Exploring Rope Flow and Movement

the spine is the thing that helps Propel these things forward and that's what rope flow helps build this is why it helped my Jiu-Jitsu so much because Jiu-Jitsu is a movement practice you rotate when you sweep somebody you rotate when you throw somebody as anyone who wants to actually move well you learn to improve strength and muscle while improving movement ability our special guest today is an elite level powerlifter two times Brazilian jiujitsu Masters world champion and he's even competed at a high level in natural bodybuilding I'm talking about the one and only Ina yam and he's the co-host of the wildly popular Mark Bell's power project and he's contributed to over 1,000 episodes sharing knowledge on Fitness strength and [Music] movement I'm so excited to talk to you about this about rope flow yeah and the value what I'm noticing with my wrist with my shoulder with my movement with my just feeling more a little bit more bouncy you know just and it's like these subtle things and I've only been doing it for a short amount of time and just even just hanging out and doing just a little bit with the Rope it just and and to again bring the conscious breathing to it as well because it's very easy if somebody's learning a skill for example to you know tense themselves up but to find myself to find my breath and all the different aspects the benefits of this is crazy that's what we're going to talk about right now so number one what is rope flow and then let's dig in on the benefits yeah so rope flow was something that was invented by our friend David wck um he started doing that back in 2004 because he mentioned that he sees everybody jumping rope and it's this syncopated pattern but he's like oh what if you start doing that right so then he ventured down that and he helped he pretty much created a lot of these patterns and you know when I met him about 4 years ago I think he showed it to me and when I looked at I'm like this is a joke don't get me wrong doing and learning from all these professionals over the years I've learned how to kind of keep an empty cup with these things and have a white belt mentality but when I saw that I was like knee-jerk reaction n but but after I gave it a shot is when I was like there's something here there's there's something really cool here uh and then after I started to prove at it I I started to notice that in Jiu-Jitsu where I usually do sweeps and maybe a lot of submissions on my right side because that's where I rotate we all have habits we reach for our toothbrush with our right hand we get out of our car with our left foot and we bend a certain way we have certain specific habits that we always do as far as movement's concerned but rope flow provides movement symmetry first so you know you'll see rotating on the right rotating on the left okay so now we have movement symmetry we're rotating on both sides of the body you're standing up you're Shifting the weight on both sides of the body now you're shifting to your front leg back leg or if you're standing in a neutral position with both legs next to each other you're shifting to the left you're shifting to the right right just for people that are listening so we're not talking about jumping over the rope we're talking about spinning the rope in certain ways on your side and then on your other side exactly right so again I noticed that that transfers into martial arts like whoa okay my Jiu-Jitsu is better just because I'm learning how to swing this rope around but one of the other big reasons that rope flow is so effective is it teaches people how to tap into the thing that resistance training in the traditional sense has potentially worsened like I mentioned earlier a lot of people when we're lifting in the gym we were taught hold the breath Val Sal maneuver neutral spine everything is neutral spine neutral spine neutral spine you train in that way and over time you stop moving in other ways or you you stop moving other ways you stop bending from your spine to go tie your shoe and then you'll hear a physical therapist say don't bend at your back neutral spine to go down entire your shoe you know you stop laterally flexing you stop rotating you stop these movements and now when you're running you're running like a robot I mean look at a lot of I mean honestly look at a lot of bodybuilders run or look at just a lot of people who mainly lift run that spine isn't rotating but those arms and legs are moving them through space Have you ever heard of of the spinal engine Theory oh please okay so the spinal engine was a theory uh purported by Serge grety and like the 1980 the book is dense I don't even understand a lot of the book because when you open it it is physics based okay but the idea isn't too difficult to understand most bi mechanists follow the idea that to propel the body through space you use the arms and legs well that makes a lot of sense if we walk forward we step forward and we rotate we rotate our arms but surge put forward this idea that it's not just the arms and legs that Propel the body through space it's Al also the spine because if anyone were to go to YouTube spinal engine Theory right now they're going to see a video that's pretty famous video about that theory where it's a torso okay and this man has no legs and he has half of his arms but he's propelling his body through space okay so this guy's alive guys okay um and he's propelling himself through space with the rotation of his spine and the pivoting on his pelvis so when the right shoulder comes forward the left hip comes forward by the way again no legs his left shoulder comes forward his right hip comes forward he's propelling himself through space with no arms and no legs why is this possible because we have this belief and don't get me wrong there's this idea that to propel forward you have to step but the spine is the thing that helps Propel these things forward and that's what rope flow helps build because initially when you start the practice you're swinging the rope with the hands you're you're swinging the Rope when you look at it also you're like I'm swinging the Rope right but when you get better and when your spine gets better at moving this contralateral movement of the spine your spine becomes the thing that swings the Rope your spine becomes the Rotator you're now moving your spine and rotating your your your and moving this object through space with something that has been kept neutral for so long that's why people quickly find a shift in the way they move because they're simply beginning to move their spine in a different way and that's just that's that's the that's the tip of the iceberg like we had this guy CJ Kissa came on our podcast recently and he told a story when and and even people that are that are doing my foundations course for ropl right now a few days in they're like I'm walking with more balance 50s and 60s I'm walking with more balance I don't feel like as Shifty on my feet the reason is their economy of movement's improving instead of stepping forward with a neutral spine they're rotating into that step rotating into that step they're now using this thing that's been so static for so long and it's getting hydration to the discs all of all of you're starting to tap into that engine that you you haven't been using for so long right I want to mention CJ's story real quick because it's pretty profound CJ mentioned that he met David four years ago and you know he did some rope flow for three days okay CJ's a great coach great mind amazing programmer he owns this gym called gymnazo and I think I believe it's in and slow you know um but he comes home after 3 days of just doing some basic rope flow he cuts 10 minutes off of his run it's not that he has uh used a new supplement it's not that he's changed his form it's that now instead of running like this like you see most bodybuilders and lifters run he's rotating and he has better smoother economy of movement this is why it helped my Jiu-Jitsu so much because Jiu-Jitsu is a movement practice you rotate when you sweep somebody you rot when you throw somebody and now if you're able to tap into this thing and get it moving and get it moving the moving human being in the way you want to move them bam it's that that's why it can be so powerful oh man so good now I've got to ask you about this um the Rope itself for people that are listening just for them to get a visual the people that are watching of course you're going to see some actual video of in SEMA actually doing this which is amazing and again this has become a intro part of what I'm doing on a daily basis like I just and I look forward to it you know and um and I just got a text from you not too long ago and it was just like at the right time and it just fit in and the Rope itself you know you got me a starter rope to get started because some of the other ropes you know took a little while to get to me and so but I was able to get started and our mind especially when you see somebody like yourself doing it who's been doing it for a while it's like I want the big rope so I want people to to get a visual ual of what the Rope itself looks like this isn't like a little speed rope that you're doing you know for like boxing training talk about the Rope a little bit so you know the Rope can be looked at like we look at the weights in the gym you know it gets harder as it gets heavier but if you want to have good form and learn the foundations you start lighter so you learn how to move right so if anybody starts with the Rope it's a good idea to start with a lighter rope because heavier ropes will move not necessarily faster but they're going to have more inertia and they will pull at your spine more and if you don't know how to move with that momentum and leverage your skeletal structure to move that rope through space you can hurt yourself right so with the ropes it's good to start with a light rope or you know um there's slightly heavier ropes I have those on my website there's a bunch of websites that have ropes but anyway you want to start light so that you can learn the technique okay you don't want to start heavier because that's an easy way to hurt yourself and when you're starting lighter you can do it for a longer period of time heavy ropes take more energy so you do it for a few minutes you're like my wrists I've never rotated my wrist that much I'm tired now but light ropes you can do them for a while and you can really get the foundational movement patterns um it's one of those things where you want to just like jiujitsu right Jiu-Jitsu is a great example for this and I I look at ROFL like a martial art because when I first started learning Jiu-Jitsu you know there's all these videos on YouTube and I wanted to do all these moves but when my foundations weren't set like I was just making all these foundational mistakes because I was trying to rush the process of learning Jiu-Jitsu Concepts but when I went and I learned my foundations and those became a part of me learning everything else became so much easier but when I was just seeking out different fancy movements or whatever and like o I can do this and this and this I was getting tapped by the most Elementary foundational BS you know what I mean so when when starting rope flow it's a a good idea to again start with a light rope work on your foundations treat it like you treat it don't treat it like a workout when we were talking about breath breathe through the nose this isn't a practice that you ever hold your breath and that's why like with lifting and everything I do I do everything in a way that my breath guides what I do and if I'm holding my breath I know something's wrong I know the weight's too heavy I know there's there's there's something missing because I should never be holding my breath so with rope it's the same deal a lot of people have the tendency of when they start they get a little bit nervous and they start thinking of it and then they start doing what they do in the gym it's like no no no no no relax relax let that spine move right and as you get better you just you just start to unlock more of your own movement yeah yeah that's one of the things I noticed and by the way just to go back a little bit when you talked about the inputs that you get with hydrating those dis this is so important because so much of our reality is compression right and there's an important aspect of reality that we need that we we build some resilience in that but if it's all about compression over time you're going to be a compressed mother what we want is also decompression and there aren't many viable ways to do that in our normal day-to-day lives of course there are simple things hanging from a bar uh you know getting up on a a dip bar for example but the body has a way to still keep tension around your spine around certain parts not really decompress and let your spine decompress MH the Rope brings about such a remarkable decompression therapy really and to to reiterate this point of the disc are nonvascular right so they don't get hydration directly it's a process of remote diffusion like you your body has to be so hydrated have the nutrients all the things to get to the disc and also your disc are not a priority for your body like it's got It's got to run your brain it's got to keep your blood flow it's got to clot your blood and so it can be one of the last places to get the nutrition unless you're moving it that's the key all this other stuff tends to get moved not your spine not so much even if you're strength training because of what you just mentioned that tension that we hold but being able to actually move your spine is going to deliver more nutrients it's going to help some of that blood flow and hydration again it's not getting going directly there like just boom like that it's a process but it's it gets the process started and facilitated in a way like few things can yeah and the amazing thing quite a few amazing things from what you mentioned right there you get better at moving your spine the first day you start you're going to look like this and you're going to like think you're moving your spine whereas you're really just using your arms but each day you do it 5 10 15 minutes day whatever you whatever you feel like the the goal of rope flow is to do it and feel a little bit better afterwards it's not to do it and feel like you beat up or just got a really good workout but after you get experienced you can get a really good workout but even so the goal is to just feel a little bit better