CJ Kobliska on 3D Functional Training, His Shoulder Injuries, Movement Assessments & More

Posted on November 17, 2022

Michael Hughes
Welcome to the Gymnazo podcast where you get to peek behind the curtains of what it takes to create and run a seven figure fitness facility that ranks in the top 5% of boutique fitness studios for revenue. But to be honest, that’s the least important thing about us. Founded by me, Michael Hughes Gymnazo has created an ecosystem of services that blend performance with restoration techniques, and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by donors Paden, and myself and our top coaches. This podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online and in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional, or fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results.

CJ
Welcome back to the Gymnazo podcast. This one is going to be a special podcast just going to be myself CJ Kobliska. Talking to the mic and talking to y’all I hope you enjoy the story of my life. We’re not going to dive in too deep to the stories of my life, but specifically, what I’ve found valuable along this path, this journey in fitness and wellness, and health in play and flow kind of in everything that I currently do. And with Gymnazo. So I’ll try I’ll try not to get too tangent t maybe that’ll be actually what this podcast is all about his tangents and stories. But I’d like to start out by telling you what I currently do, because I wear a lot of hats. And a lot of semi people see me in different lights at Gymnazo in different times of day, different times of the week, different times of the year. So want to clear that up. It’s not so clear, it’s not so simple. It really is an evolving role here at Gymnazo. And I’m currently in which I love. I love to change, love to adapt, I love to grow, I love to learn, I love to do new things, I love to bring communities together, I love to explore myself, and really dive into a lot of the principles and practices that I’ve been taught. And I’ve developed over the years. So really my title here Gymnazo right now is director of programming, I oversee all the programming for G one G two g three level, basically different in complexity and levels of impact. And oversee the semi private programming, individualized programming and basically the programming that goes on and inside of Gymnazo walls, stuff that goes on for virtual stuff that you may not even see in Gymnazo, but more so on our On The Go app, oversee those programs. And a lot of my job with Director of programming is to make sure there’s purpose to understand the purpose and meaning in our programs, not just to do something because it looks cool. Although that can be a purpose two party tricks are awesome. I know quite a few of them. But it’s much more about just understanding the why behind the what of the programming. So if anybody has a question whether it be a coach or an athlete, that question can be answered with more depth and follow up to provide more of a deeper experience in whatever movement or training they are doing, or we are doing in addition to Director of programming, which again I absolutely love, and that’s evolved over the years from just programming G to to programming for some velocities for those that have been here for a long time with us to then taking over the G one programming, and then eventually the G three programming and then the whole programming became one big unit. And it turned into something really exciting that we see every quarter here is your mouth. So I’m in addition to this role, also moving practitioner so I will literally assess movement, I’ll help people get out of pain discomforts, develop new performance gains, understand different principles of training in different methodologies. Maybe it’s a flow, maybe it’s a specific principle relating to locomotion, maybe they just want to jump better, and maybe they want to get out of shoulder pain specifically, after a surgery or random new payment has popped up. Let’s figure out what’s going on in this acute sense. So moving practitioner, Director programming, I’ve been the manager of the coaching team as well, the past few years, just developing our coaches in terms of education on a weekly basis, keeping us all up to date with our skills, our practices, our lenses, keeping them clean for 3d movement and chain reaction, biomechanics and hopefully just instilling some passion and excitement into our atmosphere. So that’s been super exciting. I’ll be shifting from that role. I’m into this next year, but sticking around with programming, and the movement practitioner, so super fun things that I do here at Gymnazo. But never, that ever thought I’d be doing what I’m doing right now. And again, like I said, continues to evolve. So next year, it’s going to be even more exciting role. And the year after that, I think it’ll just continue to evolve and grow with myself. But over the past few years, I’ve worked up to this, it’s been a lot of hard work been pioneering this position, being kind of paving the way for coaches to our trainers to step out of just a part time kind of burnout role into something more full time more fulfilling, and looking more purposeful or Passion Driven. I’m extremely passionate about movement. I’m extremely passionate about the sun, the earth, the moon, the stars, nature, in general, birds chirping, bodies, dancing, people singing, it’s just absolutely beautiful in my mind. And I take advantage and squeeze literally every ounce of juice out of every moment. And I can’t do that. I get really upset. But there’s really not a time when I don’t do that. So I’m always squeezing the juice out and they call me the Maximizer that is my number one strengths, all the strengths finder, shatter all you maximizers out there and you live in a rough, exciting journey to always pull everything out of every single moment. It’s like being in a candy store and wanting to try every single piece of candy once and then make sure you try it again and again and again. To find the perfect combination of candies in that candy store. It never ends. It’s always There’s always more fruits to be shared and juiced. So maximizers stay tuned, there’s more excitement to be shared. When I started that Gymnazo in 2014, so about seven years ago, I was a senior at Cal Poly getting ready to graduate and the only way I was gonna graduate from Poly was with an internship and I had no idea what kind of internship I wanted to do. I also wasn’t actively searching and believe it or not, as I was approaching the last half of my senior year was Peyton Hughes and Sebastian Zorn had walked into my classroom nutrition class, which is super exciting, a lot of depth and detail in there. Had a couple buddies and friends in there. And we got a little break from the lesson plan had Paden in Spanish and walk in Paden, being co owner, Gymnazo. And the Sebastian Zorn, who was this rock solid lacrosse player, man, he was built. I wanted to be like him. I was like, I’m gonna listen to this guy. He’s a coach here. Jim knows, all right, that sounds pretty cool. Sounds kind of fun, functional training, 3d movement, chain reaction, biomechanics, a lot of terms I hadn’t heard before put together but just started blowing my mind. I was like, This sounds really fun. I’m gonna I’m gonna apply mainly because I need the internship to graduate not because Gymnazo is amazing, and spectacular and magical. guy had no idea about that. I just needed to graduate from college. And I didn’t want to be a super senior spent another year, another bout of money. And I just wanted to get on get on to the next stage college was great, but I was ready for something else. At this time, I was also working at a moving company, driving big trucks, moving heavy objects, spending, you know, eight to 12 hours moving somebody’s house from one location to another and got my workout on. But it felt like I wasn’t really using my, my degree I was it wasn’t maximizing what I could do with my knowledge of the human body and mind experiences from the past. And so it’s already kind of on my mind, of shifting gears from from Meathead Movers to something more in fitness or more movement more in health, wellness and just didn’t know what it was. So Ben said back to the