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the Behind the Shield podcast with the CEO and
founder, Francisco Morales. Welcome to episode
581 of Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Gearing, and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome on the show Ben
Patrick. Now, Ben may be more familiar by his
online handle, Knees Over Toes Guy. And after
finding Ben's work and applying it to my own
knee injuries and knee pain, I was amazed how
well it worked. So I sought him out and ultimately
visited him at his gym in Clearwater, Florida.
So we discuss a host of topics from how we're
damaging our youth athletes, his own knee injury
journey that led him into the rehab journey that
he's on now, the societal and sporting elements
that are creating knee and shoulder pain, the
tools he brings through his ATG program, and
so much more. Before we get to this amazing conversation,
as I say every week, please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe
to the show. Leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every five -star rating truly does elevate this
podcast, therefore making it easier for others
to find. And this is a free library for you,
planet Earth. So all I ask in return is that
you help share these incredible men and women's
stories so I can get them to every single person
who needs to hear them. So with that being said,
I introduce to you Ben Patrick. Enjoy. Well,
Ben, I want to start by saying thank you so much
for inviting me here to your training space here
in Clearwater. You put me through an in -person
ATG session, which was incredible. So I signed
up, I think it was like two and a half months
ago, following your Zero program. But yeah, I
just want to start by saying thank you so much
for inviting me here today. That means a lot.
And man, you didn't disappoint. I was very impressed.
Well, I mean, like I said, you're incredibly
fit. Well, it was also following your program
credit where credit's due. If it had been no
training at all, I wouldn't be able to do some
of those movements, but that's cool. It's testament
to the zero program and moving on to that. So
we are sitting here in Florida. I would love
to start chronologically at the very beginning
of your timeline and kind of walk through that
way. So tell me where you were born and then
tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,
what your parents did and how many siblings.
Yeah. Only child born in San Jose, California.
My parents worked in office management, like
where you have a little office park, and then
you run the places and lease them. So I definitely
grew up kind of in the service industry, observing
them, crazy hard work ethic, very responsible.
They took it on themselves to have every office
rented out. You have tenants calling, this isn't
working, that needs to be fixed. So they were
so hard working. to service other people, to
give them really high exchange for what they
were getting. And I grew up working with them
from the time I was a little kid. I'd be tagging
along, doing physical labor type stuff. So I
grew up with a heavy emphasis, a heavy value
on work ethic, hard physical labor. Yeah, that
was my upbringing. Okay, now what about sports?
What were you playing back then? I was obsessed
with basketball. I think when you become obsessed
with one sport at a very young age, it could
give you an advantage in the skill, but a lot
of people have wrecked their bodies that way.
So probably every sport has something negative
about it physically. In basketball, it's usually
for the knees because you're just the nature
of the sport. You're jumping so much. You're
pounding on your knees so much. There's no example
in history that a human body was designed to
be jumping like 500 times a day. Jumping could
be used for certain things, but in basketball,
we overdo it. So our knees end up super stressed
out. So by 12, I already had like terrible chronic
knee pain. So talk to me about that journey,
because I've had a lot of coaches on here talking
about youth athletes. And it seems that to foster
resilience and overall performance and health,
the multi -sport athlete seems to do very, very
well. When did you really get passionate about
basketball? At what age? And then what were you
doing wrong as such a young child that already
had a negative effect on your knees by the time
you were 12? Yeah, good question. So right around
eight years old or so is when I started playing
on teams that would travel to other cities. And
so what that did is it showed me, I was like,
oh my gosh, I'm not very good compared to these
other players. They're faster than me. They jump
higher than me. So by eight, I already knew if
I was going to make it in basketball, I needed
some kind of an advantage. So what was clear
to me is if I just outworked everybody, that
would give me an advantage, a way to keep up
with better players than me naturally. So by
nine, I was already doing jump programs. So I'm
playing basketball as much as I can. And then
on top of that, doing jump program after jump
program at age nine, 10, 11. So by 12, like my
knees were already. My knees were already shot
and in chronic pain, and it would take me a very
long time to warm up. The muscles didn't quite
develop right because when you're in pain, you
stop bending your knees. Things don't form during
those ages that they're supposed to form. So
that was kind of what did it for me is obsession
with basketball, realizing I wasn't as good naturally
as other players, so then overdoing it to try
to be as good as them. Well, through just kind
of coming to your adult lens for a second, when
you look at the way some of our youth athletes
are trained, what are you seeing are the good
philosophies and then what are some of the bad
ones that are injuring our children? Well, it
seems like the more it deviates from what's natural
for a human body. So a sport like basketball
is going to have too much jumping and pounding
on the joints. For baseball, it's going to be
like too much throwing. A human body isn't designed
to throw that much. So you kind of have different
options. You could do the sport less. That's
actually worked out for a lot of people. A lot
of times people aren't looking at it now and
realizing Michael Jordan wasn't even interested
in basketball when he was 12. Michael Jordan
wouldn't have been Michael Jordan if he would
have been as serious as I was at eight with chronic
knee pain by the time he was 12. He played baseball.
He was just a kid. By the time he was 14, 15,
he didn't even make the local varsity high school
team. So he didn't get serious in basketball
until these muscles were already forming. So
as soon as you start specializing in a sport,
you now could be subject to adverse reactions
of the sport. So the moment you start specializing,
you need to actually start training to prevent
that. So that would be one strategy. Someone
could say, okay, I'm going to specialize, but
I'm going to need to train these areas to be
more protected. Or you could not specialize,
play a variety of sports. So it's, I mean, it's
kind of common sense. Certain of these sports
have certain overuse injuries. So you either
train to prevent those overuse injuries or you
balance it out and do different activities. Well,
you talked about travel balls too. That's something
I've spoken to with a few coaches now. Like we're
in Florida at the moment. Obviously, there are
professional, I mean, sorry, there are high level,
you know, sports teams in all our kind of educational
counties. Yep. It always seemed crazy to me as
well to these kids pack up and go to, you know,
Georgia and the Carolinas and all over the place
to play sports at 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, when there
are probably teams that are more than capable
of challenging them locally that takes the stress
and the financial element away from the parents
of sending their kids away for days on end. Yeah.
And then because you're gathering on a weekend
somewhere. that you have very little time together,
you're cramming in five, six, seven games in
a single weekend. So that's also a total deviation
from what's natural. It's not natural to go play
basketball five, six, seven games. Have you looked
at an NBA schedule? No one plays five, six, seven
games over a two -day period. It doesn't happen.
So usually you have certain players will survive
and they'll be healthy, or maybe they didn't
play that much. Even LeBron James played football
and basketball. So automatically, LeBron James
played way less basketball than I did at the
same ages. I'm talking every day, 365 days a
year, no other sports, just basketball and training
for basketball. That's not natural. And then
going to these tournaments, five, six, seven
games in a weekend. So Michael Jordan, LeBron
James, even Kobe Bryant grew up in Europe. So
he skipped all those years that I was playing
five, six, seven games in a weekend. Kobe Bryant
wasn't. He was in Italy, is that right? Yeah,
he wasn't. And both Kobe and LeBron have spoken
out against these youth travel sports. I get
the desire to compete, but my kid will just play
in my local leagues here. And here's another
massive deviation. It used to be more normal
for dads to be active with kids. So the more
out of shape dads get, the more their kids are
having to go travel to find tough competition.
When you're a dad, you can kick your kid's ass
at those age. That's the best thing I can give
my kid. My kid is going to have such a tough
time beating me in basketball. So he's never
going to have to go do five, six, seven games
in a weekend. We'll go play one game on the weekend
together and he'll be able to play against me,
men. So he'll go through and a lot of the top
NBA players were in situations like that where
they were having to play against men. So you
have this beautiful process where you can be
a prolific 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 -year -old athlete.
And if you play against just in your local area,
if you play against men, you can become way superior
than if you're just playing against kids your
age. So I think that's another massive deviation.
The more out -of -shape dads get, the more broken
down the kids will get. See, that's fascinating
to hear because I've talked about that quite
a bit coming from England. And again, not that
where I came from was this amazing, you know.
