If you are looking to improve your body in every way you can imagine maybe working out is not the way to do it We're gonna find out more about that on today's episode of the movement movement podcast the podcast for people who want to know the truth About what it takes to have a happy healthy strong body usually starting with the feet first because those things are in fact You're foundation we talk about the propaganda the mythology sometimes the lies flat out lies You've been told about what it takes to run or walk or play or hike or dance or do yoga across whatever it is You like to do and enjoy it and enjoy it. We efficiently Officially did I mention enjoy it? I know I did because if you're not having fun Please do something different so you are and we call it the movement movement podcast because we're talking about natural movement Our goal here at zero shoes by the way, I'm Stephen session post of the podcast and CEO's your issues Our goal is to make natural movement the obvious healthy better choice the way natural food currently is and it's a movement about doing that Which means it involves you and all that means is you know Like and share and review and give us a thumbs up or hit the bell on YouTube Make sure you hear about new episodes etc. You know what to do and sure if you want to be part of the tribe Please do subscribe.
So we are joined today by part part part. What do you do me favorite tell human beings who the hell you are and why you're here? Oh, thanks for having me. Yeah, first of all, I just wanted to say I'm a big fan of your shoes And I've been learning for a long time and also I've really been enjoying your podcast Why thank you and one of the reason that we're here is that I've enjoyed your book which I'm hoping at some point you will hold up and flash and point to To have a copy in fact, I think someone may have borrowed We have a nice library here at the office with a whole bunch of books about barefoot running a natural movement and things like what you obviously What you do but I think check and see what's checked out.
So let's jump Anyway back up a bit so tell people who the hell you are yeah Sure taking how my name is our honor and I've been practicing as an exercise therapist for over 20 years and Actually before I got into exercise therapy about 25 years ago actually the reason I got kind of dragged unwillingly towards this field initially at first Was several years of chronic shoulder upper and lower back pain So I had no choice but to try to move in a direction where I could figure out what was going on to get me back on track And I visited experts in sports medicine physical therapy chiropractic acupuncture pain management Just spent a crazy amount of time money seeking out answers to get back on track Because I'd gone from someone who was relatively athletic I'd like to lead college tennis I did lots of the things that people like to do here in color How to ski and I can all that good stuff and I went from being highly functional to highly dysfunctional So the point where I couldn't even use my shoulder very much anymore I had to learn to write left-handed at one point. So yeah, so that was initially how I got moving in the direction towards exercise therapy Fortunately, I eventually met a mentor who was able to get me back on track with that He was a guy who had that track record where people would come to him from all over who had been a lot of other places first like me And his techniques were so effective that he had that track record He could just help one person after the next after the next pretty efficiently and easily get back moving in the right direction So how do you find him to begin with and can you mention who it is? He had just extreme luck and for me, I guess I was a pretty complicated case lots of trial and error but eventually my mom had met this guy through a friend and She said he had to keep this guy sounds pretty smart And and that was it so it did take a while It wasn't like an overnight thing bam your fix But he knew the techniques and he had the insights to point me in the right direction And at first it was just me wanting to get better and move on with my life and forget about this portion of my life basically But then really I became fascinated with how effective he was how effective the techniques were at helping one person after the next So pretty soon I was like, hey, I want to learn how to do this and teach it to other people And so for over 20 years now I've been refining and teaching the techniques I learned from my friend Sean McArver and Using them to help my own clients and then most recently incorporating that into the book called jiffy body which teaches people a 10 minute daily system where they can practice the same types of techniques and ideas that I learned from Sean So just to highlight again, so this is normally something we do at the end of the podcast when I'm doing now So if people want to find out about the book jiffy body, where do they go to do that? Yeah, they can go to my website.
It is jiffybody.com and there's two There's two apps there and you can find it on Amazon Barnes and Noble It's pretty easy to google and look up and just a quick testimony on me It is a very simple and elegant little program and the book is very It's like a really pleasant comfortable easy read. It's engaging. It's entertaining. It's personal.
It's really sweet. It's a little done Thank you Pleasure. So backing up the teacher that we gave inspired by you was that you don't need to work out to get your body functioning properly working properly Do you want to do something more about that? Yeah, absolutely I think first part of that starts with a mindset that I've had even before I got into all of this and a lot of people might think is that no pain no game type situation And and that does draw people towards the gym and really aggressive heavy workouts and that could be fine I mean I like to work out as well for enjoyment but the fact is it's not a requirement to improve body function and performance and forgiving Promoting my system a little bit, but there's very simple tactics you can learn to improve body mechanics for your whole body Similar to like your shoes, right?
