In Western culture were really programmed, go to the gym and use heavy stuff. There's nothing wrong with that, but we missed the boat completely on how to actually turn our bodies into these beautiful fluid machines that can do cool stuff and not just get plowed by injuries along the way.
How do we truly feel like a success in every area of our lives? How do we feel enough and know that we are not alone? Join me as I interview some of the top leaders and experts in the world, from Broadway directors to multimillionaire, CEOs, neuroscientists, and more to look behind the curtain of success and examine not only the achievements, but also the fears. The. The loneliness and how we can navigate through that to create the incredible life we actually want to live.
Welcome to Success Engineering. So welcome back to success engineering. So the reason we didn't have an episode go live last week was because it was actually Chinese new year and my family was enjoying a wonderful time at Disney in Shanghai. To celebrate my son's birthday with another family. We had an awesome time, you know, watching the amazing fireworks that they have. They put on every night and feeling like a pirate in parts of the Caribbean.
To, you know, riding on the light cycle from trauma. And it was really, really fun. So had a blast, but that's why we didn't have, uh, the episode go, go out last week. So for this next episode, I want to provide a very practical framework for you that you can use to develop your own workout and strength training plan at home. So obviously, you know, you need to talk about this with your doctor and make sure this is right for you. These are general recommendations.
But I wanted to have Ashley gas on. She's an amazing expert in terms of fitness. And we're going to talk through everything from the top five mobility exercises that everyone should be doing pretty much to the top five supplements that you'd want to potentially do your research around to see if they could benefit you to the exact framework for how you can structure a comprehensive workout plan to maximize the benefit from that in the shortest amount of time.
So it's an episode you're going to want to take some notes. Notes from, and potentially even listened to multiple times because. Ashley provides tons of tips and we really dive into it to give you the best framework here for you to help you with your workouts. So I hope you enjoy. So welcome back to Success Engineering. I have the privilege of having Ashleigh Gass on.
She has a massive professional track record in strength and conditioning, her credentials and experience, just really, really extensive. So Master's degree in Human Clinical Nutrition through the University of Bridgeport. She's a certified sports nutritionist. She's one of the few strength and conditioning specialists in Florida and also holds a certified nutrition specialist credential. Coaching for 20 years, learning for 20 years.
Co-owner now of MOVE Gymnastics Inspired Strength Training in Clearwater, Florida. So this is gonna be a great conversation. We're gonna get a lot of practical insight from it. Welcome to the show here, Ashleigh!
Thank you so much, Michael. Thank you.
Absolutely. Great to have you. So let's, let's start talking about your background. I mean, you were always very active. You loved, you know, athletics and things in gymnastics for nine years. But I want to talk about kind of working up to the injury that you had and then how you went about using that to learn and develop and grow from that.
Yeah. Cool. So, grew up as an athlete, I think a lot of us did, which is why we gravitated towards the field of kinesiology and exercise phys. We kind of figured, all right, physics is not gonna be it for me. So right,
let's stick an exercise in the front and then maybe I can handle that.
Trains going in different directions, and the timing just, I, I couldn't figure it out. So it was I knew I wasn't gonna be a physicist anyway. So it was interesting because as a, you know, by the time I was 21 years old I again was a pretty established athlete and at that time, getting into collegiate soccer at the University of Victoria and Canada. But I had chronic back pain and no one could really figure out what was going on. And my MRIs at that time were not great.
There was advanced degenerative changes in the L 3 4 5 L five S one segments, and the only thing that was found that was a bit of a genetic anomaly was synchronization of L five S one on the right. So, you know, as we're all told, I think especially 25 years ago, just don't do it. Stop lifting, stop this. Do it hurts. Don't do it. It's like, well, wait a minute.
If, you know, if, if I was in too much pain to go for a run, I would just, you know, Lie on the floor and put my shoes on and go for a run rather than bending over and putting my shoes on to go for a run. So pain really didn't stop. It wasn't, wasn't a game changer. Yeah,
I'll just roll down the hill. That'll be my exercise. Yeah. Can't stop me.
Yeah, I know. Like, we'll just go slow enough for a while until things warm up and then, you know, it'll be fine. So, you know, it was really just basically 15 years of that. And of course as you would expect, there were just microtrauma to. The, primarily the L 4 0 5, L five S one disc. And that resulted in over the years, just tiny, just here and there. Of course, the, my nervous system would seize up and I'd be, ooh, for three or four days at a time.
I'd just would roll on a lacrosse ball for a long time and eventually be fine again over the course of a couple days and then just get back to training and everything else. And then fast forward a bunch of years, one day that wasn't enough and, and I had a bit of a drop foot and I'm like, oh, that's kind of weird. My foot's not working now. That's not good.
It gets serious and Yeah, but still in my, this is, this is in my late twenties, early thirties when I first got to the States and I kind of just overlooked it again because without fail within a few days and a bunch of rolling around and maybe some manual therapy, things would just get better again.
So, I just rolled with the punches more or less, and then came the day where it, it, the thing really blew, it w it ended up being a seven millimeter herniation out, but what happened is the disc fragmented and dropped around the s one nerve root on the left, which feeds the, the whole dermatome left lateral glute hamstring calf, achilles tendon, Achilles reflex. So I lost that whole line and it was like drop leg It, it took a good day for that to, to onset by.
But by the end of day one, when my foot was completely numb and I, I was walking like I had a broken ankle, I'm like, Ooh. This is different. I, I still had the mindset that I was gonna wake up one day and things were gonna be fine, believe it or not, you know, I didn't stop training. I kept doing push pull. I had to watch myself doing lunges because I couldn't, I couldn't feel my foot. So I had to watch my foot so that I didn't fall But whatever I, I'm like, I can still push and pull.
So you kind of get the story. And then I end up having neurosurgery because it was apparent that if, you know, if the nerve root dies, if the S one nerve root had experienced atrophy, Or varying degrees of atrophy to the point of, well, the nerve root isn't functional anymore, then it's a permanent disability. Right? So I'm like, am I ever gonna be able to run again? please. So that, that's the short story of, of that.