Everything was taken care of and everything was
perfect. Far from it. But the philosophy was
definitely different. When you come to the U
.S., you see these high school and collegiate
athletes, depending on obviously what position
they play in what sport, at a very, very high
level. Strength, fitness, explosion. But then
you see a drop -off. And for lack of a better
term, we have a bunch of Uncle Ricos that are
in their 20s talking about how they coulda, woulda,
shoulda in whatever sport. In the UK, you play
football, soccer in school. Obviously, there's
a very, very select few that go off and play
professionally. But people keep playing, whether
it's football, rugby, cricket. They play local
leagues. They play pub leagues, whatever it is.
But you see that continuance of sport. And that's
one thing that's terrifying to me. And I think
that's why we get so many parents living vicariously
through their children. Because they just stop.
And I don't know what we can do to change. And
maybe it's through PE, for example, creating
healthy kids and resilient kids. But how we can
bring more of that European element. Because
it's not just the UK. You see it all over Europe.
Where you don't just hit a wall from absolute
peak performance to zero the moment you graduate
high school or college. Yeah. And it can easily
change. Powerful people with integrity change
the world. Someone like LeBron James, he has
the power to actually change the system, but
that's going to take a lot of integrity and a
lot of work for him. So I'm one of those people
who's just going to keep waking up every day.
Like I'm not, I'm not giving into the system.
I'm going to make a better one. So that's what
I do with my training. I have people of all ages
sledding, sled, sled, sled, sled. Any age can
do it. It's low impact. You get cardio, strength.
You fix foot pains, knee pains. So that's an
example. That's something that I can use the
sled. By using the sled forward and backward,
I can directly rehabilitate someone's ability
to run or play a sport. So then once a week on
the weekend or whatever, they can keep that continuance
of sport. So to me, the sled is the best tool
to transition from out of shape or injured back
into being able to do the continuance of the
sport. So that's part of it. But I'm also, as
I raise my kid, I'm going to be using my kid's
educational process as a chance to create a different
system physically. Because there's a number of
deviations as we grow up that people aren't quite
aware of that would make a big difference. Well,
I harp about on this film all the time now, but
one of my guests, Mike Salemi, told me about
a film called The Motivation Factor. And it features
a high school in – it's La Sierra High School,
kind of Central California. Yeah. And they had
this super progressive coach in the 50s bring
this new PE program. And it was a tiered system.
So you wore like a certain color shorts when
you started. And I think there was three or four
levels that you could test for. You were in a
team. So you basically kind of tried to test
as a team. The footage of these seniors from
this school – I think I saw it where they – Was
there an image of them all with like a six -pack?
Yes, that's the one. I saw that. Yes. So I posted
it quite a bit because it just blows me away.
I had the director, Doug Orchard, who lives in
Ormond Beach, not too far from here, on the show.
And again, when you put a good PE program, and
back then, even the school meals were still being
made by people. They weren't processed and shipped
in by Cisco. I think every single kid in that
school could do 10 pull -ups. Unbelievable. Yes.
Now, there's not many people I know that are
adults, even some athletes that can't do 10 pull
-ups, you know, in the CrossFit space. They can
kick, but they can't do proper strict. So he's
documented what happens when you put in a solid
physical education program. And their philosophy
is then when that's in place, and, you know,
obviously now we fast forward and use some of
the technology like, you know, the things that
you teach. Now you want to be a basketball player,
a football player, a baseball player. You have
that resilient frame. It's already strong. It's
already fit. And then you go learn the skill.
You end up being an even better athlete. Yep.
You just nailed it. The balance of the body and
the skill. So many careers break down on the
body. They have an abundance of skill. So when
we just overstress that skill and don't address
the body, then the body is your weakest link.
So that's what it was for me. My skill was light
years ahead of my body. And this happens to a
lot of young athletes. You need that balance
of the body and the skill. And then it's actually
quite easy to set yourself up to have a healthy
career, to give yourself a fair shot. But I think
it's really cool that that school shows that
it's totally possible that it can be done. And
that means that every one of those graduates
statistically is less likely to have health problems
as they age. It's just statistics. So the fact
that all of them are fit, that should be used
as the model for American. uh high school education
absolutely yeah that's the thing you don't need
to reinvent the wheel i talk about this even
internationally there are either counties or
states or countries that do things really well
but like you said it takes integrity and takes
humility to go you know what can i ask you how
you do this because this seems to be better than
the way that we're doing it yep yeah that's fascinating
i'm gonna have fun studying that because what
i'm doing here is i mean you're sitting here
in my gym But this gym, the workout on the board,
people can do anywhere in the world. So that
concept can work. I can just, I don't have to
spread myself thin. I can focus on my craft and
deliver a great product in one gym. But in this
modern age, I can put it online. So unfortunately
for the guy who ran that school that he did so
well, without the social media being able to
spread it, probably not enough people were aware
of it. In modern day, yes, bad news can spread
faster, but so can good news. Anything can spread
faster now. So my kid is, my baby's one and a
half, and I'm going to make a school for him.
Who knows what will happen, but I'm making a
school for my kid so that I can try to create
a better curriculum, a better education system,
and then I'll just make it so anyone can do it.
around the world. So an educator could use it
or a parent could use it to educate their kid
or they could put together their own school.
I like the aspect of actually having a school
so you get that social interaction. But that's
really cool because I'm going to be studying
what they did at that school because they obviously
succeeded and I believe success leaves clues.
I believe it's so easy to be successful. You
actually just go study directly what was successful
and then you can apply that in your own way.
So my whole knee system is based on the most
successful cases through history with knees,
not through some study or this or that where
the information gets totally biased and misconstrued,
but just people who are actually successful learning
from that. So when we're done, you'll definitely
have to give me any leads and clues on that because
it sounds amazing. Absolutely. I'll send you
the episode because Doug talks about pulling
his son from school. It's this crazy education.
He basically got him to read the classics, as
he calls it, Classics with a capital C. So I
think the first one was The Odyssey. And I think
Ulysses is another one. But anyway, his very,
very young child read it. They tried to put him
back in school and school was like, we have nothing
for him. He surpassed all our programs. So he
took it back out again. So, yeah, I mean, fascinating
story. And he has this kind of PE program. So
when I was there interviewing face to face, his
son was there and, you know. jacks wow you know
they've got all the all the equipment in the
background indian clubs and all the old man and
if you start at a young age it's so much easier
exactly you set the bar knowing what i know now
i never would have had any problems it would
i mean it that's what's fascinating about if
at that at those young ages everything is exponential
whether it's good or bad and so you can put in
at those ages it's so much easier to set people
up for success later in life mentally and physically
absolutely well you talked about obviously having
a knee starting to hurt at 12 so walk me through
your pursuit of basketball and then ultimately
even though you technically had success with
the thing that you were looking for how that
ended up taking you down the path of where you
are now yeah so because these chronic knee problems
were starting at age 12 that allowed me 12 13
14 15 16 so i tried all the traditional methods
So I went to trainers. I went to physiotherapists.
I went to doctors. I went to chiropractors. So
I tried everything. And overwhelmingly mainstream,
when you have a problem with an area in America,
is methods of avoiding it. So ice it. So that
way you don't feel it. Don't let your knees over
your toes. That way you don't quote unquote stress
your knee. So from 12 to 18, all I did is go
through methods of avoidance. So I wind up with
these absolutely pathetic knees that by the time
I was 18, I finished high school on a walker
with partially artificial kneecap. Didn't play
a single game my senior year of high school.
So you'd had surgery before you were even 18
then? Yep. Yeah. So by the time I was 18, I was
already just a bum. Like a physical just... incapable
couldn't even play my sport i had the skill level
that i should have been enjoying my senior year
playing and being able to be in high school games
and i already felt like an old man and i had
tried all these methods of avoidance but it was
also because i was such a had such a savage work
ethic so i tested the system so the traditional
system doesn't work leaves your knees vulnerable
and it scientifically avoids exactly what your
knees need In order to heal and be strong and
protected. So then I went just my own route.
