh, yeah. Every morning, the back just twists my leg. It's like, cock, cock, cock, cock, cock.

Yeah, no doubt, right? And you just feel a little stiff and you're uncomfortable and it takes you 20 minutes before you're normal. You're like, I need extra go-go juice, as a friend of mine says. But if you live your day the way you want to feel, eventually everything comes full circle. And that's easy to say, hard to do. But sometimes you just need to take a minute or two minutes, just focus on yourself. What do you want to look like? What do you want to feel like? And you're ready to go. And this kind of ties back into some of my situations that I go through. And I can set some examples. It's

like when I travel far, long distance, and I'm about to do a seminar, I have 60 people there waiting for me. I wake up, I'm on a different time zone. I may have just slept three hours. At an airport food. You feel very crappy. But I do this thing is that as soon as I walk through the door, I feel amazing. I am the man. And I'm going to give these guys everything I have. And it's just this mentality. I'm in my car. I drive over. I get out of the car. Once I walk through the door, I am a completely different person. I'm ready to go. How do you make that shift mentally? What do you do? What do you tell yourself? What's the routine?

Game on. But basically what I tell myself is that I am here for these people. These people are here to get some information. They're excited to be there. They put a lot of effort in to be there. And a lot of money. Yes. This thing costs a lot. And there's traveling involved.

And it's a commitment on the weekends. So I'm going to deliver. And I think this is the same person that comes out, came out when I was a kid doing gymnastics. I'm just ready to go. And at first I thought it was for myself that I was just doing this. Oh yeah, this is just because I want to accomplish something. This is about me wanting to do something. But I realized that if I'm alone, this thing doesn't mean anything. realized that if I'm alone, this thing doesn't mean anything. And it's that sharing concept. When you share something, it just becomes more valuable. And that's what I've noticed,

that if I can be the presence that allows people to share things, and then we can come up with solutions together, then we have something going. And it just all ties in so well. You need to be the physical person that you want to be. And the way to get there is just through common sense. What do I want to look like? Oh, do I want to be tall and look tall? Well, stand tall. Right. Right?

Yeah. Do I want to be strong and fast? Well, stand like you want to be strong and fast. Sure. And that translates. And people can sense it. Yeah. Every minute now, I'm like readjusting my back and standing up taller and making a double chin.

So am I. I'm actually having to move my mic up slowly. I'm like, oh, the mic is getting lower. I love it. So you really come up with a mentality that I'm here to serve everyone. And you get out of your body. You get out of your physical, basically, way of thinking that's painful or whatever. You're stressed out. You're not eating well. And you're like, I'm here to serve. And you stand out of your body, get out of your physical, basically, way of thinking that's painful or whatever. You're stressed out.

You're not eating well. And you're like, I'm here to serve. And you stand for that. And you stand for the people that are there. No doubt. So that's awesome. Let's go back to routine, like daily routine. What is something that people can do right when they wake up?

Get out of bed, wake up. What's the next step for having an optimal day with your body? Yeah, that's a that's a that's a great one i think you know sleeping and eating is number one and and sleep is huge right huge it's like one of the most important things for our bodies to have eight hours at least right it's it's super important there's so many theories on it there's long seminars and books on you should have a dark cold room that you sleep in really yes dark cold room yeah dark cold room so the light's not like waking you up or yes so you get maximum amount of like restful

peaceful sleep yeah it's all those cycles that your body goes through so you you want a fully dark room a cave i'm getting like a blackout from my window now that's funny um and i also heard through another sleeping expert that you want to go to bed like before 10. When the lights go out, you want to be ready to go out. Exactly, exactly. Basically, it's like it's back to that caveman mentality. There's no light out. What am I going to do out there?

