My contract with myself is like, okay, still put out a knee video every week with the knee. Because you're the world's expert on knee health. I gotta do. Maybe the people's educational resource on like...
That's oddly social. Definitely not the world's expert. People's Republic of Knee stuff.
My point is just that exercising your body through full ranges of motion requires a little more mastery. But it's worth pursuing in life versus this. cog in a wheel of don't pursue being great. Like it's worth pursuing understanding full range of motion. Ben Patrick, AKA Mr. Knees over toes guy.
Uh, any relation to Tara Patrick? I'm drawing a blank. That's for the best.
Scott, do you know who that is? Close. Marcos. Very close.
Marcos. I know you're watching. Enjoy this one.
It's an adult film. Max. As soon as you said Marcos.
I knew who knew who that was. Wonderful having you here. Amazing to be here.
Excellent. You may or may not say that within several minutes once you hear the first crazy question. This is one of these interview shows where we bring in the guest and we just shock them with like just on the spot. I'm going to imbue things to you that you never said. Like I'll say, well, you said some unkind things about the Jewish people.
Do you have anything to say now on camera? See, it's already weird. On a serious note, hopefully not.
I didn't read all the questions. I didn't make these questions either. So I just went online. Life story.
Tell us a bit about who you really are. I know you as the knees over toes guy. I did a video critique of your stuff, which was exceptional. Not all of our video critiques are that exceptional. Where were you born?
To whom? What was your childhood like? Give us some, give us some meat.
Oh, cool. San Jose, California. My parents, Brian and Celia, they. do commercial office management.
That's an exciting thing. It's not exciting at all, but, but it was really cool because as a kid, I could go with them to work. My parents work their butts off.
That's awesome. My mom is still the hardest worker. I know. Oh, wow.
When people give me compliments on my work ethic, I feel guilty because it's like, no, that's not me. Yeah. Um, but it's really cool seeing them operating together.
They always believed in me or at least. They didn't tell me otherwise when I told them I want to go to the NBA. Oh, wow.
Wow. They're like, you're white. Yeah. So my dad has later told me like, yeah, I never believed you would dunk a basketball.
Like, OK, I can now. He didn't tell me until after. That's so awesome.
I could. So it's kind of they kind of let me learn through my mistakes. Go through it. Including starting basketball at all.
Including starting basketball. No, I mean. I asked you off camera already, but for the folks listening, how tall are you? 6'1". Okay. For real 6'1", not an inflated NBA 6'1". No. If any scouts are listening, 6'3", just edit that.
Excellent, scouts. How old are you? 33. 33. Shit, you're just getting into your NBA years.
Scouts, listen up. Yeah. I worked really hard at it. I saw how they operated. I was like, okay, if I can outwork everybody, then I'll make it.
Mm hmm. Well, I had chronic knee pain by 12 from that approach. Oh, my God. OK, so we'll get into your athletic career next.
But I suppose up to age 12, we couldn't really say you had much of an athletic career yet, but you already had some knee pain. What who were you kicking? Also, as a side note, how many Latino or Southeast Asian gangs did you join in San Jose?
San Jose, I guess I stayed in my little neighborhood. I didn't know much outside of that. So you were in a rival gang.
Yeah, exactly. And then when I was six, we moved to Florida. Oh.
Which was way too hot. Grew up hating it. Now I love it because it's just simple.
Where in Florida? Clearwater, Florida. It's a beach town by Tampa.
Flying to Tampa. My wife and I just saw a... Police body cam video on YouTube in Clearwater, Florida.
Believe it or not There's a lot of Floridians involved in police body cam activity They're so kind and make so much sense and they're rarely ever drunk or on drugs Good to know good. We take pride in Florida man Even even saying that out loud is difficult What is clear so I know Miami I've been to Miami. Yeah, one of Jared Feather's spirit homes and Yeah He's just into Latinas and Southeast Asians like Ro.
So also he technically a part of him lives in San Jose as well. San Jose ladies get at him. But Clearwater, is that like a resort town? I mean, you have a bunch of these beach towns that it is a lot of older people. Okay.
But tons of crime. Very chill beach town. Nothing to do.
Older people in condos. on the beach i lived not on the beach part but in town really really simple area way too hot too hot but later in life you kind of appreciate the simple slow pace and i'd say in the last five ten years it's on the up pretty nicely because you have people coming from la and places where they you know good more lively people but who don't want to live in a big city sure so you have the bikes total like my area is nicely on the up um from people coming you know moving in very cool yeah and so you went to school i assume your parents homeschooled you or no no went to school okay not no offense to homeschool people you're all normal um how was your involvement in sport and physical activity As compared to your peers up until about age 12. Because the reason I'm asking that is I have lots of memories when I was little. Of just being not so great at a ton of sports and watching people around me like be really good at them. And also some memories of me like really catching on to some sports and games and really feeling my own athletic kind of swagger and being like, all right, like I can do this kind of stuff.
What was your childhood like in that regard? I had pretty good aim, like could shoot a basketball well. Okay. Could throw accurately, but was definitely like skinnier, weaker than other kids.
Slow. Were you into food or no? Like as a little kid, did you like food or was it, uh, and you had too much activity to make up for it?
Like I was never like a skinny, skinny kid. I'm always curious about how that works. My dad graduated high school, 125 pounds. Just like some of those really skinny. How tall was your dad?
Five, 11 and a half. Yeah. Wait, I went into high school, 92 pounds, you know, it was just, I was close, but I was five too.
Yeah. But I was doing like, because my mindset was like, okay, if I practice basketball. six hours a day and no one else is doing that, then that'll make me better at basketball.
Sure. But the body matters too. So it's like. We exist in a physical body.
My skills probably peaked at about 12. Like I was like. Wow. Winning all kinds of like awards for shooting and things like I was very skilled, but.
Did that give you confidence in the realm of basketball? Kind of, but not really. Because when you're physically, when you're slower, weaker. It's just not so fun.
So your core presence you knew wasn't that ideal. It sucks when you're like always kind of nervous because it's like, all right, you know that every game the guy you're matched up against is going to be stronger and faster than you. Yeah. It stopped being fun.
Yeah. What age did it stop being fun? Kind of around 12-ish when the knee pain, like the knee pain. I think then even whatever good quality puberty athleticism gains I would have had, those didn't form so well.
Like. Because already just with the knee pain, like something you're not putting that force in like you would if you didn't have the knee pain. What do you retrospectively now attribute your knee pain to so early? Sheer volume of basketball.
Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, if you look at the sport of basketball, it's you get your advantage by really smashing force into your knees, trying to jump, trying to fake people out.
Coming down from jump land. Yeah. So it's, it's very imbalanced.
Like, I don't think it's wrong to jump or wrong. Like, I don't think any human movement is wrong. I think it's weird when it gets imbalanced.
It would be like if someone like started training bench at six years old and only in their twenties were like, Oh, I've never trained any back muscles. Yeah. Like if you actually did like, what is it for? Yeah.
So you can't pull the bench bar down. Must be a waste. Yeah. You can almost like assess skill level. at that age, 12, 13, 14, spot the kids already with knee pain, they're usually really skilled.
Like it's, and then you get to where, like when I grew up, like all the skilled guys had knee pain and, and most of us then fell off and people with better genetics who started a bit later, like Michael Jordan, wasn't serious about basketball until 16. Yes. Kobe grew up playing soccer. LeBron was playing football in high school.
So like statistically, if you want to be one of the greatest NBA players of all time, don't specialize in basketball. There's no evidence yet of someone who was like only playing basketball. Who's one of the top five players of all time.
It's an interesting thing because culturally, many people such as yourself, I don't want to say fall into the myth. It's not a myth, but sort of index really highly on. you know, I'm just going to outwork everyone else. And I'm going to establish a base level of technique that's so high that by the time I'm 12, 13, 14, I'll basically have like collegiate level ability to handle the ball and put it through the hoop.
And then, you know, I'll just grow up and become an adult and be really good at basketball. But it turns out that if you. Do so much technique work that you end up having some chronic injuries. Yep.
It's a real bad deal. Yeah. And I guess, is it wrong for me to say that most people probably that you came up with that were by 12, 13 struggling with chronic stuff, they probably didn't make it to that next level? Pretty much. Because like, there's not a lot of coming back from that until you, unless you take a meticulous approach.
Would you get lucky and you grow out of some shit, you know? Yeah. It can happen. Like sometimes the genetics are so strong.
You see someone just rock it up and they've got muscles everywhere. Like I didn't have the genetic push, you know, to handle that onslaught. But yeah, but nor does that mean to not be coordinated and practice your sport.
But it's like, it's too simple. Just balance that shit up. Yes. Train your body. Like it's too simple.
Right. Um, you. Started playing basketball and training for basketball at what age?
I mean, going in six, seven, eight, nine, like by like nine, I knew that it was like, okay, if I'm going to be good at this, I'm going to have to like do something different. I'm going to have to outwork everybody. Sure. But like at that, like at nine, you don't know, like no one's talking to you. Like, let's have a chat about knee surgery.
Like at nine, like, like, you know, hey, you're nine. What you're doing. You know can increase your chances of knee surgery down though like no one's having that conversation with a nine-year-old It's like if you dream it you can do it aim for the stars You'll wind up on the moon if you're like it's all that kind of stuff So you like and then you get the knee pain you go to a doctor and it's like it's growing pains No one's like oh nice.
It's like no one's like hey Your legs are actually super weak and you're doing like hours of plyometrics a day on super weak legs So the doctor probably never asked what you were doing. It's probably just like meh It's growing pains. Rub this cream on it.
Eventually take these pills. And then when you start taking the pills, you at first, you feel good. God, it doesn't hurt anymore. That's how you get into the surgery.
Cause then you wake up one day. So you keep training hard as nails. Yeah.