And you know, it's kind of interesting cause I think all of us that have been through the, these sorts of injuries and, you know, Dave Goggins is classic, is that the, the mindset that gets us to the point where we're that badly injured is the mindset that also gets us through it. Most people would've wanted to have seen me stop or just, okay, you've had back surgery. Now just take it easy and become someone who walks a lot every day. And I'm like, no. Like I, I had surgery on a Friday morning.
You know, I was out forcing myself to skip, pull, push. Same thing. Like, I, I didn't stop, I did not stop. I didn't listen to a damn thing when it came to guidelines. And the surgeon was like, yeah, you're cool. You know what you're doing. Just don't, don't do anything stupid. And I, I didn't do stupid things. So I think it's that, it's the mindset that gets us into this place that also gets us out of that place rather than just going, okay, I had a good run. Now I'm gonna just walk.
Mm. Yeah, talk to talk, talk to me about how you started to discover, you know, a different style of training through, you know, Christopher Summers and you can explain who, who he is in gymnastic style, and talk to me how that kind of changed your approach to what you're talking about.
I mean, you, you're very knowledgeable up at that point, and you're doing all these things, but there are some underlying things that you could also fix along the way to maybe make it a little bit easier for yourself.
No doubt. Well, yes. Thank God for Christopher Summer and Rob Wolf actually. Christopher Summer is the founder of Gymnastic Bodies at that time, gymnastic Bodies. Now, the, the brand has changed a bit, I think to, to Gymfit, but at that time it was gymnastic bodies. And he at that time had been head coach of the men's national gymnastics team for 40 years, and he had developed a reputation for bringing up his athletes from youth through Olympians without injuring them.
And the mechanism of how he did that is he really made sure that the training process was one of patients and a long-term plan. And he was uncompromising when it came to the integration of mobility and flexibility, work with strength training. He never rushed the process and he never compromised on those progressions and the integration of both.
So in that podcast, he spoke about one of his athletes who when, when Alan went away to college and was kind of, out from under the wing and the tutelage of Summer he started to develop back injuries because of course the, those training protocols were compromised. And he had to bring Alan kind of back to the basics of good progressions, patience and training and integration of strength and mobility.
And when he started to talk about back injuries, my ears perked up because that was about two and a half, three months after back surgery. And I was like, okay. All right. Because I knew surgery doesn't like cure the original problem. It just, it can get you outta hot water. And for me in particular, it got me outta hot water, but I was starting to get kind of nice and stiff in those lower lumbar segments again.
And, you know, I, I knew that the path was gonna lead back to where it was And I'm like, all right, clearly I missed something. I've had all this, you know, education both in and outside of school. I've learned from countless colleagues and professionals, all of whom were very good at what they do. I've missed something and I don't even know what I've missed. So I bought all the foundations work at that time, which was you know, available as big chunks, of course.
And I got busy studying and applying all of it to my training
Talk to talk to the audience about how it's, it's different, you know, so you talked about the mobility and things like that, but for people that aren't as necessarily as familiar with that, how does it look differently than typical strength training?
Well, in typical strength training, we're used to moving external load. We're used to dumbbells and barbells and kettlebells. Mm-hmm. And that's, that's all, that's all of, that's fantastic. But in this training system, there's nothing other than your body.
And as you get more advanced, of course there's, there's rings and stuff to pull from to train eventual rope climb work from, there's some pommel horses for back extension work, but the majority of, of everything is, was of course, body weight based. And that was what stood out the most is I think that we're, we're in Western culture were really programmed, go to the gym and use heavy stuff.
Like I said, there's nothing wrong with that, but we missed the boat completely on how to actually turn our bodies into these beautiful fluid machines that can do cool stuff and not just get plowed by injuries along the way. So that was what stood out initially, of course, was the fact that these incredibly fit gymnasts weren't dependent on heavy, heavy loading 5, 6, 7 days a week for their training. Mm-hmm.
and the stuff that e even foundation level one work, like sitting on the floor and lifting your legs up else at work. Just, just crush. Just crush, crush The first level one I went to was in Texas and, you know, summer and summer had 50 of us in there and he, he just would, he just would stand and look at us and warm up and just go. What's wrong with you guys? You guys are fitness professionals. are you serious? Like most of us couldn't even lift our straight legs off the floor. Three inches.
Yeah.
And, and for the audience that doesn't know what an L sit is,, it is basically you're sitting on the ground back straight. You put your arms beside, you know, beside your butt, and you try to lift your butt and your legs off of the ground, you know? Yeah. It's like the gymnasts do with all their crazy stuff in the rings, but doing it on the ground, just starting off is incredibly difficult.
Yeah. Just lift your heels off the ground and everyone's like, oh
yeah. Yeah, no, it's interesting and we were talking a little bit before when we started the call, I don't know if I've shared this on the podcast. So, you know, I was a personal trainer nutrition coach back in the day. A lot of people know that. But I went through a similar thing, like there was one day I'm just like lifting, I'm trying to gain a bunch of masks cuz you know that's what you're supposed to do.
And I realized like I just hated exercise and I was like, when did I start hating to exercise? And for me, I played sports growing up and I really loved that. And I was like, oh, it's when I stopped playing sports and I have no real reason besides an aesthetic reason to be lifting this heavy thing. And I changed everything. That was the period I actually discovered, you know, gymnastic bodies as well with Christopher. Changed all my workouts to, you know, body weight stuff.
I started cycling into, you know, work. I started getting into rock climbing and I loved it. Again, like all these things that I just love again. And there's so much carryover between gymnastic bodies, the ability of your body to be able, like you talked about, to be fluid, to be flexible, to be strong and powerful, which is what gymnasts are. But like you said, you're not lifting an an not all the time. Right.
But most of the time you're not lifting an external source, and so people think of calisthenics as pushups and squats, but you have like handstand pushups, you have like planche which is like you're literally like, you know, not your feet not on the ground in a pushup position. Like it's insanely difficult Yeah. What you can progress up to.
When did you, when were you in the GB scene? Like when did you
discover that? Uh, What year was that? That's probably like 2016 or
so. Yep. Yeah, it was, I think you and I, I had back surgery in two, I was probably a year ahead. Yeah, right. Right around the same time.
