Principles Based Thinking vs “Evidenced” Based Thinking in Fitness
CJ
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Gymnazo podcast. We are your hosts, CJ Kobliska,
Michael Hughes
and Michael Hughes.
CJ
And today we’re breaking down principles, strategies and techniques and understanding what is truth from what is not truth, how to integrate truth and principles into our practice with our clients, from different methodologies, different philosophies and things that we’ve learned in school, especially the studies that we were given, saying that this is the truth. How can we discern what is actually true in these studies and what is useful so that we can be using them in our own practice.
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 its owners 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.
CJ
Michael, let’s get this one started off with what is a principle?
Michael Hughes
When I look at a principle, and I’m gonna go from two different standpoints one was what I was kind of initially taught. And then now what I firmly believe is more true. A principle when I was going through basic, you know, Exercise Science, kinesiology was like, Oh, this is a, it’s just a something to anchor yourself to. And then base your training off of. And a lot of it was, hey, here’s a study, here’s a research paper, based upon this finding, now go do your training to mimic that finding, because it’s based upon a truth, or a statistical analysis of a group of people that is a guiding point. And like, okay, cool. So I’m gonna go brace my core when I go lift, because I gotta protect my spine, because this has to be this column that transfers energy, versus can move and absorb energy and move through it’s like versus rigid. And I got to protect it, because I’m gonna go lift weights. And that what I didn’t question Was that what the study was all about, and what was his focus and purpose, which is lifting versus functional outside movement. So so that was my first thought. Now, what I think about a principle is, is an undeniable root cause can’t go any deeper into the scientific field of understanding of that topic. Now, the way that we think about it, we break it up into three buckets. Physics, what are principles of physics? Not with movement, just with all physics, on this planet earth, that deep? Then we go into the biology and physiology what do we know as absolute truth that no one will even question or deny? In our field? Very simple. It’s a universal. No methodology says yes or no to it. It’s all Yes. And then behavioral science, which is a little harder one. But universally, who would we all say? Yes, people like to be encouraged more than being yelled at negatively right. Now, universalism. So I like to be negative. We’re going for the grand unified theory here on behavioral science. And that’s to me at what our principles, which is much harder now because you have to understand deep level science, but not at like this crazy, um, this ultra genius person who just does astrophysics, right? It just understand these factors. So to me, that’s what it principle is,
CJ
as brilliantly said, it’s like the ultimate truth. And I think one of the hardest parts is recognizing what is true, what is what makes a principal and for myself, especially, I wasn’t taught this in school, but I think it’s something that’s innate in every single human is that we can recognize when something is true. When something is real, when something is false, when something is fake, and a lot of times, I got confused with what’s real and what’s true. I rarely I really read something in a book, I really read something in a study and how I was presented material was it this is the truth read the study for what it is, without having the ability to discern parts of the things are true of the study. And parts of the study are just things that happened, but we don’t really know why they happened. Right? And a lot of studies are designed to test a hypothesis and and essentially come out with some kind of information that is useful for the future. And since graduating from Cal Poly and having this background in science and understanding what evidence based means, and, you know, looking at a longitudinal study, looking at something that was just short term or a small group, I didn’t really necessarily know, after completion of college, how to use this stuff in the groups of people that I was working with the individuals, I was working with high school students, elementary students going through wrestling, it was like, yeah, there’s there’s a lot of techniques and strategies that are given to us in field of fitness in the field of sport. And a lot of times, using those strategies in those techniques, leads to an understanding of a principle, something clicks, something is useful from one technique technique to another technique to another technique like, specifically, head pressure, if you have head pressure, you’re going to be better off with a technique. And the principal is having kind of your center of mass in a certain way, in order to direct an opponent. And so I became in this framework of direct experience to understand what a principal was versus what I was told, somebody gives me a technique a coach gives me a technique or strategy to use, and I tried to use it and doesn’t work for me. But I find a way to apply that technique or strategy in order to complete a takedown or an escape or just chain wrestling putting pieces together. So I think what’s missing from that side of being given a study and being given something in a textbook that says this is true, is what does it mean to us? And how do we feel about this, but not just the sense like, Oh, I’m reactive, but in a sense of, how can I use this to continue to better live my life or more fully live my life, I think if we can integrate principles of understanding, not only will it help ourselves, understand how to navigate this world, but help others find that path for themselves as well. So I know what kind of took that into a into a left turn in terms of what you’d said, but I think if we can come from this place of there are principles out there in nature, that are in biology and physics and in the behavioral and psycho psychological side. How can we recognize these principles? Maybe we can talk about some principles that we are recognizing as principles, or maybe they are partial strategies, and you mind sharing part of your journey into understanding what a principle is what truth is, or how you may discern it?