story, they talked about the internship, I basically apply right there on the spot. My buddy also applies a few others also apply. And this was competitive. Like there was only I think, four spots and they had a good dozen or more apply, I think just from that one class, so I was like, please, I need this internship. This sounds like the perfect thing. I go in for an interview. I think about a week later. And holy shit, my mind was blown. Like I’ve never been in an interview where I learned something deeply about not only myself but about the world and reality like the very fabric of the space between me and the person interviewing me. His name was Lucas Lucas Chatham, didn’t know how old he was, but I felt he was an old soul. There were sparkles in the air between us like I was. I felt all the four years I have spent up Paulie set me up for this one moment and it was to shine to understand and to to grow. Even if I didn’t get the internship that was that one interview was enough to fuel my fire like my, my body was lit up, there was fireworks going off, I could I could hardly contain myself right now and we’ve been kind of feeling a little giddy is like so exciting. But man, so the interview is about an hour and a half, two hours long, I don’t think supposed to go that long, but I’m a chatty person. And apparently Lucas was too. So we could get to know each other quite well. And why this was so educational why this was so such a profound interview was, he’d asked me questions about things I was doing in the moving company and kind of about leadership. And it got me really excited because I felt like I was in a place of purpose and speaking to a person who, who got it, who understood it, who’s like, I want to get to know your soul, not just who you are, what you’ve done, but what you’re going to do. And I felt like he had ripped, not ripped my heart out, but held my heart gracefully in his hands and said, I’m going to know you very well, by the end of these two hours. And he did. And I don’t think I knew him that much better. I didn’t know how old he was. But

regardless, it was a great conversation. And he asked me questions about movement to like that part of the interview was a second secondary pieces of questions about movement and injury. And all right, if some, if you had a lineman, ex lineman come in, who’s now retired, has had tons of ankle injuries, surgeries and stuff, and they’ve got a unstable ankle, but they want to hop again, without pain, they want to jump around, they want to go run, but they’re in pain they can’t currently do right now. What’s the approach you take? What are the steps you take with this individual gotta consider who they are, what they’ve done, where they’re currently at right now, physically, their level of success and where they want to go and build a bridge. And this was one of the questions and I, you know, I think, I think I thought, I think I thought about a good answer, which is, what we’re going to progress from, we’re gonna work some ankle mobility, test that and then do some stabilization activities with squats with lunges, some single leg balance work, maybe we’ll do some curls and some presses, and then eventually start to work some pulsing single leg squats and progress that into maybe a little bit of a hop back on to a surface and then working copping on that surface, and then hopping down from a surface or adding load to it. And I think I had a pretty good grasp of, of the situation. And kind of what that look like, though I hadn’t ever trained to ex pro NFL lineman, or anybody that big for that matter who had that many ankle injuries, but with some critical thinking skills, I think I got there. And man after that, I was shown kind of the key to a box of three dimensional truths. He had asked me Lucas asked me, So what about all the other directions? You know, I showed squats up and down, forward and back. So just showed lunges forward and back and sideways and some single leg work with curls and some standard overhead presses single leg and instride. But he said, Okay, well, what? What ways can the ankle move? Like ankle flexion dorsiflexion, plantar flexion. It’s got inversion inversion, it’s got internal rotation, X rotation or horizontal a reduction, horizontal adduction. And all these terms like, oh, man, this is really cool, because I know these pieces, but I didn’t know how to apply them. I didn’t know how to integrate them into this situation. I was like, Well, yeah, the ankle can do all these things. But you want me to include that in his hops and squats and presses. And it was like, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t perceive of another answer. I was like, I took you through kind of the whole, the whole gamut of things. And I was just kind of relaying stuff from textbook with but also some creativity in there. What I had done with my post post injury post surgeries to redirect integrate. And long story short, this is already pretty long story. We can’t get much, much longer than this. But he had said, Well, what about if we jump and hop sideways? And then what if we also do that and rotations like why that’s a pretty good idea. Actually, that’s a great progression. And then he showed me these jobs that were two feet to one foot as a combination of a jump and a hop. And I was I’ve done a version of this, like with hopscotch but this seems so much more intentional. This seems so much deeper like there’s a thought process going into this that’s obviously something that I have not connected with yet. So my mind was sparking and all the different directions like fires were started in so many good ways like passion pits of fury, my right and left side of my brain, the top the bottom, my gut was so happy my heart was pounding so hard I was so nervous like that even get the internship like I don’t know if I interviewed well, but man like I just want to express how excited I am that I’ve learned all this and I gotten so pumped in that session that I think that may have been what got me into the internship where I got accepted, but long story short, that I learned so much in that that hour, two hours. Lucas, thank you, man. I think Gymnazo the environment for like holding me in that space and just allowing me to literally get sunlight and water all over these, these seedlings inside of my brain and my heart that now have grown to be so much larger, thicker and more beautiful and more sturdy. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Cal Poly for having me forced me to get internship to graduate because if I didn’t, I probably would did an internship that I just graduated and been cool with it and found something to do. And who knows where I would have ended up. So I appreciate you, having me having held me accountable Cal Poly and for Teach me the groundwork, the foundations that will be applied so well and so vigorously in the years to come. Fast forward, graduated poly 2015, I had been at Gymnazo. Now, I would do the internship in the fall. So it’s like September through November. And there’s a 10 week 10 week internship and got hired on in 2014. And basically they just had sessions up the yinyang. Man it was it was 30 sessions a week, weird times, sometimes opening at 545 in the morning, then closing at 637 30 at night, not ministry coaching the entire day. But having a full day of coaching could mean it two sessions in the morning, two sessions middle of day and two sessions at the end, that’s six hours of coaching but spread out over potentially 12 hours a day, a few days a week like that. I was just so in it. I was meeting new people. I was learning how to help guide people and cue people through movement that wasn’t so specific on form, it was much more on experience, what they felt and and understanding where they were, where they currently are, and where they’re going. Meaning if they came in with a very limited movement success, and now they’re doing a G one class. That’s big growth. And there’s probably going to be some funkiness in their movements that we don’t need to correct now because they are have been getting corrected or more correct or more fluid, more intentional, as their years at Gymnazo have progressed. So that was probably six months of that before graduating from Cal Poly. So I was working.