Interesting. Yeah. It, it changed. Mm-hmm. it changed everything for me. And I've adapted, done different things and stuff since then, but it's a very interesting system. But for people, you know, obviously even for us, you know, it might not be doing the, you know, plants and the handstand pushups and stuff like that. Let's, let's talk about four beginners, right?
Like, let's say, you know, if we're entrepreneurs, let's say people are just working a bunch, they wanna start their exercise routine. What are, what are either some basic assessments that they could potentially do on their own or important things to consider? And then where do they go to kind of start creating a program for themselves?
That's a really good question. So are we, let's just sort of play two sides here. Are they, are we assuming there's a facility and a coach involved, or are we assuming that they're, let's assume there's,
there's not. Okay. As if there's a coach, like they can, you know, bounce ideas and stuff off of them. Let's say like they're wanting to do an exercise thing, they're not really familiar with it. They don't really know necessarily where to start, but they know it's important. What would you recommend for people like that? Maybe it's online, you know, what does that look like?
My advice would be to always address basic the basics of mobility first. Hmm. My top colleagues that come to mind is, for example, like, Ben Patrick, really good friend of mine, "knees over toes guy". He's got a great system that is just more or less plug and play. Not dependent on a gym, but basic equipment, kind of like basic equipment needed in the later phases. In the early phases, very body weight.
We've got good custom online coaching where folks have a chance to do assessments to kind of figure out, whoa, okay, I, I need some work. Like, no wonder my shoulders are hurting all the time. I, you know, my bridge is terrible. But it really, at that point, the consumer has to develop a bit of an ability to go, all right, what are my weakest links?
and then to be able to plug themselves into the training system, whether that's an app or just YouTube videos to start to chip away at, at their own strengths and weaknesses, if you will, as opposed to just going, okay, I'm gonna, it's this, this a hundred pushups a day and a hundred squats a day every day. Yes. Like, okay, got it. But, you know, maybe we should have some polling work in there, some scapular work. Mm-hmm.
So, it's a really good question, but it just sort of leads me to go, all right, if I was the consumer that was for the first time opening up Pandora's box of how do I train at home? There'd have to be a part of me that would understand what my limitations were and then be smart. enough To look at the, at the training material I was being presented with and go, that makes sense, or, eh, that doesn't make sense.
And then putting it all together so that perhaps I were addressing my weakest links first. And then getting into good, good quality whole body ish strength training, which is, that's, that's no small task.
Well, and and this is like, you know, this is exactly why coaches are so important, right? We think, yeah. You know, in general we just kind of think like, oh, I'm gonna go out there. Maybe, maybe I'm gonna start to run and, you know, you could do that, but there might be imbalances and stuff that you have that then start to get exacerbated down the road without that.
Or I go into a gym and I start doing, Maybe it's a limited amount, maybe it's a medium amount of what I know, but you might have limited range of motion and you're building strength on a faulty foundation or a foundation that isn't as good as it potentially could be to support where you want to go.
So if you were like, let's just talk about mobility, you know, for potentially people that are, you know, beginner at this, that might not even know about foam rolling or what that looks like or, you know, very basic mobility kind of things. What, yeah, what would you say if you were to just kind of, and I know this is very, very difficult to do because it's very individual, but you have things like upper cross syndrome and you know, anterior pelvic tilt and stuff like that.
So what would you say like for fundamental mobility, three to five things that people, problem areas that typically come up for people, especially if they're sitting, you know, a lot of their time at at desk.
That's such a good question, and I think, actually, let's make sure you get access to this is, I'll, I'll send you the mobility poster that I had designed. I called it Move 10 10 stretches in roughly 10 minutes a day. Perfect. Because I went after those things. And one of the, the main ones, of course, is a lot of folks between commuting and, and working, spend a lot of, a lot of the day sitting like legitimately probably over the course of a day, let's just say six total hours of sitting.
So Okay, fine. When you're sitting, the hip flexors are in a short position. So we've got to make sure those guys get opened up. So the back foot on wall, on wall couch stretch, or a good quality split squat with the back leg extended. So you've got a good hip extension. Those are, that would be number one. So keep the hips, the anterior hips strong and flexible so that. You don't develop too much of a, of an anterior pelvic tilt.
The second one I would recommend, of course, would be shoulders, because life happens in front and work is in front. So we just by default, kind of end up with humeral head, a little bit of in not sometimes a lot of an internally rotated humerus which of course then brings the scapula into that stuck protracted position. And the neck has to follow. The neck can't stay up with a nice s-curve, it's gotta go boop So the whole upper body posture just ends up back here.
So that then goes, all right, how do we reverse that? Some sort of a chest stretch or something in external rotation where we're getting out of this and into, into this so that we can open up p miner and the whole system and the neck comes back and, you know, we can probably eliminate the one day need for a, a laboral repair So that would be number two. So hip flexor take care of the chest and the shoulders. Number three would be the cabs and Achilles. So a good quality.
Calf stretch with the, the front foot elevated on a surface so that you get a little bit of that, that torque on the posterior chain. So, in other words, there's a protocol that Emmett Lewis built quite a while ago. It's the elbow, elbow to toe protocol to increase hamstring flexibility and compression strength. So just, or just, hey, like standing up, bending over, touching the floor, touching your toes, touching your knees. Just work on just extending the posterior chain that's better.
You're not really extending it, you're stretching it, but getting like a, a head to achilles tendon stretch of the posterior chain. So it'd be three from there. Anything to hang from or just go overhead with to stretch out the lats and the obliques and the ql. And then I would say to address the wrists. So there's there's nice hands and knee, wrist stretching where you just get on the ground or you can even stand against the wall and do, or you don't even need a wall.
I can just, just right here, just stretching, stretching your wrists out. Just keep these, keep these guys active and, and open and strong. So those would be my five, just hip flexor and rectus femoris. Shoulders, external rotation and extension. Some, sort of hanging work. And if there's nothing to hang from me, you can use a counter and even do like a, a lateral, lateral horizontal to a stretch posterior chain.
