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Protecting Your Body & Mind From Your Personality - Jordan Shallow | Modern Wisdom Podcast 267

Jordan Shallow is a Chiropractor, Strength & Conditioning Coach and Powerlifter. Given that we should hopefully be returning to normality this year, I wanted to ask Jordan about how he balances his desire for improvement with protecting his body and mind from becoming damaged. Expect to learn whether Jordan thinks there is a balanced way to use social media, how we can avoid injury when re entering the world of training in 2021, why being obsessive about balance can counteract an all-or-nothing mentality and much more... Sponsors: Get 50% discount on your FitBook Membership at https://fitbook.co.uk/showcase-your-work/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Follow Jordan on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/the_muscle_doc/ Check out Jordan's Website - https://themuscledoc.com/ Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #fitness #mindset #prehab - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: modernwisdompodcast@gmail.com

Jordan ShallowguestChris Williamsonhost
Jan 9, 20211h 5mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:45

    Intro

    1. JS

      ... 'cause I've gotten here by just pure grunt work. Like, sure, "Oh, how do you do this?" Well, y- if you go on a plane and you travel around the world for three years, and you live out of a suitcase, and you trash every relationship you've ever had, and you just say yes to every opportunity, you'll be able to do this. So I was like, "Yeah, great. Done that." Now, it's like, okay, how do I get to the next level? It's like, well, now you need to slow down. You're like, "I, I don't know what that means." So, it, it is difficult to have the discipline now from like a lifestyle perspective. To overcome this plateau, I need to express the discipline enough to remove myself from that attitude of like, just keep your head down, don't blink, take a bunch of drugs, and then just work until you can't work anymore, then work some more. So, that's, that's something that's frankly taken more wrestling with mentally than anything else I've ever done because of, you're telling me to not do something.

  2. 0:45 – 1:34

    Trying

    1. CW

      I saw something on your Insta that I really thought was interesting. "Have you tried trying?"

    2. JS

      Yes.

    3. CW

      What's that mean?

    4. JS

      Uh, it means, especially where I, I operate very much in an academic space, and there's a large push into optimization, and I think a lot of times what we miss is intentionality, and we just actually miss the, the, the follow through and the execution, and actually just trying. So, a lot of people are just becoming a repository of useless information to, to prove that they're smart on the internet. Um, but that's not why I got into this. I got into it to get stronger, and everything I've learned was just to break a certain plateau. And really at the end of the day, I think what separates people who do things and who do things well is how they actually do things. So, people who try when they do shit tend to, just by a consequence of trying, do shit better.

  3. 1:34 – 4:03

    Insight vs Execution

    1. JS

    2. CW

      That highlights something I've been thinking about a lot, which is the bridging the gap between insight and execution being where almost all of the gains are to be found.

    3. JS

      Yeah, 'cause I mean, you know, I, I work decently close with professional bodybuilders, and you could fill a very large room with things they do poorly or incorrectly. But the one, the one catalyst that seems to set them apart in their sport is that they will just, regardless if, if running through walls is the way to do it, they'll do it more and harder than anyone else. So it's like, it almost creates, you know... Not that the, the intellectual pursuit is, is a moot point, but it's, if at the end of the day, are you trying to be big? Are you trying to be fast? Are you trying to be lean, or are you trying to be smart? 'Cause, you know, rarely do those things co-exist. Not that they can't, and when they can, we can reach something akin to optimization. But, uh, unless you have that, that execution, that voracity in the way you execute, then, then you're really just collecting, collecting, you know, IQ points for no re- I'd rather, I'd rather add two inches to my arm than 10 points to my IQ.

    4. CW

      (laughs) That's spoken like a true powerlifter. Uh, yeah, we have a buddy who's often on the show, Yousef, and he speaks about a period while he was a med student where he said he uselessly indexed information for the ruthless hell of it. And I think that mental masturbation and the sort of cerebral game that a lot of people can play, um, it does lead to inaction. Certainly 2020, it's been the year of people ruminating, right? Uh-

    5. JS

      Yeah, and it can cripple you too, right? Like, it can, it, it, you know, the, the, if the, the negative effects of your own intellect, like falling in love with your own creation, right, I think is a lot of times leaving people to just be this, this giant one-dimensional intellect. And, you know, if, I don't know how deep into that, the, the religious or philosophical psychosocial rabbit hole you wanna go, but like that was one of the, the, the breakdowns of religion in Western society. That was what kind of led to the proclamation of God being dead, was the fact that it, it fell in love with its own creation, right? And I feel a lot of people, albeit maybe not as profound a result of that, but, you know, lead them to that sort of crippling inaction because they do fall in love with their own creation, with, you know, the more they know. It's just like, it's not why I got into this.

  4. 4:03 – 6:26

    Convenience

    1. CW

      Hmm. I wonder whether that's a byproduct of the convenience of the 21st century. Like, no one's making shit with their hands anymore. Like, you know, when I need a, a room in my house decorating, I ring a decorator. I don't go and do it myself, because I can find a Deliveroo, a Michelin star meal while you're watching Netflix documentary and Amazon Prime the TV to your house, you know, like this hyper convenience. I wonder whether that's forcing people to not put skin in the game with things that they previously might have done.

    2. JS

      Yeah, I just think there's, there's a new landscape in which we're competing on now, right? Like, the plumbers, I never picked a plumber based off of Instagram, right? But people are picking coaches and people are picking educators and people are picking, you know, anything to do in the, uh, supplements or products or whatever in the fitness space based off of, you know, the trading of social capital, right? So I really think that there is a, like you kind of said, a removal of that skin in the game, and you don't necessarily have to be competitive at the execution, you just have to be com- competitive in this, in this simulation, right? So you, you check the boxes that, so you write a smart post and you get feedback, positive reinforcement. Like, oh, I picked up three new clients 'cause I used a bunch of big words, but it's like, okay, are you trying to acquire clients or are you trying to retain clients? If you can't actually, you know, follow through on that and you can't execute and you don't know whether or not your principles actually work, then it's like you're constantly gonna be in, from a business standpoint, in this phase of acquisition where that just leads you down creating, down this rabbit hole of creating this repository. And I love the word ruthless. Like that, that repository, that ruthless pursuit of creating this repository of like useless information, right? So it's just, yeah, I, I think social media is large in part to do with that accumulation, that hoarding of information. It's like, uh, you know, I know something you don't know. Essentially it creates like a flat-earther of fitness that's just like everyone is trying to come up with their own shtick just to be different, right? It's, it's, and just to prove that they can survive, and that, and if you wanna survive you gotta train with me sort of thing. So it's, uh, yeah, it, it's an interesting, it's a, it's a very interesting business in, in fitness. It's, uh, exclusive. I don't think real estate succumbs to that same issue. I don't know if high finance, like I don't know if, uh, I don't know how many followers, uh...... you know, Warren Buffett has on Instagram, but I guarantee you there's some fitness chick out there with a promo code that has more.

  5. 6:26 – 9:19

    Competition

    1. CW

      How do you compete then in this marketplace? What we, the- the complaint that we have here is that people win at this game who don't have the virtue to win, that they're all show and no grow, that the results don't actually speak for themselves, it's just that they're fantastic marketers. But if you're a guy out there who is an unbelievable PT or a fantastic plumber or whatever it is, surely you still need to play the game. You gotta do the Instagram thing, use the hashtags, put the good content up with that lovely depth of field effect in the background.

