Your Anatomy Class: How Applicable is it Really?
Michael Hughes
So I was just part of this movement anatomy mastery presentation, basically. And this presentation. They wanted me to speak as a movement practitioner to say like, how do you guys view three dimensional movement as this anatomy movement kind of continuum? And I was like, Oh, that’s a really interesting way to think about that. Because the way we view anatomy is certainly not the way that I learned anatomy. And then I thought about you, you’re in a course, literally in a college anatomy course. And that’d be a great conversation for us to dive into about how a three dimensional or movement specialist which we both are, view anatomy, use anatomy, applicability, and are really kind of in our day to day jobs. And they kind of talk about maybe the disconnect, that I think we obviously feel there is between what the book says, what the core says, even what the teacher professional says, and then what do we actually use it for? So quick little intro again, my name is Michael Hughes, founder movement specialist of Gymnazo, with Mitch, and also movement specialist and both gift fellows in a sense, and I think we have some strong opinions about what anatomy is a politically use for in the movement practitioners lives. So welcome to 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 have a revenue. But to be honest, that’s the least important thing about us. Founded by me, Michael Hughes, Gymnazo has created an ecosystem of services that blend performance with restoration techniques, and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by its owners, Paden, and myself and our top coaches, this podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results, to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online. And in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional, or a fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results.
Mitch
Yeah, thanks for having me on. This is exciting because it had when you presented this topic to me, it made me really think of how it first started to learn anatomy. Like what the journey started off as and where it ended at. Because I had to not just think about anatomy at the university level, I had to go back to NASM when I had my first certification.
Michael Hughes
Oh, that’s your first certifications? NASM
Mitch
NASM? Yeah. Because, you know, when you’re looking to be a personal trainer, you’re just looking at, you know, the most popular certifications, most really just the most marketed certifications, a Google search, in a sense, in a sense, that’s all it is. Yeah. But you know, you go into a blind and you don’t know, what makes one better than the other. Other than just popularity, I suppose. And feedback. But, you know, I don’t know where this is maybe somewhere between seven and 10 years ago, I
Michael Hughes
took that course.
Mitch
I had to really think back like, what did they learn? I don’t know what I have no idea. I couldn’t come up with an answer. What I actually took out of that. And then I had to sort of think about, okay, I literally feel like I got nothing out of that and not trying to bash it or anything. But it’s been so long. It’s just hard to really remember if I could retain anything.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, that’s interesting. You took a course that was supposed to set you on a direction, and you don’t really remember what you got out of it. Just interesting point. Right? You know,
Mitch
because I don’t think, you know, I look at education in the sense of like, you’re not going to remember everything that you learn in a course or class, or seminar or conference, you’re never going to remember everything and take diligent notes, notes, things like that. Always gonna be bullet point takeaways. Gold Nuggets? Yeah, in a sense. And I remember things from high school. I remember things from middle school that I got to high. Yeah, I remember that. Interesting. Whether it be something small as like how to do like a math equation. Like I took something, a tip that a teacher told me once I go, Oh, cool, that’s applicable for the rest of my life. I look back at this and go, I don’t remember a thing. And that wasn’t that long ago, in terms of Yeah.
Michael Hughes
Which I think that’s more kind of sad than anything else. Yeah.
Mitch
And you know, it’s probably partly I can’t 100% Say it’s that because there’s some great resources in it. I’m sure there’s great information in it. If I were to look back now, but I think that looking back at what I value, I’m a little upset. I didn’t take more out of it. No, go for it. Go for it. Yeah. So then going into anatomy this semester, which started in August. I Believe. And final next week, I had to sort of think about, okay, what have I learned out of this anatomy course that I will be able to take down the line? Like, what am I going to do, and I have a general idea of what I want to do down the line, of which most of the things that I’ve been that we’ve been studying, it’s cool, it’s important. It’s more about the body and I love learning about those bodies, the body and more and
Michael Hughes
the whole body everything, not just the muscular system, skeletal system, the whole thing.
Mitch
Yeah, I mean, we’re talking about the squeamish and epithelial tissues. And I’m like, okay, like, that’s, that’s actually pretty cool. That’s applicable, I think, in terms of soft tissue work or other soft tissue, things that you’d be doing. But then you started going into, like the reproductive organs, and you start to go into these, all these other aspects about the body, you know, it’s cool, it’s interesting. But then I start to think, how am I going to apply this? And then I start to come to Roblox, even when we whatever muscular structural anatomy, it was like, Okay, this is cool. I mean, this is, this is useful, knowing where the names of all the bones were located. Even I didn’t even start to think about how did knowing bone placement help? We talked about clavicle and he talked about how do you know when you’re anterior lateral? If it’s upside down, if you just have it sitting on a table? Like how do you know where it’s supposed to go into the body and how you’re supposed to know. So learning about kind of the bony protrusions or the flat surfaces are, where it’s rounded. And understanding how those go into the body or how its associated in the body with the rest of the system was cool to understand. Just kind of how things may articulate at a joint better. Because then you understand, and maybe there’s is not as round of a socket, or as round of a bone. And there’s maybe a little bit of a flat surface on the edge. And I think understanding those smaller nuances, as small as it may be, I think can pay off down the line, just because if you’re maybe palpating something or doing something like is that normal? And it kind of just goes okay, that is normal. It’s just the normal structure of the femur or the pelvis or of the clavicle. If it’s not, if it’s not, if it hasn’t been broken, if it hasn’t been repaired in any way. And it’s just the way it was naturally born or raised grew up? I don’t know. That’s the best wording for it. But
Michael Hughes
yeah, I’ve gone through that you said something that I think is critical, because like if you’re, if you’re getting into movement at a soft tissue level, and you feel something, you want to know if that’s appropriate or not, should be there. Right, you have, essentially reiterating what you just said, but to have that confidence, that you know, like, yeah, that there should be a little notch there. Right? Or if there, there shouldn’t be one, like let’s go like the, the anterior tip of the shin, right, right. That’s pretty flat surface. And there’s a massive little nod Right? Or would it not as a reward, but you know, bony think, well, that’s interesting. They say brings a question to you. So I like how, in a good sense, what you’re saying to me is like, anatomy has super applicable terms, knowing if a bone should be flat, where a knob is where a foreman is where a whole, you know, that all these different crazy words, a whole knob bump. Okay, keep on going,
Mitch
dad. And then I think what was even more powerful is, as you’re doing this, and all this stuff was familiar to me, but it wasn’t like the back of my hand. And I still wouldn’t consider it like the back man like looking at it and go, oh, cool, I know everything about it. But and I’m still trying to get to that level. And that’s just, I think, a day to day progression of continuing education. But what I started to think about was, when I was in gift, and when I’m watching Gary or Dave, another play coach may, or a facilitator talking about, I’m gonna use something very generalized, but everybody I think, should hopefully get this like, you know, think about you’re trying to do some soft tissue work and you’re trying to get your forearm into a hip, and you’re trying to locate the greater trochanter. Well, if you know where it is, you immediately can visualize it and you can immediately go into the meat of what the substance of their topic and not have to think about. Okay, Greater Trochanter Okay, that’s good. I noticed in the femur, we got that, okay. Whereas in the femur, housing the femur and said, You just you immediately go to it,
Michael Hughes
right? You’re, you’re analyzing where it is before. First analyzing the context, right as for
Mitch
Yeah. And then you can just go into the substance of it. So then it’s like, cool now, okay. And now, I look at it, and that just allows me to focus more on the next part of what they’re talking about. So I’ve thought about that as I go back. Okay, cool, because I remember going through gift and then, you know, as you’re aware, and we’re all aware there’s a big physical therapy background with them. And there’s a lot Things that they talk about that they’ve learned through physical therapy school where I’m sitting there, I’m like, I got no idea what that is. Good show good story.
