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All right, welcome to the AdaptX podcast where we have conversations with individuals who are

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building accessible businesses, advocating for inclusion or excelling in adaptive sports.

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Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities, but to provide a platform for

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them to share insights to a more accessible world. Today we are joined by Travis Pollen,

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an author, personal trainer, and assistant professor of exercise science at Thomas Jefferson

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University in Philadelphia. His research focuses on athletic injury etiology and risk reduction.

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He's particularly interested in pre-participation movement screening, return to sport testing, and

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training load, and the roles that these factors play in injury risk. In addition to his PhD in

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health and rehabilitative sciences, Travis holds a master's in biomechanics and movement sciences.

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Outside of academia, he's been a personal trainer since 2013 and has worked with a variety of

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clientele, from an Olympic hopeful to post-rehabilitation and older adults. He's also

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the co-founder of two companies, Strand for Yoga and ACL Care Pro. Athletically, he's previously

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held two American records in Paralympic swimming and recently returned to competitive swimming

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after a decade-long hiatus. Thank you for including a ton of words that were hard to pronounce in that

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bio to really just test how on the ball I'm going to be this episode. You nailed them all.

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I think so. Etiology? Edeology? Either way, I think. All right, so let's maybe start with

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the discussion on movement screening since it's a topic that you're heavily involved in and have

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researched. Movement screens imply that there is one universal norm for movement that all individuals

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should be working towards or that they should be compared against. That would be inaccessible for

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a lot of people with disabilities and obviously the nature of this podcast is on inclusion and

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accessibility. One challenge with physical therapy as a whole is the medicalized model.

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So maybe can we discuss what role a movement screen plays in maybe a social model approach

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to exercise, if that makes sense? Or maybe we can start with just defining what a movement screen is

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and looking at the barriers of it. Yeah, so this is an awesome question because it definitely

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applies to people with disabilities, but it also applies to all people. Like you said, a movement

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screen is this battery of tests, often multiple tests, that is supposed to grade and rank human

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fundamental movement patterns. So there are a lot of different ones out there. The most popular one

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is probably the functional movement screen, which is a series of seven tests. And it'll look at

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things like squats and lunges or split squats. It might look at push-ups, push-ups, push-ups,

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and so those would kind of be like what you would call the fundamental movement patterns.

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And then it also looks at things like core stability, looks at range of motion, flexibility,

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mobility, and it attempts to compare you to some sort of norm or not even really a norm, but

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someone's opinion of what a norm should be. And so it says, okay, here's the criteria to which we

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want all people to move or range of motion or whatever. And so it'll say, okay, you meet our

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standard or you don't. And that's kind of preposterous right off of the base of it because

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people move differently, right? And so to say, well, this is the way that we think that all

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people should move. They need to stand with their feet, hip width apart and toes forward and squat

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down until their hip crease goes below their knee, keeping their torso vertical with a dowel rod

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overhead. It's like, okay, if you can do that, that's wonderful. But most people can't do that

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and that doesn't mean that there's actually anything wrong with them for many reasons.

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That movement might not be relevant to them. That particular setup might not work for them

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because that's not the way that they do the exercise. They haven't practiced it that way

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or their unique anatomy, limb length ratios, whatever dictates that they need to do it

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differently. And so when you're talking about people with disabilities, adaptive athletes,

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clearly not everybody's going to move the same way. But even when you're talking about

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people without disabilities, people are not going to move the same way. And so do we really want to

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pathologize that and tell people that, hey, you're dysfunctional, quote unquote, based on

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these arbitrary criteria we've laid out for these arbitrary movements, or is that potentially

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detrimental? Does that not really do anything helpful for us besides getting people to subscribe

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to a 10-week training program where we're going to supposedly fix, correct, these dysfunctions?

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I use air quotes for all of these words. So long answer short, it doesn't apply to most

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people without disabilities. It definitely doesn't apply to people with disabilities who

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have so many different ways that they move, none of which we should really pathologize or very few

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of which we should really pathologize because people find ways to get the job done. And so

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whenever you create this cookie cutter thing and say everybody has to do these seven movements

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this exact way, you wind up making just a... More barriers.

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Yeah, adding huge barriers. And then it goes to even farther to say, well, okay, if you can't

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do the squat with the dowel rod overhead, then we're not going to have you squat. And it's like,

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whoa, that's a gross... We're going to have you do all of these quote unquote corrective exercises

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before you squat. And now you're not able to give people a sufficient exercise stimulus because

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you're trying to help them improve their internal hip rotation or whatever it is when you could just

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find the version of the squat or whatever movement it is that is best suited for them in this moment.

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Maybe that's a squat with TRX support. Maybe that is a squat to a box. Maybe it's a squat using

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band assistance, whatever it is, there's usually a way that you can find to adapt the exercise to

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the individual as opposed to trying to fit the individual to your arbitrary standard and not

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allow them to do the exercise until they can meet that criteria.

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Yeah, the pathologizing of movement, I think is the biggest issue and the associated kinesophobia

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that could come with exercising just from... I think oftentimes it's a personal trainer wanting

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to demonstrate that they have this unique skillset or they need to create a problem in order to

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provide a solution. So someone comes with you and if they can squat and they can press and they can

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row, then you have to demonstrate some other way, I guess, that you're going to improve them.

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And then you convince them that they need to be able to overhead squat and then a half of your

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session is being taken up by low-level mobility drills to try to get to that.

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Right. They don't even want to overhead squat. They didn't even come to you expressing that goal.

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It's different if they're an Olympic lifter, a CrossFitter who wants to do overhead squats,

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and it's still, well, maybe they don't need to perform it to that standard. There's this great

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side-by-side of Dmitry Klokov, an Olympic medalist in Olympic lifting, looking pretty substandard

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according to the FMS's criteria when he does the FMS deep squat. And then they flash to him doing

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a snatch with 300 pounds. And it's like, suddenly when you throw on Olympic squats, you're like,

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suddenly when you throw on Olympic weightlifting shoes and allow him to self-select his stance,

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and you put 300 pounds over his head instead of an empty dowel rod, he performs this movement

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beautifully as one of the best in the world. Yeah. So the addition of load completely alters

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how someone moves. Right. Which is like another nail in the coffin for it because it's like,

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well, we're testing all these things with your body weight and moving slowly. And that is a

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totally different context from the weight room or the athletic court or field. So maybe you actually

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move better when you throw some weight on because a goblet squat gives you a little bit more of a

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counterbalance so that you can stay more upright. So if the goal is to have somebody do a goblet

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squat and they do a nice goblet squat, then they're good. They can do goblet squats. They

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don't have to be able to do an unweighted squat or an overhead squat. So it's like, we have to match

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the test or whatever you want to call it, the assessment process to the individual and not some

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arbitrary cookie cutter thing. So then how do we go about doing that? So I mean, the literature is

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pretty strong that the FMS, the improvements are often just made through practicing the movements

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that they test that they don't necessarily carry over to injury prevention. So how can we screen

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new clients more effectively or what should we be looking at in that first session?

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So my process is basically thinking about the different movement patterns that I would want

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to work within a session or within a program and thinking about each of those movement patterns on

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a continuum of unloaded or assisted up to body weight up to added load. So different people will

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have different fundamental movement patterns in their list, but it would be things like squatting

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and lunging, pushing, pulling, hinging, bridging, rotating, carrying maybe if you wanted to add

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that category. So my process would be, okay, I have each of these movement patterns and then I have

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what I would consider to be like the baseline version of that movement pattern. So a goblet

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squat, a kettlebell deadlift, whatever. And I would try to identify the point along each of the

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movement continuums or each of the continuums of each movement pattern that that person is currently

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prepared for. So can they do a goblet squat? If not, do they need to do a squat to a box, a squat

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with assistance? Can they do a pushup or do they need to do some sort of pushup regression,

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pushup on an incline, a pushup with band assistance, a kneeling pushup, an eccentric pushup?