Like you figured out that modern shoe companies were over engineering footwear and restricting natural movement And that's created like a street jacket for our feet or they can't express themselves Similarly because of our modern environment because we don't tend to move and use our bodies with variety like our ancestors did even a hundred years ago We've lost that natural movement. We've lost the ability to express normal joint range emotion things like that So what can happen for people is if for instance you sit eight hours a day in your office That's at least 29 hundred hours of sitting in a year with your body like I am in this couch and are restricted can find position And then when you get up and try to use your body, maybe for something more aggressively you might encounter problems Right, so even working out aggressively in that situation could be dangerous But be if you can just improve body mechanics allow for more natural movement You're gonna feel better and just basically want to use your body more So the more you can use your body with variety throughout your day and like you say more natural movement Do a variety of activities with your body the whole time you're creating your own resistance with gravity Right, that's why people who work in fields or to manual labor create their own type of resistance program that builds more muscle fiber That increases bone density that improves joint range emotion You can get all of these benefits just by some people will really really resent this when they say this but you can improve by doing your chores around the house That could be Exactly I get some grimaces about that, but that can really improve body function muscle mass bone density range emotion flexibility All of these great things just by moving it and using it I just thought of I just thought of a great new product So we need to make a broom with like a 15 or 20 pound weighted handle I think that'd be good or like a dust pan with a five pound dumbbell built into it or yeah a towel for drawing the dishes Like a heavy so we're laying on I got a weighted blanket which we really enjoy so now we need like weighted dish towels This is a whole new everything I read here Well before I jump in I've got a couple comments just about what you said but before we do that since you kind of set this up Is there and I know I'm putting you on the spot when I do this but hey live with it So can you think of a movement thing that you could share with people now either to help them experience anything whether it could be How they may have some restriction that they could be that they could alleviate or just something that they could do that feels good Instead of putting out something problematic anything that you want to offer Absolutely, I could do two even if you want I could do one for all right well I only asked for one, but if you're gonna throw in a bonus, I'm not gonna say that Yeah, two for the price of mine So the first thing is that people love this one actually and I'm sure you're gonna be familiar with this because you're so knowledgeable about foot Ankle function and all of that but this is when I teach my clients in the book as well So using the couch actually can be very useful or beneficial practice positions. So I'll lean back here So hopefully you can see my foot and what I'm wearing too by the way I can see the tip of your toes. Okay.
I'm wearing my zero trees. Can you if I let my foot there we are There it is So what you're gonna do is and if you draw a circle really slowly with your foot Yeah In the slower and more perfect circle you draw in both directions The more you're gonna activate some muscles called your peronius and tibialis muscles, which by the way are also very impressive words to use on a date I don't know who you date, but okay, whatever you say But so you're practicing a you're practicing joint range of motion, which is beneficial. That's not something we do during our day a lot But be by activating those muscles They're like straps on a roan sandal that go down your lower leg and attach the points underneath your foot And that's what gives them leverage to create stability as you're walking forward So what you want is you're walking is like a smooth tracking pattern So you don't want excess lateral vibration in your foot if you're gonna walk forward smoothly And so that's just one of the benefits those muscles provide so Yeah Well, I was just gonna say what was really interesting and I want to highlight this for people is going as slow as you can Because then you start to at first you find these little glitches By the way and start to work themselves out So there's an interesting neurological thing going on there And then especially then you reverse it and what's fun wait hold on I can do it What's entertaining do you recommend? I'll say this way do you recommend people start with their dominant or non-dominant side The key thing as long as you're practicing both because what you mentioned there's is really important It's self-diagnostic just by doing this stupidly simple practice position, right?
