Welcome to Behind the Shield. My name is James
Geering and this is episode 11 of the show. And
my guest this week is a man who I truly credit
with saving my career. Dr. Eric Goodman, chiropractor
and creator of Foundation Training, is a lifesaver
that I was introduced to by my chiropractor after
having a pretty horrendous back injury lifting
a patient into the rescue. Eric himself was an
athlete when he was younger and had developed
tremendous back pain. He basically crushed his
lower back through all the crazy weights that
he was lifting when he was an athlete. And whilst
in chiropractic school, realized the hypocrisy
of jumping into surgery. So he used his knowledge
of personal training and chiropractic and the
other movement practices that he'd studied. So
he developed a system to reverse the effects
of sitting and the other imbalances that he had
in his body that he created these injuries in
the first place. Once I embarked upon this journey
with Eric's work, I saw an amazing increase in
the healing of my back, the strength of my back,
to the point where not only did I return to work
a lot quicker than I anticipated, but within
a couple of months was lifting. as heavy, if
not heavier than I had been prior to my injury.
Another area that really impresses me about Eric
is he truly loves his work. He spends his life
pretty much traveling around the country, teaching
a lot of times in his Winnebago, picking areas
to teach him that he wants to visit. He wants
to surf an area. He wants to hike an area. He
puts a workshop on there and he, you know, drops
anchor. and then explores that area, teaches,
but also lives life to the fullest. This interview
was fantastic. We talked, obviously, about my
injury. We talked about foundation training and
how he's used his practice to heal himself, to
heal not only athletes, but some extremely well
-known people, top athletes in the world of surfing,
of cycling. And then we go on to talk about other
things, training barefoot. probiotics, gut health,
all kinds of avenues that we discuss. I was extremely,
extremely happy to get Eric. He's very busy.
He's very hard to kind of pin down because of
his nomadic nature, if you like. So I really
hope that you guys enjoy the interview. It took
a little while to warm up. I apologize. I was
pretty sick when we did this interview. You can
probably hear it in my voice. But when we got
warmed up, it really got flowing. And after this
interview, I urge you just to go to his website,
foundationtraining .com. If you don't have any
pennies to rub together, then at least go to
YouTube and check out his free work, which you
can also find on his website. And just delve
in. Give it seven days of solid practice, and
I guarantee you, you guys will see an amazing
change. If you're in pain, you'll start to get
out of pain. If you are not in pain at all, but
you just realize that you don't move as well
as you should, you'll notice a huge improvement
in the way you move. Especially if you're an
athlete, if you do movements like deadlifts and
squats, you will notice a much better movement
pattern. You'll begin to what we call hinge,
meaning you'll use the pelvis as the hinge point
instead of bending the lower back. So please
listen to Eric, and then please, as soon as you
finish, go and try his work. Go and apply it.
For any of you guys listening that truly want
to immerse yourself in his work, Orlando Fire
Department will actually be hosting his next
certification. So again, you can find all the
details of that. That will be in February. So
go to foundationtraining .com and look under
certification. And then he has many, many others
through the year from Colorado all the way through
to Australia. So without further ado, I am going
to introduce... One of my mentors now, Dr. Eric
Goodman. Enjoy. Welcome to Behind the Shield,
Eric. How are you doing today? Doing great. Thank
you very much. How are you doing, James? I am
very good. It's been a little while since we
saw each other. Yeah, I think our most recent
Florida certification is almost a year ago now.
Yes. Yeah. So the next one's going to be actually
at Orlando Fire Station 1. Is that correct? That
is correct. In February. I'm really looking forward
to that one. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think
the view might not be quite as good as the last
one, though. We had the ocean in the back window.
Yeah, that was pretty good. That was some of
Florida's finest in a different way. Yes. Yes,
it was. All right. So let's start at the very
beginning then. I mean, obviously, I'm familiar
with your work. I'm familiar with your story.
But I want to bring that to the people listening
and share not only my success story, but obviously
your own personal one as well. So going way,
way back when you were school age, were you an
athlete back then? I wanted to be. I certainly
thought I was. I played a lot of sports, but
having worked with a lot of extraordinary athletes
at this point in my life, it's hard to consider
myself in the same field as them. But yeah, I
was an athlete. I played ice hockey and water
polo and I skated and played baseball and football
and all those things. But the only one that I
really stuck to were ice hockey and water polo.
Those were those were long term sports for me.
OK, and did you physically did you feel good
when you were in your late teens? I didn't. No,
no, no, no. That's like, well, that's like the
root of the story is, is that by the time I was
19 or so, I was like a broken down strong guy
that was playing water polo in school and was
working out all the time. And my back was just
starting to fail me pretty bad. It was starting
to become the very clear, painful, weak, weak
spot in my whole chain. Right. And you were a
personal training as well. Is that correct? Yeah,
so when I was about 18 years old, actually the
first thing I did when I turned 18 was got certified
by the National Council of Strength and Fitness,
which was not as credible as it sounds. It was
just one of these first early on personal training
organizations. You could study at home for a
few months and then take a decent test and get
a certification, but it was minimal qualifications.
But I got them, damn it. I earned them when I
was 18. now being so young and already being
in pain which you see so much in in i think in
this country especially i think because people
get to such a high level of fitness and strength
very quickly um were there anything looking back
any as far as the training itself and then we're
going to talk about other elements that contribute
to this but in in the way you were training that
was causing some of these issues well i mean
in retrospect sure uh i can look back on on seated
shoulder presses and leg presses. Think of that
leg press machine where you're laying on your
back at a sort of a 45 degree angle and then
slowly resisting a weight's attempts at crushing
you and then pushing it off of you and then slowly
resisting a weight's attempts at crushing you
again and calling that exercise. And it's a terrible
exercise. It's a great idea, but it's a terrible
exercise. It's not the way we're, if we have
even the slightest bit of a weak spine. It's
going to fold us at the lowest parts. So the
real culprits, I would say, are a poorly done
shoulder press, a poorly done squat, a poorly
done good morning or deadlift, a poorly done
leg press. And I did all of those. Yeah. Yeah.
I know when I first got into the CrossFit stuff,
doing shoulder work, standing up, it felt so
weird, you know, but obviously you look at. Real
world, I mean, when are you going to be sitting
down pushing someone over your head? So it's
crazy that that became the norm and the standing
version became a little unusual. Yeah, I agree.
I don't really understand the idea of a seated
shoulder press. And I see people doing it all
the time still. And even done at its absolute
best, it is cutting in half the amount of muscles
that could be used in that exact same exercise
by simply standing and bracing yourself well.
So with what I do now with foundation training,
with this idea that I think our bodies are meant
to be very, very supported from lots of different
angles, front, back, sides, inside, outside,
at any given time, it's hard to think of a seated
shoulder press or a leg press or some of these
compartmentalized exercises, a bicep curl, as
doing anything other than really assisting the
body twisting into itself in a bad way. Yeah,
absolutely. There's an exercise called the Z
-press, which is sitting. I know we're going
to be talking about sitting, but it's just for
a very brief time. But you sit on the floor with
your feet out in front of you and you're pressing
usually kettlebells over your head. But again,
that creates the same upper body stability that
you need when you're standing as well, but it
eliminates the ability to kind of curve your
back and cheat and engage more of your chest.
Very humbling exercise, but excellent on building
the... lats and the posterior chain, those weaknesses.
It's a completely different mechanism. When you're
sitting on a bench with your legs at 90 degrees,
you're using your ischium, your butt bone as
a resting point. And it's very difficult to activate
your legs to a really substantial degree. And
people, if you want to try this, try this. The
one way to do it would be to have like sort of
straddle the thing and then squeeze the knees
and the feet towards it. um as you're doing the
press is to engage all those all those inner
leg muscles the inner thigh muscles but it's
stupid you don't need to do that just stand up
and brace yourself really well and and then do
a shoulder press that's great it's a good exercise
yeah absolutely all right so so you were young
you were in pain um obviously at some point you
went to some sort of doctor so what was the initial
treatment that was offered to you So the first
diagnosis wasn't really until I was about 22,
23. I had been in pain for a few years, but I
was pretty active and just didn't really pay
attention to it. My back would hurt for a few
days and then go away. A few days, go away. A
few days, go away. And then in my early 20s,
it got pretty bad where I got my first herniation
diagnoses. No real recommendations, just like,
ah, it'll probably go away. I was playing ice
hockey a lot at the time. It was in my early
years of grad school. And I was literally, I
was actually playing for my chiropractic school,
which was pretty fun, but I kept blowing my back
out. You know, I'd go and play one night and
then have to sit in school the next day and just
be in agony. And those, those started lasting
a lot longer. You know, I kind of had this weird
reaction. I was in chiropractic school and I
started to sort of distrust my profession for
a while. And that lasted for several years. I
no longer feel that way. I actually have deeply
fallen back in love with it as I understand it
a little differently now. But for a few years,
I was very, very angry at chiropractors. And
I started feeling like, oh, I understand why
people have a stigma about them, blah, blah,
blah. But I don't. And the good ones are amazing.
My diagnosis came, though, from osteopaths and
medical doctors when it came down the line. Like
when I was thinking about surgery later in my
20s, around 27, I didn't go to a chiropractor
and say, what do you think, doc? I had formed
my opinion at that point as a nearly graduating
chiropractor. And I was like, all right, I think
I need surgery. I hope I don't. I need to go
talk to a doctor. So I went and I talked to an
MD and they described diffusion surgery to me.