Super great. So for people that you can't see what she's doing, yes, please send over the information and I can put it in the, I can put it in the show notes of the, of the podcast for those of you who can't see what's going on. But yes, this stuff can be kind of, you know, complicated just to. sum, sum up a little bit of what she said. So hip flex is essentially the muscles in your front of your hip that raise your leg up.
And when you, you know, if you just look at a sitting posture, those are shortened because you have to be in that 90, 90 degree position. So you're trying to stretch that out. Posterior chain is basically everything behind your body. So your hamstrings, your glutes, you know, back lots, things like that. And so you're trying to stretch that out. And you talked about the, the calf stretching that out as well, and the chest, but having pictures for this will be super, super helpful.
Yeah. Yeah, because like we said, it's just, it's difficult to know, right? It's difficult to know some of these things, and they're important to get this stuff back before you start adding, you know, the strength onto it. So let's say people are doing this, what percentage of you have a 10 minute thing, you know, and again, it depends on how much time they have available, but. 10 minutes is a, is a good period of time. A lot of people can hopefully find, find that, to squeeze that in there.
What would you start to recommend as far as very basic exercise recommendations that they can start to build from that? What are the, what are the main things that they should be aware of or making sure that they focus on?
Again, sort of being that person that can identify their, the, their biggest weak links first and address those. So in other words, if you're going into a training program or you're trying to build one for yourself and you're in chronic pain, let's address that first. Hmm. And it probably will have a fair bit to do with addressing stuff that's tight and weak.
So good mobility training, initially clean up nutrition cuz a lot of folks are in really sort of intense inflammatory patterns of poor nutrition, nutrient poor food, poor sleep patterns. So fix that stuff first before you're like, I'm gonna go to the gym and start to, you know,
CrossFit by my ass off
cross. Must be four days a week and everything's gonna be fast and hard and Oh man, no. Yeah. Yeah. And then, so just from there, just, just layer, layer things on. So. clean up chronic pain stuff first if necessary. See a good physical therapist or manual therapist to get some help with that. Clean up nutrition, sleep, make sure the foundational aspects of of lifestyle are just improved a bit before you ramp up the intensity of training. Mm-hmm. And then from there just layer stuff on.
So you then you might go, all right, I am, I'm gonna go to the, to my local gym or kind of ramp up my protocols at home and start to do lower body training. Okay. What might that look like? That might look like some RDLs or stuff like deadlifts and some split squats and maybe some calf phrases. I'm gonna get myself a pair of rings and start to do push pulls and just kind of go, all right, you know, we teach people based on your, your week and your, and the flow of how your schedule goes.
Most people can start anything that's related to strength and endurance work two to three days a week and just go, okay, whole body work Tuesdays and Thursdays. Or maybe I'll do a whole body split three days a week, or, Potentially I'll split it into a four week period where Mondays and Fridays are upper body and core, and Wednesdays are lower body and core and some stretching, and then flip it around the next week.
So there's a few, there's a lot, as you know, there's many ways to skin the cat, but foundational principles is see if you can iron out your own weak points first before you layer on stuff that's harder.
Yeah. And that's really important and cannot be overstated. And, you know, another guest Kelly Starrett. He has an app called the Ready State, phenomenal for mobility. You can just put in, I have pain in this point, and you get exactly what you need to do. Or you're like, I play this sport, or I go, you know, running this is mobility. This is what you should do beforehand. This is potentially if you have, you know, time, hopefully this is what you do afterwards. Phenomenal.
So people looking at mobility, that's, that's super, super important on that.
Yeah, I wrote, wrote that down the app. Down. I, I, I'd heard, I've heard of it, but I've never looked at it, so,
oh man. It's amazing. I, I just love it. You know, I have a decent amount of understanding of, as the stu, not as much as some, but a decent amount, you know, like foam rolling, different things like that, and, I do it with him and, you know, in 10 minutes, you like one is really painful sometimes cause you're working out these deep like, you know, tension things, but then afterwards you're like, oh, I feel amazing.
You know, you can move in ways that you're just like, I didn't know this was possible. Like, very short periods of time. Sometimes painful periods of time, but it's like in tissue massage
Yes. Yes. Cool. We're both from probably go back long enough that we've read the Supple Leopard and so I turned it all into an app. Love it. Love it.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's amazing. So I would, I would highly recommend that. As far as basic, you know, movements, again, if we're coming back to really basic stuff, you know, things like a squat pattern or hinge pattern. Could you describe kind of some of those things, or even a push pull? So describe for people what that actually is. If we're at a very, you know, beginner level and, and want to understand how to kind of create a program that hits the main areas.
Yep, for sure. So let's talk in terms of upper body and let's split things into vertical and horizontal. Classic way of doing program design. So your vertical push would be overhead work. Okay. Your vertical pull would be your pull up and your chin up work. All grip variations. So pull up being over hand grip, chin ups being under hand grip. And I think that's important to differentiate because we've got folks calling, making the word chinup be global.
Okay. Quin was very clear, and this has been in the, in the world of strength, anding forever. This is a pullup. This is a chinup. Very different drills. Okay? So if we're gonna think in terms of vertical push pull, you could have a day where you're starting off and you go, all right. My shoulder health is good. I've got something to pull from. I'm gonna start with, it's a very important
thing first, you know, cuz a lot of times people don't necessarily have the shoulder health to do overhead work. So address the immobility first, but keep going. Great.
Yeah. Address it first. And if you have a history, if you've had rotator cuff repairs or you have a history of impingement or you're just, your shoulders kind of hurt all the time, your first move, generally speaking might not be going into overhead. Now it could be single arm overhead work, which is more forgiving than, than barbell work right away. But just, you know, to keep things simple, you could have a day where it's vertical press, vertical pull. Mm-hmm.
And if we're going to be respectful of where you and I have come from, we would integrate mobility and stretching into that. So we would then, Integrate some hanging work into the vertical pulling. Okay. So hanging work. And then with shoulder mobility, we would potentially integrate something like a, a dislocate, a tubing dislocate to start to work that full 360 range.