Michael Hughes
Yeah, that’s really something I’m gonna do a notepad here. It’s like principles, principles versus strategies versus techniques. And I want to, I want to give credit, to a huge mentor of mine, Gary Gray in the greater Institute, for really, for really, and it’s like, they gave me a present and said, just open it, and just see what happens. And they really provided me what what I actually turned it into dogma early in my career, which is not a good thing. And then realize, no, no, they didn’t give me a methodology. They gave me a way to think about methodologies. And it’s so interesting how I, as a human being wanted to attach myself to something that gave me this sense of confidence. And realize, when you attach yourself too hard to anything, you become, well, you don’t become self reliant, you become codependent. And therefore you’re always looking for the answer from that particular body of, of focus, and they’re fallible. They’re humans, they’re still studying, too. So hence, this concept of know, how do you break down thinking, versus just do what people tell you to do? From a study or from, you know, a magazine or an Instagram post? Right? So that’s the big focus. So I think a lot of what I learned in the beginning were strategies. Meaning, it’s a concept of putting together a lot of different truths, quote, unquote, truths or real things that were studied. And then let’s formulate something to go do about that. And going through school was a lot about like, we like worked a lot on equipment, like leg presses, and hamstring curls, and seated reach test with a sliding little metal thing on a bar right to measure these things. And, yeah, that’s real, it really is real. But where we testing a truth about human movement, meaning baseline, this is actually how joints move in real time in real life, or we’re just studying a way that it can move. And that’s what I didn’t know. And so the NIT, to me, that’s the difference. Now, here’s a strategy on how to make your hamstrings more flexible. But is it the truth of how they actually move in flexibility? And the answer is partially Yes. But not fully. Yes.
CJ
Let’s Can we can we apply that that idea that you just brought up Yeah. A principle being? How I view is like, there are two bones that can move and add a joint, you’re going to experience a movement, let’s say we’re talking about the knee into flexion. And how we’re taught is the truth of knee flexion is that the hamstring flexes? The knee? Right? And so if they say, Okay, we’re on a table, and then you put somebody on their back, and you lift your heel, yep, yep, that’s the truth. They just flex their hamstring. But are there? It puts the knee in flexion. But are there other ways to create knee flexion? And if we can see it from a wider lens, instead of just this muscle does this and that’s what it does? What are other ways the joint can get into that position? You know, what are the I think there are five ways that the Gray Institute shared with us that is that one bone moves or the bottom bone, we just approximate the top bone loose, so there’s some bone moves, or the proximal bone moves, there’s two ways. Or both of the bones move towards each other, creating the flexion, or both the bones are going in the same direction, but at different speeds. And that can go in one way or the other way. The distal bone of the proximal bonus and being faster. Okay, now we have a principle of a position and an action that is knee flexion, or a knee flexed position. And there are multiple ways to get there. Now how do we apply a strategy to create that same effect? How did you create knee flexion? This person is experiencing pain with knee flexion? Have we addressed those five ways? Are we going with one way that we were taught how the knee flexes right. And that’s the difference between a principle is that the knee can go through flexion?
Michael Hughes
True, true partial truth
CJ
in how we define it, like without the term flexion, the knee can still do that thing, right? It can still bend, right? But we give it a term. And then we give it a way of doing that term, right.
Michael Hughes
And then what I what I like about what I want, what we’re hoping to kind of put how people think is how to think right? So we can get into flexion to five distinct different ways. But the way we studied it in college, or in this study, whatever you want to say it only shows one way. So therefore, if that’s only one way and you’re not getting the result, there’s still four other ways that you can biomechanically test, and therefore have different muscle options to go after, or neurological pathways to go after to solve that problem. But it’s not scientifically studied. So therefore, well, it’s not backed. Well, it’s called observation of possibilities. And this is where we kind of want to go, I want to dive deeper. And it’s not just five different ways that the bone that the bones can move that knee joint, and therefore create performance or pain on the two ends of the spectrum. To keep it simple. There’s other dimensionalities of that motion pattern, there’s frontal plane motions, and transverse plane motions that still are incorporated in knee flexion, which is a very sagittal plane dominant dominance, the key word, not absolute. So that yes, the knee does move in the frontal plane, it that is an undeniable truth. And if you would like to argue that, then let’s just stand up and just shift your weight to your left or your right, and you realize that he does go through a valgus and Varus. But it needs ground contact, not open chain, which is very interesting, another variable that I hope it’s tested, and it also goes transverse plane motion. Now I know some people are about to cringe to say not and he doesn’t like to do that. And I’d say correct, but there’s in sync and add a sync transverse plane motion, when you’re talking about a joint pattern, the joints can or the bones can go opposite rotation of each other one going right one going left, which is probably what you should be cringing about, beyond a degree or or a few tops. And then there’s insync transverse plane motion, which is an absolute necessity for optimal performance and pain reduction. Have we thought about that, as an industry? And those are only part of the variables, right? We’re just still in the physics camp. We’re not even in the Bible. Actually, we did jump in the biological camp, because three dimensional motion is biological. And then we had to go into the big behavioral camp of do I even believe that’s a possibility. Even though it may be true, right? A lot of people believed the Earth was flat. And that was the that was that was their principal. But physics prove them wrong. So it’s very interesting. So I’ll stop there. In you know, what does that make you think in terms of like, you’re now this wrestling? Guy came right right out of college? And, you know, how’s that make you plan a process? Or what was your process for learning that, that here are deeper truths, deeper principles, that again, no one would argue those points.
