Fitness
Should You Stretch or Move First? | EP 89
Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado
Episode 89
Should You Stretch or Move First?
With Dr. Antonio Gurule
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
[1:56] How structure and function influence function.
[3:21] What is the cause of osteoarthritis in patients
[4:37] It’s not the structure but the function that is the issue.
[5:56] Change function, change behaviors – for the positive.
[7:12] How to improve your function.
Connect With Antonio and the Live LOUD team: hello@liveloudlife.com
Subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiveLoud
Visit the website: https://www.lifeloudlife.com
Like the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/liveloudchiropractic/
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/live.loud.life/
Guiding you to the adventurous life you were made for!
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Live Loud Chiropractic and Coaching Top Chiropractor and Physical Therapy in Lafayette Colorado Serving Boulder County Boulder, Longmont, Louisville, Erie, Broomfield, and Arvada Colorado
About Dr. Antonio Gurule
Background:
- Father
- Doctor of Chiropractic
- Owner of Live LOUD
- Personal Trainer & Health Coach
Check Out Some of Our Other Blog Posts and Podcast Episodes
Anthony Gurule 00:00
Hey what’s up guys, welcome back to another episode of the Live LOUD Life podcast. My name is Dr. Antonio, I’m your host of the Live LOUD Life podcast. My wife and I, we co-own Live LOUD Chiropractic and Coaching here in Lafayette, Colorado. We are just outside of Boulder, Colorado in Boulder County. And our mission is to help families. We want to help make families stronger, so that we can build a stronger community. We want to help guide you to the adventurous life that you and your family were meant for. And we do this through chiropractic and coaching. chiropractic, obviously being more of a hands on approach, more of a clinical conversation, clinical diagnostics, but the coaching aspect is really what we believe is, you know, the foundation of what our system methodology, whatever you want to call it is, because a lot of this comes around through just coaching suggestions and recommendations. also, you know, obviously within that comes into clinical prescriptions of certain things to eat or supplements, so on and so forth. But it’s coaching a lifestyle, it’s coaching, it’s coaching a philosophy and a foundation about how to live an active healthy life as an individual, and setting an example of a healthy active life for your family, for your immediate family, for your friends, and more importantly for your community. So stronger families to make a stronger community as a whole would be a win win, right? And that’s what we want to be able to do. we want to be able to help fill in the gaps in the holes that you’re maybe not getting from, from other roles and conditions.
Anthony Gurule 01:43
And today that’s in particular where we’re going to talk about. it’s going to be a little bit more of a shorter episode because this is more of a quote unquote, you know, just discussion around how to lay out a framework and a better understanding of how to work out or what exercises are safe or maybe not safe during pregnancy. This is a very, very common question that we get.
Anthony Gurule 02:12
My wife Nichelle has created a mini course that has some workout ideas, recommendations, and prescriptions than laid out into a workout. She guides and educates other clinicians on how to broach this topic as a chiropractor, how to better serve prenatal patients through chiropractic care, but also exercise recommendations and prescriptions, having recommendations with other personal trainers within the community whether that’s CrossFit whether that’s Orange Theory, chatting with coaches and owners and saying hey, if you have prenatal patients and they’re having these types of symptoms, or this has happened, here’s some better recommendations, not modifications. We call them lateralizations–you’re just you know, you’re doing something something different or something else we you know, we borrow that term from Charlie Weingroff, who’s a physical therapist and strength conditioning coach. But it also and also doulas, right, doulas and midwives and OBs who are directly involved with the prenatal process from nearly conception all the way through, having this conversation. we know that exercise is important during pregnancy,
Anthony Gurule 03:19
There are so many different studies that talk about the benefits of exercising during pregnancy, not only for the mom, but also for baby, which is quite interesting. They’re seeing increased cognitive-what’s the word I’m looking for? Excuse me, their cognitive output as a as an as a child through as they age is actually better from moms that actually worked out during pregnancy.
Anthony Gurule 03:50
Now this is tough, right? How do you define working out or exercise? it’s different for everybody. But we want to, and we encourage that, and yet we’re sympathetic to the different stages of life, aches and pains, so on and so forth, which obviously would limit what you can do from an exercise perspective. So you know, it’s a bit of a gray area on determining what is working out? what is exercise? What are the physical guidelines or recommendations for pregnancy? And without getting into the like, nitty gritty detail of every single thing. And obviously, every potential situation, if you had this versus this, what could happen? we’re not gonna be able to do that. What we just want to lay out is what is what are we trying to accomplish here, and we want to encourage you to stay as physically active as possible.
Anthony Gurule 04:41
And one of the things that constantly comes up is, well, should you add something in that you have not already been doing? Let’s say for instance, someone just through the stages of life with work and kids or whatever that is, they were not able to work out as much before they got pregnant, but now that they’re pregnant, whether they have more time or they understand the importance of exercises during pregnancy, well, would we say, “Well, you haven’t been exercising, so you shouldn’t do too much.” No, that doesn’t, that doesn’t really make sense. Now, we would encourage not to do too much, there’s obviously, you know, a too far swinging the pendulum of the other way. But we wouldn’t say “no, don’t exercise because you weren’t doing something before,” we just have to find those first few stepping stones to help them start to gain some momentum. and help hold their hand, if you will, So that their technique and they feel confident about lifting, or how far they’re walking or whatever that is. And that’s an important topic, because a lot of times people want to add things in, but they weren’t quite ready or weren’t doing them before. And they then assume that they’re not able to do them at all. So you do have to take that in consideration, there is a ton that you can do, and that you can still add, even though you weren’t doing them prior to pregnancy.
Anthony Gurule 05:54
Now on the big questions is, is it safe? you know, outside to contact sports, or different things like that the majority of what you’re going to do is safe for pregnancy, right? Rock climbing, we have pregnant patients that have been rock climbing before, obviously, there’s a certain inherent risk with certain sports or activities. You know, you could fall off riding your bike, you could fall over running, right, so we’re not encouraging any of these by any means. We’re just kind of, you know, setting some suggestions, if you will. And you have to take into consideration.
Anthony Gurule 06:31
Now, there are certain things to consider when you’re talking about like weightlifting, and how heavy and the intensity that you’re doing. And if you’re doing Valsalva movements, which is essentially holding your breath to maintain a more rigid or stiff torso, as you’re seeing changes in blood volume and blood pressure, you know, you do have to take that in consideration. And that is again, of course a conversation with your provider that is managing your, your pregnancy, but we recommend Mama’s weight lift, or do resistance training. During pregnancy, again, we talked about about load management and the intensity and things like that, but you can still lift and do fairly intense things. And it’s a fairly as a you know, as a scale and a wide range during pregnancy and see a ton of benefit from that. Now, are we trying to hit one rep maxes and PRs during pregnancy, I mean, some would argue yes, but I would argue, why, that’s not really an accurate representation of what your strength is anyways. So you know, you do have to to kind of keep manipulating the numbers and the weights and the intensity and the sets and reps in order to do it. But weightlifting and resistance training is safe, and it is effective. Now, outside of that, there’s not a lot of unsafe things to do, again, outside of contact sports, or things that would elicit, you know, potential trauma to you or baby based on impact we’ve had, again, not our recommendations, but some have tried very just easy scheme, because they’re in the winter months, and they wanted to and they felt very confident about not falling. So you know, you have those types of things.
Anthony Gurule 08:16
Overall, again, we’re talking about movement. You need to move, and it’s good to get your heart rate up. And it’s good to breathe hard. So that doesn’t mean just because you’re pregnant, you can’t do HIIT training or circuit training or CrossFit or Orange Theory. But you do have to listen to your body and understand certain signs that would indicate that things might be too much, right? Now those are going to be different for everyone, but a lot of this comes down to you know, lightheadedness, you know, breathing too hard. Certain aches and pains within lower extremity, chest, abdomen, so on and so forth would be obviously like your more extreme ones. If you’re becoming pale or anything like that, I mean, again, these are the same criteria, though, that would be if someone else was working out or training too hard. So it’s realistically the same thing. It’s just that your threshold level for all those most likely have gone down. And depending on what type of an athlete you were before, you’re going to be maybe a little frustrated that you’re not able to do the things you were able to do previously, which makes sense. But if you’re someone who wasn’t exercising before, you’re probably going to be a little bit more hyper aware of that, of just feeling that shortness of breath or that uneasiness. So again, we’re not saying you have to push through that because we’re not trying to set yourself up for a strength and conditioning program to increase your metabolic capacity to increase your strength and conditioning during pregnancy. We’re trying to help you maintain a healthy active pregnancy.
Anthony Gurule 09:54
Now, walking. walking is great. but in general, we encourage you to do something above and beyond walking. Obviously, again, certain things would dictate that you would not be able to do so. And this is again, any exercise. Any exercise that you do during pregnancy needs to be consulted with and work through and have a conversation with the primary physician who is managing your pregnancy, whether that’s your nurse practitioner, your midwife or your OB or obstetrician, right. But we would encourage more than just walking. walking is fantastic, but that’s kind of like your baseline minimum, right? Just like our activities, or recommendation activity guidelines. We want a few days a week of where we’re kind of just doing this steady state getting our steps in, you know, kind of pushing ourselves, we’re huffing and puffing, but still just kind of at that conversational level, but you’re not really getting a lot of benefits outside of that.
Anthony Gurule 10:55
So if you’re just walking, high five. kudos. can you do something more? Can you do some bodyweight squats? Can you do some bodyweight, you know, good mornings? can you do some walking lunges? do you have a suspension training, we’re able to do some bodyweight rows? Do you have some bands that you can do some rows with? You know, there’s a lot that you can do that allows you to get a little bit more out of that. Now, again, this all comes back down to preferences of exercises that you like to do, because that’s gonna allow you to maintain the most consistency, but then also the intensity that you like to do. And we do encourage having an open mind and at least being willing to try some high intensity things that allow you to still get your heart rate up a little bit. And it’s okay to lift more than five or 10 pounds. And not saying that that is a bad thing. There’s programs out there where it’s all directed around that where it’s lighter weight, high rep, but I just don’t want individuals and mamas to feel like they’re not able to do more and or being ashamed because other people are just saying they should back off because they’re pregnant. “why would you need a lift that much?” It fits within your strength, and your comfort, and your wheelhouse, that is totally fine.
Anthony Gurule 12:05
Again, you if you’ve been doing that enough, you understand the risk reward ratio and having a conversation with your practitioner has driven us to kind of help navigate and guide as you start to get further through pregnancies, what things maybe we need to change or manipulate. But that’s totally fine. Now outside of that, the question around safe also comes up around core exercises. diastasis recti, pelvic floor strength, so on and so forth, we want to enhance the capability of understanding how to control tension within your abdominal wall and your pelvic floor through pregnancy, because the pressure is increasing due to baby taking up more space. But we’re not we’re not necessarily we’re not gaining more strength, right.
Anthony Gurule 12:45
And so what a lot of people assume it’s when we’ve seen this, is “I don’t want diastasis. So I’m doing more core work to prevent diastasis from happening.” diastasis recti will happen in 100% of moms, it’s estimated at the week 35 Everyone will have some form of it. Now it is technically not a quote unquote diagnosis, though, until 12 weeks postpartum, because it is a normal thing that everyone will get. So you can’t diagnose someone with something that everyone will get–doesn’t make sense, right? So after that, though, if you still have weakness or spacing issues, then we can have a you know, a stronger conversation about putting a diagnosis on that.
Anthony Gurule 13:26
But what we’re trying to enhance and help is what exercises are quote unquote, not safe versus unsafe, but adding too much pressure or tension into the abdominal wall or the pelvic floor and creating more laxity. again, as that pressure for as baby’s growing starts to put more pressure on the pelvic floor and the abdominal wall. If you’re doing more things that increases the pressure within the within the abdominal cavity that’s going to push on that separation even more and/or push on that pelvic floor even more, creating potential incontinence or prolapse issues and/or more bulging and doming within the abdominal wall stretching out that separation or that gap even further, potentially making the recovery process more challenging or slightly longer. I’m not saying that it will but potentially, so we do have to take that in consideration. So we go through activation exercise of the pelvic floor, of the abdominal wall so that you better understand how to control those pressure increases while you’re lifting or exercising so that you simply can stay at a management level.
Anthony Gurule 14:28
And that in turn, helps you get through pregnancy of understanding how to lift up your older kiddo, having to lift up dog food or anything like that. It’s just managing and controlling pressure. So there’s really not anything that I would say that safe or unsafe. Now, things that we would advise against for core exercises is sit ups or crunches. You know a lot of those things that create like hanging knee raises and different things like that during pregnancy. A lot of those things that create a lot of intra abdominal pressure and tension. and especially during a flex position, that tends to put a lot more pressure on the abdominal wall, the separation where diastasis will occur as well as the pelvic floor.
Anthony Gurule 15:09
So, you know, while we never say never, there’s definitely a category of things that we definitely urge against because the risk/reward benefit and again, risk not being “injured,” But risk of potentially putting more pressure and making the recovery process on the other side harder, is not is not something that we find to be as advantageous. But you can still get the benefits of quote unquote, core exercises through full body movements such as goblet squats, such as deadlifts, you know, depending on the phase that you’re in, push ups, which are, you know, a dynamic plank. or being able to do a TRX row, which is a reverse plank as you’re just lifting yourself up. three point rows where you’re on, you know, two hands or doing like a row on a bench, where you’re in a tabletop position that’s adding anti rotation exercises. So there’s a ton that you can do that still highlights and isolates, the core isolates, sorry. that highlights and will emphasize core activation, but through a full body compound movement. And what’s great about that is during pregnancy, depending on your energy levels, it’s hard to do all the little isolated accessory and all these separate exercises as it is. So it’s kind of nice being able to combine everything, so you get more bang for your buck, especially if you’re a parent and you’re on and you’re on baby number two or three, right?
Anthony Gurule 16:31
So what exercises are safe for pregnant women to do? All are. reduce or eliminate for sure contact activities, different things like that. the increased risk activities of you know, trauma and things like that. Outside of that you’re managing pressure, I would definitely encourage reducing anything that’s heavy lifting, that’s, that’s requiring you to do Valsalva moves, you’re having to hold your breath for an extended period of time. that changes blood pressure, so on and so forth. But outside of that, Pregnancy is a completely safe time to do all exercises. we definitely as we highlighted, urge and encourage, you know, certain things over other ones just for you know, added bang for your buck or full body movements, so on and so forth. And that, but outside of that you are free to do what you want.
Anthony Gurule 17:19
If you want guidance, though, you know, there are there are trainers out there that work specifically with prenatal patients. we would love to be able to have that conversation with you if that’s something you want to bounce back or navigate. Because we do want to encourage as much as we can. A very, very active pregnancy through exercise working out or however you want to describe that. So if you found this beneficial, please like share, subscribe. if you’re pregnant, I hope you can utilize this and take some of the information for you and yourself. If you have anyone else you know… a relative a family member, a friend who is pregnant and they’re unsure they’ve been you know asking this question what things I don’t know what things I can do. I don’t know if it’s safe for baby share this video with them. We’d love to be able to provide a better frame of reference and or context to be able to ask better questions so that they can find the workout program or the movements that work best for them during their pregnancy. Until next time guys live loud .if you’re currently pregnant, Congratulations, and we look forward to helping and serving in the future.
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Building Health & Fitness in your Life | EP 86
Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado
Episode 86
Building Health & Fitness in Your Life
With Kendra Sato
Episode Highlights
[0:09] Kendra’s Introduction.
[1:26] What was your early introduction to athletic training?
[5:50] Gen Pop is one of the more challenging populations to work with from a mobility standpoint.
[11:05] Working out during a pandemic.
[16:14] How do you know if you’re feeling well?
[20:30] The difference between being depleted vs. being lazy.
[24:41] The importance of having a “why” in your life.
[28:00] Why is this important?
[32:12] What’s most exciting to you?
About Dr. Antonio Gurule
Background:
- Father
- Doctor of Chiropractic
- Owner of Live LOUD
- Personal Trainer & Health Coach
Check Out Some of Our Other Blog Posts and Podcast Episodes
Anthony Gurule 0:09
Alright guys, welcome back to the lip out life Podcast. Today. Kendra Sato is joining us from sunny California. They still caught selling in California, right?
Kendra Sato 0:19
They do. And it’s been raining for two days actually Sunny.
Anthony Gurule 0:22
There you go. There you go, which is so funny because Colorado technically, I think it I don’t know if this is just a rumor, but it has the most sunny days out of the year, then I think most states, even the Sunshine State, Florida, which is nice and sunny today here as well. So welcome. Say hello to everyone tell everyone who you are, what you’re doing so on and so forth. Well,
Kendra Sato 0:41
first of all, thank you for having me. I was really excited when you invited me to be on your podcast. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a podcast and I haven’t been very many. So super fun to be here. And I’ve been a fan of your work for. I can’t remember how long it was I’ve been following you. But you put out really great content. So you should. Yeah, um, so about me been a trainer for 10 years and more on the functional fitness side. So I got really lucky when I got into this world. And I started to come up under, you know, a really incredible athletic trainer at a local school here in the area. But then he introduced me to Mike Boyles the world for a better world and never really had to learn from anybody that I later found out wasn’t as incredible as I thought they were so only got to learn from the best. And so here we are, that’s awesome.
Anthony Gurule 1:25
And then so your early introduction was to athletic training.
Kendra Sato 1:29
Initially, I thought I wanted to do maybe athletic training, because I grew up in sports. So I thought I wanted to stay as close to on the field as possible. So I took a I did an internship for the I did Sports Med and then I did human nutrition stuff. And it just didn’t work out like it was a little bit too reactive for me. Yeah. So
Anthony Gurule 1:48
yeah, definitely as I did, at CEU at CU here, I did my last year, I was a student athletic trainer. So I wasn’t nearly as involved as the, I mean, I say this with grace, it was more or less at times a glorified waterboy to a certain extent, but we got a lot of hands on training, right. But some of it, you know, we weren’t as reactive as like injuries happening. But the speed of like, you know, we had to get football team out for practice, and you had to tape a bunch of angles, and then you had to do a hip spike, and then you had to do this. And while that was fun at a certain degree, it wasn’t my it wasn’t my pace at all, either. I think it’s
Kendra Sato 2:22
it’s super fun. I loved being like on the ground floor with the athlete, and especially different ones, but kind of reactive in the sense that you’re reacting to injuries, you’re reacting to issues. And I just same thing with physical therapy like that just was potentially a path and like this, isn’t it for me, I need more involvement on the forefront and less cleaning up a mess afterwards, you’re putting the pieces back together as much.
Anthony Gurule 2:44
Yeah, and I love that. So that kind of segues into the topic that we were chatting about beforehand is kind of you know, what I had asked like, what do you feel people think that you do well, and or what you feel you do well, and or that you enjoy. So a proactive approach. And as we were stating, it’s like how do we integrate, I might be paraphrasing the kind of the terms that we had used, but integrate this quote unquote philosophy model into every day life for for anyone, so I’ll let you kind of, you know, take take it forward and like what, what are you doing from a proactive sense with your clients with your community with your platform? That’s
Kendra Sato 3:19
a loaded question. We have 30 minutes. Yeah,
Anthony Gurule 3:23
I mean, it can be as early as possible, but more so it’s just like, Hey, I like like, I’ll start for example, like, I Live loud. It’s like our goal is to help guide you through adventurous life you’re meant for now we are chiropractors in rehab providers. So we’re also doing pain management. But as you know, through everyone, like I’ve taken as many perform better things as you can, our focus is proactive to like anyone who’s coming in with is realistically unless you just injured yourself from a sport setting more appropriate, but from who we see, most people didn’t just injure themselves, but there was a proactive component that wasn’t addressed with right. And that’s Yeah, absolutely. That’s the key to the puzzle. Yeah,
Kendra Sato 4:01
I think so my approach is very inclusive in a lifestyle so I work with a lot more general population athletes than I do competitive collegiate or professional athletes. And I actually prefer it that way. I do love any athletes we have a lot in common as far as like mindset and realities and all that kind of thing and identities but I feel like you make more of an impact with you know, quote unquote Gen pop athlete and you know, when I got into fitness, I didn’t really like it very much in a sense that I was always very active, but it nothing called me as far as many hours in the gym. Like that was the last thing I wanted to do. So how I actually got into training I could hardly explain but I stuck with it because I started to understand very quickly that you don’t just exist in the gym to people and you’re not just there to make them sweat or make up or make your very you know, rarely do those things happen. Maybe not the sweat but the other two and it was kind of more of like wow, I exist in this world do help people have better lives and it has been this is really just the catalyst for that. You know, so it’s not you have to be a fit person all the time. It’s not you have to love fitness or fall in love with it at the activity that is more of my approach. So you know if being in the gym is only a tiny little supplement, that’s perfect. If you are getting outside playing with your animals, your children, your friends going on adventures doing, you’re helping people move because you are the one that has the truck, like that kind of stuff. Yeah, that all counts, that’s activity that’s a fit, active lifestyle. And I think it usually catches my clients off guard, when they hear that kind of thing. And they hear that I didn’t really have much of a passion for fitness or being in the gym type fitness. You know, so I like to level with people. And I like to figure out like, you know, from their perspective, what is this going to do for them? Are they actually here? How do we weave it into your life instead of I’m trying to shove it down your throat and make it you know, a big huge part of your life? Like, let’s see how it can kind of coexist with you in a little bit more of a welcoming and sustainable way.
