How the Knee is Like That Really Good Friend That is Always Covering For You
CJ
Hello World, welcome back to the Gymnazo podcast. I’m your host, CJ Kobliska. And I am here with one of my good friends. His name is Michael Hughes, the owner, CEO of Gymnazo. And today we’re gonna be chatting about a magical part of our body called the knee. And believe it or not, this podcast, we will probably mention the knee very little after we talk about the biology and what the knee does, but more so what the knee helps us do, and how it acts as a communication channel from our ankle to our hip and our hip down to our ankle. And essentially just kind of busting the myth of that knees are bad. You know, knees are not bad. ankles aren’t bad, hips aren’t bad body parts aren’t bad. We just don’t know how to make friends for our body parts. And we’re to kind of go a little bit deeper dive into what we mean by friends and how the knee is not a bad thing. Even if you’ve got a hurt knee, a dysfunctional knee and injured knee. How can you make that need better and thrive in its environment, not just in fitness in the gym setting, but in everyday life? And when you do get a ping of the knees? What do you do with it? What do you do the information, you go to a doctor and you say, Hey, I got knee pain. And the doctor says, Hey, don’t do what you’re doing. And you said I was just walking. You just stop walking the rest of your life. We’re gonna figure out what you can actually do with that knee discomfort and pain and when it arises, how do you help it out? How do you make it better? How do you help it go away and avoid knee surgery as long as possible?
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 as created an ecosystem of services that blend performance with restoration techniques, and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by its owners Paden and myself and our top coaches, this podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online. And in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional or fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results.
CJ
So without further ado, Michael Hughes. Welcome to podcast.
Michael Hughes
Super happy to be here and super amped, I have to say, to be at the new podcast able to be at the new setup. Just if you’re watching on YouTube. Yeah, just throw it out there to you know, something a little different, a little spicier, but a little bit more room to play. Expand our minds because our minds we’re getting a little bit a little bit tight on that table. You know, it’s so much good thinking going on now. We have
CJ
ample I feel space, I feel room.
Michael Hughes
It’s someone spanking me in the backseat of electric car.
CJ
I think my breath is getting deeper just sitting at this table. Michael, do you mind diving into the biomechanics of the knee? Or just how you kind of look at the knee? Somebody walks in just says here’s my knee. How do you see it? What are the parts of it? How does it move? Maybe start with what you learned in textbook and then once you’ve once you’ve learned since then I think
Michael Hughes
that’s a great kickoff. The knee is like I honestly thought it was like a thing. Like, like the knee is like its own individual piece. And that’s how I thought about it like oh, that knee cutters from the exercises. Got to do some terminal knee extensions, maybe strap some bands to it, make sure that that knee etcetera is really functioning very well. And that’s kind of what how I was taught. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s really fuzzy like it’s this it is two things. The knee is two things are any joint is two things. It’s the top half and the bottom half and I never thought about that. I thought it was like its own individual piece. And the reason why like I would say the hip is its own individual piece, or the shoulder is its own individual piece. But the knees not like that’s how I would say because it is so it is second fiddle. You know it’s backup guitar. It’s not lead vocals. You know, it’s really the assister you know I look at it it’s kind of like not even the Scottie Pippen to the Michael Jordan. It’s even further than that. It’s like the it’s like the equipment manager, you know, really important but gets way too much hype. Wow, I mean, I couldn’t manage I’m going to too far for that one. But long story short, it is the it’s the foot and and the and the hip. I’m just gonna say it. Yeah, that’s just I just went right to it to do fast but the knee is really the follower. It’s the it’s the trail. It’s the assist. It’s the backup singer for how everything goes and how I look at it as I certainly look at where it goes. Without a question like a knee and movement assessment. I really watched the knees a lot But, but I watched the knees not cuz I don’t really care what the knee is doing itself because it tells me what the hip of the foot is or is not doing. That’s really, really powerful.
CJ
So it seems like the knees is converging point of if your foot just kept going into an ankle and kept going right to your hip. It’s this dividing point, that’s essentially going to tell you what your hip is doing what your foots doing, or what they’re both doing, or what they’re not doing, right,
Michael Hughes
it’s really more what they’re not doing. Because if the Foot Ankle and the hip are really doing their job, the knees is kind of like, I don’t even feel it. It’s not even there. It’s just this thing that has a nice little knob on the very top of it, that whatever, like to me, that’s what it needs should feel like. It’s a transmitter of energy. Right? It’s not supposed to absorb it. And when it does, on the carless can only take some so much the ligaments can only take so much. There’s really no muscles around the knee, like the hip like it’s it’s encapsulated by muscle, the shoulder encapsulated by muscle, ankles, a little different dog, you know, doesn’t doesn’t really have the same kind of feel bit because ankle foots a real special joint, you know, it’s both
CJ
so that it’s really both knees, the basic continuum. It’s contumacy, like almost like a spectrum. You know, you’ve got if you think about what’s attached to your hip and what’s going into your knee and what’s attached to your ankle and what’s going up to your knee. Right, we’ve got our quadriceps. We’ve got our hamstrings, front, and back. We’ve got our adductors we’ve got a calf muscles. Yep, not both, but you get the gastroc. Right. But basically, there’s, I think there’s 10 Major main muscles that attach around that knee. You just named 13 of them. I just can’t Yeah, well, quads are counted as one and she’s like Canvas one. So there we go. We’re about 10. And essentially, you’ve got your your ligaments, you’ve got tendons that surround that that knee, and we’ve got to consider what’s the communication like going through that muscle group down into your calf and same thing when your calf is going up to your your leg? We know our knee can it’s also bones, right? You’ve got your femur, you’ve got your top of your TIB you’ve got a patella. Yeah, I think that’s it on Tibia fib.
Michael Hughes
I mean, the fibs kind of it’s their site, but it’s the tip is really Tim’s domain. Yeah, is the main animal. And it’s, it’s really true. Like, I want to just realize that it’s so important to understand how Chain Reaction movement works, right. And what I mean by that is like, how your foot works in stepping on sand, stepping on a board, stepping on grass, dipping on whatever the case is not stepping on anything floating in water, kicking through water, and really understanding how that knee can get over overworked so quickly. When these crazy mobile I mean, highly, highly intelligent, I use the word the hip and that foot are highly intelligent, adaptable movers, you know, they can, they can really, they can really shake up a lot of capacity, in terms of how athletic someone is, how strong someone is, they really sneak in a lot of movements, like think about like thrown out, or mace. You know, if you’re brand new at a mace, you get a lot of turning of the whole thoracic spine, versus you just do a quick whip of the hips, like, you feel the whole that just spinal engine, get activated through the pelvis. Same thing with like, the one inch punch, you know, like what really moved, you know,
CJ
and what didn’t, I know, to stay stable, everything moved to a certain extent, I almost like you bring up this one inch punch and the Mason these little subtle motions. I think a visual helps with this, at least helps me and for the visual learners. As the further visual learner listeners here, I think it will be helpful. I imagine like this their sphere that surrounds your knee space, let’s say your knee joint, and you get the sphere that surrounds your hip and the sphere that surrounds your ankle. Okay, so let’s say you got three spheres stacked on top of each other, those joints can move anywhere in that sphere, right? Let’s let’s not talk about stability or mobility yet, but it could move forward in that sphere could move back in that sphere, could slide to the right slide to the left could go at any kind of hybrid or angle like anterior lateral posterior lateral, it could rotate in that sphere and it can move up and it can move down and it can move through space.