CJ
There’s a few things I want to break down and initially, it’s the It’s the part that I’ve been told this is how the knee flexes, or this is the part that is open chain, you’re on the table and you know, put your hand on somebody’s heel, have their heel drive up. Oh, look, see they’re creating deflection. I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault. I don’t think anybody’s to blame. But I think it’s ourselves to deeply understand what we are in taking in terms of information. And then we can go from here, essentially, when we’re going to instructor, a professor, a teacher, and authority tells you tells me as a student, or an inferior or somebody who is learning, I’m an apprentice. This is how it works. It’s now my job to say, Cool, this is hinting at truth, I need to take this information for what it is because it is real. And it may be partially true. But I cannot regard it as the whole truth. Because I know there’s more to learn. Even, I need to put myself in their shoes, it’s like they’re still learning to hopefully, unless they’re in a fixed mindset and saying this is how the world works. And anything that goes against this, I just don’t touch, right. And there’s a different level of understanding. But as the student as the practitioner absorbing information, it’s our job to recognize how we perceive this information. And then what we do with it, there’s nothing wrong with seeing it as truth and then integrating and applying it. I remember going through grad student learning about the hip, everybody had hip stuff going on, I remember learning about the foot, everybody had foot stuff going on. And guess what, when I worked on somebody’s foot, somebody’s hip, somebody’s shoulder, they got better. But there was only a certain limit to that better to that progression to that new performance, that new threshold, because I was limiting the, the belief of this individual, this is the issue. And once we’ve solved this, we can go from there. Right? Now we’re not even go from there, like we’ve we found out. But typically, when you’re working on one part of the body is the body’s gonna hold something somewhere else, and it’s gonna be like a chase. And as soon as it becomes a chase, now, there’s a never ending threshold of confusion and frustration and going man, they just can’t solve this thing versus looking at the bigger picture and going, Okay, we’ve we’ve applied something that we understand as Okay, your thoracic, thoracic spine was limited. And so your knee was having to do more transverse plane movement. Now we’ve got your and it was out of sync, because your knees just kind of at the at the mercy of whatever your spine your hips are doing. We help your spine develop more motion, we help your hips develop more motion, your knee is now not moving funky. But now what comes up next, right, we can’t just end there. And so if I can, if we can understand that, there’s always more to understand, there’s always more truth to be shared and to be seen. Now we can start developing some kind of success with our athlete with our group of athletes. So it starts with how we’re perceiving information, and then how we’re relating that to the individual. And are we now telling them what to think? Are we helping them solve an issue that’s bigger than both of us? We’re just getting better. So that’s where my mind goes. First is that we need to understand what we’re taking in, and how we apply it, knowing that it is not the whole truth and can never really be the whole truth, because the whole truth is actual experience, not what you’re doing about it.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, one of the notes I wrote down here on my on my sketch pad here is that like we’re trying to learn more, and everyone who’s in this field is trying to learn more. But are we trying to learn more from the same variables in front of us, or encompassing more variables. And I think that’s what we’re really trying to talk about here is we have to continue to bring in more varied variables. And the best thing about it or at least a great thing about it is we’re trying to find what’s more correct. And we’re accepting the fact that we may be more wrong in that process. And as listened to more and more podcasts, and just kind of being inspired about this topic more like we cannot try to find information that proves us right. We have to find information that proves us wrong. Now, I’m going to take that away from the literature and into actual client in front of you application, because that’s what really matters.
CJ
I just had this conversation yesterday with somebody and try to prove myself wrong here. Yeah.
