Kelly Starrett Interview (Full Episode) | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)

1. 0:00 – 4:30

   Intro

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:00

      Kelly, what'd you have for breakfast?

   2. KSKelly Starrett0:02

      I ate 20 dwarves while, uh, doing a handstand on the carpet.

   3. TFTim Ferriss0:07

      It's key, that carpet. [laughs]

   4. KSKelly Starrett0:09

      Optimal minimal.

   5. TFTim Ferriss0:10

      [upbeat music] At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would be seem an appropriate time. What if I give you all the answers? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. This podcast is brought to you by Mizzen and Main. Don't worry about the spelling. All you need to know is this: I have organized my entire life around avoiding fancy shirts, because you have to iron them, you sweat through them, they smell really easily, they're a pain in the ass. Mizzen and Main has given me the only shirt that I need, and what I mean by that, and Kelly Starrett loves these shirts as well, is that you can trick people. They look really fancy, so you can take them out to nice dinners, whatever, but they're made from athletic sweat-wicking material. So you can throw this thing into your luggage in a heap or on your kitchen table, like I did recently, and then pull it out, throw it on with no ironing, no steaming, no nothing, walk out, and you could probably wear this thing for a week straight, or make it your only dress shirt and take it on trips for weeks at a time. Never wash it. It will not smell. You will not sweat through it. You gotta check these things out. So go to fourhourworkweek.com, all spelled out, fourhourworkweek.com/shirts, and if you order one of their dress shirts in the next week, you will get a henley shirt for free. That's worth about 60 bucks. So put them both in the cart, use the code Tim, T-I-M, and you will get the henley shirt for free. Check it out, fourhourworkweek.com/shirts, and you'll see some of my favorite gear, including the one shirt that I've been traveling with. The Tim Ferriss Show is also brought to you by 99designs. 99designs is your one-stop shop for anything graphic design related. You need a logo, you need a website, you need a business card or anything else, you get an original design from designers around the world who submit drafts for you to review. You are happy or you get your money back, and I have used 99designs for book cover ideas for The 4-Hour Body, which went to number one New York Times, for banner ads, and you can check out some of my actual competitions at 99designs.com/tim. You can also get a free $99 upgrade if you wanna give it a shot. That's 99designs.com/tim. [percussive music] Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I am thrilled to be bringing you yet another example of world-class performance, and of course, on The Tim Ferriss Show, what I attempt to do is deconstruct those performers to give you the tools and tricks that you can use, and whether those people be from the worlds of finance, say investors like billionaire Peter Thiel, celebrity, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, or sports. And this episode is going to focus on the one thing besides politics and religion that get Americans all hot and bothered, and that is CrossFit. We will delve into the good, the bad, and the ugly of all things CrossFit. We will answer many, many questions, including what are the three most dangerous exercises in CrossFit gyms, generally speaking? What are the most common nutritional mistakes in CrossFit? What do elite CrossFit athletes do differently than the rest? For example, what do Rich Froning and Jason Khalipa do for warm-ups? Is the CrossFit Games really CrossFit? And what is the future of CrossFit? The man to answer all of this and much more is Kelly Starrett. He's trained CrossFit athletes for more than 130,000 hours and 10 years at San Francisco CrossFit, which was one of the very first 50 CrossFit affiliates in the world. There are now more than 10,000. His clients include Olympic gold medalists, Tour de France cyclists, world and national record holders in Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting, CrossFit Games medalists, ballet dancers, elite military, on and on and on. This is going to go very, very deep. It involves significantly less alcohol than the last long conversation I had with Kelly, uh, which is also included in the blog post at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast, where you can find show notes and other things, fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. And without further ado, enjoy, discuss, debate, yell and scream. Here you are, Kelly Starrett. [upbeat music]

2. 4:30 – 9:22

   What is CrossFit?

   1. TFTim Ferriss4:30

      Sir Kelly, welcome back to the show.

   2. KSKelly Starrett4:32

      Oh, thanks for having me.

   3. TFTim Ferriss4:34

      Thank you.

   4. KSKelly Starrett4:34

      A little, a little more lucid this time, perhaps.

   5. TFTim Ferriss4:36

      Little lucid, little less alcohol.

   6. KSKelly Starrett4:38

      [laughs]

   7. TFTim Ferriss4:38

      Little more caffeine. Whatever you gave me here, I mistakenly thought it was one cup of coffee.

   8. KSKelly Starrett4:42

      [laughs]

   9. TFTim Ferriss4:43

      And you're like, "It, it's strong." I was on the phone, and I was like, "Oh, don't worry." Yeah, strong, fucking strong coffee, whatever.

   10. KSKelly Starrett4:47

       I think it's, it, it's supposed to be diluted at, like, eight to one.

   11. TFTim Ferriss4:50

       [laughs]

   12. KSKelly Starrett4:50

       But it's fine. I'm sure it'll be fine.

   13. TFTim Ferriss4:52

       So we are here at San Francisco CrossFit, and you have quite an anniversary, I suppose you could call it. You've spent 10 years in this world called CrossFit.

   14. KSKelly Starrett5:04

       Yeah, th- this is, this year now is 10 full years.

   15. TFTim Ferriss5:08

       So I wanna dig into this, because we've known each other for quite a while, and to perhaps lead off for people who may not be familiar with this world or have heard the word a million times but don't know what it really means, f- for you, what is CrossFit, or h- how do you define CrossFit?

   16. KSKelly Starrett5:26

       You know, there, there's the official definition of trying to get people to work at higher intensity in movements that replicate the movements that we see in life. It looks like squatting and deadlifting and pushing and pulling and running, and if you had to sort of m- mash up the tenets of gymnastics, Olympic lifting, powerlifting, and all the, the aerobic responsibilities also that come along with that, that's what the programming looks like.

   17. TFTim Ferriss5:50

       Mm-hmm.

   18. KSKelly Starrett5:51

       But that's not what it is. For me now, 10 years, I've been... I mean, we estimate, even in our gym here, we've been doing it for nine-plus years, we've done maybe 130,000 athlete hours here. Which is a lot of pattern recognition. That's a lot of people going up and down, squatting, moving. And what we've come to, I've really come to understand, this, I mean, this is my own interpretation, is basically saying we have figured out now here are all the things that a human should be responsible to be able to do.

   19. TFTim Ferriss6:17

       Mm-hmm.

   20. KSKelly Starrett6:17

       You know? Can you put your arms over your head, yes or no? Well, can you do that in a handstand? Can you do that with a dumbbell? Can you do that with a kettlebell? Can you do it with a barbell? Can you, can you go from ground to overhead to do that? Can you press overhead? What ends up happening then is we've been able to winnow down to say, here are the positions, the archetypal shapes that are represented in every sport, in every s- situation, every, every position. But in the gym I can say, "Do you have this position, yes or no?" And then I can say, "Oh, you do? Well, let me challenge it."

   21. TFTim Ferriss6:44

       Mm-hmm.

   22. KSKelly Starrett6:45

       And the obvious one for the gym for most people is, you know, is, is load. Let's make it heavier. And you know, 'cause you've come out of a serious strength and conditioning background in the past in powerlifting, that a long time ago our answer to everything was, "Oh, just get stronger."

   23. TFTim Ferriss6:59

       Right.

   24. KSKelly Starrett6:59

       You know? "Oh, he's got glute weakness." I'm like, "Seriously? I mean, that guy deadlifts 700, you think his glutes are weak?" Or she plays in, you know, in the NFL, you know? I mean, like, people are ridiculous. It's not a weakness problem.

   25. TFTim Ferriss7:10

       Mm-hmm.

   26. KSKelly Starrett7:10

       And what I found for a long time was that we were throwing bigger and bigger engines onto cars that couldn't handle it, right? Well, how much do I need to squat if I'm a runner? 400? 500? 600?

   27. TFTim Ferriss7:21

       Right.

   28. KSKelly Starrett7:22

       Guys like Pavel were like, "You can double body weight your back squat, you're probably good enough. s- You're excused from getting any stronger," right?

   29. TFTim Ferriss7:27

       Right, right.

   30. KSKelly Starrett7:28

       You know, Dan John was like, "Hey, you should front squat."
3. 9:22 – 19:40

   Common mistakes of CrossFit instructors and trainees

   1. TFTim Ferriss9:22

      It's, uh, I was having a conversation with, uh, you mentioned Pavel, and, uh, he's... [laughs] He has a tendency for very short answers, which is fun to listen to. He has a great voice, too, for the short answers. But somebody asked him, uh, for basic advice related to endurance, and he said, "Fix your posture. Work on your posture," uh, whether that is, you know, running posture, standing posture, sitting posture, et cetera. And, uh, what I'd love to ask you is if you look at the CrossFit community as a whole, there are so many gyms, so many boxes, uh, what are problems that are very often not a- being addressed? So people come in, they jump straight into, you know, the workout of the day or, or, or, or metabolic conditioning. Um, what are some common mistakes of whether it be CrossFit instructors or trainees, where they come out six months later and from your eye you're like, "A, B, and C has not been fixed"?

   2. KSKelly Starrett10:14

      Sure. Well, I will correct and just play the devil's advocate around the statement, because my experience is honestly now, Ben, no one just jumps right into a gym anymore. You can see on the internet and go explore on your own garage, but I think about 100% of the gyms I run into have some sort of holy crap, you don't know how to move. You may have a big engine, but you don't have any exposure to this. Like-

   3. TFTim Ferriss10:38

      Yeah

   4. KSKelly Starrett10:39

      ... our cyclists are the worst. They come in with the most, like, robust aerobic engine. They generate huge amounts of concentric force, have no eccentric control at all, right?