It's time to go to bed. Yeah, get ready. But that's hard to stick with, especially when you're traveling or working or training. Hustling, yeah. Yeah, it's such a difficult thing so what we're trying to do is we're just trying to adjust as well as we can into modern society with what we have i think technology sometimes advances faster than we evolve and uh we get hit by it but we also need to know that we're evolving as well and we're intelligent beings for a reason and we should have strategies to adapt to these things so being able to sleep well and uh have a dark room and kind of

cold is number one right next thing in the morning i have a tendency of drinking coffee right away which coffee is not bad but maybe it's better to have a glass of water get rehydrated right a lot of water right after you went for your tinkle do you do the bulletproof coffee or do you do something i have tried it but uh i haven't i've never tried it it's good i don't really i don't really have coffee i'll have like a chai latte every now and then you know or cappuccino that's about it have a little cappuccino it makes you sound more uh enlightened exactly cultured cultured yeah so i think just getting hydrated right away uh you know i have a tendency of just going onto my phone and looking at all my emails a big mistake before i even get out of bed oh i'm i'm like the person does that the most and here's the thing that i've

learned and we just talked about earlier is that when you go in cold to something, you're going to mess yourself up. Break your neck. Exactly. Or tear your groin doing breakdancing. Whatever it is. So this is the same thing. When you wake up in the morning, try not to reach for your phone.

Don't look at the emails yet. It's like the hardest habit to break. Yeah. Just stand up, walk around for a second, do whatever you have to do. Go to the bathroom, take a shower, walk around for a second, do whatever you have to do. Go to the bathroom, take a shower, whatever it is. Eat some breakfast, get hydrated, get ready, and then start your day. I am guilty of this.

I don't do this every day, but when I do, I know I feel phenomenal. The thing is, it's almost like you get in reactive mode right away when you wake up. If you pull your phone over, I find myself reaching for my phone we use my alarm will go off or something and then i'll like i'll reach my phone and i'll see a bunch of text messages and i'm not i have one eye open literally texting back like four or five people and i'm just in reactive mode right away that's probably the worst thing to do as opposed to like take a deep breath focus on like what I want to achieve that day, how I want to feel, and just take a few moments for myself. Yeah. As opposed to just reacting to everyone or everything. I agree.

And your mind, I'm assuming if you relax your mind in the morning as opposed to just go, then you're going to be a lot healthier long term. And that's, you know, just I agree 100%. It's such an easy thing to say, just hard to do. And, you know, one of my favorite motivational speakers is Zig Ziglar, who now passed away. But one of the things that he said is that you should never be reactive. You should be responsive. And he compared this to taking a drug or a medicine. He said, you don't want to react to medicine.

You want to respond to medicine. And this is how we should live our lives. We shouldn't be reactive. We should be responsive. And I think that's one of those things is I open my eyes. I should be conscious of I just woke up. It's a new day. I'm going to have the urge to reach for my phone.

But if I can make a conscious effort to not do that, that would be awesome. Even for five minutes, right? Five minutes. Just get moving. Here's another thing is I can't focus for a second. I have ADD. I'm just all over the place, and how I focus is by moving. When my body is going, I can focus.

Exactly. I'm is by moving. When my body is going, you can focus. I can focus. Exactly. I'm in the moment. So when I wake up, I'm just up out of there, boom, straight to the bathroom, do whatever I have to do. I'm out the door. Wow. So get moving. If you're the guy that can't focus, if you're more of a calm person, good for you. You'll probably live longer. Yeah, right. So what type of physical things should we be doing? Say I wake up and it takes me five minutes to get out of bed. I'm kind of just relaxing. I'm being aware of what's happening. When I get up, first steps I take, is there a direction I should be going? Should I be in an air squat position?

Or should I allow myself to slowly move and wake up and then light stretching? Or should I go right a push-up mode like jumping jacks you know is there well it depends though sometimes you have to wake up and you have to run that happens uh but the ideal situation would be just wake up take it easy and uh of course you want to get some sort of workout and i try to i try to knock it out in the morning and i basically just cruise down to the gym and try to get my heart rate up a little bit, and then I call it practice working out. It's not a real full workout. Sometimes you just can't kill yourself, right?

6 a.m. or whatever, just crush. Yeah. For people that know who Rich Froning is, Rich Froning now won the games twice this year, coming in hot again. You could do it again. He could beat it. He's crazy. But people think when I come, for example, to Spain, they're like, oh, you come from the U.S.?

You're like, Rich Froning, let's kill you. And they just crush me. And you're like, I can't do all this. I feel like crap for 10 days. Yeah. And that's terrible. You don't want that. You want to feel good.