Michael Hughes
And I say that often. It’s really interesting. Like, as I’m in front of a client, and I know that you and I do the same thing and jumping in anytime. But it’s like, we’re like I tell them, because they’re looking at me like what are you doing? And by the time they’ve come to us, they’ve already gone through the traditional methods. And I’ve heard other practitioners in this movement field say the same thing, which is good, because they’ve already tried what they’ve what has been popular, marketed, understood from the general population. It’s not working. So what do they do? They keep searching. We’re doing nothing different. We’re still searching until we find the answer that we want, or that our body says I’m feel good, right. It’s this. It’s a really, really an amazing thing. It’s really me. So I say I’m looking at your movement, and I’m observing what I see. But you’re also telling me what you feel. We’re doing a scientific study. We’re scientists are mining for truth. Yeah. And their truth is what matters to them. That’s really what that honestly, it’s really, you know, I don’t care if your knees going in a certain valgus angle, if it doesn’t hurt anymore. That’s good. And that’s truth for you. And it’s, this is kind of a mess. A lot of people, it’s like, well, wait a minute, that’s not the right angle, I don’t care, I really do not care. As long as I know, in my experience, the knees not going to get further degra gated through the motion pattern. That’s good, because short term pain is not long term movement health. That’s also very, very true when you know, so But step one is step one, step 10 is step 10. The true study is that what do our clients feel like in 30 years? That’s the true study, you know, but Right, so, coming down, it’s like, we have to include more variables. And what I like to do is I’m gonna, I’m gonna put someone through a movement pattern, that I have an understanding of the biomechanical chain reaction of muscle events that cause motion patterns. And I know that from studying anatomy and physiology, and biomechanics, not mathematical biomechanics, applied biomechanics, to different things, and then start to understand what should happen, from my experience, and from what I know muscles do to joints. And then I will say this, this may hurt more. But what am I doing, I’m putting in a variable and seeing that the outcome, the outcome, and as, am I trying to hurt the person, no, I’m trying to understand their condition, their reality, their truth of their beim, biomechanics. And then I’m gonna say, Okay, I’m gonna do something here, because I want to make sure I’m correct. So I’m going to do a toe in a toe, and I know what biomechanical changes I’m doing, I’m gonna put your head over your foot, and I put your head up behind your foot, I’m gonna stack you, I’m gonna not stack you. And I want to see what happens because I’m trying to prove to myself and to your body, that I’m on the most optimal path keyword is optimal. Not correct. Because there’s no such thing as correct. That’s optimal, because that person literally had a femur fracture 14 years ago, and their bones not perfectly aligned. So therefore, your their mechanics are not perfectly and so I have to take it from an individual perspective, with a grand unified understanding that there is still a three dimensional motion that’s possible at that hip joint as an example. And that’s every session, every session is a scientific experiment on what’s on the variables that are in front of me, versus saying, oh, you should do internal external rotation from Russell because that’s what a study said. And therefore everyone fits into that paradigm. And I kind of want to start just don’t take this personally. But he slaps and people like, Come on, let’s, if I have woken up, then we can all wake up.
CJ
Yeah, the thing, the deal that comes up is that protocols are based off of averages from the extremes to the, to the non extremes to you know, what worked for most people. And I think, a lot of times these protocols aren’t actually looking at an individual and their story and how they got there, it’s looking at a dysfunction, or some specific part of their life or their their experience, whether it be pain, whether it be lack of range of motion, whether it be pure strength, we’re looking at a protocol for helping an individual get better. And we can get caught as practitioners just doing the protocol versus seeing how this protocol and this individual mesh, where do they emerge? Where can they work together? Where does this protocol not serve them, instead of getting the person to serve the protocol, let’s not get the individual to start the protocol for knee thing or a bad thing or a shoulder thing or lack of strength somewhere, let’s just go build the strength here. And it’s like saying, if we did a 3d maps of 3d movement analysis, performance systems for the like the lunge matrix itself, and we say, this is how the lunge matrix should look. And if you don’t look like this, it’s wrong, we need to correct you into this motion, there is a level of success, you’ll find getting somebody to fit into the mold of a lunge matrix, because it’s more three dimensional, it’s more applied principles. However, if we’re getting that person to fit the mold of what a lunge matrix should be, in our own mind, or our collective understanding of what it should look like. It’s now getting the person to serve the lunge matrix versus the lunge matrix to serve them. Or the whatever movement assessment you’re doing, right? You’re trying to get this person to fit. What’s the baseline, what’s the average, what’s the, what’s the high percentile, what’s the low percentile, we need to get you better? We’re now not working with the individual on a level of behavioral side, we’re trying to get them to fit the mold that doesn’t even look at their history, where they want to be, what their lifestyles currently like and all these other dimensions. We don’t just need to be specialists in all these fields that are to help this person but we can help this person understand their story better by providing our specialty, which is as trainers should be to connect the person with their movement and their intent with their action. And so it’s that conversation, it’s that the question of how does this make you feel, but also questioning ourselves? How does this look to us? And we need to recognize and discern our own judgments of what that should look like. And step back and go, What does this currently look like? Now we’re actually looking at truth, what is actually going on at the foot, the ankle, the knee, the hip, the spine, the shoulders in front of me. Now we can merge that with what these person shares they feel, which may be true, or it may just be a real feeling. A lot of times people share feelings or a sensation that is really there. But how they share it is not the truth. This really hurts me. Let’s break that down further, you know, what do you mean, it hurts, oh, I’m really tired. This is this is fatiguing my muscles, where if somebody says they’re hurt, I might have the thought of oh, we shouldn’t do that, that we got to avoid it. But how do we go deeper in the experience and then help to just discern the truth of the matter, which is I am sensing something in this area or this place, or I’m, I’m having this thought come up. All the sudden, we create an open channel for somebody to share their experience, and now connect with what they’re actually experiencing. And get beyond the judgment or the thoughts of this is bad. I have horrible bowel. How many times have you heard I have poor balance? Because somebody starts wobbling on on the lunch daily? Actually don’t have poor if you’re standing up, you got some damn good balance? Yes. Again, it’s the thought right?