Michael Hughes
So think in rotation and almost a credit relation with enough flexibility, right? almost surely, you’re talking about with each flexion extension, you know, in rotation different but you know, like lateral flexion. Like you can get that into your splits. Hips. Anyone? Yeah,
CJ
think about the hip, it’s much fuller sphere, right? You’ve got a lot of mobility, it’s also going to stabilize your knee, I imagine is a smaller sphere, because it doesn’t have as much potential to move just because of how its formed. It’s built to flex and extend more than anything else. Actually flexion more than anything else extension, it stops it straight out unless you’re hyper mobile and it’s going to go beyond that. But your patella is going to stop Yeah. All right. And then you’ve got your hip that can move flexion extension, abduction, abduction, internal external rotation, your ankles, same kind of thing, just to a more limited extent but your needs like it just wants to go that way that way, if we consider the sphere up on top, that hip, if we need to move our hips side to side, see we’re like doing a little booty bump, little hip shake, or dancing, or trying to do a little juke move, or we are doing like a medicine ball throw just a little bit simpler, just translating side to side, if our hips can’t access that motion, one of those other spheres gotta make up for it. And if it’s not the knee or the ankle, it’s got to go up above. And a lot of times, it goes directly to the knee, right? If we have a limited hip mobility, and we’re going into a lateral lunge, and our hip says, All right, I can only get so much AB duction, I’m loading up my adductors as I’m doing a sideways lunge, then I hit a breaking point, and then either my ankle is gonna flop over, or my knee is going to try to keep inward, right, and it’s gonna create a lot of tension or pressure right around the inside of the knee. The medial side, same thing, if I’m going to slide to my left, and my hip can’t slide left, as far as my knee might try to bow out the side, we see it all the time bailouts, especially if your hip is lacking stability, something like a heavy squat, or a heavier lunge. How often do we see a nice, little sideways wobble, right, because our hip is maybe lacking some of that lateral stability, or maybe our ankles lacking that stability in our knee, estimate that for regardless, simply put, if our hip and ankle aren’t doing their job mobility or stability wise, it’s going to come down to that main point. And now we’ve got a bad knee, right. And that’s bad friends, right. And
Michael Hughes
that’s, it’s all about the neighborhood. And I perfectly said no, and that was like something like I wish someone would have told me a long time ago, a long time ago, fix the knee pain, let’s make the quad stronger, hamstring, stronger, adductors stronger. And that’s all do it sitting down in chair with a band literally wrapped around the knee, let’s look at your knee right and work your knee. And, and I really appreciate like the heartfelt pneus like you want to help somebody sweet, you’re gonna do that. I’m going to take that band rapper on the backside of that knee joint and just let the band bend it and I’m going to straighten it right out. And I’m going to make that knee stronger. And that’s really me it’s really a noble fight. But it’s, it just misses the whole point of view of really understanding like, the hips, so easy to see. Right? It’s huge. The ankles a tough one to see, especially when you have like dorsiflexion plantar flexion. Pretty easy, easy to see. But the knee to me, the knee doesn’t really care about dorsiflexion and plantar flexion as much as the inversion and E version or the calcaneus. The heel bone moving left to right or spinning left to right. You know, the actual ankle complex. Because it’s the rotation inside a sidedness of the knee. That really kind of freaks people out freaks practitioners out. Freaks certainly freaks out Instagram, you know, like, Oh, don’t you put that knee in that inward rotation valgus position you’re gonna blow that thing up. And I really love those comments because I used to think the same way. And I was really like, Oh, don’t you do that? You know that that Tolan squat bad for the knees? Man, what did we teach ourselves? You know, it’s almost like, oh, you drive down that street, you’re gonna get you’re gonna get into some violence, that’s a bad street to go down. No, you have violence has to happen. You don’t just get down the street violence happens, you know, it’s like that something has something’s going to kind of thrown at it. And really understanding like, if you could really control foot action, you you basically tell the knee where to go. And that’s why I say the hip and the, the foot are so smart and the knees just, I’m gonna say we’re dumb, isn’t dumb, it just says, Alright, cool. What are you gonna do foot, I’m gonna follow you. And if the foot really gets awesome pronation, and if the hip really gets really good, I’m just gonna have a flexion just kind of follow me on this with flexion of the hip. Abduction of the hip and internal rotation of the hip, and that knee is going to now start flying in. If you have a strong glute, strong it then post your lateral chain, you have a really strong medial calf that says I gotcha, like you do what you got to do. And we’re going to spring back and just keep on rockin, like, how much more access can you have? If the knee isn’t in fear? Mentally like your own that you know, I like talking about the body parts as I can as their own personalities. Yeah, and the knees like he’s, you know, he or she, depending on obviously who you are, you know, really gets this mindset like, I’ll take you out, go wherever you want to go. It’s almost like the man’s best friend, the dog like the dog is going to kill itself to save you. The nice kind of like the same things like Alright, show me to do something. I’m going to do it. And I’m going to bang myself up real good to save my best friend of the Foot Ankle and my best friend to hit
CJ
you try and tell me that knee the knee could be one of the best friends so much so that it will take the fall for the bad friends getting in trouble basically hip and the ankle. Yes. So let’s talk about this more. Talking about a foot position, like toes in and how like from the outside without realizing or understanding why you just see it and go I’ve been told Old, this is bad. And you have a belief Now, we consider our six SFT foot positions right? Challenging the sagittal plane, like we go into a right
Michael Hughes
left, right, right in front and left left from front front, right front line feet and narrow transverse plane, toes out toes.
CJ
Let’s talk about why this is so powerful and so important to for building friends, for the knee, building better friends for the knee, right? If we’re focusing on the sagittal plane, foot positions, right foot in front or left foot in front, what are the main and we do a squat, let’s say, okay, versus just a neutral foot position. So what are some things that were that that foot position will do for our body in terms of proprioception or tissues loading, to help our knee out whenever we’re in that position, and I’m gonna take the line of, are we loading up my hamstrings more adductors more glutes more, if we just do a neutral squat, we might be hitting all the above. But let’s say we wanted to take our other friends out little bit, little bit, just like a one on one date, right? We don’t want to add doctors and the glutes and the hamstrings and quads. Well, for a date, let’s focus on what’s what friends were taking out in the date in the sagittal plane when we’re going to right foot forward or left foot forward.
