Form vs. Function: What’s Right and What’s Wrong
Michael Hughes
Welcome to the Gymnazo podcast where you get to peek behind the curtains of what it takes to create and run a seven figure fitness facility that ranks in the top 5% of boutique fitness studios for revenue. But to be honest, that’s the least important thing about us. Founded by me, Michael Hughes Gymnazo has created an ecosystem of services that blend performance with restoration techniques, and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by donors, Paden, and myself and our top coaches. This podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results, to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online. And in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional, or fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results. Welcome back to the Gymnazo podcasts. I’m your co host, Michael Hughes with CJ Calista and we are diving into a topic that’s kind of like nature versus nurture. You know, we’ve had that conversation a lot in in life, you know, like are, are you good? Because you’re good or because yeah, the genes that you have just make you a rockstar? Well, this is a kind of a similar topic in a sense that we’re talking form over function, and then the abstract of spherical awareness. So I’m really excited how we’re going to dive through this process of thinking of this from a client standpoint, from an athlete standpoint, and from a trainer standpoint of is there a right and wrong way to move? Is there a good and bad exercise where that knee goes in a squat a lunge where the case is a reach? Should we say Oh, watch out or you know what, you’re just doing a good job moving through your body, keep on just doing your thing. So we’re going to unpack that, have some fun doing it, bring a lot of different perspectives into it and really appreciate see Jays thought on this because there’s a kind of a special announcement in a sense, not full unveiling, but something coming up that I’m excited for him to chat about. So starting this thing thing off is, was I when I went through my educational, formal, quote, unquote, educational process as a certified personal trainer, even in my Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology, it was like, Okay, this is how the body should move. It’s been case studied, it’s been journaled. It’s been medical reviewed, and here is the evidence based practice of things to do. And as a naive, like, Okay, you’re the professor on the student, you obviously know more than I do, and have a vast amount of knowledge on human function. Great. So I trained that exact same way. This is how the nice post track over the toes This is how the elbow is supposed to be aligned with the shoulder and a benchpress. This is how the spine should be stacking, etcetera, etc, etc. And it was effective. It worked. But I found out and what I want see just a thought process on is how limited is that approach?
CJ
Well, I think first of all, fitness is not just lifting weights. But I feel like we all think that we need to lift weights in order to be fit. Then there’s other styles out there that don’t need any weight at all. But when we’re learning, perfect form, you know, for a squat or a lunge, a lot of times it’s with weight, especially when we’re testing somebody initially to see if they can do it. But we don’t really have a starting point of how this person moves through space, we, we have an ideal view of how bones should be stacked from the foot to the ankle, to the knee to the hip, the spine, the shoulders, the elbows to the wrists, especially when you have very complex lifts. And those lines and those, essentially, the geometry of the motion needs to make sense in order to move the most efficient way possible, and effective way possible, and the safest way possible. So I think it’s very important that we learned that initially, we learned those little stages of how these how the arms should be in line with the torso and the torso and learned the hip and the shins and whatever else, depending on the motion. But I think we ceiling ourselves, we cap ourselves off at that point saying this is how we should move. But really, this is how we should lift in this specific motion pattern with this kind of weight with this kind of intention. Like if we’re going to do a power clean, or we’re gonna do a back squat, or a new front squat or overhead press with this piece of equipment. This is how it should look to be the most efficient way possible. But what that doesn’t, what we’re not considering in that instances. How does this carryover to this person’s lifestyle, their overall vitality in life and their expression to their movement, if we’re limiting them to just these lifts to build the strength that they’re coming in to build, but they actually want to come in for so they can live a more functional and free lean moving life. There’s a There’s a bridge that needs to be built there. And it comes from the client to the coach interaction, which is to understand, what is this person’s best form look like? What is their best form that they’re capable of getting to right now to make their motion the most efficient? And are we always looking for the efficiency? Or are we looking to expose their boundaries of awareness in terms of the reaction? Or when the environment isn’t perfect? Are they able to still lift their kid up on their shoulder when they’re on the side of a hill versus solonius? shouldering a sandbag when their feet are neutral? And their spine is straight? Does that actually carry over? I think, in some instances, sure. If you’re lifting a lot of heavy weights, and you’re doing it very linearly, and very intentionally, sure, you’re gonna develop quite a bit of strength and those linear lines. But at what point now, does your body say internally, that it can’t actually go through a range of motion or a specific rotation, and then lift this weight up and put it up on a shoulder something that is way more of a survival skill, or you’re saving your kid off to the side of the hill was about to go off the edge? Come back here, right? I think that visual is very important, because you’ll probably have the strength to do it. But did you end up hurting yourself doing it because it was an imperfect form, and your kids 40 pounds? And you just took it from the side and lifted up on your shoulder? I think that we need to consider what are the positions and what are the actions that the person is going to actually visit in real life, and then base their program and their the form corrections and cueing off of how they present their motion. But we do need to have an understanding of what the perfect sense is was perfectly straight line. So we have a reference point, we have a form that we can be extrapolating from, but not to say it’s shooting that we need to do that exact form every single time. Maybe if we’re going for maximal loads, this is the way we need to do it. But for submaximal loads, what if we just have a lot of variety of options on our form and queuing based on what the person needs?
