Another Chat with The Posture Provider Tyler Tsujimoto! 548

Tyler Sujimoto's journey into fitness , health and wellness grew out of a deeply personal experience bullying as an early teen . Sujimoto endured harassment from his peers and when he decided that he had had enough , he gravitated towards sports and physical fitness as a way to prevent further pain .

Sujimoto graduated from the University of Utah , go , utes , in 2004 with a degree in health promotion and education . Prior to graduating , he also obtained his certification in personal training and has since added several nationally accredited and very impressive certifications in both movement and nutrition .

The combination of his triumph over bullying , his education in health and his desire to help others achieve their personal best led him on a career path that he feels is deeply fulfilling . Tyler believes that his clients cannot achieve their potential without a foundation of proper posture and balance .

Tyler is the owner of Newstar Fitness and Nutrition , a private fitness studio whose motto is quote helping you discover your true potential . End quote , tyler Sujimoto . What an absolute honor . It is to welcome you back to Boundless Body Radio .

Like the last one that we did , we did in person at your facility , which was fantastic . The Zoom video was terrible . It just did not come out well and so basically I had to . The Zoom video that exists is just a squiggly line that moves .

So doing this virtually , even though we're like five miles away from each other , preserves the quality of the video , and so that will give us something that can live on in YouTube land forever , but anyway , we're doing this virtually rather than doing it in person today .

They're anticipated starting quarterback , they're anticipated starting tight end and you know the fact that they only have one loss at this point in time is pretty fantastic . They've played some really tough teams and have a lot of tough teams still left . So it's going to be a fun season , Good fun rest of the season .

And you know , like a true youth fan , I'm rooting for them every week . They can pull out a big one tomorrow here against Oregon . Oregon's a fantastic team . They're a scary good team . So Utah's going to have to bring their A game for sure to pull out a win tomorrow , Definitely .

You know , by the time we recorded our first episode before that , we were right after the Florida game and thought like maybe he'll be here , maybe he'll be here , and then it turns out like no , he's not going to be here this entire season and I just read I just read an article that says he can come back next year if he wants .

This will be his seventh season , his seventh year in college .

If he wants to come back and think about this , the one reason why he might decide to come back is because the amount of money that the players are making in college now like rumors that I've heard is that he's making like $2 million just to go to school with all the endorsements Like that would be tough to pass up .

But right now I just heard last week after Utah beat USC they were talking on the radio that the USC quarterback he is making just under $3 million a year with his MIL and you know , and he's the projected number one draft going into next season . So you know , making $3 million is a 19 , 20 year old kid .

I can't even imagine what that would be like to see that type of money in your bank account .

But it probably benefits him financially and also just to get a little more film out there for Scouts to look at and prove to Scouts what he's capable of when he's fully healthy , which would be awesome and especially if he came back decided to play again at Utah because with the transfer portal now you know they can go anywhere and there was a comment made by

someone in the Scouting and Recruiting Department of Florida earlier this year that Florida tried to . They reached out to the University of Utah this off season to see if Cam wanted to enter the transfer portal and go to Florida , because they were trying to recruit him .

So there's other teams that are interested in him and if he decides to come back for another year , he's going to have more options than just Utah . So it'd be interesting to see .

Besides that , it's just not really also very relevant . So can you remind our listeners a little bit about your journey ? People can go back and listen to the episode that we did and 500 and 16 to hear your full story . But can you remind us how you got into thinking quite a bit about posture ?

Then , about six , seven years into my career , I dealt with a neck injury where I had five of my cervical discs herniated at the same time , and it was from something that is embarrassing to even talk about . It's not a cool story .

I was washing my hair in the shower and I felt a pop in my neck and my left arm dropped down to the side of my body and I stood there for a minute thinking what in the world did I just do ? I'm not a real vigorous air washer , but that's what I was doing when the discs herniated .

Right when that happened and I thought , oh my gosh , I started to panic a little bit .

It was obviously pretty frightening for me because I thought I just paralyzed myself , I couldn't use my left arm , the feeling I couldn't function , I couldn't use it , and I'm thinking to myself did I really just create this type of an injury from my shower , from washing my hair ? And anyway , I was able to go see a doctor .

This was day or two or maybe I can't remember if it was that same day or the next day .

When I was able to go to the doctor . They said , yeah , you need to see a neuro specialist so that they can do an MRI and check everything out . And they did an MRI . The neuro came back into the room and said well , you have five disc herniations . He showed me the MRI . It looked like what he described was a derailed train .

I had a disc going out to the left , one going to the right , one going forward , one going back and he said it looked like I had been on a head-on collision type impact that jammed my neck and threw everything out of position . He asked me what I did .

I said I was washing my hair in the shower and I know I should make up a cool story to go along with it .

We'll fuse the neck , we'll make it so it's not an issue anymore . And I said OK , great , let's do it . I was ready right then and there , to lay down on the table and just say OK , go to work and do it , and let's get this over with . And luckily , he said I'm three months out , I can't get you in for three months .

And I asked him what do I do in the meantime ? He said do whatever you'd normally do . If you make it worse , we'll fix it while we're in there . And I thought I can't do anything that I would normally do , given my current state , and if I make it worse , you'll fix it when we're in . There was not the phrase that I wanted to hear .