So now 19, 20, 21, 22. Now you're talking four
years of me experimenting only with stuff outside
the box. So by 23, I was accepting a full ride
division one basketball scholarship. One of the
oldest players ever to get a full ride division
one basketball scholarship. So I completely remade
my knees. from a player who couldn't play to
a player who could play. And I played two years
at a junior college. So 22, 23, I was playing
at a junior college. I started every game. I
played the most minutes on the team. So by 18,
I was Mr. Fragile. By 22, 23, I had like the
best knees on my team. And from that point, they
only kept getting better. But it was at, I got
this full ride scholarship at 23. I got to the
school and the strength coach at this prestigious
Division I college said, you're not allowed to
train your knees over your toes. That's how I
got the scholarship. Bending my knees all the
way, embracing full range of motion, gradually
rebuilding healthier, stronger joints. I was
going to be prevented from doing that. So that
was a totally eye -opening moment that I knew,
I knew, wow, my, My mission here is not about
my basketball career. I'm one person. This means
that basketball players everywhere are being
led towards lives of depression and surgeries
and painkillers. So that became my mission. So
maybe it sounds crazy to be knees over toes guy.
But if you look back on the journey I went through,
it was pretty clear. I actually had no choice
but to be knees over toes guy after being prevented
from knees over toes through those younger years,
leading to weak knees. Then using knees over
toes to restore my knees and achieve my dreams
of a Division I basketball scholarship to only
then get there and be told I can't train my knees
over my toes equals, I mean, I had no choice.
I had to be a knees over toes guy. Well, it mirrors
the journey that I've been on. I talk a lot about
the podcast is more about unlearning than learning.
And the foundation of this PE program was from
the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians. I mean,
all these different movement practices that we've
had for millennia that we disregarded out of
a lot of arrogance and capitalism. Our generation,
we grew up with nutrition. Like, oh, you've got
a bowl of pasta. You've got to carb up before
a race. And all your movements were bodybuilding
movements. For example, we talked before we started
recording foundation training after I hurt my
back. A simple movement practice was what ended
up healing it. But the only advice I got from
the medical world was steroids, opiates, and
surgery. But I'm sure that coach had been through
traditional ex -phys training as I have. And
I've talked mixed emotions about that. And it
was probably coming from good intention. Oh,
I'm going to protect your knees. But sadly...
we're realizing now that a lot of things our
generation has been taught in so many areas was
just wrong and sometimes came from a place of
profit, not health and wellness. Yeah. I mean,
I think if you look at our culture, we definitely
assumed that technology, anything technology
equaled better. Only now we're learning, whoops,
actually technology can serve us, but what's
natural is important too. just repairing all
our joints with surgeries is not nearly as good
as naturally having a healthy body. So it's very
easy to understand how all this stuff came about.
It's easy to understand why we assumed that surgeries
and complex drugs would be better for our joints
than naturally having strong joints. So with
the knees over the toes, with the full range
of motion, if you were to take these younger
students and have them just using their natural
full range of motion. What that does is it provides
motion and compression in the joint, which tells
the body that you're maximally using the joint,
which delivers nutrients to the joint. So you
actually have stronger tendons and ligaments,
the things that hold our knees together. So when
you start limiting range of motion in the knee,
your body then thinks you're not fully using
the joint. So the knee actually decays faster.
You wind up weaker inside your knee. So in sports
teams, they're often dealing with athletes who
have painful knees. So they avoid full range
of motion because they don't know any tricks
to get in there. So they're still training the
muscle. So the muscles can fire, but the joints
are weak. So it's almost like you're winding
up with a lot of these elite male athletes. It's
almost like they have the joints of an older
person, but they have the muscles of a younger
person. And so when they go out to perform, they
wonder why they're having these freak joint injuries.
But if you were to actually get down and measure
it, they have thin, weak tendons and ligaments.
They're internally weak because they don't train
through a full range of motion. Well, talk to
me about stress. I've heard you touch on this
before because when you look at the word stress,
you have eustress and you have distress. And
to me, the muscle imbalances, I mean, you know,
the journey of self -discovery I went with my
back was, you know, there was... tightness and
weakness in the posterior chain my my pelvis
was tilted so when i lifted this person you know
my my spine was basically like a pizza slice
and the ligaments tore um and uh you know but
then when you look at that you realize well yeah
when you have a column of strength around the
spine it's not sitting on the bones themselves
you can create incredible positive stress so
i've heard you talk about needing stress on these
to create resilience and strength so i'd love
to kind of expand on that a little bit yeah and
it's it's no different than uh doing a push -up
to put stress on the pectoral muscles but for
the joint the joint actually has to go through
a full range of motion to have stress on the
joint so in your case if you think about the
back whatever you were doing in life that amount
of stress exceeded your body's capacity to handle
stress But the only way to increase the body's
capacity to handle stress is by applying an amount
of stress that you can handle without pain. So
if you took something as simple as like dragging
a sled backward, that gives you something that
you can win at and you can apply stress to the
knees at a level that doesn't hurt. So if it
doesn't hurt, but you're able to actually get
into these positions. then you can build up strength.
So then you can handle these positions without
pain. But if I just dropped someone with knee
pain off a two -story house, that's also stress,
but it's so much stress that it's going to actually
tear things. So we're trying to provide an amount
of stress at a level that you can handle without
any pain. That's why if you start when you're
young, it's much easier to have these areas protected.
But we have people of all ages that are still
seeing that you can make physical progress the
trick is the whole system is basically how to
get into positions that you want to be good at
but then reducing the techniques or loads to
a level where it's like oh wow that feels good
and now so now you're going through motions and
you're providing that keyword stress so you're
providing that but at a level that doesn't hurt
then your body recovers back a little bit stronger
and so you can change over time So with all the
traditional routes that you took that weren't
helping, I've heard you talk about Charles Poliquin,
for example. What were some of the great minds
that brought the solutions to you? Yeah. So Charles
Poliquin was the first person that I saw just
clear as day say the knee that can go farthest
and strongest over the toes is the most protected.
Up to that point, I was only instructed no knees
over toes. I was also instructed don't bend your
knee below 90 degrees. Charles Baldwin also said
that, no, no, no, the knee that can bend farther,
the knee that can bend more and stronger is more
protected. So that was super eye -opening. Had
I not been through what I had been through, I
probably would have dismissed the data. Because
I had already been through all these methods
of avoidance, because I had been through the
opposite of what he was saying, I instantly knew
when I saw that, I went, that is truth. From
there, I just went down the research rabbit hole,
read everything he's ever written many times
over. He was a little bit older and didn't have
videos of himself doing what he was talking about
with the knees. I couldn't, so there's no videos
of what he was talking about, but he had disciples
who had videos. So one of his disciples, Keegan
Smith, an Australian strength coach, he had videos
of performing these full range of motion and
knees over toes exercises. So I used that as
like a framework for my form. And now Keegan's
one of my best friends and he actually runs our
certification program. So together, yeah. So
my business is ATG. It's the super simple business
where what I'm doing in the gym, these regressions
that I've figured out, people can do it anywhere.
And then together we run ATG for coaches. So
we have over 600 coaches around the world who
are being certified. in ATG. And so it's funny
how that came full circle. So he's to this day,
he's still my mentor, still helping me fine tune
the educational process for people on this. But
that was really it. Because of what I've been
through, when I saw that from Charles Pollock,
when I knew that was the answer. However, because
I was super fragile, I had to figure out more,
I had to figure out lower levels of this. So
You take something that's ideal. So I could see
Keegan Smith doing it. And I was like, I want
my knees to be able to do that. But my knees
can't do that without excruciating pain. So,
I mean, something as simple as just sitting down
in a squat position with your knees bent all
the way. Something like that seemed like climbing
a mountain to me back when my knees were so bad
and with partially artificial kneecap that was
never supposed to fully bend again. So what I
did is I just figured out lower levels than had
been used. So, um, by figuring out lower levels
and then putting in the work at those levels,
then I was able to restore what should be natural.