afterwards right but those small inputs over time teach you how to begin to rotate the spine uh I made a video about Roop on my YouTube channel and foundational patterns is the underhand pattern and the underhand pattern is like walking and the overhand pattern is actually like crawling right and when you do these patterns you're now getting your spine to move in the human rotational patterns when you walk you have this cont you should be having this controlateral movement that happens but again and I want to say when I'm talking about the gym I do not think the gym is bad and I still do certain traditional things even though like I'd say like the normal Squat and those deadlifts like that's 5% of my type of trading right um but the barbell on the back compresses this it's actually compression it compresses the spine it pushes you down gravity is constantly working against us and we're fighting against gravity to keep ourselves upright but if the only things that we do for exercise are compression in the gym with neutral spine and then we have our life where we're walking and stuff we're not doing anything that actually trains our human movement we're not doing anything that improves it and the you mentioned decompression you know a lot of people have ideas about decompression not being a real possible thing there's no nothing like disc decompression but it's more about getting your discs back to where they should be you compress them in the gym you feel tighter I mean I don't want to talk like research and stuff is great but the thing is is you know how you feel you know that you feel stiff you know that you feel tight you know that when you get out of bed in the morning you wake up you're like careful okay take those Ginger few steps move around a bit you're like okay you know what let's just wait 45 minutes this will start to loosen up but you know there's so many people in there and even myself cuz when I used to wake up I was like that that wake up in the morning and you actually pop out of bed pop out of bed not like okay let's get the body pop out of bed because you're your body is where it should be you know you don't go from the gym to sleep where you're you're waking up already just feeling tight you you do something that elongates and you you become better at bringing about this elongation as you perform the practice so you get better at actually stretching your spine through movement through Dynamic fluid movement things like the Jefferson curl and these movements in the gym are good to get you training flexion and lateral flexion Etc but like the Rope gets you doing these things in a dynamic way both sides utilized and that's why it ends up this little swinging of a rope ends up being such a powerful thing yeah yeah yeah and uh just to add to that a little bit the physics of it you know especially when the Rope gets a little bit heavier and I noticed the such a difference going from the training rope that you got me to when I got a heavier rope you can feel the force as that rope goes up pulling you against nature like power of levity right and that's that decompression it's like again but but you're doing this while moving in a human way and what I noticed was you know I tend to catch on the things pretty quickly I know you do too you know especially new movements things like that because we're we we we train ourselves to do that we've done that over time and so I I thank thankfully I had your guidance though because you know going through your videos like I could see okay there's this piece oh this is like I feel this this is this is natural and so I was just messing around and you kept using those terms too which is very freeing for people in the videos uh just mess around with this a little bit yeah I like I can mess around all right I'm going mess around and so I was at the park and I was just doing some of the basic rope flow and then I just decided I felt like I need to turn around and I hadn't gotten to that part yet and so I just I turned around I and which a propeller move which I didn't know and I just felt like that was so natural it just felt right and then I started walking like there's certain things that just felt like the right thing to do and then I learned about them in later videos of course I was like all right that I I got that one but then there were certain things that didn't feel natural right once we got to the Dragon Roll for example right I'm just like that seems very simple the way but when I was trying to peace peac make it and instead of flowing like getting back like let me tune into myself then it locked in but I needed to know what the action was right and so your course which you got to tell people where they get access to this because it would be criminal not to because he's so good and you detail every like you go through these little pieces that I didn't think about as well like and even popping in and do an emphasis video of like hey this is another check-in to check in on your breathing right so where can people get access to the course yeah yeah yeah um it's uh school.com and the group is called the stronger human there there'll probably be something there but I made that foundation's course and it's detailed I made it free because when I was learning roope flow I had to piece things together on YouTube and that's great you know what I mean but the thing is it's like it was it was became an inconsistent practice for me because the frustration of not having something just laid out and it took me I believe it took me too long to get the hang of things just because since I there was no structure I was just like H I'll just not do it today but you know I I laid things out again y'all can just go check it out you can go if you want to you can get a rope from Home Depot I have ropes on my website but just get something you can start with now go for go to Home Depot cut 9 ft of rope and just start swinging that thing around right don't make it a workout just swing it a little bit in the morning a little bit in the evening and make it a habit because you'll notice you'll start to it's when I say it's like a martial art you learn movements you put movements together and over time the big goal is to reach a flow State the big goal is to get to a place where you're not thinking you're just breathing the movements that you've done and downloaded are now just being performed and the flow state is powerful because I can get to a flow state in to at this point I've been doing it for 9 years I I have I can roll with anyone and Bam I'm in right but it's addictive the flow state is addictive this is why Runners once they get to that place where they call out the runners hey that that's the runner's Flow State they' they've gone for two hours and it felt like 30 minutes because they're just now locomoting they're just moving not even thinking about anything right but it's dangerous when you get addicted to a flow state that really beats your body up up this is why Runners get into trouble because they just run run run run run they're getting for that high and that high is amazing but that high is beating up your knees your back and everything and Jiu-Jitsu oh every day bada and if you guys do Jiu-Jitsu you get that one but listen you know you get to a flow state with jiujitsu and you can't fight people all the time it has wear and tear on your body right gets dangerous it gets dangerous and people will typically train through pain that's somewhat part of the culture like when a lot of people get their black belt they're the broken black belt you don't get there with no scars you got knee issues back issues neck issues and it's just it's part of the process of getting to the black belt but the thing is is like first off it doesn't have to be I'm I'm a black belt and I I have no injuries right and I'm actually I'm I used to have injuries in the past but when I found rope flow and again with the ways that I train in the gym I'm able to reach a flow state in this activity I'm able to do Marshall patterns and Marshall movements and I'm attenuated to this rope and by doing that I can now train Jiu-Jitsu three or four days a week and every day I can do some form of Roo that still allows me to achieve this state of no mind the state of not thinking just moving this absolute flow where I'm like I don't need to go to Jiu-Jitsu today I can I can just I can do my rope I can do my lifts and back off a little bit and I can feel good this is the thing that's going to let me do this stuff till I'm 70 80 90 rather than being the person who does it for for a few years and I'm out because of injury yeah yeah I'd love for you to talk about this subject this is something which is crazy that it's a it's a newer part of Fitness conversation which is these exercise snacks or micro doing exercise yeah when I mean just like most things that tend to work very well for a long time humans have been doing this for a very long time and today again I think mindset and you know coming up much the same way of like if I'm not getting in a full workout what's the point like when I my workout is going to the gym getting that 45 minutes or that hour and that's how I really get growth that's how I really progress and move forward just doing you know uh 10 pull-ups now and then you know doing you know 10 five more times throughout the day that's pointless like what am I doing that's it's nothing so let's talk about your perspective with micro doing exercise the goal is just to make movement a part of life it's you know in the past for me when I was focused on bodybuilding and power lifting and lifting was the thing that I have my pre-workout I get myself mentally prepared I go to the gym I get that done come back home I chill sit down chill right but the micro do has been so powerful and it's something we talk about on the power project all the time because I've set up my environment to serve my movement ability so you go to my house you go to my mom's place I've got her micro doing stuff too I I have a dip bar here two plch bars right here I got a kettle bell upstairs I got a sandbag chilling downstairs I got to pull a bar on the door at the podcast office in the podcast room we got some stuff laying around I got kettle bells in my car I I I I and people will hear this and be like this guy's a workout nut obviously he has workout stuff everywhere but it's not because I'm working out it's because when I pass by this thing I'm encouraged to just give it a quick pickup do a few squats just just move it right don't think about it it's not a workout it's just movement just go move it go pick up that 100 pound sandbag right there just right there just go pick it up real quick don't have to don't warm up just breathe and pick it up and the reason why I can now breathe and pick it up is because I've built the Habit in my lifting of using my breath to dictate my movement so now I don't have to hold my breath hype up and do something I can it's it's movement I can just go pick that up cold why I'm not saying you should just go do this now go get some heavy stuff and pick it up cold but have some things around that all lie to just get a few reps in without having to think it this is just literal lubrication for the body but you got to think these things add up I know that stress and getting close to failure can help with muscle growth and all these things and that is good you can absolutely do that right you should do that at some point but outside of that just gently making this a part of your day that adds up and not just in terms of burning calories Etc it adds up in allowing you to just to become a better mover become overall stronger because now over time you got a sandbag at home or some stuff at home now you can just go bang out 15 pull-ups without thinking about it because every time you went underneath the door you did like three or four but that's stacked up each day you know maybe there are some days where you backed off cuz you can't just perpetually do more each day but there are some days where you listen to your body and your body's like could you chill a little bit you not just do as much okay okay I won't do as much and then you have another day where you're like okay let's let's actually let's push this a little bit but over time there's this slow linear type of progression up and down but over time Trends up and now you know you just do these things it's just part of what you do because you set your environment up and this isn't just my my my movement environment this is my nutrition environment too but you set your environment up to serve your body and serve your movement right yeah and and I think that's that's why it can be so important I I tell people that that work in office jobs kettle bell is amazing maybe have a kettle bell and maybe a slant board right there in your office maybe you can just pick up that Bell and do a few slap board squats or do a few CLE Bell lifts or even just like do a few silent swings if you're nervous about people hearing it but just get the movement in so that the only time where you're getting in these movements isn't just when you're in a building with you know lights and four walls and the days that you miss doing anything in this building are days that you just don't do any of this activity at all I mean obviously we can't neglect how important walking can be so walks are super important but that's the idea of micro doing you know making movement a part of your life yeah so you can just do it and the concept of doing something cold or doing something without warming up is a new thing right no other species on Earth warms up before it does something right the the the line is not warming up let me do a little jog before I go after this gazelle you know and also if you but then we could be like well that's that's all other animals like we're more evolved all the things kids don't warm up when you get on the monkey bars you know when I was going to Bruce school elementary school we just got up on that [ __ ] and not only did we just go swinging on the monkey bars I was getting on top of the monkey bars I was doing all this Dynamic stuff and I didn't have to warm up first it just happens over time because we become more and more not just sedentary but movement deficient Sean I'm happy that you mentioned the kids thing because the goal that I have for myself and the goal that I have for all the people and the stronger human is getting back childlike movement ability so it's not just gaining muscle and trying to put on all this tissue and lifting it's not it's