You can notice where your weak point is in your range of motion And sometimes where people can be pretty dramatic. They're like whoa that portion of the circle is not good And what they'll notice as they practice is they can draw better circles and that means you're getting better lower like ankle and foot function Yeah, the reason that I asked about dominant numbers non-dominant and you don't have an opinion about it nor do I at the moment But what many people will find is when you practice with one side then the other side at first feels awkward Because you've already gotten the first one in the groove, but usually improves faster than the second one This is like an idea from Feldenkrais where it's start with the good side and then the bad side comes along Or it's what happened for me with my first barefoot run when I got her my second one actually But my first one I got a blister on the ball on my left foot So my second run I was thinking let me pay attention to the good side the one that didn't get a blister And see if the quote bad side comes along for the ride and it did it figured out I kind of by paying attention to the good side the bad side figured out how to change itself And I went emphasize figured out how to change itself I wasn't consciously doing anything other than paying attention to the good side So again doing really slow rotation This sort of attention is more important than the speed or just getting around it's not just about Yeah, because initially when I show that when the people they want to do it really fast Right, but that's absolutely correct the more they focus that mindfulness part of the practice position and really drawing a slow really good circle You can then you're really gonna feel these muscles activating a lot more of these funny and they'll be like oh, that's where they are Because you'll feel them It's funny funny you start with that because I don't know how it happened. I was just Oh, I know what it was It was one of these people do amazing things videos that I was watching when I was trying to get to sleep the other night And it was a guy a guy who on a whiteboard drew a perfect circle free hand drew a perfect circle So I love that we're doing foot circles and he draws a perfect circle and it was in classroom and whole class goes crazy Yeah, okay. So you promised a bonus two for the price of one one number two Absolutely the second so deals with upper body and it deals with counteracting one of the main causes Of dysfunction for our bodies and that's sitting right?
So as I mentioned earlier all those hours of sitting we can do every year myself included And so when we're sitting at our computers and steering wheels in our cars and even in this couch It's really easy to slouch right my shoulders instead of being externally rotated I'm at my keyboard. This is an exaggeration right you can see my shoulders internally rotate, right? And so for people who are listening so internally rotating easy way to think about that is if you Outstretched your arm in front of you with your palm up and then rotate not just your arm But sort of like rotate everything including your shoulder in so your if your thumb is rotating counter your right thumb is rotating counterclockwise left thumb clockwise So really exaggerate the shoulder part of that that's internally rotated And if you're the other way your thumbs are starting to point out so you're rotating your right hand clockwise and left hand counterclockwise Especially to pull your shoulders back a little that's going to be externally rotating your shoulders Yep. Yep So that's the first part of Want to want to explain the second thing that happens when we're sitting is these upper front muscles will tighten and shorten Right, so you can think of your muscles as like cables that support a suspension bridge You got your suspension bridge.
Let's say the cables are tighter on one side of the bridge That's going to make the bridge lopsided and cause structural problems for the bridge right? It's not going to stand very long And similarly we have these muscle cables that support our body bridge which consists of our phones and joints So in this case if these cables are getting tighter and tighter because we're always like this a bunch of our computers and in our cars Over time these are going to shorten upper and upper back are actually going to over stretch Which gets into the whole idea some people are like well, isn't it good to stretch everything or some people might not say that either But what happens in this scenario is tighten short on upper front and over stretch on upper back That's what we're practicing eight hours a day twenty nine hundred hours a year So this is another stupidly simple position to counteract internally rotated and upper front muscles that are shortened and these are over stretched So to describe it a little better what you're going to do is I just like that you made a point to talk about in Proneus, but now you're referring to the upper pack as the upper front so These are two totally different dates that you're on one for people who think they'll be impressed if muscle they don't know about So the movement is I tried to in the book and sometimes I diverted from that but I tried to make some of the ideas as simple as possible This was my upper front muscles, right? So to practice this position what you're going to do is you're going to open like you said open for people who ever saw that show a long time ago Was it happy days? Fonzie right was that thumbs out?
It's a really interesting point Yeah, he went Fonzie was doing thumbs up. It wasn't straight up. It was a little out. It was a little externally rotated About that same Yeah, so the more you turn your thumbs up and then out so you're turning your palms Directly up towards the ceiling essentially and then the next part of it is I'm pulling my arms straight back So you could during your day Let's say you've been sitting for a couple hours, right?
You could get up and do this practice position to counteract what you've just been practicing at your computer for two hours And so when we're trying to create better muscle balance, it's really simple All we're trying to do lots of times is practice the opposite of the repetitive thing that we've been doing for a lot of the day So if we've been this way internally rotated shorter upper front Now we're going to practice external rotation stretching upper front and actually shortening upper back It's the opposite. How do you how do you feel about adding resistance to things like this like using rubber band or if you're A cable machine doing using weights in some way Absolutely, and so I'm definitely not against working out I guess the only point I was trying to make earlier is that you don't have to do it If you improve body mechanics, you can move around and do lots of things to gain those types of benefits outside of the gym But yeah, I like to work out and that's a great Exercise you're talking about to do where you like you have a cable right with some weight and you're pulling towards you and you're squeezing essentially And tightening these upper back muscles because these muscles up here are the counterbalance for all of your arm and shoulder movements So every time you're moving and using your arm these are working to keep the shoulder stable and functional It's interesting. I had so I was an all-American gymnast way back when I don't know any gymnast who makes it out of that without bed shoulders And or at least one and when I first got diagnosed as needing a rotator cuff repair 25 years ago And I put it off until three years ago and I've had limited mobility if I try to put my hand behind my back I could barely do it with my injured shoulder or side which is my right side and then I don't know where I got the idea A couple of years ago. I just decided to start doing a whole bunch of chin ups And so I put up chin up bar lane and I we have our second bedroom is our tv slash guest room And then there's a bathroom off it so I put a chin up bar in the doorway to the bathroom So obviously I went in and out of it doesn't times day and every time I went in I would do just like five chin ups And I really emphasized that what you just said that really working on the upper back rather than thinking of it as a bicep exercise And I wasn't I don't know why I thought to do this.
