If you're an exercise program, whatever that happens to be, if it doesn't terrify you, maybe it's not doing what you need it to do. We're going to find out more about that on today's episode of the movement movement, the podcast where people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting typically, you know, feet first, those things at the end of your legs that are your foundation. And also here, we break down the propaganda, the mythology, and sometimes the flat-out lies you've been told about what it takes to run, walk, hike, play, do, yoga, cross it, whatever it is you'd like to do and enjoyably and effectively and efficiently. Can I say enjoy a big trick question?
I know I did. I say it every time. Because if you're not having fun, you're not going to stick with it. Of course, we're going to add the risk element to that in today's conversation.
So I'm seeing a session co-founder, chief barefoot officer here at Zero Shoes. And we call this the movement movement because we and that involves you are creating a movement about natural movement, letting your body do what it's made to do instead of getting in the way with things that are being sold to you as beneficial. The way you are part of that we is really simple. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com.
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If you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. Okay, so after that fun intro about terror and risk, do me a favor. Tell people who you are and what you're doing here. So my name is Dr.
Edith Hoys and I'm the creator and founder of Rev6. A revolution of motion. So that's why I'm here. I'm part of the movement movement.
Rev6 is a facially and neurologically based movement system that was the outcome of 18 years of clinical practice that taught me about patterns in the body and how the body moves from illness to wellness. And then I wanted to see if those same patterns applied in performance from mediocre performance to outstanding performance and longevity. So it's designed to restore function to optimize performance, to extend your health span and play big for the rest of your life and something that you can do your entire life. I'm also a practicing chiropractor specializing in facial manipulation, neurology, and I use Rev6 as my assessment tool and also as my medicine.
I give patients exercises that keep the treatment going and sometimes people don't even need treatment once they have enough Rev6 in their system which has reorganized things. And I'm 69. I live my system. I've been doing it for 27 years and I have less pain.
I feel like I'm more mobile than I was in my 20s and I want that for everybody. That would be a good thing. As a 63 year old person, I appreciate that. I'm quite a bit.
All right. So there's a lot to unpack in there. Let's start with, since you mentioned fascia and fascia as an adjective for that, twice for people who are not hip to what that means, start there and then I want to ask you and I have to say these things because I'll forget them if I'm not saying this in real time about some of those patterns that you were observing and what that means in terms of your diagnostic process and what you're then having people start to experiment with. Okay.
So fascia is an interconnected web of connective tissue in the body and it answered so many questions for me that I had for the first 35 years in practice because I was working from a model of muscle testing and neurology. And then when I started training professional athletes, I'm like something is happening that's faster here than the nervous system. And it wasn't until I studied with the stekos. It's a special family in Italy that everything came true for me.
Like it held all of the answers to questions that I had. So fascia can be remodeled. I'm going to interrupt you. So what were some of the questions that you had?
So when I started the training, so I had 18 years of clinical practice working with many people with neurological problems but also Broadway performers I was practicing in New York City. And the other thing is that everybody walks in New York and in my, by my third month in practice I realized that the quality of a person's life is directly related to their feet. So I became very dedicated to knowing about the feet, treating the feet. And then once I started to apply this, the first two training, two sports training was I developed ways of exercising the feet.
So, and the feet, it's fascinating because the feet have such a unique, special arrangement and so many sensory cells and endings in them that the correlation between the environment, your feet and your brain is profound and we don't take advantage of that. So, what I was seeing is I would put athletes on unstable surfaces. So I pretty much pioneered barefoot and unstable training for athletes and that was 27 years ago. And I would put them on unstable surfaces and it would just happen so fast.
It's like the nervous system didn't have time to really create the response. But when you think about the design of the fascia, it's around every single cell. So it's almost more of a mechanical. So as one cell dies or slowly shrinks, your fashion immediately changes.