Michael Hughes
Okay, focusing on the right knee, right to go right in the right foot foot forward to really make it a really well one on one day. When we squat, that we got to pick some some action, right? When it’s just perfect. When you throw that right foot and foot in front, so that right knee is already much more forward much more anterior. Right, so therefore, you’re going to that that knee is going to shove itself a little bit further, excuse me, it’s not going to shove itself further, it’s going to get less bend, it’s going to get less bend, but the hip up top is going to get more bend, you’re gonna get less dorsiflexion, less ankle bend, less knee flexion. But more hip flexion.
CJ
Right, because that femur is pulling forward, if your right foot forward, that femur is now in a place, right, where the posterior side is going to load more,
Michael Hughes
right? Exactly, the left side is going to get way more dorsiflexion. Because it’s already in dorsiflexion, it’s pre its pre positioned, the knees gonna get massive amounts of flexion and the hips gonna get less, it’s gonna be more an extension.
CJ
So just by putting ourselves in that position, we’ve already compromised our left knee. Right? Right, right, exactly. So it’s like, alright, we got to consider now if we added a squat here, is the person capable of doing it? And if they’re not, it’s not that they have a bad knee, there might be something deeper that we need to go into to say, how can we wake up these friends so that when they are in a stride stance, they’re not having to force their need to do something their friends don’t want to do? Right, right foots forward and we’re more flexion, that’s going to intentionally load a little bit more glutes in the sagittal plane, hamstrings in the sagittal plane on the right side, while loading your left soleus potentially and left quads actually quite a bit more, and vice versa for left foot forward. Right. So we can we can intentionally
Michael Hughes
which is interesting because position it’s a it’s a sagittal. It’s a anterior load on the front side on the left side, and it’s a posterior load on the right side, see if
CJ
you’ve supported that right leg, right? Like it’s probably going to be in less pain if you had a right knee discomfort, right?
Michael Hughes
Because it would especially with knee flexion. It’s flexing less with that squat.
CJ
And you basically just trick their body and saying, Hey, right leg, knee, you’re not going to do it now. Hamstring but you are. Now that might bother their left knee, right? So maybe right foot forward, left foot forward isn’t the right call to make better friends, with the hamstrings, with the glutes with the quads. So then we’ve got our frontal plane, right? If we’re considering the same kind of a metaphor, I like this game. Yep. We haven’t had this conversation before. But we go wide feet. Who are we trying to take out on a date? What muscles, what what tissues are trying to support the knee,
Michael Hughes
got it. So I’m gonna start from the bottom up. Because our feet are wider. And depending if we squat and I gotta say this context dependent, if we’re squat and go into a little bit more pronation, we’re gonna get already medial calf soleus, right, you know, just called the soles, but the medial part. And then we’re going to trickle right up on the end inside to the adductors. But especially ones that are more situated left to right, because a lot of adductors are situated much more forward and backwards, like a hamstring is, there’s five in there. So you know, so and then. And then I mean, that’s pretty and then we can’t forget about those, those those medial hamstrings.
CJ
So a lot of the medial section, right? I mean, we think about an MCL, right? That medial collateral ligament that’s on the inside and think about how many people tear especially when they’re cutting on a field and that knee dives inward. The support is below and above and without that calf and without that hip, medial hamstring and adductors ability to decelerate to drop down to get the inferior load. We’re probably going to see knees caving, right to shorten that tension in the calf and in the hamstring. So if we noticed that Well, shit, we can end up either having, you know, push against a band, which you see a lot of which then contracts, the outer muscles, you know, the the TFL, the quads, the glutes, or we just start to find their threshold of success with their wide feet, like why it doesn’t have to be as wide as possible. Of course, wide can be outside shoulder width, right wide for them might be shoulder width, they never gotten wider than that. So just exposing those loads, exposing those friends to that amount of tension, we immediately start to proprioceptive ly wake up that medial section, which is now going to support the knee in the long run. That’s the very simple way to look at it. This is just for squats. But you can then work your way into lateral shifts. And now you’re getting some more of that translation and rotation to load up those adductors. Right. So let’s talk about other position from a plan narrow. So what’s what’s loaded up more when we go narrow? This is a funky one, because feet are going to stop you from going more narrow,
Michael Hughes
right? But you could, by all definition, do a crossover step, which happens all the time in athletics all the time, right? It’s good old fashioned grapevine, Carioca, etc, etc. So it’s gonna be the opposite just to keep it simple, right? You’re gonna get that that peroneus longus lateral calf you’re gonna get much more it van which is not really a muscle but ligament right, you’re gonna get the TFL tensor fascia Lata, you’re gonna get the gastroc gastroc, excuse me? Well, I guess a lateral head gastroc. You know what the case is? But what I meant to say is the glute medius. glute minimis glute max.
CJ
Yes, certainly little SWAT flexors for right.
Michael Hughes
And then because you’re bringing that need more inside, you’re going to the vastus lateralis. And curious if this arc towards is getting in there to a little bit more, because they got like a little crossover, but you’re certainly being the opposite of the inside, right, you’re going to the outside.
CJ
And I mean, with that you think about if you sit then if you go to crossover, you’ve got your foot, it’s wanting to go into inversion, right? It’s going to pull and that’s where a lot of ankle sprains happen. And if it’s not an ankle, it’s going to be that outside knee, you know, and then you can have an ache and a pain. So often we have individuals come in, you know, they went for a long run or a hike that haven’t done before, and their knees are shot, like I think I damaged my knee, it’s a bad knee. We’re thinking alright, what attaches right below your knee space. On your on your lateral side, it’s your IT band attaches right at that TIB fib, front side, right. And so if you’re doing a lot of hiking and climbing and loading up that TfL glute, you’re doing a little crossover stance, you’re experiencing that inversion, those tissues aren’t trained, that’s gonna go right to that attachment point, right? Where that junction is at that knee is gonna be achy, because it can be tugging on you constantly loading, that tendon is just yanking it bent is yanking on that bone until it feels like tender to the touch, right? Where we tend to go itself and we tend to go right after the knee, right, right. But we know that goes up where to attach into what muscle literally detaches at the top part of the hip. Yeah, the TFL, it been almost a one unit, right? It just eventually turns into muscle tissue that wraps in the lateral hip. So really, what we’re getting at is that we’re just attacking spaces in such a gentle way. You know, that’s not overtraining, it’s not giving too much momentum or mass, we’re simply loading tissues that support the knee by changing it foot position, right, most powerful one that I’d love for you to break down to because you said toes in. And when you see toes in toes out, you see toes out a lot more and like power training, lifting. It’s great, does one thing which provides more range, but like, we break down the toes and toes out, why are those so important to understand what’s going on when somebody tries to squat?