It just didn't instill a lot of confidence in me with that being the right direction to go . And so , luckily , the three months gave me time to seek out other sources of healing , other ways to heal my body . I was determined to find out what caused this in the first place . Why was I dealing with it ? What happened ?

I know it wasn't washing my hair , right , that's kind of the straw that broke the camel's back but there had to have been something that was going on prior to that that I was unaware of . That led up to that point . While I was doing some research , I came across corrective exercise type stuff .

I started getting into trigger point therapy and I actually worked . I had a chiropractor work with me for a little while who he originally was going to be a neurosurgeon and then he decided to go into chiropractic because his goal was to hopefully help people avoid needing a neurosurgeon . He had a little different approach with his chiropractic .

The combination of those things . As we started putting them all together and I started learning about postural imbalances , fascial imbalances , tension imbalances , and I thought , oh my gosh , okay , well , I was a cheerleader for several years and everything with that is explosive movements up over the head , lifting and holding people up over your head .

I'm a guy and I worked out . Of course , I did bench press like every day and bicep curls , because I thought those were the only two muscles you needed to work out . But I didn't realize that I was doing or creating .

Over several years I was creating such severe muscular and postural imbalances in my own body because of the volume , the intensity and the frequency of which I was doing certain movements and I was not balancing that out with strengthening the opposing movements and the backside of the body .

I wasn't focused a whole lot on mobility and stretching at that time , because a guy in your early 20s and you're working out , all you care about is how much weight you can lift . I mean , it's okay . Well , if I benched 200 last week , I want to bench 210 this week . I want to do that .

That was kind of the mindset that I had , even though I was working out regularly , I was eating well , I was active , I was athletic and still . Something like that happened to me .

And so as I started to research and learn more about how postural imbalances are formed and how , so much of it is not from one specific incident but it's from compounding movements or positions that we hold over periods of time , day after day , week after week , year after , year .

And I had created such a forward head and rounded shoulder posture in myself because of the way that I was being active and working out , that it forced my head to push forward and it eliminated the curve that you're supposed to have in your neck . So my neck not only didn't curve the right way , it curved the wrong way .

It actually started curving the opposite direction , and the discs between the vertebrae aren't going to stay in place when the vertebrae above and below aren't lined up properly to keep the discs where they need to be . So I was working with the chiropractor for

a while . I was starting to get body work done . I was starting to implement postural and corrective exercises and within about eight weeks I was able to fully use my left arm again . I had full function back in it . I didn't have pain .

We had alleviated the nerve impingement that was caused from the neck issue and before the three month time frame was up , where I was supposed to go have surgery , I was able to call in and cancel it because my body was healed , we had fixed it , and for me that was such an eye-opening experience .

Like I mentioned , I had been training for several years at this point in time and throughout this process , it really opened my eyes to the fact that not only was I training myself incorrectly , but I was also training my clients incorrectly .

And my clients , luckily , weren't getting injured they didn't have the issue that I did but had they kept doing the things that I was teaching them , that may have been something they encountered down the road , and so I immediately changed my focus and thought there has to be an element of postural foundation and movement quality that is associated with everything that

I do with fitness for myself and for my clients . And so from that point , I got certified as a posture exercise professional . I got certified as a medical exercise professional , a corrective exercise professional , pain-free movement specialist .

I have all sorts of certifications in that area , because to me , from personal experience of what I've seen in clients before and after this point in time , it has been the single most important element that we incorporate with a health and fitness program with our clients .

The quality of movement is so much more important than how much weight you can move , and if your goal is to increase strength , you will actually be able to increase your strength even more when you have proper postural balance and movement mechanics in the body , and so that's what really got me into this and I've gone to other states and studied and done seminars

and conferences on posture and it's really become just such a passion for me . When I talk to somebody who's dealing with pain and discomfort , it has been for 20 , 30 years or maybe they've been dealing with it for a week and they're sick and tired of it already and say I want to get out of pain .

I am so grateful that I have an approach that can help them not only get out of pain but then go further than that and teach them the right movement patterns throughout the day and how to live life throughout the day pain-free , not just be pain-free when you're working out , when you're running , when you're cycling , when you're weightlifting , when you're playing

basketball , whatever , not just then , but all the time . When you wake up in the morning and get out of bed , you don't want to have to take 15 minutes for your back to loosen up before you can stand up straight . You don't want to , at the end of the day , go . Oh my gosh , I'm dreading going down the stairs . My knees hurt so bad .

I just those types of things . So that's . It was my own personal experience of coming really close to having my whole neck fused and luckily avoiding that and then diving I just had first into this whole world of posture and movement mechanics and understanding the benefits .

So in a few months , I'm turning 40 . Since I changed my diet several years ago , I'm feeling better than I ever have . I feel way better approaching 40 than I ever felt in my 20s or mid 30s . Just , I feel great . I'm able to do everything that I like . I can cycle for several hours .

I could play hockey every single week , like I'm really grateful that I'm able to move and , you know , do those things really awesome .

And so I kind of want to talk to you a little bit today about that type of a context , less about what we talked about last time , which is more like fixing problems that already exist , but talking more about , like , injury prevention .