What a lot of people don't even think twice about
a lot of people in foreign countries, it would
actually be very hard to explain to them. People
in foreign countries, like I've had people comment
and they are completely confused by me teaching
a full range of motion because they're just.
in that position regularly so it's so weird for
them to see like that some people are actually
limiting human range of motion yeah yeah no it's
interesting because i mean yeah you look at asia
and you look at some of the the less developed
countries and these elderly men and women are
you know working the land and hunting and incredible
you know and some of the the asian cultures they'll
sit in that full squat for hours and yet i'm
not going to point at other people me if i try
to sit and squat for 10 minutes i'd be in pain
And as you pointed out before, I'm not the least
in shape person on the planet either. But the
sitting and all that stuff. In America, you're
a gem. So that just shows. But look at the years
that we've lived unnaturally. Exactly. So we're
trying to restore that. But you're really looking
at a lifetime, at years, maybe decades for most
of us of letting our knees decay. Now with Keegan
for a second, having had Charles' teaching, sadly
we lost him a couple years ago now, I think it
was, but carrying that on, what was he seeing,
trying to coach through that lens with what was
being taught with most of the strength and conditioning
community? I think Keegan felt the frustration
of knowing how much better the system could be,
but... seeing how entrenched the system is in
its ways so i think that's why we really connected
is that he was able to guide me but he could
see like that i was gonna like go big and actually
try to change the system so together we just
kind of would hype ourselves up like look like
the future's unwritten like we could actually
do this like we can actually change things for
sports and it's only just barely starting to
happen but it is actually happening and players
are getting more freedom in their training so
um that's that's still what keegan and i are
waking up for in the morning is actually trying
to change the system and charles was such a genius
but the system wasn't changing and i think that
made him very frustrated so i saw with charles
that um he had all the tools he had all the genius
and i think I realized that my responsibility
was going to be taking that genius and then applying
my mind not to being right, not to being a genius,
but to what would actually get it to work, how
to actually get that data applied. And so figuring
out these scalable sort of routes and then studying
social media, how do I actually reach millions
of people? Okay, so millions of people have data
that has now been proven incorrect. but it's
in the college textbooks. So how do I counteract
that? Well, I'm going to have to master social
media. So this is what I did starting about three
years ago. I was like, okay, the same focus I
have on being the best coach I can be, I'm going
to have to put that same study into social media
and how to reach people. So now we're pretty
stoked with things because we're seeing that
we really can produce change. We really can win.
The truth doesn't have to be the obscure. uh
attacked thing we actually can bring truth to
light so it's it's really exciting yeah well
and it's bringing that technology the good side
of technology because i think social media is
an incredible tool i agree but has been abused
and obviously is really kind of broken down a
lot of social elements but you found a way of
getting people's attention and getting them to
learn without wearing a bikini for example i
tried that i got like two views i mean i'm trying
that next week But if it is that, because there
is an art to it, and we discussed before, it's
challenging for me because I don't want my face
out there. I want the focus to be on the people
that come on with the solutions. But even in
the few things that I do, I see that juggling
act between capturing the initial attention with
that opening moment and then... maintaining that
attention to the point where you can deliver
good content because i've put lots of stuff out
there that's been brilliant content and as i've
heard you talk about too it's barely even watched
and then i've done things as we talked about
before we start recording like done a spinning
hydrant a spinning kick on a fire hydrant and
goes viral you know so it's it's heartbreaking
really um so you know what what was some of the
ways that you were able to to kind of solve that
puzzle and combine that shiny object with with
the content actually being you know absorbed
by the viewer yeah uh sounds super simplistic
but for me it was dunking because with dunking
i could do something that people tend to those
type of videos it's not like it's the most viral
thing on the internet but the throwing down a
dunk seems to capture the attention like it's
a it's this action thing and it's also people
kind of inherently know like Yeah, if you're
if you're not tall and you have terrible knees,
that's like impossible to do. So really just
using that to show to capture the attention.
And then I often in these videos, I'm going from
dunking to showing exercise regressions that
people can do at any age. So to me, that's really
that's where I found. is the best marketing is
like my purpose in the video is to get across
and show someone something that they can actually
do but i'm going to try to use something to capture
the attention in order to get them to watch to
the point of seeing how they could actually progress
now in the fire service when we talk about knee
injuries it it's sad because it's mirrors so
if we talk about ptsd they always talk about
oh it's what we saw on the job absolutely an
element, but a very small piece of the pie when
you look at sleep deprivation, childhood trauma,
all these other areas. Same with cancer. We talk
about what we're exposed to. We don't talk about
what we eat, our exercise level, sleep again.
And when it comes to knees, the one thing I hear
over and over again is, oh, well, we step off
the rig, step off the fire engine or truck. And
it is steep, and sometimes we've got our gear
on. It's not the least cumbersome thing that
we do. But at the same time, Right from the beginning,
I've always been like that can't like the human
body is so much stronger and more resilient that
people give it credit to. So we talked about,
you know, some of the errors as far as strength
and conditioning philosophies in general in life.
What are some of the things that are contributing
to the Western developed world having knee pain
specifically or knee injuries? Yeah. Well, it
starts when we're young. When we're in school,
we start sitting in chairs for like eight hours
a day. So we get very used to that. imagine when
we're eight, nine, 10, 11, if we were allowed,
like I wasn't, you weren't allowed to get out
of your chair and rest in a deep squat or you
see the positions that kids naturally want to
sit in. When you watch younger kids, they're
in all these flexible knee and hip positions.
So, so much of the, okay, eight -year -old kids
don't have an epidemic of knee pain and they're
going off the swing set and dropping from like
six feet high and they're They don't have an
epidemic of knee pain. As we get older, we're
trying to restore the very mobility that those
kids have. So we can see it's not just like an
absolute of strength that protects us because
here these kids aren't very strong, but they're
very protected. So their joints are very strong.
So then as we get older, I mean, if you think
about the exercises we were doing today, first
we were trying to get circulation going. And
then really we were trying to restore youthful
positions. We're trying to restore the mobility
that we had when we were kids. And that tends
to make the joints feel better. So I think right
off the bat, when we're in school, if we're allowed
to sit on the floor, so floor time, the supple
leopard mobility man, Kelly Starrett. Yes. You've
heard of him? Yep. All right. He's a legend in
the mobility world. And he directly told me that
that's one of the things that would really improve.
people's joint health as they age is if when
we were in school if we were allowed to be out
of the chair and have and sit on the floor just
doing that alone would have kept our knees and
hips much more mobile and pain -free so i think
that's like the simplest place to start in terms
of uh kind of what you were saying deviations
and if you watch little kids if you've ever watched
a little kid go down the stairs oh my gosh their
knee bends so much to go like their knee is so
far over their toes to go down the stairs. So
then as we get older and then something like
going down the stairs or a big step down the
stairs, really, we should probably be able to
handle that. No problem. Even in a natural lifestyle,
if we were out in the jungle or whatever, we'd
be walking down hills or stepping over rocks.
So these would actually be pretty normal motions.
um but we get we get so far removed the joint
gets so weak all of a sudden that becomes painful
and then it's kind of a dwindling spiral because
i went through it where you go you're searching
for which drug or which surgery will fix this
pain when that can band -aid things or maybe
give you a reset but then it's like you're starting
right back over well we just had the gentleman
walk by not super super old cane you know pronated
feet just you know shuffling across and that's
what breaks my heart whether it's obesity whether
i mean he's still within view now and he walked
past about 10 minutes ago um you know terrible
whether it's a veteran that got hurt whether
it's someone who had you know chronic pain this
is what our country consists of you know a majority
of 70 is obese or overweight and So I think that
there is a push from the wellness perspective
now, people like yourself, that is coming from
an altruistic part. Like, it breaks my heart.
It's not about fat shaming. I'm heartbroken to
see someone who's morbidly obese because I know
what they could have been. I know what their
body could have done, as you said. I know they
could have played with their children. They could
have done all these things. And because of the
way they were taught and their environment, and
everyone points to personal responsibility. I
get it, but that's a... byproduct of your environment
and your upbringing you know we've done such
a disservice to our people that you know now
i mean you talk about surgery and opiates it's
another thing i mean we have a opiate epidemic
and many many of those when you go to the root
cause it starts with some sort of injury or surgery
yep yeah i'm right there with you and for me
at first it was like it would break my heart
to see a 12 or 13 year old kid told that their
knee pain was growing pains because that's been
shown now that doesn't actually exist like there
are some certain pains that can occur during
those years but not in relation to something
like knee pain like if your knee hurts your knee
actually hurts it's not there's no just natural
um yeah your knee is supposed to hurt because
you're growing and so for some of those kids
who didn't have as vigorous of lifestyles and
the hormones kick in and the muscles develop
but then for other ones they go from being told
it's growing pains So then it's a full -blown
condition. Imagine being 13, 14, and you're told
that you have like, oh, you have Osgood -Schlatter's
disease. So when I was 12, 13, 14, I had diseases
in my knees, as told by doctors. I have diseases.