It wasn't I wasn't thinking of it as a rehab thing It just I just had the idea. I want to do more stuff And what I noticed is that my upper back started getting stronger My shoulders started moving into a different position and I started getting more flexibility from building the strength back there Which is counterintuitive Well, most people think it's counterintuitive it makes sense for people what you just said But it seemed odd that I was getting more flexible by getting stronger to just The desire and openness to try a variety of movement too Sometimes you could be surprised by incorporating variety the benefits that can create for your body That might you just did it in truth And to that point I got into something about six weeks ago. I've owned some kettlebells for a while I used them mostly for just doing kettlebell swings or doing single leg deadlifts But then I got inspired to try an actual kettlebell workout and I'd never really done one before and it's a whole bunch of really unusual movement patterns It's not like going to the gym by any stretch. I'm not doing bicep curls.
I'm not doing tricep pushdowns I'm not doing bench presses. I'm not doing any of those normal those quote normal things And yet my whole body is acting as if I have most interesting to me is what's happening with my biceps And it's interesting because I'm not doing any exercises with the kettlebell that involve bending and flexing my arm in any way that's against resistance Basically the only time I'm bending my arm if you're doing for people who are into kettlebells a kettlebell clean But that's kind of weightless. It's not like I'm pulling and doing resisted bicep work Most of what's happening is actually just kind of hold this thing hold the kettlebell without it flying out of your hand And so it's so there's it's fascinating to see like I'm not doing any bench press stuff But it's affecting my chest. I'm not doing any feeling the black I'm not doing an exercise for that body part and yet that body parts being affected Or not doing the normal exercise for that body part.
So the new movement pattern thing is really interesting to me lately. Yeah, and it's fine too, right? Feels it's really satisfying. It's also part of me one second.
It's really satisfying It's also really annoying at first because until you figure out how to do things correctly You're banging a giant ball into your forearms But once you get once you kind of figure out the technique it becomes pretty effortless, which is really enjoyable. Yeah It sounds so when people come to see you, what are they typically coming for? How do they find you? Oh clients or readers?
Yeah, both actually Both. Yeah, I would one thing I do with my website that I'm really enjoying doing is I do, you know, like a blog I do a monthly email tip and so my website's definitely the resource jiffy body What do you think but what do you how do you think people are bumping into that? It's not people people like to think that the internet is if you build it, they will come thing which is not the case How do they find you or what do you think they're looking for when they find you? Yeah, you're absolutely right for me.
It's all through initially direct interaction either working one-on-one with people I also do public speaking with larger groups of people I've worked with smaller companies working with employees who found the tactics are really useful for preventing repetitive use problems in the office So yeah, no one's just finding me out of the blue It's all initially through direct interaction. I help one person like hey, you shouldn't talk to a bar Or I go talk to a group of people and people like hey, this is simple and it makes sense And that's a cool thing. I really like about what I teach is it's super simple to the point that sometimes people learn this and they're like, yeah That's just logical. It's not rocket science.
Yeah, it's funny Or I like to say humans have been wearing footwear for since they've been human beings and what we talk about is not rocket science or as they said Thousands of years ago, it's not rock science So I'm trying to think so we talked about we talked about the angle a bit and lower leg We talked about the upper body. What else what are the other things that people come to you for that? You may have some insight to share initially Most of my clients are body issues like a expain, stiffness, swelling, nerve and binge of any joint problems That's one part of it and then the other part which I really enjoy working with is people who just want better performance So it could be an athlete who wants to improve function while they're playing and also to prevent injuries And it could just be people who want to keep doing their favorite activities, right? So it could be someone like you you're a sprinter, right?