   5. TFTim Ferriss10:48

      Hmm.

   6. KSKelly Starrett10:49

      So it means they can't lengthen under load, basically.

   7. TFTim Ferriss10:51

      Right.

   8. KSKelly Starrett10:51

      And they are pa-

   9. TFTim Ferriss10:51

      For those people listening, uh, who are not in the, in the gym much, if you're in a squat position and you move up into a standing position, you can think of that as concentric. Doing the reverse, eccentric, where you're le- you're-

   10. KSKelly Starrett11:01

       Right

   11. TFTim Ferriss11:01

       ... you're lengthening.

   12. KSKelly Starrett11:02

       So what we saw was that people were coming in relatively aerobic fit. I mean, people aren't slouches anymore. They really aren't. They're exposed. They're doing in- intervals. The, I mean, the internet has blown-

   13. TFTim Ferriss11:11

       Yeah

   14. KSKelly Starrett11:11

       ... people's, I think, general conditioning now much higher. Like, for example, and I'll come back to the question, but for example, you know, the, the CrossFit, unofficial CrossFit mascot that everyone loves to... the show is Pukey, right? Pukey the clown. I haven't seen someone vomit in a CrossFit in eight years. Like, I... it used to happen all the time. Like, people used to come in, do a workout, and vomit because technically there's an area in the back of your brainstem called the area postrema. It samples your blood circulation, right? And what ends up happening is people are generating so much lactic acid that their brain was like, "You've poisoned yourself. Blah." So you're... and activated your vomition center. That's the mechanism for vomiting from workouts. That doesn't happen anymore because people's conditioning, whether you're at SoulCycle... Dude, go to SoulCycle. Bro, blow your brains up on a bike. You're gonna be de- like, you... protected, not from movement or eccentric load, but, like, you'll be able to buffer some lactic acid, right? So we've seen, I've seen the general, uh- ... fitness go up, but what has happened now is that people have said, "Okay, look, you can't just come in here and train because you're going to wreck yourself, and more importantly, you're not gonna understand what it is we're trying to do," which is here are the fundamental movements that are the sort of k- um, sort of signature positions of the CrossFit method, and you don't know any of them, right? So we, we, we force people to come in, and the mistake is as a coach that I need to get people moving, and this is why if you go to a CrossFit level one seminar, they are going to teach you, and they're really excellent. Excellent coaches, very thoughtful, very, very... The, uh, uh, the, the course has evolved in 10 years a ton. We've become more sophisticated in 10 years, but w- we teach you with really low loads, i.e., a PVC pipe or a medicine ball because I've never seen anyone die from those things. But the ego gets involved, and pretty soon there's a barbell in it, and you can still see people performing f- a tremendous amount of work in bad positions. And what ends up happening is, as we get people in, we have to give them a little taste of intensity, and we do that with the rowing machine and some burpees and, right? We g- we get them saying, "Hey, I need to show you what happens when you start breathing hard." But then, and we end up making, I think, a de- set of decisions about getting people moving, right? Because if you, if you're my mom, y- maybe you don't have the ankle range of motion, you have an artificial hip. The most important thing is that we start squatting, right? And I have a lot of ways of making that difficult. "Oh, we're gonna get on this, this AirDyne, and we're gonna sprint a little bit and then come back and s- air squat for me." Like, that's enough for a lot of people. The problem is, and I might turn your feet out, and I might be okay with you rounding your back a little bit. It doesn't have to be perfect, but now at least you're squatting. We can have a conversation about what's next, right? I can make errors. The problem is we start loading this inefficient, this compromised movement because we said, "Hey, the first thing is let's get moving." Now what? And what is we need to continue to refine the mechanic for life, and that's the biggest mistake. I think people aren't understanding, but they're like, "Well, they're squatting up and down now."

   15. TFTim Ferriss14:09

       Refine the mechanic, meaning the movement.

   16. KSKelly Starrett14:10

       The mo- the, the principles behind the movement.

   17. TFTim Ferriss14:12

       Right.

   18. KSKelly Starrett14:12

       Right? And it's all there for us. It has always been there for us. Hey, limit motion of your spine under load. Everyone agrees, and yet when I take the average person off the street and just have them squat very fast, I see a ton. I had a young NFL prospect in today, right? Getting some advice about his knee. He's gonna go to the combine. I asked him, "Just do an air squat." And the amount of reversal in his spine, like he literally rounded into a dumped like dog taking a poo position, and he had massive fins in the middle of his back where his musculature has overdeveloped from him basically rounding underneath, and I was like, "Um, so that's not really good. Let's do less of that." And he's like, "What? What? What are you talking about?" Like, he couldn't even identify that this thing was going on, right? And, you know, from the physical therapy side of things, from the sports performance side, the highest level form, these issues that I hammer on and hammer people on are the limiting factors to you getting, stopping injured, and they're the limiting factors to you win- being the best in the world and winning a gold medal, like these little details. And so we should be constantly refining technique to express what is full physiology. So for example, um, there was a, you know, one of the thing-- There's so many voices in fitness now and so many people coming in, but, like, someone basically... Do you know what apologetics is? Like, that's-

   19. TFTim Ferriss15:31

       I get the first part.

   20. KSKelly Starrett15:32

       Right. [laughs]

   21. TFTim Ferriss15:32

       Not the plural.

   22. KSKelly Starrett15:33

       A- apologetics is basically in religion where people come around and explain a phenomenon in terms of the dogma. "Oh, th- this is what that meant now," right? And they, it's because a lot of it was allegory and, and metaphor-

   23. TFTim Ferriss15:45

       Right

   24. KSKelly Starrett15:45

       ... and, and lesson, right? In science fiction, apologetics means you can explain any technology away based on some other thing. Well, I see apologetics happen in human physiology. "Oh, the reason you can't squat all the way down is your hip structure," right? "Oh, some people don't just have long femurs, so they can't take a poo in the woods and squat all the way down." And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" The issue is that people, we haven't making, given people clear benchmarks about what is normal and what is dysnormal, right? Cook and those guys, Cook and Burton in the functional movement screen have tried to establish baselines for performance, but those don't even go all the way to show me that you have full range of motion in your ankles. Like you, one of the secrets I don't think people understand is that you are, you have good positions, and those positions have protected you for a long time, right? You, you have a f- you can squat with your feet together, ankles together all the way down, full hip function, full ankle function. But people are coming into the gym basically as demi-human. They have big aerobic engines because that's what someone said they should do, but they don't have even, like, 50% of the ranges of motion they should have, and they don't even have the motor control to be able to start to express this stuff. You know, what is it? If you want the great tranquility, be willing to sweat the white-hot beads, right? I mean, Olympic lifters got it right, and you can see why the Olympic lifters are like, "What the hell? Why aren't you Olympic lifting? You can't even put your arms over your head." You know what I mean? And the Olympic lifting demands that we have basic capacities in all of these shapes.

   25. TFTim Ferriss17:11

       Mm-hmm.

   26. KSKelly Starrett17:12

       The only thing that's missing is the bench press shape, but guess what? Olympic lifters do some bench pressing. You know what I mean? So they figured it out.

   27. TFTim Ferriss17:18

       It's a lot easier to go that direction-

   28. KSKelly Starrett17:19

       It is

   29. TFTim Ferriss17:19

       ... than the other way around.

   30. KSKelly Starrett17:20

       Right, and, and that's right. And so it's interesting, you know. I think that what we're, what we have not done a good job of is showing people how far away from normal they are, right? You'd have no i- like, you should be able to keep your back flat and legs straight and hinge over and pick up a barbell, and I bet, I know you can do it 'cause I've seen you do it, but I bet that 95% of the people on the street are stiff, don't have the motor control, tight hips, whatever. It doesn't matter. It's not an indictment on their lifestyle. It's an indictment that, that we don't understand what good function is, and the training we've been doing for the last 50 years has not necessarily heightened that. Now, there are populations, the jujitsu guys have been on this a long time, right? That you have to have these good positions. They're, they're requisite.
4. 19:40 – 27:53

   The gym-to-sport transition

   1. TFTim Ferriss19:40

      So this is a, this is a really fascinating topic for me, the, the gym to sport transition.

   2. KSKelly Starrett19:46

      Huge.

   3. TFTim Ferriss19:47

      And, and whether that is a worthwhile goal also. Uh, for me, just as a side note, I mean, I've been spending time exploring, just chanced upon meeting the co-founder of AcroYoga, [chuckles] and I'd never had much interest in yoga before.

   4. KSKelly Starrett20:02

      Well, let's just stop right-- I mean, AcroYoga sounds really stupid.

   5. TFTim Ferriss20:04

      Yeah.

   6. KSKelly Starrett20:05

      But what it's not, it's not really stupid.

   7. TFTim Ferriss20:07

      No, it's not. And it's, it's partner yoga involving gymnastic and acrobatic positions. So if you've ever seen, say, a Cirque du Soleil performance with two strongmen where they're linking arms and, and holding handstands overhead and s- and so on, uh, the, the motions are quite similar, but you spend a lot of time on your back, uh, balancing people on your feet and so on. [smacks lips] And but, uh, coming back to your squatting position, I remember asking, uh, Jason, I think his last name is pronounced Neimer, really excellent coach, why he was recommending that I hold my hands a certain way when practicing handstands because I'd been instructed elsewhere by other, uh, gymnastics coaches to do it a different way. And he said, "The reason you're holding it that way, even though it's a little more uncomfortable, is because when you go into the actual positions in AcroYoga and you're doing it at speed, you're going to maintain that exact hand position, so you want to train that pattern." And I was like, "Oh, got it." [chuckles]

   8. KSKelly Starrett21:01

      Yeah.