And they said I was a candidate for it, even
though I was only 26, 27 years old. And I disagreed.
It was crazy. I had thought in my head of this
surgery process before talking to a doc, this
thing that I was going to go and be fixed by.
And I don't know why. Maybe it was frustration.
Maybe I was just exhausted from school and hurting.
But I really had that mindset. And then when
I left the doctor's office after. 10, 15 minutes
of discussing fusion surgery, I realized that
at no point in my life would I ever receive fusion
surgery. And that was that. And then I got a
second diagnosis from a DO because they're supposed
to be more holistic. And they kind of said the
same thing. They didn't say fusion. They just
said, hey, man, you got messed up back. You might
need to get surgery. That was as far as that
went. And I don't know. Here I am at 36, no surgeries,
eight or nine years later. damn glad i didn't
get them regardless of the diagnoses yeah i mean
i'll plug in my own story in a moment but it's
funny how you hear people saying you're a candidate
for x y and z and it's like is that based on
my credit score because right no i was i i would
tell anybody look if i was unwilling to do the
work you know and we might discuss a little bit
the degree to the work that i did over many many
many years to fix my spine I understand being
a candidate for surgery. I was and it still am
a candidate for surgery because my back is messed
up. But I'm willing to do substantial amounts
of work to maintain a degree of strength. If
you're willing to do it, it's an option. If you're
not willing to do it, it is not an option to
fix yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot
of people that immediately are candidates for,
you know, treatment X or Y without. But for example,
you know, the GI issues and I want to get to
that later as well. you know candidate for all
these prescription medications and no one's even
addressed what they're putting in their mouth
or if they're taking probiotics or any of these
other extremely easy fixes to a lot of these
issues but uh we'll we'll address that later
on so i'm definitely going to hit that as well
um yeah i'd like to talk about that stuff it's
a very especially in your world in that we'll
get into it a little bit make sure we do yes
absolutely so so you were there and you've been
told you had surgery i'll give everyone a little
background on my injury and what brought me to
you So I was, let me see, 38, 39, in great shape,
you know, doing high intensity exercise and yoga
and, you know, eating well. But I went on a call
and it was just what we call a hypervent, someone
having a panic attack. They were convinced that
they were dying, so they want to go to hospital.
A guy who probably weighed about 165 pounds.
So we got him on the stretcher, went to load
him in the back of our rescues, our ambulances.
And my department doesn't have the back that
comes down to make it lower to get them in. So
we got this guy in and I just couldn't quite
reach him. I'm six foot tall, which tells you
how badly designed these vehicles are. So I arched
my back to raise myself taller and then felt
like I'd been stabbed in the back. I mean, luckily
I didn't drop the guy. I carried on putting him
in. And I was driving that day, so I drove us
to the hospital and got out. And I told my partner,
you know, you're going to have to help me get
this guy out. There's no way in hell. I don't
know what the hell I've done, but, you know,
I've never had pain like this. I've never had
a back injury in my life in 38, 39 years. And
so when I actually ended up going home that night,
well, I went to the clinic first. And again,
they told me, oh. We've got the solution for
you. We'll give you painkillers. We'll give you
muscle relaxers. And we'll give you steroids.
And I'm like, well, no, no, and no, because this
is a traumatic injury. My body's reacting the
way it wants to. So I'm going to, you know, put
some ice on it and go home. And then, you know,
they said, all right, we'll come back again.
So when I went back, I had asked for PT to be
prescribed to me. And I was actually told by
the doctor, no, I'm not prescribing you PT. You
will take these medications. I was like, all
right, so what time is the other guy coming back?
So I told this guy basically to piss off and
then went back to see the first guy and then
finally got the authorization for PT. And I'll
tell the rest of the story after. So just kind
of in line with yours, the physical therapy or
any other issue really wasn't even discussed.
to medication and then, you know, and or surgery.
So that in itself is step one of a traumatic
injury, I think, is a huge problem in, you know,
trauma, you know, like musculoskeletal, like
the injuries that we had. They have a lot, you
know, if there was a little pyramid of, you know,
the base of it, the foundation of that pyramid
would be movement and breathing and nutrition
and thought patterns and rest and, you know.
the basic care of the human body. And then after
that, you would get up to basic medications,
pain relievers over the counter stuff. After
that, you would get into prescription medications.
After that, you would get into surgical interventions
of varying degrees. What happens is these guys
put a ladder straight to the top and they don't
realize that that top is not very steady, not
very stable. It's not, it doesn't have the, the
ability to. get people better like they think
it might although at times it really really really
does we do have to pay respect to that but it's
usually not nearly as effective as taking the
means into your own hands and saying all right
we can do this we're going to eat better we're
going to think better we're going to practice
healthy movement we're going to talk to the right
people we're going to surround ourselves with
people that actually inspire us instead of bring
us down and change your life a little bit Yeah,
absolutely. I mean, I had a meniscus tear repair.
I mean, they had to snip a piece off. There was
no real rehab way around it. It was clicking,
it was getting in the way. So yeah, that was
definitely a procedure that I benefited from.
But again, even all the elements leading up to
that was still discussed and then removed because
they weren't really a viable option. I get the
feeling that a lot of... your community a lot
of first responders be it military at the veterans
clinics or active military clinics or you know
cops or firefighters or paramedics or medics
whatever it is i get the feeling that when you
get injured you have to go through a lot of unnecessary
steps that are not helpful and then you skip
a lot of the steps that would be in getting better
and you might have to you know it's almost like
there is a stoicism about sucking it up and going
straight to, you know, getting the surgery, taking
the pills, whatever. I've seen it with a lot
of very, very close friends that are firefighters
and that are cops in my life in varying stages.
And I, I wish that there was just such an obvious
switch in the healthcare provided the first responders
that said, wait a second, try staying strong
first, try the basics. first before we tear into
your body give you six months of recovery and
you know whatever else and a potential drug addiction
yeah and that's a huge huge element i mean uh
you know there's there's countless uh men and
women that we've lost and you know the judgmental
ones are like oh they were they were addicts
but you gotta look deeper well why the hell were
they addicts you know a this partly obviously
from the injury and then partly maybe trying
to get rid of the things that they're seeing
from their head. But that's a huge, huge avenue.
And we are a dangerous breed to just give drugs
right off the bat to because there is that potential
for abuse because of all the other elements,
the sleep deprivation, all these myriad of elements
to our job that could also contribute to that
drug becoming more than just a temporary pain
reliever. Addiction is one of the most human
things that can possibly happen. We're pleasure
seeking. There's nothing we can do about that.
We have a brain that says, ooh, pleasure, dopamine,
squirt. Ooh, pleasure, dopamine, squirt. And
we get into this pattern that is so beyond our
psyche. It's so beyond the rational thinking
process at certain levels. And your best bet
is to stay away from stuff altogether. But just
recognize that nobody is above. the powers of
opiate addiction the insane power that those
amine type drugs have over our brains it's very
very powerful it can shut off pain yeah exactly
and then in the 12 very short years that i've
been a first responder i of all the opiate overdoses
i would say probably Maybe 20 % were actually,
you know, injected heroin or some of the illegal
street drugs. The other 80 % were prescribed
pain pills that people took too much or, you
know, either by accident on purpose, drug interaction.
And, you know, the families that are torn apart
by people that on the surface didn't seem to
have any issues at all by these bloomin', you
know, legalized poisons that they're just giving
willy -nilly. Yeah, it's a terrible thing. no
two ways about it that's one of the reasons i
care so much about the teaching that we teach
because it allows at least an option it might
not fix your whole life but it might give you
an option yeah yeah no i mean it did like i said
i never took anything and you know i was basically
dead lifting 225 a couple of months after i came
back from work so i mean it's not just you know
a band -aid it's a complete fix in my opinion
so we're getting back to your own personal journey
um So you left that second office with the only
option really being surgery. So what was the
next step for you? Well, I wouldn't say it was
the only option. It was an option. I mean, the
doc said, yeah, I would suggest surgery. But
these were doctors that are surgeons, you know,
and refer to surgeons. And that's their window
of view. That's what they see. So I don't fault
somebody for suggesting what they do for a living.
But it certainly was not my only option. I don't
want to give that impression. I don't think I've
ever tried to give that impression. It was recommended
and I was able to meet their recommendation with
a lot of education and a lot of experience. And
I made a very educated decision not to get surgery
and to pursue a different variety of getting
myself better and really trying to figure something
out for myself, being creative. But you got to
understand, I understood the symptoms I had.
I understood I didn't have cauda equina syndrome.
I didn't have these neurological symptoms that
were, you know, my bladder wasn't dysfunctioning.
My digestion wasn't turning off. There's some
major stuff that you really do need to have fixed.
And I was not in that boat. I was in pain. That's
all. So just understand that surgery was a major
option. Maybe it would have been a good option,
but I think it's insane to get surgery in your
late 20s or early 20s, mid 20s. early 30s, that
could potentially paralyze you, could potentially
create scar tissue in what is meant to be the
most mobile area of your body, hindering the
ability of the hips to hinge because the spine
becomes just too immobile from scar tissue. So
there was just too many elements. There was too
many possibilities for my anxious brain. Right.