Michael Hughes
A good friend of mine, John, who I went through gift with, I remember our first gathering he was and that’s basically for anyone listening. It’s your first time coming together as as a class because it’s online learning, but you come together three different times. So the first come together point. He’s sitting next to me, in the stands, as you’ve seen, and he leans over and whispers in my, my writer, he says, What’s the calcaneus? Like chant? You’ve gotten this far as I know what a cow gaze is, like, I’m a history background, man. I don’t know. And I was just, I was eight, I was impressed that he was still there, not knowing what the calcaneal bone is the heel bone is, but he was still learning. So to me, it’s like, it’s just like, instead of like, oh, you’re at get out of here. What are you doing here is like, No, you’re still have an opportunity to learn and to dig, dig in. And now he’s actually quite successful movement. Therapist, you know, sorry. That’s awesome. Yeah, sorry. John, you’re a great guy. If you’re listening.
Mitch
Yeah. And so I think it’s like, it’s cool. From that sense of, you know, from the anatomy perspective, just a basic anatomy class of, if you can, study it and learn at least the physical placement of things in space in your body, then you can just focus more on the movement side of things, and then focus on where maybe muscles and the Origins attachments go, and then you can start from that position, from that point, start to learn how those muscles functionally influence the proximal and distal joints globally and globally.
Michael Hughes
Yep, from there on. Yeah, the layering of that cake. In a sense. Yeah, it’s super interesting. Yeah. And I think the the going through anatomy most recently, versus college, because in college, they said, Just learn what the muscles and the bones are. And they really dumbed it down, it’s kind of sad. We tested on the origins and assertions or where they start and where they end. And it was kind of interest because whatever they test you on in college, least for the average college person in mind, at least in my mind, that’s what you study. And that’s it. But what I really learned and appreciated with about anatomy and physical training, is that if you at least know where they start, where they go, you can really influence a lot, probably one of the biggest primary pieces of what traditional anatomy teaches, is it where they start and where they go. What you said about how they actually function, that’s, well, that’s what I’m excited to get into the meat of it in a second, but it’s understanding hit. So if you have like a tennis elbow, right or golf elbow, so tennis elbow would essentially be the inside of your elbow hurts when you swing or lift or web cases, golf elbows when the outside your elbow hurts. Well, if you know, that hurts when they squeeze a sponge to do dishes, right or grab the dumbbell or whatever, and it’s it hurts on the outside. So you have an idea of like, okay, what things attached to the lateral part, or the outset of the elbow, and where they go. So you can knock down those six different muscles. That’s pretty cool. Like, to me that’s super helpful. Because even if you don’t know soft tissue work as a, as a trainer, you know, you know, foam, foam, rolling work, or lacrosse ball work, right. And I think that’s one of probably the biggest positives and takes takeaways of setting anatomy to edit in depth and level. So that’s kind of like a pro if I was had the category of why anatomy is really good for the trainer, why now is really poor for the trainer, as it’s currently taught. That’s a pro series Pro. I know that hamstring start at one point, but go to essentially, just to keep it simple. Three different points, four different points. Really. That’s a big deal. And that they act, Gary said this, Gary Gray said this, they act like horses rains. Well, that’s going to the next level level, right? That’s how they act. Well, how’s a horse rain work? Well, have you ridden a horse before but you know the case is so. So maybe that’s good that to go that next point is like, okay, so we understand and appreciate the bony landmarks how bonus shaped? How, like, why bones are even circular? That’s pretty cool to know. Right? Yeah, that’s nice that there’s a reason for that. Well, this as we think there is, and then where they start where they go, maybe nerve innovations, certainly a big deal, but probably for much higher level thinking. About function. And what you think about that? Yeah, I think like what you were taught the bicep does this eccentric ly concentrically. So what we talked about that
Mitch
we didn’t even talk about what the muscle We do.
Michael Hughes
Okay, so we’re, so we’re talking about potentially. So we’re talking about anatomy course very general.
Mitch
Oh, full body. Yeah, we, we talked about
Michael Hughes
because that’s all the anatomy courses I’ve taken to talk about everything. Except for in a specialized schooling, such as a movement, or a massage therapy school, we talked about actions, we didn’t talk about stomach and lining intended. But as a college student, you take general anatomy, right, until you get to physical therapy school. I imagine I’m having taken physical therapy school, but I know that, you know, I’ve taken musculoskeletal anatomy as a prerequisite for physical therapy school, but most of us don’t take that. Last time I checked.
Mitch
Yeah, I’m still curious on that as somebody that’s been, like taking this course. Now I go, okay. Like, when did they go deeper? Right. What loves? Yeah, like, like, was that to PT school? I mean, why do I have to go to PT school and spend x amount of dollars to learn something like I just can learn in a 10? week course? Yeah. And then apply directly versus having to go through all these. But that’s,
Michael Hughes
yeah, but even as, like as a, as a trainer, you know, there’s 345,000 registered personal trainers, we just did a little study on that kind of a general number, but, you know, in this nation, and how many of them have musculoskeletal anatomy, understanding? That’s B. And you know, because I did isa International Sports Science Association. And that was a tough certification 25 years ago. But I don’t remember what they talked about anatomy, though. It’s really interesting. They’re kind of saying the same, same thing as you. Yeah. And that’s kind of the roots of the tree, at least how I look at it, or maybe the trunk of the tree at the very least. But it’s not the branches, or the leaves, because that’s an exercise. You know, that’s a clock counting, that’s a tool to use, you know, those are the those external pieces. So, from what you say, you didn’t even cover the actions were.
Mitch
Yeah, I mean, it was literally it was. Now I should I should say this this semester has been online. So I don’t know if the instructor did dumb it down a little bit interesting. So fair enough. So I do want to I do want to just lay that up right there. Like, I do want to give him credit, because I don’t know if he adjusted things for the class to accommodate it for online and kind of thinned it out a little bit
Michael Hughes
true. And it’s professed by Professor case.
