Revolutionizing the Movement Industry with Gary Gray aka “The Father of Function”
Michael Hughes
Hey everybody I am with what I would call upon one of the best friends I’ve ever had in the move industry and someone who I’ve gotten to become very, very close with over the past decade plus, and his name is Gary Gray. And you probably don’t need much of an introduction period, because we’ve been doing this a lot longer than I have. That’s a good thing. And I just an honor to have you here and honored to be on the Gymnazo podcast and really excited to dive in because I love chatting with you. I love hearing your stories. I love being around you. And this is a time I get to be kind of wildland. So thank you for being here. Appreciate it.
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 a fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results.
Gary
It’s an honor, that was by far the best introduction I’ve ever had, because you introduced me as your friend. So that’s, that’s what I want to be known for. And so I appreciate that. It’s it, I think we’re gonna have some fun sharing together as we always do, it seems just seems that you and I, anytime we get together, you just bring a big grin on my face into my heart. So I appreciate opportunity share together.
Michael Hughes
I appreciate that too. Well, thank you. So we met 2009 is November 2009. And I just got done talking to Lisa Huck, if you remember her, and I saw her and my training gym at that time, a big box gym, just doing essentially the spherical warm up if I could save so simply that point, and it looked very well in that atmosphere with treadmill alley mirrors, the dumbbells in the Smith Machine squat rack, it looked way out of place. But we’re at a place and I just kind of brushed it off. Like there’s another. I’m not gonna call it a weirdo. But that’s probably in my brain when I was thinking about Sure. Yeah, I’m gonna go train my clients and you know, make sure their biceps look good. And make sure they got you know, good form and use over the throat. But I remember talking to a power lifter, like our token power lifter at that spot. His name was Joe. And I said, I said, Who is that? Who is that lady over there? Oh, that’s, that’s a my, my trainer, in a sense, like you have a trainer is like, well, I’ve tried it helps me kind of unguent, my SI joint. And in my head, I was thinking, what trainer knows how to do that? I was like, that’s reserved. That’s a reserved, I gotta go spend $100,000.03 years move out of this place. Go get it PG degree. Right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, she takes care of me every time. And so that was like, that was my trigger to say, to go meet her talk with her. And then she said, You gotta go do you gotta go meet your great, you gotta go meet Dave. To be ready, you gotta go to this conference called chain reaction. And that was probably in September. So I signed up. And now I was in San Diego. Just as great as can be. And anyways, I met you and after after the end of day one. And excuse me, at the half point of day one. I am leaving going to lunch, calling my mentor at the time saying I got it. This is my vehicle. This is my process. So I had it start there because that for me as a trainer, who didn’t get into PT school, eight different times, essentially after two different years, and didn’t want to give up. I had this answer, and you provided it for me. So a lot of work. I don’t know, questions asked on that one. But it was a really, really interesting point.
Gary
I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. I knew part of that story, but I didn’t know the significance of that story. So thanks for sharing that.
Michael Hughes
Oh, you got it. You got it. So I want to know your story. How did you develop or come up with the grace to what was your passion, your reasoning to just fall into place or was it was something you were very intentional about from the beginning
Gary
that I’ve been asked that a number of times and I’m not sure I even answered the same way each time because I kind of come at it from a different angle. I was blessed in seventh grade to know two things that I wanted to be a physical therapist, and I wanted to be an adult wanted to marry this girl. So very few seventh graders know those two things in life, you know, so who are you going to marry? And what are you going to be when you grow up, and I could have told you in seventh grade, and as you know, the rest of the story, I was blessed to be come a physical therapist, as well as a personal trainer and strength coach and an athletic trainer. We’ll talk about that later. But more importantly, I got to marry that girl. And in back in my day, and you’ll hear that a lot, I just never thought I’d be an old guy that would say that, you know, being, you know, being around old people and hearing him say that I just used to shake my head and going, oh, boy, here we go. Another back in my day story. And, you know, but back in my day, to get into physical therapy school was extremely easy if you were a male. So your grade point had to be 2.0 or better. I’m not sure I made that. I think I was in 1.9 range, which I thought was good. That’s, you know, my mom and dad always told me that, you know, at least you’re trying to be average Gary. And so I was just a pinch below average, I didn’t think that was that bad. But at that time, they were encouraging schools to get males through the door. Because at that time was a very female dominant profession. So to get it in my very first school, I just went to two years of college and applied and they called me up and he asked for an interview, they wanted to know if I had a pulse, if I really wasn’t guy. And what I considered trying to get my grade point average up, and I said, Sure, and they said, Well, you’re in. And so my third year of college, I went to PT school, and back then you all you had to do is get a bachelor’s degree. So two years later, he gets spit out, take the state board, and you’re a physical therapist. But I smart enough to know how dumb I was and what I didn’t know. And I can remember vividly my first job. And going home, this has been three months before I got married to this little apartment and crying, realizing I just let a lot of people down. Probably even more significant, I felt that I let myself down because I didn’t know what I was doing. I checked the boxes in PT school, but they didn’t they didn’t tell teach me how to think they didn’t teach me how to understand what that total knee or total hip person really did. They didn’t really tell me tell me about the sacroiliac joint. They told me there was one there but they didn’t tell me how with like a power lifter it get it would get irritated. And I panicked. I just didn’t know what to do. So it was subconsciously conscious, saying that either I’m going to leave this field because I just don’t want to come home and cry every night. Or I’m going to have to take it upon myself to educate myself. And that started a long, long journey of educating and learning from people like yourself and just learning which I, I hopefully still do, even at this day. So it was a little bit purposeful. But a lot of it just kind of fell into place as I started putting the pieces together.
Michael Hughes
How far into your career. Would you say that this?