Not every single day obviously. But on the days I didn’t have class, I’d be coming in for a full day work in the afternoons or the mornings before class. And on those days that I didn’t have class during the opening and closing working on the weekends and us putting in the hours putting the time I had gone through great institutes certification in applied functional science, the C A F s because other coaches had done that at Gymnazo. And I wanted to be like them. So I did the CFS actually during the internship, which when we do it after I did it during the internship, I completed it pretty quick. That leveled me up so much faster. And my my learning and understanding of chain reaction biomechanics of how the foot, the ankle, the knee, the hip, the spine, the shoulders, the elbows, the risks that had everything works together. And not just biologically but also physically meaning you get the forces that are working on you like mass, momentum, ground reaction force, gravity, all that good stuff. It’s just out there, the forces are real. And then also behaviorally. How do we process these things internally, and having the biological behavioral and physical sciences put together in such a way that got me stoked about physics, it got me stoked about biology got me stoked about psychology. I was like, I liked these things are cool, but now I can actually use them in fitness and in training. Again, guys, I’m so passionate and blown away by all the cool things I picked up my first year to Gymnazo. And I’m very excited that same shameless plug now that we have it all put into an MDMC program or multi dimensional movement coaching program all online. We do coaching calls, and basically take you through our 10 week internship process extrapolated out even deeper layers of the interesting dimensionalities of fitness and of movement, and in psychology and in physics. And let me tell you, just go check it out. If you don’t want to do the whole MDMC experience. I don’t blame me. It’s a pretty big investment. But there are some science bundles in there that you can pick up to. So go check out that even on the Gymnazo on the Go app, there’s quite a few things that you could pick up in terms of education wise to do actual movements, not just sitting and learning and listening. But you’re also going to move you’re going to participate, you’re going to have to integrate the pieces that you pick up. And that’s what I did, man. So I did for that whole first year. It was like I it just so fast. There was so many things that I had done that by the end of that year. I was like this is it. This is my life. This is what I was born to do. I’m born to serve people through movement through fitness through excitement through smiles through hugs, through heavy lifting through camaraderie through making people sweat, you got to perspire to inspire. Shout out Gary Gray, thank you, buddy for that quote, maybe Doug read said that one but perspire to inspire. It’s a truth. It’s the truth. And every exercise is a test. And every test is an exercise. And that was so instilled in me, I understood what those words meant not just told what they’re meant. But every exercise is a test. retest is an exercise. And I started developing my lenses for movement, understanding what was going on, where there’s maybe a disconnect in somebody’s coordination, maybe they just don’t have the right intention when they’re doing the movement. So I needed to help them understand that in themselves. And it’s not just about position, it’s not about form. It’s about tension. It’s about information that comes in through your body, from the environment and out your body from inside of it. Just a whole bunch of words I’ve thrown at you guys. So hopefully, that all stuck. And you might want to rewind and soak that back in. But at the end of that year, I was asked to join or apply rather for the fellowship of applied functional science, which is through through grants today as well, but a much much larger, heavier investment than CFS CFS couple 100 bucks, go at your own pace. You’re gonna pass if you do it, you’re gonna walk away with some solid knowledge. But shit, let me tell you, FFS that whole 2016 that whole year. It took me through some wormholes. It took me through some dimensions of myself that I didn’t even know were real. I thought they just, they just existed in dream state. But I was unlocked, my heart was open, my mind was fried. And I’m happy to say that those those things have stuck with me, my heart is still so open, my mind is still so free. In fact, it might be to free that’s probably why we tangent so much in this podcast. But lots of exciting stuff to exploring questions to be asked not even to be answered. Just more questions to be curious about. And the gift journey, Grand Street of the functional transformation add learned from Michael Hughes owner, Gymnazo, founder Gymnazo. And he had gone through the FFS gift as they call it in I want to say 2007 Right before you found it, Gymnazo. And when he came back from this 40 week fellowship, basically, it’s mostly online learning, but you fly out to Michigan for three times a year for a few days to receive, essentially understanding of best practices to work with other people in the gift community, this 3d movement community from around the world, I mean, talking Russia, Australia, New Zealand, China, everywhere and of course, the US and people from all over the states and to be working with occupational therapists, physical therapists, even TV producers, were working with healers, energy healers, yogi’s, I mean people from all over and then trainers and other therapists as well massage therapists, they just wanted to have a better grasp of the truths of human movement. I don’t even really know what the truths of human movement were. I don’t even know what truth was until I went through get I was like, oh, that’s the fucking truth. And so I’ll share a little bit that truth with you that, that truth being that we live in a 3d space, right? We are a body of mind a soul we are spirit, in a sense, we are vibration we are the environment as much as the environment is us, we are reflected in every single one of the people that we interact with. And we reflect ourselves back out to them out to nature and to the world. And we are antennas. Now this didn’t come from this didn’t come from Grand Street. But this is kind of the realization coming to at this time in my life is that we are all receptive to a different energies. Mainly, the people that we are closest with and what are we We’re consuming, diet wise, media wise, that’s what we become. We are what we eat eats essentially. And in my movement, I was not moving truthfully, in my experience, I was moving the ways I was taught to a condition to believe to train power lifting sets of eight sets