How to Become More Flexible & Mobile in Your Training
Michael Hughes
Hey, would you classify yourself as flexible? Like mobile, bendable, movable? Gum me like? More than likely you don’t. And there’s a lot of ways to achieve that. Some are fun, some are boring. Some you don’t even know that you’re doing it. But let me tell you this right now. You are practicing flexibility right now. Oh, yes. You in the car? You walking down the street, you want a bike path on your bike? Yes, you are practicing flexibility. So congratulations, give yourself a high five. Because you are doing something about your current flexibility state? Do you do it dynamically? Do you do it? Statically? Well, that kind of seems to be the argument, it has to be this or that and one is better than the other. And I think I need to be more flexible. But I don’t know, if I really have time to do that. I gotta go break a sweat, I gotta go burn some calories. That’s kind of the conversation that happens in our head over and over and over again. What should I do? Can I do it? To have enough time to do it? What do I even do? Well see generic gonna jump into this topic of flexibility? Unpack the dynamic, the static, the body positioning, and why don’t we have this notion that we are all flexible, in a sense? Well, what I mean by you being flexible, is that no matter what position you’re in, your body is undergoing tension and tissue lengthening, that is resulting in a progression of more of what you’re currently doing. So we’re going to dive into this, we’re going to unpack it, we have some fun with it. And hopefully you learned a lot about flexibility and how easy it is to do. And more appropriately, how you can do it to give yourself the sense of what flexibility actually is and how amazing it is to have it. Cheers. 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. So the way that I think about this, because we’re talking about all about flexibility, mobility, is there’s like three sides to this kind of puzzle, in a sense, strength, cardio, and like move ability, flexibility. And that’s kind of the boil down to the basics of human movement. And we’re all about, I mean, we’re all about all of them. But really, if I had an opinion about one, or like the one that’s most underutilized, underappreciated, and then general fitness, athletic sense, it’s the flexibility piece. What do you mean with that?
CJ
I mean, depends on what you define as flexibility. If we’re talking strictly physicality sake, it’s the ability for your joints to go through ranges of motion. And it’s kind of like overlooked, I think, because it’s something that everybody knows to do and should care about. Because if we can’t move our joints, we literally cannot move. But I think it’s the most misunderstood. And so it’s not addressed thoroughly. I mean, flexibility, to me is its strength through ranges of motion. So, I mean, there’s people that are super bendy out there that may be doing a lot of yoga, or some kind of what’s the word I’m looking for? contortionist type stuff where you just get your body into weird positions. And I think that’s one way to look at flexibility is just to be able to access that range of motion. But really in like the fitness field, active range of motion is most important. And people focus on like, well, it’s strength or flexibility. Where I think when we look at it is mobility is strength and strength is mobility. But you’ve got to you’ve got to have the two married you got to address both all the time.
Michael Hughes
It’s not two ends of the spectrum. It’s combined it’s together.
CJ
Yeah, or even two different spectrums like this. by trauma flexibility, like not flexible and flexible, and strength is not strong and strong, but that’s super basic to look at it. But if we’re going to look at how do we view strength, and how do we view flexibility, those two spectrums have to go together. And as your strength increases, should also be trying to increase your flexibility or your ability to access range of motion, and then strengthen that. And then now that you’re strong there, and that range of motion in this direction, or that transformational zone, go back to your flexibility, see where you can continue to make gains. And maybe you don’t need to keep making gains in a certain area, once you’ve accessed a functional range. I think there’s a lot of focus on flexibility actually in fitness. But it’s like, you got to take every single joint in your body through all of its ranges of motions in all planes of motion, where it’s like, that’s a good way to assess and look at overall flexibility and mobility. But it’s dependent on the individual to somebody might need to be able to go down into a split position. And somebody else might not even need to access that ever. But they still need people to access a wide foot position while they’re standing or while they’re seated. So kind of questioning the function of the individual. And then where is their functional range of strength and their functional range of mobility.
Michael Hughes
Because I always say that when you pick when you focus on strength training, you’re definitely now focusing on losing flexibility. Because the stronger you get the muscles regrow, fibers reattached, but they regrow and read tight and they reattach tighter soreness, right, you don’t move as well, then you have to kind of break through that soreness to read, to acquire that range of motion through that strength doesn’t happen at the same same time. As I would like to think it does, I like to think you can build strength and flexibility at the exact same time. But I find myself doing this I’ll get sore after heavy strength workout, and then have to work to establish that range of motion. From that strength workout essentially recovering from soreness.
CJ
That’s super interesting, because I think there’s depending on the workout that you did, and your intentions that you’re setting. You could be potentially working on expanding your ranges in your workout with submaximal loads, and still gaining strength. Just you may not be going as heavy and as traditional as conventional lifting. If you’re also working on ranges of motion,
Michael Hughes
right, because I still get sore. My focus on flexibility on me. Like I said, like a submaximal load but in a spiral or any range of motion, diagonal especially diagonals because you really pull the two ends apart. Like we will come out of like, Oh, I just did stretching, I’m super sore to float, the body doesn’t care, soreness doesn’t doesn’t have a preference, sources about newness in a sense. So it’s fascinating. Like, I’m actually interested when we’re talking about a flexibility session, it’s a dynamic flexibility session where there’s that elastic recoil component coming, coming into it.