Gary
Well, it happened quickly because my very first job was in a place called Adrian Michigan. And as I look out the windows here, I’m in a place called Adrian Michigan. So I’m still here, literally 45 years later. And I was conned literally conned into being the director of a physical therapy department that saw about 100 and x amount of patients 120 Some days 150 And the my particular first day, the what they did tell me is the other therapists had quit. I’m not sure if they at least I think they quit before they knew I was coming. So. So I was the chief physical therapist, and a huge inpatient outpatient clinic that saw everything neurological patients, orthopedic patients and everything. And I can vividly remember within the first month I had a very, really kind of hospital administrator. Name was Wally Stewart and he just a sweetheart of a man. And he came down and would always ask how it’s going and I would say, I have no idea what I’m doing. But, you know, so I had, I didn’t have to hire a few more. I had hired some therapists that was kind of neat to be able to hire my own therapist. I was in charge of occupational therapy as well as speech therapy. But He asked this interesting question. He goes, have you approved the budget? And I looked at him, I said, Sir, I don’t know what a budget is. He goes, Well, I kind of figured that he goes, what happens is every year, we have to decide what we’re going to buy for each department. And then each department head, submits what they want. And therefore, the before the other three therapists left, they already outlined their budget, they got it approved by the board, but you have to do final approval, so we can order it. So you just have to sign it. And we order all the stuff. I know that sounds pretty good. He goes, so do you know where the budget is? I go, No, sir. I don’t know he so he looks in the File tab. And he goes, Well, it’s probably under B. I go, that makes a lot of sense to me. Sure enough, there was budget. And he pulled it out. And he says, so here’s a budget really kind trying to explain to me, but I quickly noticed a line item. And it was said Cybex, and next to it said $40,000. And I looked at him and I said, you’re gonna buy that? And he goes, Yeah, oh, yeah. He said, the three therapists that were here, they got in front of the board, they presented why they need it, why we can’t even be a sports medicine clinic without having it and why it’s a state of the art and, and I looked at him and I go, respectfully, sir, if you buy it, I’m not going to use it. And he goes what? You know, and I said, I’m not sure if I can explain it in detail to you, but I don’t I won’t use it. It’s something that I don’t believe in. He goes, Well, how can you not believe in and I go? That’s probably a pretty good, pretty good question. But it doesn’t make sense to me sitting on a table making your leg go back and forth, especially for $40,000. And especially at the same speed. So I started to even articulate back then, kind of what we now know is kind of the functional movement spectrum. And he goes, Well, shoot, you just saved this $40,000. And I go, Well, I’d like to know if I could change that and move some money down here into the continuing education budget. And he goes, Well, yeah, this is right now the there’s $1,000 there, how much do you want, I said, I want $40,000. And he goes, Well, all the finances had been approved. I guess it doesn’t matter if we buy a cyber x or we use it I go done. So he approved that. And I worked my tail off the next 234 years trying to go to every seminar I could I could get into I do have to admit that on a few of them, I lied. Because they wouldn’t allow if you weren’t a chiropractor, they won’t allow non chiropractors in but as long as I put Dr. Gary Gray, and bash chiropractor and sent my money in, it seemed to work pretty good. But I was through the same way they were very protective orthotics back then. And so let’s do a podiatrist shooting get to go learn more about the foot, I knew I knew nothing about the foot. So I put Dr. Gary Gray. Some of the osteo pas in our area were very well known. Same thing, you know, unless you were osteopathic medicine physician, you didn’t get through the door. But strangely enough, if you wrote down Dr. Gary Gray and sent you check in, they’d let you sneak in. So I went, I went everywhere. And I was fascinated by how many smart people who are out there. I mean, I was first of all intimidated. But then like well, but it became very obvious to me very early on is that very few people were connecting the dots, foot specialist podiatrist didn’t even know what it needed. And in my mind’s eye, it was connected by a tibia. And you should probably know what the foot does relative to the knee, it just made sense. Because when the knee move, the foot moves when the foot moved, the knee moved. And so you’re only getting part of the story, you only had one half of the coin, so to speak. So that was the start looking at looking at all that and realizing that the kind of fun if somebody put this together, you know, kind of connected the dots and brought all these people together and trying to understand at the same time I became a certified athletic trainer, I got my strength coach certification, again, you have to remember back then it was very easy. Not as many hours not as many. And then I took a couple of personal training classes. You couldn’t do anything online because there’s no such thing as online back then. Just went to a seminar on a weekend and they call it a personal strain degree. And as long as you didn’t kill anybody, you’re good, good to go. And I started getting embarrassed thinking maybe I missed this in school. Maybe I maybe I’m just stupid and I didn’t listen very well. But as I started talking to a lot of other therapists and trainers and athletic trainers and strength coaches, they didn’t get it either. They didn’t they didn’t know how the body really worked how it was connected. So that was that’s a long way to tell you how, how the journey started.
Michael Hughes
Is it all you hoped for? Or is it is the is the outcome right now? You know, take with and pandemic, but is the outcome where you thought it would be? Or is it way beyond? Or is it now you still got you still got two decades left for you gotta push?
Gary
Um, let’s start with the first question. Is it all that I hoped for? It’s more than what I hope for. This is gonna sound dorky, but you gotta understand I’m an old guy. Because of that. Yeah, because of that, I got to meet you. And when I reflect back on having the privilege of edge getting in front of people and sharing, and the people that I have met and become friends with and admire, if you would ask me back, then do you ever believe you’re gonna have this many cool friends? I go, nobody has this many cool friends. I mean, that’s impossible. I don’t know how anybody would do that. And so it’s in a very significant way, it’s been more than I ever dreamed, because of who I’ve been able to share my life with. So I’ve been, I’ve been more than I could ever hope for.
Michael Hughes
That’s awesome. Well, I can certainly say I appreciate it, because it’s changed my life. And the entire life since my team, and now that entire lives and business lives of those who we are sharing and educating to. So it’s a really cool, cool, so lackluster word and profoundly transformational process that you’ve started. And I know, You’ve had a lot of partners and help and influences along the way. And all that convergence is, is changing kind of big.
Gary
Yeah. So that, and that’s why I believe it’s such a blessing. You know, just as you, when you when you, when you do get a little older, you realize that statistics would say I’m not gonna live quite live as another 67 years. So, most, most data would confirm that. So that’s what you call evidence based scientific proof. And so you kind of look, you look, you have a sense for looking backwards a little more, you still try to move forward, but you look backwards. But man, when you look backwards, and you see, you know, friends, like yourself, and just, you know, just the times we’ve been together and the joy we’ve had, and just little things like that you go, Wow, this has been pretty, pretty cool deal. So it’s any, any friendship, like that really turns out to be a mutual blessing.
Michael Hughes
Oh, I appreciate that. You’re describing something that I had to tap onto because we were talking about free previous show, in a sense is that, you know, you went and studied a lot of things, essentially, what I would say is you became a specialist of many specialties. And that’s one way that we are as a training group, is there’s a lot of great stuff out there. A lot of good mindset sums are some of them are literally congruent indicating of each other. But that doesn’t necessarily make them wrong or right. It’s an approach. But it all comes down to a foundation. And that foundation of you know, AFS or apply functional science is something that you’ve patched really kind of put out there for some people to really divert their teeth into, and we call it being functional. It’s just that simply that and the world functional training right now is well, it’s kind of a basket case of a phrase, what does it mean to you, though? What does it mean to you that, you know, if someone who say gosh, functional training, functional physical therapeutics, etc, kind of, you know, it kind of came from you guys from at least a popularity standpoint? Yeah. What does it mean to you?
Gary
We were the ones that I think helped mess it up. When I look back on, you know, because when we would compare traditionally what I was taught to do, versus what I thought, functionally you should do, we, of course, started throwing out the phrase, well, this is going to be functional therapy, this will be functional rehab, this will be functional training, this will be functional performance. And I don’t think we really knew what we’re talking about, we just knew was a little bit different, and it looked a little more like the function. Your phrase that you shared with me, though, I think is brilliant phrase being a specialist of specialties. Because function is context dependent, and therefore what’s functional. This morning I swam. So if you said, Hey, let me see your training program, I’d say well, hopefully I’m a specialist of this specialty of swimming, because I train a lot of swimmers. So I need to understand what’s the common denominator is for all of human movement, but then I have to be smart enough to say and in the water with freestyle, what, what do I have to think? About differently, and what do I create differently in order to make that allow that person to enjoy swimming more. So I love that. I love the concept that you shared with me early on US Special specialist of specialties. Because that’s really what I think we need to try to be. And how do we determine those specialties? Well, that we listen to our client, they’ll come in, and they’ll tell us I want to be able to do this. And so immediately I go well, is that my specialty? You know, and if it’s not, let’s learn about it. Let’s go back to the specialist part, and look at the common denominator things. And then let’s look where we have to go to say, okay, I can I think I can help you with that, because your specialty is now my specialty. And so I love that phraseology. So I think what we got wrong for a number of years is just talking about functionally globally. And realizing that you even global function, you have to identify and be somewhat of a specialist in understanding that. So we’re trying to do a better job with that. We have come up with what we would call an way to assess a you know, we have a way to assess somebody globally, but then we always ask then tell me what else what you really want to do. And then we have to specialize that assessment to make it specific for that particular thing. Number Bob, I need to pick boxes off the floor at the factory, I want to hit a golf ball further, I want to run faster, I want to be able to walk on the beach without my back hurting. I want to so we go okay, let’s look at the like you say the foundational fundamental specialty of human movement. But now let’s now apply it to what you just told me you would like my help with and that that becomes I think, one of the specialties that we that we engage in right now.