Michael Hughes
Yeah, I’m gonna go the chosen one, because it’s much more scary, you know, it’s not as understood toes out. Simple, right? It’s kind of mass. It’s like mass media. Toes in, as you roll in, as you get into the more of a supinated foot, even if it’s just position, it could still pronate in a toe in, right, just positioned by all designation and nasty, but Right, but still, I mean, it’s still Yes, but you’re going to be tendency to be more supinated. So more lateral calf’s going to be loaded up, right, and, but it’s interesting though, to load up the lateral calf, you have to shorten the medial calf. So the middle caps already because that, that heel that calcaneus is already kind of tucked in, so it shortens the the the inside lengthens the outside, like that, that like that inversion sprain field for the ankle. But then also because you’re because you take that knee and you literally spin it in, let’s say 22 degrees, just for the fun, you know, four to five years, it was pretty intensive.
CJ
I think people like really live in number 22.50.
Michael Hughes
I like that. That’s a good one.
CJ
It’s a pretty number.
Michael Hughes
You get those, you get the lateral hamstring, right, because that that wraps from back center hip all the way across that lateral side that gets lengthened. Then, again, from a stress standpoint, the quads still but it’s a little bit different kind of animal, but then you get the glute max. Because once you rotate that femur internally, that glute max says you got me on like you got me you basically Got a blanket, yeah, you got your cloak wrapped it around joke, it’s a big big deal that glute max in the transverse plane it is, it is like, let’s go pick a fight. And that’s really, really cool. But the interesting part is like, as your toe in, if your knee follows your knees still have your toe does that nothing changed Ingo, just the position of your foot change to blue, if you have a good enough range of motion of your pelvis, your knee says, I’m good with that. Let’s rock and roll. The hard part about that is because most people are pretty darn tight and the tissue is pretty short on the backside of the hips on a long muscle, you don’t have that much range of motion, you’re not going to go down as far, you certainly can, if you train it by just within the flexibility. Training goes but you’re not going to go down that force, your range of motion is going to be limited. And therefore your depth in a squat is going to be limited. Oh, and that’s a bad thing. We’re trying to do a squat and pass a football 1000 club for your you know, for that shirt in high schools
CJ
are not 90 degrees, you know. So,
Michael Hughes
but what’s fascinating about that, though, as you get internally rotated, you’ve pre lengthen all those tissues, it’s like you’ve pulled the rubber band back the bone, arrow back whatever further before we even started. So the power production should therefore be more. But the proprioception may be less like your your own neurons be like, Ah, I don’t know about this. So therefore without confidence, it doesn’t really matter. Your brain is just going to shut it down and be like, Nah, don’t, don’t try as hard. Don’t push off with the same amount of power. where the case is, but you look at you look at all these sports, you know, especially golf. You look at the backswing golf, tote in tennis serve totin throwing a baseball tote in throwing a football tote in sprinter tote in. Yes, like all these different little little things happen. And so it’s really fascinating. Again, we’re talking about a new podcast, or buddy realizing, coming to grips with is that if you’re spending all this time on the knee, you’re spending, I would say you’re spending 98% of your time in the wrong place.
CJ
I think so too. Yeah, it’s unfortunately, if somebody comes in with me, I mean, this is the the truth here is that if somebody comes in with knee pain, you need to consider what’s above and what’s below, you may go after the knee and figure it because there may be some big injury there. I mean, if they’re if there’s an injury, you’re not going to solve it by go. Like if there’s a tear or rupture, you got something that’s getting real funky, right, you start to go into all these funky foot positions and then make it worse and aggravated. Now let’s talk about just making the knee healthier, because it’s, it’s just feeling a bit uncomfortable, there’s no sign of big damage, there’s no bruising, there’s no swelling, it’s just somebody is coming in with some discomfort and their they don’t go hike or they don’t go run or they don’t go do stuff that involves their lower body because the aches, their knees. And if somebody is getting some knee pain and discomfort from just doing some everyday activities, squatting down, putting stuff in the dishwasher up into an account or just walking up the steps to get to their house, there’s something that we need to understand, which is we need to improve this person’s ability to do their ADLs, we need to improve their ability to load that tissue that supports the knee, and then to explode. Right? If somebody is a lot of it is a lot of training is focused on contraction and squeezing and flexing. But we know that he centric tension builds stronger muscles. And it allows you to accelerate even faster or to power off even faster, because you’ve got a better load, so you’re gonna have a better exploit. So I mean, the number one thing if somebody is having pain in a push off, are they loading first of all, they may not be loading at all right, they may just be holding such a contracted state, their feet are gripping the ground, they’re flat, their knees are flexed. Because they’re afraid of me, their quads are flat, because they’re afraid of falling. They’re not breathing fully. And now every step is just squeezing the life out of their knees literally. Like what if you just ground your feet pronate absorb your landing, take that shock into your foot and ankle which is designed to do that right now your knee, your knee takes a lot of stress and think some there was some stat of like your knee takes three to four times the weight of your body or something every eye much force. I don’t know what that fully means, except that your knee is just taking a lot of stress. But that factoid made me think like, Okay, if it’s taking that much stress, do we need teach the need to do more and more of that? Or can we offload the knee? You know, how do we do that? And what does that even mean? What’s it about E centric tensions and about pre loading tissues and then going and doing activity pre loaded toes in into a squat. Don’t go to your deepest squat, right
Michael Hughes
or don’t put 300 pounds on your back obviously, you know, like you know the exact progression, that load potential for change like anything else.
CJ
So you will end up doing bodyweight can build tissue can build muscle. It can build strength. If it’s a novel position, right? It’s probably less of building muscle mass because you’re not loading it with excessive mass but you’re become be more aware of how that tissue is loading. So neurologically proprioceptively, you are now doing a better job a more efficient job of handling that load and weight versus just saying yep, there is my knee again.
Michael Hughes
Well, it’s like there’s like PRP therapy, you know, platelet stuff and they inject it into the knee like I don’t want to discount what they’re trying to do they’re they’re trying to heal a tendinitis they’re trying to heal a rupture a tear faster because the injuries there you know, like that’s a big deal. Like to not say like, well, what are you talking about? You know, we’ll move it can certainly heal that too but tears a tear. Sometimes it needs to be stitched back together according just rest don’t do anything you know. So it’s very important that when once you get that but but the fact that is like it got there for a reason. And that reason, because most knee pain is non-contact the how many football games have you seen NFL football games, someone is running, and they just buckled down, run on the ground. They go to slow motion and they see that knee just cold.
CJ
And now Yeah.
Michael Hughes
And you’re like it’s it’s like yep, ruptured ACL, you know, preseason game where the case is or tore his hamstring where the case is, like, no one touched him. It’s like, Yeah, interesting. I wonder what forces of nature were going on. And they’re at an imbalance for that to rupture its own self?