I had syndromes. So now you're 13, 14, 15, 16,
and you have diseases and syndromes in your knees
that come to find out all those diseases and
syndromes handled with just basic human motion
and compression. You're right that a disservice
is being done. It is a broad scale thing. The
odds of an individual having the intuition to
know that the system is wrong, to not do it,
and then come up with answers themselves, you're
talking about like one in a million. That's nearly
impossible to do. So for people going through
it, yeah, the system is set up in a way that
it's almost like a factory. these problems not
going away so i mean that's why people like you
and i are doing what we're doing yeah absolutely
well it reminds me as well the the foundation
training founder eric he talks about carpal tunnel
syndrome and how you know people slice and dice
these poor people's hands when ultimately the
root is coming from you know the the spine itself
and once they fix the shoulders and the neck
that pain goes away you know so that's there's
so much power in this preventative movement practice
but you know again back to the the personal responsibility
it takes work like my back rehab journey that
i was on for five months was painful it was hard
it was you know mentally and physically very
very challenging but long term it paid dividends
but again with that environment conversely i
could have gone had some pills had surgery felt
good for a bit maybe but i've got two friends
of firefighters and One has had multiple surgeries
now. The other one's on his second so far. And
they just continue to spiral downwards. And again,
it's heartbreaking. If they had done what I did,
is it an absolute guarantee? No, but there's
a high chance that it would have fixed it. Yeah,
nothing's a guarantee. But you have such a high
chance if you find a route that has worked for
other people with your issues rather than doing
just the short -term Band -Aid treatments. Hard
now or hard later? The option that's easy now
but hard later, it usually ends up being pretty
disastrous later. And with a lot of these physical
issues, when we stop the activity portion of
it, the weight just piles up on the body. And
we know that having excess weight makes it much
tougher on the joints in the back. Like if you,
I don't know, it keeps improving. But if you
Google like what can I do about knee pain, the
last time I checked, google doesn't give you
anything you can actually do about knee pain
only band -aids other than it says you can lose
weight and that that will help your knees well
without a route how the heck are you supposed
to lose weight because for someone who's never
had joint problems it's often like i got motivated
i started running x amount of miles a day and
i lost 100 pounds but what about the person who
was fine then had knee surgeries now the weight
has piled on They can't go run. Now you're stuck.
What do you do? And spoiler alert, sled. Sled
is what you do because even if you have excess
body weight, that actually makes it easier to
move the sled because your weight is moving against
it. So it gives you something that's low impact
on the joints that gets your strength training
and cardio in so you can lose the body fat. and
get stronger at the exact same time while making
your joints even more healed. So it is, that's
why I go on and on about the sled because it's
the human cheat code for these physical problems.
Well, it was interesting as well because when
I started doing this, I had knee surgeries and,
you know, both my meniscus were torn. Yep, there
we go. One worse than the other. And, you know,
it was one of the things where it was locking
up and as progressive and movement focused as
I was, at that time, all the things I was doing
didn't seem to help. And it was, you know, a
thing that was flapping around in my knee. So
I'm like, okay, for now, I'm going to get it
snipped. I hope one day stem cells maybe get
to the point where I'll be able to get regeneration.
But then, I don't even know what really was the
reason, but it started getting worse again recently.
I do jiu -jitsu. I do stunts. I do cross -fits.
There's a whole bunch of things I do that, of
course, batter my knees a little bit. But finding
your system, it truly has helped. And I was just
telling you before we were recording, we do this
draw in jiu -jitsu that used to make my knees
click, and they don't anymore. And the split
squat that we did today, when I first did that,
that was very painful. That's a lot stronger
now. So I've seen it. I've seen it work. And
I think that's just it. But when someone comes
up with something like you have, like Eric has,
that's truly solving some of these issues, it's
so powerful because then once you address that
one -week link, as you said, now you have confidence.
So for me, I'm getting stronger. Now I'm able
to lift more. Now I'm able to go back to jiu
-jitsu, back to CrossFit. So kind of like when
I talk about CBD, I love CBD, but it's just a
chalk that you fill a wedge, a gap. that allows
you then to sleep better. Then you start training
more. So CBD isn't a magic pill. It's a little
buffer to get you on, even with knee pain. If
it's allowing you to do a little bit more ATG,
then beautiful. But it's these practices then
that open the door, as you said, to that journey
where you truly start making gains everywhere
else. Yeah, and that's how I look at this slide.
It allows us to get some momentum going. And
I still look at the human body, that it is still
relatively a frail thing, but... I'm just so
grateful that there's stuff we can do about it.
So that's kind of where my mindset stays is like,
I'm not trying to give people a magic pill. I'm
trying to teach them what they can actually do
about it to improve conditions to some degree.
So I try to keep it pretty realistic. And to
me, that's the gift. I'm appreciative for it
every day. I keep a list of what I'm appreciative
for. And like one of the things I'm appreciative
for is just the... knowledge that i know how
to go use a sled and instantly start getting
that circulation that i can go get a workout
in five minutes that's going to make my body
last longer well in the fire service i think
one of the challenges that we have is when like
again talk about environment The fire department
are fighting uphill. They work 56 -hour weeks
usually, don't sleep every third day. Sometimes
they get told they can't go home, they have to
stay another one. So their environment is absolutely
set up for failure. So the ones that are very
fit and healthy is despite the environment usually,
not because of it. And so you get a lot of responders
five, ten years into their career that just aren't
the stellar men and women that stood on that
drill ground day one. There's an element of guilt
and shame attached to it. And what I found with
the sled and some of the strongman training that
I do is it's also a great tool to remove all
that fear of looking stupid. So, you know, we
could come in here and you go, all right, James,
we're going to do Turkish get -ups and we're
going to do some snatches. You know, my skill
level dictates whether I can even do those. But
if you just say, hey, put this around your waist
and walk backwards, it's equally as effective.
It actually mirrors fire ground tasks for my
community. Backwards is dragging someone out
of a fire. Forwards is advancing a charged hose
line. So you can literally, but you remove any
kind of fear of looking stupid, which I found
is a big barrier for a lot of people. So the
sled is an incredible tool for removing the kind
of skill element and allowing people just to
do the work itself. That's super interesting.
Yeah. Fear of how you look doing it. Fear of
joint pain doing it. Fear of how much time it's
going to take to do it. Yeah, I think like in
a firehouse and if you didn't necessarily have
turf in a sled, there's still the the torque
fitness makes this tank sled that uses internal
resistance. And if you belt up, you can still
do the push. You can still do the push and the
pull forward and backward. And that you can just
wheel and the whole staff can be using it. And
I mean, you even go you even see like how much
ground can you cover forward and backward in
five minutes. And I mean, it's like the workout
of a lifetime. So I feel like that torque fitness
tank sled. is very realistic for a firehouse
because you don't have to mess with the layout.
It's a very small device that you can keep in
a corner or something, and then you can use it
anywhere. You can use it on the street. You can
use it anywhere. So I do feel like that is going
to be the one that's more realistic. And it's
not like it's the cheapest thing ever, but for
a full -on, you know, maybe for a 12 -year -old
kid, that's a lot to save up for but for like
a firehouse it's actually like a pretty affordable
piece of equipment yeah yeah no i mean you know
the one i'm talking about yeah with the wheels
it's over there in the corner yeah like i keep
one there so that i can demo it to people in
here if they want to see it yeah no i think that's
fantastic because normally firehouses will have
you know like we call an apron front and back
so you'll have concrete so a regular slab works
well but then you take you know fdmy They might
not be able to drag a sled up and down the sidewalks
there. Yeah, it kind of depends on the surface
with a regular sled. Yeah, exactly. That's why
you felt how smooth it is in here on the turf.
So a metal sled on turf is my favorite. But my
second favorite is one of those tank sleds on
really any surface. Yeah. Now talk to me about
shoulders. So your Zero program, which I've been
doing for, I think, 10 weeks now, 8, 10 weeks.
There's the rings on. you know, alternating days
and you're getting the ring rows and the ring
pushups all the way, like full, full range of
motion again. So, um, you know, portal, that's
one of the movement guys I had on, I haven't
had on, I did his program. Um, he talks about
the, um, the deep squat holding that for 30 minutes
cumulatively over a day and then hanging for
five minutes. Wow. So talk to me about the shoulder
health element of what you do. Um, I keep it
pretty similar to the, how we address the knees.
and the idea is to restore a full range of motion
push -up, which someone could do like on their
knees. You can also, like if you have dumbbells,
you can lay back on a bench, and instead of just
having an overhand grip, like if you were in
a fight and you were going to throw a punch,
you wouldn't just be standing there with an overhand
grip. You would actually reach your arms back
with more of a neutral grip. So that's how we
press dumbbells. So we put the bench to an incline,
and we hold the dumbbells with a neutral grip.