So you're motivated to do things so you can perform at a high level So I can have an athlete like that or it could be a grandparent who wants to be able to play with their grandkids on the floor Well, this thing sounds silly perhaps to some people but do you treat those two different groups of people differently or are they basically the same kind of thing Just with different applications. They are we are all the same kind of thing in one sense There's three main principles I teach people one is to improve muscle balance One is to practice and improve joint range of motion if it's lacking and the third is to identify and improve weak points So someone who's really highly functional might be further ahead, right? They might have more complete better range of motion for all their major joints and muscle groups But the same principles benefit everyone but yeah, you have to tailor it to the individual Going back to the very beginning of our conversation and just the teaser about working out It occurs to me that one of the problems that I see with people who do work out whatever that looks like whether it's doing crossfit Or just weightlifting or even yoga. I see people who either they have or they adopt Bed movement patterns because they're trying to get the reps in or that they just don't even know what good form looks like and so they And there's like subtle things.
I'm gonna use bench pressing as an example Where most people don't think about or most people when they think about bench pressing just think about pushing just think about basically doing a push up But if you're gonna bench press really effectively the first thing you do and this comes back to something else We were saying is pull your shoulders back and squeeze your try to squeeze your shoulders together Because that makes your shoulders more stable it shortens their range of motion It makes you much stronger and many people when they think about bench pressing they imagine the bar coming up You know near their clavicle and when the bar touches your chest It should be like nipple level which seems odd because it seems farther down But like those two little cues and then what you do with your feet actually is really important for bench pressing also So there's three little cues that if you give people can make them quote instantly stronger and what that means you're putting yourself in just a better Bi-mechanical position, but because they just they don't know that how look at that they have the idea that they look How hard is it? It's to push something I know how to push something so either they develop a bad pattern or they do They'll do too many reps and start to get tired and try to get that last rep out and all hell breaks loose Or they have some some imbalance or some problematic motor pattern to begin with that just gets exacerbated by doing something that's that kind of activity And people just don't know that there's different things when I mean do you find people getting resistant to the idea of with your work? I mean refer to it I'll say this way it's not accurate but just for the fun of this part of the conversation Do you find people like have a hard time adjusting to the doing less phenomenon? Yeah, I think there is definitely that desire and it's I'm sure more common people who go to the gym That in that mindset you have to work harder to improve just work harder or hurt more That pain being involved with it But what you pointed out with the upper back and how just creating a stronger back is going to make you a better bench presser Is a really great solution to that and the guy I learned from actually initially was he played in the NFL and he was a super heavy weight powerlifter So and unfortunately he's no longer living but I remember him talking about powerlifting moves all the time in particular the bench press And talking about how people neglect to train their back There's another counterintuitive weightlifting thing, but I didn't know for years Which is people who get a weightlifting belt They think that the idea is make it really tight and that somehow providing support But the reality just for the fun doing this we who wear a weightlifting belt who don't know The whole point of the weightlifting belt is not to hold you in but so that you have something to push against when you're squatting or deadlifting So that you're creating a stronger core by pushing out instead of trying to suck something in and create some kind of support from wearing a belt It's like it's really just a cue to make everything Around your entire body front and back more solid when you're doing something like squatting or deadlifting because it's something that people tend to forget They think about the weight they don't think about what's the most important piece that's going to then move this weightlifting belts are again People mostly use them upside down as they make it really tight instead of pushing against it I know I said that now six times So I love the fact that he came out of a powerful background because we talk about a place where you need to figure out how to be the most efficient That's it.
It's not just strong. It's strong in exactly the right way. Some of those guys are amazing Absolutely and even things that people wouldn't normally associate with better strength or even necessarily function some athletes might not do this But if you can just train your stabilizers in your shoulder You're gonna have a more stable ball and socket joint Which means you can drive forward better just like with that one with the feet You can create a smoother tracking pattern by activating these pronos and to be all these muscles And you can drive forward more effectively and sometimes those are the little things that people that were look It could be an athlete that may not think on that level Like how do I create better joints stability and stabilizers or it could be someone much older Lots of times you might think that it's just impossible, right? They can't have a better function.
Maybe they're too old and they just can't do it But sometimes the solution can be just so simple that once they learn it and practice it, they're like, oh, okay It's easy. You reminded me I met these two women there twins who were in circus l.a And they created a training program based on what they were doing search to l.a That was all just about that upper back and just getting those shoulders back in position and working on those stabilizer muscles Because they found similar to what you've been talking about that so many of these circus l.a athletes Came in with I just did whatever it took to get through the move But they didn't have a stable structure to do it So that's why they were seeing really really high injuries And so they created this whole program to basically try to make you as bullet proof as possible for the incredibly demanding Schedule and just the demands of these amazing activities that these certain athletes were doing And you would never think that these people at the top of their game are walking in Essentially with a bad foundation to begin with. That's what they were seeing and then they created this whole program I hadn't thought about this. I met them.