And then as new cells form, your fascia is constantly changing. And that's so empowering because you can manipulate the fascia through exercise or through manual therapy. And so again, I'm just trying to get a question in my mind that you're walking into that training going, or even more, you clearly went to this training with some idea that there was something there for you that you hadn't quite gotten your hands around. And I'm just really curious like what that is.
Whenever we go for something, we're either crossing our fingers because someone saw something or it's like feeling that little sense of, hold on, I have a hunch that there's something here for me. I think the interconnectedness of the body and the speed with which it happened and how when you work and exercise the feet, you have full body change. Even on people that have feet with neuropathy, you still get changes. So there's more going on than the nervous system.
And the fascia actually acts as the synapse between the nerve and the muscle fibers. So it's responsible for coordinating movement. In fact, back in the other half a step, so when you took some of these athletes or Broadway performers, put them on an unstable surface and I'm dying to hear what kind of surfaces you're talking about, what specific kinds of changes were you seeing in that rabbit way? So you get to see things really kick in.
So let's, let me give you an example. I had the years of coming up with these concepts of how the body works. And then when I started working with athletes, I was gifted with some of the best athletes in the world, like prototypes that actually proved my concepts. And when you put people on unstable surfaces, you're activating the small muscles.
And for me, it's the small muscles that are the megaphones that tell the large muscles what to do. So I developed a different concept of what the core is. And watching the athletes reinforced that I was right about what the core is. And I trusted my clinical experience more than the science because a lot of the things that I'm playing with, there hasn't been research done until maybe 10 years ago.
So, okay, so then again, part of me, I'm really trying to nail you down on this because I'm trying to get an image in my mind of somebody walks in, they have a particular issue, you're putting them on something that you were calling unstable. I'm literally closing my eyes so I can visualize this like as I'm just describing it. And then something changes and we're seeing a different effect. Can you can you can you spell that one out for me?
So I can really get a picture in my mind of like a prototypical athlete for the sake of argument comes in complaining about something stepping on a something and then you're seeing a something. Yes. Okay. Let's say an athlete has a shoulder problem.
Okay. And they've been getting PT and everything for that shoulder and it persists. I put them on an exercise ball. I put them through a move that I designed and suddenly their shoulder range emotion is improved.
So the ball in this case has texture, it has instability, the move itself is pushing them into a more unstable arrangement and then the shoulder changes. Got it. That's very interesting. And again, just to highlight this and kind of read what you're saying or make sure I got it.
So part of what we're talking about is that and you know, even when I talked about fashion with a number of people and it's one of those things that seems so crazy because most people don't have and it's really hard to have a frame of reference for a basically an organ that we don't even know we have for lack of a better way of putting it. You know, this is something that interpenetrates almost every part of our body and yet it's not something we grew up learning about. We don't hear our doctors talking about it. We don't understand how it doesn't work.
We will hear something about doing facial release and everyone has a different opinion about what that is, most of which are not true. And because it's fundamentally invisible, I mean to us conceptually, if not physically, unless you're doing an autopsy and like looking at things, it's such a tricky thing for people to wrap their brain around including this idea that doing something that's impacting the fascia in the feet and ankles is having this almost immediate impact on something on the other side of the body. It's just hard for people to wrap their brains around. So I'm so glad that you're bringing this up because I have a patient that had back pain for 27 years and I treated his fashion.
You can feel densifications in the fascia. He called me up two days later and he said, so that was fashion. I said, yeah, he said, well, in my world and he did robotic surgery, fascia is the shit that gets in the way. Isn't that crazy?
Well, you know, I wish I remember the podcast that I heard this on. There was a researcher who he has renamed the fascia as the interstition. And it was something that when he was processing, I think he was a pathologist. And when he was processing tissue, it was literally something that, you know, in the way and never really thought about it and then discovered something I wish I remember how it was about basically that this is a communication network.
It's almost a hydraulic communication network. And because of that, it is that sort of instantaneous thing. We think about nerves having to send signals through the axons and across the nerves, the synapse, et cetera. It's a very different thing than if you imagine, for lack of this, a very hyper simplistic thing, taking a string and you pull on one end of the other end moves instantly.