Cause you're like, I don't know. But you can't feel it. So now you go farther than you even would if you weren't on the drug. And then you're a teenager.
You wake up and your knee doesn't bend and they go look and it's just like, you have all kinds of tears. Like I had three different, I'd have three different like changes in, in this knee. And. Okay, so but I was flying high of course short period of time, of course. Wow, that's like Scott what's that movie with the football people and their teachers a stripper and This is like a 90s football movies varsity blues where they like prefer that one but they inject the guy's knee and yeah But he's like don't do it, but it was just a short-term gain.
Yeah so You Started having knee pain when you're about 12 years old. Yeah, were you going to basketball camps and stuff like that? I mean, it's just non-stop.
Oh, yeah 20 Uh, so like 365 like to give like actual measurable at 9 I went to Indiana for a basketball. I was already going to basketball games. Indiana.
What do they know about basketball? There was a really good shooting coach there. There was a really good jump shooting coach there.
And in his system, you shoot 500 shots a day. And so like we're talking and it's a jump shot. Like you're trying to jump. So like, yeah, not a set shot.
Like it's a jump shot. so like I took that super literally and then went years I went like I about three years like I didn't miss a day like if it was Christmas I went to an outdoor court if it like 500 jump shots a day and that's not even including the team practices strapping up ankle weights and dribbling basketballs through my neighborhood at 5 a.m like just anything I saw that like this guy did this or this guy like I was just like a tendonitis machine I'm just like just thinking but like so by 12 I knew like OK, something's like this is like this just like hurts every day. Like my knees hurt every single day. And like when there's like a fire drill and the kids start scramming, I'm like hobbling to like get.
Oh, my God. And you're supposed to. I was like kind of scared if there was a fire because I had to be like I remember at 12 being like really thinking out the fire exits because like everyone else could just run. And I had to like warm up for a bit to go up and downstairs. Yeah.
And of course, at the time, you hadn't put two and two together, so you just kept going. By this point, going to doctors and stuff, like going to doctors, going to trainers. Okay. Oh, your knee hurts.
Okay, we're going to avoid that. Okay. So you got the standard of care that was avoid whatever's hurt.
Ice it. Rub cream that you don't feel it. Take drugs that you don't feel it.
When it comes to exercise, don't load it. Avoid it. Right. So it gets weak. Do anything else that you can do.
Right. Okay. Yes, I got the standard all avoidance methods.
Yes. So now does that make a little more sense why I'm like this psycho on like helping people understand it and be able to load it like it's the fire will never burn on that. Yeah.
No, tons. That makes perfect sense. How long did you spend going to doctors and what was your basketball training situation like through high school?
12 to 14 was like a lot of the doctor period because that's when it was like, why is this not going? What's going on? Is it at times I was convinced like it's growing pains, like it's going to go away. Then then in high school, like 14 to 16 was just painful.
It was just rough. I'm surprised. Literally painful.
Yeah, like by the time that by the time I actually had surgery at 18, the doctor was suggesting like some of this stuff has been torn for like a long time. So you had structural damage. Yeah, they said like just irritation.
Yeah, they said there was like a fracture in my knee that had probably been there for like four or five years like that. I was so basically when the pain started, you had already had pain started at 12. But I think by 14, I probably was actually had some damage, like some torn up stuff. Holy.
Yeah. So but. But really, once you're getting into like 16, you're not even talking about you're talking about by 16 that it's like I can't even it's like play the game.
And then like I can't even practice like I can't like once it's off season, I just have to like stop and just work. Like I can't even play that like it was just pain. So it's so I was trying to take breaks and break like 16 to 18. I wasn't really playing much.
Wow. Like 17, 18. You were on the high school team. Yeah. But I had to like skip all the summer basketball that everyone was doing with like the AAU. Like I had to skip all that.
And then by 18 was then by then I was really juiced up on any kind of drugs I could get in or around there and then woke up one morning. And by that point, the shit just wouldn't bend at all. Like there was no choice left but to get a surgery because this wouldn't even.
So at 18, you got your first surgery. I only had one surgery in that surgery. They. they did three different they replaced part of the kneecap in one leg yep they replaced the meniscus they had to redo re so however you want to call it the quad tendon and then so it's like so that left knee was like even for years after was stiff like so stiff really the partial kneecap replacement was like that's very tense dude that's car accident stuff yeah you just like summated a car accident over 12 years of but the right one was in A lot of like the left one is the one that I woke up and like couldn't bend anymore. So like that's the only one they looked at.
So like my right knee's never been looked at, but it was like still in chronic pain. Then had times where like I definitely tore something in the right where it was like, you know, can't walk around normally for a long time. And like so I was like I was sure that I needed surgery on the right, but I hated the process of the surgery so much on the left. And it was such a it's still like.
Was super problematic, the left side that I was like willing to kind of be a dysfunctional person, but not have surgery and was just relentlessly then experimenting on fixing the knees. And it was Charles Poliquin. I'm a teenager watching T Nation, you know, back and forth.
porn and t-nation and like do what else do you need i did stop it at 18 i've never gone back to porn i thought you meant t-nation yeah both i just suppose t-nation was like a gateway to porn they used to have those like girls with like the bikini and i was like what does that have to do with muscles yeah um and and paul aquin was like hardcore about it but it definitely like the moment i saw charles paul aquin say anything about knees over toes it immediately clicked that I was like, that's what went wrong. That's the shit I've been avoiding. Like that I just avoided that the whole time.
When you, two questions. First is, did you train with weights at all through middle school and high school? Or was it just? High school, yeah. And then I actually got really into lifting.
And you'd actually laugh if you saw, by the time I was 18, so I was at 14, I was 92 pounds. By the time I was 18, I was 205 and was like 20% body fat. Even as man, I look like people don't believe it was me. I was just like puffed out with, but the legs yourself, I should have brought a picture of this.
My legs were so thin and my upper body was pretty big. It's making the problem worse because yeah. Cause I couldn't access like, cause the knee pain, I couldn't get anything.
I wasn't actually skipping leg day. Right. Like I was doing whatever, like what the trainers were telling me to do and stuff. Sure. And, and.
Weight gain shakes like crazy. And like, like I always overdid, like I definitely knew looking right. I definitely knew looking back that the extremist approach was the fundamental of my problems. Yes.
But then being told not to like then being told to avoid the knee. Also extreme. That right.
That combination is what made knees over toes guy. And then realizing. The opposite.
Yeah. Graded exposure into the difficult. Exactly. Or I guess not the opposite, the middle. Cause I'm not all like, I also train my posterior chain.
Like I don't only do knee over toe. I just do knee behind toe and knee over. Like, yes. So yeah, actually, actually went from extreme overuse and extreme avoidance to then logical progressive loading.
I love it. I love it. My second question in this regard was how did it feel as a human being and as a child to like.
Not be able to fully train the sport that you loved and it get progressively worse until you were just like recovering from surgery. And I assume couldn't walk really for a while. A lot of depression. Depression. unhappy capital d yeah and i don't mean it in a medical sense because i never got myself evaluated and the moment i fixed my knee pain and could dunk i've been like a happy camper compared to i'd be happy like for my like to this day the fact that i can go hoop with my buddies dunk go squat with you right now not have to worry about my knees yeah like that's like i don't ask for too much out of life like i definitely got um going through all that shit growing up i'm like i gotta hot wife i got like money in the bank i got i can train my butt like the gratitude level is ridiculous because i because of not having this stuff it definitely screwed like didn't have good success with women either because like just oh sure and then all the weight gain like my diet was so looking back like so extreme going from 95 pounds to 205 whatever occurred there my acne got really bad So then you've got like, can't play my sport, like secretly taking different drugs, terrible acne.
Like I maybe I could have had a good, good relationship. I was terrified. It makes it makes a ton of sense because I remember this is odd interjection, but nonetheless, I think weaves in. I remember like when I was younger, having my first.
like a vision in my head of like how i would deal with a woman physically and like what i thought was like you know like like you know consensually of course like we're up against the wall move in for the kiss right and the first feeling i had about that was like Like, I don't have the balls to pull that off. And then I realized, like, there's nothing to me that I consider impressive enough to offer another human being. And like, can you imagine if a girl was like, you know, your friend was like, hey, Marcy, Marcy Scott was. is Marcy my go-to?
I don't even know if I knew a single Marcy in my life. 57. You're like, oh, hey, meet my friend. And Marcy's like, so what are you about? And you go through your head when you're 17 or 18. You're like, I'm not good at basketball. I can't play that.
Don't really like how my body's shaped. I'm chronically injured. I don't feel that great. I'm always depressed.
As soon as that index ends, she's like, so? You're like, you can just move along to the next person. Is that sort of how it is? It was for me. Yeah.
Some people have like almost a delusional confidence that may or may not work out. I'm maybe too realistic. Sure. You're like, just pass.
Yeah. Yeah. That makes total sense.
So before. But please tell more stories. Because the worst thing about going on podcast is like, like, I would rather be chatting with you.
Oh, you know, like, well, I would. I usually just talk too much. So Scott will actually throw something from like your followers.
Obviously, you know more of your story more. So I get it. But it's like, I don't even have any followers. Let me let me tell you the. Other than laughing with my toddlers before the podcast started, definitely the funniest person I've been around.
Get the fuck out of here. We paid him to say that, Scott. I was like lightheaded before. Like, oh, better not be this funny during.
Don't worry. My funniest peaks early and then you just get sick of me. Perfect.
So you at age 18. This entire time your whole life, I assume at age 18, you were going to be planning to go to college to play basketball. Where were you 18 physically, mentally, and what was your trajectory? Were you enrolled to go to college?
Did you go play college ball? Talk us through that 18 to 22-ish period. Yeah, I wasn't going to go to college unless it was to play basketball. That's the only reason people should go to college, I think.
Also, they teach you stuff maybe? I don't know. Well, there I was taught even more strongly no knees over toes. Thanks, college.