Michael Hughes
What what what products you guys offering working on now that a trainer, I say, Gosh, I can really sink my teeth into that knowing that you’re a physical therapist by licensed and trade and a lot of people that go in there, I think they get the sense that oh, we gotta be PT. But what do you what are you doing right now for trainers be like, You know what? I got this one. Thanks for letting me know about it. Yeah, well.
Gary
People like yourself who get into this field, do it because they really have this heart to help people. Rarely, especially like in my day, like, my my first job I made? I think it was, I’d say $7,200 a year but I think it was 76 I think I embellished the lowness. So we don’t all of a sudden go, You know what, I’m going to dedicate myself to training people and rehabbing people. So I get rich. You know, that was that was never. So I get rich was never part of the rest of the sentence. We all said that, because we kind of took joy into helping people. We had this certain thing inside of us that when they seem to get excited, we got excited when they felt better, we felt better. When they move better. We we just thought, wow, this is this is pretty cool. So really early on, I realized that my specialty wouldn’t be physical therapy. Physical therapy is a part of the spectrum, which simply means somebody wants to do something, but at this time, something hurts, or they have a surgery or they just didn’t have a surgery or they have a neurological problem, or somehow their body was compromised, where we need to understand hopefully what’s going on so we can get him and restore back as much function as possible. But I also realized that personal trainers were doing that every day as well. They were just enhancing movement. And when I finally realized everything was movement, the common denominators movement, the goal is movement. The assessment should be movement, the training should be movement, the rehab should be movement, I realized that well, this is going to apply directly to those who dedicate themselves as a personal trainer. I watched, if they haven’t done it yet, they need to go to Gymnazo website and see the video you guys have up front. So it’s only three minutes long, but it’s a neat video. It’s a motional video, and it kind of explains this, I think quite well. And, you know, just the passion that you all have of just allowing somebody to trust you to create an environment where you’re enhancing their life. And so it applies to, you know, if your job is to enhance the movement of another individual, which covers a lot of jobs, and certainly it covers the life of a personal trainer then that’s what grey Institute has dedicated to themselves towards is allowing us all to understand it better so we can get people to move and experience life better.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, I was initially thinking because from a training world when I went through it 2010 And while I’m talking about just for the listeners is called gift and gift is a 40 week fellowship that time. It’s immersive and like to say and the cool thing about it is you have the you guys that have had the had the foresight to go digital to go on. Well, before the need was there. Right? It was a really powerful thing I didn’t remember even I was unjust beyond the point where I would actually would have bought a VHS video of yours. I remember those very, very well, but I didn’t buy them from you actually gotten a CD. So I’m on the next tear. But I remember getting the functional video digests videos and getting those and diving into those. And then by the time I actually did you know actually wanting to get to this all actually was still CD that now that’s all digital in a sense. File. Yeah, long story short. So to go through that, and to go through 40 weeks, actually, I went through it twice, by definition, because I did the graduate program for those kind of listening. But that’s that’s another 40 weeks where you it’s more like teaches you how to teach it. And I think that’s, I can say it. So 80 weeks of time, mostly spending in front of the computer screen learning and six different trips, because I did it twice. moving and moving in agent Michigan. And it is fun place because it’s about the size of San Luis Obispo. Very at home, I felt but it was, it was a transformative time because it sitting there I was sitting next to a guy. And if you’re listening, John out there, I hope you are but sit next to John Madonia. And we were the two youngest guys there. Actually, I was second youngest. He was third youngest was one guy. So I was I was 25. At the time. I remember looking around. And what am I doing here? Because we had amazing people talking about stuff that I literally had no idea what they were saying. I mean, let either
Gary
did I show
Michael Hughes
Knology? At all. And I’m sitting here like, What the hell am I doing here? Yeah, but it was really interesting because I got to the what I love about what you do here is that you tell stories so well. And I what I love about you a lot. And what I love about my wife a lot is you embellish stories a lot, too. And that is a good
Gary
pitch, a pitch event. But they’re so
Michael Hughes
believable. And I know a lot of them are true. In fact, you know, I think there should be a chronicles of Gary Gray. Sooner than later in the sense, you know, just all the stories and experiences that you’ve done from anything from scratch that one amazing story about you’re in a high school gym, you tell the most nervous you’ve ever trained a single athlete, and I don’t know you are away. But who that athlete was. That’s an amazing, all the way to go into San Diego. Not because it’s San Diego, but because of the the military bases in San Diego. And that’s an amazing story. So that’s another story of special list specialties. And navy. Sailors in a sense have to do to get proficient. So why I’m sharing this is that is that from a trainer standpoint, and what we’re able to do is understanding the basic principles of human movement, and how you broke it down. So simply, really, and I think that’s the gift as how simply we put it, and then knowing that it’s just a complex web of craziness. And, you know, to me so amazing that the human body has this structure built underneath it and the rules in a sense, the principle Yeah, true. Yeah. with it. And how it’s a reverse, you can reverse engineer it. Yeah, just, it’s, it’s quite possible. And we do it even as a trainer, and then tip of the cat, how we build it been able to take that information and fuel our ability to feed that to trainers in a in a more, I would call it a civilized way, but in a more directed way. And I think that’s I think what’s going on is the ability for the training world to uplift itself to fill that gap. Then we’re to get into the medical space, as I like to say it because to me training and conditioning is the frontlines of the entire medical system. You just have the credibility, in a sense, and I don’t think it deserves it at this particular point, because there’s a there’s a lot of I don’t call it well, it’s there’s a lot of stuff out there that really doesn’t have a lot of principles and it doesn’t have that rootedness to it. A lot of theory and feel and here’s a good idea, or maybe it has a station and, and research behind it. But the research is flawed from the beginning because it’s a scope of this small, right? Why I’m telling this whole thing is that you’ve been able to put a lot of great content out there for trainers to look into, from a movement assessments. And though you plugged my website, sneaky guy, I want to plug into your website from the crater to, and go into that and to dive in there because that’s, that’s something that I think there’s a harmony there that someone who wants to dig in more and really get a lot of power and pop out of knowledge. You guys already have that. And I’m going to shamelessly plug ours too, with our multi dimensional movement coach as well, because it’s really taking from a coaching standpoint, or training standpoint, and in a facility standpoint, so it’s a great marriage, and I really appreciate it. So well.
Gary
We admire what you’ve done with your functional movement coach, because, again, having having the ability that you have, you know, looking at looking at everything and deciding what’s the best for your client, that’s, that’s really your job that very few people have that ability. And then I think what STEM stimulated you and you’d have to, you know, correct me if I’m wrong is the tremendous success that you guys have had and how you approach a client, you want to share with the world. And so that’s why, you know, I think we’re so excited because of what you’ve done and what you’re going to be able to do to help so many people, but you’re just saying, hey, this, this is this works. It’s really empowering for us and for the client. And therefore we have this way that we could share with you is definitely, if I was a personal trainer, I would look into first, like you say we have a lot of stuff that we can throw at you. But the way you put it together and took out some of the fat, I think is really critical for especially if somebody wants to be really good at what they want to do really quick, I think following your pathway is good there. So I appreciate you sharing that.