CJ
Focusing on the loading and the exploding Zack plays to like a machine based training, which is you might be in a loaded position. But your body isn’t. First of all, it’s not required to use other parts, like you might be sitting at a machine, you might be laying down on something. So you’re kind of you’re closing the chain, in a sense. So you’re working in a specific range and a specific portion of your body. But when you start going into those active ranges without the machines, like what is it? Where’s your focus? Is it on like going into the deepest range? Is it going on to a full load, like full end range load and then exploding out? Like say that you’d want to go into a forward lunge? Well, are you working on the push off from that forward lunge, just that explosion, where you’re working on pulling yourself deeper into that forward lunge, and then letting yourself get some time under tension to expose yourself to a new range under time than the new push back, your body now has gained more awareness in a range of motion for that specific activity like a forward lunge, that now you’re gonna have a better explode, you’re gonna have more power coming out of it. potentially more soreness, potentially more discomfort, but you might be getting more birds with one stone.
Michael Hughes
So let’s now let’s measure that hamstring load right to what you and I did, at least I definitely did in college, was to sit and reach back against a wall, this metal box with a sliding little tab on it. Let’s talk about that. Let’s dive into that. And let’s say this, let’s be honest, let’s let’s do that. Let’s pro and con it.
CJ
I’m a self classified, immobile individual at that age, like just touch my toes. I’m pretty sure I could like I could bend my knees and get away with it. But I knew I was feeling like myself cheating based upon what the test is. Right is doing. There’s a standing version. Then there’s the seating version where you’re trying to move a little dial forward,
Michael Hughes
which literally is always, I failed. I flew, is there a failure in it?
CJ
Well, yeah, he’s a certain like, the level of
Michael Hughes
the class you failed. Yeah, there wasn’t. There was like an American Standard, you know, level. And I would just be all thoracic spine. Just all tuck my chin and push in.
CJ
Yeah. What was that assessing?
Michael Hughes
Well, I mean, by the terms of it hamstring flexibility, but it’s really assessing this posterior chain.
CJ
Right? Plus your chain while you’re sitting while the posterior chain is not active. Yeah, very little activity. Yes. Yes. In fact, you’re more active in your anterior chain, pulling yourself into that motion.
Michael Hughes
Totally, totally. And I just feel behind my knees, and through my low back, not a bad way. But
CJ
you know, I’d always I’d always be the one pushing too hard. Like, I know, I’m not mobile enough. So like, oh, squeeze, like breaking up like a blood vessel in your eye. I get there like past like, Man, that was not comfortable. And, I mean, there’s definitely more kids that were more immobile that I was. I was pretty active kid and can move. But for the people who weren’t moving very much, it was like, Well, if you did have something in the way, bending over, it was just your lack of access a range.
Michael Hughes
Well, I was appreciated youth athletics, you work out hard. You know, you play, you do a sport, and then you go sit in a desk for six hours. And then you go play, Monkey Bar, tag, basketball, sit down for an hour, and then you’ll hear us go to the sandwich test.
CJ
Some confounding results, I think, and there seems like a recipe for failure. Then if I would have done a few squats, a few posts here lunges, maybe a few thoracic spine swings and three planes of motion. I would have no blown. They’d be like, Wow, you scratch off that. No, I just warmed up. I pride myself,
Michael Hughes
right. So kind of going back to you would you would do dynamic motion. So again, obviously, we’re often talking about dynamic versus static, you know, because I remember even in high school warm for track practice, we would run two laps, jog lazily, and then go do static stretching. For good 20 minutes, a holding position literally sit you know, think about the hurdler stretch, think about the butterfly stretch, think about laying on the ground, leg, crossover, stretch, etc, etc. Stick, push up position, calf stretch, just hold. There just hanging out there. 20 seconds each side. And that was it. So pretty good. And track and field by the way, but I just am potentially like, we will talk about training, you know, sit and reach tests, training, static stretching, going through how we actually operate in real life, how we work out how we get sore from strength, how we get sore from cardio, how it gets sore from even flexibility work. We put it all together. It’s like is how it’s how it all comes together? Are we really doing a better job of dynamic stretching, or really doing a better job of static stretching? Is there a place for both? Because I believe there is I think we actually do a hybrid significantly well here. And I remember doing a Kinesiology labs where we would do? Actually no, I didn’t do that you guys did that. Did you a Kinesiology lab where you do static stretching, do a vertical jump and do dynamic stretching. And what was the results of that
CJ
dynamic stretching was by far which is like basically just a warm up like he just get some light bouncing in there. I mean, it’s more focused on bringing the heart rate up and working in multiple planes of motion that were like hit every single plane and every single joint it was like warm up for what you’re going to go do. So there’s like some hurdles, just running over hurdles real quick or doing some like quick bounces of the feet like split stance or doing some jump rope doing some arm swings. And so we had part of our class, do that dynamic side and then basically assess a vertical jump, do the warm up, do a vertical jump. And then it was the other side was do vertical jump do static stretching, do a jump. So we had two different groups. And by far the dynamic stretching led to better results in the vertical jump. small sample size. Obviously there’s a class fundamental lab but it was obvious the way you felt at least in the vertical jump. Like if I was gonna go go play some basketball or I wanted to go jump on something up on a rock boulder or whatever jumped down. I’m gonna go do some dynamic stretching. I’m not going to sit there hold my toes in a seated position and stretch my calves and hammies though there is a place for it and I really love doing that. I would much rather prefer the dynamic and I think any athlete would agree with that. It’s just it’s priming the mind. It’s priming your your mental state and your physical state proprioception, proprioception Yeah. And then static stretching it brought up more rest and digest within myself like I was relaxed after doing the static stretching, work dynamic. It kind of got me pumped up. So I think Whether there’s a split is like, well, what’s the reason you’re doing it? There’s no wrong way, there’s not necessarily a better way, depending on what the context is and why you’re doing it. I mean, I remember my mom every morning, we stretching for 30 minutes, every morning, and there was something that she wouldn’t do it. Another issue would do it. And when she did you achieve feel good the whole day, no back pain, no complaints. But like, oh, I need to stretch, you know, like know that feeling that your body is just kind of compressing and holding in on itself, dealing up the effects of gravity ground reaction force, your mass momentum, just kind of coming down to center. I valued static stretching, because I watched my mom do it. And there was always some kind of combination of both. But it wasn’t till I got diving deeper into what flexibility what mobility really is, and what, what creates a more mobile body. What creates more range of motion, and it wasn’t necessarily more stretching. It was like, it’s biology. Yes. It’s the physics Yes. Like, what’s your positioning in relation to gravity, because you’ll have maybe more access while you’re hanging on something versus laying down on something. So like traction. And then also like psychology, like your emotional body has everything to do with flexibility. And most people I think, hold on to what their body knows, or hold on to maybe stresses or thoughts, and it prevents them from opening up like most people are braced throughout their day. And so if you ask them to do a sit and reach test while they’re stressed out, versus somebody who doesn’t sit and reach test while they’re relaxed, two very different results. question that goes on even more so into into performance training. It’s not about just stretching, it’s about where’s your head while you’re stretching? What are you doing? And why are you doing it?