So what was the next step for you though? Oh,
I went to a yoga class in Huntington Beach, California,
and I had done yoga a zillion times. I really
loved it for many, many years. I did it in college
and graduate school. It never fixed me, but it
always helped me in a lot of ways. And then one
day I was in chair pose in yoga works in Huntington
Beach on Main Street, and I extended my spine
as hard as I could. And I had always been told,
don't extend. That's a big thing in rehabilitation
is protect extension. Don't hyperextend your
spine. But man, I extended the crap out of it
as hard as I could. And I had never felt more
relief in my life than that moment. It went from
I'm in pain to I'm out of pain in seconds. And
then it stayed that way for like two days. And
I really, I extended hard. Like I made my lower
back fatigue insanely in those chair poses. I
was probably doing them completely wrong. But
it. gave me immediate relief. Like, like I had
never felt. I mean, it was an off switch and
it happened again. I went to a yoga class a few
days later. My, my pain came back and I was like,
I'm doing, let's see if that works again. That
was amazing. So I went back and it did. And I
did a chair pose and it was a typical class and
I was in pain. And then I did that. And then
I was out of pain the rest of the class. And
then we did a pigeon pose and I like extended
my spine in that one a little bit too. And I
was like, wow, that, that feels really good.
And it just got me thinking about extension.
And for the next nine years of my life, there
was not a moment that went by, maybe not a moment,
but not a day that went by that I wasn't kind
of trapped in my head thinking about extension
and working on it and working on what extension
really means, which is to follow a neutral curve
in your spine, to follow length in your spine,
to allow segments and nerves the space they require
when otherwise they don't typically get them.
And it looks sometimes like extension in certain
areas, but. It was poorly defined to me and I
was a doctor at that point. So I would assume
that it was poorly defined to a lot of other
people what extension is and was. And I think
that my work now helps people understand the
importance of a little bit of lordotic extension,
a little bit of upper thoracic cryposis. And
this might be the wrong language for it, but
curvature in the spine that facilitates length
instead of collapsing. And that yoga class in
Huntington Beach gave me the first little itty
bitty glimpse of that man changed my life forever.
Right. So just anatomically, then what you found
was if you took pressure off the spine as far
as the compression itself and gave the nerve
space that the pain pretty much went away. That
happened about four years ago that I figured
that that that I didn't figure that part out
that that part kind of revealed itself. That
was when decompression breathing and all that
came about to that point. uh the five or so years
prior from 2008 or so 2007 until about 2012 i
was extending i was lengthening my hip flexors
i was teaching my rib cage to simply be long
in the front not open not expansive just long
i was teaching my neck to get long everything
was about length i was trying to create these
long cylindrical spheres in my body as far as
i could i was trying to make my torso long and
my legs my hamstrings as long as the muscles
could remain under tension it was all what's
called eccentric training of all these different
muscle patterns and movement patterns and uh
it started it's when it first started it looked
like yoga probably for the first like six months
there was a lot of yoga influence in it but that
changed immediately when i realized how It can
be to properly square the hips and eccentrically
load the glutes into internal rotation. That
changed a lot for me as well. So it's been a
very steady nonstop sort of evolution of understanding.
And I still don't really know where it's going
to go, but it's in a good place right now. Yeah,
well, it already is because, I mean, like I said,
I'm walking around because of that, you know,
very discovery that you had. I want to touch
on the S -curve quickly as well because that
was actually how I hurt my back. I'm sure most
people are listening, you know, most of us have
been told, you know, arch your back when you
lift, which I found out a little while ago that
cue came from these giant strong men when they
were doing their deadlifts and their squats.
Arching the back for them is basically going
from, you know, into a slight curve basically
from neutral. Now you get this much more flexible
other population that isn't 300 pounds walking
around. And arch your back ends up putting you
into that huge anterior pelvic tilt. And in my
case, put me in way too much lordosis, I believe.
And then created a kind of pizza shape in my
vertebrae and ripped the ligaments on that one
side. So arching your back when you lift and
trying to get that extended or the exaggerated
S -curve is actually more detrimental than having
a neutral spine, isn't it? In some people, I
don't think that I think that a big mistake that
a lot of people make is they try to what's called
mutating or counter mutating the pelvis, which
is we call it anterior or posterior pelvic tilt
or sway back or really tight hip flexors. You
could look at that in a lot of different ways.
But that position is extremely compressive to
two spots in the body, the very low base of the
spine and then an area called your thoracolumbar
junction, which is like your floating ribs, your
last couple of ribs down to. right at the very
top of your low back. And that's actually probably
where I see the most compression in people. Even
in people that don't extend their spine at all,
that area tends to be extremely compressed and
immobile in a lot of people. That's a lot of
nerves for digestion and reproduction and a lot
of other important stuff that goes on in the
human body. Right. And then the other element,
obviously, that has become in the forefront now,
you hear the slang phrase, sitting is the new
smoking. Explain to me how the art of sitting
specifically on a chair as opposed to in a squat
affects the spine. Well, it tells the spine that
it's meant to absorb its own weight. That's probably
the biggest problem. The base of the pelvis is
resting. There's no legs to support it. There's
no musculature from the posterior chain from
the hips down that's supporting it. There's no
muscles from the anterior chain from the hips
down that's supporting it. your torso is left
to its own devices, more or less. And what happens
when that occurs is it tries to kind of protect
itself and it pulls inward to itself from the
front. For a lot of people, that's totally fine.
But for a lot of people, that shortens this space.
Think of the space from the base of your belly
button to the top of your pubis, like where your
pants buckle. That area starts to compress over
time. And it changes the musculature. It changes
the contraction of the abdomen. It changes the
contraction of the lower back. And the lower
back starts to act as a fulcrum of movement instead
of the hip joints remaining the fulcrum of movement
as they're meant to be. Because the hip joints
are taken out of the equation when you're sitting
down. They're a resting post. They're static
at that point. And they're not meant to be. They're
the most movable joint in the body. And we should
use them as such, except maybe the shoulder.
But I don't know. I'm not sure which one's more
movable. But either way. We are not meant to
sit on our hips in the amount, the chronic way
that we do. Sitting is completely within our
healthy range of human motion. There's no problem
with sitting. It's that done all day, every day,
it becomes a major issue to biomechanics and
to metabolism and to brain function and so much
else. Right. Yeah. And we're into this position
and so much now. I mean, the firefighters are
to a degree. I mean, we drive to and from calls
and transport patients and sitting in a sitting
position. But we do get to get up and move around
a lot. But I know our brothers in law enforcement
stuck in those cars wearing their vests and their
belts are really, really kind of stuck in that
movement pattern for hours on end. Those are
heavy. Those are heavy vests as well. And those
are belts that if they're not worn well, they
assist that flexion of the lower spine. Wear
your belts high. I know you look silly, but it's
so much better for your back. All right. Now,
adding to – so obviously you've got the anterior
pelvic tilt, which is creating that larger curve
in your back. Another one that is huge, I think,
in all arenas, but especially – I'm seeing a
lot in the CrossFit world because I coach in
CrossFit as well, is that anterior shoulder carriage
and the head carriage from the computers, the
steering wheel, the cell phones, and then also
overtraining the bench press and then kipping,
making the posterior muscles very weak as well.
The only thing that I have an opinion on in CrossFit
is any exercise done too fast and poorly. It's
just getting a little bit ridiculous I love the
guys and girls that take it seriously and really
have wonderful form and pay attention and are
more concerned with their performance Than somebody
else's performance next to them and just beating
them I think that's a very healthy way of going
about CrossFit and all of that But there is very
real potential there to hurt yourself and if
you're not careful and if you're not smart about
and if you're not Coached well You just be careful
Yeah So you've got all these imbalances. You've
got the lower back, you've got the shoulders,
you've got the neck, and creating all these chronic
problems. And obviously the knees and ankles
are affected by all those as well. So explain
to me how the system that you finally developed
as it is today, how it addresses these issues,
how you identify them on yourself, and then how
you start working with them with foundation training.
Okay. Well, the main issue, the first one you
were talking about is kind of this anterior head
carriage. What I sometimes talk about as wearing
your shoulders as a jacket, like you're wearing
them up and over you and they're hugging your
neck and they're rolled forward almost like they're
protecting your chest, which they're not really
designed to do. We have to expand our chest.
We have to create a lot of space between the
sternum, which is our center of our chest, our
breastplate and our shoulders and our clavicles.
That space has to expand, has to go outward for
a lot of people, but it doesn't just happen.
You have to have a reciprocal strength that is
pulling that space open, and that's on the posterior
chain. It's on the backside of the body, whether
it be the lats or the posterior capsule of the
shoulder or the erectors of the spine or the
rhomboids. There's so many muscles, but they
need to be stronger. They need to be taught how
to contract for a while in isometric positions.