   9. TFTim Ferriss21:02

      And, uh, let's talk about athleticism, though, the, the, the training versus athleticism conversation. Uh, c- and I, I hadn't heard of this because I, I, I'm not, I'm not exposed to the CrossFit Games much, but can you talk about the, uh, the softball phenomenon a bit?

   10. KSKelly Starrett21:20

       Well, I, it's, it's, you know, CrossFit, uh, you know, as originally conceived by Greg Glassman, and if you look at the original, you know, Fitness in 100 Words or Less, in there it says, "Regularly learn and play new sports." Hey, nice middle splits, bro.

   11. TFTim Ferriss21:38

       Well, you started doing the middle splits when we were sitting here on the floor in the gym, and I was like, like getting, getting-

   12. KSKelly Starrett21:41

       [laughs]

   13. TFTim Ferriss21:42

       ... sort of adductor jealousy.

   14. KSKelly Starrett21:44

       So-

   15. TFTim Ferriss21:45

       Although your thighs look like swollen ticks, and mine look like [laughs]

   16. KSKelly Starrett21:48

       [laughs]

   17. TFTim Ferriss21:49

       I don't know.

   18. KSKelly Starrett21:49

       I just woke, I just woke up and I was like this, bro. I don't know what happened. It came with the kit.

   19. TFTim Ferriss21:51

       [laughs]

   20. KSKelly Starrett21:52

       The, um, you know, so the tenet always has been, hey, you need to keep learning, and you keep diversifying. They call that lateralization, right? People have been talking about it in surfers or some skill. The big, the big wall climbers suddenly are doing breath holding, and they learn something about that, right?

   21. TFTim Ferriss22:07

       Or slacklining.

   22. KSKelly Starrett22:08

       Yeah, yeah, slack-- exactly, lateralization, right? Steven Kotler's been all about it. [smacks lips] So that, that's an important piece of, like, saying, "Okay, you have this skill set. Let's go challenge it in a new domain." That's the crucial. What is interesting and is always going to be a problem with, for me, with CrossFit is that I'm-- I can't always... You know, CrossFit is the sing-- for me, the single best integrated way of training I have ever come across. I still haven't seen-- I've seen it refined. I've seen Mackenzie apply it, the concepts and principles, to endurance athletes. I've seen Wellborn apply it to power athletes. The s- the kernel and the methodology is the same, right? But, and I, I haven't to date b- seen something that looks better at general physical preparedness. Like, I want my daughters to have a skill set and a base fitness and strength, and, and this is the, the model. Is it the model? Is it, should I have all of my NFLers do something that looks exactly CrossFit? No, but I can still keep the tenets there, right? I can, I-- the, the thing, the base code is so good. The problem is sometimes we confuse the ability to do, perform a lot of work with the ability to be athletic. And, you know, one of my definitions of who's the best athlete is who picks up the new skill the fastest. This is why, I mean, your little experiment [chuckles] about, the Tim Ferriss experiment about how fast can I learn really piqued my interest because I'm like, that is the, the limiter. How, how fast can I apply this base skill set? What is, what does that base skill set look like? You remember, um, [smacks lips] uh, Robert Heinlein had that little quote, it was like, "A man should be able to..." [laughs] Right? Like-

   23. TFTim Ferriss23:45

       Butcher a hog, captain a ship-

   24. KSKelly Starrett23:47

       That's right

   25. TFTim Ferriss23:47

       ... et cetera, et cetera.

   26. KSKelly Starrett23:48

       Like, plan a war.

   27. TFTim Ferriss23:49

       Yeah.

   28. KSKelly Starrett23:49

       Like, set a bone, right?

   29. TFTim Ferriss23:50

       Yeah. [chuckles]

   30. KSKelly Starrett23:50

       Specializations for insects, right?
5. 27:53 – 33:50

   Is CrossFit Games really CrossFit?

   1. KSKelly Starrett27:53

      patterns, you know?

   2. TFTim Ferriss27:54

      So let me ask you this, if I could, uh, this is just top of mind right now. I guess, I guess two things. If someone were to ask you, you know, "Is CrossFit Games really CrossFit? Should the multitudes of people in CrossFit gyms aspire to that as an objective?" Number one. Let's start with number one. Um, but, uh, got a bunch top of mind, but that's the first one.

   3. KSKelly Starrett28:15

      No, I don't think they should. And, but I will tell you that the athletes involved and the experiment involved has been so informative for me a- as a coach, as a physio, because I can really see what the deficiencies are at day five, at day three, under these loads. And, and it really starts to matter when we see that the best athletes refine position, refine position, refine efficiency and, and win, right? That's, that's been the name of the game. Y- it used to be that you could just outwork people. That, th- people are training two and three times a day. They are the most meticulous athletes I've ever seen in any sport anywhere. They're on top of the nutrition game, on top of the recovery game, on top of hydration, adaptation, mechanics. Like, they are really, really have depth. I mean, Rich Froning, he's a little, tiny guy, you know?

   4. TFTim Ferriss29:05

      How much does he weigh?

   5. KSKelly Starrett29:06

      I think he's probably, like, 190.

   6. TFTim Ferriss29:08

      Okay.

   7. KSKelly Starrett29:08

      185. Just something like that.

   8. TFTim Ferriss29:10

      So-

   9. KSKelly Starrett29:10

      Snatches, snatches 315.

   10. TFTim Ferriss29:11

       That's, that's mad.

   11. KSKelly Starrett29:12

       Like, in tennis shoes. In, in Reebok flat Nano shoes that, like, I can... Not, not Olympic lifting shoes. And he does that in the context of also being able to do all these other things. So I think it's, what it d- has done, what, the reason for me that the games are so important is that it's, it's changed the consciousness about what's possible. By the way, you can still run this mountain 7K and be brutally strong. In fact, why aren't you? You know? And I think people have been having that conversation for a long time. It also has gotten us really clear about what works and doesn't work in a very sort of pressure cooker situation in terms of-

   12. TFTim Ferriss29:46

       You're talking about programming and training load and all that?

   13. KSKelly Starrett29:48

       Well, a, a, a little bit of the pro- programming, but I would say about nutrition.

   14. TFTim Ferriss29:52

       Yeah.

   15. KSKelly Starrett29:52

       About h- I've never seen these, any athlete in the history of the world do more work than these kids. I know the Tour de France guys. I, I mean, I know them personally, and their wattages are insane. The run, best runner, like, they're put- everyone's putting out hard, but no one, like, the CNS load, the crazy loads, and that has really made it very clear about the lessons that we've been able to pull out of it. So as an experiment, as Formula 1-

   16. TFTim Ferriss30:17

       Right

   17. KSKelly Starrett30:17

       ... but not all of us should aspire to be Formula 1 drivers or even drive our cars like Formula 1, and very few of us have the genetics-

   18. TFTim Ferriss30:24

       Yeah

   19. KSKelly Starrett30:24

       ... which is the also sort of the lie.

   20. TFTim Ferriss30:25

       Of course, at the highest level.

   21. KSKelly Starrett30:27

       Right?

   22. TFTim Ferriss30:27

       Yeah.

   23. KSKelly Starrett30:27

       The lie that we tell ourselves. "Well, you know, I can train like them, so I'm, I..." You know, no, you can't. You're not them genetically. I'm sorry. But-

   24. TFTim Ferriss30:37

       Sorry, Tim Ferriss, you're a bad meth head

   25. KSKelly Starrett30:38

       [laughs]

   26. TFTim Ferriss30:38

       Go sit in the corner-

   27. KSKelly Starrett30:39

       You, you know what? You know-

   28. TFTim Ferriss30:40

       ... play Scrabble

   29. KSKelly Starrett30:40

       ... you, you're, you are relatively strong. You're strong-ish.

   30. TFTim Ferriss30:44

       Strong-ish.
6. 33:50 – 40:09

   Common mistakes CrossFitters can make about nutrition

   1. KSKelly Starrett33:50

      aren't good.

   2. TFTim Ferriss33:51

      What... You mentioned nu- nutrition, and I've got a, a bunch of, a bunch of questions, but, uh, in, in brief, what would you say are the most common nutrition mistakes or, uh, let's see, detrimental beliefs that CrossFitters have?

   3. KSKelly Starrett34:09

      Well, this is the first, for a lot of us, me included, you know, I'd actually heard, you know, the zone was the first thing that, you know-

   4. TFTim Ferriss34:17

      Sure

   5. KSKelly Starrett34:17

      ... that Greg talked about. And, and so-

   6. TFTim Ferriss34:19

      Oh, back, back when I was, uh, first training in, uh, CrossFit, am I... I think I've told you this before, but back when the Santa Cruz guys would come to Mountain View to train at the Halff Gracie Academy-

   7. KSKelly Starrett34:28

      Yes

   8. TFTim Ferriss34:28

      ... it was all about the zone, and I remember training with those guys.

   9. KSKelly Starrett34:31

      Well, and so again, let's, let's get to understanding why that mattered because people's macronutrients, their combinations in terms of what they were eating was way, way out of... Was wacky. Not eating enough, any fat, not, barely getting enough protein, massive amounts of carbohydrate, and that was the first way we could just identify the problem, right? So but then we started measuring and weighing, so then we had an idea of what roughly we were taking in. And to this day, I look at a banana and I'm like, "Three blocks," you know? [laughs]

   10. TFTim Ferriss35:00

       [laughs]

   11. KSKelly Starrett35:01

       I mean, like that's 30 grams of carbohydrate. You know, like, I s- uh, it's been useful. It's like a m- u- like a metric unit, right?