It doesn't have there's not a spring mechanism. It's just like this immediate thing. And that's the kind of effect we're talking about. And again, it seems so crazy that you do pull on the string at the bottom of your foot and the string at the end of your shoulder changes in some way that creates that rather dramatic experience.
Well, let's add a little to it because FASCH is filled with, you know, collagen fibers for structure and elastic fibers for elasticity. And I can't explain what it feels like to people to have healthy fascia. It is truly experiential. And for 27 years, I've asked people to explain what I do and they are speechless.
So it took a long time for me to be able to figure out the language. But what happens? And that's what happens with Rev 6, which is why if there were a better system out there, I'd be doing it. But you get this elasticity and this rebound in your tissue.
So you feel that interconnection. You feel the changes in the tension at every age. So even though as we age, we get stiffer, you don't have to. And that's the, it's so rewarding for me because I teach virtual classes.
And I watch the participants go from, you know, segmental issues like other backs really tight or they can't open their chest. And to see this lengthening and rebounding that's a full body experience. And it's like, you feel expanded. It translates into how you live your life.
You have, you know, your upright, your things are effortless. You don't have to grit things. You suddenly start thinking about all the efficient ways that you can live your life. And I just, it goes to the point of just almost like a spiritual expansion.
So I know I can go down that rabbit hole very easily. Well, that's interesting one. I'll describe a semi-related personal experience that I've been having recently. So my right knee, 30, 31 years ago, something like that, I was an all-American gymnast.
And when I was about 32 years old, so that was, well, yeah, 31 years ago, I landed and twisted at the same time and heard the following sound come out of my knee. I went, ooh, I think that's the end of my career. So they removed about 30% of the meniscus on the outside, the lateral side of my knee. And frankly, when I got out of regular shoes and started doing what I'm doing here, everything's been fine.
But there's nothing supporting that outside of my knee. So about six months ago, it started bugging me a little bit. And when I got an x-ray recently, I'm kind of bone on bone on the outside. Now, I'm getting to the part that's pointing to what you're saying, interestingly, because of all the things I'm doing to compensate for having that weird instability and misalignment, I was having some pain around my ankle-ish.
And I say, it's because it moves like within one step, it'll move from the inside of my leg to the outside of my leg and vice versa. But it was pretty consistent. And over the last couple weeks, as I've been doing certain things, it would spontaneously just disappear. And in the moment when that pain, even when it was mild disappeared, I was just flooded with euphoric feelings, just the bliss component from that little bit of pain just disappearing.
I'd be walking the dog and I'd have to stop, because it was like waves of enjoyment. And so very different method of getting there. But when you, but I don't think people have necessarily had that experience of something changing so quickly that it literally is this massive indoor front rush. I agree.
And I think an important thing in a person's exercise system, and I know Rev 6 does this, is it keeps you on the edge of flow state. So it's very easy to drop into flow state. That's sensitive, euphoric feeling, the hypofrontalis, you're not thinking, you're not self-conscious, you're just like in the moment, part of all that is. So I want that for everybody.
Well, and we're going to talk into that a little more, but you gave me an interesting segue to how we opened this conversation, or at least how I intro'd it, which is I used the word terrifying because I was exaggerating for the fun, but you, when we talked briefly before, we started this conversation, you used the word risk. The virtualize doesn't have a risk component. So that's problematic. And you just kind of alluded to that a little.
So jump into that, shall we? So I think the thing that's most shocking when I talk about Rev 6 is my recipe for an optimal exercise program includes the perception of risk. Now, I've seen high level athletes standing on the flat side of a Bose ball with their eyes looking like they're terrified. Like what's the worst thing that's going to happen standing on a Bose ball?
And they do crazy things. So I got it that, and you saw their performance, amp up, they were all in when you've got that perception of risk. And it's novel. We are designed.