CJ
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a different specimen to like, if they’re gonna be out there driving hardcore, on the ground, going max speed Max loads of wars, and
Michael Hughes
there’s cleats involved with all kinds of extra traction. I get it, I get it. But the point I’m trying to make is that, is that why? Why that happened? You know, versus getting tackled. Slide tackled in soccer, literally tackle the shoulder, you know, shoulder pads into the knee joint, I get it. Sorry, good luck avoiding that injury. Yeah, it’s just sometimes a bus wins, you know, over 300 pound squats, you know, it’s just not enough. But it’s a concept of really like, how good is your hip ankle at decelerating? Right? That that whole point you just called loading at slowing it down? So it has the capacity to rebound back to give it a chance? And I don’t know to me, like it just goes in this hole. But like, how are you training it? And like, Are you training the knee to be successful? Safe, or training to be dangerous? Like in like, all by itself? You know, Can you can you take the knee out on a date and say you got to fly all by yourself if your hips not helping you? If your foots not helping you? How are you going to survive?
CJ
I mean, talking about the everyday athlete to somebody just gonna go out for for a walk or for a stroll, right? If you ask if you’re a coach, and you ask your group of individuals who’s feeling a little bit nice discomfort today. I guarantee it’s probably gonna be more than half the room. Or nobody will say anything because it’s just expected. And that’s I think that’s one of the bigger issues is that. We’re asking questions like how do you feel today? How’s your knees generic back doing? Oh, it’s normal. But a lot of times normal? Isn’t? isn’t natural, right? Normal is just what’s expected and how we’ve always gone about things like I’m getting older or, oh, yeah, I ran yesterday, my knees hurt. Normally, I take two or three weeks off and they go run again. It’s like we’re going down a downhill spiral. If you’re coming in and daily and your knees are hurting, and we’re working out and training, if you’re training is making those tissues worse, it’s not training as a sport. Right? You want to train to make these tissues as resilient and as efficient and as communicative as as possible, right? They want to communicate to other tissues. So if your training is not simulating what they’re gonna experience in real life with those people that you’re coaching and experience in real life, like stairs, like uphill, or like a downhill, or like grass, or like tar, sand, or maybe you’re on ice, maybe you’re just you’re walking around, you’re afraid of slipping just down a curb up a curb. You know, there’s, there’s different angles, especially on trails, your foots gonna be inverted, inverted, pronated supinated, it’s gonna be extra dorsi flexed up a hill, extra plantar flex down a hill, a slope. There’s a reason why knees hurt really bad going downhill, and some people have really bad knee pain going up a hill. Right? Let’s think about this. You come down a hill, why do your knees hurt? What’s not decelerating. And what’s doing more of your knees are probably trying to drive forward. And you think that your steps like when I come down hill now it’s like toe and a little bit, walk sideways a little bit. I spread the wealth to like the TFL to the adductors to the hamstrings, and then it goes straight down, get the quads burning a little bit,
Michael Hughes
and then kick it back again and we’ll tow out. We’ll tow it a little bit. Exactly. And I love that like how to ski or stop
CJ
sign or so yeah. Go down to in close.
Michael Hughes
How do they do? How do they diverge forward downhill motion, not by going forward. It doesn’t mean that the quad can’t hit it doesn’t mean that that the solos can get hit it doesn’t mean that to me a good old fashioned post your your sled pull, get those Tucker’s tuned up, but that’s concentric though. What about the opposite, you know, doesn’t have that. It’s so funny. Like, we can get them strong but strong doesn’t make them elastic. It actually can actually prove the rebuilding process removes you elasticity makes it makes it tighter that compact
CJ
and supports and it’s protecting like alone brace, right? It’s your tissue.
Michael Hughes
Exactly. So it’s really funny. Bring making the knees. A lot of people say I want I was told I gotta make the muscles around my knee stronger. And I’m like, in my head, I’m like, No, you don’t I mean,
CJ
yes, but we also see hip and ankle as the need. Exactly,
Michael Hughes
exactly. So it’s like, it’s like, do you really want to do that? Or do you want you know, like, let’s first talk about where the pain like, why is the pain there? You know, I think it’s really important question. If you’re listening, and you have a client who has knee pain, if you have knee pain, you have to ask, when does it show up?
CJ
And where is it in the knee? And knees underneath? Right up? front knee? Got it inside, you get outside, you get a backside knee,
Michael Hughes
right? Because that’s gonna tell you a lot of the story. And if it’s a deceleration issue, okay. Probably quad. Probably the calf again, I’m just making a general statement. If it’s an acceleration issue, probably hamstring. Again, not not 100%. But you’re kind of looking at these different aspects of like, oh, wow, I didn’t say the knee at all. You know, and it’s really interesting to find out like, like, when I realized that the soleus didn’t cross the knee joint. And only only the gastroc did. I was like, Oh, wow. So what’s that mean to the physics of it, you know, and really, so the soleus, which is a bigger muscle than the gastroc, it doesn’t look like it. But it’s sneaky down there. It’s a big beast, it’s a big, it’s like really long and flat. And it really dominates the the tibia dominates it. So if you’re going downhill, and you have this femur going forward, and you have this tibia being ripped backwards by unresponsive to tight, whatever you want to call it. So this, you’re gonna get that shearing on that knee, and that and that patellar tendon or whatever, is going to be just nasty. It’s going to be nasty.