of 12 sets of 15. Now there’s nothing wrong with this, like all these strength training, cardio training, like these fundamentals that come you know all the other fitness concepts. Those are real things. Those are definitely studied. concepts that we know that certain amount of reps and sets and different loads and reference to our percent max can facilitate better growth and whatnot, but I wasn’t necessary taught the truth of movement. I was taught some principles of training that were more so strategies of training that turned in technique. So what I was really working with was the technique side of things. I knew my benchpress I knew my cleans, I knew my thrusters. I knew my push ups. I knew my pull ups I knew of the sprints, I knew the treadmill I knew all these things right but I didn’t really know it. I was experiencing it feeling it, but not entirely knowing it. And it wasn’t connecting with it. I wasn’t embodying my movements, and there was a time. In my, in my high school days that I think I’d come to this realization initially, but I was still trying to discover the truth for myself. And so I’ll get back to that. But through gift I essentially learned, yeah, the sagittal plane, the frontal plane, the transverse plane, the three planes of motion that we learned as the fundamentals in kinesiology, when I was at Cal Poly, and pretty much any, any physical sciences, you’re gonna learn those planes of motion, or biology or one of those planes of motion. And that wasn’t necessarily sure how they all interacted, I just knew that yeah, all three of those were found in space. And those are three planes that we can focus on. But there’s so many other planes, just different diagonals and lines that we can look at. But you can look at specific cuts sagittal plane splits your, your right and left side of your body. The frontal plane splits the front and back side of your body in the transverse plane separates the top and the bottom side of your body gives you a lot of chunks of your body to work with, right. But I didn’t know what that meant for movement sake. So through gifts, and through CFS, and through Gymnazo, kind of this whole environment that fostered this growth, I could apply when I was learning in real time, I didn’t have to like think about it, theory theory to size it and then try to play it out. I could literally learn it, hear it, and then go ask an athlete to do it. And they would do it and I would learn something from it. And I was like this is real time education. This is the real transformation right here.

So I learned how to do everything in three dimensions. To integrate this simply, like think about your jumping jacks. What’s the standard jumping jack? Right, the wide narrow jump switch with the hands coming over the top and hitting your hips? Well, that’s a frontal plane out of sync jumping jack as I learned it, one of six of the main jumping jacks. There’s also the sagittal plane out of sync, it looks like a Running Man, foot switch, and arm switch like you’re running in place. And then there’s the out of sync transverse plane, which is toes in toes out at the same time your arms come across and open up. That one is insanely challenging. If you’ve done it before, try it out, jump toe in, jump to out, jump toe in, jump to out jump to in jump to I’m gonna say this until you trade out. Hopefully you’re at some point but jump toe in toe out the same time as your toes go out, open your arms wide as your toes go in, cross your arms like you’re giving yourself a big ol hug and then see if you do that quickly. And intentionally man that to me for a loop. Then try to step it don’t jump it take with the impact may G one level. So learn those out of St jumping jacks then the insync jumping jacks talking about insane Yeah, this is really insane. You’re going to be at a boyband concert doing these. If you do the frontal plane jumper Jack in the insync your feet jump right your feet jump left together and your arms go that same way. Oh, hey, oh. So when you jump to the right hands go right, jump left hands go left, you can imagine it try it out. It’s even more fun. Now you’re smiling. So as you’re playing in sync, then you get your sagittal plane in sync which is feet forward and back together to jump together forward to jump together backwards and your arms go thrown forward and don’t hide behind you overhead. So forward, back, forward, back forward, back. And the trend is playing out of sync will soon be in sync. There’s layers to this by the way, we could have a whole podcast on on Jeffrey Jackson mountain climbers in three dimensions. Jump right jump left like twist in place and let your arms go with your feet. Okay, so that’s your six jumping jacks. There’s also combinations of those. You can go sagittal plane out of sync feet with frontal plane in sync arms. You can go transverse plane in sync feet with sagittal plane out of sync arms. So I learned this as disco dice. If anybody old school gymnasts or you know the disco dice, we’re bringing it back out in 2022 it is happening we are getting the disco fever loot in this place. But essentially, you have a cube like a dice has six sides. If you didn’t know six sides got four on sides and one on top one on bottom. Got two days one the foot die and one’s a hand dice. And all you’re right is sp F p or T P sagittal. Plane frontal plane or transverse plane and then on to them. SP ones in ones out another one F p n FP out and the one TP and TP out and do the same thing on the other dice, and they roll those and you get to react to those dials. This just became a reaction and coordination drill. What are your feet doing? What are your hands doing? What are they doing together? And then guess what was thrown on top a tweak dice the Tweak dice sometimes it says single leg sometimes said no no, no, no, no no no. Which means basically means just turn your head know very quickly spin it back and forth. As you’re doing the motion looks ridiculous. Great for the vestibular system. And things say single arm things. They add a load but basically three dice. And that opened up my world to the world of three dimensions. They opened me up to what the hell the matrix is. All of a sudden I had Morpheus sit in the background. You could take this pill or this pill I swallowed both. And it was like I saw in purple I saw in six dimensions Soft forward, I saw back I saw that I saw, right I saw rotation up, I saw rotation down. And my world was forever changed. I became a programmer, and sense that I was programming workouts after that point. And, man, where was I, you guys was I on gift Ozai on grains too. Anyways, I was shown the disco dice, the six directions of movement, every single joint has it your ankle, your knee, your hip, your spine, your shoulder, your elbow, your wrist, your fingers, even