That's in our DNA to wake up and handle risk. So I've got, I mean, it's pretty interesting when you talk to senior living facilities that want to incorporate my seated program. And I'm like, perception of risk, it's like, we're trying to stop falls. And it's like, you have to train people for falls because when you train for that, you develop your like, spidey sense.
I can't tell you how many people have said, because of Rev 6, I knew I was going, you know, that I was at risk and I could avoid it. Right. Injury after injury was prevented because of all of the ingredients that are built into Rev. This is going to sound really bizarre.
But way back when when I was doing a lot of martial arts training, there was the whole thing about perception of risk. It's very bizarre. Like I was living in Manhattan, and there was a time I remember one in particular where this cab driver cut me off on my bicycle and nearly crashed into him because he cut me off and I yelled and he slams on the brakes, jumps out of his cab and yells at me, I'm going to kill you. And I remember thinking, this will be interesting.
And you know, normally, you know, it's a little terrifying. It's a big guy. I'm not a big guy. But I'd literally just come out of a martial arts class.
And all I could think was, I mean, I was had been training for risky situations in lower risk environments. And literally, I just went, I kind of kicked back on one leg and went, all right, give a shot. He's like, what? I'm going to kill you.
I said, I know, why don't you try it already? No, I'm going to kill you. Stop talking about and start doing something. You just go, can I see you again?
Then he jumps in the cab. So, and I had a couple of situations like that where I would, in a situation that otherwise would have been risky. It was just really interesting. And I didn't know what I mean.
I can't say that I had confidence that I was going to win or defend myself or hurt this guy, whatever. I was just like really wondering what happened next. And that's apparently very disarming when someone is threatening you. It's perfect.
What a great strategy. I think we have something we all have something to learn from that. Well, I also know people who are professional fighters. And when people don't know, they're professional fighters and kind of, you know, pick on them or do something to agitate them.
The look on their face is so funny. It's just bemused. They don't get violent back. They don't get there.
It's like, you don't know what you're doing. This is a really bad idea. You really want to do this? That thing of just being bemused is very confusing and usually calms people down.
So, but when I do think when my mother was in an assistive living facility, it was interesting. They're trying to protect them from everything. And the effect was just completely contrary. I mean, they became less and less mobile, less and less able to do anything because they, I mean, if for no reason, then they put them in super big thick shoes where they couldn't feel anything, they couldn't respond to anything.
And everything was basically padded and protected. And they had to kind of ease their way into everything they were doing instead of having getting any feedback to let them know how to respond. It's sad. It was really sad how we don't support our seniors, but the generation that's coming up, I mean, I'm older than you are, but we were active.
We have fun in our bodies. We want to be active and healthy until we die. Until we make those younger people really sick of us. So, they find it a little annoying.
And back up to just that perception of risk, it really is funny. So, for people who don't know what a Bosew ball is, imagine a big round fit ball and then cut it half and put a base on it. So, it's still this inflatable half dome. And it's funny you bring it up.
I was talking to David Wack, the guy who invented it the other day. And so, let's, if we can get people a taste of what we've been talking about, anything you can think of, just give people a little flavor in their own body. Since we've been chatting about it for a little bit, that'll be dreamy. Sure.
So, I start with an assessment and I came up with a way of teaching people how to see what I see, but also checking in with your body. And I refer to them as the essentials. And there are six essentials. The first one is mind your feet, hollow your abs, lift your torso, float your head, relax your back, and then your shoulders just fall into place.
This is something that people can do as a standing meditation. They can keep checking in while they're walking, while they're sitting, because everyone is connected to everyone else. And so, sometimes if you're sitting, it might be harder for you to access your feet or to access your abs. And I could get into great specificity about exactly where you engage your abs, but I'm not going to do that even though it's just such a cool, special arrangement.