Michael Hughes
All right on, right on. So as as we navigate and we start pushing out there, obviously, to share it, right, we call open sourcing, right, we’re gonna overwrite what we’ve done, and be as authentic about it as possible be as real about it, because some stuff pretty easy once you get it. And some stuff is really, really hard. And you really have to understand every single joint. And I remember sitting down listening from you said, you’re gonna have to know what every single joint does the entire body in all three places motion in connection with every other joint in the body and how it works in all three planes of motion. For every specialty, yeah. And I said, I looked at myself said, Man, I barely got out of college, you know, I and but a B but because I barely got out of college quote unquote, because I sat in the desk and listen to people talk to me. And it took notes, and I was tests on a multiple choice answer. Yeah, realize that’s not the way I learned. And then our school system is designed to teach people a certain way, right where it is. But to get up and to feel it to have a kinesthetic opportunity to learn it. Stop that video and stop the lecture give and feel move. It was a profound revelation that is not new. It’s not new that people learn by doing, but actually have an application base was a really big, big deal. So as we sharing it, we’re getting more people saying to us, like what do you guys do? And where’s your science? Where’s your data? And I’m like, I have a very strong answer. It’s called the empirical data. And we have it with our clients, all 400 of them outside there every single day. And I find you that in this space, you really can’t have a case study on it. But you can certainly show a video before and after. And enough subjective data becomes objective over over time. Is there any stories that you have and this is a fun day, so I want to make this light light hearted. Any stories that you’ve had to come through and I know they’re out there. But I what I love about you is your stories of I don’t call them haters, but opportunities to receive this opportunity to hear from me to maybe share a different perspective. And that’s more memorable.
Gary
Yeah. It’s funny we of course, the privilege I had was very early on literally 44 years ago, being able to get up in front of a group of people in sharing. I remember the first time I shared about how I thought the knee functioned. And I remember saying they can’t learn to dance while sitting on your pants and and I shared with everybody who is using a knee She knew at that time that I don’t use any machine. But in fact, I ignore the knee. I like to use the hip and the foot. And there’s two responses to that. One, tell me more, or you’re crazy. Show me the proof. And some of it was like stunning, like, so what kind of proof do you need? If I if I show you a skeleton, and I show you a femur? And at the top of the femur, we call it the hip and at the bottom of the femur, we call it the knee? So do you need any more proof than that, that the two are connected? You know, it’s like, sometimes it’s like, Come on people just. And what I found very early on is people who approach things like that, quote, unquote, we really haven’t had any haters. I don’t think anybody would say, well, we hate those guys. But we’ve had some people that have been critical. And as we get an opportunity, try to understand where they’re coming from. The ones that are trying to defend their own ego, their own turf, their own education, their own whatever. Just don’t have the ability to set their teddy bear next to him. And listen. Those who have been, I think, very successful, say, just for a second, I’ll listen to you, Gary, I’m gonna put my teddy bear over here, and go and share with me. And go from there. This, it quickly reminded me a story where a few years ago, I got an email from a young lady who is finishing her physical therapy degree. And of course, now they they come out with a Doctor of Physical Therapy. Not sure why that happened. But theoretically, now we’re doctors. And to get out of school, you have to do every school has a little different twist on this, but you have to do a doctoral thesis. And in this email, this young lady was very kind and said, Mr. Graham, we’re reaching out to you because I need your help. I’ve been assigned my doctoral thesis in my doctoral thesis is this prove all of gray Institute theories to be false? That was her that was the title of her doctoral thesis. And I thought, well, that’s pretty cool. You know? So I wrote her back and they said, This is me. I said, I think I need to talk to you a little more. To understand how I can help you. Do you mind if we got on the phone? And she got back right back? I mean, yeah, no, I can you tell me when did this we we got online, I can’t remember exactly. That was either that day or the next day. And I said, You got to share with me a little more what’s going on here? Well, I’m, uh, you know, last year, at this particular school, I’ll be a doctor in physical therapy here in a few months. And I have to write this big paper. And my professor gave me this topic that I need to prove all the theories of gray Institute to be false. So I have to do a lot of research and look at the science and all the everything that’s out there and prove that what you guys are doing is basically wrong I got was pretty cool. I said, first of all, you need to think that professor because whoever it is, they’re letting you they’re, they’re forcing you to think critically. I said, I liked that. I liked that approach. You know, I’m not really sure. I agree with the topic they gave you. But I said, I liked that idea that they’re trying to get you to think critically. And so I said, Can I ask you a couple questions? And she goes, Well, sure. I said, Well, what do you know about us? She goes, absolutely nothing. I said, Have you been on our website? Well, that’s how I got your name. I went on, and I called your secretary and they gave me your email. And that’s how I got ahold of you. I should have you studied anything that we have online? No, I Okay. I said, the person who gave you this topic? Is this. A professor that you deal with that you’ve been dealing with for the last years? Oh, yeah, very close. I said, is that he or she? Just she Okay. Has she studied anything that we’ve done? No. In fact, I asked her that. She just knows that you guys teach a lot of the opposite of what we learn in physical therapy. So she wants to put an end to it. And she even thinks this paper might even be published. And I go, Oh, well, that’s even better. Because now you’re not just doing it for school to get out of school, you’re going to, you know, publish this paper and prove that my entire life’s work has been worthless. So that’s a pretty cool, that’s a pretty cool deal. I said, Well, how can I help you? And excuse me? Send me a list of your theories. And I go, Well, I can do one better than it. I said, we have a bunch of online assets. I said, If I gave you an online asset that outlined what you might call our theories, would you be willing to take it and then get it back to me and then outline how I can help you? You would do that for me? I should, I’d love to do So that’s right when we came out with 3d maps, so I said, Great, I got to hold my Shift. I said, please give this to this young lady as a gift. And I said in the next, you know, week or two, when you get done with this, let’s talk again. So I can see how I can help you because my goal is to get you out of PT school, you know, so you can so she got back to me the next day, I can remember this vividly. And she goes, I’m done. I’m ready to talk. Was what she did is she stayed up all night and watched the nine and a half hours with 3d maps. Well, that’s not true. She watched it twice. So from the time that we had talked on, well, let’s pretend it’s a Tuesday to when we talk Wednesday afternoon, she watched 3d maps twice. And so now she’s ready. She’s ready to talk. And so we got on phone and I said, Wow, that’s impressive. She goes, Well, I’m really, really upset. And I go, Well, look, maybe I can help you. I apologize. Maybe Oh, no, I’m not upset at you. I’m upset at my schooling. I go, What do you mean, she goes, Why don’t I learn this? It’s so basic. It’s so common sense. And he goes, and here’s my biggest problem. You have no theories. I go, Well, I was going to tell you that, but I thought be easier if you kind of learned it. You know, I said, we’re not people who are smart, have theories. They take a lot of facts. And then they go theoretically, if this is true, then this might be true. I said, we learned very early on at least I did that I ain’t smart enough to come up with a theory. So what we did is we said what’s already out there that’s been proven, such as gravity, such as three planes of motion, such as the body’s a chain reaction, such as how the probe receptors really work, such as how the muscles really functions such as, so I went on and on went kind of through the litmus test that she had just gone through twice. And she goes, Yes, but you can’t argue anything you do. I go well, that’s because it’s all fact based. It’s all truth based. It’s all people call it research based, you know. So if you want to argue with Newton be my guess. But Newton would say if you have this structure, you call him body standing. And gravity is trying to suck it to the inside of the earth. And you think there’s a muscle called a hamstring that bent the knee, you’re crazy in the head. So I gravity sucked it to the center of the earth. And so one of the things you might want to do is study how much gravity does to that human body? And not mistake, having a muscle do it? And she kind of laughed, and she goes, Well, you know, we just took a test a few months ago. And the question was, what’s the function of the hamstring and we better put down flex the knee. And I said, Well, again, it’s context dependent. But in most functional cases, when you’re up and walking and running and kicking in, and dancing and stuff, the function of the hamstring is actually to extend the knee opposite of what you learned and to control rotation and what we call frontal plane motion. She goes, Why didn’t I learn as she says, in one day, I learned and she this is her quote, I learned more with a nine and a half hour course than I did in my entire physical therapy career. I go well, that’s not that’s that’s first of all impossible. She goes, No, let me add let me let me make it. Let me clarify it. practical things, things I can use tomorrow. i Okay. That’s the difference. Because they made you memorize, you know, the brachial plexus for crying out loud, why I have no idea because it’s right here on a piece of paper, and you’re never going to use it again. So she goes, Well, I have a really big problem. It’s just but I have a better idea. I go, what’s your idea says I’m going to write a paper on the principles that gray Institute’s follows that’s going to transform our profession. And I said, I think that’s going to be a good paper. As you could imagine, she called me back the next day. Crying little I mean, it wasn’t like, like, uncontrollable crying, but she literally you could tell she was upset. She goes, I talked to my professor and she won’t allow me to do that. She was I gave you one job to do and that’s prove what they teach is wrong. And you didn’t do it. So you have to change it. So she should not have to come up with something new and different. And I said, Okay, you remember when I told you how impressed I was with that, Professor? Yeah, I’d take it all back.