Michael Hughes
So, when I found, you know, dynamic stretching, truly studied it got into it, you know, just what I mean by dynamic stretching is active range of motion with the intent of pulling tissue apart, right? Because I like to put I like to define things, relatively speaking, right? Because it was like, what do you what are you talking about when you say dynamic stretching, because it can be so broad? Like the word functional training is like, oh, man, like, what are you really talking about? So dynamic stretching, with the intent of flexibility with intent of mobility with intent of opening up in a kind of more relaxed environment, restoration based is an it’s a kind of wild numb those two levels, one is getting into a static position. So let’s say we’re doing what does use the hamstrings watch over and over again, because it’s simple, always, for me, you go into a static position. But then I drive or dynamically move through the other two ranges of motion. So the hamstring gets essentially lengthened in flexion of the of the hip, we’ll just focus on the hip for now. But then I can also lean left, lean, right, spin, right spin left, that’s actually dynamically moving through a static position. And when I did that, I always called myself of non flexible person, like I was that kid, like, my legs are too long for my upper body. In fact, it’s just the opposite. But I’m a typical male, long story short, as like, I can’t touch it touch my toes, I started doing that. It was amazing. The transformation, no foam rolling, no soft tissue work, just holding its dominant stretch position. And then progressively moving dynamically, the other two ranges of motion. So sagittal plane hold anterior hold through for the hamstring stretch, and then drive you the pelvis, hands, whatever foot left, right, spin spin. And it really is amazing. Like, I’d never even thought that you could stretch in multiplying some motion, or combine them it was one or the other. And it’s all this concept like, Oh, don’t do, don’t bounce, because you’re gonna tear something, which I still agree with bouncing is a relative term, right? Don’t shove it against, you know, don’t try to rip a muscle open, but
CJ
push yourself into the stretch. Yeah. Ah, yeah. If you’re working really hard while you’re stretching. Question, why are you working on? Are you forcing yourself to do something? Or are you intentionally creating some kind of discomfort?
Michael Hughes
Yeah. So is the kind of all that kind of education coming together being like, Well, wait a minute, like, what’s more appropriate, what’s more realistic, and I really found that dynamic has to be this unlocking of potential. But I went so far in the deep end on the dynamic, I forgot what the benefits of the static are. And it’s the mental it’s that it’s that ability to be like, let it open up and let it go. And let the body let gravity let physics do its job. Because you’re not gonna have more access when you go back to dynamic. And some people just need to chill out. Just chill out.
CJ
Easier said than done. No,
Michael Hughes
I am. Right. You know, but like is that whole fact? cuz like, I don’t scratch, it’s like sometimes you just need to just lay there. And let me just, you know, let me get on the table and get a soft and cushy for you let me draw that heel up, which I don’t believe that’s a great way to stretch at all, it is a way to stretch something, I don’t believe it’s a great way to stretch. And that’s okay.
CJ
I gotta ask just for the sake of your, your stretching, like, how, how much do you value it in the sense of your own practice? Like when you move into today’s like, ah, you know, like, every four or five weeks, I noticed that you’re really stiff, and I’m gonna stretch for a long time, or is it every day, I put in five minutes, 10 minutes like you personally, because I think everybody’s different. Everybody’s got their own range, that
Michael Hughes
question I put in stretching consciously, every day, on purpose. And on weekends, I struggled the most. Because I’m out of my routine. And I’ll go about 11 o’clock and be like, Man, I’m just like, just don’t have that. Get up on my step. That can be the Bailey’s in my coffee that I that I just had. But you know, typically, you know, that’s what we can return to. But you know, it’s really just that, it’s like, I just don’t do it. So then I’ll go through a dynamic stretch routine, you know, very, very well. And I’m like, Oh, it’s just, it’s like a shot of life. And I’ll do that. Definitely once per day, and it takes about five, five minutes. If I don’t do that, then I am hyperly aware of how tight I am. Hyperly aware, but I’m not a yoga person. I’d rather just literally walk across the floor, and just reach my arms into a pattern to a pattern about do about 10 or so to I’d rather do that. Going up from a desk to the bathroom, on a workday like that, then do an hour of focus. So that’s, that’d be my practice.