But I was I was working for my parents. So doing kind of like physical labor type stuff at the by this point. my parents had worked the way up to having a little office park.
So mulching, landscaping, painting walls, every kid's dream. But of course the truth is after high school. Yeah. Okay. But the truth is I, I don't know.
I liked it. Doing physical work kind of makes you feel a bit better about yourself. Oh, yeah. Accomplishing something real in the world, especially something that organizes a disorganized system or create something a little bit more beautiful than it was before.
It's like this. You can go home and be like, I did something today that makes sense. Exactly. I just sit in my office and write manuscripts and shit.
I have no idea where the fuck any of that comes from. Sometimes I don't even send the emails back, you know. Fuck it. That was definitely good for my self-esteem.
And I still wanted to play college basketball. So by this, but by this point it was like, I kind of knew it wasn't going to happen, but I was experiencing experimenting with my knees. Okay.
So you knew now, like. I'm going to have to fix this shit myself because no one's coming to help me. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. By this point I had given up. Like I'm not like, right. I'm not going to trainers. They're just all the advice at best didn't work.
And at worst was just fucking wrong to begin with. Yeah. And, and Charles Poliquin at least wrote a lot.
He didn't have a lot of videos at the time. And in that phase, he wasn't running any courses that you could go to, but just from trying to mimic what I was duplicating from these articles and stuff and just trying to get, into deeper ranges of motion because you were avoiding them exactly i'd always avoid you were training in high school like what was your squat depth like was it significantly above parallel sort of parallel ish probably in my mind parallel but not close to it say no more i've been to high school before and also like very meticulously working on the form of not letting my knees over my toes like big chest hips back right back right um like you My deadlift did get stronger. Bench press got stronger. Did the deadlift help the knee situation at all? The problem is like, if you're just not getting any of the knee development, then if you build the back and the upper body, I mean, just the physics of it gets a little harder to play basketball on your knees.
Yeah. So it's even worse. It's setting you up for.
Yeah. Yeah. Taking it out of context would be like deadlifting is bad for your knees.
No, but like anything like just put more weight on your back and go try to like go put a weight vest on and try to play basketball. It's gonna be a little more like pressure on your knees. Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. So because I had started so early with certified trainers who were adamantly no knees over toes, no bending below 90 degrees.
That's how I came up. But being an extremist going from 92 pounds to 205, a lot of mass occurred there. Yeah. With like no leg development.
Oh, just embarrassingly like. So, yeah, once I stumbled into the Charles Poliquin stuff and the idea of that, he was like, no, no, no, that's. bullshit he wanted full range of motion he wanted to allow the knee to go over the toes just experimenting with that and you know maybe if someone experiments with this stuff there's going to be a degree of risk versus learning it in a smart order and sure you didn't have sensible i didn't know any different so i just you know, shotgun approach was just trying all this stuff. But even just doing that compared to all these years of avoiding, I was, um, I was making also extra money, just like teaching kids how to play basketball. But I was like this crippled coach teaching them.
But then it was like, I started to notice like, wait a second, like that same position is not hurting as much. Oh, wow. Yes.
And I'm like, I might be able to play basketball again. So then I was like really hooked. 500 jump shots a day, restarts. No, no. I'm kidding.
No practice. Just like basically just trying to improve ass to grass leg training. Yes. And let that catch up with all those years of basketball where your knees never bend all the way down.
And I can honestly say I've never had to miss basketball since. So it was a solid. Like, you know, it's like about a decade of knee problems and now it's been well over a decade of, of no setbacks. That doesn't, but, but I'm not trying to tell someone like go experiment with this and it's going to be smooth.
Like I was, by this point I had been through so much. I was pretty sensible about not. Like pushing.
I was. So when you hit the Charles Polk, I was a was a patient era. You were already a little bit more reticent to go terrified.
Exactly. So you're like, I'm going to weave this in slow. That's really good. Exactly.
Tell me two things. One, when you say experimenting with different movements, can you give us a list of a few movements which you got from Poliquin that you started incorporating? And two, what was the kind of frequency and loading range you were using at that time?
Yeah. frequency was pretty much going to the gym every day but it didn't mean i was only doing knees because okay um knee day again yeah but sometimes it was sometimes like go to the gym monday through sunday and just like work on the knees every single time but that's also like what um he had examples that he had learned from louis simmons of people doing backward sled and to someone with healthy knees it doesn't always make sense at first but it's pretty similar to a leg extension that happens to like if some if you hook someone up to a backward sled who has really fragile knees and you have them let's say go for like five minutes by the end of it they might have like the first quad pump they've ever had yeah so it's like a gateway to then being able to put more load on those legs and because it's a sled you happen to recover much faster sure so like someone could like like if i put concentric only exactly minimum range of motion yeah and then you're like this is some little gem of something i can actually do yeah and build upon exactly and so like i've even done demos where i put a thousand pounds on the sled and i try to have my mom drag it backward and like it just doesn't move but she's fine like and just to help people understand like you're not gonna get hurt people understand so so yeah my like my passion was really on like fragile people which actually extended to older people the amount of people 50 60 70s every day Who are like your system is perfect for me like tons of them comment on the on the video we did about you Yeah, tons of older folks And people that had just given up on thinking their knee pain had a solution in the universe Yes, they were like I had written my legs off as non-functional Yes, and then I found out knees over toes guy existed. I started this shit I'd really really know if it was going to work and then a few weeks later They go on incessantly in the comments section.
Yeah, because they have all this like pain and giving up. So it's like I've been able to look back and see where the hate comes from. And like the main sources, the hate come from are like super legitimate.
Like, number one, if I say something that I get overly passionate and it's not 100 percent true, that's a mistake. Like I've done like a whole rework and looked at like what worked well, what didn't work well. Sure. And then sometimes you get. Maybe an area that I have bent the truth a little and some one else that maybe I don't even know them.
But they're like doing my stuff. And now they're going to go make a social media post and bend it even more to the point where it's just like a full on lie. Yeah.
Or it's too overly exaggerated. Sure. The one cure to knees.
Yeah. Everyone needs to do. Yeah. Thumbnail. Great title.
Scott, write that down. No, but it is actually true. That's like there's like YouTube videos where it's like, you know, like.
Like the one, the only exercise you'll ever need fix your knee pain guaranteed in 60 seconds. That's not an exaggeration. What I just said, I don't want you to go search that right now.
Please don't. Okay. Now I can honestly look back. I've never made a title like that in my life.
I've showed people gradual progression. I've never made a video that said, this is the only thing you need. Bro, we reviewed your videos.
I was getting ready to tee off on you for saying dumb shit. Well, but you found a super legitimate one. in a video almost four years ago where I said anyone can be a world-class athlete.
Like that's fucking bullshit. And I unlisted that video immediately. I've said shit like that many times.
But, but like, just cause someone else does, like, it's not an excuse to not do better. Sure. So I've like completely reworked.
Fortunately, it was doing most things good, but was not good enough. And so like, I've completely reworked it to where it's like the number one thing is just to be honest. And the videos that I had that actually connected with people the most and extensively talked to people, it's when I'm like, okay, I've been working on this ass to grass split squat for the last 10 years, not get out of knee pain fast. I've been working on this shit for 10 years.
Right. You don't only need backwards sled. That's a stepping stone.
Right. And this is the stuff that got people because if someone, if you lie, then now someone might think, well, I tried the backwards sled and it didn't help me. Yeah.
So I'm screwed. Look at that. I'm letting that person down. A hundred percent guarantee.
And it failed. Yeah. Nor will working on that 10 years guarantee you anything for sure. This is just basic physics and anatomy. Like I don't even want to, I don't even want to try to bend the truth.
Go like, just open up physics books. Go look at, go to the most well-documented strength research on just how does, how does the body adapt? I don't know. Go do your own shit.
I'm just going to show. What I did. So it's really like the stuff of showing people, here's what I did.
Here's what I did. Now I actually can dunk a basketball and so on. And sure. And the goal, like your squat form. Or use a full range of motion and you control it down.
That's the goal. Well, it's easy for me. My femurs are the size of like mouse femurs or teeny.
Yes. Look at you. You're all adult height and shit. But the beautiful thing is the fragile, skinny, whatever can get to that. And that's the single most helpful thing that I have seen is with the control.
See, some people equate the full range of motion with just bouncing out of the bottom, which I think is totally fine. I think every motion is fine, but being able to control it all the way down. Like if you, like, I honestly believe if someone out there in the college world wants to do a study, because people ask me, why don't you do a study?
Like, dude, I'm winning beyond anything I ever dreamed. I'm not going to change what I do. How the fuck would you do a study? I don't want to even.
I don't, I don't even want. I don't even want to hold a study that says I'm right. I would rather sell less and just say, here's what I do.
Here's what I've done. Sure. Totally decide on your own.
Sure. Like, I don't want to change. my operation. Sure.
But if someone in college did, I'm just feeding them something for that system. If you measured and improved, let's say basketball teams with chronic knee pain to control all the way down a full squat. Yeah.
I think that would, that would be my best bet. Now, whatever warmup steps you have to do to get there, that would be the one to measure and notice the changes in these stats. Yeah, that makes sense. So you had your early days with going through poliquin stuff and trying it out yeah first of all how long did it take for you training your legs properly ish more properly until you saw tangible results with your knee pain and secondly what did you end up doing with your training that was different and your own arc off of the poliquin stuff yeah um you Within like by the end of one week, it's not like I could necessarily like have much to show for it But like I knew like I knew that the whole avoidance was off Okay, because you had done a bunch of stuff that focused on the knees and it felt if nothing else better By a little bit or at least the fact that after years of like downward motion That I was seeing like I went out to do was like I did it for a week then did like my weekend basketball lesson, but i'm like what's happening here like it's not hurting as much as it did it's not like i went out and played a basketball but i knew sure like something was different and we're talking about a route now of like actually facing the knees and improving their ability so like i knew like i had already like spent so many years on the avoidance side yes that like i just knew i called my my best buddy from high school who was also broken down like i because like i told him like like we're not done like i after one week i call like we're not done um you And so, yeah, I just knew.