Since you put your you know, you’ve watched 19 hours of online stuff, you’re excited about enhancing the your profession, your ability to take care of a patient, your ability to follow evidence based truth, your ability to have strategies that are going to be par for for you and your classmates for the rest of your life. Your ability and your professor denies you that ability to do that. And she’s the one who’s who basically stuck you on us. I said I I would love to talk with her at some point and just share with her I think she’s taking a very A brilliant mind and distorting it and teaching it the wrong thing. And that is you went out there and you learn and you and you did it on your own. And you realize what truth is, you decided to follow the truth. And now she’s denying you the opportunity that so that that’s a sad story. For me, that’s a sad story. A lot of there’s a lot of people out there, that’s their approach isn’t what I’ve been teaching for the last 40 years, you can’t be right. And these, these people are bad people to teach that the hamstrings extend the knee and not flexing. And as you know, probably 95% of what we teach, it’s contrary to what you learn in your personal training. Certification. Certainly contrary to what we learned in physical therapy school, it’s contrary to what I learned in athletic my athletic training certification, but it’s not crap we made up it’s not theoretical, it’s 100%. If this is true, that has to be true. If the body moves in three planes of motion, that I have to understand how every muscle functions in three planes of motion, that’s undeniable truth. So that’s why you see people doing, as you say, crazy things, going through all three planes of motion to create mobility and a joint to turn on the proprioceptors to properly functionally activate a muscle to get it to do what it’s going to do. So that’s my story. And I’m sticking to it.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, lots of that’s an interesting story. And as I continue to post, people continue to say, show me your studies, show me your Yep. You know, you’re going against research. And it’s a bit. It’s a bit it’s a bit I don’t use the word dangerous, use a different word that your trainer talking about relieving someone’s pain. And yes, and we even had a local physical therapy group, and I’m very, very honored that they did, they came over here, and they had lunch with us, and I got to stand in front of them and describe what we do all of them, every single one of them. And it’s a big physical therapist, at least in our in our area, and they’re outside of the state too. And it was really awesome, because they kind of honed in on one where this might take away they hone in on one more set up. You mentioned pain a lot. Mic Yeah. Yeah. Is that That’s, you know, in my head, like that’s a that’s a word I can use. Right? That’s not Yeah. off my table. Yeah, I guess you you you guys take care of pain. I said, I said, Yeah, I mean, every day, every day, we have clients when they walk out if you’re in less than or no pain that you bet. And it was very interesting, because as you’re analyzing it for so much time I kind of realized is that it’s like that’s a term that I go to a lot of other certifications. And they’re saying, Once there’s pain, you have to transfer your liability, quote, unquote, you got to transfer your focus to the medical system. That’s the appropriate step to do it. And I followed along that path for many, many years of my career until I started realizing like wait a minute, we had literally a completely broken l five, l l five. No, no, excuse me, l one. All the way to t 10. From a fall accident from a climber. Amazing mazing young girl, she’s about my age boss used to still call it I call it. But you know, that is a it was that concept is like she came in, she says, I’m in pain, I want to start moving again. And the part that I really want to share is that we’d never touched your back. I do not treat surgical sites. Right, not treat back pain, I don’t treat knee pain. I certainly treat the ankle, the hip, the thoracic spine, the shoulder, you know, cervical spine that isn’t in pain that will affect and therefore, and a lot of cases, vast majority of the cases take away that pain source. And that’s a concept that a hedge spy watch. I know it’s preaching to the choir here, but it’s a
Gary
big Oh, no, no, you summarize the beautifully. First of all, if you as a personal trainer, if you had to anytime anybody mentioned pain, or a subset of pain would be called discomfort or stiffness. We wouldn’t see anybody. Yeah, that’s what they call it. Yeah. And then there is a threshold that you know that, you know, let’s say somebody, you know, just came through the door and, and had a surgery from an acute injury that really needs to kind of have kind of your, you know, hey, listen, let this really good therapy center take good care of you. But they’re not going to be able to hold you forever. And we’d love to continue to work with you later. But the lady that you mentioned is like you say, you understood the human by here’s, here’s the best way to answer that question or to comment on that. Let’s say that that lady is your wife. Would you rather her go to you with your understanding of the human body? Or would you rather her go to and I’ll probably get beat up on this one but I still I just still see a lot of students, physical therapists who are one month away from physical therapy. And they came in with that, you know, high lumbar, low thoracic involvement. And I said, Please evaluate this person to tell me what we’re going to do, they’re not going to look at the subtalar joint like you did, they’re not going to look at the ankle like you did, they’re not going to understand the importance of getting those hips moving in all three planes of motion to take the stress off that area, they’re not going to understand that high thoracic area and the Scapular mobility, they’re not going to understand most stability. So the answer is, man, if that’s my wife, Michael Hughes is going to treat her or take care of her however you want to define that. And yeah, even if she has pain, and even if it is from something what would be called relatively significant, because that therapist who hasn’t been trained the way you have, that has been very traditionally trained, who’s going to probably give her the some back exercises, or whatever we’re being taught to do anymore, it’s just not going to get the job done. So keep going. But I just wanted to, I just wanted to interrupt because you know, that’s our belief, too. We, everybody out tonight on self be true, you got to understand where your threshold of your abilities and liabilities are. But as you know, the more you’ve learned about the human body, the more you’ve been able to when people come in with pain, you go, you’re in the right spot. Because we know that pain dramatically influences your life. And if I can do some things with you, that indirectly take take care of the cause, which many times you’re doing, and get rid of that pain, not only temporary, but permanently, then I have done my job as a personal trainer. And that’s the job of a personal trainer. Yeah, and
Michael Hughes
to speak to all the personal trainers in the sense like I’m we have a partnership of people we have, we have Chiropractors, we have physical therapist, we have massages because that we are there in our circle and a sense of understanding businesses, but that we really do our best to say, You know what that occupy architecture is, is really going to calm that tissue down a heck of a lot faster than me, even over there. And that chiropractor is going to because you got a you got a sunlux joint that just get back into place. And then they start going going to work. And yeah, you tore your ACL, no, you should go see a physical therapist, because that sector needs to be reestablished. But once it function outside of just standing and going P whatever the case is, then, you know, then you got to come to us. And it’s it’s fascinating. What happens when people come to your training facility, its agenda, I call it Training Facility, and they ask you for help. And I usually have the same conversation with him. How many different people have you talked to to finally get to me? I find that a very interesting kind of story. And because we’re always the last option, and it’s really true, are always usually the last option. And I usually look at him and I say, You know what? I’m very sorry for what’s going on. I hear your story. It’s, it’s, it’s it’s a crisis, right? It’s yours. But I’m not going to treat your lower back. Touch your knee. And it’s kind of look at me, like almost like, okay, I get it because everyone’s work just on my knee.