CJ
So you’re aware of it, I mean, your your movement, your movement guy in like you are, you’re aware of like, oh, I can just go position my leg up here and put it up on a chair. If I put my hand here, my other hand here and the type one reach. And now I gotta try playing load on my hip. Like, there’s a lot of things that you can, you can target the area that needs to be mobilized much faster than I’d say, an everyday person who doesn’t focus. They know what their body feels like. But they may not know all the geometry of if we flex the hip and we rotate the spine and then grab and we’re in a type one, or we call a rotation one way, lean the opposite way in the spine and we grab and then we’re able to facilitate tension, we can pretty much feel whatever we want to feel in our body, like me and my calf feels tight. Okay, I personally stretch my foot and my hamstring. Like I think the general population is like, Oh, my calf hurts. stretch my calf, stretch my calf, right, but then one stretch in one plane in a static position total that relieves it in the position. But as soon as you get up, there’s no relief, right? I’m wondering how is it that we can create of core value in our culture, whether it be the moving culture, whether it be just humans in general, that says, Yo, it’s okay, wherever you are. Go ahead and stretch real quick. Yeah. And you learn that through grade school, or you learn that through high school, whatever it is, or you, you take on a master class that says teach me about my mobility. But it doesn’t just force you to hold stretches, it puts you in positions and angles that facilitates sensation in your body that you’re like, how could I ever forget this? This was so wonderful. That’s what it is, you know, what, what is it that? And I’ll answer from my end to what is it that prevents people from just going in and going into a stretch, you’re sitting at the grocery store and you notice your low back is feeling a bit stiff? And you just think, okay, my back stiff versus a URI might jump out there and go like, Alright, go wide stance, a little shift my hip off a little pop? Shift? Okay, that’s a little bit better. Don’t get me through, I probably should spend more time. I think it’s a it’s a fear of not knowing what you’re doing. Or if somebody asks you what you’re doing. You don’t have an answer. When the answer is strictly, I felt like doing you felt good.
Michael Hughes
I’m eager to talk, right? Yes, please. So you look at the animal kingdom. The stretch, like they kind of all four legged animals pretty much have the same basic stretch to see a dog so you can’t do it. Right. It’s inherent. It’s
CJ
they always have their own dog does it down dog or cat does a cat like a cat? leg kicks it back. Right?
Michael Hughes
Exactly. Yeah. But like it’s it’s instinctual. And it says, I think humans it’s instinctual to we’re just we’re breeding out the instinct. You know, because you see that and look ridiculous. Yeah, well, like you get up in the morning. How many times you’ve got up in the morning, and you just do that, like unconscious hand reach. You’re just like, um, you’re totally clothing, right? That was like, like, you just feel those like little kind of snap crackle pops in your body. It’s like, it’s euphoric. It’s like the, you know, the start of a yawn. Yeah. Right. So good. So our body does that, right? And I don’t experience that often anymore. But when you do, it’s like, oh, just the best, you know, get out of a long car ride. So that’s the body’s instinct fighting back in my mind. But why we don’t do at the grocery store is because it’s awkward. It looks weird. It feels weird. So I’m trying to train my next generation, my genetics, to influence the world. To say, my kids, by the way, sorry, you know, to say like, it’s as normal as brushing your teeth. And I find myself saying, all right, Kennedy, who’s my daughter has better teeth. Now it’s no stretch. And we do like just three stretches. And the coolest part is she’s in gymnasts, not gymnastics, more like run around the gymnastics gym. She’ll come back to the deck, and I show you some stretches. But I was like, yes, she’s now the teacher. And she was, she sent me some stretches. And they weren’t stretches. But there are movements, which is technically a stretch, right? Movement is stretching, specialties moving. And I was so like, Yes, like that built in, right. She’s not there yet at all, but to be just commonplace. So I try to model that as much as possible. Like a shopping cart is a phenomenal stretching tool. And in Costco, and I’m waiting in line, I’m kicking that heel up, and I’m using that
CJ
Costco cards are tall. So I get a nice extension. For lunch.
Michael Hughes
But the thing is, we know what we’re doing right? Like geometrically we know what we’re doing. And there’s a point to there’s a reason to, and I think that’s probably the biggest thing is that people just don’t want to assume weird, but they don’t seem weird when they know what they’re doing. And I think that can be taught
CJ
what leads to inflexibility or immobility. Even somebody comes in and says, like, I’m not flexible, I can’t touch my toes, like no one. First of all, can’t touch my toes. That’s not a good gauge for mobility.
Michael Hughes
That’s what people know, right? It’s kind of what’s the opposite of light, dark, just static, doesn’t matter what it is. So you can be in a warrior one pose. And that’s your workstation. You’re going to be super unflexible. You won’t be unflexible in that position, but you see what I’m flexing on every other position slot, a desk sitters, right? When we do our movement assessment, and they crushed the posterior chain. They’re massive pain. But they crushed the posterior chain. Like yeah, you’re putting yourself in the position. You’re always in Hip Flexion
CJ
thoracic spine. Flexion. You gotta close by inflection. Yep. Or in the worst case. It’s excessive cervical spine extension, and everything else flexing. And
Michael Hughes
so looking at Chuck, right, yeah.
CJ
Right.
Michael Hughes
And they know no pain. And Ellen. And I’m always literally saying to myself, that makes sense. Like, yeah, this wasn’t hurt at all. That’s weird. Like, am I under you know, that’s not where we’re at all you are in the position you’re in all the time.
CJ
So what leads to mobility disabilities being in a position statically just
Michael Hughes
static? Like we say, oh, a standing desk is so great. No, it’s not fact. You might have been slumped over more. Yeah, your standards are great, because you’re not sitting. But the shoulders don’t change. The neck doesn’t change that’s explained doesn’t change, relatively speaking. Hips do. But if you’re standing for so long, that’s just as bad. The enemy is stillness in anything. Maybe not laying down. Right. I think that’s probably the safest place to be still. Obviously, we sleep there.
CJ
Yeah. I’m gonna argue this point. It’s an inactive stillness. It’s an unconscious stillness.
Michael Hughes
Yes. You don’t argue with me. You’re just making it better. A lot. More thorough point. Yeah, I totally get you. Yeah.