    2. JS

      Look at us go. Uh, uh, yeah, I think it's, um... The nice part about the game is you get to define what winning is. So you get to define your lines in the sand, right? Uh, it's not predetermined for you. There are things that work in various, uh, various (laughs) speeds, I would say, like, yeah, if I wanted to sell my soul to the devil, I would know exactly how I would do it, right? There'd be, you know, uh, some sort of diet that would shred me down to 6%. There'd be a bunch of pictures taken with me without my shirt on, and then the whole depth of field thing and all that. But, you know, I don't... Following is, I think, how people th- think the game is won, right? Like building followings or subscribers or downloads or whatever. But to me that's, you know, it's, it's a business, like it's won and lo- it's won and lost at the bottom line. So, I don't know people who have smaller followings that convert well, that sell great products and retain great. But, you know, they don't have a swipe up on their Instagram account, but the way I measure winning in dollars and cents is like, they got some digits in the bank account that they've won, right? So I think it's, it is understanding that, look, if you are trying to utilize social media f- from a business gain, understand what winning in business really means, right? Because it's not the be all end all metric and an indicator to which you are going to earn money, right? So I think a lot of people get caught chasing the wrong things, and then if they do acquire a massive following by, you know, whatever means necessary, they're in a position where likely they're not, they're not, um, they're not really apt to monetize, and then they're left scrambling to try and build systems. It's like, if you can... A following will come if you put out value, and you will be able to work more efficiently if your success, if you define winning by sort of that bottom line. Um, so it's something that, you know, you get a little serotonin dump every now and then when you get a new follower or like or whatever. But, you know, if you can start to get those serotonin dumps when you get deposits into your bank account, I think that should be more of your focus, and if you geared your decisions more off of that. Uh, and obviously, like, you have to have a moral guideline which, like, you don't cross certain lines. But I think if that's, you know, being a consumer or creator, if you're on the creative side of social media, I think starting from a business standpoint will actually allow you to define those ethical and moral lines a little, um, a little bit more clearly, because you won't have to make desperate moves based purely off of just acquiring

  6. 9:19 – 12:27

    People see through it

    1. JS

      that bottom line.

    2. CW

      I think people see through it as well. You can... We all know that person on Instagram who will do anything for another video to bang. And even if they're winning at the game of Instagram, they're being laughed at by all of the people who might even watch the video. There's like a t- (laughs) I'm sure you'll have them as well. I, I've done quite efficiently this year at removing the slow motion car crash accounts from my account that I was obsessed with watching, because there's something so compelling about watching someone just wade through hypocrisy day after day after day. But you don't know if the success that that person has is because everybody else is doing the same thing. "I can't believe that this person is just living such a, like, vapid, like, completely shallow life." Um, but from the outside, it might look like they're winning.

    3. JS

      And I think the real concern there is not only at a certain point do, you know, other people in the industry start to see through it, and to a certain degree, that'll bleed into the general, the general public or the consumer. But my biggest concern in being around this for however many years I've been around this for, is when you start to see through it, where you as a perpetrator of this dissonant character on the internet versus real life, I've seen people lo- literally lose their minds, like hospitalized, anxiety attacks, panic attacks, 'cause they're, they're, they're dissonant characters, right? There is the simulation online, there's the avatar of themself, and then there's the person on, on, like, to which they exist on the other 22 hours a day where they're not on their phone, or 20, or 20 or 18 or 16 or two hours they're not on their phone, depending on who it is. And it's like, that's the biggest concern to me, is like, yeah, it's one thing for other people to see through it, but it'll, it'll always get to a point where doing it for the 'Gram is your life and livelihood. And if there's a dissonance between who you are on the internet and who you are in real life, the more that wedge begins to divide, the more trouble you're actually going to be in. So that for me, like I was lucky enough in a certain sense to be exposed to people who li- lived that dissonance, and lived is a, is a word I use kind of loosely in that case, 'cause it really was kind of driving a wedge through their psyche, because they do have these dual personalities. Like people who may be a little bit more introverted in the way they would operate in the day-to-day that the second the story was on, they were like, "Yeah, I'm gonna swipe up," and then the next thing you know, they go reclusive, and it's every time they go reclusive, they feel the need to go more extravagant when the record button is on, and that spirals them back to this refractory further inclusivity, and then all of a sudden they're just, you know, sch- schizophrenic, bipolar, person's multiple or split personality disorder, and it's... Social media is, I think, large to blame. The, the ro- how we reward people who do have these car crash accounts with keeping them on the needle of the likes and the follows and the subscribes and the shares. That only rewards that behavior and further creates the distance between the avatar that exists on the internet and the person that exists in real life, until some point that bend just breaks.

  7. 12:27 – 14:14

    How to avoid it

    1. CW

      How do you avoid tumbling into that hole yourself?

    2. JS

      Never post anything that isn't true in real life.

    3. CW

      What's that mean?

    4. JS

      Um, if every, like, don't do anything just for Instagram. Like, don't... Everything from, like, I'm not gonna go off program to hit a PR on a lift for Instagram, 'cause that's how it starts, right? Like, whether that's friendships, whether that's relationships. I know couples that only post as a means of saying sorry for some sort of argument that existed in real life. I know, a buddy of mine, and I'm not gonna name his name, but every time he posts a picture of him and his girl, I know he's sleeping on the fucking couch.

    5. CW

      (laughs)

    6. JS

      100%. 1000%. Like, I know, like, that is... the relationship exists on social media, and I know every time that card gets played, it's like, "Oh, shit." Again, I'm not gonna name names, but buddy, buddy posted a picture of him and his girl. Everyone's like, "Oh, it's adorable." It's like, "Oh man, I got a... Hey, bud, you need a place to s- you need a place to stay tonight?" So it's like, whatever the situation is, it just has to be, it has to be a transparency. And I'm not saying, like, go on there, you know, and this is one thing I can't stand. Like, you know, don't... We all got problems, right? Don't use... Like, talking about psychological problems on social media is like talking about your drinking problem at the bar. It's like, uh, you're kinda missing the point here. This is the exact reason. So it's like, there has to be a certain level of transparency, but also a certain level of privacy. There needs to be things you do for yourself that aren't on social media that... and, but there are lines that you draw that, okay, now this is where my private life ends. It's still a continuation of me, and this is what I can put on the internet, right? So I think there, there has to be kind of a two-way street of like, okay, I don't wanna create dissonance by doing things specifically for the internet, but I also don't wanna have the internet be a full-on voyeuristic view of me as an entire person.

  8. 14:14 – 21:59

    The psychological issues

    1. JS

    2. CW

      That makes sense. I, I push back a little bit, I think, about the, the psychological issues. If you're doing it for the reason that I know that this is gonna get sympathy likes, then yeah, certainly not. On the flip side of that, I do think that it's important for people who are in positions that have large followings to show that they're not as bulletproof as their Instagram may lead people to believe. It is, by its very essence, a, a highlight reel of everybody's lives, and I think, yeah, you can weaponize polar opposite of that and use it for a nefarious reason, which is, I know if I post me with a tear running down my face or a really long caption that talks about how I was suicidal last night, like that, that may be too far. But certainly, reflectively, talking about having a bad year, coming up against issues, like, that nuance I think is really, really important. It's something that I enjoy doing myself, and it's a competitive advantage 'cause I'm prepared to look at the ugly bits of my life and then talk about them, mostly on the show rather than in an Instagram caption. But I do think it's important.