not just that because lifting can be good but it's being able to move like a kid again being able to sleep like a kid again right being able to have no apprehension in the next step Next Movement next thing you're going to do because you just do it right the monkey bars thing you mentioned is amazing because like I'm I'm getting a bar for at home so I can just start hanging off something but that's you you can do that my friend Joel green we've had him on the podcast twice he's brilliant man the first time I met him five years ago he mentioned on the podcast he was like you know and he's by the way 60 I think maybe late 50s 60s looks he looks great I have this habit of uh doing a five Sprints a day five cold Sprints a day and I looked at him and at that point in time I was in a state where if I took a Sprint I'd pull a hamstring so I didn't even Sprint at this time you know I was like sprinting is not something I'm ever going to do now but when I heard Joel say that I was just like why and he was like well that's actually one very good sign of youth kids like you just mentioned kids can just do stuff they don't have to think before they pick the thing up they just pick it up they can fall and get back up why cuz their tissues are super healthy and you that's a whole another thing taking care of your soft tissue but they can just fall and pop back up and we're like oh we could only do that where kid it's not just because they're a kid it's because they have healthy tissue they're Supple they're pliable I sound so creepy right now but you know you can no no Diddy no Diddy you can be you can build you can bring back that Supple pliable nature to your tissues so that you can't you don't just move like a child but like you your tissues activate they they pop like a kid's tissue isues pop and we lose those abilities because like you mentioned they're just things we stop doing ways we stop moving as humans we're an amazing species because we are built for efficiency we we we learn certain patterns and habits that allow us to use the least amount of energy and when we learn how to do that we learn how to just do things in the most comfortable way but the mo most comfortable thing is typically not moving as much not moving in certain ways as much and when we stop doing those movements when we stop moving in those ways we learn it's a learned Habit to just now sit in a certain way bend in a certain way walk in a certain way never Sprint or jump again most people stop jumping that's just one thing that they don't do and then after a while they're like most people don't even think about the fact like think about it I mean comment Down Below guys when's the last time you jumped hopped have you in a while and if you do it right now it's probably not a good idea cuz I know people who have been like oh I have they start and they pull something so again the thing is I want people to understand that it's not the fact that you'll never be able to do things these again these things again it's the fact that you need to slowly progress yourself back to these childlike abilities and it's possible it's just it's going to take you a while as it took me a while it takes a while but you can do it and then once you get it back it's maintenance yeah yeah this is the process is unlocking you know and that's what I love about the Rope flow as well is that gets unlocking all these dormant things and one of the things that you alluded to earlier is symmetry right because we all tend to do things with one side of our body whether we're you know if somebody's a baseball player or plays golf you know that's obviously very popular um you know our are form in tennis and using a certain hand for a lot of stuff and so we have a preference towards you know and it can be very conscious using one side of our bodies versus the other and this is giving us the ability to have more symmetry to use that other side of our body to complement both sides of our body and what that also is doing is unlocking our brain because one side of our brain is controlling the opposite side of our body and so I really feel that one of these uh capacities is this kind of whole brain functioning or integration that takes place what do you think about that you know I have my thoughts about this but I'm excited to talk to David about this this weekend but I I'll give you my thoughts right now and you alluded to uh swinging sports baseball throw with one side um tennis baseball again you swing generally on one side some people are ambidextrous some people have you know both skills with both feet but most people don't and the great thing about first off the Rope is that you can train those movement patterns on both sides of the body I don't know if you've gotten to the modules but there are single arm throwing patterns there are two arm throwing patterns with the Rope you learn how to do a throwing pattern on your dominant side then you learn how to do a throwing pattern on your non-dominant side you learn the pattern because the great thing about the Rope is that when you're doing something on one side then you do it on the other the Rope will teach you by hitting you the Rope will teach you that oh I'm not rotating as much when I do this like I do on my right so let me try doing that rotation on that side and oh it wasn't as good but it's okay okay let me do that throwing pattern again okay oh now I'm rotating in a throwing pattern on the left side of my body and I've never thrown a ball on the left side body let me actually go try to throw a ball with my right and my left I have this power that's what it's like because now you're you're man there's there's swing patterns there's like patterns that emulate the golf swing there's patterns that can emulate all these types of Swing but the thing is is initially you're so goofy on your other side but when you just do the Reps do the Reps do the Reps you're now doing the same level of rotation that you have on your dominant on your non-dominant and this is why even when it comes to things like punching I'm not a striker I'm not someone who who who does striking sports but my striking ability on both sides of my body is dangerous I've I've purposefully started doing a lot of striking on my own just because I felt that rotational power with the ropes I'm like okay let me see what this feels like and holy crap like I can actually strike well with my left and my right and I feel that powerful rotation on the brain side of things you mentioned something interesting because many people have different antidotes and I have anecdotes for myself too with this as I started to do more with the rope and learn new patterns you're literally your body is learning new patterns of movement things that were so natural to you like for many people throwing a ball is natural for many maybe throwing isn't so you learn how to throw you learn how to throw on the other side you learn and your body develops all these capacities and over time I'm thinking differently I'm having new ideas on things and I'm just like nah I don't want to just say it's the Rope it has to be other stuff but like I many people have said like I feel like I'm getting smarter because your movement efficiency with your body is improving so that can't just like that can't just stop there with the Rope right the way you move through life is also a reflection of the way you think notice that sometimes body posture is a big deal on like how you think about people and how you look at them I'm looking at you like this right now you probably might be feeling like this guy's creepy I'm crouched out a little bit I'm on my heads here but a lot of people this is their this is where they stay because this is where they feel comfortable suspicious and when when we look at these people we're like that person is hiding something there's something up with them then there's people where it's like they're comfortable they move through life in that way they have a different essence of the way they walk they you see athletes you watch an athlete walk a football watch Michael Jordan walk watch watch that just that oh that that Grace watch LeBron James watch any of these athletes walk there's there's the way you move that also changes the way you think the way you you activate yourself in life it it's powerful so I don't want to say it's going to make you smarter but I do have a feeling that as you start to move better you'll start to think differently I think we all know that when you start to feel more confident you'll start to think differently too yeah yeah a great affirmation for this is Dr Daniel Aman and you know he's he's got the world's greatest index of brain scans of functional brain scans yeah and so again he's actually looking at the brain he's involved in the big NFL study and he shared with me actually sitting right here in this chair uh how an aspect of the brain that is really one of the largest areas of the brain is really responsible for movement all things movement why would such a large part of the brain be dedicated to that and it's a bidirectional feedback you know your movement is going to grow and sustain this part of the brain and that part of the brain is sustaining your movement and so if you're getting these inputs you're literally creating all these neural connections and you're keeping the brain you know the blood flow the activity all that stuff is predicated on on your movement and so again if we can start to have more integration on both sides of our body because you know we have these two hemispheres and we start to get more integration we we and this is so overlooked with because you know it's so crazy man we've got this huge Paradigm with movies where the athlete is the dummy yeah you know what I mean got the dumb jocks drink muscles yes you got the smart kids who they don't lift at all you know and then you've got and it's just so silly I can't even I was a scholar athlete right I had the T-shirt you know that I got for being a scholar athlete little little plaque or whatever and you know often times some of the smartest people are also athletes as well and you know it's so unfortunate because the truth is when we're training our bodies we are training our brain yes it is that is just how it is and our literacy in so other things as you just mentioned like people feeling like their ideas they're feel like they're getting smarter it are physical literacy impacts our kind of functional and our brain literacy you know and we've seen this in studies with kids as well kids learning and Performing better on whether it's reading skills tests whether it's math tests if they get some movement and prior to doing the testing right or learning some things and then retesting after doing some movements this goes together we evolved as a creature a species of movement and learning they're they're together they're one thing we have a culture today where those two things are separate AF you go sit down here this how you learn and then you go out there and you play a little bit to get the to get the Wiggles out what do you think about that man um you know I have this habit now and this is one of the reasons why like I love the Rope because like you saw I travel with that thing I keep one with me at all times I walk with it because again like there are walking patterns but the thing is is when I start feeling stuck um I'll just go twirl my rope for a little bit and then boom like so many people also in that group are like yeah I started building the habit of like I'm stuck with something I'll just go do the Rope a little bit I come back feeling oh refreshed and I think about what you just mentioned there because I never even thought about this but kids like kids like to swing things like kids like to throw things it's it's one of the things like what if we just had a bunch of small ropes for some these kids where it's like in classrooms where it's like okay and I've seen so many of these clips on Instagram of like these Asian countries where these kids are doing something and then they're out and they're doing their right and then they're back in like the movement I think some of these places understand what you just mentioned how big of a deal movement is with learning right so that that that's that's huge and if everybody just had something that they could do that was not going to impact them not going to it's it's like you know not not going to Tire them out that was movement based I think when you learn to use movement as a tool you realize how it can let you solve issues that you've been solving with other things many people solve issues emotional issues spiritual hunger with food we're feeling a little bit bad and I've done this before too so I'm not pointing anybody out but feeling a little bit angry you have any argument you you do something you go get a donut you eat some ice cream you you solve your issue by feeling good and good food or I call processed food Abominations I still have some been down them but I call it Abominations cuz it's not real food let's just be real okay it's calorically has nut like calories but has doesn't have nutrients right but we reach for this Abomination because it makes us feel good in the moment what if we had other tools like instead of reaching for that food we have the habit of going out and taking a walk cuz when you actually go take a walk and come back you usually feel a little bit better Mo most people don't feel bad after coming back from a walk how about instead of something El like you know instead of reaching for the food you go just just flow just go flow go get into a flow State and that's why I like the Rope so much because that flow State man it's something else and when you learn foundational patterns it might not look as fancy of what you see other people doing but you can then get into a flow where you're not in your head anymore you're not thinking anymore you're just in movement you're in your body there's this we call it Flow State here in the United States because me of Mii Chet Mii but in Asian cultures it's called mushan I learned about that idea first from moushi he talked about the idea of mushan um uh what's his name takuan show he wrote it wasn't hagakure it was something else but the these martial artists these Samurai this idea of mushan means no mind that's the ideal State that's the peak state of martial arts motion is more martial based flow state is more like in the zone that's why you know but when they think about that you you're not in your head right you're not thinking you're now in