Mitch
Yeah. class by class base, although I do think I had the lead department. Name the school then the school. But But yeah, so essentially, all it was is and I was even disappointed that we didn’t go deeper into the muscles because we just covered like, the basic muscles, like your quad muscles, your the hamstring, here, the CAC, here they are, here they are. And you will just basically provide us with a diagram that had it all pointed out. And then during our tests, who basically just be like, Okay, what is this one? What is this one for a college level course? And it’d be like, what a wakeboard? Is it attached and where does it where’s the origin, where it’s attachment. So to do that, not on all of them, though, just to make sure once is, I don’t remember which ones but various ones. And so it’s like, okay, like, that’s important. I think those things are important in order this. But then also kind of going back, I think the traditional understanding is important to know, like, the table based understanding of anatomy, and how it functions table is table based, meaning laying down non functional, laying down its muscles to emphasize Yeah, talking about table based. Yeah, so yeah, because we’re gonna go into table base, functional muscle function and upright, right functional muscle functional, right to demonstrate two different sides of a coin, really, essentially. And I think it’s important to because I always kind of resort back to some soft tissue work, or if you’re isolating something out, and if someone’s going through an excursion on a table, where they’re literally just flexing their knee, while they’re prone at a table. And maybe they feel any pain. If you isolate it out that way. That could tell you it’s maybe a limitation in the hamstring or something like that. Because in reality, you should ever lay on the ground and you should be able to flex your knee and have zero pain in your knee. And if you’re just, you would hope Yeah, you would hope you would hope so. Right? Right. Right. You would hope so. So I kind of look at and go, that’s important now because then you at least know like, Okay, is it the hamstring is attachments here? And you’re feeling pain there? And if I take you through a simple movement, Are you sensing sensing that to tell me something important? Yeah. First, where if I take him to upright function, what were we lean towards more, the hamstring is going to extend the knee right? First flex the knee and then he doesn’t hurt then it’s more to kind of, I think, differentiate through Alright, we’re problem solving to go right. So just to make this as clear
Michael Hughes
as possible, and for the first time who’s maybe never heard of these things before? Your book says, the textbook in anatomy says, the hamstring when it contracts, or shortens it essentially flexes the near benzyl. Wood, we’re saying in upright function, meaning standing up on two feet walking, walking, right, which is kind of the most common exercise a human body does. Maybe breathing is another exercise. But you know, by definition, the hamstring actually, when it contracts, or concentric movement, in a sense, it actually extends the knee, which is the essentially the opposite of what The Book says. Right? Essentially, right? That’s what we’re kind of saying. It’s the opposite of what The Book says. Yeah. And
Mitch
if you take table based muscle, functional muscle function, and try and apply that to upright, gait, lunging, and apply the same thing, it’s not going to match yet, as
Michael Hughes
well. And the funny thing is, I made that exact comment on this movement, mastery, or anatomy, I want to say correctly, it’s a cool name, movement anatomy mastery symposium, in a sense, and the comments that came from it was like, really what, almost like, almost a disbelief, it was really fascinating. Because it was the same fascination that I had, when I first was told that about what you learn in the book is essentially not true. For the sake of, of application, right, in a sense, for the sake of application of real training, like my job matters. So if I’m trying to train someone’s hamstring, to flex the knee, and you look at a traditional gym scenario, on the hamstring curl machine, you’re either laying prone on your stomach, and you bring this padded thing to your butt, or you’re sitting in a chair, and your legs are kicked out in front of you like an easy chair, and you bring the padded bar to your butt. Right, right. I mean, that’s how it’s kind of how the, you know, to make them look better, right? To make essentially, so but in reality, if you train them to do that, are you potentially making the hamstrings essentially more prone to injury? Right? Because they’re not going to, most people aren’t going to go on a stage and flex their hamstrings in front of a judge. Because that’s essentially what those pieces of equipment are doing. They’re making them look better than not making them function better. Except for in that exact position. Which kind of goes to this this whole process of why are we learning muscles from what they do laying on a table? I think someone said it’s called Dead Man. Anatomy. Yeah, it’s true, right? Why am I learning anatomy from a dead person? Why should be living anatomy from a live person who’s sitting up standing up laying down, whatever the case is crawling, for crying out loud? You know? Which begs this question. It’s like, Why did nobody even tell us that? Like, you know, is it like, to me, I like to look at like fitness and movement, like, there’s a revolution coming. You know, like, we all got our pitchforks, and our torches. You know, like, there’s a new way of doing these things. Like, why are we taught this old way? And it’s I don’t think it’s necessarily why it’s just because that’s what we knew. Like, why did we have, you know, why didn’t we have computers? Personal computers, 2030 years ago? Maybe a little more than that? Well, because no one knew any better. Yes, it’s that kind of, it isn’t like, oh, we were led the wrong way. Now, we’re just evolving our technology, right? And assess them that way. So record, so who wants to be on the cutting edge of thinking, and to be on the cutting edge thinking you kind of have to forget about or not put too much stock in what you already currently know. So now you went into this anatomy course knowing function, but had to go back to textbook the same way like I knew function, I had to go back to my massage therapy course. And I was the one raising my hand a lot. Try not to be that guy. But at the same time trying to shed some light on like, is there another way to think about that? So I’m curious, did you do that? Or was it was online? I guess you really couldn’t have done that particularly. But
Mitch
yeah, um, it’s a great question. I think it was somewhat challenging. Because it’s anatomy. It’s just, it’s just kind of like, it just is what it is and essentially like it here it is, right there. You know, we’re not talking movement, which has many variables.
Michael Hughes
Biomechanics is kind of arguable. Yeah. In application to some things right. Right. It’s it’s mechanics you study it, there it is, but Right,
Mitch
I get you, right. It’s kind of hard science. Because yeah, so it’s not like you know, like one plus one equals two in that class. Right? It’s pretty straightforward. But you know, we talk movement is a little different. What I know what My gripe really comes into is not necessarily how you and I were taught or how everybody has previously taken it, or I’m about to end it and had had previously taken it is actually feel bad for the students going into it, who expect that to be the truth? Interesting? Because then they stick with that truth. And if you’re 18, I mean, you’re pretty an impressionable mind at that point. And you’re gonna hold that truth. And if you continue with and you go to physical therapy school, I mean, you’re only cementing that truth more and more. So my problem doesn’t necessarily come with how I was taught, it comes with the inability to change based on new information. And that’s where my frustration comes from. Because it’s like, if you knew something was incorrect, the whole time. And you were just lazy and neglected to update your, your syllabus, or do your own continuing education as an instructor of a physical science then, like, who makes you the authority to teach other people how things are supposed to be correct. And that’s where my frustration comes from. Because now I look at it and go like, Well, that was right at one point. That is, at one point in time, how we did know the body. And that’s how a lot of things were graded. But things have changed now. And it’s like, well, why haven’t we updated those things? Yeah. Now, it’s like these old heads that are in these universities and these professors like, obviously, there’s a lot of backdoor stuff that goes into the challenges and the roadblocks we’re on. But like, it’s got to happen. You can’t keep teaching what used to be informed or applicable information.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, or at least as I’ve looked at it, it’s not necessarily wrong. It’s not the full story. Yeah. Right. So stop. Like, it’s like the world is flat? Well, it actually is flat. Until you go far enough. And then it curves, right. Yeah, it’s like, yeah, the world’s flat it is, but it’s also curved, too, right? So so I’m not seeing that the there’s more to the story, because the hamstrings do flex the knee? And, you know, not to continue pull on this pump. It’s so easy to visualize. They do. But they don’t they, but how often? And then what not? And what to and what is it needed for? Right? Like, oh, you buy a car? Are you gonna you’re gonna tell a massive trailer with your car? Well, how often are you going to do that? Walk out, you know, not that often. So what you know. So it’s it’s got this concept like the American and it’s and and their truck, if I can get it a little bit more, I know exactly what I needed. Well, if you look at the data, you actually don’t put stuff in the back of that truck, vast majority of people for the vast majority of time, we’re getting the concept of health and you drive your car with the data says, you actually want to drive your car 10% of its life. So why do you need a car? What is its whole concept like? Well, there’s more to the story? Or why do you need it? And why do you use it? And the application for its purpose is not exactly what are being sold for? So bring it back home? In a sense not to go too much? Because I’m gonna start talking about Tesla here. Is this understand? So what do we do about it? Right? So what I found very, very interesting, and shameless plug here is that, you know, we developed a course called the multi dimensional movement coach. And the multi dimensional movement coach is not in multi directional, which we believe that anatomy should be but multi dimensional, because it’s thinking about how anatomy works, and then how that applies to exercise, but then how personality works and how we apply that to exercise, and how systems and references and programming is needed and how that applies to exercise and this whole concept of how do you can understand and dig into personal. I like to use the word kind of like personal care, and people’s behavioral unconscious way of doing not unconscious. That’s means I’m knocked out subconscious thinking goes into exercise. Anyway. So what we’ve done, Mitch and I and our team is to really develop this concept of like, how does everything really tied to the center core of what it is, because it’s not just that anatomy, such as physiology, it’s not just behavioral science, it’s physics. And it’s the systems and the business, and support structure, and even the community of our own coaches that bring up this whole concept. So if anybody listening or are somewhat excited about what we’re talking about, or even have some serious questions, check out multi-dimensional movement coach, or go to www.gymnazoedu.com. To see what we’re talking about, because we believe that it’s essentially the cutting edge science and towards application that the trainer of tomorrow needs to be competitive. And not just with in person training, but also virtual training. And not just with live training, but also on Demand training. Our job is to give you every single thing that we’ve learned over the last decade plus not just me, but our type Coaching staff to get you to that next level, where you start to see the world as round versus as flat if I could say so plainly. So, again, MDMC is the shortening terms, we have some CEUs that just went went with it. So if you’re looking for a continuing education, credit as well, and to deep dive much deeper, check it out. www.gymnazoedu.com.