Gary
Right? Relative Yeah, good point. They’re not confused, they intuitively go. Well, this makes more sense. Because everybody’s isolated where I say I have my problem. And that hasn’t worked. And I’m not able to go back to what I want to write and to have somebody smart enough to connect all the dots. And ultimately, take advantage of all my friends with my knee. And when you take good care of my friends all, all of a sudden, the nieces will thank you now I have less stress and less responsibility on me. And now I’m going to be able to contribute to this human body better. I think you experienced this as well. But when we our very first gift was in 2007. So as you can imagine, very first gift gathering, we weren’t really sure what was going to happen. Because the gift fellowship knew that we had therapists had been therapists for 35 years, some of them world known, you know, sitting next to a personal trainer who took a six month personal training course. And they’re looking at each other and go on. So we’re in the same class. Yeah, we’re studying the same thing. Yeah. And immediately, there was a respectful bond. I mean, it was like a thing of beauty. I didn’t anticipate it. I thought we’d have to do a little dance and and romancin to explain to everybody why we thought movement specialists should be under one roof and should be taught the same thing. But what I quickly realized is that therapists who came through the door and that trainer came through the door before they came to the door, they left this little stuffed animal that they normally carry in their pocket called an eagle. At the doorway. You They came in and they and they immediately had respect for each other and said, so you’d gotten this 40 week thing out to haunt Yep. It’s crazy in it. Yeah, I didn’t learn this in school did we know? Well, I’m proud of you, the person, the personal trainer would say to the therapist and the therapist who go, No, I’m proud of you. And you know, you experienced the same thing. Everyone in your gift class, loved you, and respected you, and admired you. And you did the same to them. And that’s the beauty of people with the same kind of mental drive. But I think cause that’s more of a heart drive and a spiritual drive, who just really say, I don’t care how we do it, I just want to get better at taking care of people. I don’t care, you know, where the where the, you know, thresholds and the borders are, I know, I’m, I’m gonna pray about always doing the right thing. But, man, if I can help this person in pain, this will bring joy to my life. And that’s mostly what we do.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, and especially for the trainers who have an access to such an ecosystem of because one on one training is highly focused area, but then it moves to small group or semi private and into large groups. Like there’s such an amazing way to train the sustainability of human movement. Eel that I think a few other fields just don’t have, you know, physical therapist has to build a whole other business model to do fitness inside of their physical therapies, chiropractor, same way we’re fitness, there’s a such a range of potential that I it’s very unique, it’s very unique, that we can go all the way to a team environment, and train that specific ankle, and then literally build programming to keep it there in a group environment that cost you $10 A session, you know, it’s less than a copay at this particular point.
Gary
Yes, yeah. That’s why That’s why it’s getting even more important. By the way. I don’t know if you saw an article is done by a guy in the New York Times. But this has been even years, years ago, before the co pays got like this. But he had, he had a I actually believe it was an ankle problem. And he went to like four or five different services in New York City, and found out that the person who looked at him to listen to him that solved this problem was a personal trainer, I think he went to an orthopedic surgeon, he went to a physical therapist, he went to, he went to a number of people, and his whole article was find somebody that understands your human body, and understands, you know, what, what you’re really after. And can, as we say, put the put the puzzle pieces together, that’s who you want. Just because they have a title of a certain type, or have a certain type of insurance reimbursement doesn’t doesn’t mean a lot. So what what the personal trainers need to hear now is that you’re becoming even more significant. Because what you’re what you’re charging, many times, even with a 6070 $80, you know, half hour session, that’s a copay for a lot of physical therapy groups. Now, again, you have to, hopefully, if the therapist been listened to this, or you know, hopefully, they they’re going to listen long enough. I believe we got good, good people in all professions, and we have what I would call not so good in all professions. So I’m, I’m beaten up the profession of physical therapy, because I know what they still teach. I’m not beating up the physical therapists, there’s a lot of therapists out there that get through the tunnel and become a doctor of physical therapy. And then they start learning how the human body really works. And they’re doing amazing and, and they don’t have to do it through the great Institute. I’m not, I don’t want people to assume that the only way that you’re going to learn this stuff is to come our way. Because there’s a lot of great people out there teaching it. I just believe that unless, unless you can tell me like you said, Whatever he joined, the body is doing and all three planes of motion when somebody walks, you’ll never be able to properly treat low back pain. Because any of those joints, any of those muscles in those proper receptors could be the cause of the low back pain. And you can’t tell me what the right mid tarsal joints doing when the right foots in front what’s happening at the SI joint. I would have to say that. I’m sorry. You’re not You’re not in an optimal thought process to be able to treat low back pain. Yeah. That That scares people.
Michael Hughes
Yeah. And, and from a different standard, because it’s true. Like, my best friend is a physical therapy therapist up in Oakland area. He’s a thinker, just flat out and he’s one of the best spinal cords, physical therapists in California. Yeah, like he thinks, and it’s really coming down to it more as like I’m understanding how the insurance world works.
Gary
And how have you figured that out? Give me a call.