So, you know, if you're sitting, then you learn how to lift your torso. And all of that converts into improved posture, gait, mastery over your body and better body awareness. So, from that, I will, I have built many exercise sequences. So, it's not the exercises alone are not as significant as the order that you put the exercises in.
So, it's like, I just use the analogy of a combination lock. You can know all the numbers, but if you don't know the order, you're not going to unlock the lock. So, we, in most of my exercises, involve your eyes, bare footed. You're working on a exercise ball or gymnastics ball.
You're rolling around, you're connecting those essentials the whole time. You were taking advantage of the shape of the ball, the texture of the ball, the tension. It's instability factor as we roll around on it. And then, I think, you know, one of the most important things is the footwork.
So, I was never happy with like, oh, just curl your toes, bring a towel towards you or do, there's another exercise where you have to do it all the time, where you try and bring your toes towards your heels. And I'm like, that's just too boring. And so, you know, there was a slam board at a studio that I was going to in New York, and it's just used to stretch your Achilles. And I'm like, okay, so this is a perfect angle.
So, I just stood on it in four different positions. And noticed that I was activating all three arches in the feet, using the toes the right way, connecting the feet to the knees to the hips. And it connected all of the essentials. And then, I had some of these, the foam rollers.
And I'm like, okay, if I can do this on the slam board, foam rollers are like perfect. So, I got a cut foam roller and half half stood on it with my toes in, toes out, up on the balls of your feet. And once again, I'm targeting all of the arches. But then there's all the neurology that's happening with it, the balance.
So, we incorporate that, use the round side of the Boseu ball with those same foot positions, the flat side of the Boseu ball. And so, all of the exercises are complex. Every part of the body is engaged in every exercise. I don't like isolation.
A lot of how training is is based on a lack of understanding of the connectedness and the fascia. Like, basically, you don't have to do peck work. You just do lower ab work. And you, your strength of your shoulders is dependent upon the movement of your shoulder blades on your rib cage and your shoulder blades connection to your lower abs.
Then you have to consider how important the lower abs are in connecting the pelvic floor to your back, to the fashion muscles of your lumbar region, all the way up your thoracic region, but even more importantly, the tiny muscles of the spine. So, does that kind of give you an idea? It gives me an idea. And what I, I like the idea of, I think I'm, I guarantee I've got a phone roller cut and half somewhere in my house.
I have a, I have like one of everything. I mean, my collection of fitnessy things is ridiculous in no small part because anytime I'm at a big event, people keep giving me stuff and I'm like sure. So, it is a little silly. So, yes, so give me a picture.
What I want to do is for people who are watching slash listening is see if there's, even though everything you just said, especially the part where these are complex things, it's not a simple something like you said, not doing toe scrunch, it is not doing shortfoot, not doing a kind of isolated or even isometric isolated exercise. But it is something that you can walk people through so they can have the bear's taste of what you were just saying. Yes. Great.
Right. So, we'll go with a very fundamental, everyone's go to favorite exercise. You squat behind the ball, press your pubic bones into the ball, drape over the ball so that the front of your chin or your lips are on the ball and your head is just dangling. So, your whole spine is long and your toes, your all ten toes are in contact with the floor.
So, that means that your knees are automatically lining up over your second and third toe. So, from that squat where you're also lengthening your pelvic floor, you push forward with your feet, but eventually it's more of the feet initiated, the pelvic floor rebounds propelling you forward. And then you cushion with your hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders and your shoulder blades glide. And then you come back.
So, you've got the weight of your head, the weight of your pelvis, rocking you forward and backwards effortlessly. So, it builds facile tone and rebound. And because of the autonomic nervous system running along the spine and their connection to your cerebellum, you have dramatic changes in mood in the way the autonomic nervous system works, in stress reduction. So, it's a very powerful simple exercise, but it has to be done right.
It sounds very infant like in some way. I can't even describe why, but it does. Kids, watch kids. Give them a gymnastics ball.