Anthony Gurule 5:50
Yeah, that’s such a good point. I mean, and I want to percent agree with you on that we see we see Gen pop. And to be honest, I think it’s one of the more challenging population to work with, just from a mobility standpoint is in and I say, older, because everyone I’m saying is older than me in this category, although I’m closer to getting there, like my our parents age, right? Is because there’s so much impact because they they were thinking like I live life, and I forgot to integrate this into my life. And all of a sudden, like, things just started going downhill. And it’s never too late. But they’re such a fun population to work with a because they see the value of it. But they’re kind of like remembering, I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is what my life was like, and I forgot about it. And it’s just that small integration into it doesn’t have to be a lot.
Kendra Sato 6:35
And I think a lot of people are still stuck on I have to do a lot. It has to be intense, it has to be, you know, really tough and very kind of crazy, I guess for lack of a better term. And that’s very intimidating to step into and deterring for most of us, myself included, you know, so very early on, I was lucky enough to not have a background of being very passionate about fitness, and just be an active moving person. And seeing how it kind of kind of takes the limits off of a lifestyle. And that enables people to kind of get more off the sidelines and into the game, whatever their game is. It’s more impactful, and it’s more sustainable, and it matters more to them. Because, you know, good coaches understand has nothing to do with that’s not our show. We’re, you know, behind the curtains and somebody’s like trying to make it better.
Anthony Gurule 7:21
Yeah, no, that’s so I mean, I think I think was good too. And I don’t know, if you kind of have a similar conversation with people is like, I always use the term context, right? Like everything we do in here, it has to have some sort of context into everyday life. Otherwise, it doesn’t, it doesn’t mean as much for some it might mean more. But if there’s no context output in from a, which I know, kind of similar conversations, you know, people like Capobianco and Dr. Cody and things like that, right, as we allow the same conversation is, when we’re trying to implement a new a new movement, a new feeling a new stabilization structure, it’s like okay, well, when you’re doing hiking, moving a friend, whatever that is, you know, implement this and see how see how it goes. And then and then all of a sudden, your neurons start just putting those pieces together, and it has so much greater impact. Absolutely. What are some of the bias? I mean, I’m biased towards a few tools, what are some of the tools that you find is, as far as you know, lower? Now, I want to say this, maybe that’s an outright term, but lower barrier of entry, but making that barrier of entry into fitness and integration, what are some of the tools and methods, like for me, it’s kettlebells, right? That you like using that you have found to be really helpful for this quote, unquote, Gen population, and in the feeling in the in the problems that they’re having of wanting to do these things.
Kendra Sato 8:34
I’m a huge fan of kettlebells, as well, for so many reasons, I tend towards the more universal tools, you know, barbells are great. I’m also a huge fan of dumbbells. You know, I don’t shy away from weights, it doesn’t matter the age or demographic demographic that I’m working with, everyone I work with is going to work with weights in some capacity. And I do find that while initially very intimidating, when I bring out a big kettlebell or bring out some dumbbells or you know, anything like that, it’s really cool to see a very quick evolution for most people when they see this big huge weight, or what they think is a big huge weight. And their immediate thought is, I don’t know, she might be shooting for the stars here. And once they figure out how their body can handle it, you know, with the right form and the right foundation in place, it’s really incredible. So I really like using weights as much as possible, to kind of empower people as quickly as I can. Because the more confident you are, the more you’re going to be willing to kind of push the envelope a little bit. And then be more, you know, empowered to take on other stuff and be a little bit more open to what else can I do versus I don’t think,
Anthony Gurule 9:42
yeah, that’s a good point. I mean, we just using the term like, hey, let’s just try, right? Yeah. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. And then we know what we need to do, right? But if you just try with those foundations in place, it’s pretty cool to see people light up and they’re like, Oh, I did not think I could do that. Yeah,
Kendra Sato 10:00
Ah, that’s really the best part. And you know, to kind of backtrack a little bit like I never put a weight in someone’s hand, unless I know that they have the range. And they have the foundation of strength and understanding of have enough movement for whatever it is that I’m asking them to do. So I set them up for success, for sure. I definitely hedge my bets. But um, you know, I don’t really bore them with all these details. Like when I’m asking them to do a stretch on the foam roller when we’re starting to begin, I’m looking at do they have shoulder mobility? Does it go straight into their back? Do they, you know, have all these prerequisites? And then once I know they do, I don’t have to tell them that I can just show them. So, you know, it’s a lot. It’s some people come in, and they really want to understand everything that we do and why and I love that. Yeah. But if you’re reading the room, some of the people are not super into it. And they don’t need to know what they’re qualifying for. They don’t need to know what they’re, at the moment like not necessarily appropriate for. So I kind of figured out their foundational attributes. First, I build them up, and I never set them up for failure. But then, you know, they don’t need to know everything along the way, for the most part. And so when they find out what they’re really capable of, it’s pretty incredible.
Anthony Gurule 11:05
Yeah, that’s why a partially like, well, certain kettlebells, like I have, most of mine are rep and I’m looking at it right now is that’s kind of a small kettlebells you can’t always see the weight on it. So sometimes, you don’t even tell them. It’s just like, hey, I know you were able to do this last one, right? And I’m just gonna, hey, we’re just gonna go up one in there. Sometimes I’ll ask like, well, we’ll have a choice. I’m like, doesn’t matter. I’m like, Just do the things that we taught you learn and, and see how it goes. And then oftentimes, that’s when the big they’re like, oh, my gosh, that was way more than I thought it was. But then it’s also cool, because it creates so much confidence. And like, I felt like it was 30 pounds. But yet I did 60 pounds. Like that’s a big discrepancy that they had no idea of their ultimate potential.
Kendra Sato 11:46
Yeah, it really works your advantage to being in the US and most people don’t use kilos of a belt. It’s, like 24 kilo, they’re thinking automatically 24 pounds. Yeah. And then they get after it. You’re like, Oh, that was actually 53. And like, wait, what?
Anthony Gurule 12:03
I think one of the things too, when someone you know, is either looking for a trainer, or they’re trying to find someone who can help integrate this into their life, as they see people and there’s like, oh, well, you’ve been doing this for 10 years, like, I’m not going to be able to do these things. So can you break down a little bit of like, what your training looks like, and in in now, but also like over the years that got you here, because I already shared some nice people with I will say having some kids minds kind of going this way to a certain degree. What is yours look like? What’s been able to give you the strength, the capabilities, dare I say you know, what someone is consider interested in aesthetic appearance of tone and muscle, what do you do for working out.
Kendra Sato 12:50
Um, so it’s had this really incredible evolution, because for the longest time, I did not work out work was working out, I would just set up weights, I would break down weights, and then I would go play outside of did not like being in the gym any more than I had to be. So I literally did not do any formal workouts for years. It just didn’t hold my interest. I wanted to learn movements, I wanted to play with them. And then that was kind of it. And then actually, through the pandemic, so my fiancee is the lead at a facility nearby. And I could go in but only when there were no clients in there at all. So I’d have to go on at five o’clock in the morning and have to be done by six. Luckily, during a pandemic, without kids and animals, that’s a pretty easy thing to do. When you have responsibilities, you can’t go to work and everything else is online. So that was really the first time I’d ever been very consistent with working out on my own. And then I started to realize I really like if I’m by myself or with a friend or something, I really like to do strength training. So bigger, heavier weights, slower movements, a lot more breaks, not necessarily just sitting on my ass, just you know, if I’m doing deadlifts, then I’m gonna supplement it with something else like a mobility drill, or, you know, a press or something that’s slightly unrelated to the muscle group that I’m using. So I’m not wasting time, but I’m also not just hammering myself away. Yeah. And then I realized that I kind of hate doing cardio by myself. And it’s just, it’s the worst mind game I can possibly play. So, you know, I’ll go to kind of more hit or high intensity classes that do a little bit of like lightweight strength, mostly, you know, metabolic training type stuff, because misery loves company, and I just don’t want to be alone. And if I have a little bit of competition with myself, or we have our heart rate monitors on or I have a friend who’s pushing me, I’ll do a much better job than if I were by myself and I’d probably last maybe 10 or 15 minutes. Yeah. Yeah, that’s kind of the split now is during training and then I do a little bit of like the classes and stuff to just get myself through.
Anthony Gurule 14:55
So what are you doing? Do you have like a set amount of like I do three days a car Do three days or two days of strength, two days of hit or does it vary on the week?
Kendra Sato 15:06
It varies a lot. One of my jobs is pretty sporadic. So sometimes they do have to travel last minute, sometimes they just don’t have, you know, the energy that can be extended on workouts, and it kind of throws things off. So I don’t do well with structure and organization, but I don’t like rigidity, especially in the realm of working out. So it tends to work out that it’s maybe two days of strength training, three to four days in the classes, metabolic training, cardio conditioning, whatever you want to call it. And then I try to get my bet outside once a week, if not more, at least for a walk or a hike or something. Bike Ride, what have you. So it’s really just how I’m feeling. And I really base it also off of like, do I feel like I can take this on and do a good job? If not, I’ll find an alternative. Yeah. And what I mean by that is like, did I sleep? Well? Am I eating? Well? Did I actually remember to drink water? It’s not an easy thing for me to do. You know, do I feel like I can tackle this? And I’ll come out better on the other side? Or do I feel like I’ll be destroyed on the other side? And that kind of dictates my answers as well?
Anthony Gurule 16:14
Yeah. And that’s such a, I think that in terms of the integration to the Gen pop ideas, there’s so many elements, right? You’re you travel from time to time for work, me as a parent, other people as whatever that role is. And the term that we’re referring to is some sort of ready state preparation, right. And it’s integrated by a lot of great personal trainers and coaches and programs there. But that’s something we always try to integrate and tell people is like, hey, how do you know you’re actually feeling well? And I think this is where and I don’t know if you use it, because I think you have an Apple Watch. From what I’ve seen, right? Is it Apple Watch, or Garmin Garmin, right? So I was for a while looking at heart rate variability and stuff to try to see that. But it’s, it’s it’s intimidating, even for someone who me who knows a lot of that stuff. I’m just like, man, it’s a lot to track that stuff. But also then just trying to tune in. So this is where everyone else is just like trying to tune in. Yeah, what was your sleep last night, right? Like, our family is going through a cold, like kids are getting up all these things, I’m not sleeping as well. And so what I had planned today is not nearly what I had intended to be just based on that preparation. And too many people just go in and think and it’s just like, Well, I still gotta get I still gotta check the box, I still got to push myself regardless. And slowly, they just start beating themselves up. How do you? How do you respond to people in that way to help them better understand the physiology and everything that’s actually happening.
Kendra Sato 17:46
So it’s different if I have the control versus if I’m advising if I have the control is in someone’s under my care, as a client. And my number one job before anything else in the world is to keep that person safe. So if I know they’re running on empty, and they’re here to because they either mentally have to check the box, mostly have to check the box, want the time away from whatever it is the live server with them will adjust accordingly. So I may still have them do some strength work, but they’re not going to be allowed to do anything more high intensity, they’re going to be able to do a couple of heavy lifts, they’re going to walk around, we’re going to relax, we’re going to chat, we’re going to do whatever it is that they need to do. And it’s going to be really dependent on their capacity. You can also be very quiet. I have two former clients that just love talking about the day we had a yoga session, not a yoga instructor, but they came in so destroyed, and so over it that the best they could possibly do is be there that day. Yeah. And they luckily it was the end of the day, last session, it was just them and myself, we turn the lights down. And I literally just to I turned on my best version of a yoga voice, and we stretched and rolled for an hour. Yeah. When it comes to advising somebody, it’s I kind of, it seems like the what i The advice that I give them is not really things that they’ve ever heard before, because I get a lot of surprise, usually when I advise stuff and it’s, you get to cheat or do whatever you want, when you go to where it is that you’re gone. So a lot of people who ask or when we talked about this, they’re going to, you know, an orange theory, a local facility, or joining classes, they’re they’re doing this stuff in a bigger setting where they don’t have one on one attention. And then the message is kind of like if it means that much to you to get your booty through the door, and to go to the class and finish it. Then everything else is you know, play your own game. So the coaches are going to maybe recommend me weights, maybe not. They’re going to teach you how to do the exercises. They’re going to time you through whatever it is that’s on the menu for that day. And then you get to cheat your way through it. If it says 15 reps and you can only do 10 Just do 10 Yeah, and no, you know, like the only person it’s affecting is you but you’re actually doing more for yourself doing 10 Good ones, and you’re doing 15 shitty ones. You know, and it’s what’s prescribed by your coach is not prescribed for you specifically. So, cut corners really want to cut corners and just honor where your energy is. And if you start feeling better, you can push a little harder, but if not, dial it back a little bit. And then at least you got it done. At least you started and finished. But you didn’t have to destroy yourself to do it.
Anthony Gurule 20:30
Yeah, and I think what’s so interesting is because we live in, and we live in a hustle culture, right? And I’m super subject to it, right? It’s hustle more and more and more from this for that. And that’s still and this is, I think, honestly, so the hardest because I still struggle with it, right? It’s like, was my body really tired? Or am I just kind of, you know, not wanting to do it today, right? So you know, then just, hey, strap up, let’s go. But you have to enact in only comes I think the biggest thing is it comes with experience, right? So if you’re a novice, this conversation is applicable, but not as much because you’re still in this growth phase, right? Whereas someone who’s in the middle, where you have a you have some reps under your belt, and you’re trying to figure out what am I just lazy? Or am I tired? Because there is a time where you do need to buckle up and strap up? Because we did we did don’t do anything, you’re still checking the box. But that’s it. That’s a hard thing. And again, like because you’re gonna always get the questions like, Well, what about this? What about this complaint, what is all day, you just got to get more reps in, you just got to get more reps in and then you’re gonna know, oh, I actually am tired, broken down, whatever that is. It’s not me just being lazy. I’m like, legit, physiologically depleted. Versus there are times where it’s just like, No, you’re you need to Let’s go Come on. Right. And that’s, I think that’s definitely a hard a hard balance for for anybody, but especially the newer to medium experienced individuals.
Kendra Sato 21:57
It is, but I really liked the word you use just now. And it was depleted. Like anybody whether novice, you know, in the fitness world or complete expert, like we all know that feeling of depletion, that feeling of just like I physically just, it feels like I don’t have anything to draw from and there’s a huge difference between that feeling of being depleted and empty, versus lazy and tired. And, you know, I think it’s, a lot of it is the coach’s duty to explain that those are, those are cues for your, from your internal self to listen to, like, do you feel like you just if I’m asking you to push harder, you really just can’t do anything, you’re already scraping the bottom of the barrel? Or do you feel like if I asked you to push harder and was there with you, you’d be able to dig deep and go for it. And I think that’s the difference between, you know, whether novice or not like if you feel like there’s something there and you know, in your self talk, like, you know, there’s something there or you know, that there’s nothing there. I think that’s a really important distinct distinction to make between the two.
Anthony Gurule 23:00
And again, there are wearable devices, watches, heart rate monitors and things which can help because then some people are just analytical, and they need that kind of like, oh, yeah, I have an elevated heart rate or I know Pavel has, I think it’s a breath hold, you do like a couple you have like one or two inhale exhales and then it’s a breath hold, I can’t remember because I don’t utilize it where the shorter your breath hold time indicates that physiologically you’re depleted. But there are resources out there if people want those specifics. And I think what’s so cool is about all that is like I came across this and I cannot remember who the guy was, I was trying to find it. But it was on a quick just, you know, scroll of a reel, but there’s individual talking about priorities, right? And he used his five by five model, right? The five top five priorities in my life like health, faith, fitness, you know, whatever that is business, and then each one of those have a subset of priorities in order to make that top priority. worthwhile. So in the fitness realm, I’ve been trying to go through this myself, like, realistically, and these are supposed to be actionable, actionable items, right? So when you looking at health, it’s like, like you said, like, I’m trying to get in today’s week of strength training, three to four days of cardio outside a day waters of focus, right? So when you break down this integration into life, it’s not a lack of time, it’s a lack of priority and understanding based on an individual’s goals. Right. But for more for most people, when they’re struggling to get it into their life, I was like, Hey, let’s prioritize, check in a few boxes, right? So when you’re talking about being depleted, I was like, just go check the box, like, get your ass there. It doesn’t matter if you are x, y, do it as best as you will. It’s just like, just go check the box. Don’t kill yourself, and then tell me how you feel the next day. More times than not they’re like so much better. Whereas focus of like checking every single possible thing that I can every single day because that’s a recipe for thinking fast.
Kendra Sato 24:51
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that people need to be able to it seems like there’s this weird expectation that There’s a certain duration and intensity to workouts for them to count. You know, if I moved for 10 minutes a day, and I had a really work heavy day where I was just kind of stuck in front of a computer for most of the time, and I did that 10 minutes of intentional movement, or just went outside for a little bit and just walked up and down my street, and that was it, that counts, that’s checking the box, that’s really, really awesome stuff and getting vitamin D and getting fresh air and moving my hips. Like, there’s so much that goes into that. But it’s not really celebrated in the current landscape. And I would like to see more of that. Also, like if I just, you know, if I did make it to class, and I knew that it wasn’t going to be a great day, and I made it through as much as I could. And I did realize halfway through like, oh, I can’t really push it, I have nothing else to give. And I just kind of sat on the bike for a little bit, or I’m an adult, I can leave whenever I want. I just do what I, you know, everything I possibly could and I decided like, Hey, this is it. I got nothing left and I proud of myself for coming. I gave it my all I’m done. I can go, yeah, it’s not gonna ruin anyone’s day. I’m not, you know, needing permission from anybody other than myself. I can just excuse myself, and I’m done for the day. And that’s good.
Anthony Gurule 26:19
Well, and that’s such a big thing, too, right? You’re in this for you. You’re not in it for anybody. Yeah. You don’t know, the coaches or anybody anything. Right? So as we’re wrapping up, what are because obviously, some of these people are listening, they’re not gonna be able to work with you one on one, whatever that CCAP pastor situation might be, or they’re interested in finding somebody, when you’re talking with someone who’s on the cusp, and really interested of this integration model of how do I fit it into my life? What are either some of the questions or ideas you prompt someone to think about just to help them kind of, you know, find that path or direction? So like, for instance, I might be like, well, what are some of the things you actually enjoy doing? Have you ever used dumbbells you know, about dumbbells you know about this? Or could it be like, hey, I want you to start thinking about, it’s hard to set goals when you don’t really know how to integrate it, right? So is there any kind of prompt people to think about or maybe process through in order to find either the gym, or the facility or the coach to work with?