Michael Hughes
I think you said it really, really well, from a standpoint like yes, the joints can have an optimal path that relatively speaking that we’ve kind of understood, you know, we know that that the knee is gonna have less relative rotation than the ankle and the hip joint, we’re not going to the knee is gonna have a way more flexion in it than the ankle joint, we’re gonna go know that the elbow and the knee are relatively similar joints, where the hip and the shoulder are relatively similar joints. So I think that’s a really important piece that I think we all need to really grasp that. I mean, at a at a pretty low, I would say like an 85% level of understanding, you know, to be kind of training, the evolutionary process of the human being for the lifetime success of movement. Because in this linear function of what we were taught, we’re really limiting the amount of ability that we have. So form is very like, this is the way you have to do it. It’s like filling out a form on any DMV sheet. What’s very defined on what you can or cannot say, because the box is defined those those things, versus here’s an open paragraph opportunity to fill out forms. Oh, well, let me just see what’s what’s possible. And what I like about this function over form commentaries, like wait a minute, form says, this is the way to do it. But life says, this is the way it needs to be done. And the body is this in between pieces, how I see the bodies, you’re in between peace, okay, well, what should I do in my Skerton certain state of being, which changes, it’s really like, when I wear like wedding clothes, wedding seasons coming up, you know, it’s like, when I wear those, those loafers shoes that look real sweet, I move differently. But when I’m in my training shoes, it’s like the world is my oyster, I can do whatever I want. It’s really, when I’m when I want to tuck in a shirt. It’s like, Oh, alright, I gotta have a little more shoulder swagger, you know, but when I’m sure it’s untucked, yeah, and I’m, I’m really kind of having fun with this thought process, like, life dictates things so differently. And I believe that we should have the biggest cornucopia of opportunity from joint segments to sequencing of, of motion patterns available from good form, traditionally, and even bad form, traditionally, because, like you said, especially being a dad, there’s moments where my kids like, don’t know that the street with cars coming is very dangerous. But the street with no cars coming is not dangerous at all, actually. But there’s this magical line called the sidewalk that they have to stay on. Well, what happens when they run out? And I have to make a decision quickly, without thinking where’s my form? And is it good or not? And that’s I think there’s a really kind of interesting topic of conversation. It’s like, if we always train one way, Does that, does that limit our availability in another way? And therefore do we only understand that one way as good and therefore repeat, good, repeat good, repeat good But we’re limiting the factor of Wait a minute. What else?
CJ
Yeah, no, I think it’s, it’s a kind of the epitome of of my practice I’m gonna explore in my practice, but I do have conditioned thoughts of what I should be focusing on or more. So now what I can be focusing on. And the more I realize that I can shift my awareness and my focus from opening to have, okay, my knee on top of my foot, or where’s my head in reference to my foot, my head, my head over my foot, there’s ways that I can help to find better balance, better stability, and more leverage to lift heavier weights, where if I was, let’s say, there’s 106 pound kettlebell in front of me, there’s infinite ways I can lift that thing up. Infinite. Tell me, there’s no because I will, I will go into exhaustive list right now. My pinky, my index finger, my whole fist, my two arms, I get through a forearms, and they’re like, grabbing, like, there’s just so many ways to lift jaw, oh, man, you watch DJ Americana, and doing some of that primal training back, and stuff. And so like, that’s the kind of thing that helps to build a more robust set of knowledge that we can use as a collective saying, these are cues that you can use versus this is the cue that you should use for this, I think the should side needs to be less focused on and more of, you can do this. And this is some sensations or things that can arise and here’s potential gains from it. I’m not a huge guy on an exhaustive list of uh, here’s your benefits, here’s your gains, and now go do it. It’s more, so I’d like you to try this. Because I know it’s gonna help you out. And I want you to reflect back at me what you experienced. Because if I’m going to tell you what to feel what to do, that’s what you’re going to experience and feel. And then you may get stuck there and not know how to think for yourself on those moments when your kids running into the street. And you just say, Okay, I need to have my arm in line with my spine and my arms and my sides, and I need a pump, you don’t have time to think about that your body is just reacting, your mind is responding, essentially. So how do we set our body up to better respond to life’s chaos, you explore more pathways of doing the same motion better. But if you’re in the process of saying I’m trying to build my max squat, I’m trying to be the best bench presser that I can be personally, there might be certain cues and corrections that can help you do that faster. But if again, if that’s your if that’s your intent is not necessarily for life circumstances, it’s for this event, then there needs to be more specific cues, because there might be rules that say you can’t do it this way, you have to do it this way. It’s very true. So now you’re in a confined space, not as a confined space, but a confined set of rules, that now you have to lift off of which I’m all for to because you restrict yourself from all these possibilities, you’re going to experience sometimes something very specific, or be now in a competitive level where everybody’s doing something very similar. And so now you can be like, Oh, well, this person did this. So they lifted heavier, this person did this, or they didn’t go as heavy. So that person is the strongest, but this person could be the strongest like you get into this kind of argument of what they did differently.