Mitch
Are you telling me that you don’t believe the Earth is flat?
Michael Hughes
It is, for a few miles. It curves. Okay, so, muscles NSS going like so that so every single joint, I’m going to have a pointer, every single joint, every single bone, every single muscle should move in multiple planes of motion. And if I look at an anatomy book, musculoskeletal anatomy, it may give me a few of them. But it certainly doesn’t give me all three for every single 836 named muscles. It can be off on that a little bit, right. So we have 206 bones give or take 836 named muscles give or take. And 66 joints that could be off on that one, but close to that. And every single one of them have to essentially the power of three. We weren’t taught that. Because it’s pretty complicated. If you look about it, right, but it’s also super structured. Because you think about let’s see what the ankle joint particularly, you know, it moves in all three planes of motion. So let’s talk about the planes of motion because I was taught this day one of bachelors of science, kinesiology, but we were they never talked about it after that can move anterior posterior forward and backwards, it can move right lateral left lateral or right or left side sideways, it can move right rotation or left rotation or spin right and spin left. But we were really talking about how it really dorsiflexion. And plantar flex is just another fancy term for bending one way or bending the other way pointing your toe towards somebody or pointing your toward towards you or the sky. And that’s what the ankle does. And you feel like like squat assessments and data. So they’re studying anatomy, biomechanics, right, in, that’s what the ankle does. But in reality, it really does two more things. It leans in and leans out, I think about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. That’s how I think think about it. And it also corkscrews one way and corkscrews the other way, like a wine corks going into a cork in a sense. So what does that do to the anatomy that’s attached to it. So let’s talk about the gastroc. The guest I can name is it really attaches to the Achilles tendon, which is attaches to the heel bone calcaneus and attaches to the femur. Fracture crosses the knee joint. So femur crosses the knee joint goes into the calcaneus it attached it crosses two joints, the knee joint and the ankle joint. And then it can nessuna if you’re listening to think about if how that works. And if you can really move those things 40, backwards, satisfied and rotational and understand what that does. So when I say that to you go back to yourself as a NASM only thinker. And tell me your what your thought process from there all the way to where you are now.
Mitch
Yeah, that actually is, uh, actually struck me I do remember something from the NASM book. I remember, maybe one page where they gave you a body in three different positions with a line going through it telling you what each plane was. And I think they basically left it at that. Yep. And so it was like, so I remember looking at it and going, I don’t know why they didn’t place an importance on this, but they just put it through the whole body. So I remember going for a long time being like and someone would say something to me. And this is at the previous gym I used to work at and I remember someone said frontal plane or transverse plane or something I remember thinking like all about which one was the hat? Yeah. I never. It was never admitted in a sense. Yeah, it was like cool. Here’s a couple pages
Michael Hughes
and coronal plane was it it was coronal plane of transverse plane. Right. The same thing? Yeah. Right. Just different words. frontal plane. I think they
Mitch
had coronal plane for all.
Michael Hughes
Eu now we’re getting into Yeah,
Mitch
yeah. No, so actually remember that I was like, called Colonel. I’m like we call but whatever. Yeah, small details. Same thing. But yeah, so I remember doing that. And I remember going like as a trainer thinking like, Okay, well. Pretty, pretty straightforward. And most of my training, maybe except for lateral lunges was all sagittal plane. forward, backwards, forward and backwards. And forward, back back. Traditional guys of girls squats. benchpress benchpress, lunging forward and lunging backwards. Exactly. Situps. And even the lunging forward and the lunging backwards is really just a forward lunge with the traditional way of going about it totally. If you because I remember specifically, I think it was at during the internship here, where it was like close your eyes. Did I move forward to get into this position or did I move backwards to get this position? You don’t know when you just say Close your eyes and open up again. And you see someone just standing there in the same position, it’s the exact same thing. Alright, so
Michael Hughes
what we’re talking about is what’s there to the Ford Legend of back backwards lunch. And I think that we’re missing a big chunk of the definition. In essence, yeah,
Mitch
so just to clarify, if we’ve considered a forward lunge, taking a right or left leg into a horizontal step forward in the sagittal, plane, and then you load into that leg and then return home. And traditionally, this is just a subjective experience, from what I’ve seen in gyms for 10 years, 15 years now. Posterior or reverse lunge, backwards lunge, however you want to coin it, is reaching your foot back, and then bending the knee to the ground, putting your toe on the ground, yeah, putting your foot reaching your toe back, keeping the heel off, and then dropping that same knee down, close your eyes, and you see both of those and open back up again, they look the exact same, where we put the heel down, shift the weight back and displace the load and the forces and do a different, really into the posterior chain
Michael Hughes
into the backward foot. That’s where all the weight goes. Yeah.
Mitch
First, essentially, the traditional just emphasizing almost more of an anterior load in a sense,
Michael Hughes
which changes the entire anatomical tension. Right, right. muscle contraction in the sense, right changes everything.
Mitch
And if you’re trying to actually have a complete wholeness to a program, well, you’re just beating at the same part. Some small variances in there, right? But so I’m already forgot what the original question is, but go into where it doesn’t matter. But go into where I am now, it’s like learning about the ankle. Like then we never learned the ankle is primarily a sagittal plane motion, just foreign back with transverse and frontal plane influence at the calcaneus and mid foot and forefoot. And obviously, tip femur as well, to go along with the biomechanic chain reaction of it, but the foot and ankle. If we learn that, then you can almost learn how to stretch it, how to train it. And then you say, well, that’s more powerful than just I don’t know, learning that it flexes
Michael Hughes
and extends that dorsiflexion plantar flexion
Mitch
I get Laos more options and beam allows your mind to start to kind of think about all these other possibilities and go, Well, what about this? Yeah. What about if I put my foot on the edge of the curb and move my hips side to side? Well, now I’m stretching those perennials a little bit more. If I rotated, what’s that do? Well, that’s a different stretch. I’ve never felt that before. And you walk out and you’re like, Well, I just feel like my legs are flying under me now.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, air. Yeah. Yeah, real quick, hold on to that, because your system is super important. You said basically, if you can understand the anatomy, of stretching, the anatomy of strengthening, that You therefore have almost an endless tap of opportunity,
Mitch
in a sense, in a sense, right. So
Michael Hughes
you said if I can understand how the ankle moves, and all three planes of motion, and then how, therefore if I understand how the anatomy essentially elongates or eccentrically loads, AND, OR, and then you’re going to ascend how it concentrically explodes, right? moves. And you can understand how that that gastroc can literally move as the heel goes left to right, as the heel goes forward, and back. And as a heel rotates, you can visually see that, then therefore, you know how to train that gap that gastroc in completeness, right? And completeness. And then if you take that simple muscle, and then understand what what muscles attach on top of it, and what attaches below it, then you understand that even more because you can influence you said the hips, you said let’s move the hips. But let’s change the ankle House position, you sit on a curb and essentially, you know, like, not like a street curb, you know, so it’s like a little wedge, potentially. And then you see you get a brand new stretch or a whole nother way of moving that you didn’t even consider. So to me like, understanding anatomy is super important. But don’t get fret, don’t get overwhelmed by you have to understand everything, not just start, start with one muscle, right and see where it goes and where it came from. And understand how it can move in three different ways just like taking a belt in a sense and grabbing one and grabbed the other end and move that belt for two backwards. And then if you can see my hands, you can’t of course, but then move that belt side to side and then twist that belt left to right and realize that every single muscle can do exactly that. And actually it does that some argue if it does or doesn’t get does and then how you therefore have the the tap of opportunity to lengthen mobility in a sense, strength and stability in a sense And now from a programming standpoint, options of opportunity that are endless, right? There’s an end to them, right? But the numbers huge, huge, right? Versus being stuck, like, what other exercises do I give? Let me go to YouTube to find it. Or let me look at Instagram like, well, that’s a cool move. So that you can repeat your you can basically your own architect, because you understand, as I like to think about the trunk and the roots of the tree, not just going Instagram, look at the leaves. Yeah, right. Does that make sense that it’s nice. To me, it’s like, yeah. So take your anatomy of what you’ve learned, but realize that what the book says is only one of them. Right? There’s two more at the very least. It was that makes me super excited to know that there’s so much more that we could do so much more that we can do and does not get like to me I get super like, you know, like I said this pitchfork, and like torch thing is this, you know, we got to change the system. I think we just got to open the open our eyes a little bit more to what is what is there being taught and what more there is to be learned. And that is, I don’t know, like it makes me excited to go back to anatomy even more. I could go to like a one if there’s like a physical therapy school saying, Hey, you can take our anatomy course. Online. I don’t know. There’s probably not probably going
Mitch
to bar you from doing that. Might be like 35 grand
Michael Hughes
for that one course. Yeah. Pretty close. Yeah. So. So what else? Anything else?