Watch what they do with it. And you're going to see healthy normal movement that's playful that you need to be doing as adults. Got it. So, for anyone who does not have a gymnastics ball, go get one, go on Craigslist.
People are giving away all the time. So, there's no- But all balls are not created equal. No, all balls are- well, let's talk about that. But I do want to say if there is- if there were ever an item that you could find at every yard sale in the history of yard sales in the last 10 years, that's it.
So, talk about the difference between different balls then. So, I actually get balls made for me from Italy because they're the only- I mean, I have gone through probably 100 balls because you don't want it so loose. Okay, this is what I say. Does your- does the tension of your ball or the texture of your ball match up with healthy fascia?
You know, like if you sit on the ball or you drape over and there's a lot of give, is that what you want out of your tissue? Interesting. So, do you clear this? Not just a question of inflation?
No. No, because it can't be over-inflated because then that's too tight. And so, that's a tension that doesn't feel good in your body. So, use, you know, I had a- I have a professional athlete and she said, I consider my ball my best training partner, you know?
And so, in the ball has to be- so there's this tone that is not tight and not loosey-goosey. And the amount of pressure in the ball is also very precise. And people don't know what that feels like I try and give guidance on my website eventually though, when their fascia gets healthy, they may have to put like two pumps because it's off by just like a morsel of improper tone. You know?
So, the more you refine that, like I sometimes wonder, am I like creating more sensory divergent people? But you know, you get so sensitive and aware, but I'd rather live in that world, you know, than, you know, not recognize things as they're coming. So, I'm just imagining just a- an army of ball snobs who, you know, they go to someone else's house and see a ball. It's like, oh, please, it just becomes, you know, a very interesting dinner conversation.
I mean, the same way, I'm a rowing snob. So, I know how to row. And anytime I'm either watching a TV show or a movie or I'm in a gym and I watch people rowing incorrectly, which- and all that means mostly, is that after they've pulled, then they just push the handles over their bent knees instead of straightening their knees first, and then moving the- what would be the oars. And the way you think about it, if you have to push, if you have to lift up to get up your knees, you just put the oars in the water and you've stopped yourself.
So, I'm not a ball snob yet, but I'm a rowing snob. And I can imagine being- I can think of a number of things that I could get even more snobby about. I think the more tools or the more we know and the more like your attunement with a feet, it's going to translate into needing precision. It's really true.
I mean, one of my regrets, which I don't really have regret regrets, but I wish that I had the psychic ability to have known that 16 plus years ago, I would have been doing what I'm doing now because I would have measured certain things or at least tried to measure certain things that I couldn't measure or didn't measure and don't know if it was possible. So, for example, when I first started walking around my home, there's a bunch of gravel of various kinds. And when I was doing that in bare feet, it was unpleasant. I mean, I wasn't doing it like to be masochistic just every now and then I'd step on something, for example.
And but over time, I noticed that it was not a problem. And it wasn't because my I built up a bunch of cows and my feet became more responsive and reflexive and reactive. So, I would just kind of bend around things or I wouldn't put so much weight on that front foot until I was confident unconsciously that I could handle that. And I also feel like my reflex arc improved, that if I did step on something unpleasant, I'd step off of it more quickly, just reflexively.
And I had no way of measuring that. And last but not least, I never took any sort of photos to show my unbelievably ridiculously comic flat feet compared to what they are now where I developed an archy back, all three of them. And so, those are the three things that I wish I had as a before and after in some way. And I imagine a similar thing from what we're describing, like the before and after people I had experience, you don't have a method you're reaching for something.
You don't have a method of really measuring that. You might even not even notice how dramatic the change could be over time. I think that and something I would like to do, Andy, I'm in the process of doing is measuring the result of Rev 6. I'm kind of kind of traditional explosiveness jumping.
And I believe that it translates well. But I want to mention to you, I probably was one of those children that was neurodivergent way back when before it had a diagnosis because I can still recall, I did the same thing as far as walking and running on gravel. I can still tell you the difference in the feel of the grass in all of my neighbors. And I think children, you know, I mean, it's so good for brain development.