And the, the backwards sled was the one that I found I could work really vigorously and that it would feel better and better. Whereas getting into the fuller ranges of motion was definitely like, how the heck do I like get down there? Like, how do I, yes, it's a long journey. Yeah.
And like, you could kind of like, if it hurts, like if it hurts and then you push through it, that doesn't seem to work that well. It might still work better than. purely avoiding it but like so so yeah it was eventually and i'll show you in the gym like i was trying to get to this beautiful full range of motion squat like in my head it would be seeing like your form for example and like so that like here is dima charles poliquin i never saw him demo any of the leg stuff in my entire life even going and studying with him in person sure sure but he would sometimes mention like other people you And I would go watch and see this like beautiful full range lifters and stuff like that. Yeah. And so it's like, how do I get there?
And he wrote about doing split squats and lunges with full range of motion. Like how you do like a deeper lunge. The lunge was out of the question.
That's actually like more of a progression. So you, did you try it? And your knees were like, not, I, yeah, like I was trying all this stuff and it was like, if it hurt, I'd be like, okay, how do I like, cause I knew from the sled thing, like I felt good.
Like, it's like, like, that's such a cool feeling. That's like, wait a second. Like.
I've never felt the vastus medialis before. Like I didn't know that existed. I have quads?
Yeah. Like, so I knew that like, and so, so yeah, the main thing I've definitely, I wouldn't even say that I wouldn't even try to say I've improved on anything that Paul Aquin did. When people say, Hey, you're just Charles Paul Aquin for dummies.
I'm like, yes, I did. Finally. That was like my life stream. Like my life stream is like, I know that there's like so much genius in this. And even if I compared to your system, like I love following you and watching your stuff because I'm like that is I would train exactly how you train I wouldn't even change your system.
Like if I was trying to bodybuild I would just do your system. Like, um, hasn't worked for me. Um, so then it's almost like, like if you and I brainstormed, for example, let's say we were trying to help a basketball team that has no bodybuilding machines.
There's some fucking dumbbells and just like their body or something. Sure. Like I would just be trying to get, how do we get like closer to those results that you're getting, but without all those machines. Sure.
And some of it then. like comes into the confidence where like okay for the backward sled the fact that someone who's been struggling for years sidelined wait six weeks all this waiting and then fucking six weeks waiting waiting waiting waiting hoping waiting and then you go backward for five minutes and you're sweating and you got a little quad pump yeah so it's not even that is a backward sled better than a leg extension i don't even care to answer that question right i don't even i don't know Yeah. Maybe in reverse time.
They're a little bit different. They're a little bit similar, like, but it works backwards. That is just a leg.
That's like, okay, what's occurring in the body? Sure. Knee extension. Yeah. But you basically hadn't done any kind of loaded knee extension.
Yeah. But it's like for forever. Cause it's so painful.
Right. That it's like, so like you're thinking in your mind, it's like, well, I can't do the leg extension machine. but I can do the hamstring curl, but I can't do the leg extension.
I can't do the leg press. I can't, or if you do the leg press, like if I put my, if I'm like, like that, but I like the moment it bends and it's like, you're like, holy shit, is something going to blow here? Yeah. And it actually would like kind of work to actually make.
So like part of what the people with the pain are not doing is like, it's like, okay, go to the leg extension machine. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Like. Don't put the stack, like do your leg a hundred times.
Like this would kind of work if you actually got them to realize like, what if you went to the squat rack? Not only did you not get under the bar, you set the pins, put your hands on the pins and helped yourself squat deep. Yes.
Like as crazy as it sounds, if you wanted, if you, if you told me, Ben, you've got 10 seconds to actually get like some outstanding results. Like the camera's going to come on. You have 10 seconds to like. improve knee stats around the world uh assist yourself on a deep squat yeah i'm out by that was three rep that shit out get a quad pump with a sit like less than your own body yes gradually load all right it's interesting that would work well in my opinion in uh i agree in the in the rehabilitative modern rehabilitative science there's a lot of stuff outdated unfortunately we have some colleagues that have been in some uh doctoral physical therapy programs up to this year actually and there's still many professors you talking about the avoidance mindset as if it's like the right thing to do, which is super unfortunate. But in my understanding of sort of modern rehabilitative practice, as soon as let's say, let's say you have some pain somewhere, maybe you're just like actually had an acute tear and you have surgery.
The number one thing to do after is with as much loading as you can tolerate pain wise in such a way that the pain isn't getting worse set to set. and especially not worse session to session and week to week, you work on that level of loading and you expand your range of motion at that joint up until it's pretty much maximum range of motion. Then you start loading the joint a little bit more, but you still are getting most of your stimulus from repetitions.
Then after that, you're loading a little bit more, but you're building volume, multiple sets. After that, you start to take the reps down a little bit and crank the weight up a little bit. But really, you've built a lot of musculature.
You've built a ton of competence. You've built a ton of movement aptitude. And by then, you're barely in any knee pain at all.
Just with heavier weights, it feels a little weird sometimes. And whatever number of weeks, months, or years that whole process takes you at the end of it, you're just like squatting heavy as shit for sets of five or ten reps with your knees going way over your toes, sitting on your heels. And you're like...
I feel fucking great. And then someone's like, yeah, man, you could do that because you have healthy knees. And you're like, ooh, sort of good. You didn't know where I came from. So it's interesting that just with your own personal journey, that whole idea of just holding yourself on some stands or something or the pins and then controlling and working on range of motion first.
Because a lot of people will say, you know, I can't do this exercise. It hurts. and then let's say it's a leg press.
And then I watch them get out of a car, like I'm fabulously wealthy. Everyone knows this. Scott, how many trillions do we have now?
We don't even count the money anymore. Did you know that counting the money at this point would be independently expensive because you have to get all these counting machines? They cost money.
You're living the dream. It does not get better than what you have. It's a nightmare because it's too much money.
No, it doesn't get better than what you have. Tell me that when you're suffocating under a gold dollar coin. In any case, getting out of a sports car, these people get out of the sports car and How are your knees?
And they're like, fine. I'm like, motherfucker. But that's a deeper position than I had you in the leg press.
And, you know, they start doing the quantum calculations about how the fuck that works. Or they'll get into a low chair. They'll get up from playing their kids and they don't really have any pain.
And then I'm like, OK, so let's take the leg press and put zero plates on each side. Can you go through a full range motion? Like, well, yeah. I'm like, here's what we're going to do.
We're going to find the weight that. gives you a little bit of knee discomfort, not outright pain, but you know, that feeling just on the spectrum of feeling good from getting your balls cut off at the top end, uh, to just sitting on the couch and, and just chilling out on the one end, just before pain, you get the sort of like, especially knees like discomfort, right? You know what I'm talking about? It's kind of like, Ooh, your body's like, pain's going to come soon.
If you keep pushing me, you get them to that point. And then you start building their range of motion abilities at that. And after a few sessions, they're like, Two plates on the side of a leg press, and they're like, I don't really have knee pain with this.
Baller. Let's build some volume. Then they're doing five sets with two plates on a side. And then after a while, you're like, five sets of 15 at two plates on a side?
No knee pain at all? Let's slowly, five pounds on the bar, 10 pounds on the bar here and there. Over several months, now they're doing 315 to 405 on the leg press with no knee pain.
And now they can squat. Now they can lunge. They can do everything. They've forgotten about it.
But I think that people just assume, like, I can't do XYZ exercise because I get pain. factor out like exercise at what load does someone say i can't do flies it hurts my shoulder okay just do flies with your arms how do you feel like fine i'm like there's nothing wrong about flying this is actually something really fucked up in your shoulder that precluded flying just sitting here i would be like oh okay then you have a fucking problem you need a diagnosis you need surgery you need something but if you can move in an unloaded situation like imagine going into a swimming pool under the water and then just going to a deep squat you I literally have people do my program in a pool if they think they can't do it. And then they can. Tons of people now are like, I'm walking, right? Like people who like some older people are struggling to walk.
Like they can't walk. They need a cane, stuff like that. Sure. And the pool is a game changer.
Because it gives them the idea that it's actually not the range of motion or the activity. It's just the load. And my body's not used to the loads.
I have to progress my way into like getting better at handling load. Yeah. Yeah. You beautifully articulated that.
Rarely does someone have a zero of ability. That's highly unlikely. It's possible, but very unlikely.
To have a zero of ability, yes, there would have to be some inorganic deviation to such extent that you would extremely know this. Now, in my experience, the overwhelming majority of people who are labeled with a condition. Well, they don't have a zero of ability.
So like often you hear some, like I haven't had my knees checked out for over 10 years. I don't ever plan to have them checked out. Sure.
But what they find, they might find some thing they could label. Sure. And if I didn't know any better, now I think, and I'm told, and it's express orders. Not from every doctor, not from every PT.
Many of them are amazing. But yes, people tell me the exact orders they receive from many doctors and PTs. No, at the worst, it's just like no legs for you.
Yeah. But it can be no deep bending, no knees over toes, no, or kind of like arbitrary statements like. No deep bending and no loading. So you can just do a body weight half squat. And like the person believe in, they say, tell me like all I'm allowed to do is like a body weight half squat.
And then what? Like forever? Right. Until the pain goes away.
And then when it goes away, you're like, fuck it. You go back to 220. all the way down and tear your shit up. I've seen people do shit like that.
The fact that a lot of clinicians don't offer logical progression models is embarrassing. It's changing because of people like you and me. I just got here. This is the truth.