Kendra Sato 27:19
There’s a couple of different things I would say, when I’m working with someone, and, you know, especially right now it’s December, we’re moving into holidays, Soon thereafter, we’re going to be moving into everybody’s resolution of losing 15 pounds, right? That’s probably going to die by February 1. Because people don’t really get the opportunity to think very much about their why their deep seated, why and I call it more of an anchor than a why. So what I mean by that is, when you make a resolution, that’s something along the lines of I want to lose 15 pounds this year, because I want to look better. Well, that’s not really the anchor, usually, you have to ask the same question or that ask the question, What’s your why? Or why are you here? Why is this important? And then you ask why five more times past that. And this is something that precision Nutrition has taught me. And once you keep digging, digging, digging, then you find out like, Oh, I feel like when I’m lighter and leaner, I stand taller, I walk through rooms with more confidence, I feel better in life, I feel better at work, I feel better. You know all these things. That’s more of a deep seated why. So that would be the first step. And that doesn’t mean that that translates directly to weight training, it doesn’t mean that that translates directly to running or anything else. It just means having a healthier lifestyle gets you this thing. So this is what really means something to you, outside of that you need to find. So fitness is a very weird world where everyone’s kind of expected to know what to do, which blows my mind. We expect you Oh, just do this. Oh, this is super simple. Oh, follow along. It’s like, are you serious? Why do we think people like quit so fast and get so overwhelmed and are completely intimidated because the expectation is completely unrealistic. And a lot of professionals are asking people to be savvy and something that they’ve been studying and they’ve been immersed in, when they’re not when their audience could possibly care less. So I think when you’re looking for someone to follow, learn from be trained by jump in classes with whatever the case may be, find someone you’re comfortable asking questions, and getting really good answers that make sense to you. So it’s very easy, and I still do this too, in realms that are not fitness. If I ask a question and I get an answer. I’m like, okay, cool. And then two seconds later, I’m like, that didn’t make any sense at all. But instead of going back and advocating, like whoo, can you explain it to me again, or say it differently or give me an example or two? Are you really good with analogies or metaphors? because I don’t get it. Yeah, that’s hugely important. If you’re with somebody who expects a certain level of proficiency, and you’re not there, that’s your cue to find somebody else. Yep. And then to find someone who is humble enough to not always have all the answers and give you, you know, smoke when you’re asking for a real. So having a coach who has an air of confidence, but also, humility is huge. Go into the biggest, baddest person who seems like they have every single answer all the time, they probably don’t. Yeah, and they’re probably not wise or safe enough to figure something out with you as an individual, to keep you on the right path. So it’d be another one just like, find someone you’re comfortable with, you can ask a lot of questions, even if you feel like they’re silly. You should never be meant to feel like your questions are done. Yeah. You know, and then find if you want empowerment, find somebody who’s going to help you learn in the long run. Versus you need me. Yeah, gotta be, you know, if you want it to be sustainable, and in your life, you can remember Oh, yeah, okay. So my coach said that, it’s, you know, if I have a heavy workday, I could maybe just do five squat. And he said, my squats are really good. So we’re just gonna do that. And then you have ownership over it, versus someone who’s making you feel like, you need all the bells and whistles you need their equipment, you need their space you need, you can’t really do anything without them. So find someone who can help you weave it into your life. And it doesn’t always have to be fitness movement related. It can also be drinking water, it can be being mindful before bed, or spending some time outside every day, or making sure that you, you know, have something green on your plate always. It can be just about anything that aids in a healthy lifestyle. Just as long as it’s something that is interesting and exciting to us as an individual. So that’s another, I think the last thing I would say is when I’m talking to clients about maybe how we can integrate better habits into their life, or my family or somebody who’s wanting to do something better for themselves like, well, what’s most exciting to you? Maybe they did see an Instagram ad with sandbags, and they thought they were the coolest thing ever. I want to learn how to use sand bags. Awesome. Nobody will use that we’ll start there. Yeah, my favorite tool in the whole world, they do love it. But cool. That’s what you’re excited about. That’s where we’re gonna go. Or I’m really good at eating vegetables. I’m not so great at eating protein. But I do love it. I just don’t really think about it, or I don’t know much about it. Like, cool. We’ll teach you where you can put protein into your meals or snacks or whatever it is that we just find things that like mean something to the person right now. And then we just build one thing at a time.
Anthony Gurule 32:52
That’s probably you wrote context and relevance, right? Yep. I love it. I’m working with I always need to ask this. I got to get it in right. Where can people find you? What’s best if they wanted to reach out with you connect? Are you taking on clients, you do remote coaching? Is it only in person?
Kendra Sato 33:10
No, I am. I am taking on clients, it is going to be remote for the most part unless someone listening happens to be in Santa Cruz area. So you can find me on social media. My handle is just my name at Kendra Sato. And then I also have a website that I’m constantly working on and building but I do now have a training page. So it’s a little bit about me a little bit about my credentials, and a little translation, my credentials. And then there’s a tab that you can click on that actually just emails me directly. So
Anthony Gurule 33:40
yeah, perfect. Yeah, well, I had a great time talking to you. I think that’s such a ton of great information. Again, this is such such important what we’d see as like nuggets of information but can be profound for each and every one of you guys. So if you enjoy it, please share it with someone else you know might be on honestly the struggle bus but the figuring figuring it all out on how to actually live. So thanks again and look forward to connecting again soon.
Kendra Sato 34:09
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Anthony Gurule 34:10
All right. We’ll talk soon. Okay,
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Did You Know this Fact? | EP 85
Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado
Episode 85
Did you know this fact?
With Dr. Antonio Gurule
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About Dr. Antonio Gurule
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Check Out Some of Our Other Blog Posts and Podcast Episodes
Anthony Gurule 0:10
All right, we’re gonna jump right into today’s episode. Today’s episode is about the length tension relationship. Now, for some of you might, you might be thinking, wow, how is this important? What is this apply to me? Well, to me, this is actually a very important piece of the puzzle when we’re dealing with rehab and recovery that most people aren’t talking about. And this really helps you unlock the knowledge about how your body moves, and operates, especially from just a backing up, especially from just a movement perspective, right. So getting right into it length tension relationship, what that means is the muscle the our muscle fibers generate tension, right, they get tighter when you ask them to work. Now, here’s something important to always note is a muscle can only pull, right, we oftentimes will look at like a pushing motion, even like a squat, like I’m pushing the ground away, your muscle is lengthening as you push away from something it is it is shortening, and that in turn is pulling, that is pulling a body part or another joint or another bone in order to elicit movement.
Anthony Gurule 1:19
Now, what’s important to note about that is there is a position in which the muscle belly, the belly is like the middle part of the muscle, right where most of the muscle fibers are. And in turn, this also is in relationship to the tendon which attaches to the bone. But there is a position in which the muscle belly can generate the most amount of force. And and it’s not, we can’t say it’s like oh, and it’s X amount of length, or whatever that is, right. It’s it’s it’s it’s an inherent thing that is felt and developed throughout your body. And it can change because you can get stronger in positions of shorter or longer positions, right in relationship to the to the muscle length. But more importantly, what we’re looking for is how can you better understand this to help you with leverage? Now leverage is the name of the game when it comes to resistance training, right? Your ability to leverage right to move something allows you to get stronger, the more weight you can move or leverage, then the more adaptation you can have.
Anthony Gurule 2:28
Now that being said, too, we can use the leverage. And the same, the same concept of stretched, the stretch length tension relationship, to maybe elicit more strength, right, if I can generate tension in a muscle belly, that’s longer can I make it stronger in that longer position. Now this is also important because we talk about in previous episodes, as indicated, in alluding to this episode of How length tension relationship can improve shoulder pain. This is also true for like lower back pain, right? When we’re dealing with disc injuries and things like that we’re looking at the muscles are oftentimes in a hyper spasm short position, because they don’t want they don’t want the the joints, the the spine to move because that might elicit more pressure on a disc. And so what happens is they become locked down in tight and their tension is only then generated in a short position. And then when we ask them to elongate to move and trade create tension in a long position, they don’t know how to do it. And sometimes that creates spasm, potential muscle injuries and or they buckle fail and fatigue, which then puts more pressure onto the lower back.
Anthony Gurule 3:37
So understanding the length tension relationship allows you to create this framework of like, okay, well, I feel like I have the most control and leverage within this range of motion. Right now, it’s good because we want to build on that. And then as we build on that we can we can expand upon that. And this is also especially true as we talked about the shoulder, the shoulder while we want it to be strong in various positions. It is strongest in certain positions based on this length tension relationship of having the rotator cuff, being able to control where our shoulder is and how it operates. So when we’re dealing with rehab, rehab, rehab is strength training in the presence of pain so you’re still doing all the things that you should and could be able to do just maybe slightly modified, regressed or lateral laterally changed. But what we’re doing is we’re changing it ever so slightly because there is pain. We don’t want to elicit more pain we’re not trying to push and work through pain, but at the same time we appreciate pain and when we change the the our orientation and position then we’re able to influence the length tension relationship to allow you to generate good healthy tension without eliciting or maybe triggering pain.
Anthony Gurule 4:49
So in my mind, this is a is a is a critical component to the rehab and recovery process. We’re working within a maybe a country rolled a range of motion or a controlled position for this reason. For this reason, it also helps you change how you’re loaning other joints that might be angry, right? Because the muscles are more in control. Or let’s say for instance, you’re dealing with patellar tendinopathy. Right or patellar. tendonitis, right. And we’re doing box squats, we’re controlling range of motion and depth. So we can still load the tendon to create adaptation, and change and improve that tendon. But at the same time, we’re not going too far that might be pulling on that, on that inflamed tendon, or possibly muscle belly or tendon tear, right. So this is, in my mind, a really critical component of the recovery and rehab process, that is not being talked about enough, because we just assume, Oh, you just if it hurts, just don’t do it. Right, we need to maximize on this, we can still find ways to load in in elicit adaptation in response, we just have to know what positions, depth and variables to manipulate and change. So if you feel like you’re kind of just honestly just stuck, you’re not getting a lot out of your movements, or you feel like you’re really limited because because of pain, or because of what someone told you to do. I promise you, there’s definitely ways for us to start progressing.
Anthony Gurule 6:16
You’re planning your program. And oftentimes, you know, when we work with people from a remote setting, or in person, we’re just going through their programming in their planning, right? So if someone’s at a gym, or they’re doing a group class, or even we’ve had people that have, they’re seeing PTS because they want to go through insurance, and they’re getting a lot from it, but yet at the same time, they know they’re not good enough. We help them hey, you let me see your PT program, right. And so we’ll do consultations, we’d say okay, well with this program, I think you’re in the right direction. But I would do this this in this this way, right. So whether it’s us helping you redefine your PT program, whether it’s us helping you with your current group training or your customized programming, helping you change and look at what you’re doing, so that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel, we can keep doing everything, but sometimes just small modifications of changing angles, levers positions, length tension relationships, will open up better opportunities for you to maintain everything that you’re doing, but not regress due to triggers and flare ups of the pain that you might be experiencing. So I hope this was super helpful for you guys. Again, please like share, comment, subscribe, help us get this word out to other people so that we can help others just like you live a loud, adventurous life. Thanks for tuning in guys Live Loud.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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When Your Strength Becomes a Weakness | EP 81
Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado
Episode 81
When Your Strength Becomes a Weakness
With Dr. Antonio Gurule
Welcome back to another episode of the Live Loud Life Podcast! In this episode, Dr. Antonio Gurule discusses When your Strengths Become a Weakness. Through this discussion, Dr. Antonio will share personal insights to his own life-journey as well as key considerations for identifying your own personal weaknesses before exploring how to overcome weaknesses and gaps with the proper support.
Episode Highlights:
- [02:22] Susceptibility to re-injure
- [04:41] Identifying Potential Weaknesses
- [07:23] Using adaptability to be too casual
- [10:49] Diverting Attention Dilutes Progress
- [12:00] Seeking Support to Overcome Weaknesses
About Dr. Antonio Gurule
Background:
- Father
- Doctor of Chiropractic
- Owner of Live LOUD
- Personal Trainer & Health Coach
Check Out Some of Our Other Blog Posts and Podcast Episodes
When Your Strength Becomes a Weakness
[00:00:00] Dr. Antonio Gurule: What’s up guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Live Loud Life podcast. My name is Antonio, your host of the Live Loud Life podcast. Um, couple short, housekeepings, whatever you wanna call that. I can’t remember. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve honestly, uh, recorded anything. We, um, we’ve been doing a lot of, um, Outdoor backyard projects, uh, which I’ll give you a sidebar for that too.
[00:00:31] But this dang chicken coup I’ve been building for, I swear it was like months now that is finally finished. The chickens and the ducks are in their new home. They’re happy as can be. Uh, we have two, um, compadres, two males that are, that have been a little mean and bully-ish so they’re off to the side. But anyways, that is completed, um, which is fantastic.
[00:00:52] Um, for those of, I think I said this in the last one, I can’t remember from when we announced it, Uh, but we’re expecting baby number four, which is crazy. This is a surprise for everybody, but we’re very, um, amped, so we’re adding a another little regret to the live loud, uh, Gurule clan, which is gonna be fantastic.
[00:01:11] Come March. Late February, early March of next year. Uh, we may have three birthdays in March. Uh, everyone’s telling, uh, Michelle and I to keep our hands off of each other in June. Apparently there’s something going on there. Um, but that’s quite exciting and to not, and to add anymore onto that, we decided to get a puppy.
[00:01:31] We’re getting a new puppy at the end of October of this year, and, uh, the kids and I are just so amped about that. Uh, it was a funny story about that. Um, Michelle doesn’t recall it as such, but I recall it just as this was, I was originally, um, hoping for just three kiddos and she really always wanted four, and so she basically made me a deal that said if we have a fourth child that I get to have the puppy that I’ve been wanting for a few years.
[00:02:00] And lo and behold, baby’s not coming. So puppy’s coming. But we figure now’s a good time to, you know, do the early training before baby comes. Cuz I feel like getting a puppy afterwards in training would be a lot more difficult. Um, so that’s all, that’s new in our life. Uh, hope everyone’s doing, uh, well, we’re trying to keep ourselves busy.
[00:02:17] Oh, the side part. So, um,
Susceptibility to re-injure
[00:02:22] Dr. Antonio Gurule: This is not what the topic is today, but it’s kind of like a sidebar. Cause I had someone else coming in with back pain and you know, they’re very active and they had fallen hunting and they hurt their back again and kind of fr and, and, and they didn’t necessarily go as far through our little back program as I’d wanted.
[00:02:38] They kind of, uh, decided to go their own round and get back into CrossFit and other things, which was fine. They were doing okay, but. The frustration was like, Why do I keep hurting my back now the number one cause of injury, previous injuries, if you have hurt yourself before, you’re more susceptible to just hurting that area.
[00:02:54] Again, it’s unfortunate, but it is what it is. Now, obviously we would go through an extensive amount of rehab and training and strengthening to mitigate that risk. Um, but that does unfortunately make you slightly more susceptible. Now we wanna build resilience around that to reduce that susceptibility.
[00:03:10] And that’s what I’ve been suffering. I mean, there’s, I do a lot of conditioning and resistance training and core training and, and understanding obviously the principles about how to better, uh, stabilize. But I also know that I have my shortcomings on things that I should be working on. Slight with more, um, mobility in certain areas, but also some more odd object.
[00:03:30] Training, uh, an odd object kettlebells might be included in that, but we’re talking about like sandbags and, and um, stones and medicine balls and different things like that which force you to learn how to leverage and move your body in unique different positions and holding on objects. Now, I would say I feel fairly comfortable about doing a number of odd objects, but.
[00:03:52] I’ve been suffering some from some low back pain over the last week or so because of all the odd object lifting and all the bending over I’ve been doing from, from, um, you know, uh, putting up post and, and lifting up fences and just a number of different things and it just caught up to me. Now it’s nothing that’s bad or debilitating.
[00:04:11] Good thing. I know the things to do to help wipe out and clear that as fast as possible. But I just wanted to add that as a little caveat is sometimes we get frustrated by these nagging injuries because we’ve had substantial injuries in the past that we either haven’t adequately rehabbed or or, or gone through, or we’ve kind of fallen off the wayside of what had been working previously to help us, and then we kind of get back into those old patterns now it kind of segues into this next, next topic.
Identifying Potential Weaknesses
[00:04:41] Dr. Antonio Gurule: Because, uh, the topic is, um, when your strengths can actually become, um, a weakness or a deficit to use, right? So, That segue is we get comfortable about kind of what’s going on and, and, and we’re finding like, Hey, I feel good about this and so I don’t need to direct so, so much time and attention to that which, which I would argue and validate that that would be, that would be true, but sometimes we use that strength as a crutch.
[00:05:05] Like, I’m okay because. This is strong to me, but, uh, and there’s, there’s a lot of talk about this where there’s, there’s one caveat that talks about triple down on your strengths, right? If you’re good at this, don’t do the things that you don’t need, that you don’t need to do, you’re not good at, because you’re really good at this.
[00:05:22] Now, from a business standpoint, And, and, and, and maybe communication standpoint, relationship standpoint, that makes sense. Um, but more so from just a general business standpoint, but from like a health and wellness standpoint, that doesn’t really make sense cuz there’s weak spots that obviously need to be addressed.
[00:05:38] Right? And, and what I have been realizing and trying to be more honest with myself is I have been using my quote unquote strengths as an excuse for certain things. Now this goes beyond the just health. Side of it, maybe in the wellness side, but from the business side. But this is, this is also just from a, we’ll just say a general more global behavioral side, right?
[00:06:03] So one of my, and, and we have taken a number of, uh, um, personality tests, strength tests, um, Colby Index, strength finders, minor Briggs, you know, all those different things. I’ve taken all them over the years. Um, uh, and what I have found from, you know, when I’m, look, when you’re looking at all those, Uh, I’m an initiator.
[00:06:26] I’m an activator. I have, I’m very high in adaptability. Um, low, lower on research and strategies, kind of in the middle, but my, but my flow tends to be. You got an idea, Let’s go. Oh, that didn’t quite go the way we wanted to. Let’s, let’s shift laterally over here, which there’s, there’s obviously huge pros to that, but there’s, there’s a lot of cons to that because there’s not as much maybe strategic implementation.
[00:06:54] And that’s the thing that I’ve been, this is a sidebar for another show that’s something I’ve been struggling with is while I do set goals, I struggle to set goals. Um, and because. I feel that the adaptability, the adaptable side of me does not like being pinpointed to one thing because I like being able to shift and, and understanding that the goals can be bigger than that.
[00:07:18] There’s multiple roads in Rome and understanding that there will be constant shifts in navigations. Right.
Using adaptability to be too casual
[00:07:23] Dr. Antonio Gurule: But I’ve been using this quote unquote “adaptability” to, to be too casual. Uh, I was listening to a podcast and essentially, It was, it was saying you’re too casual, right? Like, like those that are doing extremely well, they’re not casual about it, right?
[00:07:41] They’re, they’re, they’re focused. Their intention is there. And, and I 100% agree with that. And I find that when I feel frustrated about where I am from a health standpoint, Could be diet, could be mental, could be relationships, um, could be, you know, whatever part of that wellness we, we wanna look at. But also from a business standpoint, it’s just like, man, I’m super frustrated with maybe where our numbers are and things like that.
[00:08:07] I take full responsibility for that, but I’m, I’m looking at it and I’m seeing as just like I’m using my strength as adaptable and this, this implementer and this action oriented. To be almost too chaotic, right? I’m being too casual about it cuz I want to allow myself to shift and navigate as I see fit, and that has always been a struggle.
[00:08:34] And this is also true from like one, one thing I’ve been, uh, I would say more invested in and, and very curious about and, and trying to learn a lot is about, um, financial independence and just finances in general. Um, I would think. I think a lot of people, at least that I know and talk to from our age, we came from kind of the more, I don’t wanna say blue collar cuz it’s not necessarily blue collar, but like our, our, our parents’ age was, you know, go to school, you work, you get a job and you save.
[00:09:04] Right? Um, reading this is actually have it right here. Um, Psychology of money. Um, Morgan, I don’t know to pronounce the last name, I apologize, household hostel. Um, but it talked about how, you know, how new, even just the stock market and 401ks and all these other investment opportunities really are. And so that’s why it was so ingrained within a lot of our parents’ age and my parents’, uh, particular is that’s just what you do and, and.
[00:09:34] And, and, and it works. It can’t work for you. And it depends, obviously, if you have, you know, if you’re entrepreneur or W2 and all those different things as an employee. But I’ve been, I’ve been thinking about that and that’s been the, this frustration is just like, how do you, how do you narrow in when you have so many elements within your life that have.
[00:09:53] A lot of importance. Family, finances, your health. Uh, and it’s, it’s a big struggle. It’s a big thing to, It’s a big thing to balance and you can’t say that. Well, you know, the, the top priorities get put to the top, um, because they all. Could be top priorities. And that’s the, that’s the big struggle again, that I’ve been having and just sharing kind of like where I’m at, how I’m feeling, and, and knowing that you can’t do all the things.
[00:10:19] And I, I feel like we’re at a good position where I can, you know, hopefully hire more people to help me. And, you know, from, for as a listener, if you’re not an entrepreneur or you don’t earn a business that would be hiring a coach, you’re still in a position to hire other people to help you. Um, and, and you, I mean, you know, I’m trying to do that.
[00:10:36] I’m trying to figure out where I need more help, but it’s also just, it’s also just researching and learning and trying to figure out, but understanding and, and this is a long, I really apologize, this is a long way of saying is like there was this other book that I had come across just called One Thing, Right?
Diverting Attention Dilutes Progress
[00:10:49] Dr. Antonio Gurule: When you start diverting your attention too much, My fault as an adaptable or implementer person is you start diluting everything that you do. So when you’re thinking about. Goals, whether that be financial, health, wellness, uh, relationships, business, employment, you know, all that stuff is. You have to, you have to start to narrow down and I am literally speaking out as I am talking to myself.