Jesus was 20 plus years ago. I hadn't thought about it in quite a while Yeah, I found the same thing that sometimes people are really surprised I can walk them through it's a really easy 10 minute system that I teach right to improve body mechanics essentially And I can take them through roughly 17 to 20 practice positions And I can tell them what is hurt or where their injury was They don't have to tell me a word I could just guide them through the system and afterwards I can go Oh, yeah, your shoulder or your knee or whatever it is because they sometimes they're the they're like the best athletes in the world Right, but they might not have some of that information that could really benefit them and it's easy to improve So give me an example of like walking through something through the program And what and how they respond and of course the magic question that I imagine people are asking is can you self-diagnose this and do it on your own without you watching? Yeah, absolutely So that's the intent of the system is like self-diagnostic kind of like a 20-point inspection for a car Right before you race it around the track you want to find out what the weak points are on the car and tune it up Similarly with this system people can walk through the practice positions and feel the difference like you were mentioning from one side to the other Whether it was a dominant side or not. Okay, so this is one of the practice positions another really easy one I'm practicing rotation to activate my rotator cuff muscles that keep the shoulders stable Right, so this is a really simple one.
I've shown people before it could be someone incredibly strong and they might notice they have restricted range of motion in their left shoulder They make a wow, I can't externally rotate as well on my left side. So already they've identified a weak point They're like, oh, yeah, and this is the shoulder. I hurt five years ago. It always correlates cast injury to restricted range of motion So it's very easy to walk through the system and go, oh, okay, same thing with the toe circle one ankle has restricted range of motion That was the one I turned on a pot hole however long ago because usually what happens when you've had an injury or even kind of a minor injury The body will compensate and gather restrict right in that area So I noticed a thing that especially like I used to do a bunch of long meditation courses And I used to notice that after a few days it was my right shoulder was a lot of zauto-wack But what I noticed is that most attention was in my upper back on the left side because it was like trying to hold everything in place from the other side Yeah, and that was the first time I discovered that was shocking that my left side was tighter than my right when it was my right side It was the one that was all out of whack.
Yeah, that kind of brings up the point too when you Try even sit you're sitting like that for a couple days. Yeah, yes, even that's like a repetitive activity right trying to push in your body right to Hold this position which can be really hard. That could be a beautiful thing though when you try different movements you gain body knowledge because you'll notice This one part is not working as well as the other side. Why is that?
That's an interesting point you just made and you alluded to it earlier and and we for whatever reason we stop playing as we get older We stop trying all these new things and we lose a certain kind of I don't mean flexibility in the can you do the splits But just flexibility and the opportunity or the options that are available to us because we haven't played with them We haven't tried them. We haven't used them in a while and I'm intrigued by that I don't really even have a fully formed thought I'm having a good time now learning how to do kettlebell things Sprinting forces a whole new game. I got back into there's an archery range down the street I went did some target shooting which hadn't done since I was oh my god, I don't know 12 or something It is learning all these new things. I always find it really entertaining But I also know that even with the things that I'm doing there's probably a giant list of movement patterns that I'm unaware that I'm unaware of That I haven't done and I don't even know that there are possibilities And I'm I keep thinking of I mean what your program opens up people to some ideas of some of those movement patterns But I keep thinking a what does it take to get people to discover these and be able to use them and enjoy them and Something I asked somebody a while ago like imagine if to graduate high school You had to be able to do a round off back handspring or a cartwheel or you know something that's just that's not a normal movement pattern Something and maybe there's 10 different things that you could pick but you have to demonstrate some sort of proficiency in learning Some new and unusual movement to graduate high school So I think about the what happens as we grow up what we are presented with and aren't presented with and then as we get older How we tend to get more limited and what to do about that?