CJ
I think what we see too, is a lot of games of tug of war on people’s bodies, like the tug of war is always there. But it seems to be a friendly game and tug of war. You know, if there’s a lower joint in the upper joint, you got your ankle and you got your hip, and they’re both pulling apart. They want to you want to pull that knee up to your hip or the ankle saying no, I’m really tight. I gotta pull you down to me. Now the knees like shit, man, who do I go with and it just goes forward, or it just goes backward, right? And I think what happens is, a lot of knee discomfort isn’t from dysfunction. It’s from overtraining, one part of your leg, like around, it’s only just your quads are training, like how many people do you see squat, that ain’t got squat, there’s no glutes in there. They’re squatting. But they’re all quad cyclists especially come in, not dug in on him. But I know that we probably need to develop the glutes little bit more, because there’s probably not getting a full load. They’re just driving the calves driving through the quads, and they’re playing a game of tug of war downward, and we need to pull them back up to there. But right there on the knee, and you’re squatting and your knees are going over your toes. Nothing wrong with that. But have you ever squatted with your knees over your toes and your butt pushing backwards. So now you create lengthen the hamstring, upper hamstring, right? Or you create length at the glutes. So now, let’s say oh yeah, I do a lot of split squats, right one foot for another foot or for great credit limit rotation you hit right. Give it some quad work and some calf work. But now you are always doing split squats. And you’re always doing neutral squats, always toes straight ahead or toes a little bit out. And now you’ve been doing that for months, your legs are stronger than they’ve ever been. But your knees are also hurting more than they ever have. I mean, I’m training too much. Maybe we’re just training too much in one direction, maybe we need to get those other muscles that also go into your knee, not just the front side on the patella, and that patellar tendon and then have those quad put into your adductors and into your IT band TfL and glutes, we start to incorporate the frontal and transverse plane toe positions, that now you start squatting like that you’re squatting way less weight, and you’re doing a lot more reps but your knees don’t hurt. And now your knees are not inflamed anymore. And now you go back to do what you were doing before, and you’re stronger. Now what happened there? I think what we see too is a lot of games of tug of war on people’s bodies, like the tug of war is always there. But it seems to be a friendly game of tug of war. You know, if there’s a lower joint and upper joint, you got your ankle and you got your hip and they’re both pulling apart. They want to you want to pull that knee up to your hip or the ankle saying no, I’m really tight. I gotta pull you down to me. Now the knee is like shit, man, who do I go with and it just goes forward or just goes backward, right? And I think what happens is a lot of knee discomfort isn’t from dysfunction. It’s from overtraining, one part of your leg like around it’s only just your quads are training like how many people do you see squat? They ain’t got squat. There’s no glutes in there. They’re squatting but they’re all quad cyclists especially come in, not dug in on him. But I know that we probably need to develop the glutes over More cars, there’s probably not getting a full load. They’re just driving the cab. It’s driving through the quads and they’re playing a game of tug of war downward and we need to pull them back up to their butt right there, all the knee and you’re squatting and your knees are going over your toes. Nothing wrong with that. But have you ever squatted with your knees over your toes and your butt pushing backwards. So now you create lengthen the hamstring, upper hamstring, right? Or you create length that the glutes. So now, let’s say oh yeah, I do a lot of split squats. Right, one foot forward another foot or four, great credit limit rotation you hit right. Give it some quad work and some calf work. But now you are always doing split squats. You’re always doing neutral squats. Always toes straight ahead or toes a little bit out. And now you’ve been doing that for months. Your legs are stronger than they’ve ever been. But your knees are also hurting more than they ever have. I mean, I’m training too much. Maybe we’re just training too much in one direction
Michael Hughes
medial. Is it called the VO max.
CJ
I always have gone on to talk about vo two max to be honest. I don’t know for calling them no,
Michael Hughes
it’s the VO vo some like that. I haven’t said that phrase in such a long time. I haven’t even said it. But like I remember people talking about like that. That medial quad muscle. And it’s like it’s almost like a separate muscle in some people’s minds. And they gotta get that real strong. So it tracks that calf or tracks that patella more VMO that’s what I’m talking about. Oh, man. I can’t believe I haven’t said that word and so long Yeah. Which is a testament everybody that how I disassociated myself
CJ
that’s a hip and ankle man. There’s no need. It doesn’t even exist. What I
Michael Hughes
said VO max, that’s close. Great VM. Oh my goodness, I hope someone’s laughing.
CJ
I am talking about
Michael Hughes
oh, oh, you got to pull that Patel over, you know, I gotta get that guy strong. I’m like, wait a minute, I think you’re just trying to pull the train to make it lineup versus a hobby just fixed the track. You know, that whole concept of overs focusing on that zone. Anyways, sorry, I’m gonna come back to
CJ
I’m gonna give you a fun fact about the patella to be to be a little share some fun. Europe, it’s hella, believe it or not, is just as unique to you as your thumbprint, your fingerprint. Everybody’s patella is different. I knew it was special, extra special. Some people’s photos are higher, some are lower, some are larger, some are smaller. That’s interesting, though. And even as a baby, it’s not even bony. It’s cartilage. So that thing is developing, I think is like between the ages of two and six, depending on impact. And what you’re doing, walking around that thing is cartilage, and then hardens. As you’re growing. I think it’s pretty significant, especially as you’re learning to walk. And your body is learning to handle load that patella is learning how to track itself based on how you’re walking. And I, you know, I would imagine that if you had been in one of those like bouncy rings or whatever, supported like your pelvic floor supported there that your knee never fully developed, if you spent a lot of time in that little bouncy thing that your hips are now not as strong because you in the development, developmental stages, it was supported, I’ve sorted this and popping and now your knees are not going to be as strong and then you end up in either bow legged or toe in or you know, whatever it could end up, both changing. And now your body’s ability to handle force through your foot through ankle to your knee with your hip is completely compromised because you haven’t developed your hip and your ankle. And now you’ve got all these knee issues growing up. But as soon as you then come back to your foundations of foot and ankle and hip, I wonder what happens to your knee does it learn to track different as your patella change its placement out imagine something like a change of tracks. Because of your lower tissue and your upper tissue and how they’re reforming. spirally diagonally nothing’s attached straight up and down or side to side, right. But the more rotation you get, the more triplane loading you’re going to get through your foot ankle and your hip and you do it intentionally. You start to give your body an opportunity to self organize, to then find a better way to handle forces. Fascinating stuff. That that was cool fact.