   12. TFTim Ferriss35:06

       Oh.

   13. KSKelly Starrett35:07

       That's a kilometer. That's a meter. Right? Gives me a baseline of understanding how much food I need to be eating. But then, uh, and it was always about food quality. That was always an important conversation. But then people would be like, "Well, I can eat this bacon and drink this beer, and I'm still in the zone." And I was like-

   14. TFTim Ferriss35:23

       And I'm hitting my macros. Yeah

   15. KSKelly Starrett35:24

       ... [laughs] like, come on.

   16. TFTim Ferriss35:25

       [laughs]

   17. KSKelly Starrett35:26

       You know? And so what, what happened then was that we saw this paleo revolution wash over the CrossFitters, right? We're like... And I, the first time I said this to my wife, Juliet, bless her little heart, was like she Googles online, 'cause Juliet's the biggest skeptic, and she was like, "This is some bullshit." I'm like, "What?" She's like, "The first thing that came up was hornets nest soup. Like wasp nest soup, Kelly." She's like, "That's what you fucking mean?" And I was like, "I don't, I, I think it means no grains."

   18. TFTim Ferriss35:49

       [laughs]

   19. KSKelly Starrett35:50

       You know? And we should eat vegetables. She's like, "This is some bullshit."

   20. TFTim Ferriss35:54

       [laughs]

   21. KSKelly Starrett35:54

       But that was really, again, a conversation about food quality, right? [laughs] Well, then we saw this revolution-

   22. TFTim Ferriss36:00

       Free range hornet.

   23. KSKelly Starrett36:01

       Free range... [laughs]

   24. TFTim Ferriss36:02

       [laughs]

   25. KSKelly Starrett36:03

       Juliet literally is just like the greatest bullshit detector. Thank you.

   26. TFTim Ferriss36:05

       [laughs]

   27. KSKelly Starrett36:05

       Everyone, everyone just get yourself a Juliet. Um, but then what we saw was that everyone got super squeaky clean, like didn't even use salt, and I was like, "Oh, you know, salt is really useful."

   28. TFTim Ferriss36:16

       Yeah.

   29. KSKelly Starrett36:16

       I saw a bunch of my friends who cleaned up their diet, and they were, they literally tanked. Like they were blacking out because they weren't getting any salts ever.

   30. TFTim Ferriss36:24

       Yeah, no good.
7. 40:09 – 41:53

   Dr. Peter Attia and ketosis

   1. KSKelly Starrett40:09

      methods, right?

   2. TFTim Ferriss40:09

      And also, I think particularly when it comes to macros is know thyself and know thy sport or training load, right?

   3. KSKelly Starrett40:17

      Yeah.

   4. TFTim Ferriss40:17

      So Peter Attia, Dr. Peter Attia, who you've kn- Have you ever spent any time with Pete?

   5. KSKelly Starrett40:22

      No.

   6. TFTim Ferriss40:22

      You have to meet this guy. You guys would love each other. But, uh, he was on the podcast, and we talked about cancer research, but he's also... He would-

   7. KSKelly Starrett40:29

      Is he the, he's the sugar cancer connection guy? Is that-

   8. TFTim Ferriss40:32

      Well, I... He would talk about that-

   9. KSKelly Starrett40:33

      Yeah

   10. TFTim Ferriss40:33

       ... certainly, but he is a, uh, [tsks] he was a former oncology researcher. He's also been a surgeon, and he's a high level... He would not want me to say high level, but he's a high level, uh, endurance athlete, you know, 100-mile swims and things like this.

   11. KSKelly Starrett40:46

       Yeah, I'm, I'm gonna call that high level.

   12. TFTim Ferriss40:47

       But, and he's also, uh, but he's also very strong, uh, for his, for his body weight, and he, he loves doing time trials for cycling. And so he is almost always keto adapted. He's in ketosis, for those people who haven't heard, uh, my conversation with Peter Attia. Uh, all that means is you're, you're, you're utilizing fat as... This is highly simplified, but fat instead of glucose as, as your primary fuel. And when he's doing these intense rides, though, he, he knows exactly his respiratory quotient, when he kicks over to anaerobic, and how many calories he can consume and how many calories his, his liver can store so that he never comes out of ketosis. So he can be pounding gels, but he's like, "Okay, I know that my liver and my body weight, I'm gonna store about 400 calories of carbohydrates [laughs] based on-

   13. KSKelly Starrett41:32

       Yeah

   14. TFTim Ferriss41:32

       ... based on this target distance and this target wattage, et cetera. I can end my race and still be in ketosis or my time trial." Uh, but that's because he-

   15. KSKelly Starrett41:41

       And, and the problem with that, of course, is that that's true, and he is the freakish outlier-

   16. TFTim Ferriss41:45

       Nobody's gonna do it

   17. KSKelly Starrett41:46

       ... with the data.

   18. TFTim Ferriss41:46

       Right.

   19. KSKelly Starrett41:47

       Right.

   20. TFTim Ferriss41:47

       And very few people are gonna do that. Um, but-

   21. KSKelly Starrett41:49

       That's amazing, by the way

   22. TFTim Ferriss41:50

       ... but, but what's, what's fascinating is, um, [tsks]

8. 41:53 – 45:41

   Other common dietary mistakes + having a physical practice

   1. TFTim Ferriss41:53

      so yeah, the paleo, uh, the paleo community, what are, what are other... Are there any other common dietary mistakes that you find people making?

   2. KSKelly Starrett41:59

      Oh, yeah, people are terrible around water. You know, the c- coffee has been the cult, like black fluid. What do we call it? The cup of fear.

   3. TFTim Ferriss42:07

      Cup of fear.

   4. KSKelly Starrett42:07

      Cup of fear.

   5. TFTim Ferriss42:08

      [laughs]

   6. KSKelly Starrett42:08

      And, uh, you know, people are like, "I, I don't need to drink water. I drink coffee all day long." And then this Kill Cliff, you know, which is an amazing CrossFit soda, you know, that it's not r- related to CrossFit, but it's sponsored by some Cross... Anyway.

   7. TFTim Ferriss42:19

      [laughs]

   8. KSKelly Starrett42:20

      You get the idea. It's amazing with vodka too, by the way, but which is also can be gluten-free, so you're still paleo. It's fine. [laughs]

   9. TFTim Ferriss42:26

      [laughs]

   10. KSKelly Starrett42:26

       And, but I think what we're seeing is that, you know, s- it... You can... Y- here's, here's what's crucial. You can be at 80% of your function and come in and do relatively okay once you move well, once you've been doing this for a while. You can just be on the edges of your sleep, on the, you know, borderline, eat some extra ice cream, you know, budge a little bit, you know, not deal with stress, done r- But of course, we know all of those things I've gotta keep an eye on. This is what a physical practice is. And what we've seen then is, for me, it's important that you're actually signing up for a race, you're signing up for an event. The gym is not the event. This is the place where we train. And yes, it feels like competition in here because I've... It's intense, it's deep practice. Daniel Coyle, thank you. It's, it's me really, really practicing in te-

   11. TFTim Ferriss43:14

       It's the metallic code.

   12. KSKelly Starrett43:15

       That's right. Nice, dude. Uh, it's, it's deep intention, it's h- hard aerobic conditioning, but it's still not the same thing as stepping into a ring, or lining up on a 5K, or signing up. And what you realize is how important all those aspects ar- of, are to your, your, your training. You have to eat right. That's why I'm like, look, the CrossFit is doing, Cross- does the CrossFit Open, which is the biggest sporting event in the history of mankind. That's what it is every year. More people sign up for the CrossFit Open. They do five workouts, and then, and it's a big international competition, right?

   13. TFTim Ferriss43:48

       So it's a virtual games?

   14. KSKelly Starrett43:49

       It's a virtual games, basically. It's a, it's a feeder to regionals. So, you know, whether you like it or not, I'm like, "Why don't you do it?" And for no other reason than why don't you have something hanging over your head for five weeks in a row?

   15. TFTim Ferriss44:03

       Yeah.

   16. KSKelly Starrett44:03

       Because that's really-

   17. TFTim Ferriss44:05

       Which also gives you a target other than the next-

   18. KSKelly Starrett44:08

       More focus

   19. TFTim Ferriss44:08

       ... day's WOD.

   20. KSKelly Starrett44:09

       Yes.

   21. TFTim Ferriss44:10

       Right, so you can actually decide what the optimal diet is given that five-week goal.

   22. KSKelly Starrett44:15

       You just make a whole bunch of different decisions. You know what, what do they say? I mean, deadlines focus the mind.

   23. TFTim Ferriss44:19

       Yeah.

   24. KSKelly Starrett44:20

       You know, Mr. Deadline guy.

   25. TFTim Ferriss44:21

       [laughs]

   26. KSKelly Starrett44:21

       And, uh, you stay up all night because you realize, you're like, "Wow, I, it really does force, you know, your thinking [laughs] about this." And I, I think that's, that's what sometimes gets lost in the CrossFit gym. Initially, it was terrifying. I didn't know if I was gonna survive. Let me give you an example. When I started this thing 10 years ago, Adrian Bozman, who is a, you know, CrossFit headquarters Ubermensch, right? And, and he was one of our first coaches. I did all the coaching. We, this was all unknown. There were, we were the 27th CrossFit, I think officially 50th. Now we're like 27 on the list.