Now , if all of those injuries the back pain , the knee pain , whatever the people are dealing with if I hear those and say , well , that doesn't sound fun . I want to avoid that entire rigmarole and I want to age well and be able to move well into my later years . What things do I need to be thinking about now ?

And I also realized , like you know what it's like . You do personal training for so long , all the certifications and the books you've read and all the learnings that you've had on podcasts and people explaining things , like it all gets so convoluted .

I realize I'm still doing things the same way that I did , you know , 16 and a half years ago with some of my program design stuff that I learned from . You know NASM certification , you know really widely accepted but might not be the best you know thing to do . So I do want to talk about injury prevention and I want to start with designing a program .

As a fitness professional , let's say you're talking to a lay person who's not going to work with a professional which , like I said last time , we recorded work with a professional it's easy money well spent .

If you're not , how are you thinking about program design when you're coming up with a strength training program to help somebody who maybe doesn't have any pain spots now but would like that to continue ?

When we do it here at New Star Fitness , we use an AI software where we take pictures and the software identifies your anthropometric points throughout the body and then we can measure degrees of variation of you know , as one shoulder off is , do you have a degree of scoliosis in the spine or the hips off ? Things like that ?

Right , but even just on your own at home , if this is something that you wanted to do on your own , say , I want to start a workout program . I either can't or don't want to , or don't feel comfortable hiring somebody to help me with it , but I want to do this on my own .

Set up your camera , take a selfie of you standing in front of a blank wall okay , a wall without a lot of patterns or anything on it , if you're at home and you're comfortable with it women being a sports bra on biker shorts , men being , you know , your shorts and without a shirt , so that you can really see what the body looks like and then take some

pictures that way . Take a picture of you just standing , how you would , facing the camera , and then do a quarter turn to your right and take a picture . And a quarter turn to your right , take a picture . Quarter turn to your right , take a picture so you're getting front , back and both sides .

And then do some movements too , just a squatting movement with your phone on record and watch how your body moves , watch for your knees going to one side or kicking in or out , or your foot rolling in or your hips shifting or things like that .

We start with that as a foundation for every single client that we work with at Newstar , and the reason for that is because if we don't know how your body currently moves , we don't know how to anticipate what it may do when we start to increase intensity or load or volume of certain movements and if we can already identify some movement imbalances that exist ,

we know , before the person experiences pain or discomfort from that imbalance , to address it so that they don't have issues related to that . And so we do a lot of rehabilitation work . But then I tell clients too we also do a lot of prehabilitation , which is essentially injury prevention , and that's if you're not in pain , we can still help you .

We can help people hopefully avoid experiencing pain , training from there . If you're in pain , let's get you out of pain and then prevent you from having that same pain again down the road right .

So what I would focus on is get an assessment , even just a , like I say at home , selfie type things see where your body currently is , how your postures , where your posture is , how our body holds itself , how it balances and how it moves . So we need to do assessments in all of those .

We do an assessment standing on one leg , a single leg balance assessment , our static posture , how our body is holding itself , the four pitchers front , back , side , side and then our dynamic movement assessment , a squat assessment to see how your body does in all of those postural areas right , and then , based off of that , it's all right .

If you notice that one shoulder is higher than the other , think about what you may be doing throughout the day that could be causing that . You know , do you sit , do you drive a lot ? And if so , do you always put your arm up on your center console or up on the window side of the door ? Do you do things like that ?

Are you stocking shelves and you're always reaching up overhead with one arm more than the other ? Are you a side sleeper ? Are you a stomach sleeper ? Those things can cause shoulder imbalances and things along those lines .

Trying to identify where in your normal daily routine this may be coming from right and then being consciously aware of okay , how can I balance my body out a little better when I do this ?

But also making sure most of us , when we start an exercise program on our own , what is the most common tendency is to strengthen the movements that we're already used to and comfortable doing on a regular basis .

Now that generally ends up being the movements that we already have imbalances because of right and it's because we're not aware that we have those imbalances , so we don't know that those movements shouldn't be worked on from a strength perspective and then we end up compounding an existing issue .

I can't tell you how many people the vast majority of people that we work with come to us and say I was fine , I never had any pain or anything . For years and years and years I was active .

I hiked , I cycled , I ran , I did this , I lifted weights and then all of a sudden , my neck started to kill me , my back started to hurt , my knees started hurting and I don't know what I did .

And it's that compounding improper mechanical movements over time that eventually the body says , hey , we got to pay attention to this because it's not working the way that we need it to anymore . And we get so used to just feeling the way that we feel that sometimes we don't even know that the way that we feel isn't good . Yeah , good point .

We don't know that we're in pain all the time because we've been in pain for so long we don't know what it's like to not be in pain .

normal . When everybody out there is complaining about their backs and their dad bods and their aching knees and creak , you'll just think , oh , this is part of aging . It's like you said last time , that is not aging .

We all age at the same rate too . It's a weird thing , but we all age . I'm five minutes older now than I was five minutes ago . So are you . So it's just , we age at the same rate . It's the quality of that aging as it's taking place . So basic movements , right . Start out with body weight movements .