That way the dumbbell doesn't run into the shoulder.
So with a normal grip, the dumbbell will stop
short and it'll hit the chest. But if you rotate
your grip more parallel than the dumbbell, you
can get your full range of motion. So we try
to restore a full range of motion in the shoulder
while then strengthening everything back behind
that shoulder, which is weak for almost all humans.
So in zero, we're really just trying to restore
full range of motion, push up with... excellent
control on a rowing motion for back behind the
shoulders. But once it gets into the actual like
program with weights and equipment, we do, uh,
like tomorrow we have four different like shoulder
elbow exercises. Yesterday, Tuesday, we trained
upper body. We'd even trained the neck, the grip.
So we're just trying to work out, uh, when it
comes to the shoulders, we're trying to work
out all those weak links and we're trying to
restore full range of motion. That's kind of
my entire program is basically, um, trying to
correct modern human deficiencies if i just had
to summarize my entire program in a sentence
correcting the most common modern human deficiencies
so it's interesting i had um dr rocket on who
is the uh orthopedic surgeon for crossfit so
he's the one that's actually on staff on the
games um super nice guy super down to earth And
he was talking about the different kind of injuries.
And he said in CrossFit, they don't see as many
knee injuries. It's more shoulder, especially,
I think, from all the kipping and the explosive
Olympic barbell work. But he said more like the
kind of basketball, hockey, when you have those
extreme changes in direction and deceleration,
acceleration. So the shoulder health obviously
is a big thing for a lot of the CrossFitters
out there. Being okay, I think it's the foundation
training, understanding ring rows and the strict
posterior work that's helped me a little bit.
But when you have steering wheels, computer keyboards,
cell phones, you just see that kind of forward
shoulder carriage that so many people have now.
That's modern life. So I feel like we have to
do something to unwind that. And in CrossFit,
it would make sense because CrossFit does use
more of a full range of motion with the knees.
but with the shoulders doesn't use as much of
a full like it's still more um in those mid ranges
of motion whereas the knees you get more of a
full range of motion and i think for i think
that's probably the case for like really elite
crossfitters but i feel like the the day -to
-day crossfitters if they're not coming into
it with pretty solid knees then it can quickly
bounce out like that you said that's the orthopedic
doctor like for crossfit so he's probably working
with a lot of elite yes crossfitters if he were
to interview a bunch of people who had quit crossfit
in the first month or two it's often because
their knees can't handle those positions so my
passion is not only is my passion not rivaling
crossfit my passion is actually just getting
atg into crossfit gyms so a number of these of
the 600 plus atg coaches uh the highest background
of them is crossfit because what they're seeing
is let's say they have their crossfit schedule
at their gym they're seeing they can deliver
some atg classes not mess with their crossfit
classes but deliver some atg classes now they
can train more of the people in the community
because any age can do it and they can take people
who maybe are like boy i'd like i'd like to do
crossfit four days a week but my body can't handle
it now they can do two days crossfit two days
atg so i feel that's where the I feel the greatest
potential for ATG is actually just being used
to assist CrossFit gyms. CrossFit already made
it. CrossFit is everywhere. Everywhere I look
up from Costa Rica to Korea has CrossFit gyms.
So CrossFit made it and it's there and the gym
has a fairly open setup. And in our system, like
where's the machines? Like we don't use, we use
very basic equipment, not like big gym machinery.
So. to me, it seems like a really smooth transition.
A lot of these CrossFit coaches are just getting
amazing results and their gym is becoming a lot
more profitable because you already have all
the gym costs. Now you deliver your CrossFit
classes. Now if you can throw on a few more classes
and reach different people in your community
or retain members who might otherwise have to
cancel because of injuries, I think it's there.
I think ATG is probably there to support CrossFit
perhaps more than anything else. Well, it's been
interesting because I got into CrossFit in 06.
And so I've seen, you know, like 15, 16 years
worth of, you know, ups and downs. And definitely
when the game started to become more popular,
I saw the injuries go up because people weren't
leaving their egos at the door. You know, it
was I want to be the next Rich Froning or whoever.
People learning butterfly pull -ups before they
can even do strict. And so, you know, as a coach,
I could see that. Luckily, it's... I think it's
one completely other way now where understanding
of physiology and accessory work and mobility
has really been prioritized now, which is beautiful.
So tools like ATG, I think are, you know, there's
no better time to have them than now when that
community is finally understanding, you know,
let's create that balance in the body and let's
take the weight off the barbell and let's get
you moving full range of motion without pain.
And then we can start building you back up again.
Yep. yeah i think it's wonderful i'm really excited
for that future with crossfit so talk to me about
um the older population i know that your mom
is kind of like the the poster child for atg
for the senior community i mean just how i was
trying to get myself where i could play basketball
with my parents i was trying to get a system
that they actually wanted to show up and do the
workouts so a lot of trainers have noted that
their own parents are the toughest clients to
get them to train and it's pretty simple regressions
and also the sled the sled is my parents favorite
tool both of them and now i've been able to use
it uh when i was last in la my neighbor is 82
and he loved the sled so like to me that's the
coolest thing that the sled is my number one
tool that makes me able to go out and dunk a
basketball on the weekend and feel like a million
bucks but it's also for my 82 year old neighbor
with no exercise experience he's able to do the
forward and the backward with the sled and get
an incredible workout so My parents, it really
just accelerated that learning process to realize
like, wow, the sled is the key for the older
generation. And from there, it increases the
circulation so that you can even whatever else
you're trying to accomplish in the program, you
can have more success with it. Well, we did the
sled today. We did the push and the pull. And
I heard you talk about the relationship between.
being able to walk backwards as a senior and
falling. Now, in my community, we respond to
the broken pelvises and hips. And from the ex
-phys side, the medical side, you learn that
a lot of people that have that injury often don't
ever recover. It's kind of like the one nail
in the coffin kind of thing. So talk to me about
that relationship as a kind of diagnostic tool.
And again, I don't know if it's anecdotally,
some of the people that were very... um fragile
that you've seen build back up through this training
yeah so it's a direct correlation and a direct
training process of dragging the sled backward
so that you can go downstairs so when you go
downstairs every single step is knee over toe
knee over toe knee over toe so if you were to
imagine going downstairs and if you film that
and then if you put that on rewind You're doing
the exact same motion when you drag a sled backwards.
So when you're dragging a sled backward, you're
preparing yourself to go downhill. You're preparing
yourself to go downstairs. So the stronger you
get at that, the easier those activities become.
But with the sled, it's not like an exercise
where you have weights on your back and where
you have that potentially injurious factor. Meaning
if I put a thousand pounds on a sled and I asked
my mom to drag it backwards, most likely it just
wouldn't move. Like most likely she'd be fine.
She'd just be standing there and it's leaning.
She's just hooked up to a thousand pounds. She'd
just be leaning. So, okay. If she leaned backward
against a thousand pounds, she'd just be standing
there. But if I put a thousand pounds on a bar
and put it on her shoulders, it would crush her
body. So there's this fundamental difference
between using a sled as the resistance versus
using free weights on top of your body as the
resistance. So we do use free weight exercises.
But those are specific things and we don't overdo
them. Whereas the sled we found we can do daily.
We can really use the sled more often to get
through those shit zones and get restored and
get into shape and get fit and get stronger.