Michael Hughes
Is even yesterday, clients like you, gosh, my balance is miserable. And I you know, I was just recovering from a cold and like, I’ve lost what I’ve been training for, am I okay, first of all, understand you had a cold. And balance comes from three different systems. You got your actual proprioceptive feel of the Earth around you balance one, you have your vision, balance, two, just have your inner ear. Do you have a head cold? Yeah, okay, well, one of those three systems was off, you close your eyes balance gets relatively harder. It’s like people, like, there’s this understanding, which I totally, I totally get, people just put their toast in the toaster and it gets toasted. They don’t understand how it happens, like input their
CJ
toast in the toaster.
Michael Hughes
Actually, that’s kind of actually how the fitness is. They’re putting toast in a toaster. Yeah, chill out guys. Or we get from a broader scope perspective. You know, it’s like, we get people who are joining in coming into the fitness industry under these very cool brand names with great marketing and great logos, orange concept and F 65. I don’t know one of those two, four things. And they get so excited about this behavioral aspect of working out which is so awesome. Behaviorally, go do something movement is relatively better than no movement. So you may degrade your or degrade your joints in the process. Fine, we’ll talk about that later. But the understanding of how they’re doing it, they have their their techniques is what’s driving their program. Their strategies are based upon principles that are not deep enough. And I think that’s what I’m gonna start saying principles, how deep do your principles go? Because it is a truth, but is it the truth. And then when you’re talking about things, like, you know, my mind immediately jumped to like spiritual spirituality, oh, you’re gonna get some fighting words going on there. But in terms of physics, we have a lot of things figured out. We really do biology, we have a lot of things figured out pairing those two things together, a little bit more challenging movement, we do not have a lot of things figured out. So we have to base things at least as close as we can to absolute truth. And that’s what I really love about Elon Musk. Is it physically possible? Okay, let’s try. And a lot of things 20 years ago, we didn’t think were physically possible. And now they are flight being one of those maybe 1015 years ago. And so we have to understand that what we’re talking about right now, may not hold the water in 100 years. Okay, I’m okay with that. But I’m going with what I got right now that delivers results. If it doesn’t deliver results, it’s Colin, if I can’t under if I can’t say why we’re doing this that matches the true principles of what I described earlier as podcasts, it’s gone. It’s gone. I don’t care. It has to be gone. Because it my ego doesn’t matter. It’s the result that’s in front of me. And when your results driven from a hope it’s from I mean, so as Orangetheory the results driven, I get it but from a holistic standpoint. Mind Body Soul. mechanics, good biology, good phys physiology and good behavior and good practices and long term long term, then, and those don’t fit that doesn’t hold it. And that sustainable results. Yeah, symbol results. But in long term we’re talking 1015 20 lifetime. And I think
CJ
results we need to understand further to is that results we think is a progression. I think that’s where my mind goes initially is like, oh, we need to keep progressing. We need to keep progressively overloading somebody, we need to keep getting deeper in our ranges of motion. I don’t think that’s the truth. I don’t think I think that’s a that’s a way to go and to recognize success and results. But results are more than I think at some level, they’re all quantitative, but how we’re studying that quantitative data. A lot of it is qualitative or subjective ly studied. Even if we have real numbers and measurements, it’s like it’s still subjective data. And it’s relative to the person to because you might be making physical gains, and getting physical results. But behaviorally, somebody’s going downhill. And there still are results, but they’re not necessarily positive outcomes. They’re the result is the effect that now this person is mentally unstable because of what they became attached to, which was the quantitative gains, the numbers analysis, I’m plateauing and I’m not finding success. Well, I can either learn to understand that there’s a certain threshold to hit and hold my client understand that or we can recognize that there are infinite ways that we can, we can observe results. And I think if we look at it from a holistic approach, it’s like, okay, well, if we look at those three buckets of behavioral sciences, physical sciences and Biological Sciences, what are we gaining? What is the result? Well, we have maybe a better connection with the physical forces are not afraid of gravity, we’re actually using gravity, we’re using ground reaction force, we are using mass momentum to an intentional level or a level of awareness that now it can be utilized and not just reacted to, which is why I really love stuff from from work method right now. Because it’s applied physics. It’s understanding that and it’s also by its biomechanics, its biology and understanding how those play together, behavioral side, is that it creates smiles, joy, right? Community, right? Yes, there there are sides of it. That’s like undeniable, like look at the community that’s growing in different fitness communities, in different wellness communities beyond fitness in the spiritual communities and yoga. But there are certain thresholds that now people are attached to those pieces that may just be behavioral. They may just be biomechanical. They may just be physical and now we’re, we’re putting ourselves in the camps were especially in fitness right now. I think we, you know, we got, we didn’t step out we just observed from a from a higher level of understanding that we can see biomechanics from multiple lenses. And we can get into fights about biomechanics. But really, we’re all hinting at the same thing, that there are biomechanics happening, but what is it that we’re doing to influence that? Are we intending to do something or use reaction to put ourselves into positions are responding? And I think if we can look at at least those three buckets, I’m guessing there’s definitely more that we’re going to come to an understanding of, but at least those three it is a Mind Body Soul aspect. It is a your your body is the biology it is your mind is kind of the physics, floors of the soul, maybe the physics of it, the forces, and then the mind is the the biomechanics, yes, it’s there. Well, those three camps, essentially, we can look at it from the Mind Body Soul perspective, or the AFS perspective, or other perspectives. And those aren’t, those aren’t the truths. Those are not even Mind Body Soul is like, Wait, we’re putting into three parts. Wait, isn’t the same? Aren’t they all the same thing? Like we’re even having these conversations now to try to figure out well, what do we mean when we say these things? Well, we don’t have to fully define each of these, we can recognize that they are just pointing at the truth, and use them as strategies to uncover more principles. We, we you know, there’s there can be an argument of, we have a mind body soul, but somebody else might say, no, no, we are that there is no there isn’t that separate thing? You we are all that that’s just a way to kind of extrapolate what we are who we are in these individual pieces. And I think if we can say, Okay, where do we go from here? Well, how are you applying those strategies into techniques? And what are those techniques doing you doing for you to help bring you back to a principle of direct experience? Well, that’s why we’re all here is I think that’s the ultimate principle is that we are all experiencing something so we can do something to create an experience that creates a reflection we’re gonna go the right direction.