They need to learn how to hold on while your
body breathes for a couple minutes. kind of tested
and challenged until they're strong enough to
keep holding on and that's when that anterior
head carriage that shoulders rolled forward all
of that starts to change is when the reciprocal
muscles are strong enough to create a proper
resistance that's that's going to bring the shoulders
into a better balance and the shoulders are in
a better balance your neck is not going to have
to be supporting as much of the weight of your
head your shoulders are going to be able to participate
in that a lot more as they're meant to Not the
traps. That's not really how it's supposed to
work. More from below. The lat muscles and the
broadness of the pec muscles and the broadness
of the trap muscles. Not these tightened, shrugged
up shoulder traps, but traps that are actually
more or less to their length and still holding
on with just a little bit of resistance in a
nice kind of... in synchronized fashion with
the muscles that surround the shoulders, the
muscles that are underneath the shoulders, that
surround the rib cage, that surround the chest,
that surround the front of the neck and the back
of the neck. These are supposed to be very spacious
areas, very expanded muscles, ready to contract
from long to short, not waiting and holding on
tight and shortened positions. Yeah, absolutely.
Now, what I found, so let me just kind of go
back to my injury again. so when i started looking
because i think when you get hurt one thing that
a lot of people don't do is look at why did i
get hurt they have the pain they get how can
i get rid of this this pain but me being a little
bit more involved in the exercise world and um
you know doing self -experimentation i'm like
okay so everything i was doing on paper was was
correct i was doing yoga i was exercising i was
eating well i was conscious of my body mechanics
um but what i missed was the the uh movement
patterns of sitting now at almost 40 years old
that was basically 38 years of sitting in a chair
pretty much and that shortening of all the posterior
chain muscles you know obviously created that
that pretty profound pelvic tilt in myself which
ended up in me tearing it so when when i was
at my chiropractor he had your 12 minute foundation
training youtube video playing on his TVs in
his office. And to touch on what you hear about
the conflicting views of chiropractors, where
I think he was one of the great ones versus the
ones that aren't good, and I've had both. He
was a chiropractor that would adjust you, and
then you did about 30 minutes of PT -style exercises
to try and change the imbalance in your body.
Now, for anyone out there that's walked into
a chiropractor's office and just... being adjusted
and then walked out you haven't changed any of
your anatomy so it's going to take a very small
movement just to put you right back where you
were before um so his his orders to me were go
and do this foundation training every day before
you come see me before you get adjusted and it
went from my recovery being i mean it was it
was happening but it was very very slow to i
mean i can't even tell you how many times quicker
I was, you know, how much quicker I was feeling
better to the point where I even went to my physical
therapist and said, hey, some of these exercises
you've got for me, do you mind if I throw them
out and do this 12 minute foundation training
instead? Because it's working so well. And my
potential return back to work went from several
months to several weeks. It was incredible. Yeah,
good, good. Yeah. So, I mean, it really, really
works. I want to touch on something quickly because
I know when I did the certification with you
and for everyone listening. I was so impressed
by Eric's work. I went and persuaded my department
to send me to California to get the certified
and then bring it back to all the firefighters
that I work with back in my department. You showed
us some of your X -rays and MRIs of the damage
in your back. Now, the damage itself structurally
is still there, isn't it? Oh, of course. And
for anybody that learns foundation training,
your damage will remain there. I wish I could
change that. I wish I could tell you it was going
to go away and we could reverse degeneration,
but that ain't the way the body works. Sorry.
But we can protect it and we can make your body
know that it is protected. In doing that, it
can turn off its natural, strange, overprotective
instincts that will not allow tissue to relax.
When you can take yourself into large, powerful
chains of muscles, particularly the posterior
chain. It sends signals to your nervous system
that you're safe, that your injury site is protected,
that it is no longer at risk at that moment.
And then when you turn off those muscles, your
body says, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on,
we're not protected anymore. So you have to keep
doing it. You have to keep trying it. You have
to keep imprinting that in your neurology. You
have to keep telling your body, it's okay, I
got this. It's okay, I got this. You do that
a handful of times a day for a good few weeks.
your body starts to realize, wow, I do have this.
I am feeling very different. I am moving differently
and supporting or your nerves begin to feel supported
differently. I know it's a little strange to
personify these nerves and all that, but it's
the best way to teach it. It's just electricity
flowing through your body and you have to be
able to sort of dictate how that flow occurs
to the best of your ability. And foundation training
is an exercise approach that will allow you to
control. the way you respond to pain for quite
some time when it's physical pain, you're going
to start to notice that your body really overprotects
itself in the face of an adversity of an injury.
And I'm not talking about major injuries here.
I'm talking about back pain and knee pain and
shoulder pain and limitations and ranges of motion
and headaches and things like that. We have these
patterns of sort of sinking into ourselves and
then protecting the area and staying very rigid
around it so that all sorts of other compensations
occur. While we're protecting, say, the left
side of your lower back hurts, all of a sudden
the ribcage on the left side is substantially
closer to the hips on the left side, and you're
walking around tugging to the left a little bit
in what's called an antalgic position. We can
alter that very well with practice. You can alter
that very well with practice, James, as you learned
and as so many students have learned. It just
takes a couple of protocol steps of breathing
and standing and changing the angle of your pelvis
and rotations of your hip joints and rotations
of your shoulders and practicing basic positions
for 10 minutes or so a day, 20 minutes a day,
whatever it might be, to teach your body to go
from overprotective, uncomfortable, and pain
to properly protected, safe, strong, and confidently
moving. It doesn't take that long. It can be
a very powerful system for a lot of people. Yeah,
and that's exactly it for everyone listening.
The average length of the sessions that I do
vary from 10 to 15 minutes. So anyone that's
involved in the exercise world, think of this
more as an accessory workout rather than an all
-body, all -encompassing workout. I've talked
about this in previous podcasts. The mistake
so many people make in the quote -unquote fitness
world is to try and say they have developed the
ultimate system. You don't need anything else.
You can do my Peanut Yex or Taibo or Zumba or
whatever it is. Just buy these DVDs and you're
golden. I like the whole teach a man to fish
approach where everyone takes what works for
them. But I think this, making this part of your
daily routine, I mean, there's so many firemen.
policemen and paramedics that drive you know
an hour two hours sometimes to work so you've
been sitting on your on your spine for two hours
at a time to fit this into your daily practice
for 10 or 15 minutes a day that's it and to to
totally reverse the damage that you've you've
been doing to yourself for decades, I think is
such a great investment of time. And yet, ironically,
it's so, so short. It's not hard to put in at
all once you make it the same routine as brushing
your teeth or putting your pajamas on before
you go to bed. Well, that's the idea is to make
it part of a very simple routine so that it doesn't
even feel like exercise. It just feels like,
you know. The way that brushing your teeth feels
like hygiene, this is going to add another element
of hygiene to brushing your teeth. It's spinal
hygiene. It's biomechanical hygiene. yeah absolutely
and then the other thing anatomically i'm going
to want to touch on the differences between this
and yoga which i you know i found and realized
nothing against yoga i think yoga is amazing
and has great benefits especially mentally getting
in touch with your body and clearing your mind
but um the creating that strength and the muscles
around the spine around the pelvis to support
that spinal structure so it's not sitting on
itself because i know you you told us many times
bones and cartilage are not supposed to just
you know passively sit on top of each other the
muscles around are supposed to support so in
when i'm training people and training athletes
we're always told to cue you know whatever movement
and i'm starting to realize now as i as i move
on and start to learn from great people you can
cue to a point but the end of the day you have
to create that muscle balance in order for those
cues to work i can't tell someone with terrible
muscle imbalances to squat you know sitting on
your heels if they they physically cannot do
that because the muscles are so anterior they
can't even get in that position yeah don't don't
add resistance to a failing system that's just
going to make it fail faster yeah So the difference
between yoga and foundation training, and not
saying for a moment that one should be done instead
of the other, I think they should be complementary
to each other. And I know many of your instructors
do both. But I found is creating that strength
under length. So yoga, you kind of passively,
in some of the poses, you passively... relaxing
into the some of these poses but with foundation
training you're you're lengthening but you're
adding your own body weight to it to create length
in that entire range of motion which i think
for first responders is very very important because
we're never in a great biomechanical position
when we're with our tools with our patients I
love both yoga and foundation training. And I
think that body weight movement is just such
an important thing for any human being. I don't
care how strong you are. I don't care how tough
you are. I don't care how good of an athlete
you are. You're only going to get better if you
do this stuff. If you pay a lot of attention
to your biomechanics and you really improve upon
the efficiency of the muscular movements in your
body with body weight first, everything else
is going to get better. When it comes to yoga,
it's so hard to describe the two because they're
radically different the only thing that is similar
between foundation training and yoga is that
the human body does it without any other stuff
it's just the body going through ranges of motion
the hips being square to the internal rotation
of our work the very specific style of decompression
breathing each of these pieces builds on itself
all of our poses share two principles anchoring
and decompression and they are basically an isometric
or slightly dynamic pose in which you practice
anchoring and decompression breathing whereas
with yoga i mean you know foundation training
is good for opening up your structure yoga is
good for opening up your soul and your life and
your mind and your health and your so many other
things it's so different yoga is a flow a process
it's for it's a community it's a lifestyle For
some people, it's damn near a religion. Foundation
training is a range of motion helper. It is an
assistant to other programs that make you stronger
and make you feel better. It is nothing more
than reminding your body of how it's supposed
to be held upright and how it's supposed to use
the hip joints as the primary range of motion
and the rib cage as the main breather as opposed
to the belly. That's it. It's nothing fancier
than that. yeah i know my lifting in everything
in people in sandbags in you know yokes the whole
works when when i finally understood the hinge
in which muscles are supposed to be working um
and i've worked with uh julian pano as well who's
from strong fit and do a lot of strong strong
man stuff with him because i think for first
responders again your your system is incredible
we also need to do uh move weight over distance
you know with that's the nature of our job whether
you're a cop chasing someone down or wrestling
with them on the floor or you're a fireman dragging
a ladder or a hose or you know paramedic dragging
people from a mass casualty incident um you know
that that is a huge part but the initial lift
if you are lifting with your you know your spine
you're bending your spine And, you know, or the
irony of lift with your knees, they used to say,
and you're up on your toes, your knees are way
over your toes. You know, I mean, those two movement
patterns are terrible when you understand hinging
not only in an athletic position, but also in
the staggered stance, you know, left foot forward
or right foot forward. But in whatever position
you're at, you're still able to engage your glutes
and your hamstrings and keep your scapula back,
which stops your back from curving over. It translates
to everything, to your deadlift, to your patience,
to jujitsu, whatever it is you do. The short
amount of time that it takes to do foundation
every day really does spread to everything you
do in life, picking up your child, groceries,
you name it. It really hits more. A little stability
goes a long way, which is a good thing. I've
made a career out of it. I'm very appreciative
that somehow this works for people. That wasn't
the plan. But a little stability really seems
to go a long way when it comes to the human body
and adding just a little bit of comfort and maybe
a bit of improved performance to the human body.