Michael Hughes
It’s like form is trying to fit us into this function of this is how fitness should be. In reality, what you’re what you’re what you’re saying is no, no fitness is everything. Everything. It literally everything. And traditional fitness has said no, no, this is what fitness is.
CJ
And I think that’s probably why a lot of people don’t go into it because they just I can’t do it that way. Right? Yeah, I’m in too much pain. I can’t do this. I can’t do that. I shouldn’t do this. My doctor says shouldn’t do that. Again, we’re in this should shouldn’t should not. What about you? What do you think? I think every person has their own little cues that give their body. But some are probably more effective and efficient, and others are just masking or helping you compensate better, which may not be the best thing either.
Michael Hughes
Someone, I think it was Gary Gray who said this to me says Michael, there’s no such thing as a bad compensation. Excuse me, the word compensation is on a bad word. Is it a good compensation? Or is it a bad compensation? And life is literally filled with compensations? There’s a right way to do it that is optimal for complete joint health across the board. And then there’s just Well, that’s good enough. And I think that’s how we live life is that’s good enough. And I think that’s where training conditions should really be. Except for those cases that are literally sports specific activity specific. Where there’s rules, right? There’s rules on how to do do stuff. But in reality, the body is very good. And but can we leverage the mechanical advantages of each joint and know how to actually do it. And when we train function, we can do that. We can train form. I think we can’t do that to the same degree, because it has to be in line with where we’re at. I remember in track and field I ran track and field for six years, seventh grade all the way to 12 And we had a really good team for our local school like we were competitive, you know, we went to or we went to state, we didn’t win it, but we got the opportunity to go in California. And that’s a pretty big state. So I was pretty, I was relatively impressed. But a lot of the form on running as we really kind of unpacked gate, right. And I think that’s a really a kind of Hot Topic, at least in the trainer world, is really understanding how gait mechanics work, because it’s kind of the Holy Grail, you know, it’s one of them, really. And it was just pump your arms faster. And I remember doing drills sitting on the grass, flexed hips, both feet in front of like, you’re going to do a seated hamstring stretch, and just pumping your arms. Again, this is how you run faster, you can get more upper body leverage from pumping your arms faster. And the one thing and I totally agree with that. But the one thing that I disagree with now is don’t move your spine. Keep it pretty still, you can let it move a little bit. But it’s really just arm pump. Elbows, Dr. Ford back, you know, my coach described it as, throw an elbow into the wall behind you and lick your ice cream cone. Because he’s like, Yeah, I just remember that. So back, and then thumb up, right? Like you’re going to eat an ice cream cone. And that’s how you run faster. And we did that ad nauseam. But now we’re like, wait a minute, don’t the elbows connect to the shoulder blade and the shoulder blade through the thoracic spine? And isn’t the thoracic spine much more powerful than all those things combined? And should we rotate that? And you look at things like yeah, that kind of makes sense. Anyway, so that’s that kind of this evolutionary like tech, like we’re understanding more about the body. But it hasn’t changed, relatively speaking in our, you know, several decades of being on this planet. But our understanding of how it operates has certainly changed. And form is now being rewritten. But there’s this fight of like, oh, wait a minute, that’s not peer reviewed? I would say that’s gonna be bad. When really shouldn’t we just say that what is painful is bad for that person in that moment? Should we say discomfort is bad for that person in that moment, we should avoid that. But we should still explore all the possibilities of what is not painful with this bigger notion. And this is a big piece. And if you’re listening right now, I think this is the biggest piece of these from my context is good today. Does it mean good tomorrow? Non painful movement today? Does it mean the lifetime of pain free motion tomorrow? Oh, my form feels great. I get it. But are you destroying the system faster? Destroying the wrong word? Are you using the system’s bandwidth resources faster. So that when you’re in your later part of your life, you still have the same amount of function relative towards that period of your life.