    3. JS

      And that's, and that's the caveat, right? Like, I think talk about them. The medium is the message, right? Like, I'll go... I mean, I have hour-long podcasts that, like, jeez, I... And it is because it is a conversation, like from ex-wives to ex-girlfriends. Like, I've gone on my friends' podcasts, and my, my podcast is whatever. But, like, I have friends who have podcasts that are m- hundreds of thousands and millions of downloads a year. And, like, I've discussed... 'Cause they're all my friends and what... It's on the internet, whatever, and so I- I definitely deg- like, agree to a certain extent that, you know, there i- there is that, that unfiltered, unpolished look. We all got problems. I, you know, I am someone who's on the other side, or creator on Instagram or whatever, but I don't think Instagram is the place, 'cause Instagram is not a place for dialogue and conversation, right? So, like, I've, I've gone candid and talked about things, and I've received text messages on the back end. But it's things that I would say to anyone's face, but on podcast. And that's what I like podcasts, you know, the creating this, this repository of conversation, 'cause there is... it is dialogue. 'Cause we couldn't... You know how many posts we would have to, have to go- (laughs) ... back and forth on, just having this conversation?

    4. CW

      (laughing) It's an entire year for the... Yeah.

    5. JS

      Right? I'd tag you, like, "Oh, I don't, I don't think people should talk about..." Whatever. Be like, "Well, well, I was talking about podcasts," right? So I think... Exactly. You know, that would be a great YouTube series. We just go back and forth at each other and just have some YouTube constructed beef.

    6. CW

      I've seen, I've seen some really good-

    7. JS

      Happy days.

    8. CW

      ... stuff from, uh, Rationality Rules, guy called Stephen Woodford over here. He's a YouTuber, philosophy YouTuber, and him and a Christian philosopher went back and forth about a particular argument for the existence of God. And they did like a debate would be, but they uploaded the opening statement from one, then the opening statement from the other, then the first rebuttal, then the second rebuttal, and they just made it into a little series, and it was on each other's channel. And it actually ended up being... I mean, uh, like, philosophy of religion's not something that I would spend all day watching, but the concept I thought was, was relatively interesting.

    9. JS

      Yeah, but see, there's... To me, it's... if we're... Especially in a debate setting, it has to be instantaneous, right? 'Cause I don't wanna, I wanna... I- I can't... Like, my hands are up here. Everything I'm talking about, I'm pulling from my own mem- like, my own working memory.

    10. CW

      Yeah.

    11. JS

      So it's an interesting platform, but it's like, to me, this... there's nothing realer than this. There's nothing we've evolved more, like, more in sync with than this interaction. So any latency creates a level of dis- uh, disingenuousness or, or a lack of congruency, like, a lack of truth to it. So for me, like, you gotta be able to bring it in this setting. You gotta be able to, like, go mano a mano and have this conversation. Like, "Well, I disagree." Oh, okay. Well, Instagram versus social... or Instagram versus podcast. Great. Sorted, right?

    12. CW

      Yeah.

    13. JS

      Where it's like-

    14. CW

      It's the same, I suppose, as sparring in the cage or throwing combinations on the bag next to each other.

    15. JS

      Exactly. Yeah. And, and I've never once paid for a pay-per-view of someone just hitting the speed bag.

    16. CW

      That's a good point. Yeah, man, uh, uh, one thing I was thinking earlier on, there's this example. I think it's a analog to the Malthusian trap, which is where you get population overgrowth. And it was me thinking about people that perhaps play the game on social media to an extreme being, uh, out-competing those who don't.And that's, uh... What have you done? Have you dropped something?

    17. JS

      Uh, I'm looking for the charger for my computer, but do continue.

    18. CW

      (laughs)

    19. JS

      All these cords-

    20. CW

      Technological-

    21. JS

      ... and we've got no charger.

    22. CW

      ... nightmare today. Uh, yeah. So-

    23. JS

      I'm completely ...

    24. NA

      Whoa.

    25. CW

      ... you can imagine this experiment where you've got a ton of rats living on an island, let's say there's a thousand of them. Over time, these rats develop culture and politics and art and dance, and all of this beautiful stuff. Music. And what the rats find out is that as the population approaches, uh, h- pretty much the, um, (smacks lips) uh, top-end capacity, it starts to level out because there's less and less resources. You could see this as higher competition within a market for clients or for likes or for content or for eyes. As it approaches that, some of the rats actually realize, "Hang on, if I don't do that dance and art and music bullshit, I can spend more time foraging for food and trying to reproduce." So the rats who do do the stuff, the more virtuous stuff, that adds flavor and content to the world, actually get out-competed by the ones who just go for the lowest common denominator. And what you see over time is that all of the rats that do music and politics and art and all that stuff, they all get out-competed until the entire system drops down to a more shallow state. And that's, I think, what we're perhaps seeing with social media, that you have people who are able to compete by playing the game, (snorts) and the out-competing of the people who are potentially doing something more virtuous because it doesn't resonate so much on the channel, actually leads to an evolution of less and less of that content.

    26. JS

      Yeah, I think there's two ways to look at it, right? Like, 'cause in the, in that rat model, we're looking at a very definitive finite resource, where I think in... There's this... I, I see that in operation, I see that in action in the social media sphere based around like, you know, more in the fitness space. But I think that's a close-minded view to look, 'cause I don't think we're tapping into finite resources. I think we're-

    27. CW

      Well, it's not a zero-sum game on social media, but people treat it like it is.

    28. JS

      Yeah, yeah. And I think... And that's the biggest thing, is realizing that look, like, you know, in our industry, we touch a very small part of the overall real world, and s- we're so disconnected with that real world that we don't realize how many people don't give a shit about the little, p- like, cra- I could... You know, uh, I'll go, go to places with people that, in the bodybuilding community have millions of followers, and you take them to a grocery store and no one gives a fuck. And then you realize, there's way more people that don't give a fuck than people that give a fuck. So it's like, yeah, that, that zero-sum game, it's like... You know, it, it can be a positive sum game in the sense that, you know, those creatives shouldn't feel the pressure of dealing in a, in an, in an ecosystem of finite resources, 'cause there are so many resources, right? So I think there's a certain level of attrition, and there's a certain level of patience for those c- creatives to be, you know, to s- that they require of them to stick to their guns to create an audience, and I think, coming back to our earlier conversation, like I think if they saw the business sense first, they could survive without going down and sort of selling out and, and, and just becoming these very industrious, play-the-game sort of things. And I'm thinking people will resort to that because, at the end of the day, the bottom line is, is infringed upon, and then that is going to lead them to create these decisions out of desperation.

  9. 21:59 – 24:27

    Preventing injuries

    1. JS

    2. CW

      In the middle of winter at the moment, moving onto your proper, proper wheelhouse, which is stopping people from getting injured or fixing them if they are injured, what would you prescribe to someone this year who you think is looking to avoid injuries for 2021? What are the biggest mistakes that you see people making that cause injuries to occur?