You could integrate a little bit of rotator cuff work, so some basic sideline external rotation drills for the backside of the rotator cuff. So you sort of think in terms of primary, so again, on that day, you think primary push pull and what mobility can be integrated into
that. Yeah. What you talked about with that shoulder dislocate. Just for, for people, cuz this is a super one, like, it's one of those exercises that if you just wanted to do potentially one for your shoulders, this might be, this might be it. And, and you can, you know, maybe add or, or you know, contradict that. But there are people that don't understand what that is.
You could get a band or you know, a bar, but maybe starting with a band and you basically, you're holding your arms above, you know, above your head trying to. Elevate your shoulders up towards your ears, and then moving your hands back behind your body in like a circle. And this is the range of motion that we lose because we don't do anything here. And then from that position, that down position, you're trying to move your arms back up and over in front of yourself.
So you're just making this big circle up by your ears all the way down to back and over it. It's just such a good exercise to restore the range of motion. And a lot of people can't even start with that. So you wanna start really, really wide on whatever you're holding. And again, a band gives you more flexibility and just start. And that gets that chest stretch like you're talking as well. But, sorry, keep going with what
you're talking about. No, you're, you're, you're absolutely right that, that drill, initially it's two things for most people. Number one, it's really difficult. And number two, it's a total game changer. Yeah. Yeah,
yeah. And the, and I do it just like at my desk. Like, so these are, these are things that you can kind of incorporate, you know, if you're at, at your desk and you don't, don't mind looking silly or maybe you're in someplace that's a little bit you know, set apart from other people. These are things that just taking every 30 minutes or an hour or once during your day, whatever you could start with, do a little bit of that at your desk and it's so good for your, for your
shoulders. Yeah, that's a good point. Just to have a, have some tubing close by. Tubing is more forgiving than PVC pipe, cuz obviously you've got the ability to pull it apart to move it. Yeah. When you get into those stuck spots, Yeah. Once you're on a PBC pipe, you're not going anywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless you wide in the grip. So Yeah, no, you're, you're totally right on that.
So, yeah, just look for those kind of hole in one drills that you can integrate into your strength training because, you know, one of the reasons that Summers athletes were so successful and that you know, there was so much traction with the foundation strength training work of the original days of, of gymnastics strength training was That it was, it, if you followed the system properly, it was really, it was really difficult to get stronger than you were mobile.
You had to integrate them together so that as strength ramped up, so did your mobility, and you know, thus the kind of epic changes in pain and, and, and joint injuries from folks that were really training the system. So, yeah. So anyway, we, we we're gonna get off on a lot of tangents, but Yeah, yeah, yeah. So
get a coach higher. I know. We'll, we'll put link, but we'll continue to give you tidbits if you wanna try and drive
Yeah. Some coaching, because this, this stuff is, I mean, it's sort of, I guess it's like anything else. If you really want to control, not the wrong word, if you really wanna run your own finances, a hundred percent. that's cool. But you better be prepared to understand what are the advantages and disadvantage of the market? What, what about the Roth? What about this, what are mutual? Like you can, or spend some time and get oriented to the basics from folks that are successful themselves.
And then the strategy will make a bit more sense. But I would always recommend just get some guidance if you're truly starting from that point of, what do I do,
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just, just pay somebody who knows a lot more than you do. Yeah. And have studied it for a long time.
Right, right. So, yeah. And, and you know, with training splits, that's the basic way. For upper body, of course. Then we've gotta cover the opposite directions, which is, which is a horizontal. So horizontal pulling would be, you're pulling in this direction and that can be done effectively on rings. It's a little bit harder to do this with no equipment.
Mm. Generally speaking, unless you wanna do renegade rows, you know, for a pushup, push up and row from, you know, so, and then horizontal pressing of course is more of your, your, your chest, chest focused work, right? Which can be chest processes, pushups, things like that. Yeah. And that stuff can be so beneficial.
On moves and my Instagram feed, I've covered information on this because you can, you can and really should turn your horizontal pushing into kind of into a combination of, of, of pushing, but also integrating the scapula into those drills so you're not just mindlessly doing pushups, but you're actually integrating scapular retraction and depression into your pushup as you go down so that you're not just kind of riding out the front of the front of the joint and making what's typically tight,
tighter. But that's, you know, I did a post on that little while ago, and you can check that out on the feedback for people that
don't know scapula is your shoulder blades basically.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your shoulder blades. So when we say scapular retraction, we mean like scapular pulling back.
It's basically like pinching. If you picture like pinching a quarter in between your shoulder blades, that that's, yeah. You can kinda thing.
Yeah. And you can see the difference. So when I'm doing a pushup, if there's, if I'm not paying attention to my scapula, I can, I can do pushups like this. Mm. all day long. But once I integrate, retraction or pulling in, my pushup can start to look a lot like that. Mm-hmm. And in the top, I can protract so I can stick my shoulder blades out. On the way down, I can lower myself, but pay attention to scapular retraction.
So if you're doing the right things at the right cues, you can, you can really change a lot about the shoulder position, the arm bone position in the shoulder socket, and you can really change a lot about your posture without feeling like you have to walk around all day, like trying to force your posture. Cuz forcing posture is, we all know, is you can't re, you can't do it long term.
You have to train your body to get to the point where it just rests in the way that it should rest, which takes training and tension, re tension, reduction in in the right places.
Along those lines before we kind of get to the lower body, we'll see how much we cover here cuz like we can go, like you said, down a lot of rabbit holes and things like that, but important ones. But I wanted to talk about breathing and how that can actually, you know, your, your advice on, on that. How you can use that to to essentially help with, with posture and
resetting some of that. Yep. So I'll admit in full, this isn't a rabbit hole that I've gone really deeply down. My in, so, so in training and breathing in general, I, a lot of us are in lockdown mode all day, so we don't, we don't take those deep diaphragmatic. Breaths where the diaphragm expands and the, we get the belly involved. It's all very almost low level hyperventilating.
So in general, in training what you've, what you want to make sure you're focusing on is on the, the, the challenging parts of the lift. So if I'm going down into a squat or or a deadlift or a max pull that when I'm here and I'm hanging up in a and a and I'm, oh, oh, sorry about to start. It's like, and then re, re redeveloping breath on the way down in the movement.