So anything that feels a little uncomfortable but that you feel okay doing and that later on allows you to function like a normal human being, that's a good day. That doesn't mean it wasn't high intensity or it wasn't productive. It just has to be something that goes by feel. Do you feel good? Then you're doing good. If it feels bad? Adjust a little. Yeah. Interesting. I've been saying this lately i've been saying uh true performance can only be measured through feel

through how you feel wow you may you know go play handball and you may not have scored or played uh the perfect game uh on the on the board, yeah. Yeah, statistically speaking, but you may have felt really good physically. You're like, oh yeah, I have the potential to actually perform well. Now I know. So you could say technically that you felt great, so your performance was optimal. Sure. Yeah, as opposed to being exhausted and yawning or feeling lethargic and sore the whole time. Exactly, exactly. Now, what's your thoughts on supplements and recovery products and proteins? I'm a big fan of Progenix and Onnit for optimizing my performance.

What's your thoughts on supplements? Well, I'm personally with Nutri-Force Sport right now. And they've been great working with them. But growing up, I didn't know much about supplements. And even recently, I was just like, I'll stay away from supplements. But what I've realized is that we're constantly playing catch up. I had the time to eat that amount of food and I could make the day a 36-hour day with just daylight. Then I would be able to just eat normal food, sleep well, do all these things. So supplements, I think one of the goals for supplements is they're trying to help you play catch up. And you can do it in many ways. But if you work with the right people and you do it the right way and you understand what you're putting in your body and what's coming out, then it's okay. Will I do supplements and have supplements around me for the rest of my life?

Some sort of supplement will probably be around there. Yeah. I may not eat enough, you know, fish. So I need some fish oil. I may have a lot of inflammation from other things that I'm eating. So maybe I have to buffer that with some of that uh you know maybe right after a workout if i need to recover and i don't have a meal right away i'm probably going to want some sort of shake uh with some aminos or something just to be able to recover and feel better in the long term so that that's where that's at uh we could go into all the talks of how that's

produced and what that could do to your body. But I do support supplements. I'm not super big supplement intaker just because I'm not a elite athlete. I'm a coach and I take it just to be able to run optimally throughout the day. Exactly. It's like an insurance policy, right? Like make sure you're getting everything you need. Exactly. Now tell me about, I want to ask a couple more questions. Tell me about the perfect ring muscle-up. What is a ring muscle-up for you? What is it for me?

Yeah. Like the definition? Yeah, what do you think it is? I mean, how do you define that for you? I guess in simple terms, it's going from a hang position and getting uh above your elbows above and then doing like a dip at the top right or i bring you fully extended at the top of rings with your arms underneath you yeah so that'd be my guess it's some sort of pull

up where you pull yourself over these rings and get up and and for people that don't know what a muscle up is it's it's basically just hanging under the rings like you said and pulling yourself over these rings and get up. And for people that don't know what a muscle up is, it's basically just hanging under the rings, like you said, and pulling yourself over the rings so you're in a supported position. And it depends on who you're talking to. If you're talking to a gymnast, they may say, you know, we want it to be slow and controlled and we want your body to be straight and to have all these lines. In CrossFit, it's, okay, you need to do 30. You need to do 50. Maybe there's going to be a swing in there, and it's going to look a certain way,

and that's going to maximize your effort to get over the rings, and you're going to be able to last longer. So there will be, like, two signature muscle-ups. Okay. One for gymnastics, which is just a way of getting over the rings and maybe a conditioning thing, and then one for CrossFit that may look a little bit different uh but still is the same movement if we relate this to just kind of normal human being behavior it would be your capacity to get

over an obstacle so if you think about it it's uh just getting over a wall yeah that that's that's that's what that perfect muscle up is how well jumping up the wall and pulling yourself over exactly how well can you get over the wall and it depends how you're doing it why you're doing it it will look a certain way it'll be perfect and defined by the purpose right this muscle up thing is just another movement people are obsessed with it because it's hard to do especially at the gym and i think that's something that's carried over from gymnastics into crossfit now crossfit into the rest of the fitness industry and uh yeah it's pretty cool nice nice any any quick techniques or tips for like the perfect crossfit muscle up perfect cross muscle up big hips big hips yeah

big hips like thrusting your yeah big, meaning pelvis goes up to the rings. I always say pelvic thrust, basic life skill. There you go. Right? We do it every day, right? Do it every day. I like to call it the hip thrust. It's the only way you can leave a legacy.