    3. JS

      Uh, a lot of them, a lot of the mistakes are, I think, are being based off of, um, just reintroduction to training coming out of lockdowns. So, in cases where people have gone from, you know, the ever-illustrious home workout to, uh, you know, back into a gym setting, there's a certain level, like, of understanding that we have around training, almost intuitively when it comes to overloading. Like, if I went for an off-program PR or something of the like, and succumb to an injury, like, a lot of people would look at that and be like, "Well, yeah, no shit." Right? "Obviously, you did." But people don't see severely under-loading their exercise as something that could potentially lead to injury. So, I think one of the best things you could do is create a proper program in reintroducing yourself into exercise. So, I think just with the state of the world, and like I know with the UK, the fluctuations of lockdowns and no more lockdowns, and, (laughs) and all of that stuff, and very similar here in Canada, I think there's a certain eagerness to like really jump back into the fire, um, once the gyms are open, and there's a certain like, you know, um, like making up for lost time that kind of overwhelms people decis- people's decision-making. But I think having a plan and sticking with that plan, knowing that that time off has not... It's not the major deload that you needed. You haven't been training that hard your whole life that you needed three months off the gym and you're just gonna super compensate and just be like this. It's like, no, you're likely in a, in a state of, you know, phys- I don't wanna say fragility, 'cause I think that's, that's overstepping, but th- there should be a certain level of trepidation around how it is you reintroduce programming into, um, i- int- into your exercise and getting back into the gym for 2021, right? There's, 'cause there's this heightened... Hopefully we're all in places that are starting to open back up again, um, and, you know, paired with that, the usual enthusiasm around exercise that comes with the new year and resolutions and all that. But I would, I would put pen to paper, and I would be, uh, I don't want to say conservative, but cognizant when it comes to your exercise programming, uh, coming into the new year.

  10. 24:27 – 25:09

    Exercise programming

    1. JS

    2. CW

      I've always said the number one piece of advice to anybody pivoting from bro split bodybuilding into CrossFit, which was what I did, was to never go above an eight out of ten for the first three months in terms of effort. And it was just that top two 20%, uh-... was where all of the injuries could occur. That was where you were going to slip a disc, that was where you were going to overextend your elbow, or that was where you were going to fucking give yourself rhabdo because you thought it was fun. And, um, that... Dialing it back makes a lot of sense. What else? Are there some movement patterns that you think people need to be particularly aware of? Some common, uh, common sort of lineages that you see when people get back into training?

  11. 25:09 – 30:44

    Two depths of resolution

    1. CW

    2. JS

      Yeah, I mean, I always... like, there's, there's two depths of resolution that I usually look at the body at. Depending on who I'm looking at, we kind of... we can, uh, utilize one or two of these systems. And oftentimes, they're kinda superimposed. But I look at... for most people most of the time, we look at shoulder, hip and spine, right? Like, a- and my biggest thing is, you know, what is our access to full range of motion? Uh, so mobility being more an active pursuit rather than flexibility being passive, and are we loading within those limitations, right? Like, if I can't put my arm over my head without weights in my hands, probably shouldn't have my arm over my head w- with weights in my hands. I think that's a, a pretty sound principle. Same thing with, like, you know, if I can't squat ass-to-grass with no weight on my back, probably shouldn't be getting there by means of a barbell and a bunch of plates. Uh, and then at the spine, it's a little bit different. Like, can I resist force in all three planes? So, I, I kinda look at range of motion first, most primarily in the shoulder, 'cause we have the greatest potential for range of motion at the shoulder, right? Like, I can't walk in like Goldmember and fucking put my right foot next to my ear, right? My hip's just not that mobile, right? So with the shoulder, I'm really focused on range of motion, and then stability at the end range of motion, then loading strength. With the hips, range of motion could be a limiting factor, but oftentimes, we just wanna get right into stability. Can we, can we... can you do a walking lunge? If you can't... like, when we walk around all day, and like if we look at, like, our gait cycle. So our gait cycle is broken down into phases. One, one of the phases is called stance phase. Stance phase is the point in which when we're walking that we're on one leg, right? And, and walking is, you know, our... other than breathing, is our most evolved adaptation that we've sort of learned to do, right? You can't walk very well, you know, you're probably not going to be able to pass on your genes historically, right? That's not the case in, in, i- in today's world, but there was a time where that was the case. So if we look at, if we look at walking for the hips, it's like, all right, can you do, like, a walking lunge? If you can't spend some time in exaggerated phases of gait cycle, it's like, well, maybe a barbell back squat's probably not in your future, right? So picking out, like, exercises that I like to c- like, I've coined like gatekeeper drills. So there's a handful of exercises that I think are, like, mobility and stability prerequisites to loading strength. It shows proof of concept that you have adequate range of motion to get into these certain positions and have the stability or the ability to resist force at the end of these ranges of motion, which are structured l- limits our ability to stabilize our joints and then give... calls upon our muscles to do so. So, I, I mean, I'm always... I, I'm a huge advocate of any gait cycle movement, right? So, you know, start with something like a walking lunge, start with something like a single-leg RDL, start with something like a Bulgarian split squat or a rear-foot-elevated split squat, or some sort of, um, some sort of derivation of front foot or rear-foot elevated. Something that looks like how our hips function as we sort of walk around. And then the upper body, it's w- you know, trying to improve your range of motion so you can get... you know, and without getting too technical, I wanna see full flexion external rotation of the glenohumeral joint with a neutral ribcage. And in the lower body, I wanna be able to see these unilateral gait cycle patterns get us into a position of extension and internal rotation of the hip with a neutral pelvis. And then at the core, being able to-

    3. CW

      What's the... what would you... what would the exercise be for overhead? Or for shoulder?

    4. JS

      Uh, so I like... so it depends on where you're at. In a very remedial sense and testing stability through the overhead, a kettlebell bottom underpress, I think, is one of my favorite. 'Cause a lot of times, we look at the rotator cuff and we think about, you know, creating this mass amount of rotation against resistance. But we're never really doing that when we're training, right? I'm not coming in and doing a dumbbell press and flapping my wings. The rotator cuff kinda acts like, like, like, uh, like the tracks on a Smith machine. Um, the more output we can have to allow your prime movers, I don't necessarily like the word but let's just call it prime movers for now, to exert force, right? So if we don't have that stability, we're not going to be able to really challenge our muscles to their, their potential. So, something like a kettlebell bottom under. But down the line, it kinda comes into, like, if I'm doing pull-ups, if I'm doing dips, these are really good integrated, uh, rotator cuff exercises that train our shoulder through full flexion and full extension, and even into hyperextension with the dips. Uh, but in early stages, if we have someone who might have compromised shoulders, that might be a good place to start, just with a kettlebell bottom underpress, just because it's, it's very attenuated load, you don't need to default to someone's body weight, and it just is going to highlight any limitations in range of motion at the shoulder. Like, if you don't have that ability to stay flexed and externally rotated in the shoulder with a neutral ribcage, and you start to internally rotate, that kettlebell's gonna fall right through your hand, right? So those are exercises. So lower body, again, just a recap. Start with gait cycle movements. Stationary lunge, walking lunge, single-leg RDL, hip airplane. Really try and, you know, elicit a stimulus of instability through the lower body. Can you minimize your base of support and deviate your center of mass in a way that yours... the, the muscles of stability around these joints of the shoulder and the hip have to now resist force? So if you have proof of concept that these muscles can resist force, you've licensed your ability to then strengthen and exert force. Right? So range of motion mobility, or variability, however you wanna look at it. Stability or capacity. Do you have the capacity to hold these positions? And then that'll license you the ability to then exert strength or power. So mobility, stability, strength. Variability, capacity, power. Those are kind of like a... a t- it's like... it's a timing issue. It's, it's a order of operations, if you will, of how it is you can tier movements in a way that complement the acquisition of skill of the next progression of movement.