So, but from a general standpoint, we've just day-to-day, most of us have to work a lot more on diaphragmatic deep, proper breaths and not just hyperventilating. Mm-hmm. on a low level all day. And then during training to make sure that on those. Th those sticky points of, of max lifts or of max strength, endurance, endurance lifts that were, were exhaling hard, like hard on the force output. Part of, of the lift.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Very important. And, and we tend to kind of look at these things in different categories, but like you're talking about it, it all like, it all ties together. You know, you have to have your sleep, you have to have your nutrition, you have to have your hydration, you have to have, you know, the exercise like it all is a whole thing. And we've had other guests on that have talked about the, the sleep and, and things like that.
So this one we're definitely focusing on the exercise, but when we, when we shift down to lower body, what are some of the main movements movement patterns that people should be thinking about, making sure that they, they.
Yep. Key ones squat and squat and hinge, and then single leg work. So squat is very classically trunk in a more vertical position where the hips are dropping down and into the lift. So in a squat, the trunk is in a more vertical pattern and the hips drop down and into the lift. That's a squat pattern. A hinge pattern is when the trunk stays very upright and the the hips hinge behind. So it's like one of the cues I used in the RDL or the stiff leg deadlift is chest up ass out..
That's a hinge pattern when the, the hips drive back. But the trunk stays very not upright positionally, because in the of course, you're leaning into the lift, but the trunk isn't rounding. It's a hinge. So you think of that as, yeah, you, you break it down into squat hinge. Squat pattern. Hinge pattern, and then bilateral or yeah, bilateral versus a single leg or, or unilateral lifts. So squat and the deadlift would be bilateral lifts.
And then things like pistol squats, split squats would be your single leg lifts. And then of course, you'd have your more accessory work, like single leg r dls or single leg stiff leg deadlifts. And so that would just be an example. So it, what that might look like in a training protocol would be, Say three to four sets of a hinge.
So three to four sets of a stiff leg deadlift, or a good morning where the bar or the, the tubing or a P V C pipe is behind the neck and the hip hinge is occurring there versus the dumbbells being down and in front hip hinge. Okay. Okay. So it might be several sets of hip hinge drill followed by several sets of a body weight squat or, or a goblet squat with the weight held in front. Or if you're working with a bar back squat or front squat. Mm-hmm.
And then I would definitely finish with some accessory work. So, split squat. Cosack squat is like a split squat, but laterally side to side. Yeah. Side to side. Yep. Side to side squat. and from there, calf work, Achilles work, just to keep keep the, the, the, the achilles tendon and the calfs, strong and flexible. Again, in, in, in the GB days, we did fairly high volume calf work in the front split series. And that that can be done also.
Or if you've got access to seated calf raise machines and standing calf raise machines working, working drills there. So for lower body, you generally would structure squat pattern, hinge pattern I think a split squat pattern. Super important to cover the single leg work. Mm-hmm.
super great. Yeah. What about core recommendations? Yep. And potentially, what are people typically doing wrong? Yeah. When they try to train their core, if, if we have enough time.
Right. I know that's a funny one. And it's, it's kind of interesting. So again, if you look at life patterns, we tend to end up sitting a lot. And then core work, what do most people do? They're, they end up doing a lot of like
crutches and stuff. They're emphasizing the Yeah. yeah. The bent pattern.
You can emphasize the bent over pattern, whereas I think what people need to pay attention to is thinking of their core as like, around their body. So it's the, it's not only the front muscles, but it's the sides, like the O obliques and the ql. It's the erectors and the, the, the small spinal muscles like multifidus. So integrate extension patterns into your core work. So if you're going to do.
Variations of sit ups or like hollow body holds with your arms by your sides or overhead and your legs out in front. Very challenging drills. If you're gonna do those drills, which are flexion based, integrate extension with it. So that can mean going into a cobra. Or like an N P T A Mackenzie press up or doing a scorpion, which is extension rotation. I know I don't have pictures of all this, but you
know, so basically, basically extension, one thing for the audience is if you think about, you know, if you literally just lie down on the ground with your hands above your head and try to lift your arms and your hands, you know, like off the ground and lift your legs and your toes off the grounds with your legs straight. And you'll notice you may not even be able to do that because all of that is so underdeveloped compared to the tightness and stuff that's in the front.
So that's extension work. You're like, you're trying to, like you said, treat your core as the back part as well, that we, you know, just ignore a lot of times. And you'll notice, you'll be like, oh wow, I don't have anything here. So either get a coach or do more of those things that focus on bringing balance to, to the imbalance there.
Yeah, like arching drills. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And then respect the lateral flexion. So things like standing side bending and side stretching to get the, the sides to open up. Basic drills like I guess we'll call them side planks in gb in gymnastics we call 'em side over arches. But side planks. What else carries, pardon? Talk,
talk to us about caries as well, farmers caries and stuff like that.
Farmers caries, single sided farmers caries cuz they, that, you know, you're holding a whatever says a 20 pound dumbbell on, on one side you're gonna be challenged to stay upright as opposed to be dropped down with the weight. So farmers carriers are, are really useful for. Well grip, grip strength, but they're also useful for stabilizing the core with uneven loads, which is again, which is life.
And people tend to get injured when they expose themselves to lifting and carrying or pushing or pulling something in life that they haven't trained for, and the body's not used to that. So something just grabs and they're like, oh my back. Right,
right. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, literally example of that is like carrying your groceries. Like that's a perfect example in life. Like you are just carrying something that you need to avoid, you know, just not bending over from, that's, that's an example of what you train for to actually give your core the stability it needs to be healthy, ideally. Yeah,
really good point. Yeah. So there's, there's so many things that you can do just as your starting training and there's so much, you have to become really good at picking the, the top thing, like a few of the top things. Yeah. And knowing why you're doing that, you know,
and this is like, you know, when I was a trainer too, a lot of times, you know, people, the time is really limited. So it's like, I love what you have with that 10 minute, you know, mobility thing where it's like, in these 10 minutes, these are the big bang for your bucks kind of things. And that's what I'm, you know, we're trying to do in this episode is provide those big bang for your bucks movements. And, and they're called compound movements.