CJ
Because I mean, you could sit you could be sitting here right now and be focused on your work. And fantastic. You’re getting shit done, you’re in the zone. What tends to be an issue is that you’re so in the zone and so focused on your work, and then there’s no counterbalance to it. Even sitting, let’s save and let’s just go 30 minutes, sitting at a desk hunched over. And this happens to me too. I’m young, I still get discomfort, but I do stuff about it. I don’t just complain about it. I hear my complaint. And then I do something about it. sitting at your desk, typing on the computer at you’re like looking at the screen, everything’s really close to you. And it’s 30 minutes later, you’re like, hi, I gotta use the bathroom. When you go to sit up that first movement, your body like sends a signal, typically a little bit of nociception your body has been still it’s been stagnant. It’s been focused, not on your positioning, but on what you’re doing. That then you go get up and like, Oh, my low back kind of feels stiff or My neck feels dip, my shoulders kind of feel knotted up. And we tend to move the area that feels really stiff. Like we’re like oh low back to like I need to hang more like the number one thing when you got lower back discomfort from sitting down, people don’t extend. They bend over and hang their arms on the ground just like decompressing the spine but pulling you further into flexion it’s an unconscious reaction. That’s not bad to go that way. But you also have to go the opposite, but you have to do it. Slowly, be gently with Be gentle with your body saying, Okay, I just spent an extended period of time in a position that now you get up and go, okay, my front hip was compromised by front chest was compromised, and my head was sitting in a lot of extension as I was falling forward. I wonder if I pull my chin and lift my chest up, stand up, and then stretch my front hip a bit, that in that 30 seconds, it completely, I did what you just did for 30 minutes, I think the problem lies in, stand up, okay, five minutes later, okay, now I’m kind of warmed up, I walked around a little bit, sit back down. And then we fall right back into that flexion right back to that flexion, it doesn’t happen over months, usually, it’s happening over the years. Think about students who are in grade school, sitting at a desk for long periods of time. And then, like you said, going into recess and sitting back down and then carrying heavy books and getting this kyphotic state, but their body is very malleable. So they’re not necessarily experiencing tons of pains. It could be going pains could be compressions, whatever else, just figuring out how to use their body. But now as they get into college and beyond, they were not taught anything on how to counter the effects of gravity work with gravity, not against it, you know, we can learn to hate gravity, because we’re sitting down and then we stand up like, oh, I don’t want to stand up, it just feels stiff. Or we can now use gravity to facilitate the opposite effect, which if you got stuck in extension for too long, you’re also going to be in pain, right? There’s no difference. I think we can talk about posture in this sense to think there’s no bad posture, except for the one that you’re stuck in. The best posture as your next one is the ability to move in and out.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, and you made a point about like, to me, I was saying that just inactivity is the is the issue. But and I like where you took it, I’m gonna spend just a little bit is that like, sit in your chair for 12 hours, crank away on a spreadsheet, build some code for suite app, I don’t care. But and when you’re doing it, don’t stay still just moving your digits, rotate your shoulders to the left, rotate your shoulders, right laterally flex one way laterally flex the other way. I do this in airplanes a lot. Because sometimes you just can’t get up you know, without disturbing the person next few slides where
CJ
he says it’s way more awkward in my airplane. Well,
Michael Hughes
I’m that guy. But you what I can’t change is my pill my is my position inflection. But I can change it in abduction adduction I can change an internal external rotation by pointing my toe and pentimento out. So like I would rather be locked in one position. One plane of motion excuse me versus all three. And like for me, like I can’t sit in the car for more than more than two and a half hours that getting lower back pain, not massive just feel it you know, I can sit on a tennis ball in the hamstring, you know, that gives me another half hour tops. That’s just the way my body is I mean shoot me there is a reason for that. You know, that’s not that’s not an excuse, there’s a reason for that. But the more you can stay I like how we’ve been taught if you didn’t waste different words state you know soft tissue hydration and I really love the sponge concept. You let a sponge sit still in a in a in an open air environment. There’s one thing that’s definitely gonna happen. It’s gonna get hard crusty and Ill mobile just come back from a week of vacation you see that sponge? Not a very good sponge you want to use you just but think about as your connective tissue your fascia your soccer muscles whatever the case is. Then you just think about a sponge right after you should end up using it right apply but you can twist it turn it needed to put into a knot it’s going to bounce back but then you leave a sponge sitting in water over hydrated stagnant right it’s a cesspool now says like one of sections assessable others is a dried crazy piece of foam and then middle is that mostly fresh just you sponsor after the night at the dishes, right?
CJ
You’re telling me that my muscles
Michael Hughes
match. Yeah,
CJ
so you want to eat want to keep you want to have that sponge in use to be the best bunch possible. You don’t want it to sit in dry minutes. You don’t want to sit in wetness. You want it to be squeezed out filled up, squeezed out for that constantly filtered and cleaned,
Michael Hughes
which is to me it hydrated, dynamic movement, contractions in
CJ
length, essentially concentric tensions
Michael Hughes
right? As much as possible. And to me that is the best when right there’s no perfect, so perfect, because nobody is perfect. Well, maybe like up to you know one month old. You’re darn near perfect. You got everything you got. I’m still looking. I’m watching my four year old and see how much flexibility she has versus my one and a half year old. And it’s amazing how much my one and a half year old still does the full squat. To hang out and play with toys, or my four year old, it’s very, it’s much less much more infrequent, but she still has access to it. So as I look at modeling, you know, eventually, our our Western United States, we don’t do that. We don’t do that
CJ
unconscious preferred patterns based off of your mirror images. Think about how often you and Peyton get down in a deep squat. Well, you do heart, they’ll do it more,
Michael Hughes
right? So we do, but we lift our heels, and we shove our knees forward. It’s still a deep squat without a question. But you’re in plantar flexion, horse’s dorsiflexion, which changes the ballgame,
CJ
right? What’s lengthening, right. And that may then lead to dysfunction. If you were to add, I think actually, if you were to maintain that position, you would go more and more towards resilience and function because your body is exposed to those loads. And it’s like being in a static position over time. It just happens at a slower pace. Versus like RLSA, you did that deep squat, heels up knees or forward and you just did it like maybe on a weekend when you’re gardening, and then your knees and ankles really hurt or knees and low back hurt. But if you were to access that position throughout the week, more often wondering if that ankle knee pain would disappear because your body finds a better leverage from exposure to those positions.