   27. TFTim Ferriss44:52

       How many are there total?

   28. KSKelly Starrett44:53

       11,000, roughly, which is a revolution. You c- I mean, it's not a gimmick. And what ends up happening was there was a workout that was snatch 135 pounds 30 times. Adrian and I didn't know if we could do it. We didn't know anyone who had done it except, like, Olympic lifters, you know, who had, like, seriously trained and were strong. And one day we're like, "We're gonna do this, even if it takes us all day." And, like, we psyched ourselves up. And, like, now, like, they throw that as, like, an aftereffect. You can do that in 90 seconds. I mean, things have changed dramatically in 10 years because w- you know, it's like the four-minute mile. Everyone's like, "Oh, you're still running four-minute miles? That's so quaint." [laughs] You know? We're in the one-minute mile now.

   29. TFTim Ferriss45:34

       [laughs]

   30. KSKelly Starrett45:34

       And, um, but, you know, 10 years we didn't know. And so now we're starting to see that, you know-
9. 45:41 – 49:31

   Why Rich Froning Jr. is so great at the snatch

   1. KSKelly Starrett45:41

      for sure.

   2. TFTim Ferriss45:41

      Now, coming back to the snatch for a second. Um, so I've never been, uh, a, a practitioner of Olympic lifts for a whole host of reasons, but, uh, primarily because I had reconstructive shoulder surgery in 2004 doing, uh, silly stuff like grappling that made my arm-

   3. KSKelly Starrett45:58

      Sure

   4. TFTim Ferriss45:58

      ... shoot out of the front of my chest. And-

   5. KSKelly Starrett46:00

      Maybe you should've been Olympic lifting.

   6. TFTim Ferriss46:01

      S- maybe I should have. So I had a lot of apprehension about-

   7. KSKelly Starrett46:03

      Yeah

   8. TFTim Ferriss46:04

      ... that sort of-

   9. KSKelly Starrett46:04

      Rightfully so

   10. TFTim Ferriss46:05

       ... like, terminal kind of overhead last 15, 20 degrees. And, uh, but I found a lot of value, particularly in the last six months or so, with focusing on overhead squatting movements.

   11. KSKelly Starrett46:16

       Yeah.

   12. TFTim Ferriss46:16

       Still not to the point where I'm gonna do snatches. Uh, and I think that's where I've become smarter over the years, is recognizing that you can, you can really refine movement patterns. I don't have the go heav- go big or go home mentality anymore that I used to because the, the risk benefit's so unfavorable to me. But, uh, why is Rich Froning so good at the snatch, and what are the common mistakes that people make with that movement?

   13. KSKelly Starrett46:43

       Well, Rich has excellent mechanics. He has full range of motion in his ankles, he has excellent shoulder range and understanding of stability. He's able to get his... I mean, he just does things that are naturally important to snatching. He does them effortlessly in terms of getting his torso upright. His com- his str- obviously, it's a, a lot of training stimulus in these things, but he understands how to create stable shapes, and he's able to get into those shapes, so he doesn't have to work very hard. The, the, the work he does goes into, it's a h- he gets 100% benefit from that. He doesn't have to, he's not working at 80% of 70% efficiency. Does that make sense?

   14. TFTim Ferriss47:20

       That makes sense.

   15. KSKelly Starrett47:20

       He's, he's working hard on those shapes. What you, what you discover, though, is, I think underlying the cen- the, you know... It's a part of the functional movement screen since 1996. Dan John is like s- always s- all his throwers say, "I wish I had overhead squatted more." Glassman valued it as, like, the one of the most important capacities. And in fact, one of the earliest, best CrossFit workouts, I think it's called Nancy, and it's run 400 meters, so innocuous, right? And then just overhead squat 95 pounds 15 times. Like, I'm se- like, that's, that's pinche weight. But just do-

   16. TFTim Ferriss47:53

       15 times 400 meters doesn't sound pinche to me.

   17. KSKelly Starrett47:55

       Fif- no, you'll, you'll, you'll have to overhead squat 15, 95 pounds 15 times, run 400 meters, and then just do that.

   18. TFTim Ferriss48:01

       Oh, I see.

   19. KSKelly Starrett48:01

       Just do that, like, mm, five times.

   20. TFTim Ferriss48:03

       Yeah.

   21. KSKelly Starrett48:03

       And what you're gonna see really quickly is what happens, like, everyone can h- fake it for three, but then as you start to fatigue or your, your, your, your positions aren't robust, you, you bounce off the, the tent. You, you no longer have access, right? [laughs] And you know, you start, the, the world gets really small, and then you start suffering. And the person-

   22. TFTim Ferriss48:24

       And then you eventually Labrador retriever into the, in the closed sliding door. [laughs]

   23. KSKelly Starrett48:28

       [laughs] True fact. True fact.

   24. TFTim Ferriss48:29

       Yeah. [laughs]

   25. KSKelly Starrett48:30

       So, you know, I, I think what is key is understanding what are the salient positions. You know, all we're doing when we say overhead squat is I'm saying, "Show me you can squat with your torso upright." And that looks a lot like sport, doesn't it? And if you have to lean forward really far to do that, then it says you have incomplete hip and ankle function, and you don't know how to create stability in your trunk. And that is a very powerful idea, right? And what's nice about the overhead squat is- I call it a category one movement. I can get very organized and I can grind down to a position where either we agree that it's full range of motion or not, or till I start to lose position, I can come back up. And what I've removed out of it is the element of speed. So for my nine-year-old, for example, Georgia, the overhead squat is something we do all the time. Sometimes we just bring the little kitty barbell into the, into the living room before she goes to bed.

   26. TFTim Ferriss49:19

       15 pounder?

   27. KSKelly Starrett49:19

       Yeah, even less, maybe 10 pounds. And she just has to do three sets of five. Why? It's practicing the shape, practicing the position, and that's where we're going to get bang for the buck.

   28. TFTim Ferriss49:29

       Do you th-

   29. KSKelly Starrett49:30

       You can pull, you

10. 49:31 – 51:45

    Do too many CrossFitters focus on working out and not practicing?

    1. KSKelly Starrett49:31

       don't need to snatch heavy.

    2. TFTim Ferriss49:32

       Do you think-

    3. KSKelly Starrett49:32

       You should be able to snatch heavy

    4. TFTim Ferriss49:33

       ... too many CrossFitters focus on working out and not practicing?

    5. KSKelly Starrett49:37

       Well, totally. And I would say that that, let, let's, let's take it out of CrossFit for a second.

    6. TFTim Ferriss49:42

       Mm-hmm.

    7. KSKelly Starrett49:42

       And let's put it into running.

    8. TFTim Ferriss49:43

       Sure.

    9. KSKelly Starrett49:44

       Running is a very, very technical skill that we should be developing from a very early age, and there are only like, what, 30 million runners in America thr- who run three times a week, and only 80% of them are injured in a year.

    10. TFTim Ferriss49:56

        Wow, that's like the worst statistic ever.

    11. KSKelly Starrett49:58

        [laughs] Listen, if you're listening to this, do not let your children run. It's dangerous.

    12. TFTim Ferriss50:01

        [laughs]

    13. KSKelly Starrett50:02

        Comma, if you're a runner, and running is the th- one, one of the things that makes us human, you should be able to run. That is one of the tenets of being a good athlete. In fact, look at the NFL Combine, for example. They jump, right? They have to bench press, which is a joke. That's the one piece that's a joke, but everything else is a run drill, change of direction drill. It's about fluency and economy of running and changing mechanics. No wonder a couple years ago CrossFit put this big, like, you know, cone drill thing in there because they were like, "Hey, look, this thing you should be really competent at, and you're gonna get punished if you suck at it." So if we look at most people's running, how much actual skill development do they do in running? I mean, besides tying their shoes.

    14. TFTim Ferriss50:40

        Next to none.

    15. KSKelly Starrett50:41

        None, and they just start running.

    16. TFTim Ferriss50:42

        Unless you're with, say, a Joe DeFranco.

    17. KSKelly Starrett50:44

        [laughs]

    18. TFTim Ferriss50:45

        Planning on being in the NFL Combine, and he's like, "Actually, if you're right-handed, you should switch your feet this way because-"

    19. KSKelly Starrett50:50

        Yes. Yes

    20. TFTim Ferriss50:50

        ... "you cut one step out of the shuttle run, and then wow, now you're super fast."

    21. KSKelly Starrett50:53

        And Joe does a whole bunch of stuff about being, do you have the positions to run?

    22. TFTim Ferriss50:56

        Yeah.

    23. KSKelly Starrett50:56

        Like, for me, the most dangerous sport to middle-aged men is a, is a track workout.

    24. TFTim Ferriss51:01

        Oh my God, so dangerous.

    25. KSKelly Starrett51:02

        Like, you're just asking for a pulled hamstring or torn cal... Because you're at the end ranges, and when you start, your back starts to deflect because you can't buffer your, you know, your huge engine. Brr, and then you have a neuromechanical compromise, tear a hamstring. It's the same thing that happens in basketball. We don't even talk about what are the end, what are, do you have the r- required range of motion to run, yes or no? And resoundingly, the answer is hell no. And do we do any skills or drills about improving economy? No. So what ends up happening, of course, is that we should, and what, what I can tell you that I see is that I see very, very intelligent coaches practicing skills, teaching skills, and then challenging those skills in a workout, and that is good

11. 51:45 – 53:39

    Common mistakes when working on your snatch

    1. KSKelly Starrett51:45

       programming.