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Or maybe they can do a pushup, you know, regular flat on the ground and they can do 20 of them.

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Well, that means we could put a plate on their back or give them band resistance. So it's about

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identifying the point on that continuum from unloaded to body weight to added load for each

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of the movement patterns. And that kind of tells me, okay, this is where the person's at. And this

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is kind of the general level that they're at across these different movement patterns. And then I can

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probably surmise within other exercises, single joint exercises, accessory exercises, whatever,

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kind of where they're going to be based on what I find. So it's not like you're broken,

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you're dysfunctional. It's just, here's where you're at right now. And sure, maybe we would

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like to get everybody moving with their body weight and all of those movement patterns or moving with

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added load. But it's kind of more of a neutral thing of just identifying where you are,

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as opposed to saying, oh, you can't do this yet, or you are exhibiting some sort of movement

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compensation or dysfunction. Like those words aren't even in the vocabulary.

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And it sounds like that's basically just a traditional workout. Like the assessment's

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basically just taking them through a workout and then trial and error.

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It can be exactly that. It doesn't have to occur in a context of, hey, this is our first session,

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and I'm going to run you through a test today. It can just be, okay, here are the basic movement

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patterns. And maybe it occurs over two sessions instead of two, because maybe that would be a

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lot to do depending on the person and the day. But yeah, I'm going to guess where you're at.

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Maybe that's starting with the most regressed version, or maybe that's like an assisted version

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of all of these different exercises, or maybe it's starting with the kettlebell version of each of

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them. Ideally, you want to guess right so that they meet with success in the initial encounter,

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not, hey, I'm going to put you through this overhead squat, this pushup, and this lunge on

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a tightrope balance beam that you can't do any of these things. I'm going to make you feel really

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bad about yourself, and then I'm going to show you my value is in helping to correct you to be able

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to do these arbitrary things. It's not that at all. It's just, hey, your goblet squat looks great.

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We're going to be able to add weight on that over the next few weeks. So trying to find the thing

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that they can do off the bat as opposed to, oh, that doesn't look good. Let's try to rewind you

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to a more basic version. Some people would do fine with that, but some people might get discouraged

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with that. So starting on the easier side, showing them everything that they can do,

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that's a really empowering thing for able-bodied or adaptive and running from there.

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Yeah. So goals of an assessment, have the client leaving feeling confident and capable, identifying

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what their goals are and maybe what exercises and movement patterns are most relevant for them

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achieving those goals. Again, if they need to lose a lot of weight, then overhead squat assessment

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isn't super relevant because the majority of your workout is not going to consist of trying to

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improve your overhead squat. Right. I appreciate what you said. And that step even precedes,

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if one of those movement patterns is totally not relevant to the person, then we don't have to

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do it. So if somebody might tell me, oh, I'm not interested in deadlifting for whatever reason.

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And I might take issue with that because I might think deadlifts would be great for that person.

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But maybe at first I acknowledge that they are not interested in deadlifting and maybe we skip

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that one. Maybe later on I have them do a sumo squat that's actually a deadlift to try to violate

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that preconceived notion. But really it is about fitting the, like assessing them in a way that's

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going to match their goals. So whatever those goals are, choosing the most relevant assessment

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assessments to get them matched up with their goals, as opposed to something arbitrary, like

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an overhead squat, which is so irrelevant to so many people. And I guess just to give the

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overhead squat like one kudo, it does test a lot of things at once. So like if somebody can do a

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nice overhead squat with a dowel rod, that does show you that they have decent ankle mobility,

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shoulder mobility, balance, hip mobility, perhaps. So it's not like the worst thing in the world,

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but if so many people struggle with it and then it doesn't really tell you where the issue is.

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So then you need to do further testing. Okay, well, if we don't have the PVC overhead, can they do

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it? Okay, well, maybe that's more relevant. So why were we doing that? Oh, we were just trying to

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knock two things out at once, shoulder mobility and everything else underneath of that. So it's

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like, it can be a useful thing because it does like give you a lot of check marks at one time,

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but for so many people, it's not a good fit. And then we have to go further down the rabbit hole.

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This is not an overhead squat hating podcast. It's just a real big example.

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It's a convenient scapegoat.

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Yeah, exactly. Can injuries be prevented? I think most people want, most fitness professionals

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want a screening or an assessment process because they think that you can identify what's going to

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cause an injury. And many clients are concerned that the weight room is dangerous or that they're

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going to get hurt in the weight room. But I think if you look at the statistics, you're a lot less

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likely to get hurt in the gym than you are playing your sport or doing a recreational activity. So

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I guess what is the purpose of the movement screen, I guess, outside of what we mentioned,

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which is helping you develop a training program. But if it's not that, can it prevent injury?

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Can you identify what's going to cause an injury, I guess, is the ultimate question.

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Yeah. So as you know, the answer to that question is a pretty conclusive no. And it is confusing

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from a statistical standpoint or from a research standpoint, because when you look at a lot of

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these studies, they will say that people who perform poorly on whatever movement screen it is

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have an increased risk of injury. So it might be usually there's some sort of total score on the

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screen. Maybe it's a 14 out of 21 in the case of the FMS. And they'll say people who score less

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than 14 are four times more likely or whatever to sustain an injury over the next period of time.

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So that might be true in some contexts with some athletic groups, depending on the sport and the

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level of play and the gender and all that. But basically that association is very different

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from predicting on an individual basis who is and isn't going to sustain an injury. So what

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we think is going to happen is, oh, we're going to do this screen, we're going to find out that

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they're less than this cutoff score, and then we're going to identify those people and then give them

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an intervention and it's going to prevent their injuries. And what actually turns out to happen

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is that the screen, there were a bunch of people who scored better than whatever your cutoff score

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were, was that those people also get injured. And that's because this movement quality piece

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is only one probably small component of all of the different things that can affect someone's injury

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risk. So there's movement, there's also sports skill and strength, there are psychological factors,

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age and sex are factors that can't be modified, previous injury factors in, those are adding to

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the piece of the puzzle. There's also factors within the sport. So the playing field, the equipment,

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the shoes that the people are wearing, the weather outside, and then there's what happens in that

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moment of the injury, especially if it's a contact injury, like what was the opposing player doing.

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So when you think about this whole picture of how injuries happen, you can readily realize that

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movement quality or competency or the way that somebody moves is just this one small piece of

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the puzzle. And even everything that I just said didn't even account for a training load or

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like training history and relative preparedness, which is another huge piece of it. So when you

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realize, oh, wow, this injury is really complicated, we probably can't identify on an individual

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basis who's going to get injured based on the way that somebody moves. Then like you said,

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you can start going into other reasons for why this screening process might be beneficial.

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And again, like you said, it's really just about helping with exercise selection, maybe again,

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showing the person what they're capable of, figuring out their starting point, figuring out

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a baseline so that maybe you can compare to later to show someone the progress that they've made.

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Hey, remember when we were first starting out, you needed assistance or you needed to do the drill

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for the squat and the deadlift. Now look at you, you're deadlifting half your body weight

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or whatever it is and kind of show people progress that way. Maybe also if somebody is

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injured and you need something to compare to from a movement standpoint from their pre-injury,

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that can be a nice thing to have that baseline assessment to then show that they're back to

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their baseline or maybe even exceeding their baseline because they got injured at that initial

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level of movement. But again, movement is just one piece of this much bigger puzzle. So then

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then the other piece that you mentioned, we shouldn't even be really worried about getting

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this. If we're talking about, oh, we're doing this movement screen because we're worried about

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getting injured in the gym, that is not really something that we need to worry about.