Because of people like you and me, it is actually changing. It's actually getting better and it's actually changing. And tons of not just close friends but friends. I see so many, I don't see all the messages, but I see tons of them coming in each day. No one on Instagram answers for me.
Like I like to stay, I like to read lots of YouTube comments every day. Oh, wow. And there's a wave happening in physical therapy and with doctors. Yes. Because if you do explain it well and don't say, if you don't train knees over toes, you're an idiot.
If you don't squalor down, you're an idiot. Like if you don't make it a fight. If you can respect others and be honest about it, you can educate a ton of people.
Sure. Those are my two primary focuses. It's like, okay, I'm. Here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to make an Instagram video, let's say. Is it honest? That's the first thing I'm asking myself.
Is that honest? Is that your best evaluation of what's going on? Am I actually being honest?
Yeah. Number two, am I actually being respectful? Because I'm not like trying to bash the academic system.
Sure. Like that's not my, like if you go to, if I go too far on that, it kind of could make more enemies and that's not the purpose. Right. I need the doctors and physical therapists to learn this.
Yes. And then lastly, am I teaching in a way that like someone could like safely start it? Right.
Like I remember when TikTok started and I threw up like some crazy like sissy squats or something and the posts were going viral, but I could barely sleep at night. Oh, fuck. I'm like, this is, I don't feel good about this. Because people are just.
Like there's no progression. It's a class progression right away. Yeah.
Is it honest? Is it respectful? Does it scale ability?
And I've become obsessed with those three. And then I'm like, even looking at the world, I'm like. Oh, now I understand the government.
Like, oh, you start lying to your people. Yeah. You start squashing your people. Yeah. Success is all of a sudden unobtainable.
It no longer scales. Yeah. And you wind up with a civilization that no longer exists. You know, it goes down.
Right. Yeah. So it's very interesting.
So that's like, those are my guides. That's a really great system. Yeah.
But it is because of those things. Because of the way that you're articulating it, it's actually like we're actually winning. We're not just like these fringe people that are noble but losing.
No, we're actually doing it. We're actually winning. Yeah, it's interesting. Our channel has had a lot of success recently, which I attribute to just I just like literally just pay off some dude with physical acts. The honesty of what you're putting out.
It works. It's honest. It's like a natural law that the channel blew up.
Scott's gonna start laughing we lie mostly well Yes to do he has to make it that the data gets across to people That's true the audio the lighting that like it like the production people have to be able to consume it Like I can't just be sitting in your yard like I'm the best trainer like you know that that's actually the thing is a lot of people including myself formerly sort of laboring in silence or on putting out content in a way that isn't overly compelling, though very true and very valuable, isn't produced very well, though very true and very valuable. And I guess it's kind of cool to be in a space now where we actually can reach some people, but we didn't get here by just lying our asses off and making stuff up. And we've made some enemies, but I don't have a problem making enemies of charlatans and people that rip people off on purpose.
Right. And that's where even for you, you can still assess the respect factor. I mean, like it's not, it's not just a black and white, that's something for you to assess.
And you do like. I don't regret that I have noted that in college I had to take exams and say no knees over toes. Like, yeah, my like. So I'm not saying that you can never criticize anyone. But did I say it respectfully?
Yeah. Am I like those people are, you know, like it's like I'm not calling out individual teachers. Yeah. I've seen you take certain things where it's like, you know, there's people in this industry who. have varying degrees of ethics, like degrees of ethics is a very good way.
It's like, so I'm not saying like there can't be any critics. You can still keep your composure. Um, which is sometimes, yeah, no, but you're able to stay calm about it. I'm not saying you're perfect.
Cause I haven't been perfect. I'll say it. I'm perfect.
I say that every day in the mirror and you know what, it just doesn't work and never sinks in. Um, But you can't lie about it. Like, honesty is still the first factor.
Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, lying is interesting. Lying on social media and... Lying lies on a spectrum from...
callously making shit up all the way to a very mild exaggeration of a fundamentally true thing and everything in between. And to the extent that you go higher and higher into lies on that spectrum, depending on how creative you are with your lying, you can get lots of attention and stuff like that. Oh, it works. It works. Everything I'm saying, the inverse works.
Yes. Yes. Short term. Yes.
There's an inverse short to long. It all works. Yes. The dishonesty.
The disrespect, these things all get attention. 100%. My view is on the disrespect stuff, and this is something I've sort of been working on a little bit lately, is a lot of our Hollywood review videos were just like me, like dunking jokes onto people's heads.
Poor fuckers had never saw it coming. But I didn't really enjoy that a ton. It's funny.
Jokes are funny. But if I was one of these trainers that was training a Hollywood celebrity and then I saw a video of me making fun of him. I'd be like, dude, fuck that guy. And I would be totally 100% respect. Like, it's not a very nice, not a very cool thing to do.
I think celebrities do kind of like when I get made fun of on the Internet by like everyone. And it doesn't really bother me because like, well, I haven't seen got it coming. I haven't seen too much, though. I mean, to the degree that you're honest, that's like your number one. The honesty is a helpful thing.
So on the negativity side, I think it's really easy to come up fast being super hypercritical only and not helpful. But I think at some point, my hypothesis, I'm not sure if this is true, is that people who continue to tune into your content, like seeing some negativity every now and again is dope. But if you're watching someone be negative all the time, it drains you and you start to feel it.
And then so most of the really popular fitness YouTube channels seem to just be like very positive. And you walk away from watching their videos being like, that was really fun and cool. And everyone kind of won in their own way. I learned something. It was great.
So the long term on positivity, I think, is really. Good. And then, of course, the honesty thing is you can get a lot of shit done lying for a little while and skyrocket into popularity. The liver king exists. But at some point when a lot, a critical mass of people realize you're a known liar, in big fundamental ways, everyone fibs.
You know, I tell people. I have a functioning penis. That's never been true. But, you know, if you are known as mostly a truthful person, people are going to be like, yeah, that guy, I want to hear what he has to say.
But if you've gone into some fame by lying, when most people figure out you're full of shit. It is preposterously difficult to come back from that because what is there going to be a fucking new you? You know, like, oh, hey, guys, you do a YouTube video.
I've changed. I'm a new man and I don't lie anymore. Like some number of P.T. Barnum's, you know, suckers born every minute will believe that most people are like, I'm good, man.
There's 18 other people I get my advice from and it's not you. So that's kind of my thought about it. And another thing also I think is helpful in social media is to be.
More genuine than not like people sometimes accuse me of just being myself everywhere To be honest That's not true because the real me the level of politically incorrect humor would get me cancelled It's like the first thing I would say get me cancelled, but it's close It is as close as I can get to on various platforms And if you're really genuine you come off as an incredibly genuine person now I have dick for fucking character assessment Scott. How autistic am I? Bad it's bad.
I don't even know your gender technically right now. I barely see but um You always and everywhere that i've seen your interactions and seen your videos and meeting you in person Seem like there's just like a real ben patrick that just wants to kind of like help the world out in his own little special way like if you have that And you're honest and you uh try to stay either balanced or positive balance means you talk some shit But then you say hey like respect cut on this kind of stuff like I don't agree with this person doing this But a lot of other ideas have are great if you stay in that realm Yeah, whatever value you have to bring the world be fully accessible to everyone Yeah Whereas if you deviate from that realm if you become dishonest or start dishonest if you become a person who? Nobody really knows who the fuck you are.
You're just various veils of whatever you have to be that day and you know at some point it's just There's not coming back from that a ton because people are like well Are you just a new person all of a sudden you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you've called people out, but your respect level is still high.
If you had a low respect level, you'd just be like, fuck Knees Over Toes guy. I wouldn't be sitting here right now. That's true. There's no chance I'd be sitting here.
Listen, we evaluate people on what we see and what we hear. And if you're talking some shit, that's nonsense. We'll call you out for it.
Yeah. There's the honesty side. A hundred percent. Yeah.
And the honesty side and the respect side have a little bit of an interesting relationship. I like to be, I have kind of a rule for myself. If it's someone who I don't think is a scumbag charlatan, I give them a real good positive look and a little bit of criticism that's couched appropriately with tons of respect.
On the other hand, if you're a charlatan, then you get the full brunt of through two middle fingers in the air. On that note, related, not really, you're back into training at this point in your life. You are doing some work on knee extension under load. You're feeling your swag a little bit.
Talk us through your journey back into playing basketball because you got to fill in the blanks for me from when you were coaching those kids. I'm not allowed to be around children, especially in a coaching capacity. Scott remembers the incident. We call it. There were several really in multiple states, but in countries over many years.
But in any case, goddamn kids, you know what I mean? Just do what I say. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. In any case, you were coaching up the kids and you're like, oh, my God, like I'm not.
weird in these positions yeah take us through the journey of when you dunked a basketball because like that's a lot of space yeah ability wise between those how long did that take and what did you do to get there definitely being six one first off you don't have to jump that high to dunk it's more like if you're over six foot in basketball it's much more of an embarrassment if you can't jump like it's an arbitrary 10 foot like you can flash the white skin and be like i had a permanent excuse for that fellas It's definitely true that on my entire college team, like I was the only guy, my wingspan was shorter than my height. Oh, shit. Yeah. That sucks.
Yeah. So, I mean, in your humor, you know, I can probably proudly say that my stat to D size was probably like led the nation. But it was definitely something I had given up on.
But the knee training, like the fact that. So I then went. Hard core on the knee training and gave it like about a year to where I was able to go.
There's like schools where failed basketball players can try to get a second shot prep teams and stuff. So I was the oldest guy there like Hogwarts for basketball. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's how old oldest by how big of a margin. Why was 20?
But it's like I'm playing with mostly like 15 to 18 year old. You got to punk these kids out, man. Just facepalm everyone. Fuck out of me, you little bitch-ass kid. But it was cool.