combat and you're just moving right you're free now I know combat can be a stressful experience for many but when you're in a flow State fighting somebody it's not a stressful experience at all it's actually it's actually the best feeling because there's no stress it might look stressful to other people but when you're in a flow State fighting somebody or grappling somebody it actually it it it feels light and you can get into that state with a rope or you know anything else that you can find that can just allow you to reach that physical flow find it and do it yeah yeah yeah um so many things that we could talk about obviously and um I mean this is already been so powerful and one other piece that I would like to add to the conversation because again you've got such a diversity of Fitness experience and inputs and all again being able to put it all together towards something you know these really incredible I mean it's it's pretty crazy the fact that you know you perform the way that you do in Jiu-Jitsu is it's it's pretty crazy you know because somebody would see you like man if they just saw you maybe just I don't know a certain angle right and they're just like man that's a big dude and but then to see you move like a like a cat you know what I mean it's David W move like a big cat that's been the goal there you go you know and just like to see it all really play out and the success of that you know this is something for us to really again it's It's always important for us to have a model to know that it's possible um but also in that same light being able to have that physical strength right and so I want to ask you just a little bit about that and some of the most efficient and effective ways for us to build that strength and I know of course strength and muscle they're pretty synonymous so I'm not talking about necessarily putting on a ton of muscle but that would be nice especially for a lot of people but building that strength and that functional strength so I mentioned earlier that the breath is what dictates the way I move in the weight room and what we need to First think about is when you start training in one I'm about to mention and the way I'm about to mention you're going to have to lower weights you're going to have to reduce and the way that we have lifted in the gym it's going to be hard for people to want to even do this because you know lifting the the heavy barbell it's you brace you breathe and the goal is to put more weight on the bar because that's what's going to get you more muscle and strength right but it's getting you more muscle and strength in a way of moving that isn't going to serve you as a human being as a fighter um as anyone who wants to actually move well this is why actually a lot of Fighters choose not to lift weights a lot of Fighters and I'm not saying again that lifting weights is bad but a lot of Fighters choose not to lift because they feel that it makes them tight they have this inherent feeling and then strength coaches are like no it'll just help you build tissue and it'll help you build tissue but it does impede their movement ability and they can feel it when they're moving these are athletes that their their skill is is is put forward by how good of a mover they are whether you're a boxer a Grappler whatever the better you way the better you move and the better technique you have the more likelihood you chance have chance to win but what can also help you with that is how strong you are so we got to figure out a way to do that we got to figure out a way to stacks and tissue um improve our rotational ability and we can do that by rewinding our Progressive our ideas on progression it's not just going to be by increasing weight that we're going to progress we're going to increase weight over time but we're going to make sure that as we do this we can breathe we can inhale and exhale while moving we can do this kettle bell work while breathing we never hold our breath we can pick up that sandbag and I love the sandbag because it's a very human Implement it's almost like in picking up a child or throwing another human you can learn to lift that sandbag with no ambition you go up you exhale lift and you you then throw it but you've never stopped your breath and when you see a lot of people using sandbags there's a preparation there's a breath hold there's a lift there's all of this movement inhibition and that doesn't make sense for someone like me because I cannot have movement inhibition when I'm fighting somebody else and also you don't want to have movement inhibition in life you want to be able to move through and react that reacting is flow instinct is flow you don't think you're just moving that's why now if you find that you have to you have apprehension when you start lifting you're holding your breath you drop the thing you drop the kettle ball you put it down the way I teach people how to do this is I teach people how to how to lift how to do all these things but where breath is the main thing and then I also teach them how to use their spinal engine just like with the Rope but you learn how to lift while rotating the spine lift while doing like getting in this contralateral movement you learn to improve strength and muscle while improving movement ability while Never Letting Go of your breath if we can do all those things then we can stack on tissue we can improve our spinal Movement we can um improve our strength we can improve our bone density we can do all of these things while not taking away from the way that we move as a human being whereas if we just focus on lifting the traditional way it works for some I wouldn't say it works but people do it and they end up being okay with some of the drawbacks it has on their movement because they still have another activity so it's like you've seen Usain Bolt lift we've seen all these guys lift Usain Bolt was the fastest man in the world right but that was his main thing he was a sprinter first that movement pattern's been ingrained so he can do things like lift and traditional ways and it doesn't it only bolsters him but for many people who aren't good movers who don't have a base of movement they now don't have a base of movement and then they go and lift in ways that actually makes them worse movers there's no symmetry there now you're maybe stronger and you have more tissue but you're worse at moving you can't walk you can't run you can't Sprint you can't throw you can't fight but you're a little bit bigger so the way I do things is I marry these ideas again the breath dictates the progression right and there's ways of breathing to make sure that you know there's there's ways of breathing just to make sure that you're safe when you're lifting but you always follow the breath cuz when you hold your breath you stiffen up and you don't lift something when you stiffen up so you learn how to lift while breathing you get things that are going to allow you to rotate and move your body in different ways you don't shy away from flexion extension and all these ranges of motion obviously you never do anything that hurts you work at the edge right but over time you gain more moving ability and then this is going to be a bit of an abstract idea and I don't think I'm going to be able to get that much into it here but when I think about manipulating my body and lifting weights I think about manipulating your skeletal structure the amazing thing that compression from barbells and squats and deadlifts have done is I think there have been studies on older individuals older women and the older women that have generally the most bone density are powerlift women that powerlift women that you resistance train in that sense right so we know that this compression compression will help build bone right we know that lifting weights because the muscles activ and pull on the bone and it'll help the bones become stronger but the big thing I think is like okay how can we get this benefit of bone density right and and and just overall tissue more tissue without the drawbacks it might be having I was listening to a podcast with Peter ATA and this this is it was a recent one this woman studies a lot of bone and she was talking about you know uh people using deadlifts and squats and lifting weights in that way and I was thinking why isn't anyone talking about the power of the sled the sled is an Implement that any anybody anybody can push and pull because you have to and I don't know if anybody can visualize this but when you push a sled you have to kind of like stack your structure behind it to push it through space you have to stack your skeletal structure to move that through space but the benefit of the sled is that you can push and pull it while breathing you don't hold your breath right so for me that's a key Implement because anybody can do it the thing that you know you put a heavy heavy barbell on a on somebody's back an old person's back worse comes to worse they injure themselves they don't know how to bail you put too much weight on a sled they just don't move the sled but you put enough weight on the sled then they learn how to stack their skeletal structure compress themselves to move it through space they then learn how to pull a sled now they're getting this pulling on the skeletal structure right because we know that to build more bone density we need to compact uh we need to decompress and pull out our structure and then we need to activate the tissue around our bones so that it again continues to manipulate the bones and build density the reason why I'm saying this I'm I'm mentioning so much about bone density is because there's going to be comments mentioning that this is just genetics but uh my bone density earlier this year was around 7.2 my t-core and your t-core is if your tcore is example zero that's the median the median means that's the average t- score if you're one you're one standard deviation above the norm if you're two that's actually really good you're two standard deviations above the norm in terms of your t score above the norm of your age three is really good four is really good my t-core is was a 7.2 earlier this year right that means I'm 7.2 standard deviations above the mean as I started like and another way to build bone density by the way is striking anyone who's seen mu high fighters understands that the reason why they kick a wooden like a wooden pole over and over and over again is to make their shins extremely hard so that they could break somebody with their Shins It's it's something that Tie fighters do it's boxers do it with their hands so that's another thing but within the past few months my t- score went from 7.2 to 7.7 and I'm 32 years old the reason I'm mentioning my age is because in this podcast where AA was talking to this woman this woman mentioned that you can't build new bone after 30 and the reason that made me so mad is at this place that I go get my dexas gun down my dexus gun scan done twice a year it's called dexfit they have people that do fitness challenges that are 30 40 50 that increase their bone density as they start resistance trading so it got me wondering like wait what do you mean like my this is the biggest biggest Drive in my t-core that I've had in a very long time because I've been very deliberate but it's like these about after 30 you're not going to you're just going to be losing muscle because of sarcopenia after 30 you're just going to be losing bone density because of osteopenia these ideas that are based in research I think it I think it can like really demotivate people because it's not the fact that you just can't it's the fact that if you don't change your circumstances you don't change your habit you don't change your environment that's going to be you but if you're actively doing things if you're and you don't got to do all the things I mentioned but if you're actively slowly taking these steps you can be the person that's gaining muscle tissue as they get older that's building bone density as they get older that's their body is actually Aging in Reverse so it's it's just one of those things that like I know that was a long- wited answer but yeah it's amazing it's frustrating when I hear those things sometimes of course of course it's programming as well if you believe that then you're going to abide by that and now as you mentioned there's data affirming these things but now we have emerging data showing that the complete opposite is true as well depending on what you're doing yeah depending on your inputs and um you know it's really it's it's remarkable actually recently uh one of my guests she's in her mid 70s she just started lifting at when she was about 70 and she's she was tracking with dexa and different you know getting scans done and she actually has seven pounds of muscle that she developed wow in her 70s what okay and of course she was like it it took her it was four years four or five years of training and so she was like it might sound like it takes a long time you know but for me no like that is amazing and to have stories and affirmations of that being possible you get to pick you get to pick and so man this has been so powerful you know we've covered a lot of ground and you know the thing that I really want people to to walk away with take action on and the fact that they can get access to this can you share again the URL to get that guidance from your ROP flow training believe it's school.com thest stronger human and you just again it's free to join that group once you join in you're just going to have you have access to that rof flow foundations course and that'll get you that'll I mean just do a little bit each day don't stress yourself out with it this is this this practice is meant to make you feel good it's not meant to be something that stresses you out it's meant to be that thing that you can turn to that every time you do it you just feel good afterwards right um and yeah it's there great Community there's over 2,000 people they're they're all chilling having fun I love those people they're great yeah yeah and I'm one of them so man thank you so much for sharing your insights with us man it's been dope I appreciate it SE hey if you like this video make sure to check out this video right here we should just call this episode like the wonders of sitting on the floor because you know one of the reasons that we are fans of sitting on the floor is that it does force you to do this thing that that we've really lost as humans which is the ability to get up and down off the ground