Put it that way. If you don't have a dial. That's awesome. What's the most important movement to optimize if there was one thing we could focus on perfecting a natural movement getting off the ground getting off the ground getting off the ground getting back on the ground from back on the ground from the side from stomach any position okay why now you said this was like intention you were like yes this right away and you didn't know this was coming so why is that the most important? It includes a lot of the stuff that we

do. Imagine you're lying down on your back, you're sleeping. The first thing you do is you do some sort of, you roll maybe to the side and then you drop your legs and then you do like a little lateral sit up. And then from that position, your feet are on the ground, your butt is on the bed, and you basically just stand up. So you do a squat, and then you walk away. Now, let's say you're lying on the ground. You're lying on the ground. Now, you probably don't go sideways. You probably go into a sit-up.

So you sit upright. Then if you're very mobile, you may get into a squat, but most people aren't. So they do some sort of leg crossing hands go to the side yeah knees on the ground up and something yeah some sort of like crawl up kind of thing so so that's a variation yeah um i i like to play this game where i'm like okay now you're sitting on the ground again uh let's go ahead and put one hand on your head and now get up tricky right and then they're like okay i got I got that. I'm like, sit down again. No hands. No hands. That's tough. Tough. But what we see most people do is they cross their legs, they go into a lunge and then they stand up. So that's a

get up. And the kettlebell world or even the CrossFit world now, it's like a Turkish get up, they would call it, where it's holding something overhead and standing up. Also a very popular move in the Cirque du Soleil, anyone that's doing hand-to-hand balancing, they do that a lot. So they do a lot of get-ups with their partner as they – One person coming up, yeah. Yeah, hand balancing. So it has so many different variations.

And now I can say, hey, you know what? You're lying on your back. Go ahead and get up. Most people would kind of snake themselves up into some sort of push-up, step forward into a lunge, stand up. If I said, let's go fast, snake themselves up into some sort of push-up, step forward into a lunge, stand up. If I said, let's go fast, it would turn into some sort of burpee or up-down. If I said, let's go one arm, now the variation would change. Let's go one leg, the variation would change. So being able to get on and off the ground combines all the basic movements from

hinging in the hip, squatting, pushing, and there's no pulling here. But let's say there was something over your head that you could grab and pull yourself up from. And that's why pulling is such a key component of strength and conditioning because it's the opposite of what we are wired to do. Which is pushing. Yes. Your car breaks down, you don't pull your car. Push it. You push it. But in the gym, we train pulling because pulling is what allows us to do more pushing. Really?

Anytime there's a push, there's a pull. Pulling is usually a static hold, and pushing is where the mechanics or the effort is being produced. It's using your legs, your hips, you're driving into it or whatever. Exactly. Interesting. So getting off the ground is definitely number one so how do we learn how to get off the ground the right way okay that's another thing so who sets the rules that here's the problem everyone's like how do you do it the right way what's the perfect form tell me tell me tell me everyone wants to know yeah just do it get off the ground

does it hurt there's probably something wrong opportunity let's take advantage of it how do we fix that okay good now we fix that let's try another variation can you do it yes did you feel any pain no beautiful now let's test it under different demands can you go fast can you go under load can you go after you've been breathing really heavy can you still do it that way oh now changed. I've had to adapt into the next thing. This is freestyle. That's what I live by. You should be able to move however your body wants to move

and then use every one of those movements as opportunities to develop the next thing. People are so concerned. This is the right way. I don't care if it's the right way for you. Your body is wanting to go this way. don't care if it's the right way for you your body is wanting to go this way let it go let's see what happens yeah that's that's what i live by so tell me you actually have a book coming out called freestyle freestyle yeah so it's freestyle the

title is freestyle and the subtitle is maximize sport and life performance with four basic movements and one of the four basic movements it's a get off the ground, which would be a burpee variation. Uh, another one is squatting mechanics, but we teach the pistol, which is a single leg squat, which body weight wise is the most challenging one to do. Uh, then I teach a muscle up getting over the obstacle, a lot of pulling mechanics in there to be able to talk about things. And then the last one is a handstand pushup, which may seem like a party trick, but it involves- Handstand pushup. Handstand pushup. I still can't do those because my wrist, man. I need some type of a support thing or a bar to hold on to. Yeah, some sort of handle, huh?