[00:11:18] Like this is me talking through my own thoughts of sharing what hasn’t been working for me and hearing what Hasn been working for everyone else and finding the, the struggle of, of that. Now, that’s not to say, again, multiple rows in Rome, that, that those things that I’m doing now might not come down the road at a certain place in time.
[00:11:37] And, and I know they will on, I wasn’t gonna say I hope they will, but I know they will because it is important to me. There are certain pieces I’m trying to put into play while doing other things, but knowing that if I focus too much time over here, I lose attention here. And, and the moral of it is, and maybe, I think, I think all those people do struggle with this, and maybe you have the same strengths that I do because of that.
Seeking Support to Overcome Weaknesses
[00:12:00] Dr. Antonio Gurule: Uh, we’re seeing maybe a behavioral pattern based on personalities. But that is, that is a lot of reason why, and I tell myself, and I validate myself. I’m being, uh, this is okay because, uh, these are my strengths. It’s just, it’s my strengths at fall. Right. I’m just, I’m just a person. It’s like the person who constantly is, is is getting burned or hurt, right? I’m just a loving person. Uh, I care too much. I give too much. Is there’s a point in time where that strength might become a fault or a weakness to you where you have to protect yourself. And the more you know about yourself, the better you can. Realize that and recognize it, which is, which is a huge turning point, right?
[00:12:38] Um, uh, or you just, and then ask for help and support. And that’s where I know I need to, is we have all these different things that we’re trying to put in place that’s trying to help with this, but then I’m trying to take this so it’s not just sitting there doing nothing and make it in and turn it into something else.
[00:12:54] And it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a navigation game that just growing up, I didn’t really, I didn’t see too much. And this is, again, no fault to my parents or anyone else. It’s just the way it was was just you work and you save. And we’ve done, we’ve done well. I’m, I’m not complaining about where we are way, and I’m super grateful that we have the opportunity to be entrepreneurs, to help people to, to be in this situation where we can share, um, information like this to be in a situation where, I can have four kids and not feel, um, uh, you know, super strapped from paycheck to paycheck.
[00:13:29] So this is in no way I’m complaining about that. It’s just how do you go from where you are to where you wanna be? With the strength that you have, but also realizing that those strengths could be, uh, turning into something negative or more or less, you’re using them as an excuse. So it was just something I want you to ponder about and think about.
[00:13:50] Um, we see this as a, you know, as a limitation for many of the people that come into the office. Um, uh, you know, I sympathize with everyone because I’ve been in the position of obviously being a, a parent before and the time and detention that it takes, you know, I, I do. It’s, it’s tough. It is definitely tough, especially when you start adding, when you start adding more of a man, the time you have, uh, greatly diminishes when you go from one to two kids, two to three kids, and I don’t even know.
[00:14:19] Um, everyone says once you get past three, like once you have four, it’s just, it’s just all the same. It’s just, it’s just crazy all the time. So we’ll see how that actually goes. Um, But it’s, it’s like, Oh, well, you know, I have to divert so much time and attention to this, so I can’t think about myself. Um, and we’ve all heard the saying, you can’t pour from an empty cup, right?
[00:14:40] And, and so you have to, you have to just kind of navigate it, whether it’s, whether you wanna look at a wellness wheel or anything like that is what needs more time and attention. How can I use my strengths? To fulfill that. If I, if, if it is not a strength that I have, then that’s where you would then reach out for support or help, whether it be through us or somebody else, coach who, you know, who knows what it is.
[00:15:01] It could be financial coach, it could be, um, uh, not doing your own taxes and hiring accountant, know who knows what that might be. But, but I find that to be, uh, a super, super valuable when we’re having that conversation. And I had this realization, and I think it was like my, it wasn’t. I wanna say it was like one of my first.
[00:15:23] Five podcasts. Um, I interviewed, uh, a mentor of ours who’s a chiropractor, and he’s currently the president of college down in Texas. And I had that realization just this week when I was having a conversation with my son about something and, and my, my oldest, and I wouldn’t say we butt heads, but you know, he’s older.
[00:15:42] He’s, he’s extremely bright and smart and he, you know, the conversations you have with him and as I’m talking to him, it was literally, The conversation I was having to was just a self-reflection and realization, and it just opened up my eyes to these, you know, quote unquote crutches or, or excuses that I’ve been making based on my strengths, uh, which were supposed to be able to be helpful.
[00:16:05] So, uh, something hopefully valuable for you to think about, uh, if you’ve never taken these evaluations, One is called Strength Finders. Um, that one I really like. It’s actually got a number of strengths. So it looks, the whole premise is you, Something that might be low on that list. It’s not a weakness, it’s just not your strongest strength.
[00:16:24] Um, so you really, you can get a breakdown of your top five, which is obviously the most helpful, but it’s kind of nice to see all of ’em in the spread. Um, and then working from a team aspect, the Colby Index has been good because it really shows you. Who needs to fulfill the spaces or the gaps that you don’t obviously have.
[00:16:42] So, um, uh, they’re also just, they’re also just good cuz you can do this from like a family perspective too. It’s like, Hey, as a family you’re better at this than I am. I’m better at this than you. And let’s con divide and conquer. Right? And it could be helpful too, um, from a coaching perspective of, you know, find that could be the, that could be the element of what helps you find the right coach for you is they really help you fill in the gaps.
[00:17:05] That you don’t have, not from a knowledge human standpoint, from more of just a personality and how they addressed and approach certain topics, communications on and so forth. So, som gonna think about. Hopefully that helps y’all, uh, until next time live loud.
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My "Season of Life" Training Philosophy & Program Revealed
Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado
Episode 80
My "Season of Life" Training Philosophy & Program Revealed
With Dr. Antonio Gurule
If you are someone who likes generating your own fitness training and workout programs, or you are wanting to learn how to get more out of your training routines during this current season of life, this episode of the Live Loud Life Podcast is a must listen.
In this episode, Dr. Antonio Gurule, discusses the Season of Life Training Philosophy, outlines his current training plan and schedule, before walking you through the thought processes behind it. Dr. Gurule also highlights specific health care considerations for achieving your personal training goals and continuing to move forward in your fitness journey. Finally, he will share the training elements he uses and ways you can incorporate them, to maximize effectiveness in reaching your personal goals.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
- [01:36] Seasons of Life Philosophy
- [03:39] Family Life & Creating Appropriate Routines
- [05:37] Training Adjustments for Your Life Season
- [06:34] Maintenance in Movement
- [09:45] Understanding Movement Pattern Biases
- [14:31] Resistance Training for Mobility & Movement
- [15:25] Maintaining Mobility Without Stretching Daily
- [19:17] Mind Your Personal Achievements
About Dr. Antonio Gurule
Background:
- Father
- Doctor of Chiropractic
- Owner of Live LOUD
- Personal Trainer & Health Coach
Check Out Some of Our Other Blog Posts and Podcast Episodes
My Training Program & Philosophy Revealed | EP 80
[00:00:00] Dr. Antonio Gurule: What’s up guys? In this episode, we are gonna be talking about some of the, if you wanna call it training philosophies that I use, but just kind of outlining, uh, my current kind of training plan and schedule, or lack thereof. Um, And kind of walking you through at least the thought process behind it and, and some of the elements, if you will.
[00:00:20] So, uh, if that interest of you, if you feel like if you’re someone who likes kind of generating your own programs or you’re just wanting to learn a little bit more about that, uh, I think this episode can be super helpful and handy for you. So stay tuned.
[00:00:41] Welcome back to another episode of the Live Loud Life podcast. My name is Dr. Antonio, your host of the Live Loud Life podcast. Uh, and. Uh, as in, as mentioned in the intro here, we’re gonna be talking about some training elements, uh, some of my training philosophies and principles that I follow. Um, kettlebells, of course, if you know me, I love kettlebells.
[00:00:59] Um, so on and so forth. So, before then, uh, sorry, before we get started, uh, please subscribe, uh, whether you’re watching on YouTube, following along on Apple Podcast, uh, hit notifications if you wanna, uh, get or see when these, uh, drop and if you have any topics. That you are interested in or you want us to cover or, or anything like that, it helps us generate more specific content to the needs of you, the listener.
[00:01:23] So, um, we’d love to hear those. If you’re not following us on Instagram as well, handle is @live.loud.life. All right, so let’s jump into it training now.
Seasons Of Life Philosophy
[00:01:36] Dr. Antonio Gurule: Uh, I’m a big fan of this concept called Seasons of Life, right? In the previous episode, I just shared that we’re actually expecting baby number four. So in March of 2023, the season of my life will be a little bit crazier that we will have four kids.
[00:01:58] Um, fortunately, let’s see, our kids will be seven, five, and three with a newborn. We’re currently thinking about getting a puppy too. Uh, I don’t know if we’re crazy or what, but, uh, I’ve been want a dog for a while. So , I think it fits well into this. Um, but that season of life shit is a little bit crazier than it is now.
[00:02:19] And then three kids over to two, it was a little bit crazier, right? So different elements starting different, um, you know, different side businesses or different programs and different courses and things like that. So the season of life will obviously change. Um, when I had one kid versus two kids, working out was a lot different.
[00:02:40] I had a lot more time to allocate. Now this. Has a little bit of, well, obviously, certain elements that are important to our, our, our, our life and our, and our health need to be prioritized. So it’s not just, Hey, throw this aside. We’re just simply saying, like, and if you, if this is important to you and you wanna get it in, and time is tight, or, or whatever that is, you know, this is, this is how I’m doing it right now.
[00:03:05] So there are certain days where I definitely have an hour to work out. Like there’s no, there’s no question about that. I have a, I would argue a little bit more time than my wife cur currently, obviously based on how she feels and different things like that. Um, we’re starting, um, this is fall. We’re starting homeschooling this year for our two oldest first grade and pre-K.
[00:03:27] So, you know, the school load for that is not intense, but, you know, we’re trying to set up the foundation of what homeschooling might look like for our family. So that’s different. Um, but one element that.
Family Life & Creating Appropriate Routines
[00:03:39] Dr. Antonio Gurule: That we obviously encourage and try to push is like you have sometimes you have to work out with your kids around and your family around.
[00:03:45] So encouraging independent play time, uh, safe play time around wherever you’re working out and doing, uh, is important. Now, obviously the type of training you do would. Suggest that they can be near you or not. Obviously Olympic lifting, I would not suggest your kids being around, um, heavy deadlifts, uh, heavy squats on and so forth, you know, so on and so forth.
[00:04:03] But, but what, But, but you have to be able to get it in. And if they’re around, then you can’t just say, Oh, I can’t do it cuz my kids around, I half my workouts, at least when I’m at home and not the office are with the kids around and they’re playing with themselves or doing independent play time. If they were, if we were young, if they were younger and they only had one or two, they’d be just doing their own thing.
[00:04:22] So that’s part of it. Now, with that season of life’s right. Having kids, sometimes your sleep sucks. Now, in a perfect world, we’d be able to sleep all that we want. We’d be able to eat all the right food and be able to work out as we want, as much as we’d want, and that those dials will shift and change.
[00:04:43] Right? So, you know, sometimes, uh, you know, on the weekends we’re bouncing around seeing family and while we try to control what we eat as best as possible, sometimes it’s eating out cuz it’s easier. So on and so forth. Um, uh, sometimes the kids have a crappy night of sleep and you didn’t sleep all the night before, and so your workout that was planned the next day cannot be executed, uh, to the same degree.
[00:05:04] And so those are all the things that you have to take in consideration when you’re talking about seasons of life and trying to get your, your training in. And so I, I’m, I’m ideally trying to get in five days a week. Realistically it’s three to five. Um, uh, in the last month, I would say I’ve been on a better kick about getting five in.
[00:05:25] And then on the weekends I honestly don’t get much in uh, cuz we’re both home. We’re both home. We’re trying to do more outdoor stuff, family stuff. Uh, we’re also trying to build things like chicken coops and stuff in the backyard now.
Training Adjustments for Your Life Season
[00:05:37] Dr. Antonio Gurule: We have to say, I’ve had a couple videos based on, uh, our, our new move here is looking at training in a different lens too.
[00:05:45] Sometimes we think has to be just structured in the gym doing X, Y, and Z. Like as I was mentioned on a few other things, landscaping, that is a good workout. That might be your quote unquote training day or workout of the day. If you’re outside slinging a shovel or an ax for like three to four hours, that’s a pretty good workout.
[00:05:59] So don’t sell yourself short on what you’re doing on a grand total throughout the day, but, Sum up into simplify what I’m trying to accomplish, and I’ve been very honest about this. I know I have gaps in holes. I know I have certain. Stability and mobility limitations that, uh, could be addressed. Um, that could enhance maybe some of the achy spots that I have in maybe the lower back or the shoulder or some of the tight spots that I have in the back or the shoulder.
Maintenance in Movement
[00:06:34] Dr. Antonio Gurule: Uh, some of the limitations in my thoracic spine that comes from sitting down, creating content, typing, working with patients, so on and so forth. Uh, I try to. Put in what I need, where I can, whether it’s warm up or in between certain sets to try to get that stuff in. Um, there are some days where I just call, call it, and rather than doing the thing that I’m meant to do, it’s just like, today’s gonna be a mobility movement day, cuz that’s what my body’s telling you.
[00:06:59] That’s the whole point of season of life training is listening to your body. Now some of us enjoy the structure of a program of saying, I wanna be told what to do every day and I wanna see the progressive layout in playing. Wonderful. I love that. I can’t do that because of this season of life. When things get thrown off on something like that, then it throws off the whole progression on that scale.
[00:07:21] Now you can, you can figure out how to get back on track. It’s not, it’s not impossible to do so, but I am going for maintenance in movement. Now, part of this is through my health journey. I believe that I have set up a fairly good foundation of baseline strength that allows me to do near the majority of everything that I wanna be able to do.
[00:07:42] Now, obviously, if I wanna go run a marathon, I’d have to shift that and, and create more of an aerobic capacity baseline of just running. Um, but because I’ve done enough, Strength training, mobility work, stability work and movement work. My, the base foundation of my movement pyramid or triangle is, is pretty solid, so that allows me to make shifts and move or miss days and weeks.
[00:08:10] And be able to bounce back quicker. And I think this is an element that so many people miss. We talk about training history, right? So a lot of times we’ll ask people like, Well, what are we doing for training? And we talk about resistance training. They’re like, Yeah, I’ve done resistance training. Like, Well, when?
[00:08:24] When? The last time, Oh, in college. It’s 15, 20 years ago. While that might be a foundation back then, we’ve lost that, right? That that was a while ago. We’ve lost that. But if it was someone like, Yeah, I was, you know, I was on a consistent program, you know, maybe six months to a year ago. They have a pretty good lifting and it was for an extended period of time.
[00:08:44] That’s a pretty. Good recent, um, uh, baseline program to bounce off of. Now they might ha have everything that’s associated with it, but there it’s more recent to the fact where they can extract that knowledge from that and some of the movement patterns and behaviors to catch back up. So I’m constantly trying to, in a way, in knowing my body, refine certain elements and add certain things in, but sometimes it’s just, it’s just doing work cuz I know I need to do work.
[00:09:11] I know I need resistance training. I know I need to make myself breathe hard and heavy and I’m biased towards certain movements such as kettlebell work and other things like that where I know I can get it in and I know I can get what I need fairly quickly. Now again, argumentatively. If I had a coach or someone else looking at this, you’re missing this, you’re missing this, you’re missing this.
[00:09:32] Yeah, I probably am. But again, maintenance of my baseline foundational movement capacities and patterns on and so forth, this is what’s working extremely well for me. It’s still allowing me to progress in certain areas.
Understanding Movement Pattern Biases
[00:09:45] Dr. Antonio Gurule: Uh, again, I’m, I’m trying to be better about understanding also my movement pattern biases.
[00:09:50] My long, lengthy body is very good at pulling, uh, meaning. Pull up and rows and swings and deadlifts. My body’s built for that. It’s not so strong at pushing vertical, pushing pushups, horizontal bench press, squats, lunges on and so forth. The way my body’s structured it is much harder and, and I would veer away from that from time to time, missing those elements.
[00:10:13] So now my big focus has been kind of back to like, okay, well, If, if my body naturally is good at some of these other things, I do need to work on some of the, the, um, not weaknesses, but weaker links of those movement patterns, which would be pushing and squatting to help just create a little bit more of, um, uh, a dynamic balance, if you will.
[00:10:33] So that’s again, In my knowledge of knowing where I’m at, where my past has been and everything else, I’m focusing on that now. The, the training hasn’t really changed all that much. It’s just trying to maybe add more of those movements in and or on those movements. I’m trying to be more intentional and or on those movements, I’m trying to go a little heavier, whereas before I would’ve been like, Yeah, it’s okay.
[00:10:55] I’ll go a little lighter. Right. And so this is just kind of, again, coming, coming back, uh, um, uh, I’m being honest with myself about really what those are. In the past I was like, I’m getting by. I’m getting fine by fine, right? And, and, and it just kinda let those slip and slide. So it’s, it’s trying to be progressive from a micro scale, not necessarily a macro scale, understanding that the micro, the days of the compounding interests are adding up upon each other.
[00:11:23] And that’s really how I got to where I am today. I could, I could have gotten further when I had more time and gaps by, by being a little bit more specific. 100%. Um, but right now it’s the consistency of at a minimum, three to five days, um, um, uh, of doing these types of things. So what does, what does a training day look like?
[00:11:45] Well, we’re, we’re trying to hit the big movement patterns, the big compound movements, because that allows me to get the most out of what I’m doing on each individual movement or day. So, For the majority. For the majority, I have some sort of a push, a pull, a hinge, a squat, um, squat and or lunge. I’m trying to add more carries in.
[00:12:05] Uh, but that’s, that’s the quote unquote kind of baseline of movement patterns that I’m looking for. Now, I can sometimes integrate and combine those things, right? So it might be like, Uh, a clean and press or a clean and squat, so on and so forth. But that’s why I love kettlebells. I can take one, I can take one element or one, um, one tool, one.
[00:12:29] A piece of equipment and do multiple things with it without having to transition and change. And that is what works best, again, for my season of life and for a lot of, uh, a lot of parents, uh, whether it’s a dumbbell or kettlebell barbells, just take up more space. They need more preparation, they need more.
[00:12:46] Awareness and also more foundational practice of understanding the movement principles and how to do those things in the first place. So if you have that, great, I’m not saying you can’t do that, but for the kettlebell, it makes it that much easier. So, for instance, today’s workout, Uh, I was, the, the whole purpose of today was level change is making my body go up and down.
[00:13:07] I did bento, I did a bent over row variation. I did pushups, I did kettlebell cleans, and I did squat. So I gotta push a pull, a hinge, and a squat. Um, I didn’t do a carry, uh, just cuz I was inside today, but you could simply just add in, Hey, after that last set I’m gonna carry, I’m gonna take the kettlebells and I’m gonna carry down and back.
[00:13:24] Or after that whole complex, I’m gonna do a few rounds of just loaded carries to just add that little element in. Now, within that, that was the circuit and that was a complex, That’s primarily what I do because again, I can hit all those things. It helps get my heart rate up, so on and so forth. If I wanna be more specific, I simply just break that up into, uh, like a super set.
[00:13:44] I’ll do two things paired together, or I’ll do one thing with a stretch or a stability exercise. Integrate it in. For example, it might be bent over rows, and then I might flip onto my back and do some sort of a dead bug variation or some sort of a anterior core chain movement to hit more of the anterior core, if I’m wanting to work on that.
[00:14:03] Or I might do a vertical press. I’m working on a press ladder, kettlebell, pressing overhead, and then I might drop down and do some sort of a 90, 90 or a pigeon stretch to work on loosening up my hips. So it’s a way for me to, again, sprinkle in the stability and mobility or the rehab exercises or the stretching elements that you know you should be getting in.
[00:14:23] But it, it’s e but you oftentimes will tell your body, Hey, it’s an either and, or you need to stretch or workout. You can do them together, You can combine them together.
Resistance Training for Mobility & Movement
[00:14:31] Dr. Antonio Gurule: And what most people forget is that when you are doing resistance training, if you make it intentional to elongate, open up, you’re actually providing a lot of stretching and mobility in that movement.
[00:14:45] Uh, what would be an example of that? Well, if I’m doing a trx, uh, if I’m doing a, a trx, row, right. Rather than keeping my shoulder blades pinned back the whole time and just moving my upper arm in my forearms, when I lower myself down, I could really reach my arms out in front of me long to allow my shoulder blades to wrap around.