CJ
Libya, for example, I think that just to visualize this a bit better. You’re a runner, go run on trails, and we feel pretty dang good. And you’ve taken a few running seminars, you under a few different ones taught you about running mechanics, and a lot of it, let’s say it’s teaching you a lot of rigidity, stiffness, and use your arms and your legs. And then you go to another seminar that says, hey, let’s use your arms and your legs, but drive it through your spine. And we’re gonna funnel it through your spine, and you’re trying to essentially grab bits and pieces from all these seminars to run better. And now when you’re running, you’re thinking about all these things while you’re running. And you’re so focused on doing your run, that you’re never fully experiencing your run. But you feel fine. But man, that running is kind of getting you exhausted, that you’re not actually feeling energized at the end, right? You’re really getting a runner’s high. You’re just I gotta get my running in, my phone was good. And I’m set. And now, three years down the road, you’re having plantar fasciitis, some knee pains, and occasional lower back discomfort here, and they’re not inhibiting you from running, but you’re like, I’ve run into his or coming to an end, I think I’d maybe have another 510 years. And then I’m gonna need a knee surgery. I’ve had conversations like this with multiple people, like I think about dining room to get my hip redone. And like, well, how are you? How have you been running? And so I’ve been working on my form and all these things. And I would I would have fall into what I think people fall into is these words, we think they have a definition, but it’s just relative to how we define them. Like what is form? What is good, what is bad, those are all very loaded terms and how I see good form, how you see good form, though, we might have trained the same place, we express that differently and coach it differently and cue it differently. Some of us are authoritative, like this is the way it must be done and sort of saying, Hey, this is the way it needs to be done. But today we’ll kind of make some modifications. I think we’re run into a rut is that we’re getting so tied up into what these words what we think they are when they’re just In a way that is pointing towards the truth of will, how do we define form? Form is like a structure. But in some cases it’s a position. In some cases, it’s multiple body parts in a position versus one. And in other cases, it’s your tension in your position needed to activate muscles and squeeze your core and squeeze your glutes and grip grip the floor. Regardless, it’s all cues that we’re giving our body doesn’t our body know how to do all these things naturally, if we just sat, let’s say is a, it is running is ran more, instead of focusing so much on the correct form, you just feel for what better efficiency feels like and you explore a little bit without exploring and going outside of what you know, you only keep reinforcing what you know and what you do. And in that is, where dysfunction can arise. Because you’re doing the same thing in the same way. And often, and then consistently over time, your body fat really is going to form to that way of moving. If you run rigid, your fascia will form rigidly around you, because you’re telling your body to be stiff and and to lock in. If you don’t have any tension, your system uses all flash at what you’re putting wobbling your head around. And you’ve probably seen some funky running form, right? But who’s to say that’s bad? Like we see them like, oh, that’s bad form, I can help them so much. Like how many? How many coaches out there? How many trainers out there are walking around town going, I could fix that? Oh my gosh, that’s a bum knee, like you get caught up in seeing from a certain lens of how things should be without recognizing or asking the question. How do you feel? And what? What do you sense, maybe you maybe you’re not experiencing 10 discomfort. But maybe it’s because you’ve never pushed yourself to the edge where that discomfort would arise. And so it’s happening over 30 or 40 years, and now your toes out walk is now hurting your ankles and your low back. But for the past 30 years, not really anything here and there, little little things popping up. But without the exposure to now going to toe in walk or some internally rotated squats or lunges, your body never has the opportunity to balance itself out. So you fall back into your old structure. And I think that’s how that’s what happens with practicing really good form for sacrum a better word is whatever your good form is, you’re just going to think that’s the way you need to do it and should do it. And when you fall out of line from that form, I Oh, no, this is bad, I’m hurt myself. And then your body expresses that emotion physically. And mentally eat yourself up, I did bad form. I took a video of my squat, my knees were wobbling a little bit who said that knee wobble is bad. What if it’s your knees trying to find a better path between your ankles and your hips. And it just takes you five or six sets of that to then straighten that out over time. Versus Oh, that’s bad. And that we need to fix this. And now you try to put yourself into a box and the straight lines. And they your knees move in a straight line. But now your hips and your ankles are like I don’t like this. Can your knees feel great though? There’s a trade off there. And I think it it comes down to the exposure of of exploration or the capacity of exploration you have within your within your movement practice. And with your coach too. If your coach is having you do the same thing in the same way for multiple months, and then years in a row. What we’ve seen and when I speak from my instance, what I’ve seen is that people come in now they’re in a box and how they think you should move. And they look like they’re moving like a box versus moving like a ball. I want to see people move around like a ball and roll around and be free versus a box. And now they’re stuck. Right?
Michael Hughes
And the move is a clunk and a clunk and a clunk and moves. But yeah, not the not the not the not the flow that the human. Not the flow that I believe physics provides us. I think that’s a really important thing, wind, water, it’s a flow, get find something and it moves around it. And I think I feel that our body has that exact same capacity, if we train it, to have it. Like we can train our bodies to do anything. Like what we thought was impossible, physically, human body physically was just proven. And it continues to be disproven. Now there’s certain things that physics may still say flying like Peter Pan is still going to be an impossibility. But we thought running under four minute mile wasn’t wasn’t possible. Now I know that’s a pretty big difference in physics. But well, let’s see what another few centuries gives us impossibility. But having that open mindset is saying like I believe that we need to provide versatility, a possibility angulation opportunity with this mindset that we need to increase our mechanics, from joint segment to joint segment to joint segment versus just what a joint or what a series of joints is, is doing. Because when a knee goes in or knee goes out on a squat, there’s a benefit on both and there’s a con on both pro and con on both. When we do an overhead squat versus a single straight leg deadlift there’s a pro in common between those different mechanics, when we throw a ball with our right foot in front of the robot or left foot in front, whatever the throw is, there’s a mechanical difference, and one’s more leveraged. And once one’s not
CJ
one, you’ll probably throw the ball further. And one, you probably need to be able to access that position in case you, you have a, you don’t have a perfect throw opportunity.