the spine is the thing that helps Propel these things forward and that's what rope flow helps build this is why it helped my Jiu-Jitsu so much because Jiu-Jitsu is a movement practice you rotate when you sweep somebody you rotate when you throw somebody as anyone who wants to actually move well you learn to improve strength and muscle while improving movement ability our special guest today is an elite level powerlifter two times Brazilian jiujitsu Masters world champion and he's even competed at a high level in natural bodybuilding I'm talking about the one and only Ina yam and he's the co-host of the wildly popular Mark Bell's power project and he's contributed to over 1,000 episodes sharing knowledge on Fitness strength and [Music] movement I'm so excited to talk to you about this about rope flow yeah and the value what I'm noticing with my wrist with my shoulder with my movement with my just feeling more a little bit more bouncy you know just and it's like these subtle things and I've only been doing it for a short amount of time and just even just hanging out and doing just a little bit with the Rope it just and and to again bring the conscious breathing to it as well because it's very easy if somebody's learning a skill for example to you know tense themselves up but to find myself to find my breath and all the different aspects the benefits of this is crazy that's what we're going to talk about right now so number one what is rope flow and then let's dig in on the benefits yeah so rope flow was something that was invented by our friend David wck um he started doing that back in 2004 because he mentioned that he sees everybody jumping rope and it's this syncopated pattern but he's like oh what if you start doing that right so then he ventured down that and he helped he pretty much created a lot of these patterns and you know when I met him about 4 years ago I think he showed it to me and when I looked at I'm like this is a joke don't get me wrong doing and learning from all these professionals over the years I've learned how to kind of keep an empty cup with these things and have a white belt mentality but when I saw that I was like knee-jerk reaction n but but after I gave it a shot is when I was like there's something here there's there's something really cool here uh and then after I started to prove at it I I started to notice that in Jiu-Jitsu where I usually do sweeps and maybe a lot of submissions on my right side because that's where I rotate we all have habits we reach for our toothbrush with our right hand we get out of our car with our left foot and we bend a certain way we have certain specific habits that we always do as far as movement's concerned but rope flow provides movement symmetry first so you know you'll see rotating on the right rotating on the left okay so now we have movement symmetry we're rotating on both sides of the body you're standing up you're Shifting the weight on both sides of the body now you're shifting to your front leg back leg or if you're standing in a neutral position with both legs next to each other you're shifting to the left you're shifting to the right right just for people that are listening so we're not talking about jumping over the rope we're talking about spinning the rope in certain ways on your side and then on your other side exactly right so again I noticed that that transfers into martial arts like whoa okay my Jiu-Jitsu is better just because I'm learning how to swing this rope around but one of the other big reasons that rope flow is so effective is it teaches people how to tap into the thing that resistance training in the traditional sense has potentially worsened like I mentioned earlier a lot of people when we're lifting in the gym we were taught hold the breath Val Sal maneuver neutral spine everything is neutral spine neutral spine neutral spine you train in that way and over time you stop moving in other ways or you you stop moving other ways you stop bending from your spine to go tie your shoe and then you'll hear a physical therapist say don't bend at your back neutral spine to go down entire your shoe you know you stop laterally flexing you stop rotating you stop these movements and now when you're running you're running like a robot I mean look at a lot of I mean honestly look at a lot of bodybuilders run or look at just a lot of people who mainly lift run that spine isn't rotating but those arms and legs are moving them through space Have you ever heard of of the spinal engine Theory oh please okay so the spinal engine was a theory uh purported by Serge grety and like the 1980 the book is dense I don't even understand a lot of the book because when you open it it is physics based okay but the idea isn't too difficult to understand most bi mechanists follow the idea that to propel the body through space you use the arms and legs well that makes a lot of sense if we walk forward we step forward and we rotate we rotate our arms but surge put forward this idea that it's not just the arms and legs that Propel the body through space it's Al also the spine because if anyone were to go to YouTube spinal engine Theory right now they're going to see a video that's pretty famous video about that theory where it's a torso okay and this man has no legs and he has half of his arms but he's propelling his body through space okay so this guy's alive guys okay um and he's propelling himself through space with the rotation of his spine and the pivoting on his pelvis so when the right shoulder comes forward the left hip comes forward by the way again no legs his left shoulder comes forward his right hip comes forward he's propelling himself through space with no arms and no legs why is this possible because we have this belief and don't get me wrong there's this idea that to propel forward you have to step but the spine is the thing that helps Propel these things forward and that's what rope flow helps build because initially when you start the practice you're swinging the rope with the hands you're you're swinging the Rope when you look at it also you're like I'm swinging the Rope right but when you get better and when your spine gets better at moving this contralateral movement of the spine your spine becomes the thing that swings the Rope your spine becomes the Rotator you're now moving your spine and rotating your your your and moving this object through space with something that has been kept neutral for so long that's why people quickly find a shift in the way they move because they're simply beginning to move their spine in a different way and that's just that's that's the that's the tip of the iceberg like we had this guy CJ Kissa came on our podcast recently and he told a story when and and even people that are that are doing my foundations course for ropl right now a few days in they're like I'm walking with more balance 50s and 60s I'm walking with more balance I don't feel like as Shifty on my feet the reason is their economy of movement's improving instead of stepping forward with a neutral spine they're rotating into that step rotating into that step they're now using this thing that's been so static for so long and it's getting hydration to the discs all of all of you're starting to tap into that engine that you you haven't been using for so long right I want to mention CJ's story real quick because it's pretty profound CJ mentioned that he met David four years ago and you know he did some rope flow for three days okay CJ's a great coach great mind amazing programmer he owns this gym called gymnazo and I think I believe it's in and slow you know um but he comes home after 3 days of just doing some basic rope flow he cuts 10 minutes off of his run it's not that he has uh used a new supplement it's not that he's changed his form it's that now instead of running like this like you see most bodybuilders and lifters run he's rotating and he has better smoother economy of movement this is why it helped my Jiu-Jitsu so much because Jiu-Jitsu is a movement practice you rotate when you sweep somebody you rot when you throw somebody and now if you're able to tap into this thing and get it moving and get it moving the moving human being in the way you want to move them bam it's that that's why it can be so powerful oh man so good now I've got to ask you about this um the Rope itself for people that are listening just for them to get a visual the people that are watching of course you're going to see some actual video of in SEMA actually doing this which is amazing and again this has become a intro part of what I'm doing on a daily basis like I just and I look forward to it you know and um and I just got a text from you not too long ago and it was just like at the right time and it just fit in and the Rope itself you know you got me a starter rope to get started because some of the other ropes you know took a little while to get to me and so but I was able to get started and our mind especially when you see somebody like yourself doing it who's been doing it for a while it's like I want the big rope so I want people to to get a visual ual of what the Rope itself looks like this isn't like a little speed rope that you're doing you know for like boxing training talk about the Rope a little bit so you know the Rope can be looked at like we look at the weights in the gym you know it gets harder as it gets heavier but if you want to have good form and learn the foundations you start lighter so you learn how to move right so if anybody starts with the Rope it's a good idea to start with a lighter rope because heavier ropes will move not necessarily faster but they're going to have more inertia and they will pull at your spine more and if you don't know how to move with that momentum and leverage your skeletal structure to move that rope through space you can hurt yourself right so with the ropes it's good to start with a light rope or you know um there's slightly heavier ropes I have those on my website there's a bunch of websites that have ropes but anyway you want to start light so that you can learn the technique okay you don't want to start heavier because that's an easy way to hurt yourself and when you're starting lighter you can do it for a longer period of time heavy ropes take more energy so you do it for a few minutes you're like my wrists I've never rotated my wrist that much I'm tired now but light ropes you can do them for a while and you can really get the foundational movement patterns um it's one of those things where you want to just like jiujitsu right Jiu-Jitsu is a great example for this and I I look at ROFL like a martial art because when I first started learning Jiu-Jitsu you know there's all these videos on YouTube and I wanted to do all these moves but when my foundations weren't set like I was just making all these foundational mistakes because I was trying to rush the process of learning Jiu-Jitsu Concepts but when I went and I learned my foundations and those became a part of me learning everything else became so much easier but when I was just seeking out different fancy movements or whatever and like o I can do this and this and this I was getting tapped by the most Elementary foundational BS you know what I mean so when when starting rope flow it's a a good idea to again start with a light rope work on your foundations treat it like you treat it don't treat it like a workout when we were talking about breath breathe through the nose this isn't a practice that you ever hold your breath and that's why like with lifting and everything I do I do everything in a way that my breath guides what I do and if I'm holding my breath I know something's wrong I know the weight's too heavy I know there's there's there's something missing because I should never be holding my breath so with rope it's the same deal a lot of people have the tendency of when they start they get a little bit nervous and they start thinking of it and then they start doing what they do in the gym it's like no no no no no relax relax let that spine move right and as you get better you just you just start to unlock more of your own movement yeah yeah that's one of the things I noticed and by the way just to go back a little bit when you talked about the inputs that you get with hydrating those dis this is so important because so much of our reality is compression right and there's an important aspect of reality that we need that we we build some resilience in that but if it's all about compression over time you're going to be a compressed mother what we want is also decompression and there aren't many viable ways to do that in our normal day-to-day lives of course there are simple things hanging from a bar uh you know getting up on a a dip bar for example but the body has a way to still keep tension around your spine around certain parts not really decompress and let your spine decompress MH the Rope brings about such a remarkable decompression therapy really and to to reiterate this point of the disc are nonvascular right so they don't get hydration directly it's a process of remote diffusion like you your body has to be so hydrated have the nutrients all the things to get to the disc and also your disc are not a priority for your body like it's got It's got to run your brain it's got to keep your blood flow it's got to clot your blood and so it can be one of the last places to get the nutrition unless you're moving it that's the key all this other stuff tends to get moved not your spine not so much even if you're strength training because of what you just mentioned that tension that we hold but being able to actually move your spine is going to deliver more nutrients it's going to help some of that blood flow and hydration again it's not getting going directly there like just boom like that it's a process but it's it gets the process started and facilitated in a way like few things can yeah and the amazing thing quite a few amazing things from what you mentioned right there you get better at moving your spine the first day you start you're going to look like this and you're going to like think you're moving your spine whereas you're really just using your arms but each day you do it 5 10 15 minutes day whatever you whatever you feel like the the goal of rope flow is to do it and feel a little bit better afterwards it's not to do it and feel like you beat up or just got a really good workout but after you get experienced you can get a really good workout but even so the goal is to just feel a little bit better afterwards right but those small inputs over time teach you how to