Make sure you can get full range of motion without pain with body weight movements first . Once you can do that , you can start incorporating external load resistance from whatever modality you want Dumbbells , cables , resistance bands , sandbags , slam balls , whatever , right , there's a million different things out there you can use for that .

But quality of movement needs to be present first , with the proof that you can control the movement through the full range of motion before you start adding external load on there . Yeah , so it's a little bit more of a process . The majority of the fitness industry is trying to promote and get people hooked on these quick fixes .

It's what can you do for six weeks ? And then , boom , you go from dad god to beach god , in six weeks You're doing all these extreme things and you're lifting weights like you've never lifted before and you do this and then every night you go to bed .

Every day you wake up and your body just hurts and you think , oh well , I only got five more weeks of this , so I'm just going to keep going through it . And one thing to keep in mind when you're correcting your posture , when you are reteaching your body how to move the right way .

It can take time , most of us , because the majority of us , the vast majority of us , are not consciously aware of our movement and our posture throughout the day . So we are more likely than not moving in a way that can be creating imbalances , and that's probably been the case for the majority of our lives .

And so to think that , oh , I'm just going to be able to get this really quick fix and boom , there we go and everything flips around , I do this 180 and I'm good to go , isn't realistic . You can get there , it's just going to be a bit of a process . It's going to take a little bit of time to do it .

Generally speaking , very generally speaking , I like to see that if I'm doing a pulling movement , I want to do a pushing movement . If I'm doing a row , I really want to do a chest press , whether that's in the same workout working total body or whether that's in a different workout on a different split .

I like to see those things generally kind of balanced , unless again we're addressing something specific with somebody . Is that kind of how you see that as well ?

And yes , so to your point , if we're addressing a specific imbalance , if there's extreme internal rotation of forward head posture , we're not doing horizontal pressing with a client until their posture shows that it can stay in a neutral position , right , and then pressing is very good for them , right , but not only pushing and pulling .

And yes , you're spot on with that . I would do vertical pushing and pulling , I would do horizontal pushing and pulling , I would do unilateral pushing and pulling , I would do cross body pushing and pulling .

So you're getting some rotational movement and even anti-rotational movement at the same time , because so much of what we do throughout the day is not just in one plane of motion . Good point , humans don't walk around like a robot and just always march one way and arms go one way and everything happens here .

We do bend , we reach , we twist , we rotate , we do those things , and so being able to strengthen the body in that manner is where people are going to see the best impact on their overall quality of life and being pain free throughout . That as well .

Not just you know you get into sports , specific stuff if you're working with athletes , but the vast majority 99% of us on this world are not elite athletes . Right , myself included , I'm not , and so , even though I like to pretend that I am , sometimes I'm not . But I am a human being that moves on a very regular basis .

I have young kids that were chasing around and picking up and throwing around and doing this and just things you do throughout the day . How often when you go out and garden or something like that , there's actually a lot of cross body movements and rotation and things .

I know a lot of people that get injured gardening and they say I feel silly that I got injured gardening and I said , well , I got injured washing my hair in the shower . At least you were doing something a little more physical than I was Right .

things . Okay , well , I'm glad you brought up the different planes of motion . So most of the things that we do in a gym is in the sagittal plane , that's kind of right in front of us bicep curl and pulling something in front of me , row and pulling something in front of me . There's also two other planes of motion .

There's lateral plane of motion , which is side to side , and there's a transverse plane of motion , which is that rotation that you were talking about .

Now where I like to incorporate this the most generally speaking again , very general when I'm programming this for somebody , I generally will program this early in the workout and I will do it with what I would consider is a core warmup . I want to kind of activate , if that's the right word , turn on , wake up , whatever the middle part of the body .

So my programming to much the chagrin of much of my clients will almost always include some type of a plank , some type of a bridge , some type of you know , glued activator like a bridge . It will usually have something that is working , primarily the core in the lateral plane of motion .

So I like things like windmills with a kettlebell , nice little stretch in the back . I'll also generally like to see some type of a rotation , whether that's with a band or seated in a way that is safe for somebody to do that . This kind of idea comes again from probably the original certification that I did almost 17 years ago now .

I don't know whether that's scientifically validated . A good idea . It seems to work really well . What are your thoughts on ?

One thing that you know there's a lot of information out there now , a lot of supporting information , showing that you want to get into dynamic warmups , meaning that , instead of you know , a lot of people still would say , okay , I'm going to sit and stretch , do static stretching for a few minutes before I start working out , or something like that .

Or I'm going to go walk on the treadmill and warm up . Okay , well , does that help the body physiologically warm up ? Yeah , it does . It does Right , because you start to increase your internal core temperature .

You get to a point where you're , you know , kind of just before you're sweating and your body releases synovial fluid to help with joint lubrication and things like that . So from a physiological standpoint , those types of things do warm up your body .

But if your activity of the bulk of the workout you're going to be doing does not mimic walking , then we haven't dynamically warmed up the body .

And the reason that a dynamic warmup is so beneficial is because neuromuscularly now the brain and the body are communicating on the same page and prepping for the movements that you're going to be doing in a more intense manner later on in the workout .