Michael Hughes
Well This is talking to a bunch of physical therapy friends my call, it’s my understanding that it’s, it’s, you know not to use the word hamstring again, but they’re hamstrung on how they can treat. And that’s really interesting when you get to a cash pay world like we’re in, right? We can, I’m going to say this very loosely and almost dramatically on purpose, we can do whatever we want. Obviously, there’s ethics behind these things, but no big and it’s amazing what that’s doing. And what I really believe is capitalism kind of always wins, you know, and for the bad. And this is a good opportunity, I think it’s a good opportunity where people can get their dollar to stretch a lot further, because they don’t have to go on that East End, they don’t have to go on an ultrasound, they don’t have to get that ice pack. You know, they don’t have to get the 45 minutes with a PT aid, and only 15 minutes with a physical therapist when I can spend 100% of the time on movement, and joint motion, not joint mobilization for joint mobility, stability, etc, etc. Right? And I don’t just, it’s, it’s a very interesting opportunity time, but I think in this industry, now, with the pandemics gone through, we realize that we were shunned does not essential. But we realize how health is the most essential thing in the world enough to shut down the entire world. For Health. Yeah, it’s like, okay, well, who’s the frontlines of that? Whose lead? I mean, you can call it nutrition be the frontline, Frontline, but who’s from the movement side? And it’s the personal gym? And just to kind of agree, it’s Valley cry, like, how can we step up and remedy
Gary
it in? You know, the, again, what what I hope the are saying, and I know yours, let the personal trainers who really understand the human body, let’s step up, we’re not saying that you take a weekend course, and I was easy, you know, your CPR, you know, you know how to call 911. And you know, how to count to 10. And you can know how to put plates on the thing and, but you don’t really have to look at movement and go, I think I know what’s going on there. But those who do and you know, that’s that they’re going to find out over the next two to three years that everything’s playing into them. It is it is sad, that insurances are now dictating what I can do as a physical therapist, I mean, that’s, that should almost be a comment on what we’ve done a little that should be, I shouldn’t be apologizing for that to all the physical therapists. So after the last 45 years, I haven’t proven to an insurance company, that I have the professional wherewithal to determine what the patient needs. They determine what the patient needs, how long the patient gets therapy, what they get, what they’re going to reimburse, and course insurance companies that will always win. That’s why they call them insurance companies. But it’s kind of sad that we over 45 years, I haven’t gained the trust of an insurance company to say this is what we need to do to help help this person to get to ultimately where they want to go. You know, we have horror stories. Yeah, well, you get six shots at him, you know, and you’re going, you got to be kidding me, you know, and as opposed to No. And once you start a lifetime journey with this personal trainer, who’s going to understand you for your whole life, so there’s no there’s no time where all of a sudden, I can’t or can’t do that. It’s we’re always gonna do what’s best for you, the client. That’s that’s the way it should be. But that’s not the way it is anymore. No, I
Michael Hughes
think this is like said through understanding, biomechanics and B I essentially I like to call it as becoming a physicist of movement as what has you. You know,
Gary
that’s the best description I’ve heard.
Michael Hughes
Yeah. And principle based thinking either. Yeah, mentors, you’re one of them. Whether you know it or not, and Elon Musk, I’ve never met him, but I really like him. Because he’s principles, first thinker, is, what should happen? And is that physically possible or not? If it is, right, and let’s push for it. Right. And that’s, to me how the human body works. It’s, well, there’s a lot to this thing here. And this thing here, we really, that’s really, really where it happens. Yep. You’ve taught me that river River. Well, I have one more question it because I think this is a great story that I’ve certainly heard it many times, and I’d love to hear it again. But it’s a good representation of where you were called in by the Special Forces to unpack their movement, assess them to build them a program that literally got them ready for anything. And that’s how I look at our job, my job, there’s no seasons outside. I’m in a studio right now. And literally training is going on outside these walls is probably going to hurt the music plan is that you? There’s there’s no seasons out there with those clients. They are working 24/7 nonstop. They don’t have in the game season. They’ll have an athletic trainer in a sensible bag. That’s not true. They don’t really have the access and certain times their lives to get what they need. Just like these special forces when they’re out there. They’re out there. And we have to understand everything that they do. And to me, that’s a great story of and maybe a closing story of how what you did to us to learn, and get enough information to send these soldiers, hopefully in a brand new path.
Gary
So well, I’ve never thought about that. But I love your analogy. Because what what we encountered with having the privilege of working with our Special Forces Group, and we got work with the seals and the rangers and, and one other group that you just used as analogy is your typical client is the same thing. They gotta be ready for everything all day, there’s not a season, there’s not a day off, there’s not, you know, hey, I’m going to play the game tomorrow. And then I get to take a day or two off, or, Hey, we’re going to have three weeks, three months off during the season. It’s go time, all the time. And then
Michael Hughes
let’s just have different
Gary
intensity levels. Yeah. And sometimes the level of the average, right, human is even more I mean, it’s, you know, when you think of what everybody has to deal with is like, wow, you know, so when, as you know, the story arc, I’ll abbreviate it so we don’t carry on too long. But for us, it was a privilege because they first of all, asked us to come down to evaluate what they were doing as far as their training, because at that point, their biggest problem was getting these gentlemen redeployed. And the number one reason they couldn’t be redeployed is because lingering musculoskeletal injuries wasn’t being shot wasn’t, you know, what we would call battle stuff, it was the typical neuro musculoskeletal problems that they weren’t able to go back and go come stateside, and then get properly rehab, so to speak, and get back and to do what they need to do and in different countries, so to speak. So we I didn’t know much about I never had the privilege of being in the military. I’ve watched movies. And it’s some some kind of idea. But when I went down there and kind of they let me see some of their training, you’re not allowed to see a lot of the stuff just because of the confidentiality and also just because it’s very protected. Yeah, it was, it didn’t surprise me. I saw some really typical traditional things, a lot of push ups, a lot of pull ups, you know, a lot of running. And I said, I said to the gentleman that I was dealing with, I said I I don’t want to seem ignorant here, but I’m ignorant. I don’t know everything Aseel does. And he goes, What do you mean, I go, I don’t know everything they do. And they go, the guy goes way to do everything. I go, Yeah, but I don’t know what that is, you know, I don’t know what it feels like, you know, jump out of a plane and land with a parachute on, I don’t know what it feels like to, you know, haul a chainsaw into area and try to use it to open up an area to excavate to get to the enemy, so to speak. I don’t know what it feels like to be out on the field and being shot at I don’t know what it feels like to, you know, be in water and covertly try to sneak up beside a ship in you know, put a bomb on a show I shot. I don’t know any of that stuff. He goes, Well, yes. Because you’re not having to seal I go, I know that I should. But here’s, here’s what I’d like to propose. I said, Where I come from a lot of the factories, let me come in and share with them how I would what I would do to take care of my body. And I said I don’t believe the way I was taught in the books, the books taught this biomechanics stuff that’s contrived. And, you know, this artificial stuff that makes no sense to anybody in the factory, if you’ve ever gone there and gave him one of those traditional talks, they laughed me out of the place. So what I do is I get a hold of the CEO of the factory of the company, and go, I need to work for free for three days in your facility. And then I will be more willing to get in front of your people and say, If I had that job, here’s what I would do to beat up my body less and be able to go home and still play with the kids 100% of time they said great. Are you kidding? This is wonderful. And my credibility level went up because I quickly realized how hard it is to work in that factory. How how dedicated these people are to their families, what they do day after day in order to just put food on the table. And I’ve just first of all, I usually go there and go, you guys are my heroes. And I said, so that’s what I need to do. And he goes, What do you mean? I said, I need to be a seal that Well, I had to pick them off the ground because he was laughing so hard. I mean, literally this guy. I’m thinking, what’s so funny. And he goes well, first of all, have you seen yourself? Go? I try not to look in the mirror. But yeah, I’ve seen myself. He goes, Yeah, I’m sorry. And he goes plus he goes, I’m hi in them. I’m hi in the Navy. He says I couldn’t even train with the seals, unless you’re a seal, you don’t train to the seals. He goes, let me see if I can put this in perspective, if you like basketball, yeah, he says, let’s say, you know, the Lakers are