    2. TFTim Ferriss51:45

       So if I am getting to a point where I'm comfortable with overhead squatting with a barbell, and consider-

    3. KSKelly Starrett51:51

       Uh, that never happens, by the way, 'cause it always, it always gets worse.

    4. TFTim Ferriss51:54

       [laughs] Well, I've, I've, uh... No, you should have...

    5. KSKelly Starrett51:57

       [laughs]

    6. TFTim Ferriss51:58

       I'll send you some photos. They're hilarious. Uh, the, uh, if I'm considering going into, say, training for the snatch, what are common mistakes that I should be aware of, that I should avoid?

    7. KSKelly Starrett52:10

       W- well, you know, y- we have basically been able to break those fundamental positions down. So how about this? Show me that you can actually put, you know, just put some 10s on the bar, grab a women's bar, make it really light, you know?

    8. TFTim Ferriss52:23

       Better for my tiny little midget hands anyway.

    9. KSKelly Starrett52:24

       Show me that you can... Well, hey, they're called dwarf hands, all right?

    10. TFTim Ferriss52:26

        Yeah. [laughs]

    11. KSKelly Starrett52:27

        And, and one of the issues is, you know, show me you can keep your back flat and actually get to the bar, and what you're gonna see is that people can't do that.

    12. TFTim Ferriss52:35

        Get to the bar meaning underneath the bar.

    13. KSKelly Starrett52:36

        Get to the bar. Yeah, no, no, just get into the setup position for the bar.

    14. TFTim Ferriss52:39

        Got it.

    15. KSKelly Starrett52:40

        And what you're gonna find is that people can't even get into a decent setup position without rounding their back and dumping their shoulders, and then we start asking the question, what the hell are we doing? Your setup position is so shitty.

    16. TFTim Ferriss52:50

        Setup meaning that bottom position.

    17. KSKelly Starrett52:52

        Yeah. Can you... Show me you can put your hands in a snatch grip and then sit all the way down on your, on your ankles. Right? Sit down and get into a good position, and what you're gonna find is that people universally can't do that. So suddenly poo, I've learned something about myself. Why do all the best coaches teach from the hang? Well, if we teach from the hang, then I take that portion out of it. I can derive a lot of the benefits from snatching without taking you to these compromised shapes, and the problem is, I know you can snatch from that compromised shape, but that's not the shape we all agree is the best shape.

    18. TFTim Ferriss53:24

        Right.

    19. KSKelly Starrett53:24

        Does that make sense?

    20. TFTim Ferriss53:25

        Mm-hmm.

    21. KSKelly Starrett53:25

        So if you can't even get all the way down to the bar, an issue of technique is never, we're never gonna solve this because you're making basic type one errors from the first inch off the ground.

    22. TFTim Ferriss53:35

        Right.

    23. KSKelly Starrett53:36

        Or in, in centimeters, 'cause everything's in kilos in Olympic lifting.

12. 53:39 – 59:08

    If Kelly could remove 3 CrossFit exercises for safety, what would they be?

    1. TFTim Ferriss53:39

       Let me ask you, uh, uh, I wanna put you on the spot for a second 'cause I've always wanted to ask you this, and I'm not sure why I haven't. Uh-

    2. KSKelly Starrett53:45

       Yes, these are my real calves. They're not calf implants.

    3. TFTim Ferriss53:47

       [laughs] I was curious about your chesticles. Also real?

    4. KSKelly Starrett53:51

       [laughs] No.

    5. TFTim Ferriss53:52

       [laughs] It's just the left. I noticed you only put one in, just testing it out, huh? Uh, the, uh, if you were to, if you had to remove three common exercises from CrossFit gyms in the interest of safety-

    6. KSKelly Starrett54:06

       Well-

    7. TFTim Ferriss54:06

       ... what would, what would they be?

    8. KSKelly Starrett54:07

       Oh, so...

    9. TFTim Ferriss54:09

       If you had to, gun against the head.

    10. KSKelly Starrett54:12

        Well-

    11. TFTim Ferriss54:12

        It doesn't have to be three. Three or fewer

    12. KSKelly Starrett54:14

        ... so l- l- let me deconstruct that for a second bec- and that's, and that's crucial because first and foremost, all the movements in the training language are inherently safe if you have full range of motion and the motor control to do them, right?

    13. TFTim Ferriss54:27

        Mm-hmm.

    14. KSKelly Starrett54:28

        So-

    15. TFTim Ferriss54:29

        Presumably, though, you get 1,000 people come in, there are certain exercises where a higher percentage of those people will lack that prerequisite, so they won't be able to check them.

    16. KSKelly Starrett54:36

        The n- the number one most dangerous skill, bench press. And why? Because people don't have an, any internal rotation in their shoulder. They pin their back down, right? Let's, you can press all day long, standing overhead military press, strict press. You're gonna fail safely. When you fail in the bench press, that shoulder's f- is, it's gonna translate forward. There's your labrum. There's your... Can you bench press safely? Yes. Do we love floor pressing in our gym? Absolutely. We floor press a ton, but what I find is that people do not have the basic mechanics, and that's one of the ways that we've got in our head that we define Like, you know, we define strength, how much you bench, you know, how much you bench. You know, my, I, I, my friend Mark Bell benched over 900.

    17. TFTim Ferriss55:20

        Our friend Mark Bell.

    18. KSKelly Starrett55:21

        Our friend Mark Bell.

    19. TFTim Ferriss55:22

        Excellent.

    20. KSKelly Starrett55:23

        And, uh, you know, that's an amazing amount. And what I will tell you is that his, his positions and mechanics, it is so technical. Like, I think I, once I became friends with-

    21. TFTim Ferriss55:32

        It's hyper, hyper technical.

    22. KSKelly Starrett55:33

        Yeah, once I-

    23. TFTim Ferriss55:34

        I mean, and also just the assistance work and everything that he does related to it is so sophisticated.

    24. KSKelly Starrett55:38

        I think I f- uh, after knowing Mark and Jesse Burdick for several years, I f- I feel like I finally learned how to bench press, even though I've been bench pressing since I was, what, like a man. I came out, like, like my testicles dropped and they handed me a bench press, you know?

    25. TFTim Ferriss55:51

        [laughs]

    26. KSKelly Starrett55:52

        And, uh, so I mean, I've s- I pulled the bench out of that. I also will pull the rings out.

    27. TFTim Ferriss55:55

        Rings.

    28. KSKelly Starrett55:56

        And the reason is what we see is that people can do movements l- that look like ring dips. They go up and down, but they don't lock out. Their shoulder's in terrible positions, and what we value is them doing work going up and down. But if we put the rings back in for stability work, show me you have a good start position and finish position. Like, w- here's what, here's one of my problems. Like, the TRX is a great piece of home equipment. Like, you can ... One of the things that we, I'm a big fan of is understanding that if your hands are on the ground doing a pushup, right, then you can cheat off the ground. You have what I call a closed torque environment. If you grip a barbell that's closed, closed torque, it's basically a, a, a circuit, right? And I can create stability off that in really strange positions 'cause I can still bend the wrist.

    29. TFTim Ferriss56:43

        Cheat in like bending the bar, I mean.

    30. KSKelly Starrett56:44

        That's right. I should be bending the bar, but I can still bend the bar even though my body's in really dis- strange shapes. As soon as I put a dumbbell in your hand, you can't do that anymore.
13. 59:08 – 1:01:01

    The question of sequencing exercises

    1. TFTim Ferriss59:08

       Right. And I mean, I'm getting into more gymnastics, uh, these days and, uh, you know, I wanna be able to do a back tuck. I've never been able to do a back tuck. And, uh-

    2. KSKelly Starrett59:18

       Really?

    3. TFTim Ferriss59:18

       Yeah. Attribute wise, I have the attributes necessary, but it's a long story. But-

    4. KSKelly Starrett59:23

       No, I, I f- 'cause I was obsessed with that too. I told you that, yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss59:24

       Yeah, yeah. So, so I wanna get to that point. You can do that safely, but you can certainly do it very, very unsafely. [laughs] Or attempt to do it unsafely, and I think that, you know, the question of sequencing and how you put things in a proper order from diagnostics-

    6. KSKelly Starrett59:37

       Totally

    7. TFTim Ferriss59:37

       ... to refinement to training.

    8. KSKelly Starrett59:39

       We have not given people the background or the language of how their bodies work.

    9. TFTim Ferriss59:44

       Yeah.

    10. KSKelly Starrett59:45

        You know, I get to work with kids, like children, like first graders in swim, kindergartners in our swim team, all the way up to masters Olympic athletes. I mean, like we, I see it all, right? And what I can tell you is that most along the way, no one gets any formal training, and the mistake has been always, like I think CrossFit is doing it more right. The D- the DeFrancos Gyms, the Mike Boyles, the places like that are v- you know, Shan Turley at Stanford, there are pockets of really excellent thinkers who are teaching people how to move. And that's a specific thing, right? And that's not just jumping back and forth and chasing a bouncy ball. That's very specific skills and challenging those skills with the things we talked about. So, you know, what we've seen is a decentralized, in CrossFit for example, it's like a decentralized Soviet sports system, right? We have 11,000 states, and what you'll see is that kids will grow up through the CrossFit system in a generation, and they will ha- they'll already be like, "Well, of course I can overhead squat. What do you mean? Why can't you overhead squat?" You know what I mean? And we'll solve a lot of problems, but the, the key piece is we can't confuse exercising for full human capacity. That's, that's the missing

14. 1:01:01 – 1:03:42

    What the top CrossFitters do that other CrossFitters don't

    1. KSKelly Starrett1:01:01

       link.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:01:01

       And s- speaking of full human capacity, if you look at the, the most elite CrossFitters, what are ... Are there things that they do that the lower ranks do not? Commonalities that you've observed that- ... people can, can borrow or emulate or incorporate.