Yeah, absolutely and it's our modern lifestyle too in a way is really what starts to close us in because it's so we don't have to move for survival Right, so the more sit and hey this couch is great But we spend a lot of our life sanitary and we don't have to have variety of movement for survival And the way it goes is generally the less you lose the less you use a variety of movement in joint range of motion The more likely you are to lose joint range of motion And when you lose joint range of motion you're more likely to have body issues like a Pinchman joint problems So the big problem that happens for us even if someone suddenly decides hey I want to go do all these fun things They might have created a challenging situation with their body to be able to get out and do those things without having problem Well, this is the fundamental problem is that our brains idea of what our body is and can do is completely different than reality Especially especially as we get older. I mean in my head. I'm still basically 25 to 32 somewhere And then I go work out or do the kind of thing whatever just I'm doing and find out that now I'm pretty solidly 58 I was gonna say what's cool is you're pushing yourself or you're pointing yourself in a direction where you're challenging your body and you're still doing that variety of movement And it's really beneficial and you might bump up against a wall here and there but super beneficial Well, I like to I have a thing I used to have a note that I wrote on my wall that's a distrust symmetry and of course the two words were in different fonts And I I try to be hyper aware of where things get into patterns where things get stuck or in a loop So I noticed years ago how I put on my pants whichever leg I used first I don't even remember anymore I for a while ago I noticed which way I crossed my arms and I started practicing crossing in the other way and I realized this now I don't remember which one is my preferred one and when I'm sitting I'm constantly changing that and a lot of people If they're watching watching me changing which way I press my arms try it because most people can't do it I'm not trying to show off or anything. We don't do it I play with different ways of I sit on the ground a lot and I play with different ways of getting up off the ground Just because I just noticed for whatever reason when something gets too familiar I do this with thinking as well But with body stuff in particular it just gets too familiar or I just get curious at some point for reasons that I don't understand And the learning new things is both fascinating and annoying because we know that when you're gonna go to learn a new thing You're gonna be uncoordinated and feel like a moron and we don't like doing that But that's just what the sort of effect of trying to lay down new neural pathways But you know, it's like if you can get through that initial awkward phase then it's super fun and I've been thinking about I came or what I was thinking lately just a handful of activities Oh that I imagine wanting to try that our new movement patterns This is gonna sound crazy and a lot of people there's some people who aren't gonna like this at all But I'm gonna say it I've been totally fascinated with the idea of learning how to fire a sniper rifle And which is the opposite of a lot of moving it's trying to get as still as possible I'm not looking to shoot anything or anyone yeah, yeah, but you know that it's such an amazing practice And the whatever kind of control it takes to do that or or opening open relaxing that it takes to do that to shoot a target It's a mile away that strikes me as a really interesting.
It's like the exact opposite of learning a tap dance or Cattlebells or whatever it is, but just again, I'm I get really interested in some new thing that seems completely out of whack I think maybe I got the idea for watching american sniper The sitting there for hours and hours and hours just waiting and trying to be alert that does not seem at all interesting But the idea of mastering something that precise that's really what that's all about is that I guess I just realized I was saying this in my brain is not precise. I keep piles of things everywhere I don't I'm not well organized but all the things I like to do physically typically are very precise sprinting very precise archery Target shooting even way looking very precise. So it's the same I think it's an interesting dichotomy that my brain does one thing my body likes something completely different Right. Well, and the good thing is you have this motivation you enjoy these activities And that's what's pushing you out there to use your body essentially and that's a key ingredient I find with people who are successful who I'm teaching the system to create better body mechanics is initially Let's say they just have aches and pains and they want to get rid of them, right?
And they do and they're able to feel better Well, that's great, but that's not enough motivation to keep practicing and improving body mechanics or Right get out there and use their body And that's what the key thing is long term for dramatically better body function is to work a little bit every day on your body mechanics But then get out there and do fun activities like you're doing essentially and that's a really good formula for success What's been really satisfying with your issues is of course The everything we're saying is what I say applies first is letting you're actually getting your body move and feeling things and getting all those new movement patterns And we hear over and over and over for people who once they do that start just getting Inherently that's not the word I'm looking for intrinsically motivated to just do something else My favorite version is actually was not even from a zero shoes person But there's a doctor in Brazil named Isabel Sacco who put minimalist footwear on a bunch of elderly women and just said where these let's see what happens Basically and what they she found one thing was there knee osteoarthritis was either eliminated or greatly improved But a bunch of these women who had mobility issues up until that point who then suddenly started getting more mobility after they started using their feet Some of them got interested in running 5k races Some of them got interested they just they suddenly had this new idea this new sense of possibility to do new things Just because they got their feet moving more which is just one of my favorites Yeah, that's the perfect recipe really you your shoe helps improve natural movement So then people are feeling better because they are using movement more and then they're like oh I want to do something