Yeah. And I think that's the thing that people
are starting to see now is the best answers to
most of these solutions are so simple. But the
problem is. You can't get rich off these. And
what I respect so much with people like Julian
and yourself and Kirk Parsley and some of these
great people that I've been able to interview
on this show is you're all humanists. So you're
far more concerned about fixing people and getting
people out of pain than you are about making
a quick buck and living on some fancy lake somewhere.
And that, I think, is the root of why... your
guy's philosophy is so effective because it's
based back on effectiveness and, you know, the
nucleus of it is just purely to help. And I think
when that's how you think, that's when you really
find the truth in all these different areas.
I appreciate you putting me in that company.
And I think that's what we did. I really believe
that we, you know, I teamed up with some people
to start a business that would support. The ability
to keep trying to get better at this and to keep
trying to teach this and to keep trying to spread
it. When I thought about going into practice,
I could make money as a chiropractor. I'm licensed
in California and in Colorado, actually. But
it doesn't feed my soul in the same way as teaching
a group of people how to do really cool stuff
and then watching them teach a group of people
how to do really cool stuff and then watching
them teach a group of people how to do really
cool stuff. That has satisfied something really
deep within me that I didn't know existed maybe
10 years ago. when I first saw chiropractic and
all that as an option. And luckily, I got some
really cool people that were able to make a business
out of this. I don't want people to get the idea
that I'm destitute. We have a business that is
allowing me and about a good handful of close
friends and people that own the business with
me and help me develop the ideas and help me
teach the ideas. It's allowing us to live life
and to focus on foundation training and to keep
spreading the work. That makes me pretty rich.
I think it'll change. I think that this work's
getting out there a little bit more. I'd be lying
if I said otherwise. I think there'll be the
opportunities to maybe do a little financially
better and, you know, maybe partner with some
people on this and that. But no matter what,
at the heart of this business is just let's get
this work out to people as much as possible.
And let's always have remarkably high quality
free materials available to anybody that wants
them. Well, I mean, exactly. The initial video
that I used, which obviously led me to coming
to you and buying the material, but it was the
12 -minute foundation training video on YouTube,
which was out there, like you said, for free.
So, I mean, that says it all. I want to touch
on, you know, your lifestyle now. So, you spend
most of your time in your RV traveling in the
country. And correct me if I'm wrong, you tend
to do workshops in places where you can also
surf or hike or somewhere that also features
all. Yeah, one of the really important things
for me in life is being physical. And I don't
get the same satisfaction out of going to the
gym like I used to anymore. So I started surfing
about 10 years ago and that really took over.
And now I don't necessarily schedule my life
around surfing, but I definitely schedule my
life around surfing. And we'll continue to do
that for as long as I possibly can. So we'll
teach a workshop. You know, we do a lot in California.
We also do stuff in Colorado, though. Uh, but
we do try to, we have a lot of surfers that are
on the team with us and teaching with us. We
love being in the mountains. We love all that.
But if we could all choose, I know that we would
have every certification probably like on the
North shore of Hawaii. But yeah, we do, we do
spend a lot of time in the RV. We've, uh, Jen
and I've been traveling for the last over about
two years now and just kind of keep going. And
I always said that I would never push this work,
but I would always respond to the pull. And I'm
just trying to respond to the pull. And there's
a lot of really cool places where pockets have
developed with people that have used this work
for a long time. Maybe there's a community of
doctors that's been referring for a long time.
And if I can go there and teach them a little
something or teach a class or support some of
my instructors or whatever might need to happen,
it seems to be a really cool way to go about
it. Kind of building the community of foundation
training and building the ideals of foundation
training as we further develop the theory. Yeah,
I mean, it's something that I love to have in
my toolbox. Obviously, being a fireman as opposed
to a PT or a chiropractor or yoga instructor,
which I know a lot of the people that attend
certifications are. I'm one of the smaller pieces
of the pie that I know you also have in every
single. seminar that you do that doesn't teach
primarily but just like jesse i know is your
best friend who's a fireman in the city of orlando
um to be able to take your peers aside and say
hey you know i know you've got this back pain
let me show you some things that'll get you out
of it i use it as preparation in the crossfit
classes when i teach there I actually got asked
to do a demonstration for a chiropractor's office
the other day, and I've heard since that he now
is recommending all his patients to start doing
foundation training. Yeah, good work, James.
But I mean, that's the thing. When it's good,
you're going to be a profit for that movement
because if you can look someone square in the
eyes and say, this isn't bullshit, this actually
works, and there's no kickback for me, I'm just
telling you from the heart because it changed
my life, that's more powerful than any QVC commercial,
in my opinion. No, it's definitely no bullshit.
There's, you know, I can't believe what it has
done for some people. And I wish it could help
the ones that it hasn't, if that makes sense.
You know, it's not a cure all. There's no such
thing as that. But if at any stage of my life,
you would have said, hey, Eric. You know, one
day there's this thing you're going to kind of
fix your own back with and then just start showing
to people. And then like all of a sudden there's
going to be like a lot of people doing it and
they're going to feel better and people are going
to avoid surgeries and break major pain pill
addictions and really develop careers around
it. I would have thought you were talking about
somebody else because you couldn't have planned
that. But here we are and that's going on. And
all I'm trying to do is be the best version of
this work as possible and represent it, you know,
as openly as I can. And the best way to represent
it is foundation training is no bullshit. Yeah,
no, I can attest to that. Like I said, I was,
I went from, you know, being heartbroken, not
even be able to pick up my son, which, you know,
was soul destroying to doing a 9 -11 tribute
workout competition. I mean, quote unquote competition.
It was to raise money for charity, but one of
the events was. 225 deadlifts and you had to
do a burpee each time which oh you know with
a healthy back is good but i mean having just
come back from back injury two or three months
prior and be able to do that and not do it being
stupid doing it because you know damn well that
you are fine now and you've worked your way up
that is a huge testament to uh to the effectiveness
it's not just making the pain go away structurally
i was stronger than i was before i even hurt
myself yeah good that happens to a lot of people
a lot of people hurt themselves because they
haven't you know they've almost accidentally
or inadvertently been neglecting the center of
their body because they've been thinking the
center of their body is a lot closer to their
belly button than their hip joint and it's a
lot closer to your hip joint plain and simple
your pelvis is the center of your body muscles
that connect to your pelvis control the center
of your body therefore that's the core that's
how it works some of them are above it some of
them are below it Yeah, well, I've got a six
-pack abs, so I'm like, well, I'm golden. And
I wasn't. If you've got a six -pack abs, that
just means you're skinny. Yeah, exactly. That's
what I found out after. I'm skinny with no ass.
I've got to work on my posterior chain. All right.