Michael Hughes
Right, exactly. And I love that about the game of baseball, because that also played a lot, sometimes you throw off your dominant leg, sometimes you throw off your non dominant your opposite to your throwing arm to the non opposite of your throwing arm, both plays have to be made. And life is the same way. Sometimes you have to lift a suitcase out of that escalator opportunity that you’d like, oh crap, what’s happening, the wheel got jammed in the thing in one way or a different way. Sometimes you have to go just climbing around a stream and realize, Oh, crap, there’s a rock that’s in a bad position, I want to land on this leg, but I can’t. And it’s sloped just slightly with a very degree to the left. That’s not pronation, when you need to be protonating, the body can still do it. But if you don’t train it to access that, again, that I love the mental key parts like oh, that’s bad, I shouldn’t do that. When the body says, Bring it on, give me a shot, give me a shot and our mental killing. And then it goes to guilt. And it goes to shame that I’m too old for that. I’m not trained for that. I’m even too young for that.
CJ
What teaches that mindset is, it’s our way of training, right? It’s our way of training, we put them in a box. So now their thinking is in a box, you said something so beautiful about water. And I think what we’re leading to is, water takes the shape of its container. If we’re mostly water, and we’re putting ourselves into a box, how beautiful is water in a box versus water in a sphere. Water is spherical was it in a sense, so if you put it in a box, and you just set it, put it in the sphere and you set it, you can roll that? Let’s say it’s like a glass sphere half filled with water and you roll that thing, you can see that water slosh around in different ways that it’s never done before you got a box, you’re gonna slide that box, that water’s gonna stay pretty. I mean, if you give force, it’ll slosh a little bit, but it’s gonna all kind of settle back into its rigidity. What I’m getting at is, if we move ourselves like that, and we’re, we explore that freedom, what’s above us what’s beneath us, what’s the size of us what’s around us. And we don’t put ourselves into limited cues. But we use those cues as guideposts or the form as guideposts from which to then extrapolate from or go deeper into, we’re going to provide those opportunities where when you are looking at Rock and going, Oh, that’s a, I don’t know, if I’m gonna go to land on that you’re not considering all the joint angulations and pronation. If you’re an average Joe, you’re thinking I have left on a box before that was a little wobbly. Maybe I’ve jumped from a Bowser on there bozhou I think I can do this. And you set up, your body’s gonna organize and worry about all that pronation and wrote in rotation and stability and flexion. Because you’ve experienced it in your practice the notice of the randomization all the time, and not to say the variety all the time. But the intent with which you’re practicing is now open to experience. If, you know, if you’re if you’re out of pain, and your goal is to stay out of pain, you’re probably not living a risky enough life. But when you get into pain, what do you do about it? Do you sit and do nothing? Or do you try to explore what may have caused like if it’s not an impact injury, let’s say you’re just out, running around on the beach, playing the dogs throwing the ball in the water and you just jump in the water and you run around like oh, it’s stuck on a rock and roll my ankle a little bit. My hips kind of gunky. And on my shoulders kind of gunky. Does your thought go I should not have done that. I’m never gonna do that again. You’re so stupid. Why did you do that you’re like 50 years old man shouldn’t be messing around like this and playing around like a kid. Or the other side of the mindset which is like, damn, roll my ankle again. I felt like I was like 14 running around in the water. That was really fun. I make sure I’m gonna recover and come back. So I can do that again. How can we do this to your mindset? I
Michael Hughes
completely agree. And it’s really conditioning. It’s We condition ourselves either from a macro or micro standpoint on yes or no, um, you said it well, I’m not a kid anymore. You could be movement wise if you want it to be. You know, yes. Again, there’s there’s injuries out there court actions that really limit are bought and I get it but from the vast majority of people, it’s a mindset limitation and based upon a box of form that is right or wrong. Besides exploring this possibility of saying no, your tissues literally have the capacity to grow and to not grow or to you know to grow in size or shrink in size from a wave standpoint right. Through your entire life. It never stops. Never. Yes, Bones cannot be taken away in terms of yield. You can’t remove an arthritis. Again, you can shave it down. I know there’s procedures out there, do this but from a sneeze keep your same parts like that. Let’s keep working. Let’s keep exploring what you can do. And I love that about this kind of function standpoint is like, no, if that’s an if if your knee says don’t do that great, then still explore what it can do. Keep pushing the possibilities. And it’s tough. Because if you don’t have a trainer who thinks like that, it’s tough. I get it. Magazines aren’t talking about that. Social media is not talking about that, you know, we’re talking about high gas prices. And that no, no, no, I’m thinking about the internal machine of their lives, saying, let’s keep you running for the day until the last beat of your heart versus not my time’s done. It’s like I’m retired, you know, retiring from movement? No, retiring. No, no,
CJ
that’s like saying, I had breakfast I would never eat after eat breakfast again. I like you still gotta eat. So
Michael Hughes
you know. So I get it. You don’t? You know, things are painful things are tie. This is why I’ve been doing it for a long time. I was a big runner. And now my knees are shot, I still understand. But we had. And that’s what I love about our thought process. And it’s still being evolved. Is this process like, no, no, we know what you can’t do. That’s not what’s most important. We know, you know, it’s, it’s like, to me that’s form saying this is what you should do? Or this is what you don’t do those things. Were functioning No, no, this is the possibilities. Let’s find that one we’ve had people love about what we do here is that we have people with massive compensation limitation patterns. But we still find a way for success. Because we’re exploring the different angulations that are possible and the spherical potential of what the body has you mind unpacking that, for us? Like what do we mean by spherical training spiritual movement potential.