Mitch
Yeah, there’s, there’s actually, this actually started to really get my mind going. So if we just take the foot and ankle and the calf complex, the foot and ankle complex, yep, all the muscles that are associated with the foot and ankle and the knee. And the next biggest part is which I think was an almost a bigger eye opener. And almost one of those things were like, never thought about this and never heard about this. Never had anybody really talked about this because I feel like traditionally it’s always go to the root of the problem. It’s like go
Michael Hughes
to where it hurts go to where there’s sort of weak rhetoric tight or where there’s pain. Yeah.
Mitch
kid crying at school, you know who to kids crying in school, because he’s getting bullied? Well, he’s always going to office and crying and you’re trying to help the kid but you’re not getting the root of the problem to get rid of the bully. You get rid of this kid crying. You know what I mean? So it’s like, we’re never trying to find a bully. We’re always just trying to go to the root of the problem. Always trying to fix that issue, right? There was like, stops gift trying, basically. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, it’s like, what I really appreciate about the internship and what we always challenge ourselves here to do, which is always one of those things to where it’s like, I’m always trying to think about that quicker way to get to solutions. Especially, I feel like we have a playfully competitive atmosphere here. In a good way. Where I would never thought about the hip. Let’s go to the hip to help the ankle. Like you never learn,
Michael Hughes
you may have lost a few people. Yeah. So how the heck would the hip help the ankle?
Mitch
Yeah. So I’m gonna kind of go forward and come back. So traditionally, never you thought, okay, cool. The calf probably influences. The soleus and gastroc. probably influenced that ankle joint a lot more than anything else, traditionally. Let’s follow that Catholic stretch it. Oh, it doesn’t feel better. Let’s do it more. Let’s keep doing more. You’re okay, don’t hike. You should stop, you need to rest. First, learn any more bow mechanic chain reaction where you go. Okay, well, that calf is still barking at you. It’s still getting what I guess traditionally would be quote, unquote, tight muscles in the lower leg. And you go, why is that always happening? Well, let’s start figuring it out even more. And let’s go to the front hip. Let’s go to the anterior core region. Let’s go to the quads. Maybe let’s decompress those areas. Quads, hip flexors. Exactly, exactly. And so let’s see if that can help the calf. So backing it up. Now the hips can help the calf in a sense where what we would call a tz to a body position, body position.
Michael Hughes
So the legs behind you, yeah, your right legs behind you in walking.
Mitch
Yes. So we’ll take this exact example right there, right leg behind you as you’re walking forward, and you experience calf pain as that right foot pushes off the ground, a swing forward and his face. So now that right foot would eventually be the leading leg and the left would be behind you. When you keep getting out of ankle pain or knee pain or low back pain, whatever it may be. Everybody’s gonna be subjective and different.
Michael Hughes
Yeah. Let’s, let’s let’s say for the sake of the argument, okay. People have lost the calf. The calf hurts.
Mitch
Yeah. And the stiff calf hurts and it hurts every time you lay off. You push off. Yeah. And you keep rolling. The Catholic problem keeps going on. Well, you never got taught Okay, well, what’s next? What influences that?
Michael Hughes
What anatomy influences that
Mitch
influences that? Well, let’s think about it. What’s higher up? Let’s keep following the leg. Well at that front Hip has an inability to get proper extension, then that calf is going to work harder to push you through gait motion.
Michael Hughes
So you’re saying the calf does that it’s not the only thing that pushes you up that hill, right? Or forward, right? Of course, right? Yeah, like that. Yeah.
Mitch
But it’s the one that’s hurting, it was the one it’s hurting. But it’s always gonna hurt as long as you don’t take care of that hit.
Michael Hughes
So you’re saying that should say? So you’re saying and I’m saying this obviously, clarify. Every single muscle helps that calf push off
Mitch
kind of crazy. Every single muscle, every single muscle, and how many complaints emotion help that calf got three different planes motion. So all the help got three planes? Yeah. And that’s where, you know, obviously, when you dive into the individual biomechanics of the joints itself, so and you start to have a greater understanding of how the influences happen. Yeah, that’s obviously layers down the line of understanding anatomy but,
Michael Hughes
and you learn this. Yeah, it was a scary,
Mitch
it was a it was, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s like it was like, frustrating, more so that I never had even anybody leading me to find this. These solutions are and you learn this on line. didn’t learn any of this. I started working at Gymnazo.
Michael Hughes
Learn from a class member learned from class, are you a book smart person,
Mitch
I am not a book smart person at all, and never learned it from class. But
Michael Hughes
great, so it’s very achievable to learn this complex movement, understanding, right? Hip, a hip flexor case could be causing someone’s calf tightness, right? And we’re rolling the wrong thing, right? Okay, so want to make that totally clear, because I’m pretty excited. Like, it doesn’t take a degree to understand this,
Mitch
right. So even just going back into it, front, right, hip is tight. And that calf is barking at you. Open up that front, right hip, a little following little stretching a little bit of movement, and then take them back through it and see if it hurts again. You probably just helped decrease their movement pain or dysfunction drastically,
Michael Hughes
or their inability to get bigger calves. Right. And we can go to them faster or,
Mitch
or, or climate lab, whatever it may be.
Michael Hughes
This could be from physique, yeah, all the way to function. Exactly.
Mitch
And then you start to go, you know, even bigger into that and go, Well, maybe that right calf’s working harder, because that left soleus, as it hits the ground has an ability to decelerate the triplane or knee motion.
Michael Hughes
Ooh, that’s big face. So basically, II centric, Lee load, lengthen, and all three planes of
Mitch
motion and all three planes of motion. So then you start to go into it, like, you know, because case studies helped with this stuff. Just sitting down and talking it through right there. We don’t need studies, we just need people’s actual testimonies. I just need clients members,
Michael Hughes
unless they’re lying, that the pain went away. Right? Yeah, got it. Give them a little sugar
Mitch
pill, little placebo, style, and I swear. So if you start to think about these things, these are never the thought processes that you would ever go through. They don’t ever allow it to go through because it’s to pass fail oriented with school bursts. Challenging the growth process,
Michael Hughes
it depends would be the opposite of that there’s no Pass Fail. Well, there’s no wrong or right,
Mitch
it depends. Because if you learned, if you went through our education process through school, everybody would probably fail. Because they’re trying to figure out all that, I shouldn’t say that. But there’s so many more areas where you can start to go through and analyze and go, is that right? You might get it right. But you’re learning about how that influences how that specific area that you may be targeting influences your original target spot.