I want to get back real quick. Before we go on
to the next one, I want to talk about Jesse real
fast because what he's doing over at Orlando
is really cool. Yes. You know, we're doing our
certification over there only because of the
respect level those guys have for him and for
the work. And it's really cool. to see how many
firefighters and other first responders too,
no question about it, but, but especially in
Florida and California and a few other places,
firefighters are tuning into this stuff and are
just like, Whoa, this needs to be part of my
life now. And Jesse is a, I gotta say, he's just
a huge part of why that's happening. And, and
as, as are you as well, especially with podcasts
like this. And man, I just, I can't thank you
all enough for helping get this out to, I think
one of the communities that probably needs it
the most. Yeah. I, I, uh, I thank you. I think
this is our way of maybe paying you back for
how you affected our lives. But now in turn,
I just want to smash that entire misconception
that pain is normal. I mean, through nutrition,
through fitness, through foundation training,
through every element, through mental pain, we've
devolved to this. this mentality at the moment
in 2016 that it's normal to be sick normal to
have high blood pressure normal to be a diabetic
normal to to suffer mental trauma and it's all
crap you know and and each person that comes
on the show and obviously you know you're a huge
one because so many people are in pain you know
anatomically in their back especially um you
know each if we can take away a piece of that
jigsaw puzzle at a time i think i mean you really
will change lives but you know the people need
to see that there's these amazing people out
there that are doing great things but it's not
going to be on fox news or cnn or sadly even
the history channel because that's all bloody
reality tv as well did you see that thing where
jeff bridges taught the founder on the on the
late night show or something like that the late
late show or something yes i did that was awesome
that is probably the most publicity we'll ever
get well let's stay on that for a second so just
to kind of I know you don't like talking about
it because you're so humble, but just to validate
the people that have put their trust in your
system, people that use their bodies every day
to feed their family. What are some of the athletes
and actors that you have using this? And you
can say this because they lend their names to
your books and their videos. There's a huge misconception
out there that I'm humble. You are. I hope it
continues. Uh, yeah, I've gotten, I've gotten,
I've, I've tried really hard to work with a lot
of these people, but there has been a certain
amount of serendipity involved people coming
in and out of my life that were more or less
influential in different communities. A big one
is a guy named Peter Park. Uh, he was an old
partner of mine. I wrote the first book with
him and just a really dear friend. And, uh, he
brought a lot of people into the world of foundation
training and brought it to a lot of people. Another
guy is a guy named Dr. Tim Brown, who's just
told so many people about this and has, you know,
given. basically just lent me his 40 -year unbelievable
sports medicine career of credibility to telling
people about this all around the world. Before
I mention any of their names, I got to say Peter
Park and Tim Brown because without those two,
a lot of these names wouldn't be here. With that
being said, yeah, I've gotten to work with a
lot of people. Jeff Bridges is one of the guys.
Some of these guys could turn around and they'll
teach a founder like Jeff taught. the guy, James
Corden, David Duchovny, a founder on late night
television, cause they were talking about their
backs. It's pretty rad. It was on live TV. It
was, it cracked me up. Um, and then guys like
I work with, uh, Chris Hemsworth and I've been
working with him for a while and his trainer
and his brother's trainer are both certified
foundation instructors. And they, they take it
with them everywhere they go, uh, for several
years now. Um, the list is long, you know, athletes,
uh, a lot of surfers, a lot of cyclists, a lot
of runners, a lot of hockey players and baseball
players and a lot of other, just, basketball
players it's been a really good uh five or six
seven years eight years of bringing foundation
training out to people yeah so i mean you got
people like kelly slater and lance armstrong
that you know at the absolute peak of their condition
so you would think well they they don't need
anything like this so yeah i got to i got to
be involved with a couple like i got so the first
one was the u .s water u .s olympic water polo
team in 2008 i had the very amazing experience
of working with them and training them for the
year leading up to it and they ended up um and
i used foundation training as the primary means
even though it was not at that stage called foundation
training it was just this thing i was playing
with but they went from number nine in the world
to winning a silver medal in the olympics and
we're just this really cool underdog story and
i have the olympic medal hanging on my wall because
it's just it was a real career maker for me um
just from a from a credit standpoint or like
a you know a an experience standpoint And then
after those guys came in, it was just like, I
got to train a bunch of the Lakers during their
2010 national championship. They call it a world
championship, but it's all American. So national
championship. I got to train a bunch of those
guys. I was like, it was crazy. It's just been
wild. I got to help Kelly with his 11th world
title. It's 10th or 11th. Yeah, I think back
on it. I got to help Lance return to the Tour
de France with Peter being his primary trainer,
not me. But before all that nonsense came out
about who he was or is, he was very helpful to
us in helping the world hear about foundation
training, at least the cycling world hear about
it. That was a big bump for us in getting the
workout. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just wanted to
highlight that because like I said, these, you'd
assume that these guys had every element of their,
their athletic training nailed sort of bring
you in. I mean, that, that I think can appease
people that maybe haven't come across this yet
of not feeling stupid like I did, because if
Kelly Slater and Lance Armstrong hadn't figured
it out, then, you know, James Gearing, I don't
feel so bad. No, I, I've, the people that are,
I love those athletes, but the people that are,
that are the ones that have given me the, the
notion of confidence and qualification and the
ability to speak my mind and tell people what
I think about the body and all of that. It's
the doctors, it's the Dr. Joan Vernicos, who's
a 20 plus year NASA researcher who told me that
foundation training was the answer to her, her
research on what gravity does to the body. That
was, that was a confidence booster that changed
the way I perceived my own work. A couple other
doctors, I mentioned Tim Brown, I mentioned,
or I didn't mention, but Sky Joe Mercola, these
are heavy hitters. And at 30, no, now I'm 36,
but I got to meet these guys at like 31, 32,
33. And they, they, they put their hands on my
shoulders and they were basically like, Hey man,
you're doing great. Keep going. And that was
a huge thing for me. And they supported me and
they told people about it and they helped me
tell people about it. And they gave me the ability
to just kind of keep going. thinking that I was
on the right course instead of guessing if I
was on the right course. So I don't know. I don't
know how I got to meet all these people, but
I'm really glad I did. For the most part, they're
very wonderful human beings. They're very kind
and very sweet, but they got a lot of pain. And
I'm glad I could help them out with that a little
bit. Yeah. And that's a common thread, not just
between, you know. High -level athletes, but
everyone else on the planet, too. Yeah, it doesn't
matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you
do. It matters if you use a cell phone, drive
a car, sit in a seat, commute frequently, eat
reasonable amounts of processed food, and are
potentially around environmental toxins too often
that can really impact and hypersensitive or
hypersensitize our nervous systems. That's what
matters. absolutely and we're going to talk about
that next but i just want to touch on one last
thing so when i came back from the certification
i brought my syrup back or my my uh student sir
i guess you'd say um and started training all
my guys and then we also put dvds and we had
some online access for some of them too um what
would you recommend especially now jesse's giving
you feedback if a department or a police department
or an ems agency is looking to bring that to
their employees have you got any good models
that have had Success so far? I think Jesse's
probably the best person to ask about that because
I would say of anybody, he's probably the most
actively bringing it to his department. Another
guy is Bob Sales out in LA. He's one of the chiefs
now, I believe, in the LA department. But what
works? Take the absurdity out of it. Take the
complication out of it. Teach a basic standing
decompression or two. Practice my... Just put
my free videos on YouTube for a while. Just try
that 12 -minute workout. Try a little prone decompression
workout. See what works. And if it starts working
for a handful of people, reach out to you or
Jesse or me and let me put you in touch with
somebody that can come and teach your staff,
teach maybe one of the instructors there or something
like that. It is so doable to get this in your
area and in your spot easily. It's not hard to
learn. You know that, James. It's very basic
stuff, but it's... so basic that you will never
ever do it unless you're showing how to do it
yeah exactly and the other thing i think about
having someone else with you in the room you
know they don't even have to like you said have
to be some master you know black belt instructor
but what you think your body's doing and what
your body is actually doing i learned two very
different things in the woodpecker which is a
lunge position that you're hinging on And our
hips are supposed to be square. I had my hips
corrected so many times, I guess, from my old
karate days where mine were 45. And, you know,
that's the big thing is you think that your body's
doing a certain thing. You think you're doing
these movements right. And then you get corrected
by someone that's been trained. And then just
that small tweak, all of a sudden you feel it
in all the right places. And you're like, okay,
that's what I've been doing wrong. I like to
show people what it's meant to feel like because
you can usually find that again very quickly.
If we have to show you a couple times, you're
going to have it down. It's very foreign to learn
what muscle contractions are meant to feel like
if you've not felt them for a long time or at
all. And that's our business is teaching people
the accurate muscle contractions for body weight,
for supporting the body in the longest, most
supportive way. And until you have felt it. It's
very hard to find it. But once you got it, you
got it. It doesn't go away very often. You know
what you're looking for very, very quickly. Yeah.
I can tell looking at the faces now if they've
got it or not. Yeah, right? No, that looks too
easy. You're not doing it right. Exactly. If
you're shaking and you look like you're ready
to pass out, then you nailed it. I had this really
great experience very recently for Veterans Day
this year on 11 -11. We filmed some footage with
this guy. t mac pat mcnamara uh he started a
company called combat strength training which
is the least significant thing he has done he's
like this very highly decorated powerhouse delta
force veteran of the army and we were doing stuff
with him and this guy is stronger than anything
he's 50 years old and just an ox can i will never
in my life be as strong as him there's no chance
in hell Just showing him this work, basic standing
decompressions, basic anchored bridges, basic
windmills and stuff like that. This extremely
seasoned athlete. Teacher, you know, he teaches
all this combat strength training, tactical movement
stuff, and he. Very humble man in this regard
was able to say, I've never seen anything like
this. I've never felt anything like this. This
is this is insane. There's no body type that
this is not going to affect. And the stronger
you are. the more you're going to notice the
effects of this work. Absolutely. And you touched
on a great point as well. It's completely scalable.
So you can be the 18 -year -old athletic phenom,
or you can be the 80 -year -old with very poor
strength. But whether you're extending your arms
all the way out or leaning on a chair, you can...
work on the same hip hinge or you know decompression
breathing no matter what your background so if
you're in a huge amount of pain or if you've
never felt pain in your life and you know want
to opt for the best option which is to never
find out you know it's it's it's the same movements
for everyone just slight tweaks to to adjust
the load yeah it is the idea that most of the
things that we do for resistance training in
our whole life are from the outside in. They're
pulling resistance towards the center of the
body, and foundation training is 180 degrees
opposite. We're creating an outward expansion
of the torso, and we're teaching the rest of
the body to support that as muscularly as possible.