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Because like you said, the injury rates in the gym, strength training is a very safe movement practice

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and most many athletic endeavors are, some of them are not like football,

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it's not a safe sport. The injury rates on football are very high. So like if you compare,

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oh, I could do a thousand exposures, I could play football a thousand times, I would get injured

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a bunch of times. Whatever that high number is, 30 times if I were to play football a thousand times,

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if I were to strength train, I would get injured once maybe or two or three times. And that's

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like, those numbers are pretty uniform across bodybuilding, powerlifting, crossfit, which

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everybody thinks is dangerous. Those numbers are so low, this is really safe, relatively safe.

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So what does cause an injury in the gym? I find that people will be like, oh, that exercise is bad

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for my back or they have these preconceived notions. But at the same time, maybe I'm introducing

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someone to deadlift and I make a comment like, yeah, let's make sure we don't go too heavy this

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first time. And it almost, I don't know if they pick up on it, but it's almost implying that if

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they were to go heavy, they're going to get hurt. And I don't want them to be thinking that in the

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back of their head. When I do go heavy deadlifting, it's a higher risk. And the risk-reward ratio is

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probably a whole nother conversation. There's a person on Instagram, Alec Blenis, I don't know if

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you follow him, but he puts out really great content. And I-

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His unamazing follow.

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Yeah. And I love all the stuff that he talks about. And he says like, sometimes those bilateral

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exercises are the ones you're going to get hurt at because they're the ones that people actually

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push really hard as opposed to like no one usually maxes out their lunge. So what causes an injury in

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the gym? Are there good exercises? Are there bad exercises? Are there just exercises you're not

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prepared for?

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Yeah, that's my take on it. It's just things that you're not prepared for. What causes an injury,

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it can be such a fluky thing. So I agree that it's not really this case of good and bad movements.

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My thought process around that is a movement could only be bad if it was uniformly bad for

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every single person who could attempt it. And I haven't come up with any exercises that I

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put on that list. So there are certain exercises that might not be appropriate for an individual

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at a given time, but that doesn't make the exercise bad. It's just a poor application of

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like all exercises are neutral. So what causes an injury? Sometimes it's bad luck. Sometimes it's

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all of those factors just unfortunately co-occurring at the same time of, hey, you got

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poor sleep, you're stressed, you're under hydrated, you're doing more than you should have done on

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that day, which is hard to know, and you did one rep too many. A lot of people when they look at

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this say, oh, well, you got hurt deadlifting, so deadlifts must be bad. And it's not that deadlifts

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are bad. It's just this person had the unlucky incident of those stars aligning in a bad way.

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So I mean, sometimes it can just be poor. Yeah, especially if you do something like you drop a

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plate on your foot. Well, that was poor safety measures. But yeah, if you get hurt deadlifting

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on a weight that you normally do, bad luck. If you get hurt deadlifting on a weight that was more

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than you normally would, you're not going to be able to do it. So it's not a bad thing.

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That was more than you normally do. I guess you just found out that you weren't prepared for that.

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But it is this fine line because we do want to progressively overload. And so, you know, it's

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the thing like you mentioned about, oh, telling somebody this subtle kinesiophobic thing about,

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hey, we won't want to go too heavy today, or hey, you want to make sure that you keep your

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back flat so that you don't hurt your back. Like we mean well with these cues, or these words of

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caution, but it can subtly plant that seed that if you flex your spine, you will get injured,

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or if you go too heavy, you will get injured. And it's just not that simple. And furthermore,

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we can adapt to any of those positions. So as long as you always lift with a flexed back,

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and you build it up very gradually, you can adapt. And as long as you lift just a little bit more

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than you have been doing, and don't go ham on a relatively new exercise to you, you are minimizing

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the risk as much as you can. So as trainers, we tend to say these things, again, meaning well,

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and trying to keep people safe. But at the same time, we might be subtly insinuating these

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negative beliefs that can plant in the client's head the seed that could cause them to fear

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a movement which we really don't want to do. Yeah, this is such a hard topic to discuss

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because there's kind of so many nuances to it. When we teach our Adaptex course to people,

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they often come from like a NASM cert or an ACE cert, and it's taught that movement looks very

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similar. There's an ideal technique that everyone should adopt. But then when you get and you train

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hundreds of people, you realize that doesn't really exist. People can RDO with a C-section

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and they have a seemingly perfectly neutral spine and still have lower back pain. So it's tough

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because we're not encouraging you to dismiss the relevancy of technique, but it's just that

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there's so many things that go into it and technique kind of exists along a continuum of

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acceptable and unacceptable. It's hard to make recommendations. Yeah, and I had my NASM cert

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too. I've read that book. I've seen the lines that they draw from the back and the shins,

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and they're saying, this has to be very parallel. And if they intersect, this is a recipe for

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disaster. And then you train 100 people, especially somebody with disability or multiple

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people with disabilities, and so few people move the same way. So few people move that textbook way

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and you begin to realize, oh, well, they're all doing fine. Or maybe like you said, the people

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who do move the textbook way have as much back pain as the people who move differently. So

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we understand why there are these norms or these textbook things. We have to understand that this

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thing is a squat, but then we also have to understand that it is a range where there might

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be a couple things that we really feel strongly that we don't want to see the squat perform this

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way or that way. And that's okay, but we can also have this wider range of what would be acceptable

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and allow for that buffer. And also recognize again that if people train that, if they do that

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movement that way and they build it up slowly over time, then they can adapt and be robust to that.

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Whereas somebody else who's just doing it for the first time and looking a certain way,

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maybe we would want to steer them a little bit away from that.

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This could be a good segue into the relationship between flexibility and injury. And so you teach

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yoga, you teach training for yoga. A lot of people associate the practice of yoga with people trying

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to improve their flexibility and mobility. You could use it simultaneously, but I hear all the

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time like, oh, so and so hurts. I just need to stretch more or I'm sore after the gym. I just

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need to stretch more. But we also have a lot of dancers at our gym who are more mobile than

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anyone else and they always have this perception of stiffness or tightness. They're always trying

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to stretch their hamstrings and they're throwing their feet over their, or they're throwing their

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legs over their head. And I can't even dream to touch those positions, but I don't have that same

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perception of tightness. So all of that to say, what's flexibility's role in injury prevention?

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And maybe what is flexibility's role in general in terms of pain and performance?

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So, I mean, you touched on so many good points. Where do we even start? So

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like you said, some of the people really value flexibility, right? Especially when you talk to

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young athletes, they think I need to stretch more. That's what's going to prevent injuries. I need

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to stretch more. That's going to help reduce my soreness. And I think what we find is that

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neither of those things are true. And that doesn't mean stretching is bad or that we shouldn't do it.

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It just means that it might not be a hundred percent necessary for everybody, or at least not

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for those particular goals. So also what you mentioned, people who are flexible still perceive

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that they're very tight. So like hamstrings are one of the most common ones. Everybody in the world

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almost thinks that, perceives that they have tight hamstrings. And then you go and test their toe

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touch or test their supine active straight leg raise. And they can touch their chin to their face

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or their head to their shins and palm the floor. And it's like, well, clearly you're not inflexible.

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You might be perceiving tightness and that is a different thing. So what the research shows is

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that it's complicated as far as like, especially when you start talking about hypermobility.

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I would say that you can certainly find studies that show that less flexibility might be associated

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with increased risk, but not all studies show that. You can probably also find studies that show that

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too much flexibility is associated with increased risk. So then you start talking about those

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hypermobile yogis who can put their legs behind their head. And maybe that is a risk because

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you have this access to this position that you don't have as much control over. So then when

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you start talking about, oh, is yoga the best movement practice for someone who's hypermobile?