Like, the fact that I could play without my knees hurting. And one of my buddies on my team was like, oh, yeah, you could dunk. And I'm like, get out of here.
And, like, just with him, like, maybe within one or two practices of, like, trying, like, I dunked a basketball. Wow. But it was like, there's a lot of degrees of dunking.
Yes. It was like a barely dunk. One hand up. scooting the ball just over the rim situation. Yeah, it was like a barely perfect, all the stars have to align kind of situation.
Yes. Went to college, back into, you're not allowed to let your knees over your toes. Whoa, hold on. So who's telling you this now? So I got a scholarship.
Okay. So playing on this team, I then got a college scholarship to play basketball at a junior college. Okay, excellent.
It's a two-year college. Good stepping stone. All right, so I'm in the game.
Were you excited at this point? Were you happy? Or were you nervous it was going to flitter away like everything? I was so much happier than before.
Sure. But now I was like pretty terrified of like, no, I'm not allowed to do the knees over toast. I'm not allowed to squat below parallel. So your collegiate coach or strength and conditioning coach?
They didn't really have one. It's kind of like an assistant coach. It was also the strength coach. Yeah. And there's a lot of pressure.
You can't just be like. Hey, I'm going to train differently than the rest of the team. People who are outside of sports are always amazed at how serious sports are.
You know, like, oh, we're just a junior college. No one cares. No, no, no. Go watch an eight-year-old soccer game. It's taken too seriously.
Dads will fight each other about shit. So then I had a massive regression, if you will. That sucks. It was. it really took the wind out of my sails and, and definitely had like some more knee tweaks.
It was at a point where then like the problem is like, so like I knew enough. So I went and got a membership at a CrossFit gym locally. And so I'd like go outside of our practices and like do the backwards sled.
Uh huh. And, but fucking criminal and like way to let your team down. Yeah. So like I, I knew enough to like be able to keep playing.
But going into the second year, I just straight up told the coach that like that I was going to use a full range of motion. And how'd that go? Like he's like, your teammates are not going to respect you.
I was all of a sudden like one of the more hated guys on the team. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
Scott, are you hearing this shit? This is like the deeper detail. This is like the long version of the story. I love it.
That's what we're here for. You can see where a lot of like, you know, if I'm not out there, people can say anything negative they want about me. But if I'm not out there on social media.
you know, things are rough out there for athletes in terms of their freedom to use a full range of motion. Like in my mind, hashtag free the athlete in my mind, I'm a freedom fighter for this. My man, like nothing's going to knock me off my mission, but that doesn't mean I'm going to justify my past mistakes.
Like I need to not make the same errors, disrespect, breaking honesty. Like I need to be better. So, um, yeah, so like this is the full story.
So as it, so that definitely added more to it. I almost never tell that part. And here's why. Okay. I think this is the first time I've ever told that part on a podcast.
And the reason is because my college coach was an amazing guy. Yeah. And I never want that to be taken out of context.
There's tons of amazing people have differing opinions. It's interesting because like, you know, politics, for example, I'm not going to get into the details, but, you know, there are a variety of folks on the extreme. Right and left wing let's say they just hate each other But like if they ever met and talked as just real humans I 90% of them would be like is what do you think of Jill or Jill fucking dope man? You're like well, she's a leftist and you're like I know that sucks. We disagree on that but as a human being Most people are dope and exactly like, you know, it's also your college coaches.
It's just one notion that Depth and knees over toes was bad everything else They could have just been super fucking good about just one notion and then all of a sudden you don't have to make enemies out Of people yeah, but you know it retrospectively. They're probably I doubt they watch this because nobody fucking watches Well, don't post it in a short clip anything oh we're gonna edit a short clip we're gonna find out who the story ends well we're gonna do the ai thing where your mouth moves like that saying their names and we're gonna call them out we're gonna dox them beautiful where they live it's gonna be great man death threats the whole thing that's what we do that's why you got me in here 100 revenge um but it ends well like i was working hard like i knew that like on the team i just had to be that guy who like dives on every loose ball yeah slaps everyone's ass every i mean not you know figuratively but like you Uh, you know, I had to like, I had to take it on the chin and earn my way. And sure enough, I was captain by the end of the year because they knew like I was, I proved it. Like I was tough squatting with the full range of motion. Doesn't make you like it.
And guys from the team then who were having knee pain would start to go with me. Ooh. But also guys was an issue with coaching or no, like, cause I was earning the respect that coaches were like, and it went from there to where the head coach of that team, as soon as I graduated. Had me then run the strength coaching for the team. Wow.
And so I ran the strength coaching for the team. They were one of the most successful junior college basketball teams ever. And he's a head division one coach now. Oh my God. So all, so I went from a situation where I was not allowed to go below parallel, not allowed to have my knees over toes to then the generations after that being that all the players did get to use a full range of motion.
And he would send me pictures and you could see fastest medialis muscles building. And so many guys getting rid of knee pain and improving their career. And, and so it's a thing in basketball, like, Whoa.
Yeah, exactly. Um, so the story ends well, we're super duper tight. Um, and yeah, so it ends well, but it was, I definitely, it was definitely a setback.
So now by this point, the second year I was able to continue the knees over toes, the full range of motion started getting like. Pretty good. Okay. At basketball. Got a D1 full ride scholarship.
D1 full ride? Yes. I got also a D1 full ride at basketball, but it was because they said they described it as an eagerness in the locker room that you've just never seen from one individual by themselves.
So, small Division I school. Again, better to just not go into the names of the things, but... No worries. I could tell from day one was not going to be allowed to use a full range of motion there. Now, dude, so this is like round four of getting that.
And I'm like, all right, by this point, like this is what got me here. They're like, I've already done this twice. So I was still, but by this point I knew that even no matter what I'm made to do in the weight room, not full range of motion.
I already knew that I could like balance it out. Well, by going off hour, it's annoying when you're a college student and you got to do your homework and do all this stuff. And then you still got to go at 9 PM at night to the local CrossFit gym.
Um, thank goodness for that gym that those good old gyms were that I got here do whatever your local 50 bucks a month Here's the code. That's awesome. Go in there blast your music and like you uh, wear a disguise You know, if it was it was no one was there. It was just empty beautiful Well, I mean on the way in and out what kind of fucking spycraft do you not know?
No one cares, you know No one's looking for me But in a team workout if you can't like no, yeah, of course you can't change the team And I understand that from a team dynamic situation If we put you in the striped shirt Get glasses and a hat on you. You would look convincingly like Where's Waldo. Do you remember Where's Waldo, the books and stuff like that?
I don't remember who he looked like. Well, that's why you probably never found him. You were no good at that shit. Scott, how good were you at Where's Waldo? He's got a Waldo-esque resemblance.
Um, yeah, it's like a tall lanky white dude with black hair. I can blend in well Yeah, like you're never gonna get spotted for anything It'll be like where's knees over toes guy you just in some like you just go get into a crowd in New York City Like he's gone. It's gone.
You'll never see him again. Yeah so you are Smuggling yourself into a CrossFit gym Were there any a 9 p.m. Off hours CrossFit girls around to keep you company?
Not at all. Dang it also had uh 19 started dating my wife so we've been together 14 years never dated someone's wife no we're married now oh i see my wife we yeah we got together when i was 19 so we very so through this how old were you at this point when you were in the d1 scholarship era 23 that's an old d1 player well that was kind of the grandpa that was kind of the saving graces that the ncaa wrote the team and they're like he can't play he's too old so the head coach of the team was like Dude, the NCAA says you're too old. Like no one, like no one realized how old I was. I guess at this point, like my junior college coach, like it's not a usual thing.
Yeah. So like no one had even thought of it. Sure.
So now I was faced with like that I could get a lawyer and like try to fight it, show the medical records. But when that college coach called me, I'm like, yep, I'm supposed to be a trainer. Like I smile.
I was, it was kind of like a relief off my back. that I wasn't going to have to do another two years of answering no knees over toes on tests and having to smuggle into CrossFit gyms at night. And so it was a relief. And I became a trainer then.
And Division II did not have those rules. So I had a dozen Division II teams giving me full offers like, what are you doing? You're never going to get this chance again. You're going to regret this the rest of your life. So you were quite good at basketball then.
Yeah, good enough. So I could have played another two years of college, played Division II, maybe played in Europe or something. I could have kept going. pro but even at the division two schools they weren't going to let me do knees over toes so I'm just like there's I'm sorry dude like this is intense you should have put that in your contract you need more Jews around you that was a problem if I knew you back then I'd call put on my Jew voice and everything oh you better let him in or else yeah you'd be so like you know just right of the contract like must do knees over toes must be paid in pure gold bars standard contract stuff yeah damn dude so you kind of put the basketball thing aside yeah because in large part of the people in the establishment that wouldn't let you train in a way that was caretaking your knees yeah i mean just literally not allowing me to squat below parallel This is like my knees over my toes.
USSR, North Korea, Iran kind of shit. Some arbitrary rule. Like everything, everyone have freedom here, except never squat knees over toes or you get summarily executed.
You're like, I'm sorry, that's the thing? Holy shit. What other random shit are you not allowed to do? You're benching, your shit gets below 90. They're like, you're out of school.
What? No, there's definitely days where I'm like, okay. I'm kind of like lame on the freedom fighting scale, but like what else am I gonna do in life?
Like I want you to sit next to someone on a flight. You just like start up a conversation. They're like, yeah, man You know, I actually um, I fought in the Iranian revolution This and that my family was exiled to Italy and now we're organizing smuggling people out You're like, you know, I'm involved in a lot of the same work and he's like, oh like what you're like What you see when your knees go over your toes?
It's just like, I'm sorry, what? They wouldn't let me play in college. They wouldn't let me play. Anyway, you finish your story.
It definitely would not work to explain to someone who's been through, like, who came from a communistic country, like, what I do for a living. For sure. Just like, I'm a trainer.