your mind. And this holy trinity of movement in every single joint, and including our mind, and our Spirit woke me up. I wanted to get this to the masses, I wanted to share this with more people because it opened up my movement and my mind again, my heart was free, my mind was free, everything was opened up to such a level that I felt very connected with my environment. When I was running, I felt kind of to the people that I was working with, when I was coaching. I felt like I could see things differently in terms of movement and not have to correct right away, but to listen to what somebody’s body was saying. Without ever saying any words, it was just making noises, it was making shapes, it was making directions, it was making little flinch II things it was shaking, I got to see a lot of these things happening in people’s movement, that a lot of times we just brush over and say hey, flex your core, squeeze your abs and look straight ahead, don’t let your knee pass over your foot, which there’s a time and a place for those cues and those those tools. But if we rely heavily on those, our tool belt continues to be inadequate. And so what I was given through gift was a larger tool belt and tools to fill them and new ways to use the tools that I’ve never even thought of. This is one of the things get to experience it like I can share the words and share my passion but again through MDMC course you’ll feel it did the grad students program you’ll, you’ll embody it. And I hope you embody it through our MDMC program as well with all the all the work you do in the in the three months that you’re part of that course and then beyond in our Discord, and are mindful or semi our movement collective conversations. So let’s get back on track. You guys. It’s always fun doing podcast alone. Tensions up the Yin Yang. All right back to gift. So halfway through this year, I’ve already gone through one. One meetup in Adrian Michigan, which if you’ve ever been Adrian, Michigan, it’s the middle of nowhere you spiral in from the airport, and an hour and a half later of in delivers you to Adrian Michigan, grand streets headquarters. And you meet all these really cool people. And so when I met these folks, you know, had a good night’s drinking good connection opportunities, talking about feats, talking about shoulders just geeking out on all things movement, and it was absolutely extraordinary. And fun. I’ve never been in such a group of nerds, passionate, playful, geeky nerds is awesome. In especially work on people’s feet, like it’s just so weird, vulnerable place, but when you get people’s shoes off and in a building, massaging His feet, it’s big, all Kumbaya, lots of love is shared and lots of knowledge is gained lots of wisdom is explored. Halfway through that year, I had been also training to coach are semi private sessions, which are a little more, you got to have a little bit more wisdom to be in those sessions, because we’re working with potentially four athletes to one coach. And each person has an individualized program as programmed by the person they have their one on one with so I could potentially be coaching for people I’ve never coached before, and have to understand and read the nomenclature, the terminology and the not only the techniques and the strategies, but the principles behind the strategies that are unwritten, but just assumed because they are truths of human movement, and one of them being they have three planes of motion, and we can move each joint six ways. Not all joints gonna move that way. But they can they can certainly move that direction. So that’s one of the truths that came up and I had to explore quite a bit in my semi private so I had to talk movement. And being part of this gift community really gave me the confidence and allowed me to kind of branch out beyond what I thought I was capable of. I was exploring new territory, working with people who were, you know, out of PT clear to be going and doing training but stop pains. People that just all sudden develop some kind of acute pain through training, any discomfort or some discomfort with some tendinitis and elbow, maybe some arthritis developing the hands and actually problem solve with them to not say this is what you need to do. But more so I want to learn about your situation so I can provide you a better program for your training. So second half of this year was a lot of semi private training and just understanding how to work differently with clients that are dealing with bigger issues than just general fitness requirements. So

can I just throw it into the ropes there and through gift to you. I learned, you know, you start like the foot, we work our way up the ankle, we work our way up the knee, the hip. So in these weeks that we’re talking about these body parts, all of a sudden, when working on the foot, everybody’s got foot issues. And we’re working on the on the hip, never got hip issues. And then in gifts, we’re working on the shoulder and all sudden, people start developing shoulder issues. And really, it’s just, that’s where my lens is worth a time, not realizing the whole body was connected. And is connected. A shoulder is a hip is an ankle is a foot is a spine is a ribcage is a brain like those are all very connected. And one thing that was instilled in me through grants to is that we’re working with proprioceptive, with movements with essentially these things that are happening really quickly in the brain and the body, there’s communication happening that we’re not even really aware of, it just happens, like, if I asked you to lift your hand up right in front of your face, how did you do that? How did you just tell your head to do just like I tell my head and lift in front of my face? Yeah, but there’s a lot of processes that allow that to occur. I mean, think about if you’re a little baby trying to do that you can’t just do it, you have develop pathways and intentions and an understanding of you are your body, you are your hand. But sometimes we think that’s our that’s our hand, it’s separate from us. So during gift, as we’re learning about each of these body parts, I’m seeing a lot more what’s going on people’s bodies, not realizing that I’m seeing still only in parts, somebody’s got knee pain, I’m going to look at the ankle and the hip. If somebody’s got low back pain and look at the hip, and we’ll look at the thoracic spine, if they got neck pain, and look at the shoulder and look at the thoracic spine and see how these parts affected that area of the body. Without realizing that, hey, a left foot issue can be stirred up from a right T spine, the lack of rotation. And so I was learning how to see more globally at the same time more locally, see deeper into somebody’s foot, ankle, knee, hip, spine, the potential of movement there and what were