So when we go forward with the sled, it's wonderful
for the toes and for the glutes. And a lot of
us lose from all the sitting. We lose that quote
unquote like. you know, connection or activation
to the glutes. So when you go forward, the sled
is unbelievable for opening up the feet, getting
rid of foot pain, Achilles pain, and getting
the glutes to wake up. And then when you go backward,
it's unbelievable for your knee health. And it's
something that an older person can do. And yes,
if they've found studies correlating your ability
to walk backward with not falling down the stairs,
well then walking backward and getting stronger
at that motion. It's almost safer because the
sled like slows you down and allows you to really
train the strength of that quality. So I think
if they ever tested that, it would be like straight
up miraculous. Now, speaking of foot health for
a second, you're wearing Xero shoes. I had the
founder, Stephen Session on here. I'm a huge
barefoot fan. I mean, I get ridiculed on my gym
all the time. I probably got some of the ugliest
feet on the planet, but it just makes perfect
sense to me. Again, if you reverse engineer so
many issues. We didn't have shoes. And even if
we, you know, as we did in culture, it was a
very thin kind of layer just to stop, you know,
rocks and things from penetrating the skin. So
kind of what's your philosophy on barefoot and
or minimalist shoes when it comes to your training?
My viewpoint on the barefoot shoe is trying to
restore what's natural. But let's look at what's
natural. It wouldn't be natural to wear a shoe,
a Nike Air that has this giant heel and then
this narrow toe box. jamming up our foot, putting
pressure on our knees. That wouldn't be natural.
I also don't think it'd be natural to be walking
on concrete all day. So natural life, I think
is actually quite aggressive for the barefoot
shoes. So I wear barefoot shoes all the time.
I even play basketball in barefoot shoes, but
I wouldn't advise someone to just jump into that
transition. Now you're here in the gym and we're
on turf. So this is a softer material. much more
like what you would experience if you're out
in the wild, softer mud, grass, sand, that's
more natural for the foot. So yeah, if you were
just barefoot on like sand or grass or mud, that
would be the most natural. So I like people to
wear barefoot inspired shoes when they do their
sled work. So barefoot inspired shoe with sled
work is now really allowing your foot to move
and strengthen. outside of that ideally if your
shoe doesn't have a narrow toe box because it's
if you think about like if you look at your hand
and if you put all your fingers together and
then if you spread your fingers apart like which
one's gonna have better balance obviously if
you spread your fingers apart you're gonna have
better balance and control and so with the foot
as the foot gets unnaturally jammed together
you're now able to like handle less of the forces
of life through your feet your feet are full
of muscles that should be strong and mobile So
the less capable the feet, that force has to
go somewhere. So it starts coming up through
the shins. You're probably more likely to have
shin splints, more likely to have patellar tendonitis.
So kind of like with the rest, what am I trying
to do? I'm just trying to restore what's natural.
So unfortunately, we're in that kind of limbo
where the world outside of us is concrete. So
concrete everywhere is not natural, but Nike
air cushions aren't natural. I've got to the
point where I can wear barefoot shoes all day,
but maybe for someone else, maybe wear whatever
the most like comfortable shoe is you can find
that has a wide toe box. And then when you go
do your exercise sessions, that's the time you
really have a lot of potency for strength through
your feet. And so perhaps for your exercise sessions,
wear like a barefoot inspired shoe. Beautiful.
Yeah, I love it. I mean, that's a very valid
point and concrete. My little boy's on the track
team and I went and bought him some running shoes
and I love the minimalist ones. but he's running
multiple miles a day on concrete. So I think
there has to be natural. No. So you have to have
a little bit more cushion just to absorb. Right.
That's very tricky because yeah, you're wanting
him to be natural, but the concrete is not natural
for those miles. If he was running, in fact,
um, like if you wanted to restore quote unquote
running form, uh like if you took your son and
you had him uh go to a field and take his shoes
off and just run he'd probably have just majestic
form yeah like that most people can restore their
ability to run with the sled and most people
can restore fair running form just by running
barefoot in grass absolutely well i'm sure people
are fascinated to learn about atg kind of what
what the week would look like if they subscribed
and then where they can find it yeah thank you
very much for that um so we currently train i
update the workouts every saturday for the week
ahead so i'm constantly involved in the process
this week i set up the workouts for monday through
friday we went we're doing our legs monday thursday
upper body tuesday or sorry legs legs actually
i set up for monday friday this week upper body
tuesday and thursday and wednesday mobility so
today we're working on mobility stuff Tomorrow,
we'll actually work on more upper body mobility
stuff. So I'm just trying to spread out a five
-day schedule to cover everything from the toes
to the wrist to the neck to the spine to the
hips. And that's atgonlinecoaching .com. And
someone can do a two -day -a -week gentle version
of that. I have a book called ATG for Life. That
was intended for longevity as a very confrontable
starting program twice a week. And then you've
also seen... I have a book called Knee Ability
Zero. So I only have two books. One of them is
no equipment at all, just body weight to rebuild
from the ground up. The other one is more like
a taste of my full program with two really gentle
full body sessions. So I'm trying to just trying
to provide solutions for anyone. i love using
the app and being able to see the workouts i
love working out five days a week i love you
know trying to get stronger but in a way that
makes me that is going to make my body last a
long time but not everyone wants to do that someone
might want to just do some body weight stuff
someone might want to just do it two day a week
so all covered now with that it's not just an
app giving workouts you have the ability to upload
videos of yourself and get critiques so expand
on that Well, when I made it, I didn't want to
go online because I didn't like the idea of someone
trying to do this stuff on their own. So the
whole thing that I that I fine tuned was being
able to have a business model where someone can
send in video of themselves on any of the exercises,
any session, along with any questions and be
answered rapidly. So that's what I've always
done since day one. And as we've grown, I'm just
obsessive about the quality of the coaching,
the response time. So for me. good programs were
like having a map like but i didn't get near
the results until i actually went and met charles
poliquin and he actually looked at my form and
i actually got to like see how form review works
and really understand the the value of coaching
form of being able to have a question answered
so i feel like i feel like where someone can
get on their own when they're new to a subject
or even if they've been in a subject a while
but having a having a coaching process, being
able to get questions answered. That's, I feel
like it's exponentially valuable, but there's
no long -term contract. So someone could do it.
Someone could literally just do a month and that'd
be totally fine with us. Like we don't, it's,
it's whatever, however long of the journey you
want to be with ATG. That's our goal is to make
it something that, that someone could afford
because how much would it cost someone to get
in -person training for this? Not everyone would
be able to afford that. So I made my whole business
model like, What would I have been able to afford
back when I was a kid with totally terrible knees?
So the business is kind of what I would have
needed. Now you have the Xero program as well,
which is, as you said, all body weight. I just
went on a cruise. I'm actually about to go on
another one next week. Oh, wow. And so obviously
nowhere to drag a sled. Yeah. But they have treadmills.
Oh, yeah. So talk to me about that. You're either
in a hotel or you're somewhere where you can't
access a sled. I mean, I love getting on the
treadmill, not turning it on. turning around
and then spinning the wheel backward because
they often have some internal resistance but
i have to immediately say not all gym owners
appreciate that so uh i've never had a problem
with it um but some gym owners have said it can
break the treadmill but i'm kind of stuck in
that limbo of like treadmills are like three
four five thousand dollars sleds are don't come
near that so i feel like there needs to be somewhat
of a cultural shift to the treadmill is The treadmill
is doing too much of the job for the human. So
we wind up with all kinds of weaknesses because
we're not having to use muscles that we should
have to use to move the treadmill. And so with
the sled, it really puts it back on the human.
You get so much more out of a sled than a treadmill.
So when in doubt, I use that treadmill because
I'm okay with breaking the machine. I'll choose
the human over the machine. But I do have to
tell people, like, I'm not advising someone.
yeah like you should be aware and you should
be respectful of you know what the rules are
of that gym some some gym owners do it themselves
so it's it's really going to depend on the gym
owner whether they'll let you use the treadmill
turned off and then spinning the wheel backward
yeah i know i got some funny looks but yeah it
worked yeah all right well i want to switch some
closing questions so i can be mindful of your
time you talked about your two books are there
any books that you love to recommend to people
it could be related to our discussion today or
completely unrelated I mean, I really enjoyed
all of Charles Poliquin's books. I'm sorry I
don't have like a bunch more better recommendations.