That's it. But you can relate. Like, I don't even try to bother. It kind of, on the one hand, it's all jokes, right?
But on the other hand, it's kind of like, man, these teams missed out on a fucking great player. By just sticking to some kind of dogma that I'll say from my old PhD sports science background was make-believe from the start. There was never a time when there was a compelling amount of evidence, although one-sided, that knees over toes was bad. It just never existed. I remember, I'll tell the story now.
I've told it in a couple other contexts. My co-founder of RP, pay respect. I always bow to the brand. Mr. Nick Shaw, him and I went to undergrad together at Michigan. And by then, like by the time I met him, I was fully well into like depth before dishonor on the squat.
And like your knees are supposed to go over your toes. That's how fuck the human body works. And Nick was doing reps of like 315 or something like that in the squat.
And he racked the bar. And this was at like the university gym. And this guy sort of watching him squat.
He's like, isn't that like bad for your knees? And Nick, in kind of your attitude of total open mindedness. He wasn't like nah he was like oh Why would it be and the guy literally did This or forever is watching the guy just connected His fingers together like this he was because like And Nick was like he's just been and it was like go on the guys like I got nothing He had like a notion before there was an idea to support it You like when you when you're like, I know your name and like what is it?
They're like actually don't never mind. Sorry. It was that people had the idea that knees over toes was bad But they didn't even have an explanatory mechanism that was even make-believe. There was no explanatory mechanism.
It was just it's just bad cuz like Later people layered at shearing force or whatever other stuff your knees not designed to go that way Same and I know if you've encountered this in your career You get the same shit with lockouts Like we've got like I lock out the hack squat and people like don't do that I'm like why they're like because I saw one and a half videos on instagram where someone dies doing that Usually other people would be like you ever see a car accident before they're like, yeah, like do you drive your car? They're like, nah, okay. Touche but The mechanism of why locking out is bad is, again, one of these things where people know it's bad, quote unquote, but they don't even know why. Sometimes they even ask the question, did you ever get some reasoning from people when you started saying knees over toes is a good thing as to why it's bad? Or was it just like it's bad and that's just all we need to talk about?
When your knee goes over your toes, there's more pressure on it. Okay, right on. Okay. Fuck physics, I guess. It goes to the gravitational force increases.
So there's more pressure on the knee generally, not specific structure, which is that would get too complex. Why it works so well. Right.
But don't walk because that's a lot of pressure on your knees. Don't ever jump. It really is just exercising your body through full ranges of motion requires a little more mastery, requires a little more intelligence and mastery.
And like, but it's worth pursuing in life versus this. Cog and a wheel of don't pursue being great. Like it's worth pursuing understanding full range of motion.
Sure. I think that the risk to reward of taking the time to understand full range of motion is probably in like the top 10, like basic things you could do, like understanding food versus just like going off the food pyramid and just whatever they serve at the cafeteria, like understanding how to freely move your body, understanding how food works. understanding what is money, what happens with it if it goes in the bank or like some things are better to understand.
Yes. Throw away your notepad and your Excel sheets. The RP Hypertrophy app has all of your workouts displayed in one place with guided videos on exercise techniques and a program that evolves to better suit your needs the longer you use the app.
All you have to do is follow the plan right on your phone and get the gains. Click on the link in the description of this video to get started. Do you have anything you're seeing now, experimenting with now, seeing in folks you work with, that you're a little bit excited about and kind of share maybe something, maybe more of the same?
Maybe saying something like, well, I really am finding even more evidence that for an even broader range of people with even more extreme knee deformity or stuff, this kind of stuff works. Are there any movements you're experimenting with or any approaches that you think are worth noting? Um, without question, my big passion now is helping people who don't really exercise.
Like how do they get into an exercise routine? That's such a big deal. That's most people.
Yeah. I'll tell you what I came up with so far. Please.
Um, and this is from like observing what works and then using my parents as guinea pigs. My parents are 67, 70. They exercise. My kids are two and four.
They're already like. Naturally do the program. It's almost seeing like what what do people naturally want to do?
Yeah, and like what older people like actually enjoy doing like it can't like you got it like doing it and so for starters Like here's actual conversation guy at the coffee shop the other night. He wants to exercise. He knows I'm a trainer Where do I start?
I wrote my system on a napkin for him. That's all this is how I currently train Exactly what I thought of him 499 dollars, and then I got him into motion doing this stuff. So first off, I'm like, okay, so you don't exercise, but like you go for a walk most days, right?
Okay. Like you're already halfway through step one of my eight step system. You're already doing it. You're already exercising. Let's just throw in some backward now, like throw and get some knee extension and go backward.
Okay. Five minutes, move the body forward and backward. All right, good.
Now, if you already walk, if you already play sports, you could do it just backward. You'd walk backward with kids. You could have them run backward for five minutes.
You'd get some more quad stimulus than you would without doing it. Sure. If you're a bodybuilder, maybe this is the equivalent of like doing hamstring curls and leg extension. Like someone could like, but it's like, okay, you're already walking, but that's all you do. You do no other exercise.
Okay. Then because it's like such a win to just start walking backward. If it's two older people, they hold hands.
One sees where they're going, the other, and you just go back and forth. They've been doing that in Asia for thousands of years to help prevent knee arthritis. Just pass down generation to generation. They hold hands. One person sees where they're going.
They walk forward. They walk backward. It's probably called something cool like dragon walk or some shit. Yeah.
So five minutes. Good. Done.
Step one is done. All right. Now go like hang from that bar at the playground or the pull-up bar, whatever.
Just hang until you're tired. Two steps done out of eight. You're already doing it. Call it a day if you want.
Call it a day. Now for me, hook up to the sled. Five minutes, I'm like pretty smoked on the sled. For me, that's like my equivalent of cardio. And then I do a set of pull-ups to failure.
And the next session, I'll do rows to failure, like till I'm exhausted. So each layer. So you go from the moving the body forward and backward to then do some sort of upper body pull until you're exhausted People really win with pulling like you can get like you can go like hang from a bar You can like do a row.
It's the pressing gets a little more painful harder to confront Okay, same with like the squatting gets a little more harder confront than like hey, you're already walking just start going backwards. Yes, so Cardio forward and backward five minutes a set of pulls. Hey, you want to add more than a set? Awesome That's even more of a win. These are like these minimums that getting it Now, step three, we're going to get into some squat mobility.
Okay. Your legs are kind of warm from the five minutes forward and backward. You went to the upper body, so the muscles cool down a bit, but the connective tissues at least have some juices flowing.
And then, as I'll show you in the gym, one of my, maybe my biggest specialty really is just helping people scale full range of motion squats. I love that. There's so much there.
All right, so now we're getting into some full range of motion squatting. Those are the first three steps. Now the fourth, okay, now we're gonna do some kind of a press. So the guy at the cafe, I got him into a scaled full range of motion squat.
Now I got him just on the cafe bar, just doing a pushup with the largest range of motion he can. Can you guys please leave? This is ridiculous.
I'm like, dude, you're already four steps into an exercise routine. And you've been years of not exercising thinking, I don't have it. I don't have an hour to do like, holy shit. I'm already four out of eight steps.
Yeah. Then we got to get something for the posterior. Gets a little trickier.
I like. Like people like for my dad, I got him a back extension in his living room, you know, pump up that backside. This is why I'm a huge fan of the Nordic hamstring curl, because I can hold someone's heels and you can fight the eccentric and just challenge yourself for a set.
That's it on a back extension or an eccentric Nordic. You got a hamstring curl machine. Beautiful. Go to my headquarter gym.
I have a gorgeous hamstring curl machine and I love using it. So but that's where like previously in the podcast, I talked about the honesty thing. If I make someone think that a Nordic.
is better than a hamstring curl machine and a hamstring curl machine is bad. That is dishonest. Now I've never said that, but I have to look at the content and it like, it's very tough in 60 seconds to get the context. So I would say real quick, what I would say is if you're trying to learn something of quality and depth from reels. Yeah.
You got off on the wrong train station stop to begin with. Reels are supposed to be little bite-sized nuggets of wisdom and fun from which you don't build a complex system of understanding. That's what long-form content is for. Yeah.
So I'm honestly not so concerned and kind of a... dickish way to be honest that people misunderstand things from reels because i think from folks that complain like well this reel isn't exactly nuanced i'm like motherfucker you want a nuance in 60 seconds what the hell nuance takes an hour to describe at all so i don't ever fault anyone for like unless you're straight up bullshitting in reels if it seems like oh is this really true in some context well assume there's a context behind it but don't assume there's no context that's how reels work yeah sorry end rant No, I appreciate that. So, yeah, so step five, you're getting into something for the posterior. Now step six, get something for the core. Okay.
What I teach is an L-sit because like, all right, for the guy at the cafe, he just in a chair, just hold your body up. Like try to hold like just in a chair. You're the first person to have done a workout here in the studio, by the way, officially with that move. So I'm telling like, dude, you're already six out of eight steps. Like you've already trained.
You've already got, we skipped the first step. of the forward and backward walking. But, and for him, I told him, he's a younger guy.
I'm like, go to a basketball court or something and just run forward and backward for five minutes. Like you're going to be smoked. Like compared to doing, it's like, that's not perfect cardio.
Oh, right now he's doing zilch. Like moving his body forward and backward at whatever pace is going to be, it's going to be amazing. Like your first day or week or month or year of training.
Yeah, like he doesn't have an hour to do the cardio. And so I've already got him six steps. He's already trained his full body.
And then step seven, I like people to have a little flexibility regime they can use, but the context of it. Is important that no, I think the full range of motion squat, the full range of motion, press the full range of motion, upper body pull the training, the posterior. I think those are more important than the flexibility routine.
So it gives you a lot of flexibility because full range of motion is a ton of flexibility already. That's how I can like, that's how I'm flexible. Something about a little extra flexibility routine I use.