It's a very important range of motion. What I
tell people a lot is, if there's going to be
one range of motion that you work on improving
in your whole life, it should be at your ribcage.
It should be your ribcage's ability to remain
expansive in and out of breath. those muscles
are so important they're so metabolically active
and they're so responsible for keeping you healthy
your whole spine healthy your hip joints healthy
like there's so much at play at the rib cage
it's crazy yeah and then and then extending down
as well one one thing that i want to touch on
um uh firstly anyone that has sciatic pain you're
going to notice a huge difference in that um
especially with the woodpecker that takes a lot
of pressure off the si joint is that as long
as you're doing it well because a lot of people
will do that and we'll we'll will interfere with
their sciatic nerve if they're stuck in external
rotation. So if you have sciatic pain, make sure
that the big toe, the inner portion of the big
toe, the ball of the big toe, is always pressing
into the ground, but that the arch is not flattened
against the ground. So the outside edge of your
foot is strong, and the inner edge of the big
toe is also pressing into the ground. That's
going to help make sure that your sciatic nerve
is going to have space. be minimally impinged
upon. Yeah. And that's going to actually talk
about the other thing I was going to say, which
is. One of the big battles I've got in my gym
is every time I take my shoes off, everyone freaks
the hell out. Really? Yes, because I'm in a CrossFit
gym. That's the main gym that I teach at. So
they're like, what if you drop a kettlebell on
your foot? I'm like, it doesn't matter if I'm
wearing shoes. It's still going to hurt. Right.
But the barefoot stuff, I do a lot. Julian Panot
does all his stuff barefoot whenever he can too.
So I'm carrying 225 in the overhead position.
through the gym but with bare feet so creating
that strength there creating that strength by
anchoring just like you were saying um you know
it's toning up all those muscles in my feet i
know you've mentioned that carpal tunnel and
plantar fasciitis are basically uh the weakness
of the muscles in in those areas in the hands
and the feet well that's hang on a second I don't
think you're, I don't think you quote me right
on that one. Um, so the plantar fasciitis idea,
it's not that it's weakness in the feet. Nobody's
feet are strong enough to support them. And so
the feet are supported by this, this fascial
chain of muscles that goes up the inner leg,
up the inner thigh and fastens and supports itself
at the pubic synthesis. Like the base, the lower
base of the pelvis, the groin that pulls the
arch up. If that tissue is overstretched and
that's what internal rotation, I'm sorry. That's
what external rotation of the hip joint does.
It creates an overstretching of the inner thigh
musculature and a tightening of the outer thigh
musculature. And the end of that whip is the
foot and the arch and this fascial tissue, this
minimally elastic, barely able to stretch at
all fascial tissue. But there's so much additional
stretch on the limb already that the last little
bit is sort of taken out at that fascia and it
can't do it. So it becomes irritated and inflamed
and it becomes extremely painful and extremely
sensitive. But it's not coming from the foot.
It's coming from so much higher up the chain
and imbalance at the hip. Okay, so I misquoted
you on that one. I apologize. That's all right.
I mean, certainly by being barefoot, you're certainly
engaging the foot itself and getting that tactile
feedback from the floor. And I mean, I personally
just from self experience, exploration i love
doing everything barefoot whenever i can now
so i mean whether it's uh specifically helping
plantar fasciitis or not um i think that taking
your shoes off as much as possible is hugely
beneficial to to foot health overall it is and
don't take what i said as this as saying that
what you were saying was wrong being barefoot
promotes the the healthy activation and contraction
of the muscles all the way up the ankle, all
the way up the shin, all the way up the thigh,
all the way up the groin. Wearing shoes desensitizes
our foot, makes it very easy to roll out to the
inside, roll out to the outside, walk poorly.
That is what ultimately shuts down those muscles,
that and sitting on them too often. So being
barefoot, using the toes a lot, if you have the
opportunity to walk in deep sand or deep, you
know. water where you're maybe like shin deep
or so just do it as often as you can there's
there's structural benefits there's biomechanical
benefits for sure but there's also electrochemical
benefits there's something called grounding or
earthing however you want to call it that is
literally kind of like your electro ability to
sort of not plug into the earth but utilize the
electromagnetic energy in the earth to detoxify
and not really detoxify so much as alkalinize
your body a little bit. Take some of the negative
ions out of there. Take some of the free radicals
floating around your bloodstream out of there.
We still have pores in our feet. We still have
all of these things, though not as many. And
as a result, we can really do quite a lot by
going barefoot and getting ourselves into moist
grass or moist sand. If anybody's listening,
or not if anybody's listening, but if anybody
wants to. Google grounding. Look up that process.
It's about the simplest thing in the world you
can do for your health. kind of uh feedback as
well so so explain what you do in the ocean and
and and why you do it and how it feels to you
well i i definitely i mean i surf in the ocean
a lot in california and like this time of year
it's it's cold but it's not freezing um but i
do like to like the other day i had to fly out
of santa barbara to come out to colorado and
for about 20 minutes prior to my flight just
put a pair of board shorts on and jumped into
the ocean um i tend to get anxious before flying
and i fly a lot so there's a few means that are
very simple and no side effects that allow me
to relax. And one of the biggest ones is jumping
in the cold ocean, letting the salt water kind
of do its thing, letting the cold do its thing.
And by the time I'm out of there, I'm, I'm calm.
I at first sort of fight it for three, four minutes.
I get a little tight in my breathing and my body
tries to contract. But as Wim Hof is, Wim Hof
is the expert on this subject, by the way, he
would tell you a gazillion things more than I
could possibly tell you. But In a very short
summary, by the time I get out of 10, 20 minutes
in the 55 or so degree Santa Barbara Ocean, I
feel as though I have, you know, took a nap,
woke back up, had a cup of coffee, and like,
you know, maybe gone for a little hike. Like,
I just feel good. I feel calm. I feel like I
am ready to take on whatever I have to. And my
body doesn't hurt at all. That's another big
thing. Yeah, exactly. The inflammation, cryotherapy
is starting to get some momentum now for that
same reason. I know you talked about this in
the other podcast, but we use ice on a specific
area of the body instead of thinking about the
whole immersion, which then reduces inflammation
everywhere globally. As Tim Brown kind of tuned
me into as the idea of immersion versus compartmentalized
ice therapy is, What you're ultimately doing
with ice is calming the nervous system. And the
more surface area of the skin, which is the largest
organ in the body, it's very alive, it's very
innervated, obviously. The more surface area
of the skin that we can cover in cold water and
slowly have adapt, a slow adaptation is like
five minutes. You're not just jumping out of
the water. If we can take that five or 10 minutes
to let our nervous system calmly accept the cold,
it will in turn keep us calm. And one of the
biggest signs of a... not calm nervous system
is chronic pain yeah i would love to try and
get wim hof i haven't reached out but uh he just
uh got hooked up with tony robbins so i think
he's uh He's otherwise engaged for a little while,
but I will definitely reach out again when this
podcast gets a little more leverage. So the other
area of inflammation, obviously, is the GI tract.
And I know you're big on that. I'm huge on that.
I'm an absolute massive believer in probiotics
and creating that balance and being fully aware
of the food that you put in your mouth is going
to affect your body either positively or negatively.
So what are your views on flora? If I were to
tell you that there are countless trillions of
invisible bacterium life forms existing in the
entire lining of your gut and that they dictate
the way you feel, the way you think, the energy
level that you have, the way you absorb food,
the way you eliminate food, the quality of your
peristaltic movements in your digestive tract.
the quality of your thoughts about yourself and
about other people. If I told you that, would
you believe me? I would. But I'm biased. Most
people wouldn't. But it's the reality of our
situation. Our nervous system is kind of programmed
by the lining of our gut in a lot of ways. And
oftentimes, especially with histories of antibacterial
soap, antibacterial supplements or antibiotic
medicine. what else is going to be a big year?
So processed foods really are not readily absorbed
by these bacterium or by our microvilli in our
guts. Sugars tend to feed a more derogatory sense
and form of these bacterium as opposed to healthy
fats that tend to feed a easier thinking, more
peaceful, more satiated version of these things.
That's kind of how your digestion seems to be
catalyzed is by these. digestive helping bacterium.
Probiotics give you a few versions of the healthier
ones, the ones that can colonize your gut and
help you eliminate some of the ones that might
be a little bit less able to assist your immune
system and assist digestion and maybe are a little
bit more able to assist anxiety and sympathetic
nervous tone and insomnia. And I hope you all
realize how quickly you can adjust your gut flora
with the right probiotics and the right hydration
and the right foods fermented foods are huge
from fermented yogurts to kefir to kombucha to
fermented vegetables to pickles and sauerkraut
and beets and kimchi and all of these things
all the way to tequila being found to have you
know raw tequila healthy tequila the good kind
not the crappy kind having very healthy digestive
probiotics in it. There's so many things out
there that make you good. And taking just a few
of them can really help when you're feeling bad.
Probiotics, healthy probiotics, not the crap
you buy at GNC, but like go to a health food
store, get one that needs to be refrigerated.