[00:15:04] So I’m getting a good upper back stretch and my rhomboids my mid traps, my lower traps, um, so on and so forth. So, If we were able to work on depth mobility and other things like, or like that while you’re lifting, you kinda kill two birds with one stone. But sometimes we get so focused on moving faster, moving harder, moving heavy, that we forget that element.
Maintaining Mobility Without Stretching Daily
[00:15:25] Dr. Antonio Gurule: So I’m able to actually maintain a lot of my mobility even though I’m not stretching on a daily basis by simply being more intentional about how I’m moving, setting up. My technique and my, uh, in my movement patterns to allow me to move into, to, to deeper depth, such as in a squat or a sumo deadlift or using, or programming in certain movements like a cosac squat or even a lunge pattern, which would stretch and open up my hips every time I go down.
[00:15:55] So, you know, it’s looking at it from that element while we said, just push, pull, hinge, squat. And carries, that seems very simplistic, right? But based on the exercise selection, I’m able to get multiple elements out of it other than just strength training or loading, right? So let’s lay this out as another example.
[00:16:14] Let’s use a double front rack, dumbbell and or kettlebell double front rack. Rev, uh, split squat, right? So I’m in a split stance position. One foot forward, one foot backwards, and I have two kettlebells racked on my shoulders. This is a quite an extensive shoulder exercise. Depending on the weight that you’re using, you’re isolating or your, sorry, you’re isometrically, holding that kettlebell in front of you, which will require your shoulders to be a strong foundation in order for the shoulders to be strong.
[00:16:41] Your torso, your pillar has to be set. That has to be strong. And then all of that basically, More or less stabilizes and stiffens while you move your hips and your knee joints to descend down. So I’m getting a ton of stability training in my shoulders and my torso, and then when I descend down, my glutes and my quads are what’s going to eccentrically.
[00:17:04] Lengthen, right? Gives me a good stretch in both my glutes and my quads, depending, especially on my width. And then it also then concentrically, uh, contracts to bring me back up. Now on that back leg as I go down, I’m actually getting a hip flexor stretch. So if I’m actually holding my torso up nice and tall and I’m stacked on top of my back knee, I get a wonderful.
[00:17:23] Hip flexor stretch. I can enhance that hip flexor stretch by doing a rear foot elevated split squat by putting my foot up that bends my knee more, which enhances that quad stretch or that hip flex stretch. So you’re we’re seeing how we can get different elements of stretching and mobility while also strengthening at the same time.
[00:17:41] So, If you, if you really just take a second and look at any movement pattern and, and, and, and look at how it’s being performed or how it should be performed, you’ll see that there are these elements that come up quite consistently. So to recap, push, pull, hinge, squat, squat and or lunge. Some sort of a loaded carry.
[00:18:00] You could put a, you could put another element in there and say some sort of a specific core exercise if you really want to. That’s it. I rinse and repeat. I have a lot of the same movements honestly, that I do because I know they hit so many things. Right. So I’ll kind of just rattle off a few, uh, not that this is, um, Uh, uh, um, the only things that I do, uh, renegade rows Bent over rows gorilla rows incline pushups.
[00:18:25] Floor press, bench press, vertical press, uh, TRX rows, um, goblet squats, double front rack squats, some sort of a, uh, kosac squat. Um, front rack, reverse lunges, split squat. Dead lifts, uh, kettlebell swings, kettlebell cleans, kettlebell snatch, um, Turkish get ups, um, uh, split, um, split stance. RDLS um, uh, I’m just, I mean a little, just random these off.
[00:18:53] Right? So that was, what was that? Maybe 10 to 12 exercises. Now, if you were to look at 10 to 12 exercises, And run that through some, run that through an equation and see how many variations of workouts you can get. You get a lot of different workouts in that. Not to mention you can vary reps and intensity just with that and do really well with just a few basic movements and one piece of equipment, or two pieces of equipment without having to overcomplicate.
Mind Your Personal Achievements
[00:19:17] Dr. Antonio Gurule: What you’re trying to achieve, you always have to, again, keep that angle in mind. Right now I’m trying, I’m still moving the needle forward. It’s not as fast. If I was able to set five days a week progressive lifting program as far as strength, but I’m still able to move that needle forward pretty well, uh, either from a maintenance perspective, but also from a strength and mobility perspective.
[00:19:37] By running through this type of, um, uh, training cycle. So right now, I’ve been in a kettlebell complex kick. So basically, I’m doing one or two kettlebells and I basically put a circuit together. That’s all a complex is I’m picking, uh, anywhere between two to five exercises and I, and I add those in an element so that, that, that workout I just talked about today, the bent over row to pushups, the cleans, and the squat.
[00:20:01] That was a com that was a complex, five movements of each limit. Rest. Try to try to navigate and, and recover respiration and heart rate in between. Set the time for 20 minutes and just go, right. You get a ton out of that sweating heart rate up. Uh, good strength. I’m, I picked the movements out of that in which I, I needed a little bit more attention to, which was the pushups and the squats as mentioned.
[00:20:24] And, and I, I, I got a great workout that being done. Three, five days a week, four weeks out of a month, 12 months out of a year, you will be in a very, very different and great spot a year from now, even three months from now. So, uh, if you want some ideas on kettlebells complexes on posting those on Instagram, @Live.Loud.life
[00:20:46] I’m also posting those on YouTube on what they have now, which is those YouTube shorts, which is like Facebook reels and Instagram reels. Um, so we’re just putting those out if you want some ideas on some different movement patterns to do. Uh, again, this is all with the understanding though, is I know how to do these movements, so if you don’t feel comfortable yet to be able to explore those, you gotta reach out for help to understand technique and movement selection.
[00:21:09] So thanks for tuning in. Live loud.
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Relationships and Adventures on Two Wheels with Jenny Johnson of CYCLERIE | Ep. 76
Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado
Episode 76
EP. 76 | Relationships and Adventures on Two Wheels
With Jenny Johnson of CYCLERIE
Jenny Johnson is the founder and president of CYCLERIE, a children’s cycling education company based in Erie, Colorado. There is a huge decline in kids outdoors doing organic play that is healthy. Therefore, CYCLERIE was born from a need to have children to get outdoors and getting them to appreciate the nature and the open air, rather than turning to their iPad or TV screen
Jenny Johnson created CYCLERIE in 2019, and it launched in 2020. They offer bike programs like camps, kids’ cycling training, and events. Today, CYCLERIE not only attracts people from the Erie community but also from Lafayette and Broomfield.
Episode Highlights
00:38 – Jenny Johnson’s motivations for founding CYCLERIE
02:50 – Overview from CYCLERIE’s Learn to Pedal and Adventure Bike camps for kids
03:41 – How COVID impacted CYCLERIE
08:02 – A tip for getting your child to ride a bike
09:51 – Biking trails to consider taking your family
13:30 – What to consider when buying a bike for your child
17:45 – Other biking events and camps to consider for children
About Jenny Johnson of CYCLERIE
Background:
- Founder and President of CYCLERIE in Erie, Colorado.
- Passionate about children’s outdoor lifestyle.
Check Out Some of Our Other Blog Posts and Podcast Episodes
Dr. Antonio Gurule 00:09
Awesome. Well, welcome back to the Live Loud Life podcast. Today I’m sitting down with Jenny Johnson, and we’re going to be talking about her newish-
Jenny Johnson 00:19
2020
Dr. Antonio Gurule 00:21
Okay, 2020. Newish, but been around for a few years. But what they’re doing in the local community East Boulder County, Weld County, with biking and family. So welcome.
Jenny Johnson 00:32
Thank you for having me.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 00:33
Yeah. So talk to us a little bit. It’s called CYCLERIE. What is CYCLERIE?
Jenny Johnson 00:38
Yeah, CYCLERIE. CYCLERIE, the name, was sort of tossed out there. It’s French for the word cycling. So it’s kind of a play around words, Cyclerie. I didn’t know that at the time because I’m a Spanish person more than a French person. But that was kind of a fun twist. But it’s Cyclerie meaning, you know, based in Erie, tried to circle around the Erie Community. But also, we get a lot of people from Lafayette and Broomfield. I created it, probably in 2019. It had been brewing for a while, but 2020 was when we launched it.
01:17
I always had neighborhood kiddos coming over to our house, and we were constantly just kind of exploring together on the bike. I was kind of the fun mom, but it was something I love to do. So I thought, you know, a lot of these kiddos aren’t getting the chance to go outside. Or maybe their parents are busy, or they’re usually just turning to an iPad or the TV screen. I started researching it, and there’s a huge, huge decline in kids outdoors in that organic play, which is so important in life. And as children, especially if you try to speak to a kiddo about climate change, when they’re seven, or you know, environmental facts, you’re just not going to get anywhere with a seven-year old or an eight-year old. So, or as young- our campers are as young as three and four. So but getting them outside in nature and having that experience just, I don’t know, it invests the value in them, I think, for future appreciation of the outdoors and just being a kiddo and playing.
02:18
And so that’s how CYLERIE started. And then the bike aspect of it is so cool because we’re able to get from point A to point B, much faster than we would walking or hiking. So it’s just more kids on bikes, and you get more adults on bikes by getting more kids on bikes. So that’s my philosophy is just getting more people outside in nature and building confidence.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 2:40
So walk me through a little bit like- so they’re on bikes- I think you just had a camp that just ended?
Jenny Johnson 02:50
Yeah. So we have multiple camps. Right now this summer, we had two. So we have a Learn to Pedal camp for the really young kids. They’re just maybe on training wheels. Or it could be older kiddos that just haven’t learned yet. And we’ll usually break those age groups up. There is a Learn to Pedal camp that’s Monday through Thursday, three hours in the morning. And then we have another camp, which is alternating weeks called Adventure Bike Camp. And that’s where what I was talking to you about, where we go somewhere. We have a destination. We usually meet at Star Meadows Park in Erie, and we ride to various nature areas. And then the last day of camp is Ice Cream day. So Dairy Queen, usually, but we try to hit up some other local spots if they’re open at 10 a.m.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 03:41
That’s really cool. I think that- obviously, that kind of self-developed or starting to develop in 2019, but then 2020 launch, if you will. I think that came around in a good time because so many kids were then yet put in doors for longer periods of time having to catch up with school based on COVID and everything, just being stuck. And or, you know, they’re kind of like hesitant about playdates because it was inside. So it’s like, this is all outdoors. It’s all exploration. And I think that’s so important, too, because so much of what we try to, at least, encourage for other parents, or at least for our own kids, is just that exploration model of just seeing where things go and develop.
Jenny Johnson 04:19
Yeah. I was devastated, honestly, in 2020 because I had been brainstorming this idea for several years, really, since my oldest, who’s now almost 10 started riding a bike. And then whenever March 1st, I was going to launch it 2020, and then that was right when the pandemic really was starting to become full swing. And I was just crushed, but like you were saying, turns out there was a bike boom, a whole bike, what are they calling it, evolution or revolution, that’s happening.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 04:50
You couldn’t buy bikes anywhere.
Dr. Jenny Johnson 04:49
Couldn’t buy bikes anywhere because so many families were getting out on bikes. And kids’ bikes were booming. I also sell children’s bikes. It’s not my primary business at all. It’s just more of a complementary aspect for kiddos that are at camp.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 05:06
Is it like specific types? Or is it like Striders for just like introductory type of stuff?
Jenny Johnson 05:12
It’s kid-specific bikes anywhere from the Strider size, which would be the 12-inch size tire all the way up to 26 inch tires for the older kids. So pretty much any kiddo that’s not yet able to fit an adult bike.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 05:25
Yeah. So that being said, obviously your passion for biking and kids. How would you- I mean, obviously, I think most people know Striders like the thing to do, but why is that such a beneficial tool for kids learning how and or, as a sidebar to that, should they be using training wheels at some point in time?
Jenny Johnson 05:48
Yeah, so, you know, I hate to say it’s one way or another because if you’re willing to get your kiddo outside, like whatever works for your family. However, from an expert’s point of view, training wheels are a lot harder to teach to balance. If they’ve been on training wheels before, I can always tell at camp, which ones are the Strider kids and which ones are the training wheels because training wheels are essentially converting your bike to a tricycle? You’re not really learning to balance. So if you can’t get a Strider, that’s even your size for your kiddo, if say they’re seven and they haven’t rode yet, you can always take the pedals off of any bike and turn it into a Strider bike. And that’s much more beneficial teaching them to use certain core muscles and balance rather than leaning from side to side.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 06:35
Yeah. That’s a good point. Now, I do have another question. Well, my oldest what he struggled with was he could kill it on the Strider. Like he could go down hills and do everything. But the point when then trying to get them on the pedals, he never could understand like propulsion was all like this. How do you then encourage kids, from a propulsive mechanism, to being here grabbing your feet and pushing versus understanding how the pedals actually work?
Jenny Johnson 07:03
Yeah. It’s tricky. It’s incremental, just like with anything. So a lot of repetition. There is some an option to bring a trainer bike, a stationary style bike that can set up where the bike is still stationary, but the kiddos are on the saddle getting that motion without going anywhere or with risk of falling, just like an adult does at spin class around a peloton. It’s a stationary bike. It teaches them the different cadences.
But when they’re really young, that’s hard for some of that to click. So we just incrementally go from picking our feet up, gliding, frog jumping, and then eventually they’re putting one foot on the pedal. So it may just start with that quick, they have a dominant side. And then it just natural progression and over. Usually our camps are four days, the private lessons I’ll do are usually three to five lessons, 30 minutes each, and it’s just that small incremental repetition.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 08:02
And well, the good thing about kids, too, is like they catch on to things mostly fairly quickly when you have the repetition. They just get it so fast. Yeah, well, it’s funny. Speaking of ice cream, my oldest, he was being a stinker about- we got on this because we bought them new bikes. We got him a new bike, it was bigger, all this great stuff. And he was kind of intimidated by it. And, you know, we kept asking him, it was like weeks until he even wanted to try it. So he’s into bribery. Like, “Hey, we’ll go get you ice cream if you go ride your bike.” And this was Saturday 8 a.m. He’s like, “Are you serious?” I’m like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “All right. Let’s go do it.” We went outside and he rode it like he’s been doing it for like a year. Just like that, he just took off.
Jenny Johnson 08:41
I hate to call it- yeah, it is bribery, and it almost always works. But I think part of it, too, is just autonomy, like giving them- they have the power and the vehicle to get to where they want to go. And once they figure that out, it’s pretty inspiring, I think, for them, even as an adult. I rode here, and it’s pretty nice.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 09:00
That’s, I think, the hard part as you had mentioned with kids like in commuting and stuff, sometimes you can have that opportunity. I would love to be able to commute every day to work just on the bike. I think it’s such an amazing. I did it in college. I lived at CU Boulder okay. I had a car. I think I put like 1,000 miles on my car in like the four years I was in college. I never drove anywhere. I rode my bike everywhere
Jenny Johnson 09:25
Then you run into people that organically you wouldn’t in a car because when we’re in a car, we’re-
Dr. Antonio Gurule 09:30
You’re shut off from everything.
Jenny Johnson 09:31
Not to say that I commute everywhere. I still use my car yeah a ton with three kiddos and multiple pickups, and we do activities in Boulder, but just having that ability when you have the time to go on your bike is pretty cool.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 09:44
So being now, so you’ve moved from Texas. How many years have you guys been here?
Jenny Johnson 09:49
Since 2018. So four years.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 09:51
So figuring out the area, I think a lot of people like to know, too, what are some of the more family-friendly. Most trails around here are family-friendly, but it could also be like elevation gain and things like that. What are some of your favorite trails around here to take let’s say like a family that either has someone on a Strider and/or learning to pedal but not too intense?
Jenny Johnson 10:13
Yeah, and you can- before I get to the location specific, you can bring a bike trailer and maybe get your kiddo to pedal halfway with the agreement, like hey, if you get tired, the bike trailer’s here. We can throw you a small bike safely in there with you and get from point A to point B. The Coal Creek Trail is very flat and docile. If you’re looking for more of a mountain bike trail, Heil Valley Ranch, H-E-I-L, Heil. People get it confused with Haul. Heil Valley and Boulder, they have a fun schoolhouse loop.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 10:46
Okay. I didn’t know that.
Jenny Johnson 10:46
Oh, yeah. It’s a mountain bike trail. So I probably I would think starting at like age four, maybe even boulder. You never know. [crosstalk]. Yeah, if your kiddo has never been on mountain bike trail, it’s a good starting point. There is some elevation gain, but Valmont Bike Park is great, too.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 11:05
Yeah, we love that one.
Jenny Johnson 11:05
Just to test out your skills, and you’re not far from home. The cars usually, you know, they’re in the parking lot if you need to go grab a snack. I guess the main thing is always bring snacks. That’s what we always say at camp, ride, snack, you know, game, ride, snack, game. And yeah, Coal Creek Trail. And also just if you have bike paths in your neighborhood, we have several where we are, but it’s kind of easy if you can go from the house or find a quick path to school. Before you take your kiddo out, maybe do some of your own research. I just say keep it simple and try to find somewhere fun that has a destination. It doesn’t have to be ice cream. We have a ton of fun. The kids love just finding any kind of water.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 11:47
Yeah, water is key. Anything they can [crosstalk]. That’s awesome. What have you heard of the TowWhee strap? That just reminded me.
Jenny Johnson 11:56
Yeah. I haven’t used one.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 12:00
Yeah, that was a huge game changer for us. My oldest, for some of our rides, because he could go far. And he actually- it was crazy. At four-and-a-half, we love going to Frisco for the marinas and we would ride from Frisco to BRAC. And his little legs, he rode from Frisco to BRAC and back. It was like 10 miles round trip. But some of those hills were tough and elevation’s different, too. So the TowWhee strap is a retractable toe strap, which is huge, because what we had used previously did not retract and it almost got caught up in the tire. So that’s super helpful. But even just small little things, we’re just like, hey, do you need a boost, hook up, and then pull them over the hedge and you can go. That’s a fantastic tool to have.
Jenny Johnson 12:43
You probably don’t want to hear this being a chiropractor, but I tend to push them up by grabbing their shoulders, which is so bad probably for your back.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 12:52
No. I do the same thing, too, because oftentimes you don’t want to hook it up.
Jenny Johnson 12:55
I’m like, oh, what did I do? That’s right. I pumped.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 12:57
You’re pushing them.
Jenny Johnson 12:59
Yeah, I’m riding up the hill pushing their back. We call it giving it a boost. Like do you need a boost? And I’ll do it for kids at camp, too. Even though it is Erie, there are still some significant hills. They’re not for kids. That’s the other aspect is getting a quality, lightweight bike is pretty key because imagine if you were or I were trying to ride an 80 pound bike somewhere, but that’s the weight to power ratio that we’re dealing with in some of the big box store bikes. And you would never expect yourself to be able to do that. And we’re expecting our children to do that and up hills.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 13:30
That’s a good point. We’ll talk about some of the- you had mentioned spikes you saw because that was some of the things we ran into is first and foremost, A, it was kind of tough when you have a kid, you’re like, well seems crazy to spend X amount on a bike when they’re, A, growing out of it fast or, B, just learning. But it has made a significant difference because some of the ones we had, A, they were heavy, B, being that they were used, not really tuned up well. So bearings are very dry and gritty and it’s cracked, to say the least. When you’re thinking it, you’re just like man, not even also having gears, their torque output or [crosstalk] based on torque is significantly change. What makes it so much harder for them, even when they’re just trying to learn. So what do you guys recommend?
Jenny Johnson 14:13
You know, if you can find a good use bike, if you don’t have the budget, because some of these entry-level kids bikes, say for a four- or five-year old can be $300 or $400 that are the high quality bikes. If you don’t have that upfront money, if you could look for a good quality used bike and, you know, obviously take it to the bike shop and make sure everything is functioning and safe. But if you do have the ability to get into the $400 or $500, depending on the size, market, you can buy that, hand it down to siblings. The resale value is excellent on the higher quality bike. So you almost always get back at least 50% of what you paid for.
I don’t want to drop any name brands, but I would just say that there are kid-specific design, not something from the bigger box stores. They’re designed specifically for children, meaning like their brake levers are the right size. Because so many times, you just go into these big stores and the brake levers, it’s a flashy looking beautiful bike, but they can’t even break and stop. I’ve seen that so many times. At camp, the kids or their parents will come to me, like, Oh, they’re just really timid. And I look and they can’t even stop on their own because the brakes are adult levers that they just throw in a kid’s bike and then throw it on the shelf and sell it with the cute basket.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 15:34
Yeah. That being said, do most kids bike from an early standpoint? Do they start with a coaster brake or are they trying to get more to lever brakes? Because I found maybe it’s because levers are too big, but I feel like just the grip strength of kids, it’s kind of challenging to pull levers. So is that partially why they have coaster brakes or are coaster brakes advantageous?