And even that I kind of apply some strength aspects into it. Um, you would actually like, like. Because you do jujitsu, you would like my stretching routine a lot more than the average stretch because it's like it's more like I'm trying to just kind of get into some of the groin and piriformis and kind of make it stronger and like that you can't that I'm not like I don't really want to like load those super heavy. Like sure. Whereas like with the full range of motion squat, a little more advantageous for strength.
Sure. If you're doing full range squatting, pulling, pressing like that's you can get so much great mobility from that. So yeah, step seven.
Little flexibility routine to get some of the nooks and crannies real quick. And then step eight, calf and tibialis race. Yes, I like doing the calf and I like doing the tib. As someone who puts tons of force in basketball, tons of force goes into our ankles, our knees, our shins.
So no, the tibialis race is not a magic knee exercise. It's not going to fix all of my knee problems and financial problems. Let's say we're going to make knee extensors and calves and knee flexors all 25% stronger and just skip the tib.
No, I think you'll have better results by also doing the tip. That's that's it's going to relate more to someone who has had a knee surgery and wants to get back into sports. And so they don't realize that after the knee surgery, they did a lot of rehab. But the tip usually from the period of being immobilized gets extremely weak.
So now they're getting back. But now they have like their shin hurts or their or like so. So. And it takes 60 seconds.
Like, I don't like, it's just, all right, do a set of 20 and you're going to be like, if you did a set of 20, you'd be smoked. Like it's very simple to exhaust. Sure.
It's very simple to take to failure. You don't have to do warmup sets to take it to failure. Um, so there, I just taught you my system and that's how I train.
And there's nuance in it that like for step five on the posterior. Yeah. Like I'll do hamstring curl one time.
Next time I do like RDL, the good stretch. Next time I do back extension, I did like. Someone could, someone could, someone can take this, someone can take that eight step framework and do whatever they want with it. But what's cool is that I'm having success for my actual family members that I have a vested interest in them being healthy and having an exercise routine. And I'm not, I don't with my dad, it's like, okay, got him going on the forward and backward.
Okay. Got him. He's just did his first chin up in decades. This is a good thing.
That's crazy. That's impressive. Yeah. So he's not blindly following some extreme, like it's, it's connecting from the no exercise routine to getting him into it. Now he's mobilizing up into a little bit of deeper range on the, on the, on the squats.
And, and now he's like, you know, starting to look at, okay, what press am I going to add now? Like, yeah. So that's what you'll see me while still putting out like my contract with myself. It's like, okay, still put out a knee video every week. Like try to keep helping people with the because you're the world's expert on knee health i gotta do maybe the the people's educational resource on like that's oddly social definitely not the world's expert people's republic of knee stuff uh my point is just that you don't see any like mainstream media asking me any questions um we'll get there i've been on rogan but mainstream media has not bothered to like Ask me anything.
I could. Oh, my God. I could. We could do a fake mainstream media read right now. Folks, knees over your toes.
Dangerous for your children or will it call grandma tonight? News at 11. It's that easy. Now you're on real media. Yeah. And that's also how I help educate people.
Like, ideally, like knees over toes never should have really been mentioned. Like, I think exercise would have been better had it just not been mentioned either way. Like, just not like just let someone squat form. Go to full range of motion.
Like I'm not forcing my knee over. Like I'm just like. Right.
Like use it. Find a full range of motion that feels good. Yes. People have different body types. Some it may be more or less the knee over the toe.
Like ideally it never would have been mentioned. Yeah. If you go to walk backward, your knee is over your toe.
That's all. It's like if. But if you tell someone like walk backward thinking about your knee, like ideally you wouldn't think about it.
Like. Sure. You just do a net.
So. So. it at least helps people.
That's like, okay, you're walking forward. That is like a certain fact. Now you go to step backward.
You're actually like loading different things than when you walk forward. And that's like a scale that you could add resistance to. And you're, The name Knees Over Toes guy.
What do you think about that name? I was not on social media, hated social media, was helping people in person, helping so many kids and was like the local knee guy. People come in, their life is being ruined by some knee thing and doing this over and over, this was my specialty. But yeah, I was kind of on the outside, pissed off that no one knows about this and kind of to a point where... My friends telling me like, dude, you got to go on social media.
You got to go on social media. You got to go like you got like the stuff you just taught me. Like I fortunately had really good friends who believed in me that they're like the stuff you just showed me. Like the world needs to know that.
And so I came up with the name Knees Over Toes because in my mind, like I don't care about social media. But if I just educate on that one point, that'll be a win for me. Huge win.
In addition to that, Knees Over Toes. is a really emotive phrase because it strikes people as like wait a minute isn't that the thing we're not supposed to be doing and all of a sudden they're like really curious like how is this guy you know defying the the rule set that we're all supposed to be doing and then Once you look into your work, you know, it's quite compelling. And then everything I think comes off of that. If you were just like the knee rehab guy, it doesn't, it doesn't engage with me as a title.
You're just another knee rehab person of which there are no doubt thousands. Yeah. This was at the time, the idea of, you know, showing scaling, how to get into full range squats and these kinds of things that there were not, this wasn't something being done on social media.
And so, yeah, knees over toes guy worked out. My wife family was kind of like, you're going to be what? No, it was like, sounded pretty silly to people. Yes. And I'm like, guys, like, I know it sounds silly, but like, I know my industry and it's like, this would be a really like a forward step to like educate people on this huge.
So it worked out better than I thought, but I also kept working on the system. Kept training people, you know, like I'm always trying to make sure it's as good as I can. I'm always trying to educate on it better than I did last week.
It wasn't just like some lucky thing, as you've seen, like, sure, I get some hate, but like you made the post about me and these like tons of real people out there writing in like it really helps way more than usual for the average person of your popularity that we critique tons of organic stories of people who feel like they owe a lot to you because you your voice. was the one in the darkness that they listened to. And it just transformed their ability to ambulate really walk around exercise, be free of pain in the knees and everywhere else for that matter.
But also I think a lot of people in the world aren't coming from a minimum bodybuilder. I'm a power lifter and my knees are fine. And who the hell is this guy?
Way more people are coming from the world of like, I can't bend down to be at my toddler's level. I'm 32. What the hell is going on? Am I just going to need to be in a wheelchair soon? Yeah.
And everyone I go to says, we'll just lay off of it because they don't do anything to it. It just still hurts because they got your progressive model and those ideas. I mean, you know, they think they rule the world to you. I would say being able to move around pain free. Well, you know, it's not the world, but she's it's really, really, really important and really good.
And on that note. Just to wrap up here, what is a piece of wisdom that you can offer someone who has some joint pain, who wants it to go away? They either exercise currently trying to avoid it or they don't exercise and they're listening to this.
Where do you start them? What can you tell them right now? One simple thing that will give them a little bit of clarity and move them in the right direction.
I think like we covered earlier is just realizing that just because it hurts to do something, you don't have a zero of that ability. So we're going to find, we're going to find some level of that ability that you do have. And then, you know, how you started out and you could only bench 135 and now you can mention 225, like the body, Hey, you know, we all start somewhere, but like the body can adapt and we're going to, like, we're going to find what amount you do have. And improve that to some degree. And so then those same tasks, maybe not perfect, but maybe now the same tasks won't be as painful, tolerable.
I love it. That's really wise. Ben, if people want to learn more about you, learn your system, hire you to be their coach or trainer, or just call you to tell you that Clearwater, Florida is a real sex school of society. Where can they do that best? Where are you found?
Like we discussed, YouTube is best because you can get the nuance. Of course. So my YouTube is where people seem to get the best education.
My business model is basically teach everything I know on YouTube. Then if you want the program laid out on an app, if you want to be able to ask questions, if you want to be able to send in video of your form doing it, which we found is really important, really important. Then I maintain haven't changed the price. Although inflation, I've had to definitely consider it, but it's $50 a month.
There's no long-term contract and it's even half off the first month. At best, someone could pay $25 and spend a month in my app asking any question they have, sending in video of their form, seeing how do I lay these out in programs. It is far from a get-rich-quick scheme. We have to work a lot for it, but it works out. I make good money doing this.
I now, after many years of doing that, some of the things like there are great equipment companies out there, but some of the things I wanted to like, I just wasn't seeing in the equipment market, like kind of quite how I wanted some certain things. So now some of the tools, you don't need any tools. That's my biggest passion is helping someone with literally zilch. Yeah. But if you want to add like some tools to your home gym or whatever, I make some of that stuff.
And So far, so good. I don't want to have to change the price, but the numbers, it works out well. I love it. And they can get access to your app by getting into your YouTube and following links in the description.
Yeah. ATGonlinecoaching.com is the name of the website. Oh, excellent.
It would probably be smarter business-wise if it was just like knees over toes guy. But I had a beautiful gym with a giant ATG on the front for many years before I thought of going on social media and calling myself knees over toes guy. So like ATG.
Which is short for athletic truth group, which I was just trying to come up with some acronym to fit ATG. I thought it was ass to grass. That's what it really is.
Right. Like, really, it's just ATG. Right. But the legal name, like, you got to have some business name, which I always thought was, like, really cheesy, like, truth group. But now, in hindsight, I'm like, well, damn, I got some truth out there.
So, screw off, because I actually, you know, like. Exactly. I've kind of earned that name. You absolutely have.
And it's a reminder of, like, well, okay, earned that name, but, like, I got to do better. Don't like, don't slide the other way. Be even more honest. Do better.
Let me give you some advice from, from at the top lie overcharge and charge a ton. And then just ghost everyone. It's worked for me so far. It's worked for RP. Ben, huge honor having you on our little show.
Huge honor for me. Oh, stop. Uh, we're going to go right after this and learn some gym stuff that video folks can also find on our channel. Uh, folks give this guy a look and, uh, we'll see you next time.