Right , so doing some and it doesn't mean , I mean , if you were going to do , you know , bench press for your workout , it doesn't mean you have to do a bunch of sets of bench press , but a horizontal pressing motion , it could be up against the wall , it could be with some bands , it could be with some , you know , and you kind of get to where you're doing

more tempo , a little bit slower movement and then getting up to a little bit more fast paced or a little more explosive movement to prime and prep the neurological system to then communicate efficiently with the muscular system so that when you get into the actual workout , that it's primed for that .

So I'm a big fan of , if you're going to do anything , upper body , shoulders and shoulder blades are extremely important to warm up , loosen up , make sure that they have proper range of motion . Whether I'm going to do biceps , triceps , shoulders , chest back , doesn't matter .

They all involve my shoulders from either a stability standpoint , an assistance standpoint or a prime mover standpoint . So I'm going to warm those up , no matter what . If I'm doing something with the lower body .

I'm always going to warm up my hips , my knees , my ankles and feet , because the muscles themselves what a lot of people don't pay much attention to , not just in a warm up but just in their workout in general , is the joint angles and joint mechanics are controlled by the muscles .

So if we're not priming the muscles to control the joint that we're going to be utilizing in a specific movement the right way , then we can be overstressing the ligaments and the joints themselves , the joint capsules and all of that , because the muscles aren't primed and awaken enough to be able to support and stabilize and control movement through the joint .

Okay , Joint pain exists . If people have joint pain when they exercise , could it be related to a lack of warm up ? Sure , it certainly could be . I mean it could also be related to a lack of proper movement mechanics and you have muscular balances that exist there .

Your warm ups should in my opinion they should involve some sort of mimicking of the movements you're going to be doing in the main workout at a lower intensity , a lower volume , a lower intensity , but something that incorporates that mimics that .

If you're throwing , if you're working with somebody who's a baseball player or a football player , a tennis or something and they're throwing that . You want to do some movements that way that help them up and activate the core , stimulate that neuromuscular system and get their body really primed and ready to go so that we get into the bulk of the workout .

There they feel like they can just kind of flow right into it .

So , for example , if somebody does a bridge or some version of a plank or whatever , I notice that they're able to stabilize their core a little bit better , say for , like , a standing chest press , where they need to use that core to create stability .

And then people throw around the word stability and mobility , like they're kind of the same thing and it's interesting how they kind of alternate as they go up the body . Like you want a really stable foot and a really mobile ankle , you want a really stable knee and you want a really mobile hip and it goes all the way up .

And so I've always heard the saying , probably from our old boss Steve Tom's , that like you can't fire a cannon out of a canoe , meaning if you're trying to throw something , you've got poor core strength that's going to hinder your performance . So all of that is still valid and accurate 100% , 100% .

And one thing that I noticed too , and you've probably noticed this , casey , with your clients too . But when we have them go through their dynamic warm-up aspect of the workout , I will give them their posture cues , their verbal posture cues , and so we teach here how you build your posture from the ground up .

So when you're getting into your form for a specific movement , you build your form from the ground up . You always start at the feet . You've got the ankles , knees , hips , thoracic shoulders , chest , head , neck right .

And when I give those posture cues during the warm-up , during the dynamic warm-up aspect of things , all I have to do when we're in the bulk of the program .

If they're starting to get a little fatigued , if they're getting a little tired and maybe mentally they're not focusing quite as much , I can just mention that verbal cue again in their body because it's already been there and done that for the session .

It knows right back right where to go again , so it's hugely beneficial for that too not just the purpose of getting the heart going or increasing your core temperature , but being able to bring their focus back to what it is they need to do to do things the right way .

And you think about simple everyday things that we don't even think about , like walking downstairs , opening a door and walking through . These are incredibly crazy , coordinated things that we do without thinking about it . That is what your brain is for . Your brain is not just for remembering rap lyrics from the 80s . It is about movement and it's so , so critical .

And the more we're learning about dimension , Alzheimer's and the lack of movement and how that can affect things and how things like dance can really help with treatment of those things like movement in free areas is just so absolutely critical . So I love that you made that point . You also talked about something where I am always confused about .

Ideas seem to change about this all the time and I'm going to call it quote unquote flexibility . Maybe we could also call it mobility . We call it stretching . I get asked about that all the time . What are some . What are some of the like ?

Common , I guess , like myths that you come across when it comes to I'm stretching , I've got a stretching program , I'm trying to be flexible . Do we want to be stretchy and flexible or is that kind of a myth ?

Right Is , I don't have enough flexibility to bring my arms straight up over my head , right ? Or I don't have enough flexibility to do the splits I don't have enough flexibility to do to bend over and touch my toes and keep my legs straight , or something like that .

And it's not so much the flexibility , it's the ability to create movement through a full range of motion . Right Now , flexibility would go more towards specifically looking at the length of a muscle . Okay , and let's , just for visualization purposes , use your bicep muscles . So , if your arm is extended out straight , your elbow is straight .

Right , your bicep is at a certain length . Okay , and it depends on the insertion and attachment points . It's a bit different for everyone , but it's at a certain length with a certain amount of tension in it .