Michael Hughes
He made me think about something it’s like we’re trying to create the ultimate the ultimate harmony between all three like there’s a lot of these I remember like playing like video games. I don’t play video games anymore. I wish I did. But like, I’ll pick this this this race car, my grand trees, Moore’s my dad or whatever the case Like and you pick this one card has better braking but less acceleration, or has better handling but less braking. Like any of Which car do you want. There’s no ultimate 100% on all all of them. Well, to me, like what we should be using as a guide, a key keyword as a guide, is we’re trying to find methodologies, applications as principle strategies, techniques that build each of these bio, psycho. And by logical, and physical buckets as high as possible. Like that’s the game great training and conditioning that you just work people to death. But there’s cool music, you know, on a spin bike the whole time feeling your soul ooze out, life and love. Great on one bucket, but you’re literally biomechanically destroying your hips, whatever, you know, okay, cool. Participate that maybe once a week, that’s fine, you know, it’s fine. We’re saying that’s absolute shit, because it’s not for us that assault, that’s that’s church for some people. Cool. But don’t go to church every day, if it’s going to destroy your family life, you know, like, or your physical life, right? So it’s really understanding these different parts and like, trying to find an a great definition for functional. And, as I’ve been studying more look more like oh, it’s it’s it’s functional is real. Functional is efficient, effective. That’s functional, and therefore apply to what you want. bodybuilder, cyclist, person who just lives a normal athletic life. That’s, that’s functional for you. Ultimate function? Well, that depends on the person who’s arguing the case. Let’s agree upon that police. Then we can say which was optimal, but it’s really the person’s decision. Right? Our clients come to you because they want a particular approach, or they want a particular style or particular outcome. If we’re going to try to convince everybody that this is the right way of doing this, we’re barking up the wrong tree, we would try to convince people that there’s an option for optimum health. And we do live in America, at least this is where this podcasts coming from. And we believe in freedoms to choose. We’re trying to educate people that there’s an ultimate path or a better path given that we’re, that we’re on. And we hope that they come along this journey with them. But it’s still their call. I kind of want like the scientific community of movement to be like, we’re all trying to help people, we’re have big hearts, we’re trying to prove something that makes something correct. So therefore, we can latch on to it and do it and live a better life. When we started this ego, these camps, these dogmas, like I can’t say something that would go against my field of people, because I don’t want to be kicked out of this, this journal. And I remember Gary Gray saying that, like he just went sick, I have a new approach to something, and they wouldn’t publish him. That’s ridiculous. But it makes sense. Because we all want to be in this tribe and feel good about it, and have prestige, and have recognition. If we can learn to put that down a little bit more, I think we’re going to come to a better understanding of a unified, an understanding that we’re all trying to help people here. That’s what we’re just trying to do.