gifted with what they’re currently able to do, and then why maybe their lifestyle or big injury or something that’s occurred has not allowed them to visit that space. Maybe they just need some guidance and some permission and accountability to visit that 3d space. And man when I was approaching these last few weeks of grad student fellowship, last bit of these 40 weeks, I felt so empowered and inspired. And I wanted to share that with all my athletes. And we were making groundbreaking results. I mean, like, people were getting out of pain that they were in for 20 or 30 years and then a low back they they had been the specialists and doctors and told him the surgery, and then they have a few sessions all sudden their back pains gone. It’s like Did I do something? Is it something special I’m doing? Or is it more so the vision, the sight and the intention behind what it is that I was doing? A lot of these questions came up, his insights came up and did a lot of journaling and reflection and tell you what gift was one of those big game changers grant suits. Still, everything that they release is so powerful. Even diving deeper into 3d maps, the three dimensional movement analysis and performance systems. It’s a movement assessment. But looking at those six dimensions, there’s actually there’s three planes and those six ways that can move in each joint relative to a lunge into a reach and seeing how their entire bodies integrated or lacking the integration or lack of that connection. So you’ve never had the opportunity to get a 3d maps from a coach Gymnazo. Please schedule that it is such a powerful learning opportunity, not only for you, but also for the coaches to see more bodies and how they move. We need to do it every day in our warm ups. But to have that one on one experience in 3d maps is so encouraging and powerful, and the depth of knowledge and understanding that it’s required to see what goes on in 3d maps. It can’t be expressed in words. It’s got to be felt. But it’s powerful. And if you want to chat about that and got more question about 3d maps, let me know or ask somebody at Gymnazo, who has had a three dimensional movement analysis performance system screen. So gray suit, they had that 3d maps, we do also through Gymnazo. And through MDMC program, we addressed that quite a bit. But those were big pivotal moments in my life that kind of set me up for success with where I’m at at Gymnazo. Basically after that took over, Director of programming for all the programs developed a way to make that more of a smooth process. So every quarter is brand new workouts for literally every single day has different exercises with different equipment but all based off of principles and strategies that turn into the exercises, which are the techniques. principles include stuff like you know, our object, observational essentials that we apply proprioceptors turn on, movements turn on or movements turn on proprioceptors turn on muscles turns on our bones and moves our bones. It’s not just muscles move our bones, we got to actually get some proprioceptive input in there, some movements in there, some exploratory things in there to level up. Things that make you better running matter of balancing better throwing better at pushing and pulling and lunging and squatting all those little intricacies like, oh yeah, lunch, it hurts. Well, maybe you’re just lunging unintentionally, you’re you’re taking a step, but you’re doing it more efficiently, we’ll teach you how to use both sides of your body, both sides utilize the Bozo effect coming from lack method learned a lot of cool things from them the past few years. landmine University, Alex Canalis. Gosh, these guys are so epic, I could do a whole podcast on wax method. In fact, we’ll get David back on the podcast very soon. And we’ll break down my experience of work method qualification one back in 2019. Because that was a whole nother level of experience to allow me to integrate my 3d knowledge in to more local motion based principles. Wow, awesome stuff. To a point where, basically, I went there for a weekend came back and I cut about five minutes off my best trail run time. Like I let you know, I don’t run a pill very quickly, but I run downhill very quickly. Well, when I got back from work method, one, I ran more fluidly uphill more efficiently uphill, and more badass downhill. Like it’s just see me coming down with a wrecking ball. It was intense, but cut five minutes off of a two and a half mile circuit, there are a trail run. And that’s Big time, big time. On my end. I’m not all about the PRS hsli I’m always about prs. I’ve a couple 100 prs, some of the PRS are revisited. That’s basically me saying that I explore a lot of movements, and I max out and some of them and I never revisit them. Maybe because they’re scary, maybe because it was I got what I needed out of it, maybe because I totally forgot it. So go back into the archive. And we’ll check those things out. But PRs are awesome. And I hit them very quickly with my running, especially in throwing especially with like methods. So thank you guys. Man, if we want to go back deeper, I don’t want to I don’t want to take too much time on this podcast. But there’s more stories to be shared. That was just my gift journey and Gymnazo journey. But what I really want to share is kind of how I ended up in this realm of fitness. And in training because in in movement and flow, because I never really had the intent to be a trainer. I was an athlete through elementary school, high school. And my junior year of high school as wrestler, my junior year of high school, I was plagued by a pretty nasty injury early on in the year that just didn’t let up. My left shoulder had strained something wrestling, wrestling was cutting wait until the beginning of the year wrestling or a hard lift a little bit more weights and I think I may have just overstressed my shoulder a little bit. I have no idea really what happened. But one day, it just hurt and I couldn’t really use it. And in practices and stuff. I was team captain but it’s tough to show it some drills and techniques with one side like my left arm, the good plant arm that I use and pulling arm and set up arm and I couldn’t use it. I was like using 20% My left arm and like 180% My right arm and maybe my right arm fatigued and tired and made me my whole body more tired. Because I still does left arm but I had to protect it. I felt like I had a pulled muscle in my shoulder or anytime I tried to pull somebody that my shoulder was going to kind of fall off or anytime I got pulled on. It was excruciating pain to my shoulder, my arm my neck, my head. I just dealt with it. It was fucking horrible. I mean, it was rough. It was so insane. I was in so much pain that I would go and hide like just hide my pain for a little bit.