begin to rotate the spine uh I made a video about Roop on my YouTube channel and foundational patterns is the underhand pattern and the underhand pattern is like walking and the overhand pattern is actually like crawling right and when you do these patterns you're now getting your spine to move in the human rotational patterns when you walk you have this cont you should be having this controlateral movement that happens but again and I want to say when I'm talking about the gym I do not think the gym is bad and I still do certain traditional things even though like I'd say like the normal Squat and those deadlifts like that's 5% of my type of trading right um but the barbell on the back compresses this it's actually compression it compresses the spine it pushes you down gravity is constantly working against us and we're fighting against gravity to keep ourselves upright but if the only things that we do for exercise are compression in the gym with neutral spine and then we have our life where we're walking and stuff we're not doing anything that actually trains our human movement we're not doing anything that improves it and the you mentioned decompression you know a lot of people have ideas about decompression not being a real possible thing there's no nothing like disc decompression but it's more about getting your discs back to where they should be you compress them in the gym you feel tighter I mean I don't want to talk like research and stuff is great but the thing is is you know how you feel you know that you feel stiff you know that you feel tight you know that when you get out of bed in the morning you wake up you're like careful okay take those Ginger few steps move around a bit you're like okay you know what let's just wait 45 minutes this will start to loosen up but you know there's so many people in there and even myself cuz when I used to wake up I was like that that wake up in the morning and you actually pop out of bed pop out of bed not like okay let's get the body pop out of bed because you're your body is where it should be you know you don't go from the gym to sleep where you're you're waking up already just feeling tight you you do something that elongates and you you become better at bringing about this elongation as you perform the practice so you get better at actually stretching your spine through movement through Dynamic fluid movement things like the Jefferson curl and these movements in the gym are good to get you training flexion and lateral flexion Etc but like the Rope gets you doing these things in a dynamic way both sides utilized and that's why it ends up this little swinging of a rope ends up being such a powerful thing yeah yeah yeah and uh just to add to that a little bit the physics of it you know especially when the Rope gets a little bit heavier and I noticed the such a difference going from the training rope that you got me to when I got a heavier rope you can feel the force as that rope goes up pulling you against nature like power of levity right and that's that decompression it's like again but but you're doing this while moving in a human way and what I noticed was you know I tend to catch on the things pretty quickly I know you do too you know especially new movements things like that because we're we we we train ourselves to do that we've done that over time and so I I thank thankfully I had your guidance though because you know going through your videos like I could see okay there's this piece oh this is like I feel this this is this is natural and so I was just messing around and you kept using those terms too which is very freeing for people in the videos uh just mess around with this a little bit yeah I like I can mess around all right I'm going mess around and so I was at the park and I was just doing some of the basic rope flow and then I just decided I felt like I need to turn around and I hadn't gotten to that part yet and so I just I turned around I and which a propeller move which I didn't know and I just felt like that was so natural it just felt right and then I started walking like there's certain things that just felt like the right thing to do and then I learned about them in later videos of course I was like all right that I I got that one but then there were certain things that didn't feel natural right once we got to the Dragon Roll for example right I'm just like that seems very simple the way but when I was trying to peace peac make it and instead of flowing like getting back like let me tune into myself then it locked in but I needed to know what the action was right and so your course which you got to tell people where they get access to this because it would be criminal not to because he's so good and you detail every like you go through these little pieces that I didn't think about as well like and even popping in and do an emphasis video of like hey this is another check-in to check in on your breathing right so where can people get access to the course yeah yeah yeah um it's uh school.com and the group is called the stronger human there there'll probably be something there but I made that foundation's course and it's detailed I made it free because when I was learning roope flow I had to piece things together on YouTube and that's great you know what I mean but the thing is it's like it was it was became an inconsistent practice for me because the frustration of not having something just laid out and it took me I believe it took me too long to get the hang of things just because since I there was no structure I was just like H I'll just not do it today but you know I I laid things out again y'all can just go check it out you can go if you want to you can get a rope from Home Depot I have ropes on my website but just get something you can start with now go for go to Home Depot cut 9 ft of rope and just start swinging that thing around right don't make it a workout just swing it a little bit in the morning a little bit in the evening and make it a habit because you'll notice you'll start to it's when I say it's like a martial art you learn movements you put movements together and over time the big goal is to reach a flow State the big goal is to get to a place where you're not thinking you're just breathing the movements that you've done and downloaded are now just being performed and the flow state is powerful because I can get to a flow state in to at this point I've been doing it for 9 years I I have I can roll with anyone and Bam I'm in right but it's addictive the flow state is addictive this is why Runners once they get to that place where they call out the runners hey that that's the runner's Flow State they' they've gone for two hours and it felt like 30 minutes because they're just now locomoting they're just moving not even thinking about anything right but it's dangerous when you get addicted to a flow state that really beats your body up up this is why Runners get into trouble because they just run run run run run they're getting for that high and that high is amazing but that high is beating up your knees your back and everything and Jiu-Jitsu oh every day bada and if you guys do Jiu-Jitsu you get that one but listen you know you get to a flow state with jiujitsu and you can't fight people all the time it has wear and tear on your body right gets dangerous it gets dangerous and people will typically train through pain that's somewhat part of the culture like when a lot of people get their black belt they're the broken black belt you don't get there with no scars you got knee issues back issues neck issues and it's just it's part of the process of getting to the black belt but the thing is is like first off it doesn't have to be I'm I'm a black belt and I I have no injuries right and I'm actually I'm I used to have injuries in the past but when I found rope flow and again with the ways that I train in the gym I'm able to reach a flow state in this activity I'm able to do Marshall patterns and Marshall movements and I'm attenuated to this rope and by doing that I can now train Jiu-Jitsu three or four days a week and every day I can do some form of Roo that still allows me to achieve this state of no mind the state of not thinking just moving this absolute flow where I'm like I don't need to go to Jiu-Jitsu today I can I can just I can do my rope I can do my lifts and back off a little bit and I can feel good this is the thing that's going to let me do this stuff till I'm 70 80 90 rather than being the person who does it for for a few years and I'm out because of injury yeah yeah I'd love for you to talk about this subject this is something which is crazy that it's a it's a newer part of Fitness conversation which is these exercise snacks or micro doing exercise yeah when I mean just like most things that tend to work very well for a long time humans have been doing this for a very long time and today again I think mindset and you know coming up much the same way of like if I'm not getting in a full workout what's the point like when I my workout is going to the gym getting that 45 minutes or that hour and that's how I really get growth that's how I really progress and move forward just doing you know uh 10 pull-ups now and then you know doing you know 10 five more times throughout the day that's pointless like what am I doing that's it's nothing so let's talk about your perspective with micro doing exercise the goal is just to make movement a part of life it's you know in the past for me when I was focused on bodybuilding and power lifting and lifting was the thing that I have my pre-workout I get myself mentally prepared I go to the gym I get that done come back home I chill sit down chill right but the micro do has been so powerful and it's something we talk about on the power project all the time because I've set up my environment to serve my movement ability so you go to my house you go to my mom's place I've got her micro doing stuff too I I have a dip bar here two plch bars right here I got a kettle bell upstairs I got a sandbag chilling downstairs I got to pull a bar on the door at the podcast office in the podcast room we got some stuff laying around I got kettle bells in my car I I I I and people will hear this and be like this guy's a workout nut obviously he has workout stuff everywhere but it's not because I'm working out it's because when I pass by this thing I'm encouraged to just give it a quick pickup do a few squats just just move it right don't think about it it's not a workout it's just movement just go move it go pick up that 100 pound sandbag right there just right there just go pick it up real quick don't have to don't warm up just breathe and pick it up and the reason why I can now breathe and pick it up is because I've built the Habit in my lifting of using my breath to dictate my movement so now I don't have to hold my breath hype up and do something I can it's it's movement I can just go pick that up cold why I'm not saying you should just go do this now go get some heavy stuff and pick it up cold but have some things around that all lie to just get a few reps in without having to think it this is just literal lubrication for the body but you got to think these things add up I know that stress and getting close to failure can help with muscle growth and all these things and that is good you can absolutely do that right you should do that at some point but outside of that just gently making this a part of your day that adds up and not just in terms of burning calories Etc it adds up in allowing you to just to become a better mover become overall stronger because now over time you got a sandbag at home or some stuff at home now you can just go bang out 15 pull-ups without thinking about it because every time you went underneath the door you did like three or four but that's stacked up each day you know maybe there are some days where you backed off cuz you can't just perpetually do more each day but there are some days where you listen to your body and your body's like could you chill a little bit you not just do as much okay okay I won't do as much and then you have another day where you're like okay let's let's actually let's push this a little bit but over time there's this slow linear type of progression up and down but over time Trends up and now you know you just do these things it's just part of what you do because you set your environment up and this isn't just my my my movement environment this is my nutrition environment too but you set your environment up to serve your body and serve your movement right yeah and and I think that's that's why it can be so important I I tell people that that work in office jobs kettle bell is amazing maybe have a kettle bell and maybe a slant board right there in your office maybe you can just pick up that Bell and do a few slap board squats or do a few CLE Bell lifts or even just like do a few silent swings if you're nervous about people hearing it but just get the movement in so that the only time where you're getting in these movements isn't just when you're in a building with you know lights and four walls and the days that you miss doing anything in this building are days that you just don't do any of this activity at all I mean obviously we can't neglect how important walking can be so walks are super important but that's the idea of micro doing you know making movement a part of your life yeah so you can just do it and the concept of doing something cold or doing something without warming up is a new thing right no other species on Earth warms up before it does something right the the the line is not warming up let me do a little jog before I go after this gazelle you know and also if you but then we could be like well that's that's all other animals like we're more evolved all the things kids don't warm up when you get on the monkey bars you know when I was going to Bruce school elementary school we just got up on that [ __ ] and not only did we just go swinging on the monkey bars I was getting on top of the monkey bars I was doing all this Dynamic stuff and I didn't have to warm up first it just happens over time because we become more and more not just sedentary but movement deficient Sean I'm happy that you mentioned the kids thing because the goal that I have for myself and the goal that I have for all the people and the stronger human is getting back childlike movement ability so it's not just gaining muscle and trying to put on all this tissue and lifting it's not it's not just that because lifting can be good but it's being able