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I mean, it depends on the type of yoga, but if the pursuit is just of more flexibility and the

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person's already very flexible, then maybe that's not exactly what they need. Maybe they could do

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yoga, but the yoga should be catered to building some strength into those positions. So yeah,

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the, I guess the bottom line, and then I'll ask you what the question was again, is that there

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are certainly instances, there are sports where you need deep, deep flexibility. Dance, ballet,

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like ballerinas or hockey goalies, there are certain sports where you do need to be very

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flexible and you do probably need to sort of be able to do that. But I think that's the

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thing to stretch before the workout to be able to access those ranges of motion within the

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training session or stretch every day or often to build up those chronic adaptations of flexibility.

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You might also be able to get those adaptations from full range of motion strength training

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because if you do a Romanian deadlift, a stiff legged deadlift, that's putting a pretty big

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hamstring on the hamstrings, kind of not that different from if you lie on your back and put

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your foot up against the wall. So I guess now I'll open that back up to, what was the question at

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the beginning before I went on my rant? I'm not even sure if there was, it was more so a commentary

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on should people prioritize flexibility for injury prevention, which I think kind of already

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addressed to a degree. Yeah, so maybe, right? But not universally and not the way, it's not

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this number one priority that many people think it is. Yeah, and not to the degree that it gets

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in the way, again, kind of like the mobility or improving these arbitrary metrics of range of

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motion, as long as it doesn't get in the way of actually training. If someone's spending an hour

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of their, or a half hour of their hour long session stretching, are they really moving towards

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the CDC's recommended levels of daily activity? So if you're thinking about, well, we have an

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obesity epidemic and so many people don't meet the guidelines for physical activity of 150 minutes

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of moderate intensity exercise, two days a week of strength training. If you're prioritizing a lot

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of the time that you are allocating to exercise to flexibility training and it's very low intensity,

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you're not going to get those adaptations that we're seeking from the strength and aerobic

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training. So is this the biggest fish to fry? For most people, probably not. There could be a subset

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of people, maybe older adults, people with chronic conditions who strength training and aerobic

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exercise might not be a good fit for them in the immediate term. So the intensity of flexibility

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stretching could be a good fit, but that's like a relatively smaller niche or subset of people

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compared to the majority of the people who really just need to be working pretty hard doing something

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aerobic and doing something strength. And sure, if they like stretching, have at it for separate from

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those 150 minutes a week plus two sessions of strength training. Or as a very small

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part of your workout. I'm not too in tune with all of the research on it, but I would imagine

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there's certain activities where stiffness and tightness is advantageous to flexibility. For

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example, running, I feel like some degree of stiffness is actually good because it's more

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efficient for transferring force from the ground. Same thing with being a football lineman. You don't

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want to be hyper mobile if someone's about to come smash into you. You want to be stiff to a degree.

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That's kind of my surface level understanding of it too. I haven't delved too deeply into that

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research, but apparently from a running efficiency standpoint, if you're stiffer and there's like

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our colloquial understanding of stiffness and then there's the more biomechanical explanation of what

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stiffness is. But yeah, it could be that doing a ton of stretching would be counterproductive to

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that, especially when you think about not needing huge ranges of motion to do an activity like

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jogging or running where again, it's task specific and it's individual specific.

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But it's also probably not going to hurt. The amount of stretching that you actually have to do,

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the duration of the hold, the intensity of the hold, the frequency of the stretching to

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probably elicit these negative adaptations is likely more than the 30 seconds that people are

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doing before their workout. So it's like, oh, people, you can take it to such an extreme and

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say, well, we should never stretch because it inhibits force and power production. And it's

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like, that's a transient thing that happens for like 15 minutes is washed out when you do dynamic

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stretching afterwards. And unless you're trying to break a world record, you probably don't need to

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be worried about a 2% drop off in your strength. Yeah, I feel like that was the big study that got

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people on like the anti-stretching train. They were like, oh, the force production was decreased in

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this population of people that stretched before they jumped. And then everyone was just like,

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oh, we shouldn't stretch them because our workouts are going to be crap.

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That's like holding the stretch for 10 minutes and then going immediately into a vertical jump,

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which isn't neither like how long you hold it nor how you would do a session in real life.

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So going off of hypermobility conditions like EDS, joint hypermobility, even Down syndrome to a

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degree where hypotonia and hypermobility are common, is there specific forms of exercise that

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are best for these populations? And are there specific forms of exercises that they should maybe

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shy away from? I admittedly don't have a ton of experience working with those people besides the

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yoga practitioners who I work with from a strength training standpoint. My bias is for strength

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training, right? Especially when you think about like those people have pre-selected them yoga or

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other types of flexibility practices because they're good at them and they feel good and they like

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doing them. And I wouldn't say to stop doing those things, but I would say it's really important to

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develop strength, especially when you do have access to those extreme ranges of motion.

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So that's my bias for it. Absolutely. And can yoga, how can the practice of yoga bias

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strength instead of flexibility? Yeah. So that's a really interesting one. And I kind of got

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back and forth with this because I do have this platform that I co-created with my friend,

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Jenny Rawlings, who's a yoga teacher. And we are all about teaching yoga students and teachers how

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to strength train. And we kind of do it through this lens of yoga where we like, like a kettlebell

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windmill we call, well, I guess we call it a windmill, but it's, we kind of make the analogy to

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this is very similar to triangle pose. And so kind of showing people how similar it is to yoga

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and how similar, how we can map these strength training exercises onto yoga poses. But anyway,

386
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:36,400
there are people who just don't want to strength train, right? They, they want to do yoga,

387
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:43,200
they love yoga. They don't want to go to the gym. They don't want to lift weights. So how do you

388
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:52,720
then make the yoga practice more strengthening? And so that is, you know, we, we, I guess our,

389
00:41:52,720 --> 00:41:56,480
say, Hey, you should really try this thing. Strength training. We should do it separate from

390
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,880
a yoga practice so that you can just have yoga be for what it's really good for, and then have

391
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:06,720
strength training be separate and then find the, you know, experience the benefits of this

392
00:42:06,720 --> 00:42:12,800
reciprocity. But if one, if the person would say, I don't want to do that. I only want to do yoga,

393
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:19,600
then we need to focus on how we can make the practice of yoga itself more strengthening.

394
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:25,040
So that might be doing things like, uh, single leg exercises because, you know,

395
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:30,480
something like chair pose, which is basically a half or quarter squat with your arms overhead

396
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:35,200
in yoga. People will say, well, I'm just going to hold it longer and that's going to get me stronger.

397
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:42,240
And as we know, that's going to get you stronger in the short term. But once you adapt to that

398
00:42:42,240 --> 00:42:46,880
and you're holding it longer and longer, a 30 second or 60 second hold is an endurance,

399
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:52,560
a muscular endurance feat. It's not really building a ton of strength. So finding ways to

400
00:42:53,600 --> 00:43:00,400
do the, you know, incorporate more single leg work or incorporate more end range positions where

401
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:06,560
you're building strength in those positions or incorporating more like isometric contractions,

402
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:12,800
maybe squeezing a yoga block, just, and then there are certainly yoga poses that are just hard,

403
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:21,200
uh, arm balances, inversions, handstands. So, so there are ways to, you know, tweak the practice.