CJ
It’s essentially a framework from which to explore a spherical awareness is understanding in some way, like an inner standing not just like seeing it and reading like, oh, yeah, makes sense. But actually embodying it, which we’ll get to, but we have a top of our body of a bottom or a body, from head to our feet, you know, we have a right side to a left side, we have a front to a back. And so if we can become aware of not just like the individual muscles in there, but areas of our body. When I’m saying sphere, I’m thinking about like kinda this webbing that surrounds us internally or our fascia. And these fascial meridians essentially move in different lines, or pads that aren’t just linear, they’re diagonal, they’re spiral, they’re compressed, they’re expanded, they go through every nerve in our body, blood vessel, bone, ligament, tendon, muscle, it’s everywhere, connects everything. So if we can have an awareness by embodying the structure, this form that we’ve been gifted from birth, this fascial webbing, if we can pull that apart in different ways, elongate it from top to bottom, elongated front to back, elongated side to side, essentially giving our body space to expand or explore in our sphere. Imagine that you’re in this giant bubble with bubble boy, and you have a top of your bubble, you have the size of your bubble up front and back of your bubble. Well, our body has this invisible barrier rounded, that is a giant sphere, nobody can deny it, if you reach your hands out to your sides. And then slowly take them over your head, you created a curve and arc, that’s kind of the top half of your sphere. And then if you were to do the same thing from the sides of your body down to your feet, that’s the bottom half or bottom arc of your sphere. And if you rotate your body and do the same thing high and low, it creates this kind of circular, spherical shape around you. And that’s essentially all of the potential of your movement in one place and space. So if you’re standing right where you are, there’s infinite possibilities within that sphere of how you can move, you can reach, you can kick, you can drive your hip, you can reach an ear, like think about all the possibilities that you can do as a human of movement. You walking upstairs, you opening a door, I don’t know reaching for something on a shelf. I don’t think
Michael Hughes
people can really grasp that because like, they don’t know the possibilities.
CJ
Just being honest, it’s like a giant sphere around you, but what do you do with it. So what we’ve created or what was coming out will be a spherical movement course that is not an exhaustive list of movements. But it’s essentially a way to help you embody embody your sphere. So your body has better opportunity to make a more sound choice of movement. Obviously, there’s things like you gotta do it quickly. You got to be able to change direction, you got your agility, you got your speed, you got your mobility or the access of that range. You’ve got your endurance, muscular wise, you get your muscular strength, all these things, these fitness components fit inside of your sphere. It’s what you do inside of your sphere with those components that’s going to help you continue to expand your availability or your ability, like everything is theoretical until we do it. We could think like, Oh, I see somebody doing a overhead press. I could do that. But you’ve never done a single arm PowerBook overhead press, your body doesn’t actually know what that feels like what that experience is full bodied. You go grab the paper like, Oh, I feel it. Yeah, it can be a very deep experience. You bet. Yeah, I’m feeling my triceps and my pecs. It’s, it’s just a simple like way of looking into what you’re doing. But with our spheres, essentially, what we’re looking at is gifting our body the nutrients of movement, it’s calling for, without saying that we need to restrict all these things and just do the standard lifts that we’ve been told and fitness that are most important. We do our lunges and pushes and poles and squats and certain lifts, right, or balance work, it’s, that’s all important. Those are all guideposts of what to do with your life. But we need to consider what are the positions that you enter into your life. And you can have this spherical awareness while you’re training. And now you just heard the origin overhead press, but I’m going to like rotate and try to touch this part of my bubble. Ooh, that was really tough. I can’t do that with the 20 pounder, I needed to do maybe a 10 pounder. Oh, now I have a new motion data point in my sphere that my body physically experienced, that now I can use in real life, which it may not be I mean, reach exactly at 45 degrees to my right side with a 10 pound weight. But I’m gonna be reaching for something off the shelf while I’m carrying my kitten one side that my body’s like you can do this. And so it has the ability to shift into communicate to your feet and to your hips, just doing a reach, it’s not just your arm, that hand pulled on your fascia that’s attached to your core, to your organs to your hip down into your foot. We don’t need to necessarily consider all of that all at one time. But we need to realize that that’s internally what is going on. And if we’re not ever considering what is internally going on, until we’ve got that discomfort or that pain, because of what we just did, we’re missing the point. It’s not about that sensation of pain that you had on my shoulder, I