fun and then keep doing a greater variety of movement and it's just creates a kind of a ball rolling downhill Or whatever the effortless version of a ball rolling uphill would be well to figure out We have to run right before for that Well, so part is there anything else that you want to share with with bipeds about just things to pay attention to or anything about what you're doing Before we pitch you again and tell people where to find it more Oh, yeah Just that the idea is to just that this that the body is really the genius right the body Our bodies are absolutely amazing in what we do and to point them in the right direction doesn't really have to be that complicated So sometimes the simplest solutions can be the most effective just like you're saying with your foot where allow the the foot to do what it wants to do And and similarly with what I teach people it can be really simple and easy to practice this stuff The key thing is just that consistency if you have the motivation the reason why and you're willing to just practice a little bit every day What I teach people is a total non workout you could do it in the office or at home You can practice in your pajamas, you know if you want to it could be totally easy But you can get dramatically better body function and benefit throughout your lifetime doesn't have to be harder complicated You know and the consistency is a really interesting piece and one of the challenges because we do like variety I mean as I'm doing this kind of thing I'm thinking I'm continually reminded of the first time I did a more intensive weightlifting program is when I was in high school When I was a gymnast and the first month which is getting used to the movements the second month was improving and it was the third month We're actually starting seeing the real benefits I have no idea if it's that same three month schedule now that I'm three times that age but or more than that But suffice it to say I think people they often expect certain kinds of changes more quickly than bodies and minds are actually able to change And getting over that little hump until the you start to really When things really start to work well things improve exponentially, but it takes or I'm trying to think I'm a good analogy for this It's like it takes a little while for things to ramp up but then the more they do the more they do So it's it does get a little exponential to a certain point Plateaus but but suffice it to say the consistency I think is something that I want to emphasize as many people And I just feel that in myself that sometimes it's really hard like after the six to eight week mark I can feel my brain going oh wonder for some other Yeah, and that makes sense I've seen that with lots of people and like I say sometimes people just come to me for pain issues and once they get better Then they're like oh, I'm fixed. I don't have to practice anything anymore Right, right? It's gone. It's gone.
I'm good. I'm all good Yeah, it's and that goes back to what you're saying about just the different the lifestyle we have now where we're not Engaging in all these different movements all the time for good reasons and that's the other point I made this argument against somebody who was all about natural movement things and was trying to create a program That was supposed to be more about the kind of things that we did a hundred or a thousand or however many years ago And I said it's not the same as going out for 20 minutes and doing pull-ups on a tree As it is walking down to the river and bring back bricks or rocks that you're used to build at home Just for hours and hours and hours for days and days and days You know, we just literally can't really simulate the way these things originally worked because we're just not we're just not living in that world anymore So we're doing the best we can but but of course that brings back to the consistency point We used to do this stuff all day every day because it's what we needed to live And now if I hope people can find a thing where they recognize the value of it and keep doing that all day every day Not all day but every day as if it was something you needed to do to live But mostly now it has to be motivated by enjoyment because it's not motivated by necessity. Yeah And those are the people I'm seeing like who learn this jiffy body system who want to keep going generally They'll feel better really quickly just by going through it even one or two times and as long as there's a payoff Consistency then that creates that motivation to keep going those are the people that have success and just use it For here and but there definitely has to be a payoff either it gets you out so you can do what you love to do or you feel better Right away, you know, there's something that's working pretty quickly. That's great.
Well, part Thank you so much for all of this. So once again here I'll just do it for people who want to find you jiffybody.com j I F F Y B O D Y dot com Is there any anywhere else people should look for you or anything you're doing? That's it primarily that's where I focus on I mean I have a facebook business page with the same name and but generally Put out free information through the website if someone wants to email me bart at jiffybody.com I'll send them a free practice plan so they can try some of this. Yeah, I have one that's called sitting break better posture practice And it just will teach you where practice positions you can use that you could use at the office or whatever Wherever so you create that better muscle balance practice a little joint range of motion and you'll feel better right away after you've been sitting for a long time That's great.
You surprised me with something I didn't know you had so I hope people do take advantage of that and drop our email and go to his website Bart once again, thank you so much for this but also your support over the years for everybody else If you haven't go over to the if you want to find out more about what we're doing here with the podcast go to www.join the movement movement Dot com and that's where you can find previous episodes and all the different ways to interact with the content all the different places that we're posting You can leave reviews you can do all those things how to do again Thumbs up and hit the bell on youtube and like I said leave reviews, etc If you have any questions for me or any recommendations anyone you think you should that should be on the show or anyone who you think Evidently disagrees with me who should be on the show that would be fun drop me at move at join the movement movement dot com And most importantly as always go out have fun and live life feet first