Michael Hughes
Gosh, thumbprint. I love it. Going through the childhood development stages that I’ve recently gone through and still going going through they really you know, it’s interesting to start reading articles about like the bouncy ring that you connect to top the doorframe and they just bounce, bounce bounce. And it’s like it’s like people are starting to realize, you know therapists aren’t realize you’re training them to load calves all day long. And forefoot which is pretty cool, right? I mean, it’s pretty cool what you’re training and it’s got some really big calves bro. Right. But they net but yeah, but they don’t go through. They don’t go through hips. And I ran into a fellow parent and just walking through the park and just saw one of their kids like literally walking on toes. younger kid to one at one and a half and has just kind of I just chatted with the mom a little bit and, you know, I said hey, I’m noticing you know, the lunch she’s like Yeah, we were told from our, from our our pediatrician that we shouldn’t do the bounce thing anymore because they were doing it for like, two hours a day, three hours a day. And now she doesn’t know how to walk through her heels we have to reteach it isn’t a permanent fix, but it was like it was that is that really like interesting like, wow. Like this is it’s a it is a training tool. It’s an amazing training tool, just like the rattle, maybe different, but
CJ
what are some ways that we’ve talked about squats, right, talking about the hips, in these develop developmental stages, at any age, then you teenager go to go high school age, college age, and then as an adult, what is something that is kind of universal, that like squats that we could work on that’s like for ankle, right? If we talked a lot about the hip, and we talked a little bit ankle position in those SFT positions, what’s like, a simple exercise or activity, that’s going to give us a good gauge of how their ankles able to stabilize, and if their ankle doesn’t do it, we’re gonna see their knee track over thinking like some single leg type stuff.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, so I’m gonna go non equipment first, and you’re gonna love it. No, because we can go equipment easy. What I really love about an ankle is to isolate it out, you know, it’s like, I really like going kneeling. One single leg kneeling, so one legs out out in front, and you can pay the weight shift, kind of almost all your weight over to that to that foot, still feel stable, you know, shutting down the hips, for the most part, and really kind of getting just that knee and ankle complex kind of all by itself. And then from there, in, because it’s so anterior, you’re really not going to test too much dorsiflexion because you really have to shoot way over to go get it, but you can really start to have that person, literally move their knee left and right. And you can just see, does that foot follow along? So I’m actually driving the knee to see what the foot does. And I can get to see does it doesn’t go through inversion, any versions pronation and supination. You know, when they actually when I say just spin your, your TIB fib, just spin it, does it do I see the heel spin to that subtle, right but but it’s not that weight bearing and it’s super isolated, the hip can’t help for the most part no. So it’s really just in the ankle. Then you can go all the way standing. And what I like about the true stretch, which I know I’m thrown is some equipment here. But long story short, a moped stick a wall something to stabilize them, so they do not have to worry about balance. And literally say can you put pressure through all five toes? I can you prefer the big big tail? Can you feel the small tail Can you feel at least the big toe and the other four four toes can they go through forefoot loading and unloading supination and pronation forefoot right so not the back half, but the front half. And then at the very last a good old fashioned opposite side foot, single leg balance reach, we’re getting the whole system going. You know, it’s what we do in our assessment. And to really see how the whole body integrates through that Foot Ankle and really telling them and then the last thing I do is literally have them go toe in, toe out. Actually no, I’m gonna go toe straight, both hands on hips, and just spin their hips left and right. Because obviously now drive your hips, and I want to see those heels move. And some it’s really telling that like, honestly, I do that one probably every single time just to see do I see the opposing inversion on one side, ie version on the other side, and then the flop inversion on that side and the version on the opposite side. Especially with like, you know, with the player like a plantar fascia anyways, it’s really fascinating to see like how how those heels work, you got to take the shoes off to really get or have some barefoot shoe shoes on. But those are probably my three that really, really like non equipment base.
CJ
It’s a great way to see the chain reaction that occurs like if you got a driver, a lot of people are knee drivers when they walk like they walk with their knees, or they walk with their calves or they walk with their toes where they walk with their head. You know, how many people do you see walk with their head like forward or run with their head really far forward. But they’re nothing else is following their head. It’s just like they’re continuously falling, just by asking the person that’s in front of you to drive. And like when they’re kneeling down and you had them drive their knee forward, or turn their knee in and turn their knee out. You’re gonna see when that knee turns in, hopefully that foot collapse. And as you turn that knee out, hope you see that foot arch. And that’s like the foundations of just getting their foot to breathe. You see it flowing into a lengthening and shortening right. It’s like an inhale and then exhale. And then you start to just see if they are aware of those things occurring because so many people are so unaware of their feet, and a lot of it comes down to their shoes are too small, too tight or too much cushion and support. Same thing With the knee, there’s too much supporting their knee, how many people will come in with knee braces because their knee hurts, there’s nothing wrong with a knee brace. But if you rely on a knee brace to support your knee, your knee is going to only get weaker because it’s supporting, it’s being supported by an external thing. Definitely nothing wrong with it. However, what purpose are you using it to help them back into more support, they have an injury and they don’t want the surgery, like there’s a lot of things to consider naturally. But for the most part, anybody with that knee discomfort, we, we take them down a kneeling position and see their foot move, if their foot can move, or starts to move, all of a sudden, now they’ve got some proprioceptive awareness in their foot, their foot can feel the ground, sometimes just taking the shoes off, and somebody doing having somebody do a squat, their knee pain goes away. It’s gonna be fascinating. Like, we didn’t do a damn thing today, I just make you take your shoes off your knee pain is gone. That’s amazing, you know, just letting the feet breathe, let them be a support, let them be a base.
Michael Hughes
But I have to say this, I have to plug because the baps board that one is crushes it in terms of ability, it’s not very functional, because the ground doesn’t really move the way that we’re asking the Board to move. But in terms of showing off, like I would say good chunk, I’d say the majority cannot hit in a an E verted, roll, a pronated roll kick out, kick it in, they can maybe they can crush sagittal plane dorsiflexion planner, they can easily get pretty good lateral, but they can’t roll into it. They can’t roll the edge, clockwise or counterclockwise. It’s really interesting. You know, they can go into supination super, super well. But they just there’s no neuromuscular firing to make that happen. Like they like they say my brain hurts to try to do it. Well, so anyways, that’s
CJ
a little tilt board powerful, was equipment. Exactly, exactly. Show me what tranquil can do. And we’re going to realize what it can’t do.
Michael Hughes
Right. And again, it’s, I’m gonna say it’s the majority they cannot pronate. So it’s really interesting, you know, they just, they really walk on this, on this really loaded lateral side, which is a locked up Foot Ankle, which therefore means it’s not going to take much absorption at all. So versus what’s the next joint? Right to the knee right to the knee? Man, I’m glad we got the end MDMC course I tell you what,
CJ
what yeah, what’s what’s the good if we’re going to talk about the knee? And we’re you know, we talk a lot about different joints and different mechanics and chain reaction How to Change train these pieces? What’s like those little nuggets of knowledge that I don’t want to let the whole course out here? I mean, it’s gonna take hours to talk about it got into the course. But what is it about about the knee that we go into in this course that even when you are learning about the knee in such a bigger, more global way through gray Institute, and then applying it with our clients? What is it the spin that we take on the knee and educating what it can do and how it works? And how to train the knee?
Michael Hughes
Yeah, and I think it’s really just understanding like the physics of it first, like we said, well use it especially well is how does it load, really understand how the how all the muscles first slow the knee down, then speed it up. Like that was like the biggest aha motion a moment. And I think what what we do well is it is it’s, it’s really, don’t try to run faster, realize how you can slow down from speed faster, and how the knee and its friends really do that very, very well. And if you can really understand the foot, and you can really understand the hip, and I think we do a great job of talking about that. Then the knee it kind of gets taken care of. And that’s a really kind of cool things like oh, I don’t have to worry about it that much. Or if someone presents itself with with knee pain, you tweak the foot, tweaking the foot changing its angle, changing its its position, changing its height, and changing it same thing with with the hip, if you can involve better foot mechanics, if you can involve better hip mechanics and have that knee pain literally go away. I tell a story in the course. Someone came with massive knee pain so bad, like two physical therapists two surgeons says yeah, that’s all it’s bad. That’s as good as it’s gonna get.
CJ
Just get a bad case the knees.