  12. 30:44 – 41:52

    The lumbar spine

    1. CW

      ... and then the spine.

    2. JS

      Yeah. So the spine, more specifically the lumbar spine. So the lumbar spine is where we seem to have the greatest amount of issues, 'cause we have the gr- least amount of structural stability, right? So the lumbar spine, you want... is basically defined by, uh, you know, the, the five vertebra beneath the thoracic spine. The thoracic spine has this, you know, unique, uh, structure of the ribcage that gives it a lot of stability. That's why we don't see... W- there's a lot of reasons why we don't see thoracic spine disc herniations as often. But one of the major reasons is we have this... think of, like, stepping on a pop can, right? Like if I stepped on a pop can that was fully sealed, I would have, you know, circumferential distribution of force that would allow me at, whatever, 120 kilos to stand on a sealed pop can and it not break, right? But the second there's a dent in that pop can, then it flattens, right? So if I'm looking at, if I'm looking at the whole torso from, like, let's say the neck down to the, the tailbone or the sacrum or the pelvis, and I'm seeing, you know, a, a lumbar spine that doesn't have that structural stability and we don't have an ability to resist force internally using some of... whether it's the, you know, the core four, internal obliques, external obliques, transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis, whether it's the lats, whether it's the glutes or more internally, whether it's the, you know, multifidus or the rotatores or the erectors, deeper spinal muscles. If we don't have that lumbar spine segment as stable internally with our muscles as our thoracic spine segment is stabilized externally, let's say with our ribs, then that's the dent in the pop can, right? That's the dent in the pop can that if I'm gonna apply a load to that, that's where things are going to converge, right? That's where those forces are gonna converge and, and potentially causes some issues. So being able to resist force through all three planes with the core. So if I think about, you know, a really common practice is, is the McGill big three, right? So the, the side plank, the curl-up and the bird dog. Now this is a good starting point for someone who is detrained, someone who has a, of, uh, a young training age, little experience in the gym, little experience with athletics. Um, but it's not the be all, end all, right? Like for a guy like you, a guy like me, you know, a b- a bird dog compared to a 300 kilo deadlift, a bird dog should not give you licensing, like, you know, moral or, or, or physical licensing to be able to deadlift 300 kilos, right? Like, what am I proving that my spine can resist force when I'm crawling around on all fours and I'm trying to transfer that application to when I'm standing upright with, you know, a ton of weight in my hands. So the idea I think is sound, the core essence of that big three model is sound, because if we think about these exercises, side plank is an anti-lateral flexion, right? Or you could look at that as like an X-axis through our body. Uh, bird dog is, it's a few things, but I think at its essence compared to the other ones, it's an anti-rotation drill, right? Opposite shoulder, opposite hip. And then if we look at the curl-up, it's sort of this anti-flexion extension, right? So we kind of have resistance of force through all three planes. The problem is those need to scale, right? So how is it that we can use these principles of instability, deviation of center of mass, or limitation of base support, and apply them across these three exercises to scale the intent and therefore the adaptation that we're going to derive from these exercises, right? So think of like, uh, the... (sighs) let's go with the curl-up. So a curl-up would maybe go to a plank from the knees, to a plank at the feet, to maybe like a- an ab wheel or reverse GHR setup or a body saw, right? And all the way up to a certain degree to, you know, a, a Romanian deadlift, where now we're trying to resist force through flexion-extension of our spine, right? And then from a bird dog perspective, it's like a anti-rotation. I would probably start, if I was e- starting with someone from ground zero, I'd probably start with something like a dead bug. Dead bug is gonna be a much more remedial anti-rotation drill 'cause your spine's supported by the floor. So I would go dead bug, bird dog, you know, maybe some sort of bear crawl, maybe some sort of s- uh, supported single-leg RDL, uh, and then start to scale that all the way up to like maybe a single-arm dumbbell row. Right? And that, that can create a massive runway of progression through anti-rotation of the trunk. Um, and then finally lateral flexion, right? Like side plank, side plank from the knees and then maybe Copenhagen plank and then unilateral carries or something like that. So through the spine it's about being able to identify core work specific to the adaptation we're attempting to yield and making sure we're not redundant in planes of motion that we're resisting force through, right? So a lot of people will just do core arbitrarily and they end up, they end up having some holes, right? They, they do maybe two or three exercises for anti-flexion-extension, and then maybe nothing for anti-rotation, right? And then when they incorporate, you know, maybe back squats or deadlift, their body's gonna default through the path of least resistance that they've set forth by the muscles that have been trained adequately to support their trunk. And they're always going to sort of have this weak link consequence of like, look, if you haven't trained anti-rotation when you're loading that core axially with a deadlift or a squat, your body's gonna find that path of least resistance. And the ex- it is now going to be exposed to the isolated instability through that particular range that we didn't pay attention to. So when we look at the core, it's really easy to index whether or not our core work is anti-lateral flexion, anti-rotation, or anti-flexion-extension. And not that any of these exercises are going to be mutually exclusive to these categories, rather suggesting small biases towards each particular plane of movement in which we're attempting to resist. So on the flip side of it, what we're trying to do is making sure that w- a- once we index these exercises, making sure in kind of this plate spinning approach, we're m- we're keeping all the balls in the air, we're keeping all the plates spinning, right? So if I have someone who's really struggling with a bird dog, but they're rocking Copenhagen planks and they're rocking, you know, uh, uh, reverse GHR sit-ups, they've shown a m- a g- a, a great capacity and a great stability through anti-flexion-extension or anti-lateral flexion.... yet this bird dog is still stifling them, I'm worried about how it is their body's gonna organize the rib cage and pelvis when we put them through an axial load, because their deficiency is going to be in their ability to resist force through rotation. And so I want to make sure I'm constantly keeping an eye on, you know, where are we at this index? Are we each making sure, a- are we training at the same level of complexity, the same level of instability across all three layers of the trunk? And how can I progress this further and further and further? And that's really kind of the goal, is you wanna, at a certain point, you want to make corrective exercise merely the pursuit of exercising correctly, right? So I don't, you know, we see these things in isolation. You know, I've, the, the bird dog as a deadlift warmup. It's like, look, if you needed bird dog before you deadlift, you either shouldn't be doing a bird dog or shouldn't be deadlifting. I think it's quite simple, right? Like, if you are at the point which you're loading a barbell in front of your body, which is relatively inefficient from a, a center of mass and base support standpoint, you better make sure that the dogs are barking, right? And if you really need to wake up the muscles required, uh, to stabilize your spine with a remedial body weight quadruped offset shoulder flexion hip extension, probably shouldn't be on the barbell next. And if you are confident on the barbell, you're, you're probably wasting your fucking time doing little bird dogs before you deadlift. Um, so the core does become, uh, I don't wanna say a bit of a rabbit hole, but everything converges at that, that centerpiece of our body. So stability at the spine is, is in a lar- a large way a linchpin to most people's progression. Whether it's peripheral at the shoulder or the hip, or whether it's even local to, like, compound movements, that's usually where we see the breakdown. And the breakdown is gonna happen at the link that we're not paying attention to. So being able to index this way, anti-rotation, anti-lateral flexion, anti-flexion extension, and being able to make sure we're constantly progressing using exercise selection, right? And I feel so many times we progress arbitrarily through, you know, distance or we, we progress arbitrarily through load, being the most common one, right? Trying to build more strength. It's like, you know, I could do (sighs) let's say, like, a Superman or s- I don't know why you would, yet people still do, and I could put someone's, a plate on someone's back and be like, "Now it's a weighted Superman." It's like, couldn't we just come up with another exercise? Like, maybe we could put a co- where load wouldn't matter. You know what would be a good, like, spinal extension exercise under load? A good morning. A good morning is an exercise we could add weight to, and that expression of strength in adding resistance to that movement is gonna be beneficial, right? Where, r- people get stuck in the, in the exercise rather than they, rather than marrying themselves to the intent of the exercise. Like, look, you're trying to improve whatever, global extension or erectors or whatever, it's like, yeah, okay, if we can check off the box of the Superman drill, we have licensed our ability, physically licensed our ability to move on to a more complex way to organize spinal extension or anti-flexion of the thoracic spine. So then using exercise progression as the most expedient means in which to create adaptation I think is something that's widely overlooked.