Okay , there's what's called the length tension ratio for every muscle , and at a relaxed state or a fully contracted state , that length and the tension changes based on that . Okay . Now if I can fully straighten my elbow and then fully flex it , I have full flexibility in my bicep muscle , okay . But that doesn't mean that I can do that without pain .

It doesn't mean that I am doing that without compensation from the shoulder maybe , or the scapula or somewhere up in the neck in the traps . It doesn't mean that just because I can again take that joint through a full flexibility aspect of the bicep , it doesn't mean that it functions properly and does what it's supposed to do .

As there's other movements going on right as you lift your arm up overhead , out to the side , your bicep actually plays a role in stability for that as well , even if you're not bending your elbow , okay . So there's a difference between flexibility and mobility , in my opinion .

And I think what a lot of people focus on too is when they stretch , they think about static stretching . I'm gonna bend over and touch my toes . I'm gonna feel the stretch of my hamstrings .

We have different length , femurs and lower leg bones and torso and arm bones and all of that and our spine , and we're all built different , right ? So the ability to be flexible is relative to the individual as well , right ?

We can't compare that and say , oh well , my sister can do the splits , okay , well , does that mean you shouldn't be able to do the splits just because she can ? Great ?

If you asked me to do the splits today , I'm gonna laugh and say , no , I'm not even gonna try to do the splits . I wouldn't get back up off the floor if I tried to do the splits .

However , I could do a full depth squat and sit down on the ground and hop back up and do all of these things and function the way that I need to , but my lifestyle doesn't require me to be able to do the splits . Yeah , such a good point . So there's that . I hope that addresses your question a bit there .

With flexibility , people think of that more , as are my muscles too tight or stretchy enough for me to do this ? That does come to play in it , but you can have a stretchy muscle and have no mobility throughout the joints and proper articulation and control even if you have flexibility .

He's been a client now for about three years . He came to me initially and he was having some shoulder and back pain and he is a very high-waisted individual , meaning that his torso is very short in relation to his legs . He's got very long legs , short torso .

He should be a good swimmer , or not a good swimmer actually Swimmers have really long torso , really short legs , but he should be a good runner . Anyway , he years ago decided on his own that I think my back pain is coming from my hamstrings being too tight , which is not necessarily an improper thought .

So his idea was I'm going to stretch my hamstrings every day . So he would get a pair of 20-pound dumbbells in each hand and just bend over and just let him hang and he would stay there for minutes on end .

So he did the stretching , held the dumbbells bent over every day , stretched and literally did this every day and over time his hamstrings got longer , but his back pain didn't go away . So he came to me and we started talking about this . He said well , I thought it was because I had tight hamstrings .

My hamstrings aren't as tight as they were anymore , but my back still feels the same . It still hurts like it did before . And it wasn't because he didn't have long enough hamstrings or flexible enough hamstrings .

It's because his hamstrings weren't strengthened in a way to properly create stability and mobility in the hips and the low back area and the pelvic area to support his low back the way that he needed to . And it wasn't just hamstrings . That went on to some other things too .

But that's just an example that he did the traditional let me stretch my hamstrings and make them longer but he still didn't get the result he was looking for , because he was lacking mobility and control , not just flexibility .

So he caused a few other issues too , which , unfortunately , he had all the right intention in the world , right , he was trying to fix something and unfortunately made it a little worse . So , yeah , it's flexibility is a part of it , absolutely , but mobility has to be there , and then your flexibility isn't as integral as you think it might be .

You want to strengthen that , and that is probably a pretty good segue to the next thing I really want to ask about . It's something that I do less with people . I guess I'll give you a quick example . You know people get older . We know how most people get taken out . It's normally a fall that cascades into an event .

That's normally like game over for most people after that , and I always used to think the fall was due to lack of balance and thus we should do lots of balance training standing on unstable things , soft surfaces , barefoot , that type of thing . I tend to think that it's more of a strength thing .

Now I would really like somebody to be strong so they have a sufficient amount of , you know , muscle fibers to be able to catch somebody with the speed that is needed when somebody is falling . That's my tendency . I don't have zero value in balance training . I just don't have as much as I used to have .

What do you think about traditional , like balance training ? Is that something you do ? Is that something everybody should be doing ? Again , going back to somebody who's trying to prevent injuries , prevent all the things that they have to fix and walk back later . How do you think about like quote unquote like traditional , balance training ?

Now , because part of one of the three facets of posture is balance , right Balance , stability and mobility . That's posture . Absolutely , we work on balance . Now , there are a lot of ways to work on balance , but if you don't pair balance with strength , then you're not getting much .

So to your point of implementing strength yes , you have to have that , because if you start to stumble and you need to catch yourself , you have to have the strength to do it .

But also , balance comes from neuromuscular efficiency being increased so that your proprioceptive awareness can be increased or thus your reflexes can be improved , your reaction time can be cut down , so that if you stumble on a crack in the sidewalk and you're kind of going down , your body knows what to do and can do it quickly enough to regain balance and avoid a

fall right . So , traditional balance there's a lot of , like you said , a lot of different ways to do things barefoot , standing on a pad , doing some work on bosus , wobble boards , balance boards , all the half foam rolls , all sorts of things like that stability balls .

I'm not against them , because I'm not against them and we do implement them quite a bit , because so much of what we do throughout the day even if it's not in that exact fashion of standing on a bosu ball or something like that we are balancing quite a bit right .