Michael Hughes
Well, here’s interesting story kind of on the on the flip of that the same story, the same concepts that I was like, you know, I’m gonna start doing deeper squats, just hold it as I’m coaching. And I did it like a good week. Fine. I got it. I was kind of like, I forgot this. No big deal. But I didn’t have it, because I was compensating through my lumbar spine. My pelvis. Couldn’t get there. But it could get there if my pelvis flexed forward. So now I’m gapping the posterior, you know, I was listening. You know, the back of my spine was being pulled on basically overstretched for almost eight hours on end, but like 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there. 10 minutes here, you know, and I feel it’s nasty burn in my body just to try to hold it. My answer. Your tips are the worst for somebody you know, they’re pulling me for a nose. So I go wakeboarding that weekend. My mom a mess, my backup, in a sense in the sense of a 30 something year old throwing out their back that’s thrown my back. And I was like what happened? Like why? And it took me a few days to trace back crimes crime students thing. And the only thing that I changed that week was that deep squat. And in my subconscious, like, I still got this
CJ
super interesting result to a point of position versus tension in forming position. And I think a lot of like static stretches, or yoga postures and things you’ll do just that are designed to mobilize tissue, more statically there’s very little talk about how tension is applied in those positions. Because like you said, you can do a deep squat and get away with it. However, how are you doing it? It’s tough to assess yourself, because you’re in your body and you’re feeling like I’m in a deep squat. But from the outside, you might find like, you know, if if somebody cued you to say, Hey, can you drive your right knee forward, left knee forward? And that deep squat? Hey, can you reach your hand here and here? Starting to expose the limitations on like, well, where’s that compensation? Are you in a deep squat with active tension that your posterior core, like,
Michael Hughes
huge? Yeah, no, what do you mean by active tension just for those.
CJ
Let’s say you’re in a, let’s say you’re in a deep squat, and you are just slumped in it. Like you’re letting the weight of gravity pull you and you’re just hanging out, hanging on your joints like this versus you’re in a squat, pushing your arches into the ground, feeling how your toes are gripping or relaxed in that position, and you notice your shoulder blades being pulled down and back or forward and up or to a certain direction. And maybe you feel that your knees are rotating outward or your knees are rotating inward. Okay, so you’re aware of the in between each joint, how are the tissues holding you have a lot of people who go into a deep squat and their shins burn so badly? What does that say about their body? We’ll do it every person is like Michelle, I got shin splints, like my shins are really achy there. And we’re to us, we know like, okay, that muscles active in a deep squat. Why is that muscles so active in a deep squat, it may be because there’s a lack of mobility in the calf in the soleus area, like the base of the calf. And so we don’t feel the soleus because that’s just holding on. But now your anterior tip muscle is pulling on the tip and it’s burning because it’s playing tug of war against the soleus muscle that doesn’t want to stay loaded or lengthened. It’s shortened. So now either heels get pulled up, or your feet go flat and your shin muscles pull your knee towards your toe or toe towards your knee regardless, regardless, it’s muscle effort. That Are you intending to do that or are you not. And if you’re putting a ton of effort into a position unintentionally, it’s telling you there’s probably something subconscious that’s not lengthening or you’re just unaware of it, then you have to progress into it right? You could just go work into a deep squat and like, I’m good. But then if you get out of the deep squatting, like, I don’t feel very good, there’s something not working functionally, now there is a broken link in the chain. So I think we need to as coaches talk more about tension and what the feel is in a position, that’s not just length, but how is your body holding this position? Like what subconsciously is going on? Are you gripping the ground while you’re stretching in your inner thigh? Well, are you trying to do that there might be a time where you want to do it. But if you’re trying to gain more range, you might need to relax those flexor flexor muscles that are reacting to a position that they’re fearful of teach those tissues to relax. And it’s not by saying, hey, relaxed body, which we fall into as coaches like, hey, remind your body to relax, like, well, what are the mechanisms that cause your body to relax? What are the nonspecific things you can do? Like breathing, focusing on your thoughts, feeling your feet on the ground. And now all of a sudden, you just focus on breathing your thoughts and your feet on the ground in your body relaxed, you never told your body to relax, you just focus on the things that allows your body to relax, let’s go into a range chest the trick
Michael Hughes
everybody breathe and think. But you’re on point. It’s that, Oh, I lost him for a second. But it’s it’s on that point of you said like you it’s it’s not a sub, it’s not a conscious action to subconscious action. And you talked about going into lengthening. So releasing a spot to get a bigger range. And I was just in a session was talking about Kate, you know, we’re gonna really focus on a lateral lunge. You know, back to single leg balance. So right leg, lateral lunge, back to the left leg, single leg balance. And the first two rounds were like, Hey, let’s get a deep lunch. That’s actually lean into that inside thigh that’s not lunging. And since the opposite side of the leg, and really allow that range of motion to progress ourselves is basically like pulling a bow back and practicing pulling a bow back and practicing pulling a bow back. And that’s functional. That’s truly, but there’s another side of that coin. It’s called letting the arrow fly. Right. So then the next few rounds said, Let’s do a shorter range of motion, and get into the ledge on like 50%, and then fire back. So is like, okay, let’s focus on finding the arrow, find the arrow, fire an arrow. So we’ll focus on just one just the other. But reality is sport athleticism, all movement gardening is both at the same time we’re not, it’s one than the other, it’s a sequencing of it all. But if we just trained large ranges of motion dynamically, or statically, our body’s going to get good at large ranges of motion. And then coming back under a gradual tension or gradual effort, versus training, super choppy, short, minute ranges of motion, and habit have that ability to fire to move in a groove. And it’s kind of an awakening for me, like learning about flexibility, oh, it’s all about just going big, just go big, the bigger, the better. But if you, if you can’t train it to come back home, under the needed response that you want, which is every response, right, then who cares what how flexible you are,