    3. CW

      Bulletproofing the body through those areas I think would... If you, if you could avoid injuries in the shoulder, hip, and spine, what percent of injuries that you come up against do you reckon that would remove?

    4. JS

      Um, it's tough, right? 'Cause people, it depends on the population you're gonna work with. As a heuristic for most people most of the time, uh, I would say upwards of 80, 90%. And I use those numbers because there are 10% of people in my experience that are going to bend it until it breaks. They're, they're people who are not in there exercising muscles, that they're in there exercising demons. And those people... And that's why I sort of talked about two models, one of a higher resolution. That's where the, the biomechanical model, uh, to me gets a little bit more in depth, uh, and that's when we start to encompass biomechanics around, around the rib cage and the pelvis. So if you, if you're dealing with gen pop, weekend warriors, essentially if, if someone's not paying their way and putting food on their table with exercise to a certain level, like if they're not, if there's not money in a bank account for them exercising or as, you know, as sport endeavor on the backend of exercising, shoulder, hip, and spine is a very, uh, expedient heuristic in which to look at human movement for the general population. That ability to index and scale based off of intent, movements of stability at the ro- from, you know, bottom underpress to dip, most people wouldn't see a correlation between bottom underpress and dip 'cause they don't understand the function of the rotator cuff. Um, you know, from s- uh, stationary lunge to single-leg RDL to be stance RDL, like most people wouldn't link those exercises together necessarily, but if you understand the intent of them, you would, right? S- from bear crawl to, you know, farmer's carry, some people might not categorize them together, but if you have someone who's, you know, making seven figures a year, then we might go a resolution higher and look at rib cage and pelvis. But if your, you know, if your athletes aren't on ESPN every night, that shoulder, hip, and spine model is a really good heuristic that allows us to see the body in a, in a, in a requisite resolution that will more than exceed the demands of the cli- uh, the tasks your clients

  13. 41:52 – 45:08

    Assessing

    1. JS

      need to perform.

    2. CW

      And would you say that looking after those areas with some of or variants of the exercises that you've given there, is that the foundation upon which everything else is built? Or are there some other parts to the bulletproof your body for 2021 story that we need to add?

    3. JS

      I mean, a lot of it comes down to assessment so you can make better choices of where the starting points are, right? 'Cause some people, their, their rotator cuff intervention is going to be dips right away, right? Some people it's going to be, you know, some sort of range of motion drill. Like, if you don't have the mobility, a kettlebell bottom underpress is gonna be useless, right? So it's, it's, it's assessing, and I think that's what a lot of systems miss, is about creating effective exclusion criteria to implement expedient programming for which then you can coach from, right? 'Cause if I just start everyone off and I have a system, "Oh, here's my system, everyone has to bird dog," it's like, well, fuck, man, I've been a chiropractor, personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach for 15 years. Fuck I need to bird dog for?... so you need to filter out a way that I, like, oh, shit, okay, you don't need to bird dog, you need to do a single-arm dumbbell row with 100 kilos. That's your, that's, you know, your anti-rotation through your trunk. This is how you set it up to create rotation. So I think to start off, there'd be two things that encapsulate maybe that shoulder, hip, and spine model. One, on the front end, would be a good intake form that allows you to write effective programming, and then on the back end is the effective programming. Right, so these exercises are really kind of real-time data to give us information as what our capacity is to resist force in these unstable positions. But preceding that should be a filtration process that allows us to pick on this scale of exercises what adaptation we think this client can actually, uh, operate at, what, what level of intent this client can actually operate at to make an adaptation. Right? Like, I don't wanna take someone who's 70 and have them do single-arm dumbbell rows out of the gate, right? Maybe I start that person off with a bird dog. That's their anti-ro- ... And, you know, I can only extrapolate their baseline from some sort of assessment, right? Whether it's a, a written, um, written history or some sort of dialogue I've had with a client. So on the front end of, like, really making a full, um, like a full working model out of this, you would wanna create a detailed movement history, and then you, on the back end of that is you would wanna create an expedient exercise program. Right? So it's th- and the idea of bulletproofing, uh, again, not my favorite word 'cause I, I'm sure, you know, as, as good of a bottom under presser as I am, uh, you know, a good Glock 17 would really do my shoulder in. Um, so, but I think, you know, you can't out corrective exercise bad exercise. Right? So at a certain degree, we need to pay equal attention to the exercises we are performing, sure, but how we're performing these exercises, when we're performing these exercises. So, no piece is more important than the other. Um, but I think a lot of times, we overlook this, this stability piece. We look, we overlook this, this physical prerequisite model to, like, physically license our ability to perform these, these more advanced exercises. So I would say, you know, create a good detail assessment, whether it's a physical assessment, whether it's a historical assessment. I would, I would argue for both being important. Go through then, you know, your ability to express capacity or stability in these end ranges of shoulder, hip, and spine, and then go from there into programming and proper execution.

  14. 45:08 – 47:32

    SelfRegulate

    1. JS

    2. CW

      What about if someone doesn't have access to a chiropractor, and they just gotta self-regulate with this stuff?

    3. JS

      Yeah, great. I mean, probably better off that way, honestly, the way most chiropractors work, if I'm being ... I can, I can, I can talk shit because I am one, um, and I know just the standard's not great. Um, yeah, it's, you know, everything is on the internet, uh, and it's to what degree it's expedient for you or cost-effective for you to go and find it. Um, 'cause there are, you know, obviously there's, there is tangible subdivisions of that heuristic that you look at the shoulder through a particular lens, you look at the hip through a particular lens. There's a way to create your own internal system of checks and balances. Um, it's just a matter of how much you wanna put into it, right? And that's why most people go pay a chiropractor, um, because they're hoping, hoping being the operative word, um, that on the other end of it, they're going to have a, uh, you know, some sort of home exercise, some sort of action plan. That's often not the case. And if it is, it's usually s- little stick figure drawings of remedial exercises that they've printed off since grad school and they've been photocopying 100 times a month and, uh, until you get your hands on one. So, it is difficult to kind of sift through the noise to find signal, um, but it's, it's definitely out there. But I would say the biggest thing is just to start, right? And, and if you can control your variables, you can start to accurately assess for the validity of your implementations. Right? If you change everything, it's like, well, this whole equation's upside down now, so I don't know what of these things is actually giving me a positive return. So just being very methodical, being very, um, reproducible. Like, okay, I'm going to do this for my shoulder warmup and see what it does. I'm going to do this for my hip warmup or workout and see what it does. Uh, and then that'll allow you over time to distill down to something that is very effective. So, you know, intuitive athletes do this all, like, do this really well. And when you look at it from a scientific perspective or a biomechanical perspective, you're like, "Wow, like, this guy doesn't know the difference between a serratus anterior and a knee." But in what he does to prepare is very congruent with, you know, biomechanics, that he's, he's organizing his body in a way to activate these muscles or, or to deactivate other muscles or what have you. Um, but if you don't have that, that, uh, intuition, it can be learned, right? It's just a matter of, you know, what is it worth to you to spend the time to learn it?