So, so often, you know, especially if you're, you know, a guy or you know, for girls the triceps, but for guys the, you know, the biceps, you go in there and you're like, I'm gonna do the gym and I'm working this, well, it's not just one, but sort of, if we're, if we're simplifying it, you know, I'm working this one little muscle, but if you're doing a pull-up, you're working the massive muscles in your back and the, you know, muscle in your bicep as well.
And so doing these compound pushing exercises, compound pulling exercises, like you said, vertically. And horizontally. And then the big ones for your legs, like those big squat, you know, patterns as opposed to sitting on a machine and doing like a, you know, raising my leg, my, my knees, you know, up and down right. Kind of thing. You're doing these big squats, big hinge motions, big lateral kind of side to side motions. And then the core, ideally that kind of integrates all of it.
And then you alternate that potentially with some, you know, cardio or something on a, on a different day and you have a decent plan, right? Even if you did that one time a week. Sure, yeah. And one time a week of cardio. It's decent, you know, so that's a, a decent starting point. And I don't know if you have other things you either want to add to, to
that. I mean, is it, you know, is the starting point? Keep things as simple as possible and just, just run with it. And when, when you're at the point where you go, okay, I think I'm doing pretty well with these basics, what's the next layer? and it's just the ability to do well with a plan and stick with it for long enough to then see it through to the next phase. So, yeah.
So, you know, that's, that's a lot on the, on the exercise kind of thing. Talk to us, and I have had other guests talk about this, but I'm curious, kind of the big, you know, if we're talking the big five or so on the nutrition side of things as well, or even hydration, what do you recommend big levers that people can essentially pull if they're just getting started?
Yeah, that's a good question because a lot of folks that come to the facility and that I start with in the online space, we have to go after the biggest things first. So, What I notice in almost a hundred percent of folks that start tracking in inside, inside of an app, is the obvious stuff. Number one is and I really go back to some of John Berardi's foundations of good nutrition on this one. Some of these 10 key habits is most folks need to increase their protein. So I've got.
You know, males and females that are 150, 160 pounds plus, well, especially guys come up 200 pounds and their protein takes less than 25 grams a day, which is, it's, I mean, it's dangerous. So number one is chicken breast for people that Yeah. Or it's a sh you know. Yeah, exactly. And then just pure, pure carbs and, and kind of to-go foods for the rest of the day. So number one is increased protein intake.
And a general rule of thumb I have for folks initially is aim for, just regardless of who you are, just aim for a hundred grams a day from supplemental and food sources. So that's number one. Number two is usually healthy fats are absent. So increase intake of good fats like olive oil, avocado, so your monounsaturated fats, and then your your omega-3 s omega-3 intake's usually pretty low. So let's get some high performance fats in there. Number three.
Is it just increased nutrient, nutrient density overall. So, folks try to eliminate or, or minimize pure snacky foods like pretzels and chips, cuz the, the value from those foods is of course pretty much zero. And I find that as folks increase nutrient density from good fruits, fed nuts, seeds, and, you know, good quality proteins, their desire for those foods goes down. So that would be three, is just to start to eliminate nonsense calories out of your diet if they're a staple.
Okay, so there's nothing wrong with every now and then, but if they're a staple, we need to change that. Get water intake up. Chronic dehydration can cause a lot of problems in, in, in including chronic pain in, you know, our bodies are are water dependent, so let's get water and take up.
And I find a safe, a safe range for folks that can be, it can definitely be a bit uncomfortable at first, especially if they're used to drinking three glasses of water a day is start to shoot for anywhere from, ideally about a gallon a day, cuz it's a lot for folks. But it seems to be, it seems to be an amount that is highly effective once someone dials that in.
And then number five, it's difficult to go wrong with increasing just good quality veggies and greens in the diet for nutrient intensity. So, those are my, those are the key ones, but the really, the number one, almost across the board a hundred percent of the time, even people that say initially I think I eat pretty well, they, they're, they're missing the protein mark by a long shot and it's become clear.
I've really gotten into restudying Peter Attias work over the last few months in his interviews on protein synthesis. And, and the importance of it is you don't wanna be chronically underfed on protein.
Yeah. Super, super important. So definitely, you know, potentially have that as, as a starting point and you can ladder up with some of the other things that are mentioned as far as supplements and, again, you know, preface all this with, we're not, doctors and you have to do your own research and stuff on this Yeah. And how it, how it interacts with everything. But what would you recommend for people as kind of basic things that could potentially be helpful for them?
Yeah, number one for sure would be magnesium intake. So Chris, Chris Kresser, just put a video out on this about four months ago now. The magnesium guidelines have been increased to in the range of like, five to 700 milligrams a day for males and females. I've never seen anyone's food intake or food log over a week that would indicate they get magnesium on a daily, daily basis from, other than from maybe a little bit of salad, I mean mm-hmm.
So, but, you know, magnesium of course is, is probably the most important mineral in the body. It's involved in hundreds of enzyme reactions. We're very dependent on it, and it's not in abundance in our in our, our food source anymore. Food sources anymore. So, magnesium is critical. The other one is, I'm a real big fan of a good supplemental protein. So whether that's coming from whey p hemp, I'm, I'm indifferent as long as folks vary the sources a little bit and get their intake up.
So that's another one that I find cuz most folks don't wanna be eating food all day long for proteins. So supplemental Source can be really helpful. Mm-hmm. and again, I'm a big fan of omega-3 s. and vitamin D. Those are the key four. Now I love creatine myself personally, and with all the research that continues to, I don't, you know, we shouldn't even be debating about creatine anymore. It's right. Not only,
it's like the most, I think it's the most researched supplement
out there. Yep. The most researched and extremely safe, extremely effective. Not only for you know, as, as we all know for lean mass and performance gain, but for longevity, cognitive health. And there appears to be a lot of connections between just neurological function too. So Creatin is a big one. Those would be my five would be magnesium for sure. Protein for sure. Omega-3. Probably vitamin D. Yes. And magnesium and d I would leaning towards 80% plus of the population deficient in both.