    3. KSKelly Starrett1:01:16

       But y- y- are, you're saying the top CrossFitters?

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:01:19

       Yeah.

    5. KSKelly Starrett1:01:19

       That, that the bottom aren't doing, that's just the recreational?

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:01:21

       Yeah.

    7. KSKelly Starrett1:01:22

       Like the-

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:01:22

       Yeah, the top, top, uh, quartile or decile of-

    9. KSKelly Starrett1:01:25

       They, uh, they all have, most of them I know are obsessed with mechanics, most of them, and really spend a lot of time refining that mechanics. Um, th- that's really, you know, their positions are more effortless. Like, there was a, uh, uh, you know, I had this physical therapy instructor, and she was like, she, she taught pediatrics, and she's like, "Let me be fucking clear. Muscles and tissues are like obedient dogs."

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:01:49

        [laughs]

    11. KSKelly Starrett1:01:50

        And I was like, like my mind was like gadoosh. Like, this is coming from the pediatric physical therapist, who was like, "What the hell's wrong with you? Why, you know, why are you so stiff?" You know?

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:01:59

        [laughs]

    13. KSKelly Starrett1:02:00

        And, um, you know, I, and the, the key, the- Everybody's really- [laughs] The key-

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:02:05

        We're doing synchronized stretches. [laughs]

    15. KSKelly Starrett1:02:07

        ... is, um, the, the key is that people aren't spending enough time working on full position. And maybe it's because I have not made the case for it, because what we've done is we know you can get by at 80%, but show me you have full capacity. Because that's the thing that these top athletes have. I mean, they obviously can work really hard.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:02:28

        Full capacity meaning the corners of these positions.

    17. KSKelly Starrett1:02:31

        Yeah, the positional, p- full position. And the, I always use this example, but squat down with your feet together, keep your heels on the ground, knees together. Can you do that, yes or no? If you can't do that, knees together all the way down, chilling out in the bottom like we're at a campfire, then you're missing full hip range of motion, ankle range of motion. One of those things is missing. And that's the mechanism for your hip impingement. That's the mechanism for your plantar fasciitis, for your bunion, for your torn Achilles, you know, for your pulled calf. I mean, that is the fucking problem, and you should be obsessing about this. I, you know, CrossFit is like, it's, or any good modern strength and conditioning system, because we're not the only ones doing it now, but they force us into these shapes that are diagnostic, you know? And you know, if you've been around Pavel, well, then you probably have done a pistol at some point.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:03:20

        Sure.

    19. KSKelly Starrett1:03:20

        That's because you have to be able to have that open torque control on your leg, right? That's how he gets away with not having to do lots of step-ups, right? Show me that you can squat up and down on one leg with that strength, and immediately I can tell if you have the ankle range of motion, hip range of motion to do that, right? So it's interesting that that got pulled into the language because it was so diagnostic.

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:03:41

        If,

15. 1:03:42 – 1:07:48

    Diagnostic exercises

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:03:42

       if there were two or three movements that people listening to this could videotape themselves performing for sort of m- maximal diagnostic value, uh, let's just say it's busy professional who's like, "Eh, you know, I'm probably letting go, but I wanna get back into training. I wanna be able to videotape myself at certain points just to see how screwed up I am before I try to do something I did when I was 20 years old."

    2. KSKelly Starrett1:04:09

       Well-

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:04:09

       Is there anything in particular y- you'd recommend?

    4. KSKelly Starrett1:04:11

       Well, here's, the problem with that is that you somehow devalue some of the other positions. And in, in physical therapy school, they, they had this great statement. They're like, "Test something you think you changed and something you didn't think you changed." And I was like, "That is so eternal and amazing." And then I was like, "Well, fuck, it's my fucking shoulder." And if I'm compromised on this end, I maybe don't have the intellectual capacity to understand how that compromises me on the other side. And so what, what's crucial is that you can go from the start position... So for example, you may not think that Olympic lifting is important to you as a swimmer, but Olympic lifting forces you all the time, or swinging a kettlebell, into having full internal rotation of your shoulder. So even just doing the Burgener warmup with a PVC pipe. He's a, he's an Olympic lifting coach. You can Google Burgener warmup.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:04:57

       How do you spell his name?

    6. KSKelly Starrett1:04:58

       It's like B-U-R-G-E-N-E-R.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:05:02

       Got it.

    8. KSKelly Starrett1:05:04

       And if you, Mike Burgener, and if you just get into this high hang position, like, like you're doing like the robot dance out to the side, right?

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:05:13

       Do it all the time, why don't you?

    10. KSKelly Starrett1:05:14

        You should be able to get your hand all the way down to your hip, and your shoulder shouldn't twist forward. So people are like, "Oh, I don't need to Olympic lift." Well, you should be able to snatch a PVC pipe without hurting your shoulder. But those same people will go to the pool and not recognize that the finish position for the crawl stroke is-

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:05:31

        The same position

    12. KSKelly Starrett1:05:31

        ... the same position. And so what ends up happening then is in the swimming language, if I'm missing that internal rotation at the end, that means my shoulder comes forward, and that means my next stroke is compromised.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:05:43

        Impinged, yeah.

    14. KSKelly Starrett1:05:44

        And that's why you have to have full range on both ends of your shoulder, right? Because I'm going to compromise, and that's going to mess up my next start or my next rep.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:05:54

        Yeah. I've been amazed how much my entire physiology has changed just focusing on terminal knee extension. Just like lay on your back, put your legs straight up in the air, pull your toes back, straighten your legs. And if you can't straighten them completely, I was like, wow, my legs are shaking like, [laughs] you know. I have, I have-

    16. KSKelly Starrett1:06:10

        It's true. I hand, I handed that over to two NFLers today-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:06:13

        Yeah

    18. KSKelly Starrett1:06:14

        ... who were, who were, were, uh, coming back from an ACL repair.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:06:17

        Yeah.

    20. KSKelly Starrett1:06:17

        That too, they sit all day long. They're sitting 14 hours a day, knees slightly bent. They don't have that range. Posterior chain is... You know, you should... Like, why can't you do a long sit? You know?

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:06:27

        Yeah. Last time you saw me, I could barely do this, and now I'm like-

    22. KSKelly Starrett1:06:29

        That's right

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:06:30

        ... out to the-

    24. KSKelly Starrett1:06:31

        You know what? One of the things that you, you know-

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:06:33

        I was touching my toes, bud

    26. KSKelly Starrett1:06:33

        ... the truth. [laughs] PR, lifetime.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:06:36

        [laughs]

    28. KSKelly Starrett1:06:37

        One of the, one of the truths is that, you know, we're always talking about putting the hip back into the socket.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:06:43

        Right.

    30. KSKelly Starrett1:06:43

        Like, that's the capsule stretch. That's for our body stuff.
16. 1:07:48 – 1:09:02

    Is CrossFit a fad?

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:07:48

       Uh, I have to ask this. This is, this is, uh, it's a common question. It's not one that I ask myself much, but I'm curious how you would answer it. Is CrossFit a fad?

    2. KSKelly Starrett1:07:56

       Oh, I would say totally. Totally a fad.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:07:59

       [laughs]

    4. KSKelly Starrett1:08:00

       Because front squatting and running is a fad. It's a gimmick.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:08:03

       [laughs]

    6. KSKelly Starrett1:08:04

       No, look, gymnastics is not a gimmick. Um, Olympic lifting, not a gimmick, powerlifting, not a gimmick. You know, one of the things that I don't think people re- recognize CrossFit so much, and you can even go, go back to Pavel's book. It's like he, he interviews some MMA guy who was legendary for his conditioning. He does the 100 kettlebell snatch test, and he does it in, like, eight minutes, and it destroys him. Like, I have 13-year-old girls who can do that version of that thing in, like, three and a half minutes. You know what I mean? So w- we've done is we've gotten a lot better conditioned, and c- and I think people understand that CrossFit has always prioritized conditioning and aerobic engine first. You've got to take care of that stuff, and the body weight control stuff is the easiest way and the most democratized way. Then let's have a conversation about how much you weigh, how strong you are. If you're gonna be the best at the CrossFit Games, you're gonna have to be really, really strong and really aerobic. For al- the rest of us, we can keep putting money in that strength bank, but that a- that aerobic function bank, it goes dry.

17. 1:09:02 – 1:11:08

    Conditioning

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:09:02

       Now, the conditioning to, uh... And I know you got, got a bunch of people to, to train here and business to handle, so I'll let you go in a minute, but the, to thin slice conditioning for a second because for, for me, of course, I wanna, I wanna dig into s- the, the measureables. Is that primarily when I look at, say, a metabolic conditioning workout, a MetCon workout, is it primarily trying to push up that anaerobic threshold so that you don't get crippled by lactic acid and hydrogen ions and all that and puke into a bucket? Uh, is it VO2 max? Like, what are the primary components that you can-

    2. KSKelly Starrett1:09:33

       Well-

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:09:33

       ... kind of perform, that you can track?

    4. KSKelly Starrett1:09:35

       The idea is that, you know, w- we could maintain all these other functions, strength, power, all the things that sort of valued us as powerful, functional people, and I could get all the benefits of the aerobic, anaerobic training with interval-like training, with high intensity training, right? Izumi Tabata proved that a long time ago, but what we found is that, hey, probably you need to go long once in a while to make sure you can, and there's some adaptations that only happen at that long, steady state, right? I'm about to, I'm signed up for the Molokai. I'm paddling OC1. It's like a five to seven-hour race. 20-minute workouts are not gonna do it for me.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:10:11

       This is kayaking.