Michael Hughes
Now. I was talking to a client just yesterday, who is one is in law school. And the other one is, is a lawyer. And it’s amazing, because she just took her finals for law school, not her final final not not the bar. But she said that every single professors answer to any question that I have about law, or case is it depends. And I smiled so big, because that’s essentially the same answer every single trainer should give about any particular nutritional movement exercise. It’s, it depends. There is no this is the answer about movement, in a sense, you know, there’s better answers, there’s worse answers. But it all depends on the individual. Which is interesting because it goes and flies in the face of all here’s how to fix someone’s rotator cuff. Here’s how to fix someone’s knee. The answer is yes, that can work. But it doesn’t work for everybody. Would you say that’s you know, I’m jumping to a whole new thing in a sense, but like, it’s like yeah, if if you want to figure out how someone needs to train their calves, they’re like the Men’s Fitness article is not going to work for everybody. The if you want to make your biceps bigger the views YouTube video, here’s what to do. Now. never works for everybody. It only works for some people. Right? And it’s really hard to hear that saying, just tell me the answer. And the answer is I’m sorry, I can’t. Because even though anatomy is relatively consistent, how people move through their anatomy is 100% 100%, individualized, right? Because I don’t move the same way that you move, right. So therefore, I read, my results are not gonna be your result, if you copy my exact same program, they can be similar, hopefully, because it’d be nice to not have to write over and over a new program. But when you feel stuck, which happens on a daily, it should yeah, in a sense, you have to be able to essentially analyze, right, right and understand what’s going on. Because you can understand what’s going on, then you can essentially reverse engineer I like to say, you know, you can figure out how something was built, versus just what is built in front of view. And I think that’s where we feel super strongly that trainers should have that capability and can’t have that capability. It’s not out of reach to pick different people that I would say, self self proposed would say, Yeah, we’re not book smart people. We’re not, I’ll be honest, I got denied from fiscal data preschool, eight different times, two different years in a row, I push really hard for that 3.3 GPA, pushed really hard, studied my tip tail off. Anyways, long story short about that is that like, it isn’t about memorizing something, it’s about problem solving something. And really understanding like you just said, like, if you can, if you can really appreciate how every single muscle every single joint really moves in the sagittal frontal and transverse way, let’s just like the first page of that book, instead of just going through someone’s mid torso, their stomach, and you know, cutting the body from front to left or front or back. But to take that same cross diagonal, or that same structure and put it on the ankle, put it on in the calf, right, put it on the knee, put it in the hamstring, put it in the, in the in the bicep for most of the hamstring, not just the hamstring itself, but individual muscle. And if you can visualize that, then I think it opens up a lot of doors, but a lot of questions in people’s minds being like so is that a bad exercise? And Uranus would be? It depends. It depends, right? Yeah. And kind of says, Well, this is the right way, this is the best form for deadlift. And you say no, that is probably the most balanced way. toasts a little bit externally rotated. Posture here postures like that measures to be the safest, but it’s not the one that you may be used to pick up your couch. Exactly. Because your couch is not the shape of a barbell.
Mitch
Exactly. You may have to lift from a corner go wide feet with toes out right now you’re certainly getting a little bit more adductors. Right now, if you haven’t trained those adductors. Well, my knee just tweaked, hip, whatever it may be, right? Well, I’ve asked too much eccentric and concentric and eccentric loading at some points during during that picking up and moving phase are
Michael Hughes
right and it’s because but that’s not how I lift in the gym. What do I say with the gym is a limited area. Super, it’s like saying the world’s flat, what is you should lift like that for this way of lifting for this type of movement, your physique building and functional physique training and functional training are literally the same thing. But physique is just a small, itty bitty slice of the pie of function. So don’t stop doing it doing that. But realize that it’s a small piece of the puzzle. And if you want what depends on what kind of trainer you want, contains, what kind of client you are. Depends on what you deem is success is having someone Well, what I like about this is that you know, you can train anatomy to really be super, super specific. And swing a golf club make that ball was 400 yards. But can you write? You know the answer is no. So you can make a bicep look so amazingly, children awesome. But can it actually can actually throw something like a bag of soil or lacrosse or play a big game of basketball? Yeah. And it’s really kind of fascinating, just how this, you know, just having our eyes opened to the versatility, the multidimensionality to use that term, once again. Of that is really it’s really so much more so much more exciting, Aleksei it’s not that it’s not boring. At least I was bored in my college anatomy class. Okay, this is all it does. We figured it out. Yeah, exactly. And I’d say no, we just we just understand that there is a bone called the femur and does attach, you know, with some cartilage in between it to the TIB fib. Does that all it does? Yeah, no. So anything else?
Mitch
Yeah, I think I think what’s unfortunate about the traditional style of learning in school is the fact that you don’t get room to fail. Like, I think the best, and this is if you have a growth mindset, too. So if you’re a person that is critical of yourself to a certain degree, and you analyze what you do, and you come to a wrong solution, you think about it, you know, in school, you’re not allowed to have a wrong answer, and then think about it, and then go back later and try something different, because you’ve already gotten your grade, and you’ve already given them the wrong answer. Well, movement, like we were talking about earlier, everybody’s individual, everybody is going to have a different influence in their body for an ache or pain or dysfunction. And if we just went with the prototypical stereotypical exercises, or movements, or whatever is usually prescribed, and you’re probably going to fail a significant amount of the time. And you’re always going to think like, well, this is the if this didn’t work, then nothing’s gonna
Michael Hughes
work. Yeah, it’s, it’s the patient’s problem. It’s a client’s problem, right? Where if which could be the case, right. But
Mitch
we’re, we’re, I think it’s like MDMC itself, and kind of the gift style training is, okay, we didn’t get to the solution right away. But we know we’re on the right track based on the fact that we know how the muscles influence that specific area that might be getting affected, which also comes from to a greater issue of visit the muscles. Because we never even learned about the fascial system. And I know it’s
Michael Hughes
Oh, and I know, yeah, even bit about that. And I know it’s a little bit more besides recent there, right? It’s just a web,
Mitch
it’s a net. I know, obviously, there’s more recently has been studied. And I feel like more recently, we understand its influence on how fascial restrictions are really what restricted muscles.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, it’s like the muscles don’t even matter. It’s just such
Mitch
an empty fish net. But or fish net full of fish, it’s like those strings in that net are gonna be really taut. If you have a whole bunch of fish in there, dragging it to the water, or if there’s just an empty net, and large just kind of moving around, right, that’s what you want, you want a healthy fascial. Net. And that really helps restore, that’s really what restricts muscles more. And you don’t learn these things. You don’t have these conversations.
Michael Hughes
Now, I’m going to chalk it up because I want to be a half glass full kind of person we just didn’t
Mitch
know. Yeah, and I think that’s more recent, you know, to like, we didn’t know as much but you know, see these things introduce, like, if you’re an anatomy student, a teacher goes like, Hey, here’s some new research out there, I’m not going to teach it. But if you want to explore, go do it. Like, I feel like they’re the people that are supposed to help you in the right direction to explore these options, and they never do. So I like what we do is like, we all have our own individual preferences, and we bring them in and like we all learn from it. It’s like cool, I would never have thought about doing that. But never thought about doing the ropes. RMT ropes. Yeah. But dang, that’s been big influence. And it’s like, how do we get those resources to the greater to Gen pop? Right? Especially in school?