404
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:30,960
So it's not just about, Hey, how deep can we go into this stretch, but how can we focus on poses

405
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:37,760
and implementations of poses that we can find some strength in, uh, which is, you know, it's a

406
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:42,800
different paradigm. Yeah, for sure. I think sometimes people think if something's hard,

407
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:48,400
it means it's good for you. Um, like you'll, you'll sometimes hear like a football player who's

408
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:54,560
obviously, uh, in the top 1% of the populations in terms of strengths say, Oh, I went to yoga and it

409
00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:58,560
was so hard. It's like, obviously it was really hard, but that doesn't mean you necessarily

410
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:05,600
have to do it to improve at your sport or whatever. I think sometimes people think that they're like

411
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:10,560
filling in these gaps by finding things they're not good at. Like you don't, if you don't run,

412
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:14,800
going out for a run is going to be hard, but that doesn't necessarily mean you need to go out for

413
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:22,160
runs. Right. So like the linemen in football, yeah, running will be hard, but when do you have

414
00:44:22,160 --> 00:44:30,000
to run two miles straight? Like your position requires like doing a sled push would be much

415
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:36,480
more, yeah, much more similar. And it's not to say that, well, maybe it is to say that you should,

416
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:42,480
I don't know. Is it then, then you're like, well, running's bad for linemen. Uh, I don't know.

417
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:46,320
I don't want to say that it could be gradually progressed to the point where they could talk.

418
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:52,560
Yeah. You would like, you want to find something that you can do, uh, for, for an extended period

419
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:58,560
of time. If you're 300 pounds, like is running the best thing or would cycling be better or an

420
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:04,000
elliptical or whatever. So yeah, they're, you know, finding things that are going to be specific to

421
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:09,360
the task. General aerobic fitness is beneficial for most people finding the way to that you can

422
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:14,960
do that comfortably. And that isn't just hard for the sake of it being hard. Yeah. We talked about

423
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:21,920
movement patterns a little bit in that movement screen, uh, discussion. One aspect of movement

424
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:28,000
patterns maybe could be core training. I, I just want to touch on it real quick. Um, when I first

425
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:32,800
started training people about 10 years ago, I think like Mike Boyle's functional training was,

426
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:38,640
was one of the first books I read and yeah, quickly adopted the old, uh, Paloff presses,

427
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:42,880
dead bugs and bird dogs were going to solve everyone's back pain. And then it just didn't,

428
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:49,120
it just didn't happen the way, um, I was told it was going to happen. I'm like, I was lied to. Um,

429
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:56,080
so I think over, over the years I've trended a little bit away from solely static core stuff,

430
00:45:56,080 --> 00:46:00,560
or I definitely have turned it away from solely stack core stuff to the more dynamic stuff. I

431
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:05,920
don't think I fear sit-ups to the degree that I was, uh, taught to fear them. And, uh, we do a

432
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:10,800
lot of things like side bending and side planks with hip lifts and stuff now. So it's interesting

433
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:15,360
the same trajectory. It's interesting how the fitness industry as a whole kind of moves in

434
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:21,680
these trends. Um, and it's interesting to maybe predict what's going to become irrelevant in the

435
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:26,480
next five years and how things are going to change. But maybe we can talk about core training real

436
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:33,360
quick. Um, the balance between static, maybe yoga could be perceived as, as static poses versus,

437
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:40,080
uh, like dynamic core training. Um, how do you program both, uh, is one better than the other?

438
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:48,880
Yeah. So I had the very, the same influences and the same process of really focusing on

439
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:55,120
isometrics. When I first started to like yesterday, I was in the gym and I started a new training

440
00:46:55,120 --> 00:47:01,840
program for myself and I did reverse crunches, side bends, and cable twists all in one workout.

441
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:08,080
And if I had, if I saw that, uh, five, 10 years ago, I would have been horrified. I think I hope

442
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:15,360
maybe five years ago, I would have been more, uh, more up to date, but yeah, I, so the pendulum

443
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:23,120
for me has definitely shifted back to, uh, you know, all movement of the spine is good movement.

444
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:31,280
Uh, and so I, in my programming, I kind of, I try to give a mix. So like, I, I typically think of

445
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:37,200
it in three categories. There's the category number one, that's purely the static that you

446
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:43,680
mentioned. So your power off presses, your side planks, your suit, well, maybe not suitcase carry,

447
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:48,880
that's a little bit more dynamic, your front plank, your hollow body hold. And then there

448
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:55,200
are exercises that are static at your trunk or torso or core, but then there's dynamic movement

449
00:47:55,200 --> 00:48:01,840
happening around them. So things like bird dogs and dead bugs and suitcase carries, like one-armed

450
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:08,000
farmers carries. So those would be exercises where you're still training the torso core,

451
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:13,760
whatever you want to call it in a neutral position or a static position, but then you're resisting

452
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:18,880
perturbations around it from your arms and legs. And then there's the third category that 10 years

453
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:24,400
ago, everybody was saying to swear off because it was not functional or not the role of the core,

454
00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:34,560
which is your side bends, your sit-ups, your crunches, your Russian twists. Um, and so I've,

455
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:41,840
I've over the last few years come to appreciate that these exercises are not bad for the spine.

456
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:47,440
They're not going to cause your spine to explode. In fact, they're going to cause your spine to be

457
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:55,840
more robust as long as you progress them gradually. Um, and, and like, when you, when you look back,

458
00:48:55,840 --> 00:49:01,680
you see like, well, some people, some people realized that that whole anti-movement isometric

459
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:08,480
core training thing was a fad at the time and they like still were doing your, your dynamic exercises.

460
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:14,880
And so it's funny just to think about like who the, the, the loudest voices were about these things

461
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:21,360
and where, like you said, where it's headed and are we going to go back to, uh, are we going to,

462
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:26,160
in five years from now, are you going to say the isometric exercises are bad? And then in 10 years

463
00:49:26,160 --> 00:49:32,160
from now, is it going to repeat all over again? Uh, but really just from my programming standpoint,

464
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:36,320
having a mix of all of those things that's appropriate to the person and to their goals

465
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:42,080
and to their current level. Yeah. It's interesting that the abdominals are kind of the only muscle

466
00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:47,760
group that people train exclusively with isometrics. It's like, it's like, it's a unique muscle where

467
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:55,760
everything was eccentric and concentric. How do you, it, it, now that I'm 10 years in,

468
00:49:55,760 --> 00:50:01,600
I'm like, well, how did I not see that that would be akin to saying we should only do isometric holds

469
00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:09,040
for our bicep curls because the biceps are not meant to, they're meant to resist motion instead

470
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:14,880
of create, like it just doesn't make any sense, especially when you, you look at sports and you

471
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:20,160
see how people move into different positions all the time. And maybe we actually want to be prepared

472
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:25,920
for these positions instead of encountering them in the, uh, in the field of play for the first time.

473
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:32,480
And of course we know why we were, we were afraid because there were certain research, uh, that was

474
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:39,920
showing that sit-ups and spinal flexion might be injurious. And now we have a little bit more of a

475
00:50:39,920 --> 00:50:45,040
nuanced understanding of that, that that's, you know, those studies weren't as real world as,

476
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:50,560
uh, we, maybe they were made out to be. The big divers didn't necessarily translate.