And if it's not dead in a week, that's a good
one. Don't get the ones that can stay on your
shelf for several months. Yeah. I use the Garden
of Life ones that do refrigerate and I've had
great. success with those and also as part of
my routine have a banana and a bottle of kombucha
every morning on the way to the station before
i have my coffee or anything else that's gonna
yeah nice inevitably affect it so and i always
feel fantastic by the time i get to work yeah
there's huge amounts i mean i really hope people
like if you have five minutes just google um
google second brain gut as the you know intestines
as the second brain and it's called the second
brain because it dictates your first brain it's
going to tell you what to think and how to react
to life and if you're in the wrong if you're
held by the wrong bacterium if your gut is basically
if your ecosystem in your gut is is not tolerating
food well you're going to feel very badly and
you can change that a good amount of the time
Just like with back pain, if you're not doing
it right, it's going to hurt pretty bad, but
you can change that a lot of the time. Same with
gut flora. Yeah. And the other thing that I've
said in one of the previous podcasts is your
GI system is also 80 % of your immune system,
which is crazy. So that's also going to dictate
how you deal with pathogens and stress and carcinogens
and all the other things that we're exposed to
on a daily basis. It's also where it's also I
mean, this is probably one of the most important
things is it's also where 50 % of the dopamine
that your body uses is produced. And it's also
where 90 plus percent of the serotonin that your
body uses is produced. Those are your happy chemicals.
Those are your your your relaxation and coming
down from intense calls chemicals. Those are
you're not getting addicted to opioids chemicals.
You know, those are extremely important. And
the healthier your gut, the healthier your production
of those neurotransmitters is. Yeah, because
there has been a pretty documented link between
poor gut flora and depression. Not just depression.
Depression is one among the spectrum that it's
been linked to. Everything from anxiety to bipolar
disorders and manias and lots of other things.
But it is, if nothing else, just know that even
though you feel it in your brain, it might not
be coming from there. It might be coming from
your gut. That is a very real thing that should
be considered. No, I agree 100%. And one of the
anchor points, I guess you could say, of this
podcast when it first got launched, we had several
deaths and suicides attributed to PTSD. And with
every podcast, we find little areas of where
lifestyle habits can cause that to be more prominent
than it should be, whether it's nutrition or
exercise or sleep. And obviously this is another
area which is purely the actual bacteria within
your gut. It takes a village to stay healthy.
It takes a village of thought. It doesn't take
one expert. It takes several. And it takes those
experts in different categories really considering
what the other people have to say as well because
they've earned their ability to have their voice
too. There's so much available information. If
you're not feeling well, find it. Seek it. look
for it if you're not finding it keep looking
look elsewhere though different communities not
the one you're used to yeah no exactly i think
that you know everyone in our profession needs
to look at themselves as an athlete and then
and then look at athletes professional athletes
and look at the the myriad of experts that they
have around them they have psychologists they
have nutritionists they have uh you know fitness
trainers and i think we need to have the same
thing and obviously can we have them on on hand
24 7 no but you have access to a chiropractor
you have access to all these people whether in
person or even in podcasts and books and and
uh you know the videos but you do need to have
that team as they say around you to to get that
360 degree uh wellness Yeah, and you don't have
to be in person with them. That team is just
an idea of seeking information from various sources.
Absolutely. Well, I am going to get a couple
of short questions and then let you get on to
your dinner because I know you said your girlfriend
is cooking for you and we're an hour and a half
in. So thank you so much for answering everything
so far. We're touching on information. So would
you recommend or do you have a book that you
like to recommend and or a movie or documentary?
Who is this for? Who am I recommending this to?
Is this for any specific thing? I would say anyone.
So it doesn't have to be specifically in wellness,
but just a book and or a movie. So a book that
I've read over and over countless times, and
I've probably given it as a gift to probably
20 or 30 or 40 different people, is called Way
of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. I suggest
it to every single person. Just read it. You
might think it's weird. But just read it. It's
a phenomenal book. It gives you an understanding
of how powerful thought can be and practice and
habit and all of that. So that's probably my
biggest advice is that's just a great book. It's
just easy read and it's pleasant. It's a way
of the peaceful warrior. And then did you ask
for a documentary? A movie or a documentary.
It can be fiction. It can be documentary. Just
something. I just watched a documentary on the
National Lampoon Group. called Drunkstoned Brilliant
Dead. And I know it's not the ideal for a health
thing, but I gotta tell you, what this world
is lacking right now is a little bit of rebellion.
And rebellion takes the edge off of things. comedy
and humor and, and satire and making fun of shit
takes the edge off of life. And it's lacking
right now. We need more comedy in life and in
each of our individual lives. So I recommend
you go watch drunk stone, brilliant dead, and
you go listen to some George Carlin and you go
listen to some Richard Pryor and you just find
the humor and all the crazy shit that goes on
in the world and recognize that you chose a job
that makes everybody around you proud and makes
you suffer a little bit, but we all appreciate
it very much. Yeah, I agree completely. Kirk
Parsley, who's a Navy SEALs sleep doctor and
was a SEAL himself. His favorite movie was Team
America World Police. So I'll leave that right
there. Nothing else needs to be said. That's
great. So now we've already kind of touched on
this, but my last question usually is what do
you do to decompress? Now I know you surf. Is
there anything else outside of your physical
activities that you do for a laugh or to decompress?
I don't do stand -up comedy. I don't perform
it, but I listen to it all the time. I almost
always have old stand -up comedy on. I used to
take improv classes and stuff when I was a kid.
In much the same way that the human body has
this capacity towards peak athleticism, if you
do it right. I think that the human brain has
the capacity towards remarkable wit and humor
also. I'm equally impressed by both. I don't
know where I was going with that one. Is there
anything I do to decompress that's different
than just listening to that or doing my, you
know, I do a lot of exercise. I go for a ton
of walks. I love silence, not with music, just
with letting my head go. Go walk for like four
or five miles. That always changes the mood easily.
But it's surfing, listening to some funny stuff,
listening to really good music, playing guitar.
I play a lot of guitar when I get the time to.
Those are my things. Brilliant. Yeah, it seems
like everyone I've asked, there's been either
one of two things or both. One is with family,
obviously, especially if they've got kids. And
I know you guys don't at the moment. But the
other thing is they have the surfing, the jiu
-jitsu, the hiking, that place that takes their
mind away from the daily grind and puts them
into that zen state. See, my daily grind is travel.
It's doing all the it's doing what a lot of other
people would normally do to decompress. It's
I get to go to wonderful places. I get to meet
a lot of cool people. I get to travel with my
girlfriend and our dogs. And it's amazing. But
my moments of decompression are the stand up
comedy moments, the going for a walk by myself
for a bit like that's that's that's what does
it for me, really? Yeah. Well, if you ever go
to London. um i know there's no surfing in london
so i have to figure something out there they're
surfing in ireland though and that's not too
far off and i believe there is some surfing and
i think there's a couple small small little little
swell magnets around one around england somewhere
yeah southwest england new key and cornwall around
there um those are uh so i can i can tell you
where to go if you ever head there but the comedy
the comedy the comedy store in london i used
to go when i was at university like religiously
and that is a fantastic place to go see stand
up so i'll do that yeah maybe maybe if we do
because we keep talking about doing a certification
in london our whole team wants to we've been
asked to go out there by a good a good bit of
people uh that would be a very fun night out
for everybody yeah i would fly over just to do
that with you yeah right on that'd be that'd
be sweet all right so we're gonna you could be
our translator There we go. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So there'll be no subtitles in the videos. So
I'm going to let you go, but I just want to,
last question, where can people find you online?
So where can they find your work? I know on YouTube,
if you go to Foundation Training, the 12 -minute
Foundation Training video is there. I highly
recommend people do that. And then you've got
some other ones on there too. Where else apart
from that? Just the website, foundationtraining
.com. That's the easiest. That's our resource.
We're constantly updating it. We have new programs
coming out very, very soon in the next month
or two. And yeah, just foundationtraining .com.
That's the best place. I think we have Facebook
and Instagram and all that too. It's all just
called Foundation Training. Okay, perfect. All
right, Eric. Well, thank you so much for spending
your time with us. helping spread the word i
hope that anyone out there who is in any sort
of pain will immediately wherever they get to
their destination if they're listening here go
look up eric's work and start down that path
because it's not something you're gonna have
to wait six months for the results to start showing
you're gonna if you do it for a week solid you're
gonna notice it within those seven days it's
incredible I definitely appreciate the kind words
and the vote of confidence, James. And I appreciate
you being a student as well. I liked having you
in the CERT. I liked the steady. work that you've
done since then so thank you very much for helping
us share foundation training and I hope that
the people that try it get the help they're looking
for and hopefully quite a lot more yeah me too
and just for everyone that's listening I'm trying
to kind of get the timeline right in my head
because these are all staggered but about a month
after this airs there should be a video piece
coming to the website I'm actually going to go
to Orlando fire department and do some work with
Eric and Jesse and try and just give you a little
video insight into some of these movements and
how simple they are, how low impact they are,
and yet how effective they are. So look for those
too. So thank you, Eric, so much. I will let
you go now and I will definitely be talking to
you soon. But thank you so much for sharing all
your information with everyone listening. It
was a pleasure, James. Thanks so much. I really
appreciate you having me on. All right, mate.
You take care. Thank you. Bye, bud. Bye -bye.
Bye.