Jenny Johnson 16:00
I personally don’t like coaster brakes. But even some of the higher quality brands will put a coaster brake on their teeny tiny bike. But when you’re going downhill or if you’re in any kind of loose gravel, the coaster brake can cause you to skid. And when kids are naturally trying to find that cadence and that pedal forward, a lot of times they’ll pedal backwards and then they stop and they don’t know what’s going on. But you and I probably grew up with coaster brakes. We’re obviously totally fine. I didn’t learn ‘til I was, you know, a little bit older, five. But you see these two- and three-year olds riding and they’re able to grab the handbrake. You can adjust the brake, too, on the kid brakes so they can grab them a little easier.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 16:42
There is. If you have a bike that has coaster brakes, there’s a way to take the coaster brakes out. It’s actually not that hard. You just YouTube it. You just take apart the hub and you just take the pads out.
Jenny Johnson 16:51
Yeah, a lot of the companies that they sell they have a free wheel kit. If it comes with a coaster brake, you can buy the free wheel and swap it out whenever your kiddo is ready for that handbrake set. All the bikes that I used to teach with at camp and in my experience teaching tons of kiddos, they’re absolutely fine with the handbrake, even some Strider bikes now that have no pedals come with a great practice to teach them that because it’s the stopping power is also so much quicker. They can stop a lot faster with handbrakes than they do that the coaster brake action.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 17:23
And I think just, like you said, the coaster brake as they’re trying to learn that cadence is just so confusing when they’re thinking pedals move, I go forward, but then they go backwards, and then they stop and it just throws them all off. That was at least one of the tougher things for our kids. My son, though, now that he knows how to do it, he loves coaster brakes.
Jenny Johnson 17:43
You can do those with the handbrakes, too.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 17:48
True. So one camp just ended. How often do these camps run?
Jenny Johnson 17:53
So normally, it’s just the summer okay. And 2020, when school was out of session, we did fall programming and a lot longer summer session. But with the weather in Colorado in October, it can be dicey. We ended up having to cancel a few later fall sessions. But yeah, I might do a fall program. 90% sure of that just waiting for staff. I’m always unsure of- the staff that we have is usually college kiddos transitioning off to college or they just graduated high school and they move out of Erie after school. So once we get our staffing figured out, then we go ahead and open the program. So it’ll probably start in like September, October, and it would just be four or six weeks, once a week. So in the summer, we do pretty much daily, Monday through Thursday, 9 to 12. And then the fall would be once a week, just like you would go to dance class or you could go to soccer practice weekly.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 18:53
So that’d be like an evening class, not weekend?
Jenny Johnson 18:55
It’d be like an afternoon, probably like 4 to 5:30 is what we’ve done in the past.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 19:01
You guys ever go up to the Erie Bike Park with the age group?
Jenny Johnson 19:06
Yeah, we do. Our summer camp this year, we always have- naturally there’s sometimes more of an advanced group. And then there’s a group that’s a little more cautious. And so those breakout into two different age groups, advanced and beginner. So the advanced group this year, they went to the pump track because they’re able to ride longer, too. So from Star Meadows Park, it’s probably, I would say, five to six miles round trip to get to the pump track and back. So the group that wanted to hang out closer to home, we did that and still explored and saw, you know- we think of ice cream store that day we went nature discovery. And then the older kids were like, we really want to go to the pump tracks, so we made it happen. Sort of let them decide what they’re going to do and when there’s a safe route to get there. The pump track’s really fun. It is one of those places is where you just have to know the rules, which way to go, because there can be other kids there and it can be dangerous.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 20:06
I’ve seen a couple collisions there. But it’s fun. And the kids love that. It’s such a fun thing for them to do.
Jenny Johnson 20:13
Yeah. And it’s a great starting point, too, if you are thinking about doing some mountain biking. The pump track is a great way to just get used to the hills and gravity.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 20:21
That’s awesome. Well, I know it’s kind of in the infancy- well, not infancy. It’s been around for a couple years, but what are some of the- do you have any other plans or things with it moving forward that you want to be able to do with it?
Jenny Johnson 20:34
Yeah. I would like to get more grownups involved. So we’ve thought about doing-
Dr. Antonio Gurule 20:41
I think that’d be huge. Because I know like my- I mean, my wife knows how to ride a bike. But, you know, we’ve tried doing some mountain biking and stuff. And she’s like, I just don’t really know how to approach or deal with even obstacles and things like that.
Jenny Johnson 20:54
100%. I learned to mountain bike in Texas. So mountain biking in Colorado, I had to step up my game, big time. So I can see why the barrier to entry is there. because mountain biking trails in Colorado aren’t green trails always. And there’s this machine that you have to learn how to operate and make sure the tires are aired up and the chains lubed and everything has to be dialed. Then that’s half the battle just to get out on the trail. So I can see why there are a lot of people that are hesitant to get involved in the sport. So we’ve thought about having some clinics, obviously teaching families and parents. All right, here’s what to do if you get a flat tire. Here’s a flat tire clinic. If something were to come up, we’re going to give you the tools so you feel empowered to go out there. If something were to happen, you can change your flat.
21:42
Also, just basics in mountain biking classes, maybe just starting out with trail etiquette. Like if someone’s coming up behind you and you feel panicked or nervous, you don’t have to get over right away. You get over when it’s safe and announce when you’re coming. Just basic trail etiquette, just to feel comfortable. And then we’ll get to maybe more of the small drops or going over big hills or big rocks and roots. But yeah, that’s how I see it moving forward is doing some group rides, family group rides, then maybe some clinics, especially more for the moms that are involved, because there’s so many moms that come to me saying I don’t even know what bike to buy. What about the bike trailer? And what do I need to connect a bike trailer to my bike? Like there’s a lot of details? And I’m always trying to remember, okay, not everyone’s been doing this for 10 years. And this is new to everyone. So what may seem easy for some people, I just tried to break it down and make it open to everyone because there are so many people in the last two years that have gotten into cycling with the pandemic. And it’s sad to think that their equipment is just sitting in their garage because they’re feeling stumped.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 23:00
I think that I was thinking too. We saw a lot of people just like, What do I do? And then just bought it? And like you said, just kind of sits there and not actually being used?
Jenny Johnson 23:07
Yeah. So we’re thinking about- not just thinking. We are planning some programming and have that-
Dr. Antonio Gurule 23:15
And we’re going to have some races and all of that.
Jenny Johnson 23:20
Yeah. It does need a location to have a hub to get this all started. And then oh, man, I have so many ideas for the racing. I would like to call it events more than racing.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 23:27
Yeah, no, yeah. It’s great.
Jenny Johnson 23:29
You know, some kids just love the competition. And, you know, just having- giving to kids what we would have as adults, like a little podium and some pedals and just fun prizes, quality giveaways. That’s also on the radar, too.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 23:45
That would be awesome.
Jenny Johnson 23:47
Yeah. The single track is a little dicey to have a race there. For some kids, it can be intimidating, but it could be somewhere in like a flat field. It doesn’t have to have huge hills or jumps. If anyone has any recommendations or any opportunities that they’re aware of, please connect with me because I’m looking for some opportunity.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 24:05
Yeah, I’ll keep my eyes open. Speaking of races, there was an obstacle course race I recently saw on some random farm in East Erie near I25. Yeah, it was off a county road. It was off Erie Parkway. And south of that, and I was just like, what are these people doing? And they were running an obstacle course race out there.
Jenny Johnson 24:29
Okay. It may have been The Recess Factory.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 24:33
I didn’t look up what it was. I just saw an obstacle course.
Jenny Johnson 24:37
[crosstalk] open anymore, but it used to be like a mud run type setup.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 24:41
It was only like a month ago.
Jenny Johnson 24:42
Okay. Yeah, I’ll have to have to connect you with that person, but I’m pretty sure that would have been what it is. But yeah, but it was on foot, right? Like a foot obstacle
Dr. Antonio Gurule 24:51
Yeah. It was exactly like what you’d see like a Tough Mudder or Spartan Race, but it was just in this field out there.
Jenny Johnson 24:59
Because I know the RadRover event that the town does is really popular.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 25:02
RadRover, I have not heard of that. What is that?
Jenny Johnson 25:06
So RadRover, the town of Erie, they do that every- I think it’s July. It might be coming up- I’m not sure. Don’t quote me on the dates, but last year it was in July about this time. I think they used to try to have like a kids triathlon, and it wasn’t as successful. And so they just focused more on keeping it simple to RadRover, like one sport, and that seemed to do really well.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 25:27
So that’s a biking event?
Jenny Johnson 25:28
No, sorry. It’s an obstacle course event. It’s put on by the town of Erie, but I would like to do something like RadRover, but only do the bike instead of incorporating any kind of like swim bike run. Keeping it simple for kids that’s key.
Dr. Anthono Gurule 25:45
Yeah. Limit the variables.
Jenny Johnson 25:45
Yes. Yes. Yes. But kids’ triathlons do happen, but there’s a lot involved to get there.
Dr. Anthono Gurule 25:50
For sure.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 25:50
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, also from just set up, but liability issues with water and stuff. That’s a whole another game.
Jenny Johnson 25:56
And I think just exposing kids to that, not even competition, but just hey, like, my neighbor is doing this. Like this is a normal thing. Like we go out and we run together and we have fun and we high five at the end. And, like, I don’t know, for me, I’m not super-fast, but I love doing little races, cyclocross events and things like that.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 26:19
I don’t even think of- I just think of two. Like we did the turkey trot last year and our kids had a blast. And it’s the thing that everybody does every there’s five knots and races all the time, but there’s really not- and granted, I think it’s harder to structure bike events like that because there’s road closures and things like that from my kids’ perspective. They love anything like that.
Jenny Johnson 26:39
And it can be small. Doesn’t have to be anything grandiose. And I don’t know, I just love the community aspect of events like that, whether I’m going fast that day or not. Yeah, like at the end, you know, everyone’s hanging out, it’s family oriented. So I pursue that for Erie.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 26:56
Have you done the Venus de Miles since being out here?
Jenny Johnson 26:59
No. I do cyclocross. And actually, funny enough, my kiddo got me into that last fall because it’s basically like riding a road bike on gravel. So it’s a unique kind of- richer in a way.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 27:16
Jump over obstacles, do crazy stuff.
Jenny Johnson 27:19
Yeah, you carry your bike. So I primarily mountain bike. I do some road biking, but the cyclocross was really fun. And most of them are in Boulder. I would love to see one in Erie because the cyclocross races have men’s, women’s, and little kids. And so it’s a family event that everyone can do on a Saturday.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 27:41
I think they could do. They just need to find or there’s enough open-
Jenny Johnson 27:45
Permitting and getting people out to Erie. I think a lot of people, in Lafayette too, I think a lot of people think this area is still like cows and pasture. But you know, there’s such a market for young families. And no, it would be great to not have to drive into Boulder for every event.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 28:04
That’s awesome. Well, I’m looking forward to seeing all those things come up. I think that’s going to be awesome. And we’ll keep an eye open for what happens for fall. And so I should say, before I forget because I’m always bad about this. How do people learn more? Where do they find more information? How do they connect with you if they wanted to get into the camps or just stay in the loop about when camps are, when events are, so on and so forth?
Jenny Johnson 28:28
Yeah, so it’s cyclerie.net, C-Y-C-L-E-R-I-E. cyclerie.net. I’m most active on Instagram. It’s @cyclerie. So you can find me there. I’m Jenny Johnson. I have a Facebook page as well and a website that has all of the program information. So we always have summer programs. The registration usually opens March 1. And if you’re ever interested in private lessons or getting a group of kids together, too, we do that year round as long as it’s not too cold. If there’s not snow on the ground, we’ll usually have our bikes out as a family
Dr. Antonio Gurule 29:04
And then do you guys have like a newsletter or anything? Or is that where most things are announced? Like if there are group rides or anything coming up or anything like that?
Jenny Johnson 29:15
Yeah. We’re actually kicking off a newsletter this fall. Previously had just relied on social media. But I know a lot of times that can just be inundated with so many events. So the newsletter and direct email is going to be our next method of communication for bigger events.
Dr. Antonio Gurule 29:32
Great. Well, thanks for spending time and sharing about this. I think this is awesome. I can’t wait to see how it builds and grows because we’re huge on just family bike rides together, too. We have the trailer, we have the TowWhee, we love packing up and just be like, Hey, we’re going to go somewhere new, ride, see what happens. So this is amazing what you’re doing.
Jenny Johnson 29:54
Thanks for having me.
–
EP|75 with Rebecca Bach of Mecha Fitness | Being Your Best Even When You Are At Your Worst
Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado
Episode 75
EP |75 Being Your Best Even When You Are At Your Worst
With Guest Rebecca Baack of Mecha Fitness
About Rebecca Baack
Background:
- Owner of Mecha Fitness
- Diverse Training Philosophies
- Has an extensive background in the Colorado Fitness Industry.
Check Out Some of Our Other Blog Posts and Podcast Episodes
Can you be at your best, when you’re at your worst?
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
mecha, people, denali, cardio, summit, strength training, core, hiking, yoga, grit, locations, altitude, pandemic, fitness, training, love, add, guide, deadlifts, power
SPEAKERS
Anthony Gurule
00:29
All right guys, welcome back to another episode of The Live Loud Live Podcast based in Lafayette, CO. I’m here with Rebecca Bach. She is the owner of Mecha Fitness. we’re going to talk a little bit about her background, as she was sharing her extensive fitness journey in the fitness industry, especially in the Colorado area.We’re also going to get into some of her training philosophies. Finally, we’ll get in to some of the more recent adventures she’s been doing. I’ve been following along on social media, which actually looks really epic. We’re just gonna kind of chat and see what Mecha and you’re about. So thanks for having me. Yeah, so Introduce yourself. Give us a little bit about the as far back as the history if you want to. My name is Rebecca. I am the owner of Mecha Fitness in Boulder and Louisville two locations. I’m the co owner of 34 core power locations around the US and a co owner of Ape Co Movement school which is located in Boulder and in Edgewater down in Denver. When did you first start? You were the first franchise with Core Power correct? That was back I want to say mid 2000s. I opened core powers first franchise location, Broomfield east, okay, so over on 144 symbol, and then core power franchise for a while to a couple of their partners. Then they stopped franchising for a while I had I opened also the Flatiron small location, okay. And then I joined forces with some other co workers I knew from the telecom industry. So my background is in telecom, corporate strategy. And we combined our locations and then continued to expand. So in total, we have core powers in North Denver, South Denver, suburban Chicago, the Carolinas, Charleston and the Phoenix, Arizona area. Wow. That’s awesome. Yeah, a long time. Yeah, a long time. So I did that was the core power for probably like, little over 15 years. And then so you guys probably can’t see on the video here. But we’re sitting in a very different room than what core power would be. So walk me through what was the journey of starting Mecca? Like how did that transition into in now? What is this.
02:52
so I, there’s a lot, there’s a big journey on this. So core powers, corporate parents had exercised a buyout option of the core power locations. I’m part of that transition was set to occur in April 2020. And we all know what happened in April 2020. And so we kind of got stood up at the altar in that transaction, and then took them to court for that. And that’s still in the legal process right now with them. But as part of that journey, I could see that that was coming to an exit, whether I wanted it or not. Yeah. And started looking for other opportunities. Mecha was owned by two other owners. So I I’m not the founder of Mecha. It had shut down during the pandemic, like everybody had to you know, so I purchased it out of COVID shut down, and then reopened it. And then grew it to this location here in Louisville.
03:50
So obviously you had a very strong feeling about the possibilities of Mecha. Yeah, to be able to revive for Yeah, I tried it when I was at core power. So it used to be on the Pearl Street Mall, and it was called Coco fit. Not on the Mall area, but on the east East Pearl Street. And a lot of yoga teachers were were going there because they loved it because it’s similar to yoga and that it’s really slow paced and about mindful alignment, but more strength training focus to it. So I loved the brand. I love the concept back then, since then, the owners had added on the cardio element to it as well. So there’s a second, there’s kind of two concepts under one roof. So this this room that we’re sitting in, which is the low impact strength training room, and then the other room which is the low impact cardio hitt room so took that on and expanded it to Louisville in 2021. So I’m curious to get your perspective on this because someone who does not do enough yoga, but having conversations with those that enjoy yoga is a I think it’d be valuable to get your perspective for someone who has so much background in that, but yet also doing strength training. And then also seeing you do deadlifts and things like that. Right? We’ll get into that is, how do you where do you how I’m gonna say one is better than the other? But how does this benefit someone who strictly does yoga, thinking yoga? Is enough strength? And that’s obviously a very specific definition for the person. Sure, right. But I think enough people do yoga, we’re like, Well, I’m getting strength training through yoga, but I feel they need some more. So how could this be different? How would this benefit them?
05:35
Right? Right. I mean, I would say, like, the first principle is just do movement that you love. So if you love yoga, and it keeps you coming back, then awesome, keep doing yoga. At some point you sort of tap out on yoga, it’s all bodyweight-based in yoga. So you can’t add weight to it in any kind of realistic way. So you just get to a point where there’s no juice in the squeeze anymore. What’s nice about the resistance classes we have is it’s all spring-loaded tension. And so you can add weight as you go, you can constantly be progressing in this room. It feels, in your body, similar to yoga, and that it’s mindful and slow. So that’s really why I think people in some ways, I mean, they you know, yoga is awesome for a lot of different things to but it I guess, quote unquote, kind of graduate from yoga as their physical practice, because they just top out and you know, the bodyweight holds of it, and they need more resistance to
06:41
- Yeah, that’s, that’s such a good point. And like you said, there’s, it obviously depends on the goals, the context of the person. And yes, doing the thing that you enjoy keeping you back is huge. So that’s good. It’s a good stepping stone and into some other stuff. So then the cardio piece, which is in the other room right next to us, right? What are some of the equipment that are pieces of equipment or things that you guys utilize over there? Yep. So
07:03
we use Versaclimber. Over there, which now there’s not that many gyms around that use it and it is killer. It’s a great low impact, contralateral workout too, so good for your brain. You can add resistance to that machine as well. So you can do a resisted climb on it. So we use Versa climbers, we use assault bikes. So rogues assault bike, and which is common in the CrossFit industry, most people are familiar with that. But that is also killer piece of equipment. And then we use skiers, so a standing skier, platform, and then we have weights, free weights, we have a pull up rig, TRX, slam balls, all kinds of equipment. So you know, it’s different every day, depending on what day you come. And, but you’ll always be on those three cardio machines and doing like some kind of cardio challenge. And then some sort of floor work challenge as part of that.
07:52
That’s awesome. I mean, that was, I think that’s what’s so great. It’s just it, it gives you the taste of what people liked, but then also like diversification, because I know for me, and bias Lee, I have certain things that I enjoy more, and I don’t diversify enough, which is, you know, that’s another conversation. But that’s good. It’s good, because you can hit all those different things in such such a different time. Yeah. But for you and your training, you’re adding another layer to that walk us through some of the training that you currently are doing.
08:21
yeah. So I also do just heavy strength training. As we’ve talked about before, I have a gym in my garage. So you know, classic lifts, front squat, back squat, deadlifts, benchpress, you know, the classic ones. And so I like to do that as a compliment. Actually, I would say that’s like, my main probably my main focus is strength training. And then I’ll take resistance maybe twice a week. I like resistance because it’s unilateral work largely. So it’s good for stabilization of both sides of your body because as you know, as a strength trainer, you tend to in any move like a deadlift, like dominate into one leg. Yeah. And so you have to be you have to constantly be managing that trying to make sure both legs joints are equally strong and you’re getting like same tension both sides to prevent prevent injury or weightlifting, you know, so a lot of people love this room that do that kind of bilateral work like cyclists or runners so that they can work on one side of their body and the other and get symmetry. So I like this work for kind of my this is sort of my accessory in my core work yeah, and then I’m a big believer even though cardio is not my favorite thing to do. I mean, I love hiking, I will get cardio hiking, but hitting that like max heart rate threshold like one to two times a week just a minimum dosage, you know of a couple minutes of maybe some sprints or whatever it is that’s like really pushing your cardio threshold. I’m a big believer in that for just health and wellness and longevity in your life and also being able to then pick up when someone asks you if you want to climb a 14 or and it’s like right away no problem you know you don’t get altitude sick and it’s it’s fine. So
09:59
does Your training also include like a subset or baseline of steady state or is that just basically the hiking that you get? So yeah, is sufficient for that. Yeah. I mean, I would say that for steady state cardio, that’s when I just do the stuff I enjoy, like a walk with my dog or a hike or something like that. But yeah, I never just get on a treadmill or just, you know, go for 45 minutes or something like that. That’s not my, my personal preference. Yeah, that’s no, that’s great. I mean, and that’s what, that’s what so many people I don’t think are doing well, I see. I see. I feel like a dichotomy of not doing enough and or doing too much of it. We’re not seeing the balance of having some steady state. They think just redlining all the time. Oh, yeah, is the best.