to move like a kid again being able to sleep like a kid again right being able to have no apprehension in the next step Next Movement next thing you're going to do because you just do it right the monkey bars thing you mentioned is amazing because like I'm I'm getting a bar for at home so I can just start hanging off something but that's you you can do that my friend Joel green we've had him on the podcast twice he's brilliant man the first time I met him five years ago he mentioned on the podcast he was like you know and he's by the way 60 I think maybe late 50s 60s looks he looks great I have this habit of uh doing a five Sprints a day five cold Sprints a day and I looked at him and at that point in time I was in a state where if I took a Sprint I'd pull a hamstring so I didn't even Sprint at this time you know I was like sprinting is not something I'm ever going to do now but when I heard Joel say that I was just like why and he was like well that's actually one very good sign of youth kids like you just mentioned kids can just do stuff they don't have to think before they pick the thing up they just pick it up they can fall and get back up why cuz their tissues are super healthy and you that's a whole another thing taking care of your soft tissue but they can just fall and pop back up and we're like oh we could only do that where kid it's not just because they're a kid it's because they have healthy tissue they're Supple they're pliable I sound so creepy right now but you know you can no no Diddy no Diddy you can be you can build you can bring back that Supple pliable nature to your tissues so that you can't you don't just move like a child but like you your tissues activate they they pop like a kid's tissue isues pop and we lose those abilities because like you mentioned they're just things we stop doing ways we stop moving as humans we're an amazing species because we are built for efficiency we we we learn certain patterns and habits that allow us to use the least amount of energy and when we learn how to do that we learn how to just do things in the most comfortable way but the mo most comfortable thing is typically not moving as much not moving in certain ways as much and when we stop doing those movements when we stop moving in those ways we learn it's a learned Habit to just now sit in a certain way bend in a certain way walk in a certain way never Sprint or jump again most people stop jumping that's just one thing that they don't do and then after a while they're like most people don't even think about the fact like think about it I mean comment Down Below guys when's the last time you jumped hopped have you in a while and if you do it right now it's probably not a good idea cuz I know people who have been like oh I have they start and they pull something so again the thing is I want people to understand that it's not the fact that you'll never be able to do things these again these things again it's the fact that you need to slowly progress yourself back to these childlike abilities and it's possible it's just it's going to take you a while as it took me a while it takes a while but you can do it and then once you get it back it's maintenance yeah yeah this is the process is unlocking you know and that's what I love about the Rope flow as well is that gets unlocking all these dormant things and one of the things that you alluded to earlier is symmetry right because we all tend to do things with one side of our body whether we're you know if somebody's a baseball player or plays golf you know that's obviously very popular um you know our are form in tennis and using a certain hand for a lot of stuff and so we have a preference towards you know and it can be very conscious using one side of our bodies versus the other and this is giving us the ability to have more symmetry to use that other side of our body to complement both sides of our body and what that also is doing is unlocking our brain because one side of our brain is controlling the opposite side of our body and so I really feel that one of these uh capacities is this kind of whole brain functioning or integration that takes place what do you think about that you know I have my thoughts about this but I'm excited to talk to David about this this weekend but I I'll give you my thoughts right now and you alluded to uh swinging sports baseball throw with one side um tennis baseball again you swing generally on one side some people are ambidextrous some people have you know both skills with both feet but most people don't and the great thing about first off the Rope is that you can train those movement patterns on both sides of the body I don't know if you've gotten to the modules but there are single arm throwing patterns there are two arm throwing patterns with the Rope you learn how to do a throwing pattern on your dominant side then you learn how to do a throwing pattern on your non-dominant side you learn the pattern because the great thing about the Rope is that when you're doing something on one side then you do it on the other the Rope will teach you by hitting you the Rope will teach you that oh I'm not rotating as much when I do this like I do on my right so let me try doing that rotation on that side and oh it wasn't as good but it's okay okay let me do that throwing pattern again okay oh now I'm rotating in a throwing pattern on the left side of my body and I've never thrown a ball on the left side body let me actually go try to throw a ball with my right and my left I have this power that's what it's like because now you're you're man there's there's swing patterns there's like patterns that emulate the golf swing there's patterns that can emulate all these types of Swing but the thing is is initially you're so goofy on your other side but when you just do the Reps do the Reps do the Reps you're now doing the same level of rotation that you have on your dominant on your non-dominant and this is why even when it comes to things like punching I'm not a striker I'm not someone who who who does striking sports but my striking ability on both sides of my body is dangerous I've I've purposefully started doing a lot of striking on my own just because I felt that rotational power with the ropes I'm like okay let me see what this feels like and holy crap like I can actually strike well with my left and my right and I feel that powerful rotation on the brain side of things you mentioned something interesting because many people have different antidotes and I have anecdotes for myself too with this as I started to do more with the rope and learn new patterns you're literally your body is learning new patterns of movement things that were so natural to you like for many people throwing a ball is natural for many maybe throwing isn't so you learn how to throw you learn how to throw on the other side you learn and your body develops all these capacities and over time I'm thinking differently I'm having new ideas on things and I'm just like nah I don't want to just say it's the Rope it has to be other stuff but like I many people have said like I feel like I'm getting smarter because your movement efficiency with your body is improving so that can't just like that can't just stop there with the Rope right the way you move through life is also a reflection of the way you think notice that sometimes body posture is a big deal on like how you think about people and how you look at them I'm looking at you like this right now you probably might be feeling like this guy's creepy I'm crouched out a little bit I'm on my heads here but a lot of people this is their this is where they stay because this is where they feel comfortable suspicious and when when we look at these people we're like that person is hiding something there's something up with them then there's people where it's like they're comfortable they move through life in that way they have a different essence of the way they walk they you see athletes you watch an athlete walk a football watch Michael Jordan walk watch watch that just that oh that that Grace watch LeBron James watch any of these athletes walk there's there's the way you move that also changes the way you think the way you you activate yourself in life it it's powerful so I don't want to say it's going to make you smarter but I do have a feeling that as you start to move better you'll start to think differently I think we all know that when you start to feel more confident you'll start to think differently too yeah yeah a great affirmation for this is Dr Daniel Aman and you know he's he's got the world's greatest index of brain scans of functional brain scans yeah and so again he's actually looking at the brain he's involved in the big NFL study and he shared with me actually sitting right here in this chair uh how an aspect of the brain that is really one of the largest areas of the brain is really responsible for movement all things movement why would such a large part of the brain be dedicated to that and it's a bidirectional feedback you know your movement is going to grow and sustain this part of the brain and that part of the brain is sustaining your movement and so if you're getting these inputs you're literally creating all these neural connections and you're keeping the brain you know the blood flow the activity all that stuff is predicated on on your movement and so again if we can start to have more integration on both sides of our body because you know we have these two hemispheres and we start to get more integration we we and this is so overlooked with because you know it's so crazy man we've got this huge Paradigm with movies where the athlete is the dummy yeah you know what I mean got the dumb jocks drink muscles yes you got the smart kids who they don't lift at all you know and then you've got and it's just so silly I can't even I was a scholar athlete right I had the T-shirt you know that I got for being a scholar athlete little little plaque or whatever and you know often times some of the smartest people are also athletes as well and you know it's so unfortunate because the truth is when we're training our bodies we are training our brain yes it is that is just how it is and our literacy in so other things as you just mentioned like people feeling like their ideas they're feel like they're getting smarter it are physical literacy impacts our kind of functional and our brain literacy you know and we've seen this in studies with kids as well kids learning and Performing better on whether it's reading skills tests whether it's math tests if they get some movement and prior to doing the testing right or learning some things and then retesting after doing some movements this goes together we evolved as a creature a species of movement and learning they're they're together they're one thing we have a culture today where those two things are separate AF you go sit down here this how you learn and then you go out there and you play a little bit to get the to get the Wiggles out what do you think about that man um you know I have this habit now and this is one of the reasons why like I love the Rope because like you saw I travel with that thing I keep one with me at all times I walk with it because again like there are walking patterns but the thing is is when I start feeling stuck um I'll just go twirl my rope for a little bit and then boom like so many people also in that group are like yeah I started building the habit of like I'm stuck with something I'll just go do the Rope a little bit I come back feeling oh refreshed and I think about what you just mentioned there because I never even thought about this but kids like kids like to swing things like kids like to throw things it's it's one of the things like what if we just had a bunch of small ropes for some these kids where it's like in classrooms where it's like okay and I've seen so many of these clips on Instagram of like these Asian countries where these kids are doing something and then they're out and they're doing their right and then they're back in like the movement I think some of these places understand what you just mentioned how big of a deal movement is with learning right so that that that's that's huge and if everybody just had something that they could do that was not going to impact them not going to it's it's like you know not not going to Tire them out that was movement based I think when you learn to use movement as a tool you realize how it can let you solve issues that you've been solving with other things many people solve issues emotional issues spiritual hunger with food we're feeling a little bit bad and I've done this before too so I'm not pointing anybody out but feeling a little bit angry you have any argument you you do something you go get a donut you eat some ice cream you you solve your issue by feeling good and good food or I call processed food Abominations I still have some been down them but I call it Abominations cuz it's not real food let's just be real okay it's calorically has nut like calories but has doesn't have nutrients right but we reach for this Abomination because it makes us feel good in the moment what if we had other tools like instead of reaching for that food we have the habit of going out and taking a walk cuz when you actually go take a walk and come back you usually feel a little bit better Mo most people don't feel bad after coming back from a walk how about instead of something El like you know instead of reaching for the food you go just just flow just go flow go get into a flow State and that's why I like the Rope so much because that flow State man it's something else and when you learn foundational patterns it might not look as fancy of what you see other people doing but you can then get into a flow where you're not in your head anymore you're not thinking anymore you're just in movement you're in your body there's this we call it Flow State here in the United States because me of Mii Chet Mii but in Asian cultures it's called mushan I learned about that idea first from moushi he talked about the idea of mushan um uh what's his name takuan show he wrote it wasn't hagakure it was something else but the these martial artists these Samurai this idea of mushan means no mind that's the ideal State that's the peak state of martial arts motion is more martial based flow state is more like in the zone that's why you know but when they think about that you you're not in your head right you're not thinking you're now in combat and you're just moving right you're free now I know combat can