running their triangular offense, and it’s the day before game seven of the NBA championship and you go, You know what I’d like to go to practice. I’d like to get part of the part of the triangle here. And I want to learn when I, when I should pick up when I should pick over when I should actually give and go when I should set, you know, do this. And they go, and I go, well, they never let you do that. It screws everything up. Because precisely, he said, but only thing you’re going to screw up is you’re gonna miss a layup, you become a seal, you’re gonna get somebody killed. Oh, okay, that’s, that’s a little different than my I had my brain. And he goes, so what’s your proposal? I said, I can’t I’m sorry, I don’t know what to put to tell you what I may be able to do to help these gentlemen, because I don’t know what they do. And I only have a pinch knowledge of how they train. So my gut instinct is there’s a gap between their training and what they really do. And because I see that in all sports, and he goes, well, well, how do you want to resolve that? I go, Well, maybe you have some movie, or some film you can show me was not we can’t even lie you to see that. And I go, Well, I’m sorry. I said, I don’t know what to do. I said, Why don’t I go back home. And let me give me, you know, a couple couple of days to think about it. And but I know what we’ve already talked about, but ideally, me coming and being a seal for a little while would really be so he laughed again, he goes, Well, that’s never gonna happen. And he’s you know, the rest of the story is, I got home a couple days later, he calls me up, and he says, We have approval from the admiral, and he goes, I have no idea why but you get to be a seal for a week. And at that point, I go, that’s just stupid as saying I might have ever thought of in my life. And he goes b b, you have to be proficient with the nine millimeter 16. That all things at least I had friends that he says. So when you get show up here, we’re going to We can’t waste time, you know, so you don’t shoot yourself in the toe, or worse than that shoot somebody else. And so that the whole idea of the Bat Week story we’ll see for another time. But that was that’s a book in itself. Because it all the start at the start of the book was respect, the end of the book was respect. And the middle of the book is every day, we should be down on our hands and knees thanking our military, everybody for what they’re doing to keep us safe. That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s the book guy. That’s what I learned. And that’s what I you know, it’s amazing. But here’s, here’s what your point was, is that we had, when we found out what they did, we had to figure out a way that we could train them and be a specialist of all their specialties. In the promise, they have a lot of specialties, like more than I ever dreamed, and more difficult than I ever dreamed. And so we had to come up with what we called a lot of common denominator, foundational movements to allow them to then build from there based on what time they had and what their goals were and what knickknack injuries they had and what musculoskeletal problems they were dealing with. And as you know, we were extremely successful in that even to the point where a couple years later the the what I would call the seal that we dealt with mostly shared with a group of chain reaction participants that within one year, we reduced the musculoskeletal injuries up to 90%. And the redeployment rate was like, unbelievable, because they were training different. You know, they just weren’t doing 1000 Push ups from an xx x position. And so, you know, the drill there. So we were that that was a huge blessing to us, because we are forced to think, Okay, if we can come up with a common denominator assessment and training and mobility and strength program that literally attacks every joint in every plane of motion, and turns on every pro preceptor and engages every muscle. And we’re able to do this with the least amount of movements, and then build from there, we’re going to be very successful. And of course, you know, that was the that’s when the whole idea of 3d maps started firming up the six movements of 3d maps. So it was a warm up, by the way. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. For maps. And it was it was strangely enough, it was the first thing even before 3d maps when you when you saw Lisa do the spherical matrix. That was that. I mean, he literally she was lunging and moving in all three planes of motion and driving her hands on all three planes of motion and all sudden you’re going What’s that? Well, the answer is those simple six movements. It lengthen, create mobility and every joint in the body to the threshold which is the goal and create the need for strength to control it and all those joints and turn on every preceptor and therefore engage all every muscle you have in your body was six movements. Well, that’s like, we would have thought, even even when you took if we said that was impossible. And you know, because everything was just
Michael Hughes
pure. You sounds out there, we just can’t fit. Yeah,
Gary
oh, he said, I got in front of everybody said, I don’t think it can be done. You know, this is a global human movement analysis and training program. Now you gotta remember, I kept preaching, you gotta know, the transformation zone of the specialty, right? How the context dependent? Well, I was wrong again, you know, and that’s, that’s probably, if I had to write a book on my life, you know, I’ve been wrong a lot. And but I, I think I was blessed as a kid to not dumb I was, and to realize that being wrong is going to be my game. And as long as I take advantage of the game, and go, Okay, now that I’m wrong, what would be better? What’s what theoretically as more right. And so that’s kind of what I’ve tried to do my entire life. So and that’s kind of the foundation of what we do in AFS is understanding how you then tweak those fundamental fundamental movements to make a more specialist life for that specialty that the person wants. And it becomes a beautiful package, like you say, a very logical, simple package. But you got to go through the complexity, as we say, the valley of complexity to get to the mountaintop of simplicity. And you guys, I believe, are just doing an amazing job of taking advantage of the mountain of simplicity and, and basically, sharing the truth in a way that people understand them quite effectively and instantaneously, can empower their clients. And I think that’s why you guys have been so successful. And that’s why you’re going to be hugely successful over the next three to five years. So I’m excited for
Michael Hughes
you. I appreciate that. Well, this is a perfect full song circle moment, because it was that crazy, funky, growling Lisa doing these crazy funky moves, and which now haven’t become a staple of every single program that we do. And is now actually if you think of a trainer out there says I get to train a Navy SEAL like me how you can’t get better than that. It’s just like that seems intuitive, egocentric. Just I got a trophy on the wall that the client tell, you know, instead of the trophy fish trophy client, it doesn’t get better than then no, and then realize that that what she was doing in that big box gym was no different. Literally no different than what a few teams or a few different camps or bases are doing in their warm ups. I know not everyone does it. But I know if you can only influence some who you can influence they’re doing. And that’s all under the training and conditioning world.
Gary
Yep, that’s that kind of covers that we had a week course T set within our Free to Play program and a young lady went her. She she went up to a basketball game up in Detroit and saw this particular athlete do his warm up and he did a spherical matrix warmup. Basically a full 3d Match warm up first of all, free flow, and then with a little bit of weight. And then while he was dribbling the basketball, and she realized that she had just done that herself, and she went back back to her school. And her teacher basically allowed them to do the free to play matrices every, every day, it takes five or six minutes. She went to her teacher says, Here’s what I saw it and then she thought for a bit she goes, am I just like a professional athlete? And her teacher brilliantly says, I think you’re even better than that. Yes, certainly, certainly, you’re as important. You know, and I, I think it’s about time we teach our clients when we teach our kids and we teach us older people that we have as much significance as important as anybody else. And that our goal is to show the same respect to multibillion dollar athlete as a CEO who’s worth even more than multibillion dollars in the same respect to you know, our family members and our friends and the same respect for that dear person who comes into that facility the first time and said, Man, I’m looking for somebody to personally train me into empower me to let me love life even more. And that’s where you get the smile on your face and go up in the right spot.
Michael Hughes
All right on. Well, I really appreciate you I really appreciate the storytime really appreciate connecting with you. Thank you for sharing your perspective to an industry that I really obviously care about a whole lot and who directly I influence and you directly influence through me as well and as to everything that you guys do so think well,
Gary
it’s it’s always a blessing to see you have this this charming smile but I as significant as your charming smile, I literally have the ability to see your heart smile. And so I appreciate your heart and spirit and what you’ve meant to me and, and you’ve have truly had become the mentary that has turned and transformed into my mentor. So I appreciate what you’ve contributed to my life and our great student family’s life. So all I can do is just pray that, you know, you continue to get blessed just as he continued to bless so many people. So thank you for this opportunity, Michael, I really appreciate it.
Michael Hughes
Right back at you, sir. Thank you. Thanks.
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