think I got some impingement, I got frozen shoulder, there was a lifetime of things before that, that led to this point. So now if you can experience it go well, how do I set myself up for success later in my life? Or next week? Or three months from now? Now I got it impinges shoulder, well, what are the things you can do physically? And are you actually willing to do them? Most people, their physical practices, I could do this until they can’t. It’s thinking it. And then hope now, I’ve lost the ability. It’s like you don’t use it, you lose it? Well, you physically have to use it. Use your body, use your fascia, use your sphere and be aware of it in order to continue using it. Or else you’re going to lose the ability, meaning you’re going to reach for something and you’re like, Oh, the shoulder just didn’t quite have the communication it needed to the rest of my core and the whole tissue surrounding my shoulder to do this successfully. I just did this. And it was like the one rep that was the last straw on the camel’s back. Actually, I’ve never done this before. Oh, that motion was bad. That’s a that’s a primal mindset. Yeah. We got to get back to saying well, what can we do? And can we continue to practice it? Your physical practice just as important as your, as you’re, as brushing your teeth, is just important as showering. It’s just important as eating. It’s a physical practice. But we’ve we’ve kind of put physical practice in this box of fitness. And this is how physical practice is. But we know there’s a lot of other physical practices out there. There’s martial arts. There’s the tight cheese. There’s
Michael Hughes
so just to pick up, reward him yeah, just pick up sports pick up balls and go do some paddleboarding. Yeah.
CJ
Go be physical is all the physical practices, that is fitness that can contribute to it. But we can’t lie to ourselves and say I’m going for a hike. My cardiovascular endurance is getting way good. Right? Well, have you pushed your cardiovascular endurance? Do you try to run up the hill? Or actually out of breath ever? Did you try to add speed to what you’re doing? Let’s like, get back to the generic comment too, because I love what he is doing with unconventional training, which is if you can do something without weight. Can you do it with weight, that strength training
Michael Hughes
100%, anything, anything,
CJ
anything, and then not just going oh, well, I did it with my body weight, I’m going to try to do 60 pounds. But we should probably work on progressively overloading that thing specific to you. And consider that way around arises in that practice. But be willing to explore and go, Wow, I might not be doing the same thing every single day. But the intent with which I’m doing it is the same. I’m learning about my body. And that’s, I feel like that’s why we go through so much development as kids is we’re just you’re not visualizing the sphere. You are the sphere. You’re not like I’m in my body and I have all these thoughts and stuff. It’s like when did that get conditioned? Well once we started saying Hey, sit down Be quiet. Stop doing that crazy thing. You’re embarrassing me
Michael Hughes
pretty much school in a traditional desk setting. I have two kids five and three at least the time of this podcast and they literally use my living room as I love the game hot lava. Because the rug is hot, hot love and it’s the best game in the world. For Three year old, they jump from the coffee table to the couch to the entertainment center, and then down from the entertainment center on to an armchair. I’m like, my first is like, don’t do that. I’m like, Why? Why don’t do that. Because I’m afraid of them getting hurt. There’s this really cool thing going on on Instagram, these current currently is like, be very aware when your kids are doing something dangerous, carefully. They’re being dangerous carefully, and don’t stop them. And that’s the same way that we need to look at training and conditioning for all ages. And again, it changes based on based on the spectrum of what that quality is, when you’re doing something that’s risky, in a safe way. That is fitness. From now on. That is what fitness is welcome to the new age of fitness, continuing to expand your body’s capacity, even if it’s just resisting the downward trajectory of your body’s capacity. Right, that’s very important. Our bodies will eventually say I can’t do those things, I get it, but continue to keep as much as you have, by being risky in a safe environment. And if our training and conditioning education must model that it must, it has to model
CJ
when you put a disclaimer on that. Do this clash and explore your riskiness carefully with caution. Yeah, it’s basically yeah, it’s on you
Michael Hughes
know, it’s always on you, right. But it’s the same with how we how we grow a business, how we make more money, how we’ve raised our children, how we drive a car, because we’re late. We make decisions that are that are calculated risk. And we know that it’s a risk that if I’m late, I’m going to cut through this line in traffic. It’s a calculated risk. We do it all through life. Why don’t we apply that to our body? That’s to me so in encompass the sphere of possibility is really a visual mindset. Right. And it goes back to the Michelangelo drawing. I don’t know what the what the what the drawing is. But it’s that do with long hair and big old arm swoop and DaVinci Yeah, as a dimension. Michelangelo? Yeah, yeah. Thank you,
CJ