That's a good recommendation. Yeah. So, I mean,
it kind of varies what the prices are and where
they're selling. There's even one that he wrote
on strongman training. And so I don't use all
that stuff. I just use the sled because it's
so gentle. So the sled is the gentlest, but he
actually has direct quotes in there. about the
sled he says that if he was on a deserted island
and he could only do one thing he'd have a sled
and if you've looked into his work i think he
had the most detailed and expensive gym setup
i've ever seen but even to him with the most
complex and expensive gym setup i've ever seen
right there in his book on strongman training
which he includes all the details of the sled
he says if he could only have one tool it would
be the sled so I feel like that that's probably
my number one recommendation. I think for like
eight bucks or something, you can get like a
scribbed account and read that book. It's right
on there. So I think it's called I think it's
called Applied Strongman Training, I want to
say. But if you search Charles Poliquin Strongman
Training, to me, that would be my number one
recommended book. OK, yeah. And the price is
a funny thing. When I talk to people and they
ask about, you know, what what should we get
for a fire station gym? I get that one. It's
a thinner book. It's a much more affordable,
thinner book. So it's not even like an expensive
book. So I think for a fire station, Charles
Poliquin's strongman book. Okay. Yeah. But even
the equipment itself, you know. Oh, yeah. Like
you said, a treadmill, an elliptical with thousands
of dollars. Right, right. Start with one of those
tank sleds from Torque Fitness. Yeah. And sandbags.
I love sandbags too. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's
the best thing you could do for a firehouse.
Beautiful. All right. Well, the next question,
what about a movie and or documentary that you
love? It's the wrong timing. I've been over 400
days. I haven't watched a movie or a TV show
or Netflix. It's just it's not in my. You're
going to have to watch The Motivation Factor.
Yeah, make an exception. So that's my number
one recommendation. That would be the next thing
I'm watching. So brilliant. All right. Is there
a person that you'd recommend to come on this
podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders,
military and associated professions of the world?
I mean, that's a really good question. I mean,
the first person I'd have to recommend is my
training partner. Um, his name's Derek Williams.
He goes by Mr. Infinity on Instagram and he's
43 and he's my training partner because he comes
in here and he kicks my ass on the sled every
day. And he's at 43. He's got himself back dunking
on the basketball court. So he, when you see
him play basketball, like he's not 43, like this
is a body in its twenties. So again, I think
for, I think for. law enforcement and fire department,
longevity is so valuable. Health and longevity
is so valuable that I just feel like anyone who
can provide insight in that way, I feel like
that's like the most valuable advice I could
give. So yeah, he's the person who comes to mind.
Now, with all the research that you did, This
audience is a very sleep -deprived audience,
and I attribute sleep deprivation to a lot of
the mental ill health, a lot of the weight gain,
the cancer, the heart disease, you name it, everything.
The importance of sleep for recovery and growth
when it comes to the musculoskeletal, have you
delved into that world at all? Sleep is like
one of my secret weapons. So I still did well
in life on low sleep. but i've done much better
with sleep and that was one of the primary reasons
i cut out entertainment completely so like i
it was to start 2021 i decided i just wouldn't
do any entertainment for the whole year no sports
games movies netflix tv shows nothing and it's
because now i fall asleep super early so i'm
this crazy guy who goes to sleep at 9 30 and
i never could have imagined i would do that because
earlier in my 20s you're talking at least midnight
seemed Midnight seemed early. So by cutting that
stuff out and going to sleep at like 930, you're
talking I'm getting eight plus hours of sleep
a night. That's like my secret weapon. For me,
I did it more for the mental reasons of being
able to be on point every day mentally. I mean,
look, we're interviewing now. I trained this
morning. So much is going on and I have to be
mentally sharp. But I think that for the body.
I think that for the immune system, those are
the two places I feel at the strongest. When
I'm getting a lot of sleep, mentally, I do much
better. And I feel like my immune system is just
rock solid. I feel like if I start getting sleep
deprived, I feel like my immune system is like,
I feel like I can get sick very easily. So what
do you think? Oh, I agree completely. And that's
the thing. I mean, my, you know, this community,
the profession I was in, We are so sleep deprived.
And then when this this virus came, you know,
it worried me because they they are more susceptible.
And we had a lot of very healthy, fit firefighters
and police officers that luckily did well despite
that environment. But we lost we lost a lot this
year, too. I don't think it was, you know, that
they were frail people, but that. year after
year after year of losing sleep, you know, if
you could delve in the sleep medicine world,
it's the sleep debt is real. Like, you know,
when you lose it, you lose it. And then when
you look at the impact of a poor immune system,
you see the cancers, the heart disease, the autoimmune
disease, the mental health problems. That's,
you know, we don't, we don't die from one thing.
We die from everything. And that's the point.
Wow. So it's real. Yeah. Yeah. Charles Polken
called sleep, like the most underrated health
factor. and so i just call it like my secret
weapon like i think you can i think you can survive
and i think you can survive well on low sleep
but man if you're surviving well on low sleep
and you are also getting sleep i feel like i
feel like we could all survive so much better
but there is so much good binge worthy content
to watch at night so many good tv shows and this
and that that again it's kind of tough for us
to shut off and then we have then we have that
stimulating those stimulating lights and screens
that we're looking at yeah Yeah, so it's very
tough to fall. Like you can't just snap your
fingers and fall asleep if you're someone who's
used to going to sleep at midnight and watching
TV. That's why I had to just like pull off the
Band -Aid and try to go a whole year because
I had this feeling at night that like I had to
watch a TV show or two to wind down. I had that
feeling. But by cutting that stuff out, boy,
what happens when you put one and a half hours
or so. of sleep additional for a year straight
like my immune system feels like a young mike
tyson yeah i did the same thing with alcohol
so i've i've always said this i've never binged
drinks i really didn't but i relied on it heavily
to decompress in the evening yeah um especially
more so towards the end of my career and did
the 30 day stops and we just be right back at
it again when i was done so actually about six
and a half weeks ago i made the decision to just
stop stop wow no i'm gonna stop for x amount
of time i'm gonna stop and that in itself you
know i'm going to bed earlier because you think
that it winds you down it doesn't you can buy
an alcohol with television you're still wide
awake at 11 30 at night now i've taken that out
i'm actually getting tired earlier and earlier
and earlier so so that's another thing but it's
interesting with that same mindset with television
That applies with alcohol. What if I challenge
that and don't turn on the TV, but just read
instead? You know, how much sooner would I get
drowsy then? Man, is that productive too. Yeah.
Yeah. Very interesting. All right. Well, then
speaking of that. So when you are not doing all
the incredible things that you're doing, what
do you do to decompress? Really enjoy my family
and my dog. So like I can't wait every morning.
I can't wait for my I take my dog like. down
here by the water, we go on like a big loop every
morning. Maybe it's a mile, mile and a half,
two mile, maybe about a mile and a half. But
like, I look forward to that walk every morning.
And then the evening, like really look forward
to time with my family. So I also feel like that's
very fortunate. If I was just a single guy, um,
I feel like that created when I was living on
my own, I feel like it created the habits of
watching TV at night and stuff. Cause you don't,
you don't have someone, you don't have a counterpart
there. Yeah. So I feel like Having my wife made
it a million times easier because we kind of
grew to where it was like super enjoyable. All
right, the phones are off. Now we get to actually
like hang out, chat, bond. So that's the only
things I've been able to find to replace that
family and my dog. What about you? Same. yeah
it's funny because i bought my dog actually i've
got a puppy now so three times a day but yeah
the morning one is about the same distance actually
about a mile and a half the evening one is shorter
one because my one dog is 10 10 just over 10
so she's a little slower yeah but the middle
one i'll i'll just destroy the puppy to get her
tired dogs are great companions they are and
then again i leave my phone at home it's my kind
of walking meditation time oh wow that's really
smart yeah yeah i don't think i'd be able to
do the no entertainment stuff at night if i didn't
have family and or a dog yeah exactly all right
well then um for people that want to subscribe
to atg where do they find that and where's the
best place to follow you on social media yeah
appreciate it atgonlinecoaching .com is where
someone can dive in and do my program uh i highly
recommend reading a book first to see if you
like it that way there's no pressure um so by
my books are on amazon knee ability zero and
atg for life and i'm on instagram youtube uh
tiktok and facebook as knees over toes guy and
are you still offering the half off the first
month yeah i think we're just going to do that
all year okay so that's 2022 makes it 20 and
22 cents no long -term contract for someone who
wants to dive in and ask questions and have their
form coached perfect yeah it's a pretty pretty
risk -free trial yeah i appreciate that brilliant
all right well ben i just want to say thank you
i mean i came down here you know i got to train
with you we went and had steak for lunch now
we did this so i truly appreciate your time today
i really appreciate you you have to drive back
so it means a lot to me thanks for coming