CJ
I think, with what you beautifully said, there’s that we’re missing a an ultimate framework that we can all it’s like a source, a source code, that then we can create what we want based on the choices we make and people that we serve. And we have different communities, right? If we have pro athletes versus somebody who doesn’t move, they’re completely sedentary, they’re retired and is never trained to do in their life. Those people should be training differently, but with the same principles in mind, with a similar framework. And I’m going to share the framework that that I regard as truth right now is that we live in a spherical world, surrounded by a bunch of spheres. And meaning humans, you have a bubble or or around you, whether you see it or not. It’s we have a bubble of potential a sphere around you, the more of a dome, because we have flat ground underneath us. But I think we can go beneath the ground, when we raise ourselves up so spherical, that when a spherical world, in a spherical universe, and a spherical body, surrounded by other spheres bouncing off of each other. And if we can recognize that, okay, we need to be able to navigate the sphere. Just from a perspective of just experience and movement. Let’s look at the basic level of just everything moves. If there’s no movement, there is no thing. Even though we’re sitting here at stillness with their eyes closed. There’s a lot of movement happening internally. And then an atomic level from what we understand. There’s a whole lot of space that could be taken up. So if we can come from that perspective and go well, how do we how do we communicate this? Compass, this fear, this navigation, where I’m going, where you’re going, where we’re going as a community as a tribe, this is a metaphorical spirit, also, also a very physical sphere. We can recognize that okay, We have every joint that actually has a sphere of potential around it. Some joints just like to go in part of that sphere and stay small. Other joints like to take up a lot of space in that sphere, thinking of the stable joints that would like to move in one or two planes, you know, or one plane primarily and other two planes, very small. And some that like to move in all three planes, like an open like a shoulder, or only a thoracic spine or a hip or an ankle. Well, we can just regard those motions as truth, like I can really tilt forward and back, I can really tilt side to side, I can really tilt in rotation, we can apply terms to that like a reduction, adduction flexion. Extension. But beyond those terms, there’s still movement happening. So let’s understand that these are happening without our own terminology and our own judgments. But they can occur, what are the things that can actually occur? We shouldn’t find there’s a lot of potential for things. And there’s a lot of judgment surrounding those things that we shouldn’t shouldn’t do that. We don’t know there’s a spectrum of effort that should be happening there. So we can we can start to go from that deepest level of just there’s movement there spheres to now we’re extrapolating, there are potential directions to go. Now, it’s a matter of connecting the people in front of us and ourselves to what that actually feels like, what does that experience like to move in our sphere? without judgment without limitation? Where does our body say, Stop? Where does physics say you can no longer go? Here you’re going to fall? And then where can we connect with our own mind? And say, is there a better way that I can do this? If I’m losing my balance or feeling wobbly? What is it now that we decide to do and is it our own willpower that decides to do that we brace our core? Or is it a reactive element to what proprioceptive ly? Well, we can’t even really talk to with words, but we can feel and sense now that can inform our experience. So now that knee flexion that you’re doing on an open chain on a table, you’re now creating knee flexion because gravity and ground reaction force pulled you into knee flexion, what was decelerating that tissue? Now we can start to say, I want to train my tissues to to decelerate better, to accelerate better to move in this direction better versus? Oh, I shouldn’t do that. Now at least I have a place of non judgment. And I think that we’ve placed on somebody’s movement, and we can discern this is what can really happen. And this is what is actually happening truthfully, is this person’s body really doing that. And if I had to put a term to what’s truthfully happening, what term do we currently have for that. And we have the term of the flexion, extension, a reduction to abductions and rotation, knowing that it’s all a component of what is actually occurring with all three planes at once. And that’s why I love where our minds go is that there are so many things that we don’t know now, because we’ve taken that approach. And that’s a scary place to be, because why is this person’s body doing this, I’d rather be in a place of looking to understand than telling that I know. Because I may not actually know the whole picture, because I’m going from a place of what I thought was a principle, but really was just a strategy that was taught to me that there was a technique, and then you’re not doing the technique, right, so I didn’t make your technique better. It’s gonna get me only so far. But if I can come to this bigger place, it is more confusing, because it’s stepping away from the barrier of English or Spanish or whatever language you use. To describe a situation, let’s get our eyes to connect to what we feel to connect to what we say. And that’s a lifelong practice. But what’s going to help us help us do is set up the next wave of people and trainers and coaches and therapists and whoever’s going to be working with their community to now base their stuff off of the truths versus the shitty situation we’re in, which is like we have all these amazing techniques from the studies that we’ve done. But now it’s put us in a limited system where we’re all fighting against each other. Because we’re fighting for the technique of strategy that all came from the same principle, we just don’t have a connection to that principle.
Michael Hughes
Yeah. The moment you find yourself fighting against a technique, that has to be a check, that has to be a check and balance in your brain to say, wait a minute, is this what we should be even talking about? And the moment you start arguing about a strategy, now, again, we’re have to put definitions on things so we can have a unified conversation. A strategy is brace your core, a strategy is head over foot, a strategy is inside anchor bone high, a strategy is going to try to get some big ones that are really out there. Get your heart rate up to the orange zone, you’re going to be fat burning for the rest of the day, right? A strategy is an Olympic lifting at speed creates ultimate performance.