That was so nervous. You know just kind of grit your teeth. You’re like Oh man, I’m gonna throw up or something that was so that’s so intense. So yeah, I’m gonna be exaggerating this but this is pretty pretty nasty. So wrestled the whole year and my plan was to go wrestling college wrestler at Cal Poly and kind of develop myself as an athlete in that realm too. But this man this is reversed so nagging and I hadn’t had a ton of injuries in the past I’ve had little nice I’ve never never never even broken a bone you guys right? This was like dude what’s up with my frickin shoulder just the muscles are so is so tired and painful. It’s tough to wash my hair in the morning. Push Ups weren’t very happy pull ups were very happy but I could do them. But again, my right side got really strong left I got pretty weak. Throughout the year my my dad was also my one of my coaches. He said it’s all mental. And that quote still stings me today because it is all mental. I made it through that dam that whole year without freaking sub like shoulder wrestling a pretty high level and never reaching my full potential with wrestling. But I feel like I was reaching my potential for what needed to happen at the time. Couldn’t wait. Wrestling up is ridiculous. But my dad would pull my shoulder back into place so I’d be in a match like midway through a match all my shoulder car Alright Dad got my arm real quick pop get it back into place. Alright, I’m back to like 40% left arm we’re good. But if it gets nudged a certain way, back down and 20% If that I just have to hold my arm I’m in place and shoot score and scoop with one hand, slam, I could do it, I could do it. I was pretty good. But man, I was really overexerting myself and cannot hang with the good dudes. So fast forward again to the end of that junior year. Post season meant to do really well ranking and ranking pretty high in the division. And we’ll be going potentially to state you know, it’s pretty big deal in California. I was looking forward to it. But in one match, arm got caught underneath, went to pull my arm out and score around the side and my arm got stuck pinned underneath the knee. And man, when I went to rip my arm out of there, my shoulder popped internally, I felt my body, my heart, my mind, my gut explode with pain and agony. I just let go of him, I put my arm down on the mountain lay down on the mount on my back and I was like, just please finish this I am done. I’m out. There, it was no turning back like I’ve done. got wrapped up. Ice and everything in the shoulder and basically got the MRI. Couple days later X ray and basically just fold dislocation said I probably was subluxed it quite a bit during the year it goes in and out of place. No wonder it’s been in so much pain. I at this point now is my shoulder completely shredded, my bicep was down in my elbow pit basically. So I had to pull that back up and in. And it’s pretty bad labral tear and recover is gonna be 12 months, wrestling seasons started back up and four months preseason. And I was like, Ah, man, we got six months at least to build up into this doctor said don’t wrestle anymore, you’re done, your chances of you damaging this will be pretty high. When you get back to season, even if it’s six months from now, just be really cautious and careful. Probably not going to have full strength, regaining the arm for a few years. Definitely going to wrestle with it. Definitely going to lift weights overhead anytime soon, and probably gonna have some limitations, the whole rest of your life in the shoulder. And I accepted that to an extent but I was like, alright, wrestling season’s coming up. I’ll give it six months, I’ll be back. And then I get a sling. I’ll just get back to building some strength. But man, was I humbled by this experience. It made me question everything. And I was 17 at the time. And I was planning on wrestling in college, going to college doing all these all these things. And number one thing, I didn’t want to let my dad down I didn’t want to let myself down and do want to let my team down. And so I was stuff was weighing heavy on me like man, maybe I shouldn’t wrestle anymore, man. Like, what’s that going to look like? If I go to college and don’t wrestle, I can put my post time in the doing it. What’s gonna come out of this. So as a friend of mine, my dad was afraid to answer it myself for me, like what did I really want? And so I started questioning Well, what do I want? Do I even want to wrestle anymore? Am I just doing this because this is what I’ve done. Mentioned makes sense. And well, so my mom and I don’t I don’t know if I’m gonna wrestle anymore after this. Like, I think I’ve done with injuries. This is this sent me back pretty far. And I don’t want to hurt more. And I don’t want to be injured. Like my coaches and elders have been in the past where they can’t even throw a ball, they can’t lift arms overhead or they’ve got a bum hip, I could just, I don’t want to live like that I want to live to be 100 plus, and still running and still jumping children the stuff that people say, Oh, just you wait till you get to be my age, which I totally get it you guys, I have a lot of respect for the elders. And I’m not calling you old and calling you elder, you’re wiser than I am. You’ve been around this earth much more than I have. In this reality at least. And so I’m gonna respect what you have to say. But I also know that you not you weren’t doing what I’m doing. At this age. I’m in my 20s Now just turned 29 reflecting on a good time of the year around the sun. And I’m so happy that I’m at practice. I have my community to support me, I have my meditation practice. I have my earthing, I have my sun gazing I have the ocean I have, I have a lot of paths behind me to continue to build a beautiful future. And so as to thank everybody who showed me their path in their 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s even 90s to that I’m coaching and it’s just inspiring to see where you are in your journey your path right now and to be able to have the the ability to reflect on where how that what that means like to me, what’s it what it means for you to be 70 and in pain or you to be 80 and running and happy. And what does that mean to me in my practice and how I’m gonna carry myself so thank you all for being part of this part of this journey. But back to my my shoulder surgery. Basically the few months went by my left shoulder got my left whole arm shrunk, deflated, my right arm got stronger and bigger. And I became this lopsided, strong right arm, weak ass left arm kind of dude going back and do some preseason wrestling stuff. Running was really hard washing my hair was really hard. reaching my head machine just to scratch my face was really tough, and then I’d flinch or something right i turn really quickly and all sudden I get this big For a short time, my shoulder and back and it was just, I was constantly being reminded of my limitation. And kind of hearing the voice of like, this is never gonna be the same again, this is kind of how your life is gonna be and I had no big positive real encouragement inside my head. It was just like, hey, man, just get through this, just get through this and keep pushing, keep working, this will get better. And that voice was that voice is getting louder and more joyful and more exploring exploratory and curious about life. And I said, before wrestling season started, like I think this movie last year, told myself that and that felt right. Thanks for watching to tell my dad and told him Hey, man, I don’t think I’m gonna wrestle after this year like I’m gonna wrestle senior year, see how it goes, take it really light. I’m not going to wait. I can I just felt really empowered by my words. And I was like, oh, man, what are you gonna say? And he said, thanks for sharing that with me, man. That’s, that’s a that’s a tough decision. But as we were coming from the car this year, pans out and don’t make any permanent decisions. But thank you for sharing that with me. And it’s a big moment. Because my dad wasn’t pissed at me. At least he didn’t show it. And I totally, totally as much love for the guy. And I know he’s got a lot of love for me and is very happy with where I with what I’ve done in my life and where it’s going. So thanks, dad. And thanks, mom for encouraging me to tell Dad, my gosh, you know, so easy just to be talking about things. Don’t get so caught up in him. Get out of our head. Yeah, thank you guys. And thanks for listening to this story, because it’s not really a sob story, but just set me up for the road of discovery. And when I made that decision and told my dad, I felt so many shackles shake free from me, my heart again opened up and it was like, Oh, I have power to decide over how my life can go. Meanwhile, my left arm is still really tiny. My right arm is still really big. And I had some exercise to do that the PTO was saying to do and I did them and they just didn’t feel right. So you know what I did. I went tried the best pushup I could do it hurt. I didn’t force more than I wouldn’t did hanging pull up not even a pull up just hanging from one arm and the other arm. And I started to integrate some swings and some throws and then some light wrestling and I felt like I was slowly gradually progressing out of this pain though it reminded me off and on that it was still their left arm started to get stronger. Right arm balancing out and wrestled the year with you know, not cutting any way wrestled pretty good. didn’t do any big tournaments throughout the year. So I could wrestle postseason not injuring myself, and I’m happy with the decisions I made because though I may not have the best wrestling performance wise.