be a stressful experience for many but when you're in a flow State fighting somebody it's not a stressful experience at all it's actually it's actually the best feeling because there's no stress it might look stressful to other people but when you're in a flow State fighting somebody or grappling somebody it actually it it it feels light and you can get into that state with a rope or you know anything else that you can find that can just allow you to reach that physical flow find it and do it yeah yeah yeah um so many things that we could talk about obviously and um I mean this is already been so powerful and one other piece that I would like to add to the conversation because again you've got such a diversity of Fitness experience and inputs and all again being able to put it all together towards something you know these really incredible I mean it's it's pretty crazy the fact that you know you perform the way that you do in Jiu-Jitsu is it's it's pretty crazy you know because somebody would see you like man if they just saw you maybe just I don't know a certain angle right and they're just like man that's a big dude and but then to see you move like a like a cat you know what I mean it's David W move like a big cat that's been the goal there you go you know and just like to see it all really play out and the success of that you know this is something for us to really again it's It's always important for us to have a model to know that it's possible um but also in that same light being able to have that physical strength right and so I want to ask you just a little bit about that and some of the most efficient and effective ways for us to build that strength and I know of course strength and muscle they're pretty synonymous so I'm not talking about necessarily putting on a ton of muscle but that would be nice especially for a lot of people but building that strength and that functional strength so I mentioned earlier that the breath is what dictates the way I move in the weight room and what we need to First think about is when you start training in one I'm about to mention and the way I'm about to mention you're going to have to lower weights you're going to have to reduce and the way that we have lifted in the gym it's going to be hard for people to want to even do this because you know lifting the the heavy barbell it's you brace you breathe and the goal is to put more weight on the bar because that's what's going to get you more muscle and strength right but it's getting you more muscle and strength in a way of moving that isn't going to serve you as a human being as a fighter um as anyone who wants to actually move well this is why actually a lot of Fighters choose not to lift weights a lot of Fighters and I'm not saying again that lifting weights is bad but a lot of Fighters choose not to lift because they feel that it makes them tight they have this inherent feeling and then strength coaches are like no it'll just help you build tissue and it'll help you build tissue but it does impede their movement ability and they can feel it when they're moving these are athletes that their their skill is is is put forward by how good of a mover they are whether you're a boxer a Grappler whatever the better you way the better you move and the better technique you have the more likelihood you chance have chance to win but what can also help you with that is how strong you are so we got to figure out a way to do that we got to figure out a way to stacks and tissue um improve our rotational ability and we can do that by rewinding our Progressive our ideas on progression it's not just going to be by increasing weight that we're going to progress we're going to increase weight over time but we're going to make sure that as we do this we can breathe we can inhale and exhale while moving we can do this kettle bell work while breathing we never hold our breath we can pick up that sandbag and I love the sandbag because it's a very human Implement it's almost like in picking up a child or throwing another human you can learn to lift that sandbag with no ambition you go up you exhale lift and you you then throw it but you've never stopped your breath and when you see a lot of people using sandbags there's a preparation there's a breath hold there's a lift there's all of this movement inhibition and that doesn't make sense for someone like me because I cannot have movement inhibition when I'm fighting somebody else and also you don't want to have movement inhibition in life you want to be able to move through and react that reacting is flow instinct is flow you don't think you're just moving that's why now if you find that you have to you have apprehension when you start lifting you're holding your breath you drop the thing you drop the kettle ball you put it down the way I teach people how to do this is I teach people how to how to lift how to do all these things but where breath is the main thing and then I also teach them how to use their spinal engine just like with the Rope but you learn how to lift while rotating the spine lift while doing like getting in this contralateral movement you learn to improve strength and muscle while improving movement ability while Never Letting Go of your breath if we can do all those things then we can stack on tissue we can improve our spinal Movement we can um improve our strength we can improve our bone density we can do all of these things while not taking away from the way that we move as a human being whereas if we just focus on lifting the traditional way it works for some I wouldn't say it works but people do it and they end up being okay with some of the drawbacks it has on their movement because they still have another activity so it's like you've seen Usain Bolt lift we've seen all these guys lift Usain Bolt was the fastest man in the world right but that was his main thing he was a sprinter first that movement pattern's been ingrained so he can do things like lift and traditional ways and it doesn't it only bolsters him but for many people who aren't good movers who don't have a base of movement they now don't have a base of movement and then they go and lift in ways that actually makes them worse movers there's no symmetry there now you're maybe stronger and you have more tissue but you're worse at moving you can't walk you can't run you can't Sprint you can't throw you can't fight but you're a little bit bigger so the way I do things is I marry these ideas again the breath dictates the progression right and there's ways of breathing to make sure that you know there's there's ways of breathing just to make sure that you're safe when you're lifting but you always follow the breath cuz when you hold your breath you stiffen up and you don't lift something when you stiffen up so you learn how to lift while breathing you get things that are going to allow you to rotate and move your body in different ways you don't shy away from flexion extension and all these ranges of motion obviously you never do anything that hurts you work at the edge right but over time you gain more moving ability and then this is going to be a bit of an abstract idea and I don't think I'm going to be able to get that much into it here but when I think about manipulating my body and lifting weights I think about manipulating your skeletal structure the amazing thing that compression from barbells and squats and deadlifts have done is I think there have been studies on older individuals older women and the older women that have generally the most bone density are powerlift women that powerlift women that you resistance train in that sense right so we know that this compression compression will help build bone right we know that lifting weights because the muscles activ and pull on the bone and it'll help the bones become stronger but the big thing I think is like okay how can we get this benefit of bone density right and and and just overall tissue more tissue without the drawbacks it might be having I was listening to a podcast with Peter ATA and this this is it was a recent one this woman studies a lot of bone and she was talking about you know uh people using deadlifts and squats and lifting weights in that way and I was thinking why isn't anyone talking about the power of the sled the sled is an Implement that any anybody anybody can push and pull because you have to and I don't know if anybody can visualize this but when you push a sled you have to kind of like stack your structure behind it to push it through space you have to stack your skeletal structure to move that through space but the benefit of the sled is that you can push and pull it while breathing you don't hold your breath right so for me that's a key Implement because anybody can do it the thing that you know you put a heavy heavy barbell on a on somebody's back an old person's back worse comes to worse they injure themselves they don't know how to bail you put too much weight on a sled they just don't move the sled but you put enough weight on the sled then they learn how to stack their skeletal structure compress themselves to move it through space they then learn how to pull a sled now they're getting this pulling on the skeletal structure right because we know that to build more bone density we need to compact uh we need to decompress and pull out our structure and then we need to activate the tissue around our bones so that it again continues to manipulate the bones and build density the reason why I'm saying this I'm I'm mentioning so much about bone density is because there's going to be comments mentioning that this is just genetics but uh my bone density earlier this year was around 7.2 my t-core and your t-core is if your tcore is example zero that's the median the median means that's the average t- score if you're one you're one standard deviation above the norm if you're two that's actually really good you're two standard deviations above the norm in terms of your t score above the norm of your age three is really good four is really good my t-core is was a 7.2 earlier this year right that means I'm 7.2 standard deviations above the mean as I started like and another way to build bone density by the way is striking anyone who's seen mu high fighters understands that the reason why they kick a wooden like a wooden pole over and over and over again is to make their shins extremely hard so that they could break somebody with their Shins It's it's something that Tie fighters do it's boxers do it with their hands so that's another thing but within the past few months my t- score went from 7.2 to 7.7 and I'm 32 years old the reason I'm mentioning my age is because in this podcast where AA was talking to this woman this woman mentioned that you can't build new bone after 30 and the reason that made me so mad is at this place that I go get my dexas gun down my dexus gun scan done twice a year it's called dexfit they have people that do fitness challenges that are 30 40 50 that increase their bone density as they start resistance trading so it got me wondering like wait what do you mean like my this is the biggest biggest Drive in my t-core that I've had in a very long time because I've been very deliberate but it's like these about after 30 you're not going to you're just going to be losing muscle because of sarcopenia after 30 you're just going to be losing bone density because of osteopenia these ideas that are based in research I think it I think it can like really demotivate people because it's not the fact that you just can't it's the fact that if you don't change your circumstances you don't change your habit you don't change your environment that's going to be you but if you're actively doing things if you're and you don't got to do all the things I mentioned but if you're actively slowly taking these steps you can be the person that's gaining muscle tissue as they get older that's building bone density as they get older that's their body is actually Aging in Reverse so it's it's just one of those things that like I know that was a long- wited answer but yeah it's amazing it's frustrating when I hear those things sometimes of course of course it's programming as well if you believe that then you're going to abide by that and now as you mentioned there's data affirming these things but now we have emerging data showing that the complete opposite is true as well depending on what you're doing yeah depending on your inputs and um you know it's really it's it's remarkable actually recently uh one of my guests she's in her mid 70s she just started lifting at when she was about 70 and she's she was tracking with dexa and different you know getting scans done and she actually has seven pounds of muscle that she developed wow in her 70s what okay and of course she was like it it took her it was four years four or five years of training and so she was like it might sound like it takes a long time you know but for me no like that is amazing and to have stories and affirmations of that being possible you get to pick you get to pick and so man this has been so powerful you know we've covered a lot of ground and you know the thing that I really want people to to walk away with take action on and the fact that they can get access to this can you share again the URL to get that guidance from your ROP flow training believe it's school.com thest stronger human and you just again it's free to join that group once you join in you're just going to have you have access to that rof flow foundations course and that'll get you that'll I mean just do a little bit each day don't stress yourself out with it this is this this practice is meant to make you feel good it's not meant to be something that stresses you out it's meant to be that thing that you can turn to that every time you do it you just feel good afterwards right um and yeah it's there great Community there's over 2,000 people they're they're all chilling having fun I love those people they're great yeah yeah and I'm one of them so man thank you so much for sharing your insights with us man it's been dope I appreciate it SE hey if you like this video make sure to check out this video right here we should just call this episode like the wonders of sitting on the floor because you know one of the reasons that we are fans of sitting on the floor is that it does force you to do this thing that that we've really lost as humans which is the ability to get up and down off the ground

Transcript for:Exploring Rope Flow and Movement

Transcript for:
Exploring Rope Flow and Movement