10:44
Yeah, I definitely, you know, try to talk people out of that coming every single day to Mecha, taking Dell, you know, double up both classes, because what’s great about Mecha is the workouts are short, they’re only 50 minutes long. And they’re very intense. And that’s how I like if I’m going to, if I want an adaptation in my body, like hit the intensity really hard and do it for a short amount of time, like minimum viable product, you know, no more than that. Because then you get wear and tear on your body and just things start breaking down. And I think in Boulder County, in general, we all like fitness, because it’s like our mental health, too. So you got to be mindful about the overtraining, just like you said, because we actually enjoy it. You know, a lot of people just didn’t enjoy the fitness and can tend to overdo it.
11:29
For sure. Yeah. And I think I mean, the minimal viable product term is something I use a lot too, because it’s like, wow, we enjoy fitness. Like, wouldn’t you enjoy doing other things other than just fitness? If you can get what you want out of just doing this? Would that be enough? For sure. And most people would agree. But then yet they think, Well, if I get it out of this, if I do more than wholesale get more, right. But sometimes it goes the opposite direction. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. That’s a good point. So with that a lot of this has been obviously supplementing and supporting some of your recent adventures. Yeah. I’m curious to hear how some of those were. Sure. So what you’re referring to is I just I attempted to summit Denali. Let’s see that was last month. And my training for that was largely like strength training, a lot of spine stabilization and isometric spine strength. So a lot of one arm heavy, carries nice, you know, for a mile on the other eye, that is where you would use a treadmill sometimes. And strength training work for that, getting a lot of like load in the hips. So my hips could stabilize my knees, you know, work in that whole chain up and down. And, and then the, you know, cardio realm, because I needed to work that but sort of hypoxic state that you have to be in at altitude. And it’s a great way to do it in a short period of time. Like, it’s hard for me to do sprints, or like run outside sprints or something like that. So being able to do that on the Versaclimber where it’s not impact. And I could just completely gas myself and like hit that max heart rate threshold in 30 seconds, and just do that a couple rounds. That I mean, I went into Denali being just feeling really strong really fit until I got to the top. And when we crashed and burned, was it. Do you think it was sheer altitude? Factor? Yeah, for
13:25
sure. So I was starting to show signs of of high altitude pulmonary edema. Like I really fought for that summit hard. I got to summit day, I lasted, I don’t know, seven hours through summit day. So got through all the technical terrain. And you’re at your like the very last part, you’re literally like at the base of that final Hill, it’s maybe a third of a mile. It’s the first time you can actually see the summit from the entire time you spent on Denali, like you can’t see the summit until really right there. And I started having like wheezing, you know, with my breath. And like we were at a final break the break where you get to take off your backpack and go without your backpack. And that’s it, you’re done. And I was just like a puddle on the ground. And it like really terrible flu like symptoms, and the guide was like you still gotta get down. Yeah, so I don’t think you should I think like you need to just chill and rest and I sobbed. It was all I mean, I just was so crushed. And I was you know, I was also just crushed because the youngest guide had to stay with me. So I limited his ability to summit so I just felt terrible about that too. And that was super humbling. But then the hardest part was in getting down because all the technical part of the route I’d already done, so I had to get down that piece. And the guide you know, there’s there’s all sorts of like protective equipment on Denali, like stuff where you clip in. So in case you fall like not everybody falls and you’re safe. Because of the state I was in, they were worried about me bending over and clipping and unclipping into the carabiners. Oh, yeah. And so the guide was like you, me, and in this another client that was on the trip, are going to travel down unhooked. And I was like, I’m not comfortable with that, you know, because I like that. I mean, we’re all going to risk our lives, like, Isn’t there another way? And he’s like, No, this is the safest way. Like, I don’t think you should bend over, like clip in and clip out. And so none of us will clip in. And I was concerned, because, you know, I had done a lot of research about Denali, and where are the places where there’s been accidents in the past. And so, you know, we had to travel down these sections, which are, you know, you’re literally walking a tightrope ledge, foot in front of foot, and it’s a sheer drop off, and we didn’t clip in. And so I just was like, you know, I really am a believer of training grit. And one of the levels of grit is like, can you be at your best when you’re at your worst? And so I just like, the whole time, I was thinking, like, I gotta be at my best, even though I’m at my worst, because if I slip and start sliding down, and they can’t self arrest me, like, all three of us go down. So just trying to make every step perfect. On the way down, which I did, and we got down. But then like, once I was at kind of the bottom of each technical section, I had to melt into a puddle for a while. Yeah, sure, recover is just took everything out of me to get down there and keep every one that was on my team safe and be safe. And it was, it was pretty challenging. I mean, one of the most like humbling experiences I’ve been through for sure, to where, like, at the end of those two days, there’s sort of two days of technical climbing to get down, you know, I would just be a puddle, and my, my tent mate, who was the one who was on my rope, would like, take off my boots, change my socks for me, you know, bring me food, just do everything she could to take care of me, like the whole team carried a lot of my weight. But right around right around 11,000 feet. Like it’s just changed, I just perch right back up. So it really was that altitude and, you know, like, I really, I would like to try it again. I hope I get a chance to try it again. I learned a lot. One of the big things I will do differently next time is I will take the freakin Diamox which is altitude sickness prevention medication, I wasn’t taking that in the dosage that was recommended. And so you know, that in addition to a whole host of other things that I learned, but it was also I don’t regret any of it too. Because like if I just strolled to the top and been able to take like the sweet Instagram photo, you know, to my eyes, sacks and everything like that. I learned so much from this and it really cracked open my heart in a way that I think I needed you know, to experience having people need to take care of me and to be the vulnerable one and to be the weak one. And so no matter what I don’t regret like any moment of that journey it was a fantastic and amazing
18:14
that’s an amazing story. I’m so I’m so obviously medication helping outside of that. I mean, we have big peaks, but is there any way to get additional high altitude training? Yeah, I mean, you you can like step on a mountain, right? Like you can like buy the expensive tent that you sleep in, you know, in your house. So you can like do that. Yeah, I think that’s what a lot of people that live at sea level do. Yeah, I I did like some winter fourteeners a lot of winter hiking. And I have no problem at 14,000 feet. I mean, a lot of the people on the team were feeling sick at 14,000 feet, and not doing well. And I was I was fine there. It was 17,000 feet was where I started not to feel great. I didn’t sleep the night before we summited. And I, when you get to the next camp, the high camp at Denali, you have to build camp too. So I was like sawing ice blocks out of the mountain. Like we had to like stack ice blocks up around our tent. You probably didn’t get to bed till 11pm that night. And then you’re at 17,000 feet, so it’s hard to sleep. I didn’t sleep at all that night. I woke up the next morning already nauseous, no sleep, having a hard time getting water down. I mean, it was kind of like already a train wreck from from the start, which was the summit of Denali
19:30
20,330 I believe or 20 Somewhere around 20,300.
19:35
so in you had mentioned being a believer in grit, right being your best at your worst, and just from a cause. I mean, I think most people would understand this, but how does your everyday training philosophy and mentality like built into it?
19:51
I’d say a lot of it is doing things that suck. Doing stuff you don’t want to do. I did a lot of cold weather hiking. I did a lot when I was tired, still getting up in my garage doing back squats, even though I just was exhausted or didn’t feel like it. Just pushing through and that, you know, that sort of saying embrace the suck. Trying to find situations where you have to embrace the suck.
20:24
Do you do anything? So this is a failure because Jaco willing, he talks a lot about this, right? And a lot of people do, right. And it’s using physical suck to harden you mentally. Right? Which, which makes sense, right? Because you just have to overcome something. Is there anything that you do from a mental perspective that’s consistent that helps with that?
20:46
Yeah, I would say opening opening gyms in the middle of a pandemic. That’s definitely a good mental challenge. I opened really like three three gyms across two different fitness concepts throughout the pandemic. So that takes a lot of hard work, a lot of grit, a lot of smarts, a lot of just scrappiness. So that is one of them. You know, I haven’t been back since the pandemic, but I was a practitioner of jujitsu prior to the pandemic. And I think that is an also a fantastic way to build grit and calmness under pressure, you know, literally under pressure. They’re like, so somebody laying on top of you and just like waiting for them to make a mistake. You know, that patience? Yeah. So that that one as well. And it’s something I’m always seeking out and thinking about, like, if I’m if I don’t feel like I’m being challenged, emotionally and spiritually, I’ll think about like, what would be something that I could take on? That would be a struggle that would push me in that way? Where I could learn.
21:54
That’s amazing. I love that. Yeah. Thanks. I mean, I think that’s a kind of a cool way to wrap up. I don’t have any other questions. Other than maybe if there’s anything you wanted to add about how you added it’s the cardio, the resistance training, being supportive of obviously bigger goals, but Yet can be a standalone as well alone. Yeah, obviously, not everyone has Denali goals. Sure. I know it’s a little bit better or differently tailored. But is there anything else you wanted? I mean, that was an awesome story. Is there anything you else you wanted to add or any other like big mission that you have coming
22:31
big mission?
22:33
You know, just like enjoying life, figuring out work life balance? I have kids too. We talked about that, and figuring out like, how do you get them to build grit? You know, how do you push them? Let’s add a little bit that I mean, because I wouldn’t say the majority of people listen, our parents but a lot of people who are part of Live Loud, are parents, but a lot of us are younger, right? Parents, right? Meaning our kids are like my oldest is six. What are some of the ways you’ve tried to instill that mental toughness and grit and teaching your kids like, hey, the worlds not all roses and butterflies?
23:08
Definitely. I mean, I’m a big believer in chores. It Oh, and giving your kids chores. I had a lot of chores growing up. And that was what like someone who used to work restaurant industry told me that’s the first interview question she would ask people is what choice did you have growing up? They couldn’t answer that. She’s like, interviews over. Yeah. So I’m a big believer giving them chores Yeah, just a simple response for that. But yeah,
23:33
it works really well. Yeah. It also just, I mean, from early get go, to his chores, and a sense of not like you have to do these things like hey, we’re part of a family. This is a collective thing together as part of this being a unit. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That’s awesome. For sure. Well, this was amazing. Thank you so much for sharing. I love the gym. This is an amazing setup. And I loved hearing that story. And hopefully we get to see a Denali Summit. Fully someday, maybe in a year or two. Yeah, really. Back to the drawing board. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Thanks so much for Antonio. Perfect, that was fun. Thank you a super wild adventure. I mean, I loved it. And you know it’s funny because we the only
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5 Easy Tips to Improve Your Deadlifts (video included)
Today, we will be going over five of the top tips that we give to help our patients and our clients, who visit our Lafayette Chiropractic Clinic, with deadlifting.
This is an associated video with a podcast episode that we did. It's the same information that we did in the Podcast. We just wanted to demonstrate what those tips are so that you can see it in live-action to give you a little bit more of a frame of reference.
Now, how can you apply this information?
Well, digest it.
Practice it.
Film yourself.
Get a coach.
If you don't have a coach looking at you and you're trying to go through a self-developmental process, you're just trying to understand your body a little bit more. That is a fantastic way to understand what's going on.
But sometimes, you need that expertise and coach's eye to give you what you need.
So let's dive in:
1) Keep the bar close
The first tip is keeping the bar, or the weight closer to you and not letting it get too far in front of you.
From a side view I need my shins right up against the bar, so you can see how close that weight is to me. This helps me keep that bar path nice and straight and close to my body as I go up and down, hinging to do the movement.
Now, if I did this exact same thing, but I'm standing out here, you can see how much further that bar gets away from me and I can feel how much more load and stress is being put on my back as a result of that.
Now the same also goes true. If we're just talking about like a kettlebell. We prescribe sumo deadlifts or kettlebell deadlifts all the time.
But what we instruct is for people to straddle, or stand directly over the kettlebell, okay, now, why is because it keeps that weight nice and close to you. And it allows you to sit back into your heels to make sure we're loading that posterior chain.
But same thing, if I'm forward here, where that kettlebells in front of my toes, I'm going to be putting potentially a lot more strain on that lower back, because I've increased the distance from the kettlebell to the actual lever, moment arm, which should be essentially my hips, right.
So as I'm reaching forward, that's going to put more strain on here, now, you can still maintain a neutral spine, a long spine or a straight back, but just simply the act of having an out in front of you, even though my backstraight, this is having to work that much harder.
So we want to make sure we're keeping the weight, the box, whatever that is closer to us, okay.
2) Watch your speed
Now, the second point that we want to make is pulling too fast.
You can see in the video that I'm pulling the bar too fast.
So what that means is, my shoulders are connected my arms, my hands connect to the barbell, the work is basically being done from here to pull my upper body up, which is effectively going to pull my arms up.
So what can happen is if I just start yanking too fast, I'm rising too fast. I'm trying to jerk that bar up to be explosive, because you want to move the weight all finding good, but what can happen with all of the speed is we lose tension and end up rounding the back.
We're effectively not keeping all that pre tension that you've built up. And what happens is you want to yank really fast in the spine will end up rounding your back sometimes, because your body's trying to move too fast and you're not maintaining the tension.
We want to be able to make sure that when we're rising up the whole unit, and the whole system is rising up together at the same speed, and we're not rising with a really fast, jerky motion.
3) Control your hips
The next fix that you want to think about is not letting your hips rise too fast as well.
I gave an analogy on the podcast, which I'm going to describe here.
Imagine my elbow is my hips. My forearm is my torso, and my fist is my shoulder.
So in this setup, which is a hinge, it's perfectly fine for your torso to be horizontal to the ground.
So what will happen sometimes is we'll set up and then we'll start to lift and the hips will come up, because you trying to pretension the hamstrings and the posterior chain.
When the hips start to rise too fast then the upper body is trailing which has to follow to lift the weight but they are not moving together. We want collectively for everything to be moving together.
As an example, let’s say we have a good setup. But based on maybe being a little bit too squatty or low, what's going to happen is once I want to start lifting, you're going to see the hips rise to increase tension in the hamstrings or posterior chaing.
You see this one step, two step jerky motion. It could be subtle and you might be maintaining a neutral spine still, but I'm shifting hips first, and then the rest is coming.
Again, the reason why most people are doing that is because we did not tend to pretension that posterior chain, the hamstrings and the glutes enough. And so your body's trying to find that tension, before you lift. Your body is trying to store up elastic energy to help you initiate the movement before the concentric motion of the muscles takes place.
Ideally, what you'd want to try to do is find that hip position that makes you feel like you're under that initial tension. And when referring to barbell deadlifts you're going to hear a little click as the barbell pulls into the ring of the plate.
It is fine to start a little low, and then raise the hips a little bit. But that is the pre-tension, and then you should move as one unit.
4) Activate your core and get your torso ready
Next tip is activating your core and getting your torso ready! We hear brace, tighten abs, and a number of different cues that people will give when lifting to clients or coaching.
We are going to go back to our forearm analogy. In order for the shoulders to effectively rise as the hips come through and forward. The forearm (torso or core) cannot be soft, right?
Notice, obviously, my, my forearm is one piece/bone. But that's essentially what I'm trying to do, I'm trying to turn my torso into one stiffened piece, so that the forced transfer that my legs are doing, as my hips are driving forward, will adequately raise my chest, raise my shoulders, raise my arms and raise the weight.
If we're soft, and we have a soft system, then as you come up, you're going to be dispersing energy all over the place and not being as effective and efficient. And this could could potentially lead to some back pain or an injury, right? So we want to make sure that that that mid system is stiffened. So that you can transfer all that force that you're generating to your shoulders, arms, weight, so on and so forth.
So what do we need to do? We need to stiffen the torso.
The torso is essentially the area from my shoulders, ball socket joints to ball and socket joints at the hips.
As I'm hinging, my torso stays together as a unit. The curvatures you have in your spine as your stand with normal posture will be preserve and maintained when you hinge, it is simply your torso is in a different angle in space.
We're trying to maintain that and as the load increases, you have to stiffen the abdominal wall all the way around to ensure that you're keeping that together. We can do that by increasing your intra-abdominal pressure.
One of the main cues people understand will be to take a big breath of air in, increase the air and then hold it, that'll help stiffen your torso/abdominal wall.
One of the most important things to understand is knowing how much tension you need to generate. If you're over bracing it will not be useful for you and expending more energy than necessary. But as the task gets heavier, you're going to need to brace and stiff more, because low load is going to really challenge your positioning on that torso.
Another cue is to stick your fingers into the space/midsection between your ribs and your pelvis. Next, pretend like you're blowing out a candle forcefully. You should see and feel that part of your torso expand, right?
While I'm not pushing my belly out, that little cue of blowing hard stiffens the torso automatically and you get a little bit of an expansion of the abdominal wall. You should also feel this in the back. The next cue is the same but with a Wonder Woman or Superman pose. With your hands on your waist and in between your ribs and pelvis your thumbs will be pointed and right in the side/back muscles near your spine. When you blow the candle out you should feel a little pulse against your thumbs.
This is an amazing tool for someone who's recovering an injury who's feeling vulnerable in certain hinging or squatting positions. We can enhance the bracing and stiffening because it's going to provide more stability, and more comfort, that allows us to keep moving and keep loading you and keep progressing while feeling more and more confident.
5) break down pre-tensioning and wedging
The last tip is going to break down pre tensioning and wedging.
Pre tension or wedging is essentially one trying to pull themselves down into the hole or pull themselves into the bar, which is basically like compressing the spring. So when you are ready, you begin to release the stored up energy to help you initiate the movement, and then all the muscles involved in this movement are going to go through its concentric phase to actually lift me up.
When talking about pre tension or perhaps better understood as activation, we are trying to load and prime the posterior chain which would be the backside of the body. And for deadlifts we are looking at the hamstrings, glutes, and back primarily.
We can facilitate the pre tension by wedging and pulling down into the bar, but we can also increase this tension by torquing into the floor.
When we tell people anchor your feet, they are going to be screwing into the ground, without actually moving your feet. This creates a coil of tension up the legs.
Now we also have to pre tension our connection to the bar, kettlebell, or dumbbell so that we have a strong linkage to the task. If we have a weak connection or weak grip that is going to make it harder to move the weight.
So imagine a dowel, the bar, or a handle. Your hands are right next to each other and you are trying to snap it in half like breaking a stick.
This is exactly like screwing our feet into the ground, only now your shoulder having coiled up tension that also connects all the way down to your lower back and hips through the lats.
So if effectively doing all of these things together, you're going to be in a stronger state to start the movement through better pre tension and wedging.
Effective & efficient deadlifts
Each one of these tips coincide and overlap with each other, to effectively make the movement done more effective and efficiently.
Now, when we talk about effectiveness and efficiency, that's good, because that allows you to lift more, and if done well, you can lift more and if done well, you also reduce the chances of overloading some of the more vulnerable places within a deadlift, which would usually be areas like your lower back.
Many of you may only be picking and choosing one or two of these tips to implement. Many of you know this ins and outs of deadlifting, but if you are new or hesitant because of a previous injury these tips will be very helpful for you.
If you're doing deadlifts, hopefully this helps you. If you're not doing deadlifts, I encourage you to do deadlifts. It can be barbells, it can be kettlebells, it doesn't matter.
I just want you to pick up some stuff off the ground, make that posterior chain stronger, make those postural muscles stronger, make your hips stronger, reduce load and share load between the Jones joints to make your back pain better to help heal back pain.
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How to Choose Weight When Lifting or Training EP|71
Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado
Episode 71
How to Choose Weight When Lifting or Training
With Dr. Antonio Gurule
Want to increase the weight you lift? Or the amount of reps you do? Whatever your goals are, Dr. Antonio has guidance for you.
Episode Highlights
3:00 – “How do I know what weights to use? / How many reps to do?”