Something. Yeah. Because I can't do a full pushup. Once again, I mean, you broke your wrist, so there's a healing process that goes through it. And you've probably been able to get away with not having to fully heal with what you do. And, you know, that's actually interesting. It kind of just takes me back to thinking about why do we do what we do kind of thing. What is it that motivates us and drives us? And, you know, there are two things that I've seen people really been motivated by is when either they hit a wall from an injury and now they're like,

oh, no, I need to fix myself. Or they are really eager to accomplish something and they physically and consciously understand that there's a physical limitation to their performance. Then they get driven and now they want to take it to the next level so for you handstand push-ups doesn't mean that much right it doesn't but if i told you that when you're playing handball and maybe you're around people and you need to push them away and you need that pushing mechanics to be efficient so you can maybe jump throw the ball jump catch the ball run away then you start getting a little

more excited so handstand push-up is a really important thing huge wow okay i'm gonna start learning how to do them then that's right with the with the something that i could use it you know i gotta be a freestyle with it and it doesn't have to be just my hands on the ground but i could use some type of uh bars or weights and do it that way right exactly exactly and then i would of course recommend a lot of mobility on the wrist and just make sure you keep getting strong and sure but just knowing that doesn't matter what kind of physical activity you're doing if you understand physical movement you can transfer that into whatever it is you're trying to accomplish and that can only be understood

through this philosophy that i have which is can you? Can you just let it go for a second and then be conscious of where you hit the walls and put solutions in there? Huh? All right. So I want to do something really quick because I know we got to run in a few minutes. I want to, I want to show you my form for the air squat. You're going to critique me. That's awesome. See what I can do. I haven't warmed up so you can, you can sit there. I'll just get up here. I love it.

So, okay. You're about to to squat he pulls his pants up he is smiling he pulls his pants up even more squats that gets a little stiff is it the pants no it's not the pants so right ankles it's the ankle so that right now we're seeing his toes turned out like charlie chaplin the knees are kind of caving in. The hips are below the knees, which would be considered a full squat. But he's clearly very stiff. The ankles are stiff. So go ahead and stand up for me. One of the most common things that any coach would tell you would be like,

let's push the knees out a little bit more, right? So if I ask you to do that, A, your pants may rip. B, you probably can't because you're so stiff. No big deal. This is what I want you to try to do. Bring your feet together for me. So right now, even closer together. Glue the feet together.

Lou's is standing up right now. His feet are together. Glue them even closer together. He's just standing up tall. Feet are glued together. They're literally touching each other, right? From there, what I want you to do is I just want you to bend over put your hands flat on the ground so he's standing tall he's gonna bend over you can bend your knees if you want bend your knees if you want there you go now his hands are

flat on the ground right by his feet his feet are together and he's literally just bent over right now his position is optimal because the knees are coming out the hips are in full flexion. That right there, hinging in the hip, that's the foundation of squatting. Now, go ahead and stand up for me. Just that can be hard if you're a little stiff, but the mechanics were optimal. Now, what we're going to do is we're going to pull the chair behind you. So pull that chair behind you for me.

I should be like videotaping this right now yes this should be we should eventually you'll be filming this podcast people will see this stuff so now he has a chair behind him he's standing tall uh feet are together once again same thing go ahead and bend over put your hands on the ground the same way the beauty of this is that he looks good now from there without your hands coming off the ground see if you can sit on the chair yeah so he's grunting it's hard to do but if you look at him and if you had a picture this is what he looks like he looks like he's in a squat with his toes facing forward his knees are out his hips are in full flexion or closed up just like squatting his back is rounded no big deal yeah let's take a picture of it pass me your phone