Mm-hmm. and and, and creatine, whether you're training every day or not five grams of the stuff is seems to be thumbs up all the way around.
Absolutely. Super, super advice. People, you know, people that are listening, I would encourage you just take, you know, just take one of these areas, right? So we're, we're trying to present, you know, the masterclass on all of these things. And you can go back and you can re-listen to it and, and, and think about what you wanna do with this.
But pick that one area, the thing that either will make the biggest difference or the thing that you think would be the easiest to consistently do in your life and, and start there. You can always build, build on it later for sure. But I'm curious for. For yourself, but also just kind of a general as well. Are there specific, you know, whether it's a morning routine or evening routines or just routines in general that you have in your life that are very beneficial?
And if so, what, what would those be or what would you be recommendations around that?
Yeah, the one that I'm super loyal to his evening actually because of the importance of sleep and when, when all of us go in to train, we respect that there's some sort of a warmup phase between arriving to train and starting to train and sleep's the same. So we have fairly busy lives. There's a lot going on all day. For most, for most of us, we can't expect to just go hard and fast all day long. And then, Oh, it's whatever time I'm gonna just lie down and go to sleep.
that transition period from all day to kind of winding down, it's been referred to as sleep hygiene, sleep routine. That's been a huge one for me, for most of, most of my life, actually, at least, at least 15 years, potentially more is just making sure I, you know, I wrap up work when possible. So when all the tasks are done for the day, and I know going into next day I'm really clear on what those tasks are, then I go, all right, I can put the computer away.
Get, kind of get rid of the phone, say, say goodnight to, to who, to whoever makes your businesses wrapped up. And then just just kind of chill a little bit. Have a good, you know, doc, doctor, I use parsley's sleep remedies, so that plus some magnesium. So a little bit of a sleep cocktail. Me personally, I have a bath cuz I li I like getting real nice and hot and then coming out and doing a, a, a reasonable stretch, whatever I feel needs to be worked out.
So it's about an hour of time between packing up work, making sure everything's chill and, and organized for the next day. And all the fires if possible are put out. Take about an hour time to have a bath or a hot shower, get warm, do some basic stretching. That could be when, once you learn the, the move 10 and 10 mobility poster, you could, you'll, you'll remember those moves. They're very simple.
Do that routine at that time, and then you'll find the nervous system has a chance to unwind so that when you go to sleep, you actually are kind of getting into bed and your head hits the pillow and you're out. Very effective. So I'm a huge fan of the sleeper team.
Love that. Super, super awesome. Tremendous amount of insight in this, in this episode. Definitely one that people will have to go back and listen, listen through and take, take more, you know, applicable things that they can do. So I'm curious, and I typically ask this as we, as we kind of wrap up, but I'm curious for you, how would you go about defining success?
That's a good question, and I think that all of us that have. Kind of made the journey from sole practitioner into business owners and working with, with groups of people. Success for me is, is knowing on all fronts that what we're building at MOVE and what I'm building with, with coaches at Move is going to be successful, long, like if I get hit by a bus next week, that everybody is going to be able to, to, to thrive and prosper and to keep everything going in my absence.
So it's the piece of knowing that everyone is good enough at their job and the systems are are well in place, that if something were to happen to me that every, that they're gonna be okay. Mm-hmm. That's number one. And it's also, you know, we've all had days where I'm sure it's like, what am I doing? Like, this is crazy. 18 people had complaints and it's, it's success is having those days because of going through the hard times where it's. it's peaceful. Mm-hmm.
and I'm happy because the business is doing well and our clients and and students are doing well, and folks are happy. And it's the process of, of building a business that gets to the point where clients are happy, coaches are happy, and everyone's doing well. To me, that's success because for me, that's a, it's a peaceful feeling where I just, I know that I know everybody's happy and I know there's hope and everyone's working towards shared goals because that's a win-win for the business.
It's a win for the coaches. It's a win for the members. So to me it's sort of that triangle of it's a win for everybody that's involved. That's success for me. That's super good. And how does that come, everything else out of that comes anything material that, you know, any of us would ever want. But for me, I'm not materialistic first. I want a strong, really stable and ever-growing business that serves a lot of people.
And ha is, is a platform of hope for people that are training for people that are working. You know what I mean? That that's success for me.
Yeah, that's a really sweet quote from Alain du Button, I don't know if I'm saying his name right, but he's known as the practical philosopher and basically he says success without peace is no success at all. And I love how you talk about that. Like, you know, you can create something and the outside it might look like success, but if it doesn't feel like peace as an underlying thing, right?
There's definitely times where it's all stressful and everything's crazy or whatever, but like that goal of going, can I create something like you talked about where it's just like, This is, this, this feels peaceful. Like everybody is, you know, accomplishing their role. You know, we're, we're moving forward, we're making the impact that we want to have. People are happy, people are fulfilled. So I really, yeah, I really appreciate you bringing that up.
So if people wanna connect with the incredible work that you're doing, where can they, where can they go to do that?
Easy, easy stuff. Just Instagram my Instagram is Ashleighrgass and then our, our Instagram on move is move_training_calisthenics both easy to find. YouTube, same thing. Ashleigh Gass or MOVE Gymnastics Inspired Strength Training. If you just any, it is pull up anywhere on social media, my name or, or move training gymnastics Inspire Strength Training in Clearwater, Florida. You'll find us. We're easy to find, getting easier to find.
Yeah, and I'll put the links to the show notes and for people. Ashleigh is Ashleigh so it's spelled a little bit different and Gass with two Ss, so you can, you can look that, look that up. But yeah, I'll put the, put the links in the show notes and send over, send over that. Yes. You know, 10, 10 for 10 or whatever you describe it as. And I'll put that in in the show notes as well. Cause I think that would be a very good starting point for people. So thank you, thank you so much for your time.
This is, this was wonderful. And I know the audience will definitely get a lot of good things that they can implement out of it, so I really
appreciate that. I hope so. And I'll send you the, I'll send you the link for the poster and, and everything. Awesome. Thank you for your, for your time as well. And have a good night on your end of the world.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.