    6. KSKelly Starrett1:10:12

       Outrigger canoe.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:10:13

       Outrigger canoe.

    8. KSKelly Starrett1:10:14

       Right, but my point is that I'm gonna have to go long. How long we need to go is up to my coach. You know, I'm probably not doing longer than an hour, still maintaining, respecting this aerobic piece. But that the intensity, y- you know, all of our energy systems work in concert and not the same time. You know, if you go longer than two minutes, two minutes is a 50% aerobic, 50% anaerobic effort. So, you know, running a m- you know, at six minutes, eight minutes, you're at full aerobic power. You know, that, that's a s- a much more interesting... Do 1K repeats. You know, that's w- something people didn't understand about Brian McKenzie's model. You know, it's like he has me do 5K repeats and stuff and on the Erg, and ooh, it's brutal. That's brutal.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:10:51

       Is the standing or seated Erg?

    10. KSKelly Starrett1:10:53

        That'd be the SkiErg, the SkiErg.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:10:55

        SkiErg.

    12. KSKelly Starrett1:10:55

        You know?

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:10:56

        Got it.

    14. KSKelly Starrett1:10:56

        You know, that's, that's, that's a te- those are terrible places to be, you know? 1K repeats. You know, and I, I think we even, people are, are not afraid of working hard anymore. We've gotten past that. Now let's have a little bit better conversation.

18. 1:11:08 – 1:12:18

    The future of CrossFit

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:11:08

       What, uh, what do you think is the future of CrossFit? And you can answer that any way you want.

    2. KSKelly Starrett1:11:13

       Well, you know, it's gonna continue to refine itself. I think, you know, people are coming in, and all the coaches I know and work with, you know, are starting to understand what is we're doing and how sophisticated. It's not just we just don't throw a bunch of random shit up and exercise till we puke. You know, it seems like that, you know, bunch of, bunch of jerks swinging around the bar. That's not what's happening at all.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:11:33

       There are some jerks swinging on the bars.

    4. KSKelly Starrett1:11:34

       Well, that, that happens. I mean, I always point out, [laughs] I'm like, "The physical therapists out in the world, you had a business long before CrossFit, FYI." Like, there are people who have been fucking themselves up in every sport for as long as there have been people because we're ego-driven people, because we're, we're driven to perform, right? So, you know, the key is to pull your ego out of this and really play the long game. What do you look like? How strong, how fit can you be when you're 50? The conversation changes a little bit. For me, it's, it's not, you know, can I deadlift 600 anymore? It's, you know, what's this look like when I run an ultra? What's this look like, how f- effective am I at running a 10K or paddling? Those are, for me, starting to be more interesting conversations than just absolute strength or absolute work power. How can I, how does this make me a better mountain biker?

19. 1:12:18 – 1:13:58

    Kelly's message to CrossFitters

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:12:19

       If, if there were any, uh, any sort of parting tips, suggestions, requests that you could make of the people out there who are either currently CrossFitting or considering CrossFitting, what would you say to them? Or what would you suggest?

    2. KSKelly Starrett1:12:34

       You know, two thir- it's not about who can work hardest anymore. That ship has sailed. If you're in a serious strength and conditioning program, you are very fit. You know, y- probably fitness is not, unless you're a beginner, fitness is not the limiting factor anymore. Your positional quality at intensity is the limiting factor, 'cause you're going to do the same experiment that everyone has done, and you will end up in a little tiny box at some point wondering why you're Georges St-Pierre and you've torn both your ACLs, right? He, no one was fitter, no one was more powerful, but his positions cost him his ACLs, and now he's, the, that consciousness has come at a very, very high price, and, you know, you should be able to do these things forever. You know, there's, there's not a time where you don't need to get up off the ground or do a pushup, but just let's become more sophisticated. Let's advance the conversation a little bit. Don't be a douchebag.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:13:29

       [laughs] That's a big one.

    4. KSKelly Starrett1:13:31

       If you, if I walk into the room and you're rounding your back, I'm gonna cock punch you. Come on.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:13:35

       [laughs]

    6. KSKelly Starrett1:13:36

       It may happen once in a while at your heaviest loads, but you're not-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:13:38

       I was drinking coffee and you tried to cock punch me earlier.

    8. KSKelly Starrett1:13:40

       [laughs]

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:13:40

       Which I thought was aggressive.

    10. KSKelly Starrett1:13:41

        Well, yeah.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:13:42

        Luckily, I-

    12. KSKelly Starrett1:13:42

        No, I mean, I just, I think that's, that's the issue-

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:13:44

        ... was in pants

    14. KSKelly Starrett1:13:44

        ... is that it's, it's, you know, you need to bring the awareness that we're supposed to bring to this. If we're doing a five-rep, we're just not even a five-rep max, but we're just squatting, that fifth, fifth rep should look fucking good. You just did four more. Like, make it look better. Okay.

20. 1:13:58 – 1:14:58

    Lesser-known strength coaches Kelly recommends following

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:13:58

       Okay, we got, we gotta run, guys. Uh, last question, any lesser-known strength coaches or coaches, period, that, uh, that you particularly, that, that stick out in your mind that people might wanna look up and learn more about, more about?

    2. KSKelly Starrett1:14:14

       Oh, Joe DeFranco is amazing.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:14:17

       Mm-hmm.

    4. KSKelly Starrett1:14:17

       Um, if you haven't ever listened to Pavel talk, you know-

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:14:20

       Yes

    6. KSKelly Starrett1:14:20

       ... he solved a lot of this a long time ago.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:14:22

       Yeah.

    8. KSKelly Starrett1:14:22

       Um, the, the internet is rich right now with, you know, I would say look at who's been on the podcasts.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:14:31

       Mm-hmm.

    10. KSKelly Starrett1:14:33

        Um, there have been some serious banner carriers for a long time. Mark Verstegen at EXOS has been talking about these basic shapes and compro- positions for a long time. Who are on his show? Who's around, you know?

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:14:44

        Right.

    12. KSKelly Starrett1:14:44

        Um, and I, and I think the working coach piece is, is it. There are a lot of models, you know, but you just, just need to start a practice, and then from there we can advance ourselves. But there's, there's a lot of really good thinking in the world right now, and it's very exciting. This is a good time

21. 1:14:58 – 1:18:01

    Where you can find Kelly

    1. KSKelly Starrett1:14:58

       to be in the world.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:14:58

       Definitely. So yeah, question your assumptions, folks. Test your own rules.

    3. KSKelly Starrett1:15:03

       And don't be afraid to suck. Suck.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:15:04

       Don't be afraid to suck. Find a place where you can suck-

    5. KSKelly Starrett1:15:06

       Privately

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:15:06

       ... safely. [laughs] Kelly, where can people find, uh, find you on the internets and elsewhere?

    7. KSKelly Starrett1:15:12

       Uh, I'm on your couch, timferrisscouch.com.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:15:14

       [laughs]

    9. KSKelly Starrett1:15:15

       And-

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:15:15

        Not to be confused with other couches-

    11. KSKelly Starrett1:15:17

        That's right

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:15:17

        ... on the internet.

    13. KSKelly Starrett1:15:17

        Uh, dude, we're at, @mobilitywod and, uh, mobilitywod.com. And, uh, man, uh, I can't believe I've been doing this for 10 years. That's a lot of pull-ups.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:15:25

        Yeah. [laughs] Well, to many more decades. All right.

    15. KSKelly Starrett1:15:29

        Thanks, buddy.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:15:29

        Thanks so much, man.

    17. KSKelly Starrett1:15:30

        Appreciate you. [upbeat music]

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:15:35

        This podcast is brought to you by Mizzen+Main. Don't worry about the spelling. All you need to know is this: I have organized my entire life around avoiding fancy shirts, because you have to iron them, you sweat through them, they smell really easily, they're a pain in the ass. Mizzen+Main has given me the only shirt that I need. And what I mean by that, and Kelly Starrett loves these shirts as well, is that you can trick people. They look really fancy, so you can take them out to nice dinners, whatever, but they're made from athletic sweat-wicking material. So you can throw this thing into your luggage in a heap or on your kitchen table, like I did recently, and then pull it out, throw it on with no ironing, no steaming, no nothing, walk out, and you could probably wear this thing for a week straight or make it your only dress shirt and take it on trips for weeks at a time. Never wash it. It will not smell. You will not sweat through it. You gotta check these things out. So go to fourhourworkweek.com, all spelled out, fourhourworkweek.com/shirts. And if you order one of their dress shirts in the next week, you will get a Henley shirt for free. That's worth about 60 bucks. So put them both in the cart. Use the code Tim, T-I-M, and you will get the Henley shirt for free. Check it out, fourhourworkweek.com/shirts, and you'll see some of my favorite gear, including the one shirt that I've been traveling with. The Tim Ferriss Show is also brought to you by 99designs. 99designs is your one-stop shop for anything graphic design related. You need a logo, you need a website, you need a business card or anything else, you get an original design from designers around the world who submit drafts for you to review. You are happy or you get your money back. And I have used 99designs for book cover ideas for The 4-Hour Body, which went to number one New York Times, for banner ads, and you can check out some of my actual competitions at 99designs.com/tim. You can also get a free $99 upgrade if you wanna give it a shot. That's 99designs.com/tim. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 1:18:01