5:00 – Tough at 10 method
7:30 – Goblet squat sample of building up weight or reps
15:00 – Discouraging from doing the same exact workout day after day
About Dr. Antonio Gurule
Background:
- Father
- Doctor of Chiropractic
- Owner of Live LOUD
- Personal Trainer & Health Coach
Check Out Some of Our Other Blog Posts and Podcast Episodes
Anthony Gurule 00:00
Hey what’s up guys, welcome back to another episode of the Live Loud Life podcast. My name is Dr. Antonio, your host of the Live Loud Life podcast. My wife and I, we own Live Loud Chiropractic and Coaching. We are based here in Lafayette, Colorado, which is in Boulder County and just north of Denver. So if you’re local, and you’re looking for some help, and you need a little bit of love, we’d love to help you guys out. If you’re not local, we do offer virtual consultations, where you know, we set up, set up a call where we help you workshop and work through some of the issues that you’re having.
Anthony Gurule 00:42
Our big philosophy is helping you and advocating for you to have an active role in your recovery. Many times we’re dealing with aches and pains or anything like that, it’s usually a more passive approach, meaning hey, you need to come in and get x y&z done, or I need to administer help you with these exercises. We believe that you need to understand how your body moves, how it operates, how to fuel it, so on and so forth. Now, yes, we are chiropractors, we do manual therapy, we do know the benefit of that. But if we can help feel fill the gap. For some of the information or knowledge that maybe you’re not getting from your other providers or practitioners, we’d love to do that oftentimes, these consultations are just you know, it’s almost as like a sounding board session, you we want to listen and hear what your goals are, and we kind of hear where you’re at, and we help you kind of just navigate and make some suggestions on how to get there. And that’s where we’re going with today.
Anthony Gurule 01:40
So today, one of the things that we have conversations around a lot is working out and training, right? This is exercise, fitness, you know, whatever you want to call it. This is obviously a big component of our life. And as you’ll commonly hear me say there’s seasons of life where things go up and down. And you know, it gets crazy, you know, from time to time depending what’s going on. But ultimately, we know and most people know that this is important. And we know that most people are trying to you know to accomplish this. And who this is for is, this is for a lot of people who are doing boot camps and different classes, especially online classes at home, or just you working out on your own, if you’re going to, you know, and this is more directed towards like the typical CrossFit class, right, their program is a lot more dialed in, right, where they’re kind of helping you navigate, hey, during this cycle, you know, we’re going to be building weights and the the rep schemes of the sets and reps of going up and down are obviously a lot more calculated and dialed. not to say that the boot camps and other ones are not, I’m not saying that. But for many of you, you’re working out at home, and it’s kind of like, Hey, I’ve been doing this workout for like the last five to 10 years. And it’s the same thing, it’s the same weight, it’s the same, right? And it could be providing everything that you need. So there’s nothing wrong with that. But one of the questions that we get is like, Well, how do I know like how much weight to use, or how many sets and reps to use? And so excuse me, I’m going to very, very briefly and kind of superficially give some of those recommendations.
Anthony Gurule 03:26
Now. There is a definite art and science to resistance training and weightlifting and everything that we’re talking about here. And if that’s you, and you’re interested in that this is not this is again, more of a superficial level. There’s definitely a ton of resources out there to to get that knowledge and information. But we kind of wanted to help you navigate like this overarching view, if you will.
Anthony Gurule 03:53
So when you’re looking at it, and this is not this is not going into program, or sorry, exercise selection and philosophy. We’re talking about adding weights, so on and so forth. And we’ll probably try to use like, you know, some specifics to just to create a little bit of context. But that being said, what we’re looking at here is how do you how to how do you know when we’re going to what weight to do? Now, If that’s your question, that usually indicates to us that the experience that you have weightlifting is probably a little bit less, and that’s fine. I’m not It’s not meant to be hurtful or anything but having that question indicates that we have not done a lot of lifting or time to know you know, what kind of how to how to manipulate and end that. and we were all there at some point. And finally, I don’t know do I go heavier? Do I not go heavier? What weight do I use?
Anthony Gurule 04:51
We try to start with Well, hey first, first and foremost, do you know how to do the movement? that’s important, right? Because if your know how to do the movement well and appropriately then adding weight’s not gonna be a concern. If you don’t know or you’re unsure, that’s where you would get a consultation, a trainer, whatever that is to determine how to do the movement appropriately so that we can add more load. Because if we’re adding more load, and we don’t know what we’re doing, that could be a recipe for possible injury. But most people start off with which again, for you, if listening to this, most people start off with something like three sets of 10, which is great, it’s a great starting point, really easy to understand and know.
Anthony Gurule 05:33
So what weight would you choose? Well, you know, if this is you’re just kind of coming back into something, obviously, you’re gonna err on the lighter side and just kind of go through the motions, which is fine. If you’ve been doing it for a while. And now you’re kind of at this point, hey, I want to try to add a little bit more. We want to look at tough at 10. Right? What Wait, could you do that feels tough at that 10th Rep? Now, not impossible, tough at 10 might be maybe three, maybe five reps in reserve, meaning after that 10th Rep, You only have a few reps in reserve. That’s a pretty good starting point to start eliciting some adaptation for strength, which is the reason why we’re doing weightlifting, right? So tough at 10 is a is a nice little starting point to determine what to do now you have a framework. Now you kind of have like a baseline. Right? Okay, cool.
Anthony Gurule 06:26
Well, we’ll just use an example. Let’s say we’re doing goblet squats, right? 25 pounds is tough at 10. And that’s, that’s, that’s now you have no you have a set and rep scheme, and you have a weight. And now we can play around with these numbers right? Now, ultimately, too we have to look back at what our goals are. Right? Again, in this situation? If this question is been asked more times than not, most people are saying I want to get a little bit stronger, I want to feel better. And I want to maintain some mobility, I want to tone up maybe a little bit, add a little muscle, lose a little fat, all those types of things right. Now, again, what’s great is if you are asking these questions, and we maybe weren’t doing as much before, anything we do will help you reach those goals. If you have been doing the exact same thing for years. Well, anything we do differently will help you achieve those goals. Because we’re now mixing it up. Right? We’re, we’re forcing the body to change and adapt because we’ve created this novel stimulus that it’s not used to and it will start to change, right. And that’s part of what we’re trying to do is add some things, take some things away, go a little heavier, go a little lighter.
Anthony Gurule 07:38
It’s this constant variable of kind of manipulations that really starts to challenge the body multiple different ways. And that’s the beauty behind it. Right?
Anthony Gurule 07:48
So coming back and trying again, stay as somewhat specific as we can that make things complicated, right? We have a goblet squat, we have three sets of 10. And we got 25 pounds, okay, so we’re going to be running that for, you know, maybe a couple of one to two weeks, a couple times a week, so on and so forth. So now that you’re starting to feel you’re like, Okay, well, 25 pounds, starting to feel a little easier, starting to feel a little bit lighter, wonderful, we can start to take that up a little bit, right, let’s go. If you’re doing dumbbells and go to 27 and a half, you can go to 30 pounds, okay? Now, what most do in this situation, we remain at three sets of 10 and just start adding more weight. Not wrong, but what you’re going to find is you’re going to very quickly cap out, right, because you’re doing the exact same amount of volume with heavier loads. And that’s much harder for your body to adapt and handle. So what we, you know, typically suggest trying as you’re doing this, and it really just depends on the, the, how big of a weight jump, you know, you make. Let’s say for instance, you went from 25 to 35, three sets of 10. With that, what’s quick math on that, right? It’s, it’s a nearly a third, it’s a little bit more than like a third 30, 33% increase, it’s more than a third of an increase. That’s a big jump in weight, and you’re doing the exact same three sets of 10. Now, being that it’s still kind of in a lighter load, if you will, depending on the person, obviously, you might be able to accomplish that fine, but for someone else, that might just be way too much.
Anthony Gurule 09:28
But yet that next jump up if they only had that 25 to 35 upon options, what do you do? Well, you manipulate the sets and reps, right? So we were doing three sets of 10. If 35 If the 10 pound jump is is really really heavy and big. But yet you can do some well, we might say hey, let’s start three sets of three. So we significantly dropped down how many reps you’re doing from 10 to three, which allows you to do the heavier weight right the heavier weight to be able to complete it with proficiency and safety, so on and so forth. So that would be a valid option to allow you to choose a heavier weight, we’re just going to start to manipulate the sets and reps.
Anthony Gurule 10:11
Now, what you could also see… how this could also play out is let’s say for instance, you have like a medium, heavy, and light day, throughout the week. So we’re doing goblet squat three days a week, we have a medium day, a heavy day, and a light day. So you know, your heavy might be 35 pounds, your medium might be 25 pounds. And then your light might be, let’s just say 15 pounds, right.
Anthony Gurule 10:32
So you might be doing like five sets of 10 for the light, three sets of 10 with a medium and three sets of three with the heavy, right, three sets of three reps. So you’ll see how the volume for each one of those obviously changes based on the weight that you’re using. Now, again, all this kind of comes has come back to the goals, but based on the goals that we set, right, get stronger, add some muscle, lose some fat, tone up a little bit, maintain mobility, that would work really well for what that person is trying to accomplish. without a lot of complexity, right. And it allows you to stay consistent. And consistency really is your key when you’re looking back for completing all these things.
Anthony Gurule 11:16
What helps you complete the most amount of work throughout the week, consistently, week after week, month after month, year after year, right? While still mixing it up. Because again, we’re trying to get out of the mode of hey, I’ve been doing, you know the exact same workout where I hit shoulders, back legs, so on and so forth. I you know, I got my weights dialed in, I do three sets, three sets of 10 of everything. And or, you know, honestly, for most people, it’s, I just, I just go until I can’t do anymore, I blast it and then I just cycled through so on and so forth. Nothing wrong with that, you know, different goals, perhaps, but just that’s what we’re trying to say. So now, again, that was kind of that first initial thing to at least get us a starting point of how to add weight and change weights. So the three sets of 10 or tough at tens, a really good place to start. This could be no different. If we’re talking about pressing, if we’re talking about like TRX rows. If we’re talking about deadlifts, lunges, you know, that’s a good good place to start.
Anthony Gurule 12:16
Now, as a side note, when we’re talking about certain levels of strength, right, we’re talking about getting stronger, there’s there’s different elements of strength that I want you to kind of take in consideration, because when you look at like, let’s say, like a bodybuilder, obviously strong. And they’re oftentimes doing these failure sets, you know, high rep, lighter weights, where you’re going to a lot of pomp, and a lot of fatigue, to elicit a certain adaptation for hypertrophy and growth, and also strength. But you can’t do that with heavy weights, right. So the heavier weights, as we were saying, We’re doing three sets of three. So when you’re looking at strength development, which will come with some muscle building and hypertrophy, but a lot of that strength development is from a neural component, that neuro muscular relationship is really being enhanced through that. And from a fatigue standpoint, to elicit being stronger, you have to lift heavier weights. And in doing so you can’t do those three to five sets of 10+, 10 12,15 reps, or whatever it is. you’re more likely going to be staying in, you know, three, maybe five sets with three to no more than really five reps. So a five by five set, that’s still 25 total reps of work. And you’ll be able to do a heavy weight with that. And it really just kind of depends on how its programming, you know, put into play with how much rest. But when oftentimes, when you’re looking at doing like deadlifts, and squats, and these bigger compound movements, where you’re adding a ton of weight, and you’re trying to lift heavier weight, right, you might only be doing no more than 10 total reps.
Anthony Gurule 14:04
So that might be a three by three, which is nine reps, five by two, which is 10 reps, right? Or you could just go 10 sets of one, you see what we’re saying here? But if you’re if you’re doing that, without a heavy enough weight, you’re not going to really most likely be eliciting the adaptation that you’re looking for.
Anthony Gurule 14:23
So again, coming back to the person here listening to this and unsure that’s probably not going to be where you’re at. But notice it did come into play when we were talking about having a light, medium and heavy day. Right? Because again, often times we’re not hitting that kind of edge and we’re seeing that the comfortable weight which is which is completely valid and fine if you’re newer and you’re still trying to just figure out exercise technique and everything like that. But if you’re the person who’s been doing this, and I got, obviously someone in mind here, been doing the exact same workout for 10 years and nothing’s changed, you’ve increased weight, obviously, when we’re when we’re mixing it up here, going heavier, heavier than what you were doing, we’re going to drop those sets and reps to not hurt the body and overstress it so on and so forth.
Anthony Gurule 15:15
So, congratulations, taking this next step of trying to figure out, hey, what do I need to do to get stronger? Well, we know we need to lift some weights. I don’t I don’t, I don’t know what movements, I don’t know how many sets, I don’t know how many reps, I don’t know what weight to choose. So you got to start playing around. Now I will add, getting a trainer, getting a coach, doing a consultation, something that helps you get a starting point. it helps with a lot of the kind of uncertainty and starting off. And that might just save you some time and effort. Not that you have to go with someone that has like a very, very long program. But oftentimes just finding someone who’s like, hey, I need you to help me just kind of get going. That’s a great place to start. And then you can kind of take off from there.
Anthony Gurule 15:59
I hope this was helpful. This is again, the approach that I took years ago, as I was starting to get into weightlifting. I had some people that I was helping out. I was I was following someone, that’s also super beneficial. Have a buddy, a buddy who’s been doing it. But you know, I like exploring and trying to learn things on my own so I’d watch videos on technique, exercise selection, so on and so forth. I practice the movement, film myself, watch those videos side to side, compare and see how you know it’s playing and working out, and then and then practice the movements, see if I’m able to lift more? did I create any injuries or sore spots where it shouldn’t be? And then I would just kind of play with those.
Anthony Gurule 16:37
And then as I started to learn more and more, then I started to change the weights and the weights and the rep schemes based on my goals, based on all the research that’s out there on exercise Science, right. there’s a lot of people put a ton of effort in on how to elicit the best response that you want. But again, if you’re the at home Doer who’s just looking to maintain this this level of health and fitness and get a little stronge,r little tones, a little bit of fat, this is a way to do it, push, pull, hinge, squat, carry. you know, add some light days at some medium days, add some heavy days, get outside walk, drink water. you know, it doesn’t take rocket science here.
Anthony Gurule 17:21
But oftentimes that first hurdle of exercise or sorry, choosing the right weight in the rep scheme can seem very daunting if you have not done a lot of it. So hopefully this helps you get kick started a little bit and at least point you in the right direction to hopefully get some momentum, but do not hesitate to reach out for help it it really, it really saves you a lot of time, money and effort in the long run, just getting a little bit of guidance and direction if you feel like you keep hitting these roadblocks, or speed bumps that are that are significantly slowing you down.
Anthony Gurule 17:52
So happy lifting. Thanks for tuning in guys. Please make sure to like, share, and subscribe if you’re diggin the content. And if you have any special requests for topics to chat about, or any exercises you want us to workshop or break down or go through we’d love to love to hear that so we can make this as applicable to you and the things that you have going on. So till next time, guys, live loud.
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3 Exercises to Loosen Up Your Stiff Mid Back | Live Loud Chiropractic
How to Loosen Up Your Stiff Mid Back
Today we’re going over three thoracic mobility drills that will help you loosen up your stiff mid back. Maybe you sit at a desk a lot, or you’re a parent, holding your baby, nursing, feeding, changing, etc.—they all put you in a rounded back position. These will help you remove the stagnation from your life.
Oftentimes, posture gets demonized, but the lack of movement is the biggest issue. Too much standing, too much sitting, and too much inactivity are all not good.
These mobility drills are specifically tailored for opening up your mid back–the mid scapular region, basically, from the base of your neck to your lower back. So check these out, share them with a friend, because I know these will be super helpful for you.
I’m Dr. Antonio with Live Loud Chiropractic and Coaching, we are based out of Lafayette, Colorado, which is in Boulder County.
PLAY VIDEO ⬇︎
1. The Modified Spinx
The modified sphinx is great because it locks out the lower back so that we can target all of that energy and focus on the mid back. It’s basically a spin-off of the traditional cat-cow. The only difference is that we position ourselves to lock out other areas so that the movement that we’re generating is more tailored to the mid back.
The mid back is one of the major areas that will get tight because of what we do on a consistent basis, whether that’s inactivity, or being stuck in seated positions in our car, our couch, or work. But even standing too much can also be problematic, because when we’re standing, we usually don’t have the correct ergonomic setup and we’re falling forward. Essentially, our back is just in a hyperflex position or a relatively flexed position, and it rarely moved out of that position. So we’re trying to create more extension within that.
The classic cat-cow, as you know, is on your hands and knees quadruped, where you draw yourself up towards the ceiling, then drop your belly and back towards the ground. In this position, we get a lot of flexion in our upper back and not a lot in our lower back. When we go down, we get a lot of extension in our lower back, but not a lot of extension in our mid back.
To do the modified sphinx, sit your butt back towards your heels. Your hands should be anywhere from where they initially were, or back closer to your knees. (When I sit my butt towards my heels, it’s called a lumbar lock. Putting my low back into a little bit of flexion locks it down so that when I do the cat-cow position, I specifically target much more of the mid back.)
I like calling this an undulation. Think of it like a wave or a rope undulating. I want to try to maintain as much movement and fluidity as I can in order to loosen things up. So from here, try going back and forth into extension, flexion, extension, flexion.
What’s also great about this position is that, because I’ve locked the lumbar out, I can go in other directions. So if I’m in extension, I can tip my shoulders side to side to work on lateral flexion. I can also go into forward flexion and shift side to side. And I can also do rotation.
Oftentimes we look at range of motion in these specific planes of motion, but we never combine them. But all of these joints have coupled motion patterns that need to work together.
So we need to be able to go into lateral flexion and rotation, or forward flexion and rotation, or extension, lateral flexion, and rotation. We’ll then be able to carve out and find all of the little sticky points within the joints that oftentimes get overlooked simply because we’re trying to stay in one plane of motion rather than tying them all together.
2. Thread the Needle
Thread the needle is usually done as a quadruped position, where you take one hand behind your neck, then you bring your elbow down and through, and then you bring it up towards the ceiling.
But as we have indicated with other movements, such as the Modified Sphinx, when we’re in a quadruped head position, we get a lot of extra rotation or movement, not only from the lower back but also from the hips, because I can shift hips and move everything with it. We’re not isolating the mid back as much as what we’re trying to indicate and trying to do.
If you’re watching the video, I’m going to show you first from a side view. I like doing this in that Modified Sphinx position, where I sit my butt back to lock out the hips in the lower back so I can’t get as much shifting or extra movement outside of the hips in the lower back.
So from here, I’ll take a hand behind the neck, I’ll dive it down through the other arm, and then I’ll lift it up towards the ceiling. Then push the bottom hand (on the ground) and your elbow away from each other. You will get five to 10 degrees more rotation just by simply being more active in your twisting.
Repeat this motion by coming down and up, and creating a flow of undulations rather than a static holding and trying to force it. If you can get a centimeter or two more each time, you’ll improve your mobility.
Thread the needle can also be done in a wide-leg, standing position, but you’re going to see a lot more rotation from the rest. So if we’re wanting to isolate rotation for the thoracic spine, I find that doing that lumbar lock, or that modified sphinx position helps hold us you can really isolate rotation.
You will see variations in how much you can rotate, whether your back is in flexion or extension. So you simply play with that. Do I want to be more in flexion and rotate? Or do I want to be in more extension and rotate?
Neither one is better or worse, we’re just trying to improve all ranges of motions around all of those so that we get the most out of our mid back or thoracic spine.
3. The Half-Kneeling Wall Rotation
When talking about mobility, it’s really important to be able to isolate the area that you’re trying to make move more, as opposed to having all the energy leak out into other areas. When we do the half-kneeling wall rotation, it helps us lock in the pelvis in the lower back so we get all of the rotation through the thoracic spine, which we’re focusing on.
To start, the knee closest to the wall is up, and the knee further from the wall is down. This will torque and lock my pelvis into place.
In the video, you can see there are two ways we’re going to swim our arms to increase thoracic rotation.
If I start with my palms together pointed forward, I do an open book, to where I’m trying to get my hand away to touch the wall behind me. But don’t force it. Just keep repeating that motion so that you can soften that direction and improve that mobility and range of motion.
When your arms are wide open, I want you to think about lengthening your wingspan. In doing so, you’re actually going to twist your mid back a little bit more to improve that range of motion. So rather than trying to pull your shoulder blades together, I actually want you to spread your fingertips and your wingspan apart.
The other direction is to then turn into the wall. So again, I’m going to start palm the palm, but this time, I’m going to take the arm that’s closest to the wall, do a nice big arc around the wall. I then will be facing the wall. Then I’ll come back to starting position.
Because I’m facing the wall, I can push into it to help me turn a little bit more.
So this is your half-kneeling, thoracic wall rotation. It’s a beautiful exercise for improving the thoracic rotation in your mid back and overall improving the mobility of our thoracic spine for everyone.
Keep up the great work and LIVE LOUD!