477
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:56,800
Uh, exactly. Uh, 86,000 flexion sex rolls or whatever. That's the number. Make sure you have

478
00:50:56,800 --> 00:51:01,200
a ticker keeping track of how many times you round your spine. I joke with my fiance like,

479
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:06,400
Ooh, and like I use a shoe horn to put my shoe on, on my prosthetic side because my foot doesn't

480
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:12,160
dorsiflex or plantar flex. And, uh, I joke that I have like this really long shoe horn and I'm like,

481
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:16,400
I'm going to save this spinal flexion cycle by using my shoe horn today. So I don't have to bend

482
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:22,880
down. I'm sure your fiance really appreciates that joke. Um, we kind of glanced over it, I guess in

483
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:30,400
the bio I mentioned, um, that you were a Paralympic athlete. Um, I guess maybe why did you stop

484
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:40,480
competing and if Paralympics were as popular or, um, well televised as they are now, do you think

485
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:47,680
you would have pursued a career in athletics further? Oh, interesting question. So my swimming

486
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:53,360
career kind of neatly aligned with my college swimming career or my adaptive career. I tried

487
00:51:53,360 --> 00:52:01,280
out for the 2012 games and that was my senior year of college. So it, the, you know, mostly the reason

488
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:08,400
I stopped was that I was done college swimming. I felt like I had reached the, the, the pinnacle of

489
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:14,960
my career, which was setting a couple of records. I ended up not making the U S team that final year

490
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:21,040
and I was just like, I was ready to move on with my life, which is when I got my diploma and personal

491
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:27,600
training, went back to grad school after that for biomechanics and so on. Um, but yeah, at, at the

492
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:34,240
time, 2012, which was 12 years ago at this point, like it was, it was a bit of a fringe thing, right?

493
00:52:34,240 --> 00:52:41,440
I don't, I don't think that we had as many like Paralympians on in commercials during the Super

494
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:47,200
Bowl, like the way that it is now, like there, we're out there more in the public eye, which I think

495
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:54,080
is really cool. Um, but yeah, you know, it felt like my, my career had just reached its natural

496
00:52:54,080 --> 00:53:01,200
conclusion at that time. I also, I had just been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis a couple of years

497
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:09,360
before the end of my career. So I was having some pretty, uh, wicked digestive issues that resulted

498
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:16,240
in me ending up getting my colon removed in 2015. So like would have had to stop swimming then. Um,

499
00:53:16,240 --> 00:53:25,200
but anyway, I, uh, about six months ago, I joined a master swim team with a friend and just had my

500
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:32,880
second competition in this decade. Uh, and like, I'm not breaking any records, but I'm, I'm pleasantly

501
00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:39,280
surprised with how much, uh, I've been able to recover my, my ability. Like I never thought that

502
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:46,800
I would get as fit as I am now again, like after college. So it's been really fun to get back into

503
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:53,200
it on a more recreational level without the intention of like trying to pursue a really elite,

504
00:53:53,200 --> 00:54:02,000
uh, level and just doing it a couple of times a week for fun. Was that a hard to maybe not compare

505
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:08,080
to previous abilities or yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm still falling into that trap for sure of like

506
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:14,320
going on college swimming.com and looking at my, like I had to, I entered the 200 yard freestyle

507
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:18,720
in this meet. I didn't know what my time was going to be. So I looked at my college times.

508
00:54:18,720 --> 00:54:24,160
I added a couple seconds and I thought, well, maybe I'll be close. I wasn't, um, I was, I ended

509
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:29,600
up being much slower than that. So honestly, that was a little discouraging to, you know, I, I just,

510
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:34,400
I guessed a time that I thought would be conservative and it ended up not even be conservative enough.

511
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:43,120
So, uh, yeah, it can be hard. And you know, I had to, I was, I was a little bit down just on that

512
00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:49,680
event. The meet I swam like six events and four of them were, were better than the previous time

513
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:54,400
that I'd done in December. I was a little discouraged like the day, the day of, and then the next day,

514
00:54:54,400 --> 00:55:00,000
I was like looking at the times again, I was like, Oh my God, like I did, I did better this meet than

515
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:05,920
I did like three months ago in all of the events that I duplicated. Like this is awesome. I'm making

516
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:14,720
progress. I'm 34 years old. I should try to forget what I did in my twenties because it's, it's just

517
00:55:14,720 --> 00:55:19,360
no longer realistic anymore. And I should just compare myself to myself in my present 34 year old

518
00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:27,840
status. Yeah. During college, uh, how did your strength training differ as an amputee? And can

519
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:33,280
you make any general recommendations for a personal trainer who might be working with the amputee?

520
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:40,400
Yeah. So, so strength training was, I, I joked that I did it to get a leg up on my competition

521
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:50,160
and, um, I hired a personal trainer my sophomore year of college and that I really did feel like

522
00:55:50,160 --> 00:55:55,440
that made a huge difference in my performance. It also inspired me to then go and become a personal

523
00:55:55,440 --> 00:56:03,760
trainer myself. Um, but the, the workouts that we did at the time, it was, it was very much, uh,

524
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:12,160
like a body part split. Uh, it was not super athletic oriented. I mean, there were certainly

525
00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:19,200
some things, but it was more of like your body building, uh, program mapped onto an athlete as

526
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:27,520
opposed to like what I would consider to be more sports performance training. And so my, my personal

527
00:56:27,520 --> 00:56:34,400
trainer and I kind of figured out what was going to work best for me. Right. And that was a lot of

528
00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:42,400
single leg exercises. It was a lot of like taking the prosthesis off and balancing on one leg and do

529
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:48,000
it. I got, I mean, honestly, I wasn't even doing anything really heavy, like squatting and deadlifting.

530
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:53,600
It wasn't until I then became a personal trainer and realized that I could do like heavy barbell,

531
00:56:53,600 --> 00:57:01,520
I could do those things on one leg. So, uh, it didn't, it didn't do a great job of working

532
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:09,600
with my disability. It kind of just worked around the, the not having a one leg. And so now, now

533
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:14,800
that I'm, you know, in the last 10 years since I became a personal trainer and started trying to

534
00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:20,560
figure out, well, how can I train my affected side better? It's been a more gradual exploration of

535
00:57:20,560 --> 00:57:27,520
what exercises can I do on both sides or how can I limit the range of motion so that I can, uh,

536
00:57:27,520 --> 00:57:31,760
train, train both sides at the same time or independently or whatever. So it's like this

537
00:57:31,760 --> 00:57:37,520
constant trial and error process of, Hey, does this work? Uh, that doesn't feel great. Hey, let

538
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:42,960
me try this other thing. And like, I'm still finding new exercises or ways of doing things,

539
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:48,720
uh, that I previously might've poo pooed or maybe I tried it before and it, it didn't work for me

540
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:55,120
then, but it works for me now. So like my best recommendation would just be to try so many

541
00:57:55,120 --> 00:58:00,000
different things to find out what works for the person. And like what works for me as an amputee

542
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:05,680
might not work for another person as an amputee. I also like my limb difference is congenital. So

543
00:58:05,680 --> 00:58:12,560
I was born missing my leg and I have like a kind of funkier hip anatomy, which more or less is

544
00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:17,600
more or less prevents me from doing like something like a deadlift from the floor, uh, because I

545
00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:22,320
can't get into a good position in the bottom, but like I can do rack pulls or I can do RDLs,

546
00:58:22,320 --> 00:58:27,760
but maybe a different amputee either above knee or below knee would have no problem with that. So

547
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:34,480
like, it's not necessarily even taking my, my advice as this is what works for me and applying

548
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:39,280
it to somebody else with an above the knee amputation. It's really just like, what are all

549
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:45,840
the ways that we can adapt the, and a squat, a deadlift, a lunge or whatever it is. And then

550
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:51,360
trying those things out and finding what works for the person. Yeah. Which is like,

551
00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:57,840
which is a non-answer because it's like, I can't tell you, but like, and it, but it's, it's co

552
00:58:57,840 --> 00:59:04,480
co-creating that with the person and, and just being open to experimentation. I mean, you did

553
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:09,840
make great recommendations when you reviewed our amputation module for the Adaptex course, like

554
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:17,040
three years, like three years ago. Um, I just wanted some practical advice and you made great

555
00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:22,640
comments about rack pulls versus deadlifts from the floor, maybe Smith machine squats, taking out

556
00:59:22,640 --> 00:59:27,600
some of those stability issues. And that's the other like Smith machine squats. I'm, I'm sure

557
00:59:27,600 --> 00:59:33,840
10 years ago, you probably imagine would have poohed it because those functional training

558
00:59:33,840 --> 00:59:41,200
gurus were saying that was not functional. And now like, I love Smith machine for myself because

559
00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:47,280
I have a little bit of instability in my, in my balance, right? So being able to get some external

560
00:59:47,280 --> 00:59:53,040
stability is really helpful for me to then load that muscle. But I like, not even just for myself,

561
00:59:53,040 --> 00:59:59,760
I would give Smith machine squats to anybody who wasn't, you know, didn't have a goal of

562
00:59:59,760 --> 01:00:04,720
free bar squatting or maybe even they did, but just building strength and building muscle is

563
01:00:04,720 --> 01:00:10,640
functional in and of itself. And then you can layer on the balance component afterwards if you want to.