CJ
I say technically, technically to coiling is a strategy
Michael Hughes
right quality as a strategy. Even 15 reps, five sets hypertrophy. Right? What are the cases at high volume strategy? Oh, there’s scientific Saudis on that I know that works. Yeah, I get it. But it’s still a strategy, right? If you’re arguing those things, again, check yourself, what’s the next layer deeper. And that’s principles, not principles that are strategies, no, no principles that what we know about, about human functional understanding of life, which is, can get deep, but we have to go there. And we have to understand it to the best of our ability, key phrase, best of our ability. Because if we’re not starting from there, we’re wasting time. And we don’t have a lot of it. Like, we really don’t like life’s long I told the kid, but life’s short, too. And we need when I was driving in from work, I had my own kind of workout time this morning. And the ultimate thought that came to me was like, the ultimate success of a movement practitioner today on this kind of elevated or elevated field. But this new understanding, which I call it, is our is our how quickly we can get a result. Give me somebody that can give me, you know, 50 sessions, I’ll figure it out. I mean, I’m getting pretty good at this stuff. I’m not, you know, there’s more, there’s more and more to go, but I’m gonna figure it out. But our job is to figure it as fast as possible, because capitalism still runs this show. And people want value for their time and for their money. So I need to be able to prove myself wrong faster and faster and faster, and dissolve away the crap, the minutia that they’re giving me and just get down to the core essence of it. And the core essence may have nothing to do with their biomechanics. It could be that they’re just scared of falling. And we did all this biomechanical crap. That’s all crap. Right? And it’s like, all we had to do is ask them the right question, do a good understand that there’s a behavioral part of them to psychosocial. And I’ve done that I’ve gone I’ve gone that far as Oh, I’m gonna do this. I’m do this. Here’s my technique for that. Just to show for that. Why get guarantee you have tight hip flexors? who’s done it? No, they had none of that. And it took me more sessions to figure it out more money out of their pocket, and I just had to ask the right question, what are you afraid of? And so it’s like, okay, I must. This argument about Biomechanics is even limited in itself. Even limited in in itself? I feel pretty good.
CJ
Yeah, it’s, it’s a game of semantics, I think in the in the field. And it’s, it’s good to clearly define what you’re talking about. And it’s perfectly fine to be like, this is as far as I know. But I know there’s more to it. There’s more conversations we can have about this. And there’s conversations we continue to have like, what is strength? What is mobility, what is flexibility? And we can get stuck in trying to define those specifically, or we can use those as strategies to help somebody experience their life more fully. And if we can, I mean, if it’s ultimate, it’s if you’re in biomechanics, and you see somebody who’s biomechanics, and you’re like, Oh, we did it, but they’re living in a shitty life, you haven’t really done it, you may be associated with biomechanics, but How sustainable is what you’ve done? Is it creating a space of safety, somebody feel safe doing these things, so that they can step away from the fear is somebody feeling like they can now love themselves for what they’re doing? They’re connecting. Now they can more fully express themselves, internally and externally, you know, they’re freeing themselves from the internal judgment or what’s been told to them, and what they’ve perceived as truth. And now we’re helping them untie those things from their fascial web, from how their body holds memory and says, This is how what’s good and what’s bad, this is how it should be. It’s how it shouldn’t be. And then getting to a place of peace and coming to terms with they may not ever be perfect, but the perfection is in the practice, the journey, the progression, the understanding the insight, the enlightenment of the experience. And then how can we carry ourselves now in our community with ourself, you know, we’re carrying that soul of it, use those terms of safety, love, expression, and peace. And now they carry that with whatever methodology practice, they may be shift gears and join a different community, but they’re still having those those pieces within them. We’re all going to be more successful and have a much better time. There’s plenty of, of people to go around for every community, but how we’re, how we’re fighting about this, how we’re trying to be right is only pulling us further back. And so we need to kind of get behind that veil and say, what is that really trying to accomplish here? I gotta serve myself. I gotta serve my family. I got to make sure I have can make a living. I can put food on the table. Now I feel safe. Now, how am I expressing love in this? Sometimes we just get stuck there. And we’re living in survival mode, just trying to put food on the table. But how can we get ourselves out
Michael Hughes
of that? Yeah, we can’t change because it feeds us money. That’s probably what we’re sorry I had that in there because that’s a big piece.
CJ
I think that is one of the most important things. And once we realize that, you see a lot of these individuals now going beyond their practice, because they have the means to do so. And they can share their insights. And I think if we can have that mentality as practitioners, that we can be there, too, we are already there. But we have to, we have to carry ourselves with that level of safety, love, expression and peace and that soul of it and carry ourselves to everything that we do. We’re going to connect deeper with those principles. And everything that we do will be helpful. Because we’re coming from a place of truth. What is actually going on, versus what we say is going wrong going on.
Michael Hughes
Love them. Well, thanks for listening to us, appreciate you all your time, your your desire to kind of follow along with this. If you’re this far in this podcast, then well, you should probably know something called the MDMC multi dimensional movement coach. It’s a mentorship program that we offer, it is a path. But this path that we’re trying to offer is the path that sees all methodologies. We’re trying to provide a framework that you can not get into one camp, if you want to, that’s fine. But to see like, wait a minute, there’s a way to think about all these things, and to understand them. So we’re trying to find a lenses that peer into all movement methodologies that give you a framework for you to be like, You know what I can now think for myself on how to think versus just what to think. Peace out.
CJ
Cheers y’all.
Michael Hughes
Hey all. 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, one to level up in their coaching skills, and a fitness business model. We launched 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 post 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 wanting to become a masterful practitioner, and build a business that gives them the freedom and impact. 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 gymnazoedu.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 lads 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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