Yeah, let's take a picture of it. Pass me your phone. So Lewis, he's scrambling. He's scrambling. Anyways, he's squatting right now. He is bent over. His back is rounded. And he's just in a good position right now. Knees are out. Toes are forward. We like that. Now from there, Louis, do me a favor. Just bring your chest up and lift your hands off the ground and just sit up tall. Do you see how that's a good original squatting position? That's where we want to be. Knees are out, chest is up, toes are forward. And all you needed was I needed to put you in a position of emphasis, which is, hey, let's bring your feet together, forces your knees out, and then eventually just start developing that range of motion. So this is the conversation we're having right now is basically if someone says this is the standard for squatting. Right. And when you perform that standard, you look a little funky. You need to be conscious enough to say, hey, this doesn't feel right.

It doesn't look right. Tell me how do I get into the most optimal position, into the most optimal shape of squatting. That's what a coach is supposed to be able to do. And that's a little bit of what I just did with you. Man, I'm going to have to hire you now. There you go. The one I want to coach is Seared. Oh, snap.

I love it. I'm all about awareness of my body and getting better every day. It's all about greatness. So with that, before we wrap it up, what's your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness is, I always say this and people think this is crazy, but I say I want to make history. And when I say I want to make history, what I want to do is I want to help people understand that life is about living it to the fullest.

And the way you do that is if you have a vision, you have a dream, you have a need or a want, you can make that happen. And it's how well you execute on that. And it has to happen by sharing what you believe in. And sharing is not, hey, guys, this is what you're going to do. It's helping people understand and make themselves directed so they can actually make better decisions. And if you can do that, I think that is being great. And you may not reach the goal exactly the way you wanted, but you're probably going to discover some very cool things in the process. So if you can do that, that's greatness.

And that may not be a definition, but it's the way I look at it. I love it, man. I love it. And where can we find you online? Right now, you can find me on gymnasticswad.com, which is just gymnastics, W-O-D.com. And you can find me on my new venture, which is freestylethebook.com. And right now it's just a subscription page, but we're going to have a lot of content coming up. It's going to be pretty awesome, and hopefully we'll be able to give you a lot of insight on the philosophy of the book

and little things that you can do to take your physical performance to the next level. I love it, man. I mean, these four movements, it makes sense, and now it's like I've got to optimize these four movements. And if you can optimize those four movements and freestyle, then your life is going to run a lot better, right? That's the goal.

Your life, your body, everything is going to be more efficient. So you're also on Instagram, super inspiring pictures and photos and cool little breakdancing moves and stuff like that. So make sure to check Carl out at Carl Paoli.

That's right. P-A-O-L-I. That's correct. On Instagram. If you guys are on there right now, go ahead and tag a photo of yourself, of where you're listening to this specific episode with me and Karl.

Just tag at Lewis Howes and at Karl Paoli with a hashtag greatness or a hashtag school of greatness so we can see where you're at in the world. I got a lot of cool photos from people from all over the world listening to the show. Hopefully, and if you guys are, if you want to do a handstand actually when you are listening to this and you tag it with a handstand uh photo that could be pretty cool too so maybe carl can give

you a quick little tip on what your technique is if you post a picture of your handstand no doubt would you be open for that yes yes they can also hashtag freestyle connection all together and I'll definitely find you there. Anything you need, I'll always try to give my two cents. Awesome.

Well, Carl, I appreciate it, man. And have fun this week at the games. Yeah, thank you for having me, man. Boom shakalaka. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed having a workout

during the episode and having my back and neck in alignment the entire time and having Carl put me through a few different exercises. It's important to think about how we use our bodies throughout the day, throughout everything we do. It's the most important thing we we use our bodies throughout the day, throughout everything we do. It's the most important thing we have, our bodies and our minds.

So go ahead and keep practicing what Carl talked about. Make sure to check out his book. Check him out on Twitter, and he's got some amazing cool things on Instagram as well. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends. Head over to schoolofgreatness.com. Check out all the show notes, images, videos of what we talked about today from Carl and myself. And share with your friends on Twitter, on Facebook, post a picture on Instagram, and tag both me and Carl if you like this. I appreciate you guys so much. And make sure to always do something great. Tell me I know I feel like I'm falling and falling and falling

Just give me something to love Release me, release me Please, please I do not want to die