564
01:00:10,640 --> 01:00:16,960
But it just, yeah, we went, I was like so dogmatic about, oh, Smith machine isn't good because it's

565
01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:22,400
creating a stability for you. Like there's so much benefit to that, uh, that it doesn't have to be

566
01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:28,080
this black and white either, or it can be both. And especially for somebody who is an amputee or,

567
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:35,760
or, or anybody, it can be a great thing to try. Whereas I would have totally said no way a while

568
01:00:35,760 --> 01:00:41,440
ago. Yeah, same thing. We don't have a Smith machine, but I've seen people be able to squat

569
01:00:41,440 --> 01:00:45,840
with like a lot more forward knee translation. So maybe they're getting a better quad stimulus

570
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:51,760
when they have that orientation of the weight. So I thought, oh, it's, it's constraints to this fixed

571
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:57,440
bar path. It's no good. And then I finally tried it out and like, wow, I can put my feet farther

572
01:00:57,440 --> 01:01:03,600
forward if I want so that I don't need ankle dorsiflexion. I can do it farther behind. I can

573
01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:08,800
do it front back. I can do it zircher. Like I can do it zircher and basically lean back on the bar

574
01:01:08,800 --> 01:01:15,520
for all this stability and really focus on pushing through my prosthetic side. And it's just like such

575
01:01:15,520 --> 01:01:22,400
a game changer. So yeah, but you know, not everybody has a Smith machine at their gym. So you try to

576
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:28,080
replicate, like you can replicate that just by if you have a squat rack and you don't mind scraping

577
01:01:28,080 --> 01:01:33,440
some of the paint off of it, sliding a bar up and down on the rack, like gives you that same, oh,

578
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:38,640
I can lean back against this. Yeah. Don't give anyone at my gym an idea of doing that. I do not

579
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:44,640
as an adaptive athlete. Did you want to work with adaptive athletes as a personal trainer?

580
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:53,120
Yeah. I got inquiries somewhat regularly from people reaching out through my website and

581
01:01:54,160 --> 01:01:59,600
I'm an amputee. I'd love to work with you. And I occasionally take them on and sometimes

582
01:01:59,600 --> 01:02:05,120
because it's not necessarily my number one expertise, like sometimes I refer them. I have

583
01:02:05,120 --> 01:02:11,600
a couple other friends who are amputees and personal trainers. And if I receive the email

584
01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:18,160
in a moment where I have eight tests to grade, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to refer you to

585
01:02:18,160 --> 01:02:23,760
my friend who I think will be a better fit. So sometimes I like working with them and sometimes

586
01:02:23,760 --> 01:02:30,480
I defer to people with more expertise. Is that lived experience essential for understanding

587
01:02:30,480 --> 01:02:37,840
how to train amputees? I don't think so. I mean, I think it helps like I can relate on a personal

588
01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:45,040
level, but I think if you're able-bodied, but you have a lot of experience working with people

589
01:02:45,760 --> 01:02:53,280
in an adaptive context, you can build that to the point of like, I would much sooner trust you with

590
01:02:53,280 --> 01:02:58,960
an adaptive athlete than I would trust myself. You've been doing it for a long time. The

591
01:02:58,960 --> 01:03:06,800
materials you produce are so awesome. I have my own experience of lifting myself for 19 years,

592
01:03:06,800 --> 01:03:12,480
but that's only any equals one. So I wouldn't necessarily know the first thing about training

593
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:19,760
an upper extremity amputee. But I actually, I have a friend who's missing his arm at the elbow and

594
01:03:19,760 --> 01:03:26,160
he actually found me on the internet before we met in person. We like ran into each other at a rock

595
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:33,120
climbing gym and became friends. But he was like, oh my God, you're Travis Pond. I was blessed. I

596
01:03:33,120 --> 01:03:38,800
was touched to be recognized in the wild. That's like one of two times that that's ever happened.

597
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:46,640
But anyway, he was like, I follow you on Instagram. You really inspired me to get into the gym and try

598
01:03:46,640 --> 01:03:52,080
things because I saw you doing it. And it's like, well, totally different adaptations between upper

599
01:03:52,080 --> 01:03:59,200
body and lower body. But him seeing me doing things was enough to get him motivated to try things. So

600
01:03:59,200 --> 01:04:05,360
I think that's the cool thing. Maybe I don't give myself enough credit of like, yeah, I could figure

601
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:13,280
that out because I've adapted for myself. Anytime you work with anybody, nobody can do everything

602
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:20,240
to the Olympic level the first time they try it. So there's always an adaptation that's occurring,

603
01:04:20,240 --> 01:04:28,400
regardless of what the reason is, it might not be a disability. So I guess my long answer is, I think

604
01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:36,000
regardless of whether you're disabled yourself, we all have experience adapting things in the gym.

605
01:04:36,000 --> 01:04:43,920
And so I think anybody could probably figure these things out. But having more experience figuring

606
01:04:43,920 --> 01:04:48,880
it out for a specific population will make it easier. Yeah, you used the word inspired during

607
01:04:48,880 --> 01:04:56,560
that, that you motivated him to get involved. Have you had to deal with any glorified inspiration

608
01:04:56,560 --> 01:05:03,120
narrative sort of issues? What do you think about people calling you an inspiration?

609
01:05:04,080 --> 01:05:11,840
Yeah, so I kind of leaned into that when I first got onto the internet. A lot of my social media

610
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:18,800
presence was showing off like cool single leg exercises or like feats of strength in the gym.

611
01:05:18,800 --> 01:05:27,120
And I enjoyed attention. It helped me build a little bit of a following online. I subsequently

612
01:05:27,120 --> 01:05:35,600
realized that it wasn't the type of audience that I necessarily wanted to build from a standpoint of,

613
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:42,640
hey, I want to educate other fitness enthusiasts, personal trainers about exercise science,

614
01:05:42,640 --> 01:05:49,440
rehab science, and people who follow me for those cool tricks aren't necessarily interested in

615
01:05:49,440 --> 01:05:57,680
learning about the science of exercise or rehab. So that, I guess I got away from it a little bit,

616
01:05:57,680 --> 01:06:04,880
but maybe I still do it a little bit sometimes now too, just for fun. So yeah, I guess it's a

617
01:06:04,880 --> 01:06:12,000
fine line of I like the attention. I don't mind that if it helps me get a few more likes and

618
01:06:12,000 --> 01:06:21,120
follows on Instagram, like that doesn't bother me, but it can become over the top of, you know,

619
01:06:22,000 --> 01:06:30,320
what's your excuse and if he can do it, whatever, whatever. Yeah, I wouldn't say I have too much of

620
01:06:30,320 --> 01:06:38,800
a negative association with it, but it definitely, when I was really big into that, what I realized

621
01:06:38,800 --> 01:06:43,440
was it wasn't the type of follower that I was really trying to attract.