CJ
I think it’s one of the wildest things is that you can achieve flexibility in multiple ways. You can achieve it by sitting in a position for quite some time, you can achieve it by warming your body up. And now that you’re warm, you can access more ranges, you can access it from load pulling you, you know, something, actually, you go into a squat bodyweight. Now go throw sub max load on your body and let it pull you deeper into a squat. And they are achieving better range in your squat, there’s a there’s a level to it, there’s a threshold, you can’t just like Oh, I’m gonna dump 225 pounds and sink into my deepest squat, like it’s not going to, right, you got to get back at it, you got PNF like you activate a muscle, contract it and then immediately as you relax it, you’re going to have more range. So to say that there’s like a right way to gain flexibility is like saying that you don’t want to hear the whole story. Like you just you just want to get right to the end and have the flexibility. But depending on the person that you’re coaching, or even yourself, like what is it you want to achieve in that range of motion? Is it strictly as a party trick to say you can do the splits? Hey, it’s function like okay, do it. If that’s what you want to do, just realize that if you go jump into a splits while you’re dancing on a dance party, it’s not gonna be the same as you just go into the splits right now. And so people just force themselves into ranges of motion and they get completely obliterated because now they’ve like, killed off some of those receptors that are saying hey, you’re Reaching the threshold you need to come back. And now when they want to go do a sprint. Yeah, they have great hamstring mobility. But now they pulled a hamstring. How do you pull a hamstring? That flex flat, flexible? Because it’s an active muscle that’s now on. And it’s trying to lengthen. So I mean, what? How would you like to see flexibility play out in like a fitness facility, a training facility? How would you like your athletes to stretch if you people are coming in and ever seen stuff going on like that we’re doing three dimensional movement with all these different funky movements that they’re scared of doing? And somebody comes in and sees somebody stretching? Like, how would you prefer them? To experience not only the person stretching, but how a community talks about mobility and flexibility? Yeah,
Michael Hughes
well, I’m gonna come up with a question. That’s a great one. But I’m going to tell you, first of all, where I failed, big time, because I thought flexibility was this stolen the same, you know, probably good 10 years ago now. But it’s like, okay, this person’s has lower back pain, they’re super tight, you can see they walk, let’s jump into true stretch. And that started going, let’s put that hamstring up there. Let’s go for it. And let’s just start stretching. And the biggest air to really cut through a lot of the story, the biggest air was that human body wasn’t ready for stretching. It wasn’t ready for isolated, meaning multipoint locked down systems and really functionally mean in terms of position, get after the hamstrings, like putting out a threshold. Yeah, well, the threshold putting it at a position of rent, because the true stretch, the second platform is at a base set level, you can’t change that level. So I made an assumption that that person’s foot can go to that level, the hamstring goes with that tension, and he could manage rotation on the lateral motion. And he did. But guess what we didn’t do. He’s been stabilized it when the session was done. And guess what happened to his lower back, it got extremely worse. And he’s never been back since.
CJ
So gained a lot more mobility, but again, a lot more flexibility but had no
Michael Hughes
ability to control it. So I use, the term that was taught to me is you have this naive range of motion. So it’s like you get a bass, you’re you’re used to driving a Honda Civic, nothing wrong against the Honda Civic. I own one. And then you immediately get a Bugatti Veyron. And like, go for a drive. And you’re used to pressing the gas pedal on the Civic to go five miles an hour or you press the same level of gas on the brake, bear and run. You’re going 75 85 miles an hour. Guess what you crash? Yeah,
CJ
it’s wobbles. Right? You gotta control Yeah,
Michael Hughes
we call that naive ability to drive a car. Right? So it’s amazing to learning that is that so to me? To answer your question, movement, let’s go for a walk. Let’s go for a walk. And let’s just reach your hands up in the air one at a time as you go for a walk. I mean, if I’m talking base level, right,
CJ
you repeat that answer. Because I mean, that’s, that’s one either hit rewind, just say that again.
Michael Hughes
So if I’m having base level, right, super sketchy about movement, let’s go for a walk. Walking is flexibility without a question. But then as you walk, reach one hand up in the air. So what are you going to do when you walk, you’re going to hold a position, lateral flexion with a little bit of rotation, and the pelvis is going to be rotating underneath it. What’s going to start doing gently pulling on tissue gently pulling on tissue, gently pull on tissue, then do the opposite side. So you can do, you can de stress, you can D load yourself, the body has the ability for muscles to pull against gravity, it’s really fascinating. That’s what I would do. And then I would just hold a walking position and just start driving the pelvis, right, I start adding in other planes in motion as the body is comfortably positioned, that’s the most important thing come from visitors mentally and physically. And then the progression node goes on, but it’s really like let’s do what they already are comfortable doing. And then you actually go into traditional techniques. I’ve learned that lesson, the wrong way too many times. Start with success is the is the notion, start with where they’re comfortable, is the second notion and then understand that their tissue has a threshold and if you break it, they’re done for three to five days, if not longer.