  15. 47:32 – 49:16

    Personal Training Business

    1. JS

    2. CW

      Looking forward to 2021, what are you gonna be working on, personally? Have you got some areas that you're looking to develop or restrict within yourself over the next year?

    3. JS

      Like, are you talking my own personal training or just from a business perspective?

    4. CW

      From a business and mindset perspective, more so.

    5. JS

      Yeah, um, really working on, like, optimization around my schedule, so kind of working with someone right now to, um, try and get the most out of me from a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month. Um, you know, I'm very much a keep your head down and go until you can't, and if you run into a wall, just run through it. Uh, and that has gotten me pretty far, but it's not really a sustainable or efficient model. Um, so definitely looking at a few scheduled work deloads to stay topical to the conversation. Um, and then on the business front, we've got just... So, yeah, a lot of curriculum development, a lot of writing. Uh, I started a handful of other businesses that are in various stages of, like, pre-production or programming or, or things like that. So I have, uh, one, two, three companies now that I'm in, uh, I've sort of taken some level of ownership of. So a lot of next year is gonna be kind of moving into unchartered territories on the business end, um, everything from-... uh, some technology stuff, some administrative stuff, some advising stuff, and then sticking with creating f- curriculum and, and developing a handful of new courses for, for Prescript. So 2021 is pretty much already done, in my opinion. Uh, so looking forward now into 2022 (laughs) , uh, yeah, it'll be a b- it should be a busy year. And hopefully, with any luck, be able to get to your side of the pond a- as soon as possible.

  16. 49:16 – 54:27

    Balance WorkLife

    1. JS

    2. CW

      Yeah, man. Well, I'd wait until it warms up a little bit, 'cause it's absolutely freezing at the moment. You had a, a post on your Instagram that I think relates to what you were just talking about. You said, "If you love something, let it kill you."

    3. JS

      Right.

    4. CW

      And I think this, this talks about the feet first approach to out-competing people, first through workload, but also that embracing your passion fully and taking an essentialist perspective actually allows us to really sort of feel the nuances of everything we do. It also gives you a competitive advantage and other things. But, as you've just identified there, it's not sustainable. So how do you balance those two things?

    5. JS

      Uh, strategically. Um, I think that's something that, if, if you know... Like, think of training, right? Like (coughs) you need to have... I'm not one for scheduled deloads, right? So, like, just kind of speak more my language, like, I will train until I see indications that I need to deload my training. And so that's why I th- I see metrics as something that's very important. Whether it's tracking heart rate variability, whether it's tracking bar speed or grip strength or velocity or whatever, I need s- I need to have data to tell me to slow down. Otherwise, I'm just gonna keep going. And, and I think as you should, right? 'Cause I think a lot of times, if you, if you just succumb to these, these, uh, arbitrary regressions of intensity, you're actually gonna be missing your potential long term. So, I see that in training, and I've seen the benefit of like, okay, I see indicators that fatigue is now a detriment to the progress in training. I am going to do something to offset this fatigue and be able to perform better. Then that's when a period of detraining would ensue, rather than just, "Oh, I've been training hard for three weeks. I'm gonna cut my volume back 30% and cut my intensity back 30%." It's like, man, what if that was the exact point in which you should have showed up and you should have turned it up? So in business, it's really similar, where it's like, you know, I can sit on my laptop for days on end and not blink. Um, but if I start to notice at the end of a week I'm yielding less and I'm seeing less progress, and I have these indicators that would suggest to me that, okay, I need to, um, I need to slow down in, in order to actually go forward. Um, so that, for me, is just having good data, good metrics to track productivity. Whether that's number of words I type in a day versus number of words I type in a week, um, you know, a- and tracking and setting deadlines and creating urgency. So for me, it's really just been a process of like, okay, I've, I've, I'm at a point now where the metrics are telling me that in order to move forward, I need to slow down. Uh, and slow down strategically. Like, I'm not just gonna F off and, you know, just do some morning meditation crap. It's like, no, like, I'm gonna still get up and work and work efficiently and expediently. But, at the end of, you know, let's say, once I get this one project, when I finish writing the book, then I'm gonna take 10 days and I'm out, right? So I kinda have like a little bit of a push, a little bit of a pull, push to get the work done, and then at the end of it I get a bit of a reward and I get to kind of deload a bit after that. Well, once I've kind of, you know, gone through... Similar to a competition. It's like, okay, I, if I pull a PR at a meet, I'm going to take, you know, f- a, a week or two off the back end before I'm, you know, back really on the barbell. And it's the same thing with this. It's like before I really... If we're, in order for me to s- really sink my teeth into the next project, I know I can't just go from a max effort, getting this book through publication, get it through edit, get it to print, get it through distribution, to then turn around and I'm not gonna be 100% to the project I had planned out for that. So that's gonna be like, all right, time to, time to take off, shut down, and then come back and, and start to plan again. So, it, it's, it's not, it's not easy for me. Like, I've, I was always... 'Cause I've gotten whatever this is, for our ability to, I don't know. What do we do? Like, what is, this i- this is work for us. Somehow we've, we've hacked a system that it's 2:45-

    6. CW

      It's a glitch. It's a glitch in the matrix, man. Uh-huh.

    7. JS

      It is, yeah. 'Cause I'm wearing sweatpants, and I'm technically employed. Like, this is not okay. But like, it, 'cause I've gotten here by just pure grunt work. Like sure, "Oh, how do you do this?" Well, y- if you go on a plane and you travel around the world for three years and you live out of a suitcase and you trash every relationship you've ever had and you just say yes to every opportunity, you'll be able to do this." So I was like, "Yeah, great, done that." Now it's like, "Okay, how do I get to the next level?" It's like, "Well, now you need to slow down." You're like, "I, I don't know what that means." So, it, it i- it is difficult to have the discipline now to... Just like in training, like, you know, there, there are times when I train four days a week. And that drives me nuts, 'cause it's three days of me w- w- week, I mean climbing the fucking walls. But it's like, I know that if I wanna get bigger, if I wanna get stronger, I have to only train four days a week in this period. So I'm at the point now where it's like, all right, from like a lifestyle perspective, to overcome this plateau, I need to express the discipline enough to remove myself from that attitude of like just keep your head down, don't blink, take a bunch of drugs, and then just work until you can't work anymore, then work some more. Um, so that's, that's something that's frankly taken more wrestling with mentally than anything else I've ever done, because of, you're telling me to not do something. Um, but it's recognizing that that's what it takes to get what you want and get to where you need to be or where

  17. 54:27 – 55:27

    Go All Out

    1. JS

      you wanna be, if that makes sense.