I like to I talk to clients about this when we talk about balance too is , every time you take a step , all your body is doing is controlling the fall . Okay , walking is a controlled fall . That's really what it is .

Now , if you have a hard time walking , your body doesn't have , is not very efficient at controlling the fall aspect of it , but you're propelling your body forward , you're falling down onto your front foot and then you're repeating it over and over and over and over and to your point where , as we typically age and people are falling , a lot of that has to do

with , yes , there is an atrophy of the musculature throughout the body , so they don't have the strength to hold themselves upright in a strong posture . Okay , it has been proven time and time again for years and years and years now . People with weak posture are 100% more likely to experience falls .

Okay , so if we allow the skeletal muscle to atrophy too much over time , our structure starts to change position , we start to fold forward , we start to come closer to the ground right , and that disengages the functional recruitment of our posterior chain , of our core muscles , our deep hip muscles , of our cervical muscles that are used to help turn the head and

bring information , visual information and for balance purposes . So we do work a lot with people on that that need it . Now that could be something we may focus on if somebody has a history of falls , or if we identify through some of our posture screening and movement assessment processes that they have some issues that way .

If that's not the main focus , there is still an element of balance incorporated into everything . Right , like we talked about before , just the different planes of motion requires balance , and really what balance is is the ability to do something without falling over . That's what balance , the most basic definition of balance . If you can stand upright , you can balance .

Now , are you balancing correctly or are you balancing right ? And I think that's where a lot of it comes in . And you can go back to athletic performance or I mean , you've played a lot of sports and you're very active , and cycle and run , do all this stuff .

You can't do those things to the level that you do that without your body's proprioceptive receptors functioning properly , without your body's ability to have quick reflexes , without the strength to hold your body in the proper position to allow proper movement mechanics to happen , too right , most people that experience falls if you look at how they move .

They don't move well , they don't have a strong posture , they don't move well , they don't have muscular strength , and so that is a huge part of it .

But we try to incorporate , you know , all of that into somebody's routine , because even myself , luckily , I don't fall , unless I just am klutzy and I trip up a stair or something like that , right , but I don't generally have issues with falling .

Yet I still work on and challenge my proprioception and my balance on a pretty regular basis because I'd like to be able to maintain that as I get older .

But you can work it in , like , if you're going to do some variation of a deadlift , you could do the deadlift barefoot on a soft surface , single leg , you know , crossing over a little bit Like there's definitely different ways that you can incorporate that while still making yourself be very strong 100% .

You're not going to get better at balancing until you address your strength imbalances . I love that .

I couldn't agree with you more the importance of nasal breathing and diaphragmatic breathing . Can you talk to us why that's such a high priority for you as well , and something that you talk about ?

Watch a baby , watch a toddler walk around and breathe and they stop and you'll see their stomach descend and contract because they're breathing in their diaphragm in the abdomen right . The diaphragm is one of your deep core muscles .

When you don't use it , it gets weaker and it doesn't provide support throughout the center of our body , which we need a lot of support . When the diaphragm is properly strengthened , it helps keep the rib cage up in position , which helps to keep excess pressure off of the lungs , which allow the lungs to fully expand and contract .

It allows our hips and our pelvis to sit more neutral and function the way that we need to . And another really interesting thing about proper breathing techniques is it is a very , very , very high relation .

Nasal breathing or chest breathing Breathe in here and out .

Okay , that is very closely related to chronic neck pain , shoulder pain and migraines , headaches , because we're creating stress up in this area all the time and naturally most of us carry way too much stress in our traps to begin with right and our upper traps run all the way up and connect to the base of the skull , and so when your upper traps have excess

stress in them and then we're breathing heavy up here and we're causing more tension up in the neck and through the shoulders as well , we get a lot of pain .

A lot of TMJ issues are from people who are chest breathers as well , or associated with chest breathing , because we are never letting tension out of this area up here , and so diaphragmatic breathing is hugely important for the strength of the core , which is , we talked about , the center of the body .

You need to have a strong core to do anything correctly and live a pain-free life , okay . Not only that , it's a more efficient way to breathe . It brings in a greater amount of oxygen . Your body utilizes the oxygen more efficiently when you're breathing diaphragmatically .

Now there are times when you're naturally going to go into a bit of a chest breathing as well . If you've just gone on a full-out wind sprint right and you are just gassed and you're breathing really , really hard , you're going to have some chest breathing at that point , and that's okay . That's okay for a short period of time . That's going to happen .

But one of the quickest ways to bring your heart rate back down and I'm sure you know this after you've gotten it up really high is to focus on diaphragmatic breathing , because your body starts to become more efficient with the oxygen that you're breathing in and it helps to calm the heart rate down faster .

So not only is it a fantastic way to help strengthen your core , it's also a great way to start eliminating and at least decreasing excess stress up in the traps , the neck , the jaw , and start to get rid of some of the pain that people deal with up there .

I think the hard thing with it and I believe this was mentioned in our social media post about it , but it may not have been , but I think there's a societal pressure , especially on men , to not have your stomach stick out right .