CJ
You got me onto something. Which motion is the lotion, obviously you say that it’s a you move and you will lube up your body to move batters where it goes. So you want to go stretch, go warm it up and go stretch. I think where a lot of methods on flexibility run into a lack of success is yeah, you take all these joints through ranges of motion and active range of motion motion even but you’re isolating it in a non functional position. Now you could be sitting you could be standing you might be kneeling or whatever else but what is it you’re trying to do the joint if it is Is it just taking it through those motions? Or is it taking you through the authentic triplane motions that are more reactive in life? Right? When you’re out walking around, you’re not really thinking about your best mobility, you’re just out walking. But there’s ways to facilitate better better mobility through over time, by utilizing global movements that continue to pull you away from this locked down centered sphere and branch out and expand you, in front of you, above you to the sides of you and behind you, and rotationally from multiple positions. But you do that not through just stretching, you do that through training in those ranges of motion, you do a curl, if it’s always right up in front of you, you’re missing out an opportunity to to gain more mobility in your curl in your bicep in your shoulder in your wrist in your core, and how to dynamically stabilize it, that if you take that handout to your side, and it’s now a ladder like a rotational curl, you take it across your body, for now your thoracic spine is being exposed to rotation, lateral flexion and having to stabilize so you don’t fall over the same time your shoulder joint now is exposing itself to rotation motions underload, that now you just did a few curls in front of us, the sides of you. And then maybe did some presses not just above you, but to the sides overhead rotationally overhead, you’ve now just improved your entire body’s mobility, what we would call most ability, which is mobility and stability, or strength through your ranges of motion. By training in those ranges of motion, you want to warm them up and focus everything. But if you’re spending 30 minutes every day, trying to mobilize the tissues and gain flexibility, you’re going to be spending a lot of extra time with less payout, right. Where if you spend 510 minutes priming the tissues in trade plans, and you spend the time to start to coordinate those things. And then in your workouts, you’re focusing on working in different ranges of motion. Well, now it’s not about touching your toes, it’s about bending over to pick up your keys off the ground and not throwing your back out. It’s about picking the milk jug up out of the car and putting in the fridge without having realized without having your shoulder jam up. You know, there’s so many things, I think, in the general population that we just write it off as part of life, like you said in the very beginning about your back is like just how my body is. And it’s easy to fall into that we all do. But we didn’t realize when we say it, what is it that we’re actually saying? Oh, well, years of what my body’s I’ve been putting my body through has led me to this point, is there anything that I can do for the next couple of weeks or months or years that will help me gain more mobility gain more flexibility. And most more often than not, I think with where our culture is, it’s like, oh, that’s going to take too long, it’s just, we easily fall back into the excuse or smell, this is just how it is, it’s not worth it, it’s tough to say it’s not worth it, it’s easy to say it’s not worth it, because you haven’t put in the work to feel what it’s like putting in that work. And I think it’s why accountability, like flexibility is so much more than just having the ability to stretch you can give somebody a bunch of stretches to do, are they going to do them? Maybe, but if they don’t value what it is that you’ve given them, your, your, your stretches might be the best in the world. But if you poorly prescribe those stretches to somebody, and they don’t want to do them, that’s your fault. As a coach, it’s also on them to like not do the work. But if you’re making them do 30 minutes of mobility work, when they could be getting a gain from just getting a couple reps throughout the day. When you get up from your chair, go to a hamstring front hip stretch, it’s boom, boom, you got to build a habit of it. It’s tough. But I think we need to prescribe our flexibility programs or protocols on an individual basis. And make it more fun on a group bases. Like it’s not just stretching to gain more mobility, more mobility for health. It’s having fun picking something up off the ground. It’s taking skipping a stair when you’re walking up a step and be like, Ah, I have no mobility to do those things. Like think about the things you do as a kid and don’t think about it. As a kid. You think about it now like wow, you see kids moving around, like I would hurt myself doing that. It’s not because you’re older. It’s because you haven’t been doing what that kids doing. Up until this point in your life and there’s still time to play. There’s still time to discover more ranges of motion, there’s still time to understand that you can be strong and an overhead press and not have your shoulder hurt if you work on your thoracic spine mobility, right? So all these areas that we call even your pelvis. Yeah. It’s it’s a full spectrum, right? If your ankle stiff, mobilize your entire body to do it in a global fashion. Do it in a fun way.
Michael Hughes
Yeah. closing comment. If you’re listening this right now, you’re stretching. Congratulations. I’m proud of you. See, she’s really proud of you. But you’re stretching a position. You need to be really good at that position. The more you stay in that stretch, more likely you’re sitting great job restriction parts your hamstrings, glutes, post your spine, back, your shoulders being stretched, nice shot. But remember that’s the The only thing that’s being stretched the rest of it is being tightened. Here’s you, and more stretching. 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 wanting to level up in their coaching skills, and their fitness business model. We launched this in 2020. Because you and your fitness tribe deserve to see an unfiltered look at all the aspects of what it takes to stand out as a next generation coach, and build a successful fitness business sell, share far and wide. And please, when you do, do me a favor, take a screenshot of this screen and share it to your social media accounts and use the hashtag Gymnazo podcast that’s hashtag Gymnazo podcast that way we can see you and share your posts with our audience. And finally, when you’re ready to go to the next level as a coach, or in your business, and to reach more people, please go check out gymnazoedu.com. We have put together the best 90 Day coaching program on the market for trainers 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 full 90 Day certification. We even get you training 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 to this episode had some fire to it and inspires you to take action. Wait until we 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 lives you were put on earth to help it matters and truly can make an impact in other people’s lives. So hope you do that. Keep sharing your passion and we’ll talk to you soon.
Leave a Reply