Michael Hughes
At least have it in your tool belt, because I looked at it like if I’m gonna hire a, a contractor. And he’s gonna build my house. And I’m saying, hey, I want to put it in a fireplace. So I can do that. Actually, I want to I want to add on a second bedroom. Can you frame Yeah, I can do that. I think that’s really, really cool. That, that as a trainer, you can do those things have access to it in that session? Yeah, that your client, you know, even as a massage therapist or their case, you know, physically, even your patient says, like, I can I can do that. Like you’re not stuck, you’d have to say those things. You’re like, oh, let me let me try this. Let me try this. You’re not like up? You just have to go to someone else. Now. That’s someone else’s really. And that’s could be a great answer. But you the time and energy it takes to go to someone else is really it’s like, I look at as vertical integration of your skill set that in one session, you can do soft tissue, or you can do, I would call it a CrossFit type of drill. And essentially keep it simple. You could do yoga types of skills. You can do general training, and the same time you can on lock, a subconscious movement pattern of theirs that they didn’t know that they had. Yeah, you can do all that in one session. In one hour. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. versus saying I won’t do that here. Not because of trainers shouldn’t do that. It just they just don’t have the tool belt to do that. In a sense. I go, you gotta go your chiropractic, go do that. We don’t do chiropractic here. But we can certainly help move us a joint that’s a little bit gunky, just by facilitating that normal pattern by putting our hands on the shoulder blade and on the on the humerus and gently moving it versus bam. A high velocity motion which takes some precision without a question and So it’s very fascinating what the what what the trainer can be versus what the trainer is. And this is ethical, by the way, I’m not talking about anything that’s against the law, not anything that’s out of the ordinary Shooby. It’s sort of out of the ordinary, but it’s not out of the ethical pneus of what, what trainers should do. It just goes back to understanding Do you understand?
Mitch
The why and what Yeah, exactly, yeah. Why are you doing it? And what are you doing it
Michael Hughes
for? Right, exactly. Versus like, oh, this seems like fun. Gosh, I love this stuff.
Mitch
I’ll be really curious. I’m taking the quiz next semester. And I’m actually really curious because something I’ve tried to incorporate a lot more in my practice is just breath work, especially with cools down
Michael Hughes
and cooling down. That’s like one of the biggest trends now in fitness to agenda, right.
Mitch
And, I mean, I think yoga, I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of yoga, I 100% support and appreciate what it does for people. For me, it’s just a little, I need something moving around a little bit more sure. But when you think about how people feel, when they come out of yoga, they feel awesome, they feel great. And I think a large portion of it is the breath work going from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic system. And if you think about in general population, how stressed especially during times like we are right now totally get it, you know, you got it that the shoulders are struggling a little bit more, maybe you’re rounding the shoulders a little bit more, maybe your chair a little bit more. Now, of anterior chains a little bit more compressed, your chest is tighter and shoulders hurting more well, if you’re trying to decompress someone, and you’re trying to just get them in, you have 45 minutes, and I just got I just need some restoration, I just needed to feel better. breathwork is I think, is one of the best things that you can do. Go from the sympathetic, pick that fight or flight phase and go to the parasympathetic and decompress them. And if you couldn’t, because those what I’m trying to say is, after Fizz, I’m curious on how much they tie it in back to the body itself. Because if you think about trying to decompress or look quote, unquote, loosen a muscle, right, add breathwork get to that solution quicker. And you start to decompress the rest of the body ease the mind, certainly decrease their cortisol levels that are being pumped into their body be by being in that fight or flight bit, and you start to allow them to be a little bit more accepting to the work,
Michael Hughes
right. And it really comes down to is like anatomy is a great piece. But again, it’s almost like it’s just a sad, sagittal plane. There’s more planes to consider
Mitch
how many bicep curls can you do in front of a mirror going up and down or just changing your wrist position? When I guess in reality, you actually do to your transverse plane.
Michael Hughes
Position my ankles. But yeah, but someone listening. Could you be saying as I caution, you know, you guys talked a lot about movement. Well, what about just mindset? Yeah. What about breathing? What about nutrition? And I’d say yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes. All important, all super, super needed. Because I look at this as you have, essentially, in one on one training, in any sort of restoration type of therapeutics, you have a set time limit, that’s a standard by our society, you know, is one hour essentially is what is the standard, right, you go for 10 minutes, you can go hour 15. But it’s really that’s the standard what people expect for you to do. Because a lot of practitioners do like a four hour, five hour, three day intensive. And that’s I think it’s really awesome, where you can really make some some headway, but that’s not the standard. That’s not what the most people do. And these have access to. So if you can be more efficient with your time, and you can start your session, and I see your massage therapist, start breathing, give me some, they give me this breathing pattern on the table. How much quicker? Can you unlock that? fascial? And he allows adhesion, but the fascial density, if you’re a trainer, how well can you allow them to access their hip range of motion to get that p on that squat? You know, if you’re in a group setting, how much can you in your warmup provide a greater oxygen delivery to the tissues? Right? To get more out of it? If you’re if you’re warming up for a basketball game, right, this whole thing? It’s really fascinating of what you just said, it’s like it’s no we don’t have to be a master at it. We really don’t like would you call yourself a master bio? Bio mechanist.
Mitch
So actually comes to a conversation that CJ so we did our performance reviews yesterday. So CJ, for those of you that don’t know is that Michael’s owner and CJ’s Head of Programming, head programming, coach, manager, Coach manager, so we do performance reviews all the time. And he was asking me where I want to go and or this past year has gone out. It’s like I’ve been more confused than I’ve ever been in my life. Because coming out of gifts last year, and then I’m a person that I learned something, I go through it and then I kind of back off a little bit and then I come back into it. And then for me, I go okay, that’s right, it clicks more because it’s settled in there. I get to give practical experience, applying what I’ve learned and exploring different things and then when I go back into it clicks a lot stronger. But then we’ve also have a lot of other topics come in this past year, a lot of other conversations And so I was telling him, I was like, I feel more lost in human movement than I’ve ever been. Because then I started because what we’ve been talking about, there’s all these different layers, I feel like I’ve got this freaking recipe for a cake, like I should be on like the food network channel, trying to create like this 10 layer cake that’s supposed to be like in a competition, and I’m like, I got all this stuff, I got no idea how to turn the oven on, you know, like, but like, what I love about it is, you know, the bass, and you know, all these things, and you start to learn how to individually incorporate these modalities for these people. And understand this person needs this that I learned six months ago, this person needs this, and I learned a year ago. And this person needs both of those things. But then, like, right now, I’m in that phase of how do I apply? How do I incorporate? How do I do all this stuff? And it’s like, how does? How did these things that we’ve learned influenced about mechanics, the muscles and bones to the rest of the body? And it’s like, where do I go? Yeah, but it’s also exciting, too, because I know that as I figure this out, and figure out my own route, it’s like, it’s gonna be more powerful. And I’ll be able to get to it helping people a little bit more efficiently.