That year, that was the most satisfied ever got from my wrestling experience. I was in it I was plugged in, I felt like I was really there, you know. And it just felt right. felt right to explore and to play. And to treat practice more like play, not for the sake of I’m gonna be the best college wrestler out there. But I’m gonna make myself better be stronger and learn about my body along the way. And I couldn’t put this all into words at that time. I was just living as an 18 year old would exploring my my creative freedoms and the freedom of about to head off to college. And so it’s just chose Kinesiology at Cal Poly. So I’m not going to wrestle just me to enjoy my college experience for what it is. And boy am I so happy I did because I came in as a first year. Kinesiology major and explored the rec center that was just being built and finished. And I had this studio space. I had machines, I had an indoor track, I had powerlifting downstairs, I had this beautiful spot upstairs, there’s outdoors, there’s a pool, there’s volleyball nets, it was like, this thing is immaculate and it’s built right for me, you know, wake up early, get up early, go to work out, do what I knew, and then go to the studio and take out like six pieces of equipment. Probably a lot more than that made a mess in there cleaned up, obviously but a medicine ball, a weight plate, on ab roller, a couple of dumbbells, maybe a Bosu ball and just started moving around and doing stuff that felt like chain wrestling. But it wasn’t really wrestling. It was like shadow wrestling. And that’s how I started to develop my moving practice was I was shadow wrestling with weight. A shadow wrestling on an ab roller I was shadow wrestling with a weak plate I was shot shadow wrestling with the bozhou and stepping in working stability work and little did I know that this was setting me up for what was to come and years future. That Cal Poly taking this bright back to the story of the internship and getting involved with that, but we’ll really put it all in the stone as the play on this podcast too is I met my wife at Cal Poly and we line danced all the time. And so I had this rhythm already established and Maybe a few more drinks is what? What really helps to get that rhythm. So occasionally I do a workout with a beer. And let me tell you, it’s a great freaking idea. If you like beer and you like working out, put those two together, don’t get lazy, it’s going to be a damn good beer and a damn good workout. Obviously, there’s layers and limits to that. So be careful. But every week, I would invite my wife, she’s my friend at the time, not even a girlfriend really just so somebody I want to make my girlfriend you know, I was trying to do all the right things. I invited her to come work out with me, let’s see if she’s got the the fight the power the warrior inner. And she did. And not only that, she could listen and she would allow me to practice coaching her, the gymnasts, a warmup. As I was learning it, the 3d maps on the lunges that we learned that whole warmup sequence, that’s a lot to memorize as a coach, and also process you gotten to class. And so to have one person that I really cared about, as I was learning how to tell a speech, but I didn’t have any any cards or anything, you know, any anything to go off of it was just off a memory and videos. And so our take it through it, see if she felt things I was feeling and what we developed was this relationship where I can see stuff, she could feel it, and she would tell me what she felt. And I could tell her what I saw. And then in that, I started to develop my way of coaching, which is basically not to tell you exactly what to do, it’s to understand that if I give you a task or a challenge, a movement skill to practice, and you do it, that exercise now just became a test. And I can analyze all the parts of your body, your ankle, your knee, your hip, your spine, right, I’ll whip your shoulders, and also your intent, but also the tension that you’re feeling with the intent that you’re practicing. And if those didn’t match up, I now had a bridge built to helping you discover movement freedom, and suggests thank you so much for being there for all these years. Before the dating, just coming in working out at 6am. I know it’s early for you. But to just be open and to learn these things and to be open to express how you feel about them. And to help me develop as a coach. I really think that’s one of the biggest, most important pieces of the story is that my wife has been there for this entire Gymnazo journey, cfs grace to journey. So alongside me and now she’s writing her own workouts and with nomenclature, I’m like, you could basically be a gymnastic coach Jess, you know that. So hopefully she’s listened to that. But yeah, I really appreciate all the people that have been a part of my life and have supported me, the members that Gymnazo the athletes that come through these doors, the coaches that have been through juveniles those doors and set the stage. And now I’m standing on the shoulders of the giants that you were, and you are those who have left, you guys are still here in spirit, those who are here right now you are heavily holding the torch of Gymnazo and moving forward, pioneering this whole movement. So thank you all, thank you all, thank you all and Gymnazo for the space, you’re not even a person but you’re an entity, you’re a being of some kind, Jim knows Oh, and your walls Express. So much support so much joy, so much community. So I’m really looking forward to the future years ahead, and to more storytelling, and hopefully you all have not fallen asleep, you’re a star inspired and stoked on life. If I’m gonna leave you with anything, go take your shoes off, stick them in the earth. There’s a lot to be learned there. And at sunset or sunrise stare right into that sun, you know you want to it’s lovely disclaimer, if it hurts, don’t do it. But for hurts, consider why it hurts and maybe dive deeper. So y’all, I hope you enjoy listening. And stay tuned for more. And you’re able to squeeze every ounce of juice from the fruits of this life piece.

Michael Hughes
Welcome to the Gymnazo podcast where you get to peek behind the curtains of what it takes to create and run a seven figure fitness facility that ranks 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 stoners Peyton 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.