    2. CW

      Yeah. It's a lot more nuanced, right? It's very easy to just say, go all out. Uh, you know, for all the, I'm very, very impressed with powerlifters and what those athletes can achieve, it's not a very subtle sport. It's apply the maximum amount of power through the bar at all times when you're on the competition floor. That's it, you know? And that, I think, perhaps ports across onto the way that people...... sometimes think that they should live their lives. Like we're absolutist creatures, you know? If I put a packet of biscuits in front of you, and I say, "You can eat none of them, or you can eat all of them," both of those things are quite easy. But if you're only allowed to eat one biscuit, it's fucking torture. You're like, "No, no, no. I, I, I can't do the- I can't do the middle." I, I'm not good with moderation. I'm like, "I'm either no carbs or all carbs." That's the way that we seem to be able to do things, because it removes the decision, uh, the requirement for decision, removes the requirement for

  18. 55:27 – 1:05:30

    Extreme Balance

    1. CW

      subtlety.

    2. JS

      To me, there's no such thing as dedication and moderation. That doesn't make sense to me. Like, how can those two things go? How can you be dedicated to something and still be moderate and still be balanced? So like-

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. JS

      ... this is more of an approach of, like, extreme balance, where it's like-

    5. CW

      (laughs)

    6. JS

      ... I will work as hard as I can for as long as I can.

    7. CW

      That sounds like a semantic game-

    8. JS

      And-

    9. CW

      ... that you've played to, to sort of repurpose this into your particular, uh, your particular sort of cognitive makeup.

    10. JS

      Yeah. And it's this, these are the mental gymnastics I have to play with myself to get me to stop just, like, burning the candle on both ends. Um, but yeah, like, when I go to... I don't know. I've, I'm trying to find COVID-free quarantine destinations that at the end of February I could just leave to. So wherever that place is that I go when I'm finished, like the book, for example, there will be a period, I don't know how brief it'll be, but there will be a day or two where I don't open my laptop, I'm sure. Um, I'm probably not gonna go the whole 10 days that I have allotted without doing it, but I will, I will de-load my brain until what degree I feel is necessary, and then right back into the fire again.

    11. CW

      Croatia, Dubai, Bali, four relatively open places.

    12. JS

      Brilliant. I'll go to all three.

    13. CW

      Perfect. What's the book-

    14. JS

      Yeah.

    15. CW

      ... about? Finish up, tell us about the book.

    16. JS

      Yeah, so the book is something that I've been writing in accordance with kind of our flagship course. So I've developed a, a handful of courses for some gym franchises, uh, kind of all over. So Brits would be familiar with Ultimate Performance, uh, and Canadians would be familiar with GoodLife Fitness. So I was contracted, um, many years ago to revamp the personal training education, um, in, in both of those companies. And from there, sort of, uh, garnered a lot of interest in social media to be sort of taught similar principles that I was teaching there, obviously in a private setting. Uh, so I kind of create- created this like four-month, 16-week course that I think would be okay if I were to be a personal trainer starting out, synthesizing my 15 years of, as a chiropractor and strength and conditioning coach and a personal trainer, um, and a strength athlete to various, various degree. Um, what do I think is essential for people to know, uh, from a, like anatomy and applied biomechanics standpoint? Um, so the book is essentially a manual for that course. Um, so it's a, I don't know, the better part of 50, 60,000 words now. We're soon across the line in the design stage and all that stuff, and editing. Um, but yeah, so it is a complement to go with the PreScript Level 1 curriculum, that basically is going to act as an expanded version of the course and a reference text for that, the, for that particular course. And yeah, it's been somewhat of a... The, the book predates the actual development of the course itself. So this has been probably three or four or five years in the making now. So excited to get it across the line.

    17. CW

      That's cool, man. When's it out?

    18. JS

      End of March. So I said it, now it has to be true. So yeah, end of March should be, um, when the next semester goes live, the students for next semester will have access to purchase the hard copy of the book. And then all previous coaches who have gone through the course in the last couple of years will have access to it as well.

    19. CW

      That is a unique approach I haven't seen. From the outside looking in, I'm aware that I'm a total noob at this. I haven't really seen the training for PTs, at least in the UK, really seem to take much development. When you see the sort of top end, uh, strength and conditioning stuff has really changed. But the entry level, for someone to be able to step out onto the gym floor, it's just get your level three, I think it's PT level three in the UK. And you, you, you walk into any CrossFit gym, and even the noob coaches know more than that. Even the people that are just practicing for the level one, and then I imagine that you can take that one step further, and one step further, and one step further.

    20. JS

      Yeah, I think just given the current landscape, man, like there's, there's no room in the market now for mediocrity. It, I think personal training now is really going to return back to a luxury item which it was 20 years ago, right? Only the, like, only the rich and famous had personal trainers 25 years ago, right? 'Cause it, it was, it was deemed a luxury. Not that I think they were, had an amazing skill set then, but I think now that the consumer is getting smarter, the access of information, uh, the barriers to that information are less and less at the consumer level. You're really gonna have to bring a, a supreme product as a trainer to the table if you want to continue to do that as a career. Where before it was like, I always, I always compare personal training, uh, uh, akin to stripping. I know plenty of people that just personal trained their way through undergrad, just like I know plenty of people who just stripped their way through undergrad.

    21. CW

      (laughs)

    22. JS

      It's like that market is not going to be there anymore. Um, you know, with, with commercial gym franchises taking a hit, with, you know, people's budgets not necessarily calling for them and to, you know, have this disposable income for, you know, a luxury service like that. Uh, and, and people's, like, unwillingness to return back into, into public facilities and open gym spaces, I think there's really going to be a high ticket value placed on someone. Like, look it, if I wanna, uh, jump through all of these hoops to be in person and take an hour of my time and have a personal trainer, uh, this person better be able to, uh, you know, drastically improve my quality of life, uh, across many indices, right? So not only is it just body composition and transformation, but it is going to be pain and performance as well. So I think there is gonna be somewhat of an enlightenment in the personal training field, and raising the standard of just the barrier of entry to people into that field is definitely something that we're kind of committed to, uh, with the education that we put out. And so we're not in the interest of dumbing things down. We ask our coaches to sort of smarten up, and then collectively, I think we're hopefully starting to raise the industry standard as a consequence of that.

    23. CW

      I hope so, man. Uh, I do fear for PTs that haven't decided to do their CPD and take that really seriously because you're not just competing with other PTs now. You're competing with CrossFit classes and BJJ classes and yoga classes and Peloton and Zoom workouts-

    24. JS

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    25. CW

      ... and all this sort of stuff. So as the leverage and the scalability of that has increased, the level that you need to be at in order to be able to compete with that as a PT, I think, is correct. And that's a message I've been saying for ages to every PT that I know. I'm like, "Dude, you need to be shit hot with your branding. You need to be, you need to understand how to market, you need to understand how to retain clients. Your pricing strategy needs to be clever. You need to understand how to do a schedule. You also need to make sure that your actual knowledge of what you're doing hasn't stagnated from when you first became a PT seven years ago." Shit's changed.

    26. JS

      Right. Shit's...

    27. CW

      There's, there's new, new studies being released every single week.

    28. JS

      (coughs)

    29. CW

      And I think, especially 'cause a lot of PTs get busy, right? Like especially when you've become well-known and you've got a name for yourself, PTs can become really, really busy. My old housemate, Lou, was doing, like, 50 hours a week of one-to-ones. That's a fucking ton of one-to-ones.

    30. JS

      Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:05:30

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