Michael Hughes
Yes, you know, yeah, because people only have so much budget, they have so much time, right. And they only have so much patience. You know, and that’s a really big deal. You know, I look at if you look at like General Product production lines, from making krans, to making rocket ships, the faster you can make it, the better, essentially, the entire processes, you can do more, you can have more money, you can work more time you can do etc, etc. So if we can have a person that we can essentially get to the result faster, their happiness goes up, their life quality goes up their activities, golf, it’s all these things. And I look at it like from a soft tissue, like you have to put your elbow into that hip for eight minutes before releases. What do you do breathwork? Oh, maybe it takes six minutes or four minutes? You spend said 50%? Less time? Yeah, so since this whole concept of doing it, and then what he’s also this is like, we don’t we don’t know what we don’t know. Right? It’s like the first thing. And then we start to know, like, you’re, I think what I really love about this job, and it’s very complicated about this job, is that you’ve, we just start to understand more things that we don’t know. Yeah. And that’s frustrating. But I think someone who had a growth mindset, they’re like, Okay, cool. That’s exciting. At the very least, or at least I know where my limits are. For someone who’s in a fixed mindset, it’s like, well, that’s just the way it is. And that’s where my peak is. And man, I’m just never gonna stop. So there’s no point in continuing on. Yeah, you know, and what it really takes to be in this job, because what I feel I’m for, for finding out is that this job is I’m not going to say is more complicated or more technical than like a medical doctor or surgeon. Because at that level, you’re dealing with life and death, in some cases, especially like in the ER, but it’s very specialized, right, both of them, you know, but the complexity is super high. And it’s since our field is so undefined. Like there’s a civil engineer, there’s a structural engineer. And those are two different verticals that they need to focus on. There’s a general family practice, doctor, there’s a brain surgeon, right? It’s different doctor in the sense. So what gets in front of them is really specialized, and limited and relatively speaking, but the complexity of their job is crazy. When I look at a trainer, you have to understand essentially mental therapy. In a sense, the therapist, your your, your hairdresser, and you’re frustrated, you then you have to understand biomechanics, you have to understand nutrition, you have to understand exercise and its effects on the body, you have to understand chemistry and physiology. And the coolest thing is that life or death for most people, so it’s really you know, there’s a difference, I want to plan that out, but the breadth of it all. And understand all the different nuances and changes to wearables and technology and what that can do for a client and be up to breath on those things. And then the further you can get soft tissue work and familiar you can get into each one of those verticals. is really kind of, to me, it’s exciting because it only allows you to be more efficient service more people have more fun, but also be more confused. Yeah. Because they all don’t you know, they’re all emerging sciences, right? Yeah,
Mitch
it’s kind of crazy crazy. But what I find exciting about this whole thing is after gift and after the past couple years, it’s there’s all these different things that was mentioned like All these different things are coming into essence like, Oh my God, how do I tie it all together? When do I apply it? When do I use it? Do they already have it? And do they not need that? Do they need something else? But what is where the I think my confidence comes from is knowing? Well, I have a base, right? I understand in just normal gait, running or walking. And with most exercises, you know, biomechanically, how every joint works, you know, how functional muscle function works, upright and table based, even though we will argue upright function. Also, function is more applicable than table based understanding both is still important. Yep. And whenever I see these new things, you can you can start to look through it and go, does that actually make sense? Or is that something that might be dangerous?
Michael Hughes
Yeah, you have a test? Yes. Something it’s stick on the wall or not? Right? Yeah,
Mitch
I go. But it really doesn’t move that way. And they’re probably maybe getting away with that for now. or long term? I don’t know. I’m just trying to think about something that you see, that is revolutionary, like, you know, fitness is always stuff that comes up. So it’s like a new way of training the new disc, that everybody goes, Oh, that’s it. That’s it, we got to do it. And it’s like, well, hold on a second, let’s just, let’s observe it. Let’s let’s try it out. Does it make sense? Well, if you don’t have an understanding of biomechanics, or everything that you literally just laid out, even to a surface level, well, you’re not gonna be able to differentiate or not, whether that’s something that is appropriate for one person or another, or if it’s appropriate at all. And so I think, like being confused, I love right now, because it’s gonna help me understand the body more. It’s gonna cement those things more,
Michael Hughes
you’d be hungry. Yeah, that’s what I’m hearing. Yeah.
Mitch
And what is exciting about it is, you know, when you call BS, on certain things,
Michael Hughes
I think that’s critical. You have the confidence. To know that because I mean, at least, at least to, to put it into a camp, right or not right? On
Mitch
a spectrum. Because if I’m looking at a movement, and I’m going, oh, there’s this trainer in LA, who came up with this cool thing. It’s like, Well, okay, let’s look at the ankle and the foot. Let’s look with the kids doing and how’s the knee influenced by it? And then how’s the spine moving? Yeah. How are they doing this? Are they only doing that? Are they not incorporating anything else that can help influence what they’re doing the stronger more positive like that? Yeah. And they, you know, then you can start just look at those things and go, Okay, well, here’s my, here’s my opinion on it, or maybe I will incorporate that or, you know, I mean, there’s a million different routes that you can go with that.
Michael Hughes
I think for someone who would listen to this conversation, if that is the golden nugget of this entire this entire conversation is that you have a scale or a weight, or a way to find out whether what you’re doing is good or not, versus always feeling good. You’re guessing. Right? That I think is the absolute pinnacle of this conversation. Because you have something and I’m gonna go back to what I said or originally, because it ties in for me is that you have a root system. Yeah, you have a root system that you can regrow your tree from. Yeah, someone chops down a limb. No big deal. I have something to go back to. To make sure that I have you always have this this again. Yeah, this this truth. Right. Right. Exactly. The principle I’m going to go back to let me just say playing Do you have a principle based way of thinking that it doesn’t matter if something way out there doesn’t work? Right. I’m just go back to my principal. And it routes you down? I think a lot of trainers really just they feel like they’re guessing.
Mitch
I think I think you’re right on that too. And I think in a world to where there’s a lot of judgments, I think in the traditional mindset of training, where it’s like, oh, that person’s doing something weird. That’s not right. Right. Well, yeah. And what do you what are you basing your judgment off of right? Like are you basing it off the fact that you know about mechanics and how the muscles work and how they have a relationship with everybody in the body? Or are you basing that off because you think he looks foolish? And just looks foolish? Then I think you look foolish and you actually I feel like have a small mindset because you’re not allowing yourself to be influenced by something that might be great.
Michael Hughes
Yeah seizures and I’m just having a quick conversation in the office about water or go to and if you’ve ever heard those terms of quota or go to basically it’s really good as the as the as they see it as right biomechanics for running or wrong biomechanics for computers just simply put, and there is there is only you must only do what the right biomechanics are. But it’s based upon a snapshot of biomechanics versus the full picture of it right? And there is no both there’s only one way or the other. And for us, we look at it like there is no one way of doing things. There is no like, oh, this certification is the answer of all this this guy’s methodology like whack in a sense he that’s the only way to do something. Or you must only do go to you know, you almost do whatever the functional patterns like wait a minute, guys, these are there’s brilliance and all that, but don’t ever get caught up in that is the The only way to do it.
Mitch
And that’s something to add to that too, because it’s. So if you think about training in sports, is it? Everybody? Well, not everybody, but sports, big influence, right? And if you think about what you just said, well, baseball, they train rotation for the core because they swing a bat and they throw, right? Victim. general population typically doesn’t train rotation in the core. But if you think about three of the four bands for the core, really for rotation, right one is more for that traditional crunchy, it’s only one of the four muscles of the ABS or for 14 back. So why is baseball doing something that’s great for your core, and that’s okay to load with rotate weight and rotation. But for everybody else, it’s not. Now obviously, you don’t want to take into the extreme that they’re doing it, because they’re professional athletes who’ve been training for their whole life in it. And they can handle that extra demand. But you give someone a 10 pound weight, five pound weight, good couple rotation side to side, that might help their back more than anything, or that might just create a better posture. I don’t know it can create a physiological effect that can be amazing, the forum, but we’ve just neglected to add those things because apparently it was just wrong. Right? Or it’s dangerous or dangerous.
Michael Hughes
But the little back shouldn’t do that. Yeah, exactly.
Mitch
So like, I guess, gotta wrap this up here, but allowing those different influences and having the base to differentiate and go, Well, that’s okay.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, at least Yeah, it’s okay. For this person in this circumstance. Yeah.
Mitch
gives you the confidence as a coach to go. Okay. I know, they’ll be fine. I know. It’s gonna help. Did I have
Michael Hughes
the confidence to know that can be fine? Yeah. So you’re basically saying there’s no such thing as a bad exercise? Just give the wrong person at the wrong time? for the wrong reason. Exactly.
Mitch
That’s a bad exercise. Yeah, exactly. But you would never know unless you had that. Principle foundation.
Michael Hughes
Yeah. Yeah. Well, obviously, we got to go back and train now. Awesome. I love the camera conversation. Very much. Thank you for coming in. And we’ll do
Mitch
it again. Awesome, man.
Michael Hughes
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