The more we stimulate or have access and engage, the more real estate we have in our brain and the translation into, you know, intelligence, memory, all kinds of cognition is dramatic. Well, you know, this is kind of one of those not rocket science sort of obvious things when you think about it. The amount of space that your brain reserves for getting information from your feet is very large. If you're not giving it that information, it basically shuts down because like why waste the energy, but it's not like the brain is just discrete units.
If you're shutting down something, it's impacting things across the entire spectrum. I mean, this is just screamingly obvious. And yet again, we take people of various types and put them in footwear that doesn't let their feet bend flex and move or feel. And we wonder why we have all sorts of film in the blank problems.
The number of times I want to be careful when I say this, the number of times someone will say to me, I put on your shoes and within a very short period of time, I mean, literally sometimes that day, my film in the blank issue disappeared. And I'm not making a medical claim, but we hear this all of the time. And it's, and what I say is it's just because we got out of the way of the thing that was causing that problem to begin with. And it's, but we, the other thing our brains are really sadly good at is acclimating to things like you're going to keep putting me through that unpleasant thing.
I'll stop registering it because what's the point you're not listening, you're not changing it. So we'll just shut up. And that's of course problematic. I am offended by the word adaptation adapting.
You know, it's like, no, I'm not helping you adapt. I'm helping you restore what's inherently in our design. Yeah, exactly. This is, and what amazes me is when this is another human thing is you say things like that to people and they will fight you.
They want to argue for their limitations, rather than experience something on the other side of it. It's like, it's, there's so much our identity wrapped up in certain movement patterns or the way it's been for a while, or, you know, I walked the same way my film, film the Black Parent walks. I mean, my joke is, I spent, let's see from the time I was 12, at the time I was 18, very, I mean, that's my all-American gymnast years. So I spent that six years very actively gymnastics thing.
And then I spent 40 years trying to get the gymnast out of my body. That was a, that was a tough road to go. So, so what else have we left out? I mean, I think this is a great, I mean, my goal in this conversation, let me rephrase that.
What emerges my goal in this conversation is to give people a sense of curiosity about this because it is so much non, not part of our normal conversation. Is there anything we left out in the, let's get people wondering about fashion, wondering about what you're doing, et cetera? Well, I, I think sharing with you the recipe that I think is important for an optimal fitness program or exercise system is novelty. You have to have instability, sensory stimulation, complexity, exercises that integrate the whole body, precise sequencing, dynamic loading, you have to include eccentric in that, the perception of risk.
And you want it to be able to, that everything automates and that you get to drop easily into flow state. So not many exercise programs satisfy those requirements. And we need a whole paradigm shift in what to expect out of our exercise and how to achieve it. I think that that's true.
And I think that, and correct me if I'm wrong or correct me if you think differently, I think that involves over time in certain ways. There's certain things that at 63, I'm not doing like when I was 20, although there's certain things that I am still doing exactly the same way. And there's certain things that are more interesting or not tolerable, interesting to be now, than they were then and vice versa. I mean, way back when, for example, I would happily, you know, do these very long workouts that would lead me pretty wasted.
And the next day, if I felt sore, I just kind of stretched a life out able to go into the next thing. At this age, I can't do that. That said, I'm still doing my exercise stuff. I mean, I'm a competitive sprinter the way I left way.
It's very, very high intensity, but it's, but I have way more rest and it's way shorter. It's way, and frankly, it's more fun because it's even it's as hard as I can possibly go. Now, for me, that's one piece and I'm not suggesting this is the right wing, but part of part of what I'm doing now includes things that are just so satisfying psychologically, because they match how much time I have, how much brain space I have, what I like to do with my body, the way I like to see things progressing or challenging. And so other than, I guess what I'm going is this.