the trivium man,
Michael Hughes
yeah, apologize for my art history being off there. Obviously need more training in that. But it’s yeah, it’s like back then he’s like, wait a minute, look how the arm moves, look how the feet moves. And again, now we’re in the sagittal plane dominant world of training and conditioning, this is the way to look to make a muscle look better, versus a muscle function better
CJ
that and the fear of doing something with incorrect or bad form, relative that to their definition of it. And I think we as a collective, we’ve fed into this definition of form. And function is one thing, but form is multiple things. And I think needs to be based off of intent. And the action that you’re doing
Michael Hughes
in the knowing that a joint can be in literally a biomechanical, inappropriate way that could really damage ligaments really damage, you know, meniscus and connective tissue and Bursa, right. But if the muscle around that connective or that joint and up the chain and down the chain is strong enough, the joint will be just fine. Because the joint doesn’t take the stress, the muscle and fascial fascial lines do. But if we don’t train those muscles in that fascial to be competent enough in that joint bad position, then guess what happens? The joint gets chewed up, and the tissue around that joint get chewed up. So it’s really it’s really, yeah, it’s, it’s really saying, wait a minute, what can I do versus what can’t I do? And what is possible versus what is? Buy the book, and explore and I love it. I think this is a theme. It’s something that if you listen to this insight, yeah, obviously, we’re not talking about every case in point. But that’s not the point of this podcast. The point upon God pass is to understand like, wait a minute, there is something out there. And there’s even a resource coming out that says, Okay, wait a minute, I’m not really in tune with my imagination. Well, CJ is going to show show to you. He’s gonna say, Well, wait a minute, here’s, here’s here’s how to do it. I don’t want blue we have all the way. But here’s the balance.
CJ
You can’t you can’t never walk not walk around after the course and go, Yeah, I see. I see shapes and angles and stuff that I’m creating. It’s like you have an imaginary if a magical pen in your hand. And when you throw the rope, you’re actually drawing an infinity sign. And then without the rope, you still have that infinity sign always there. It’s just a path your body’s taking. I can’t, I can’t not sit here or walk around without visualizing the sphere that surrounds me. And then just randomly jump in and have some joy. It’s like I feel like a little kid. It’s like that’s the point. That that is what What is the benefit? Oh, you feel playful and joy again, inside of your confined imaginary sphere.
Michael Hughes
And that’s like my closing comments. That’s why Gymnazo is designed the way it is as a facility to be an adult playground. Because we don’t have adult playgrounds. The gym should be an opportunity for an adult playground of opportunity versus rigidity. It’s beautiful. Well, thanks for joining us excited to be back at the podcast table. This is Michael Hughes, out,
CJ
CJ good. Let’s go out.
Michael Hughes
Cheers. Pay off. Hope you guys enjoyed today’s episode. And if you did, please share it with your fitness obsessed friends and peers who are also navigating this world of fitness and trying to succeed the trends and misinformation. As you guys can see this podcast is basically a masterclass for trainers wanting to level up in their coaching skills, and their fitness business model. We launched this in 2020. Because you and your fitness tribe deserve to see an unfiltered look at all the aspects of what it takes to stand out as a next generation coach, and build a successful fitness business. So share it far and wide. And please, when you do do me a favor, take a screenshot of this screen and share it to your social media accounts and use the hashtag Gymnazo podcast that’s hashtag Gymnazo podcast that way we can see you and share your posts with our audience. And finally, when you’re ready to go to the next level as a coach or in your business, and to reach more people, please go check out gymnazoedu.com, we have put together the best 90 Day coaching program on the market for trainers who want to become a masterful practitioner and build a business that gives them the freedom and in fact, so let us help you do just that. We have online training and one on one coaching to guide you through a whole 90 Day certification. We even get you 20 of our clients live because it’s always better to work out your kinks on someone else’s clients than yours. But we promise you this, your clients will be blown away by the transformation our program will help you make you’ll be masterful at a whole new level and part of an incredible community of coaches worldwide, taking their skills to the next level. So if you thought today’s episode had some fire to it, and inspired you to take action, wait until you see what we deliver on this program. So just go to Janaza edu.com. And we’ll see you on the other side. Remember that turning your passion for fitness into transformation and sustainable business is critical to reaching the people and lives you were put on earth to help it matters and truly can make an impact in other people’s lives. So hope you do that. Keep sharing your passion and I will talk to you soon
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