622
01:06:43,440 --> 01:06:48,800
Yeah, yeah, I get that. I think I've probably been following you for at least nine or 10 years. I'm

623
01:06:48,800 --> 01:06:56,400
not sure when you started putting out content, but it never seemed that way to me. You never

624
01:06:56,400 --> 01:07:02,560
really leaned into the, if I can do it, why aren't you doing it? No, I wouldn't do that,

625
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:07,920
but people would ascribe that to me in the comments or whatever. And I don't think it

626
01:07:07,920 --> 01:07:13,120
bothered me. I also have pretty thick skin. Not that anybody was trying to insult me. People

627
01:07:13,120 --> 01:07:22,960
were trying, were inspired by that. And yeah, it does get into the what's it called? Fitspiration

628
01:07:22,960 --> 01:07:28,400
or like inspiration porn. Inspiration porn. And it's like, yeah, do I really want to be

629
01:07:29,280 --> 01:07:35,600
fostering that? I don't know. But on a personal level, it never got to me.

630
01:07:35,600 --> 01:07:42,800
Yeah. One question that we ask all the guests is whether they have any recommendations to making

631
01:07:42,800 --> 01:07:47,600
the fitness industry as a whole more accessible or just fitness in general accessible?

632
01:07:47,600 --> 01:07:56,960
Yeah. So this is interesting. And maybe this is like my, maybe not everybody would share this

633
01:07:58,640 --> 01:08:07,120
opinion, but like when I approach a fitness setting, I just want to be treated as similarly

634
01:08:07,120 --> 01:08:15,760
as everyone else. Like I don't want special favors or special treatment. Like I want to be treated

635
01:08:15,760 --> 01:08:34,800
as similarly as everyone else. I don't know if that's like a personality flaw or because I

636
01:08:34,800 --> 01:08:43,680
recognize that I'm different, but I aspire not to be. But I don't know. I find that if I can find

637
01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:49,040
the way to do it, that's as similar as the way that everybody else is doing it, then I feel most

638
01:08:49,040 --> 01:09:00,160
included. So that's not always going to be entirely possible. But I guess I gravitate towards the

639
01:09:00,160 --> 01:09:07,120
activities that I don't need modifications for. And like that's not going to be, that might not

640
01:09:07,120 --> 01:09:14,960
be possible for everybody. But that's, I guess what my point is, like if we can not make a big

641
01:09:14,960 --> 01:09:22,480
deal out of modifying something, then that is what works best for me. Yeah. No, I think someone could

642
01:09:22,480 --> 01:09:28,880
hear that a personal trainer could hear that and just take away that it's not, it doesn't necessarily

643
01:09:28,880 --> 01:09:33,120
have to be drastically different training someone with a disability than someone without. In many

644
01:09:33,120 --> 01:09:39,440
cases, there's more similarities and differences. And some people might want to be included amongst

645
01:09:39,440 --> 01:09:43,440
the masses. Other people might feel more comfortable in sub-separate environments, but ultimately it's

646
01:09:43,440 --> 01:09:48,080
up to the individual. So if you were to go into a gym and say, I want to take the traditional

647
01:09:48,080 --> 01:09:53,280
CrossFit class or I want to take that group class, it's up to the trainer to figure out what

648
01:09:53,280 --> 01:09:57,200
modifications are necessary or up to you and the trainer to figure out what modifications are

649
01:09:57,200 --> 01:10:02,880
necessary. But yeah. And that I think is really important. That last thing you brought up. So

650
01:10:02,880 --> 01:10:08,720
like I've been doing CrossFit for about a year and I had dabbled before, but like I'm actually

651
01:10:08,720 --> 01:10:16,400
going to a CrossFit gym now. And the trainer knows that I'm an exercise science professor. So

652
01:10:18,480 --> 01:10:24,400
I think he gives me maybe a little bit more free. I don't know if he gives me more free reign or

653
01:10:24,400 --> 01:10:29,760
not, but like I'll ask him if, you know, do you have a suggestion or he'll volunteer a suggestion.

654
01:10:29,760 --> 01:10:36,800
And that's great. Like us being able to co-create like that's the workout on the board and here's

655
01:10:36,800 --> 01:10:41,440
how I'm going to modify it. Or do you have any ideas for how to modify it? Like just that

656
01:10:41,440 --> 01:10:48,000
conversation, that comfortability of, Hey, like I have an idea for how I'm going to do it and he'll

657
01:10:48,000 --> 01:10:53,280
let me go. Or he has an idea for how, you know, I might, maybe I modified it, but I made it easier

658
01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:57,920
than he wanted me to make it. So the next time he says, Hey, you know, you could try this next

659
01:10:57,920 --> 01:11:04,000
time. Or have you ever tried this or whatever? So having that two-way exchange of like, I'm the

660
01:11:04,000 --> 01:11:11,360
expert in my own body. He's the, he is the fitness expert and the CrossFit expert. How can we

661
01:11:11,360 --> 01:11:17,920
collaborate to find what's going to work best for me? That that's great. And recognizing both

662
01:11:17,920 --> 01:11:26,160
expertises. Well, I think we covered a bunch of great topics. I think hopefully we did a good job

663
01:11:26,160 --> 01:11:31,040
of providing the nuance within each of them. They're very case dependent, which is sometimes

664
01:11:31,040 --> 01:11:37,920
tough, but at the same time, maybe reassuring to a degree that there doesn't always have to be

665
01:11:37,920 --> 01:11:42,320
perfect standards. Movement doesn't have to be perfect, but appreciate everything that you've

666
01:11:42,320 --> 01:11:45,680
done for me over the last few years, just staying in touch and always being willing to answer

667
01:11:45,680 --> 01:11:50,880
questions that I have. And I'm glad to get you on the show to share some of the work that you're

668
01:11:50,880 --> 01:11:56,720
doing. If people want to find your contents, we'll put it in the show notes, but where would you

669
01:11:56,720 --> 01:12:03,360
recommend that they go? Well, first of all, thank you for the opportunity. It's, it's, it's been a

670
01:12:03,360 --> 01:12:08,720
pleasure for years knowing you and being able to exchange information. And I learned from you,

671
01:12:08,720 --> 01:12:15,600
I think just as much or more than you learned from me. So if people want to reach out, my website is

672
01:12:15,600 --> 01:12:21,680
a good place to find me. There's a contact form on there. It's just my name, travispollen.com.

673
01:12:21,680 --> 01:12:29,040
I'm also active on Instagram to an extent. My handle is fitness underscore pollinator. So

674
01:12:29,040 --> 01:12:33,840
those are probably the two best places to reach me. And then if anybody was interested in working

675
01:12:33,840 --> 01:12:42,400
with me, um, I do some individual remote training, and then I also have the, the group yoga strength

676
01:12:42,400 --> 01:12:48,080
training platform that's called strength for yoga. And that's that website and then the same Instagram

677
01:12:48,080 --> 01:12:53,600
handle. Awesome. Well, Travis, thanks again. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Brendan. Thank

678
01:12:53,600 --> 01:12:57,760
you for listening to the adapt X podcast. Our effort to amplify the ideas of our guests and

679
01:12:57,760 --> 01:13:01,920
create more inclusive and accessible industries is futile unless these episodes reach a larger

680
01:13:01,920 --> 01:13:06,320
audience. If you enjoyed our discussion today, please leave us a rating or review on whichever

681
01:13:06,320 --> 01:13:10,640
platform you use. And if you would like to learn more about adapt X, the course that we teach to

682
01:13:10,640 --> 01:13:14,640
health and fitness professionals and the projects that our organization is working on, you can

683
01:13:14,640 --> 01:13:40,960
subscribe to our newsletter through our website www.adaptex.org until next Monday.