It seems like, and again, let me know if you think I'm completely full of it when I say this, there's kind of a baseline of something that we all need to have to be functional human beings as we continue to age. And then there's going to be idiosyncratic things that are unique to your little whatever, like my line at the beginning, if you're not having a good time doing something, till you are. And there's some people who like competing, other people do not like competing. There's some people who like lifting heavy things, other people do not like lifting heavy things.
And so that's the way I'm kind of framing it is like, here's the stuff that keeps you able to do everything else that you might want to do that's unique for you. I love it. I mean, my goal is to help people be able to do what they love doing better. And once you have a healthier, more mobile system, sometimes you make different choices.
And I can't tell you how many young athletes, like mid-30s, just kind of when pros kind of get kicked off the team if they're injured or whatever, said, I wish I knew you sooner. I wish I had this work sooner. And that's sad because I would love to see young people have it. But they think that they can get to where they are with natural talent and grit.
And you can't, you lose that. I have watched, I won't name names, I have watched certain track coaches that where their entire strategy is beating up their athletes and seeing who survives. And I've watched how some of those athletes who do not survive clearly could have had incredible professional careers, but they were beaten to a pulp and lost the ability to do that. And I find that, and the annoying part is these coaches, because they had success, aka people who have come out of that firestorm and lived, they get the cream of the crop.
And so they keep getting the opportunity to work with all these amazing athletes and destroy a big percentage of them. Even the little thing when I was in college, there were these two sisters who were on the gymnastics team who had been coached by their parents up until they went to college. And they only worked out three days a week. They were national champions.
They came to college and they were working out five, six days a week, injury, injury, injury, and their career. That's not unusual. I feel as though the training that most athletes go through destroys our best athletes. So then it's survival of the fittest.
So because a lot of the best athletes have this very sensitive refined nervous system that actually will improve the fun of the game with their, you know, if you've got players lasting longer, they figure out new strategies. And that's going to, for me, I think that would turn things into, I'm sorry about that, turned our sport from, you know, like a muscling sport to really like a chess game on the fields. And I would love to see that. And, you know, it could be a chess game with some really big, strong, fast people, depending on this word.
Yeah. Yeah, you can be big, strong and fast, quick and dynamic. Yeah, yeah. Well, I would love to see that as well.
Speaking as a guy who had both shoulders and biceps put back together after gymnastics career, I've never had a metagenist who has survived with shoulders, mostly because when we're young, we don't have the strength to support ourselves through the things that we're doing to the rest of our body and putting strain on our shoulders. But that's a whole other. Yeah. So if people want to find out more about what you are doing with Rev Six, how can they find you and it and what are their next steps?
Okay. So if you go to Rev Six dot fit, it has all of my social listed on there. I have a school community that you can join. I teach virtual classes and I've got a huge on demand library of probably five or six hundred sequences, really nicely organized.
You also can sign up for, you know, a posturing gate analysis with me. And I can give you five exercises that you do. And there's all the information on sizing the ball and a bunch of free stuff on the website and on YouTube. Awesome.
Well, I hope people do take advantage of that. And then I want to hear what their experience is and what their experience is with their experience. So everyone, please go see what you find and have fun. And in the meantime, just a reminder, head over to www dot join the movement movement.com again, nothing to join.
There's no feed. There's no dance. We do every morning before we get to work. It's just that's the domain that I got, where you'll find all the previous episodes, all the way you can engage with us on social media.
If you want to find the podcast somewhere other than where you found it, where you can do that. And of course, if you want to reach out and pass any info over to me questions, comments, recommendations to people who should be on the podcast, I'm still waiting for someone to get me someone who thinks I have a case of cranial reorientation syndrome. I think that'll be a fun conversation. Just drop an email to move.
M-O-V-E at jointhemovementmovement.com. And again, spread the word. Share all of what you've learned here, pass people over to the website. That's not an English sentence, but I'm running out of English sentences right now.
Like I said before, if you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe. And while you're doing that, go out, have fun, and live life-feet first.