When you're sitting there breathing , it's like oh well , I gotta keep a six pack , I gotta keep my abs in , I gotta do this or this , and so the natural tendency for diaphragmatic breathing is when you inhale , your abdomen should descend a bit and when you exhale , it should contract a bit .

And I think there's memes and commercials and clips and movies and TV shows about it . All the time Guys are standing at a water park or a beach and then a woman walks by and they immediately suck their stomach in right .

There's a lot of benefit that comes from knowing how to actively and properly engage the diaphragmatic muscle and the other deep core muscles , and if you don't know how to breathe through the abdomen , those things are really hard to do and then they can make the exercise and movement really dangerous also .

And in Portuguese , down in Brazil , if you call somebody a boca berta , you're calling them an open mouth , which basically is calling them an idiot , and yeah , so it's interesting that people they're not aware of that and so they're just breathing in and out through your mouth , which is horrible for so many different reasons . And you mentioned the belly distending .

You can really see this in the Tour de France . If they're going up a climb and it's really hot , they've got their jersey unzipped , so it's kind of flapping like a cape behind them . Like you , they're 3% body fat , but they look like they have bowling balls in their stomach because that's how they're breathing and they know how to do that .

So , yeah , I thought all of that was a really , really good point . It's nice to see more pictures of more athletes that I've ever seen that are actually using mouth tape , putting a little strip of tape over their mouth as they're doing warmups and things like that , because I think the awareness is coming around to how like critical nose breathing really is .

And it's .

You could be lean enough to be super shredded and still not have a strong core , right so ? But ? But strength to me too is not just how much , how much weight can a muscle move , but it's how . How functional is the muscle in creating pain-free movement within our bodies in the things that we do ? And so , yeah , diaphragmatic breathing a huge fan of it .

It is something that we talk about a lot and discuss a lot , and this is another interesting point here . Real quick , people who snore say , oftentimes right , that that can be caused from all the excessive tension , from being a mouth breather , chest breather all the time for years and years and years .

And everything up in this area and around the back is so tight all the time that when they lay down to go to sleep , air doesn't flow through the right way , so they snore . That's why some of those mouth pieces that they're now using to help instead of a CPAP or things like that , and get a mouthpiece to do it is .

Your muscular system is designed to hold your body and your jaw and neck and everything in the right position to make it so you don't snore . Yep that's right , but we have to understand . We have to be aware of it first and then understand how to correct that . So anyway , I just thought that was .

That was fascinating too , when I had read about that Super , super interesting .

Would you like , in a few months , to come back on the show so that we can do another episode ? I'm absolutely loving our time together . I learn so much every time and I think the listener will always walk away with some really cool , practical things that they can do on their own .

So yeah , again , would you like to come back for another episode in a few months ?

So I appreciate what you're doing for all of your listeners and everyone out there . I appreciate the education that you put out there . I have guided several of my clients and friends and family members to your podcast since I was on it last and they can't stop raving about it and just talking about how phenomenal it is . And it is just .

You are what we need in the industry . People need to know about all the amazing things out there with our bodies and our health and our nutrition and fitness and all that . So just thank you for doing it and , yeah , anytime that you feel that you want me to be a part of it , I am absolutely honored and we'll do everything I can to make that happen .

So , thanks again for the kind words and , just like last time , where can people go to find you and connect with you in your work ?

I love just having conversations with people and helping them point them in a direction that might be better for them than what they've done so far .

And anything that I can do to help somebody live a pain-free life and recognize that they have control over their health again and that it doesn't have to be controlled by someone or something else , is very empowering , and I want to help people experience that ?

They are majority are posture based , as you could guess , but they cover all aspects of from breath work to strength exercises , mobility exercises , how to prevent or eliminate a dowager's hump on the back of the neck , things like that . We're always working on educational videos that way as well .

Our business started in the pandemic in July of 2020 , and we started the podcast in October of 2020 .

So it has been three years now , and to see that we have generated over 400,000 downloads worldwide is just simply unbelievable to me , this year in particular has been such a blast to travel to different health conferences and not only meet some of our amazing guests , but also to meet many of you , our listeners and supporters .

We really just can't thank you enough . As always , feel free to book a complimentary 30 minute session on our website , which is myboundlessbodycom . On our homepage , there is a book now button where you can find a time to speak with us about health , fitness , nutrition , whatever you like .

We've loved chatting with people all over the world and many of you out there to bounce ideas off each other or to try to come up with plans to achieve specific goals , or even if it's just to reach out to introduce yourselves . We would just love to meet you and connect with you there .

Also , be sure to check out our YouTube channel if you'd like to watch these full interviews and also the shorter interviews on more specific topics that are taken from these full interviews . We've gotten really good feedback over there . It's also a really fun way to interact with people who comment .

We read and reply to every single YouTube comment we get , so head on over

there . If you want to start a conversation and watch these videos , as always . If you haven't already , please leave us a five star rating and review on Apple . It really is the best way to make sure this podcast gets out there to more listeners .

We've been able to keep Boundless Body Radio ad-free for three years and really want to continue to do so , and so your five star ratings and reviews are the best way to support us at Boundless Body and support the podcast Cheers . Thank you again . So very much for listening to Boundless Body Radio .