Michael Hughes
These are the bee’s knees. And she reluctantly to try to one of our group training sessions and my tweak was towing in on a lateral lunge. Knee pain she literally freaked out in a sense called me the next day crying because I happiness. My leg is sore, my knees not what do you do? And I’m like, I kind of forgot what I did. You know it’s like just a small thing. But having the understanding the know how to be like to not be stuck. It’s not be stuck. Like, I don’t know what to do. It’s like no, I got 20 options, I got 10 options with the ankle, I got 10 options with the hip. Don’t even Don’t even start with a thoracic spine, which we haven’t talked about at all on this podcast, which is crazy. But when you start messing with the thoracic spine, you start really messing with the knee. But we’ll keep it simple, though.
CJ
Yeah, I want to share a story with you before we close this one down. I used to have extremely bad knee pain, like I was, this is like elementary school, through middle school. And then I just kind of got over it and dealt with it as I was growing pains. Well, we know that didn’t happen. It wasn’t growing pains. I didn’t get much taller for those who listening, stay this way. But basically I had I was diagnosed with Osgood Schlatters Disease. And I wasn’t really sure what that is. It’s just kind of a swelling around the knee and inflammation. And when that swelled up, dude, I didn’t want to walk like I would sit on the couch, like have to hold my knees in a position to the point where I’m athletic kid and then all sudden, you know, I go for a run. And then the next day, my knees like are swollen right around my kneecap right below my kneecap has big bump, big boys coming out on both knees go doctor, they gave me this little article shoulder strap, pull it around, it’s like a little knee support that kind of lifts up. So it takes off some of the compression. It helped but didn’t get rid of it. And it it felt like my knees got weaker and weaker as I was doing it and not knowing any better. That’s just kind of like how I just dealt with it right. And looking back now at that age, to have no hope and just be like, alright, this is just kind of how it is I got bad knees, like that’s how I felt. And I don’t like different back pains and shoulder pain stuff growing up. We’ve talked about that in the past, but my knees. That’s one that I mean, I haven’t. I’ve had little knee stuff pop up here and there. But my thought isn’t shit, my knees are fucked, right, it’s my knees, need some more assistance. So anytime I had a knee pain coming up, as I was learning these things, the past decade, it’s like, Alright, gotta go to my TfL check that one out, do little foam rolling, maybe it’s tight, that didn’t really help at all, or I’m gonna go with a calf. All right, that didn’t really help at all to just felt really good. Or I’m gonna try my inner thigh. And then you just start kind of working around these different spots. And also knee pain dissipates like 80%. And just feel it, it’s like the lingering and then all sudden you go move and squat. And it’s like, oh, I still kind of feel it. But the more you move, after you’ve primed that tissue, all of a sudden the knee realizes got friends, it’s, it’s kind of turns off that inflammation as an easy way to put it. And my button my ankle, now we’re taking the load of what was going into my knee, it was just these forces that were jamming. Nothing wrong with my knee, my knee was like, I’ll just take it, keep punching me keep kicking me, I will take the next hit. It’s like no knee, you don’t need to do that. And, yeah, I just, I am so inspired now to work with kids who are working with a little bit of knee pain, because it’s not going to fix something’s gonna fall more, we’re gonna stretch, but you can set them up for better and better success with better movement. It’s just preparing them and priming them better. There’s nothing really to fix, there’s only something to do better, right? We’re not fixing a bad knee, though, you might phrase it that way, what we’re doing is supporting a knee that’s been taking a lot of extra stress. And if we can change that narrative of like anytime we’ve got a joint pain, which a lot of times it’s knees and low back. Those two spots are two spots that transfer a lot of forces ground reaction force, you’re doing a lot of gravity and having to hold yourself if your posture low back, it’s going to affect your knees and your knees and low back there, like a tag team have taken all the bullshit, the hips and the ankles and the thoracic spine or what’s surrounding that space. We build better T spine. tissues, like the whole core, we build better hip tissues, we build better ankle tissues, those ones that are in between that are taking all this extra hits. They’re going to be very happy good tissues.
Michael Hughes
Yeah. And give you a long life of movement. That typically, gosh, yeah, I just Yeah, typically, they beat up and they’re done by 65. And that’s it. We’re riding the pine, the rest of the rest of the show.
CJ
There are miles left and you got miles left and even if they are shot and getting gunky, a lot of times people have damaged tissues and they learn how to use their hips, their ankles more those tissues that were hurting remain damaged. But they don’t hurt
Michael Hughes
gosh I gotta bring one quick story up before and thank you please. Our G one program or group level one program was founded by a person well my myself but inspired by a person who had as she would describe bone on bone knees and she tried our group to level at that point we didn’t have a one you know just it was the to make it simple. She said make me a program that I can do that don’t beat up my knees because they’re bone on bone for years are running I can only do cycling is the only thing that makes me feel good. You male being proven is that I could do. Amen. And that’s what we built. We built G one low impact. She trained G one for how many may do a rough a rough number here. I’m thinking I think eight years longer before she You got surgery on Antonis eight more years. And she would say quite painfree until it’s like, Okay, I’m ready to go now. I think her insurance kicked in and she was boom, let’s, let’s get these things done. It’s possible. It’s there. If you have if you want to go after those types of clients and have the knowledge to train those types of clients, then it’s just one dimensional. It’s out there. And we’re working on it. Which I love. I would love to say that we have all of it but on and we’re just working on it.
CJ
And stepping stones are key. Nobody’s gonna have all of it. If you think you got all of it. You’re you’ve stopped too soon. I
Michael Hughes
would say so too. Yeah. Well,
CJ
anything, anything you want to add before we before we close this one down? I mean, that was pretty, pretty good story. I open that G one session.
Michael Hughes
I think I think this was the bee’s knees. I’ll say it again.
CJ
Well, thank you all for listening. If you want to know more, and you want to dive into ankle mechanics, knee mechanics, hip mechanics, biomechanics, and how they all work together, integrate into one solid, holistic human being, we have a course it’s multi dimensional movement coaching course, take you through the extensive of all of those biomechanics, and then how to train behaviorally, and understand physics in such a way that you’ve got the biology, you’ve got the behavioral, you’ve got the physical and it all comes together as one great program to serve your people. Please, please, please reach out. It’s a powerful program and has changed my life. It’s changed our coaches lives and it’s made great coaches of good coaches and even better coaches of those coaches. So keep on keepin on. You’re
Michael Hughes
right. I’ll see you next time. See you soon. Hey all. I 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 re launches in 2020. Because you and your fitness tribe deserve to see an unfiltered look at all the aspects of what it takes to stand out as a next generation coach, and build a successful fitness business. So share it far and wide. And please, when you do do me a favor, take a screenshot of this screen and share it to your social media accounts and use the hashtag Gymnazo podcast that’s hashtag Gymnazo podcast that way we can see you and share your posts with our audience. And finally, when you’re ready to go to the next level as a coach, or in your business, and to reach more people, please go check out gymnazoedu.com. We have put together the best 90 Day coaching program on the market for trainers 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 this episode had some fire to it, and inspired you to take action, wait until you see what we’ll 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 a passion and we’ll talk to you soon.
Leave a Reply