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Welcome to another episode of Pilates Elephants. I'm Raphael Bender.

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Today I have a special episode for you. This is a conversation I recently had

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with Nathan Ross-Reese on his podcast, The Nathan Ross-Reese Reformer Podcast.

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I highly recommend Nathan's podcast. If you like this podcast,

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you're probably already a listener, but just in case you're not,

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you should definitely check it out and I'll put a link in the show notes.

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Anyway, without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Nathan Ross-Reese.

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Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Nathan Ross-Reese Reformer Podcast.

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Today we've got Raf back again, the wise and wonderful Raf.

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He's bringing the heavy artillery destroying dogma in the Pilates industry and

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it's always a pleasure to have you on mate, thanks for coming back.

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It's always a pleasure to talk with you Nathan. Thank you.

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So I've been a massive fan of the posts I've been putting out lately,

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loving the content loving the conversation with the camera and the evidence

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that you're bringing to kind of.

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Bring light to areas which have been kind of in the dark a

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little bit just assumptions that we've all had that sound fine

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that sound good but in reality this don't add up um

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so i did a

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little bit of a search back through probably the last two months of

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your your content and some of

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the topics today is almost like a highlight reel i'd like to kind of cover some

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points and jump into a little bit more depth and nuance on

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those um one of the

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first ones i absolutely loved was when you're talking about

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strength training and the extra nuance that we can kind of bring to it now um

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obviously it's been a big buzzword in the community for a while and everyone's

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kind of jumping on board and everyone seems to have a different interpretation

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but to kind of get more of an insight onto how you see it um that's something

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that i know that everyone listening,

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is absolutely dying to learn more about so yeah well i think uh i mean i'm all

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in favor of anybody who tries to help their clients get stronger. I think that's awesome.

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And the reason I think that is awesome is because there's just a massive accumulation

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of evidence in the scientific literature now that it just helps people live

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better, healthier, longer lives.

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And so of all of the things that you could sell in business.

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Like longer, happier, healthier lives, it's like, there's not much,

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it doesn't get much better than that. You know, this is like,

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we're doing the Lord's work here. This is good stuff.

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So I think it's fantastic that anybody, anybody out there who's trying to help

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their clients get stronger, like go, you know, that's awesome.

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Um, and so I think that probably the two big points, and you can sort of take

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this where you want to take it from there is firstly, the, a new,

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um, position stand came out from the American college of sports medicine,

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uh, on resistance training this year.

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And the last one was like five or six years old. So it's quite a, quite old.

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And probably one of the biggest takeaways from this new position stand,

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which is, and position stand is by the American College of Sports Medicine.

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They get to get like a dozen people with PhDs in strength science and they read

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through like a hundred systematic reviews.

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And then they say, okay, so this is the state of current scientific knowledge

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on this topic. Right. So this is like an exhaustive list kind of position stand.

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And so probably the biggest takeaway is that the, from this stand is that the biggest benefit,

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in terms of how much strength you gain, in terms of like health benefits,

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like life extension and rejection of chronic disease, improved cognitive function, all that kind of stuff,

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comes from when you go from doing nothing to doing a little bit.

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So from that perspective, anything, the routine that you do is better than the

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routine that you don't do.

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Even if the routine that you do kind of is suboptimal and it's not perfectly

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designed or whatever, it's like just doing something is way better than doing nothing.

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So if you're out there badly training your clients, like high five because you're

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training your clients and they're getting way more benefit than if you weren't

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training them. So good on you.

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So that's number one. And, and, but the second thing I think is that I think

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in Pilates especially, but even in physical therapy, there's a lot of confusion

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about what strength means and people use the word to mean different things.

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Sometimes people use it to mean endurance. Sometimes they use it to mean power.

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Sometimes they use it to mean strength in the, in the technical definition.

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I think a lot of times in Pilates, we don't actually know what we mean when

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we say the word strength. And so we say, oh, we're helping our clients get stronger.

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But when, if I said, okay, what specifically, what does that mean?

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A lot of people I don't think would be super clear on that.

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And so I think that's where we get into all these debates about his Pilates

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strength training or whatever.

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It's like, well, first we have to just get clear on actually what it means to

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help someone get stronger.

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Yeah, so the challenge with this kind of conversation I've found personally

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is almost like a lack of words to describe exactly what's happening.

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So, you know, you say, okay, well, potentially what we're doing in the rep range

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with like my method of reformer training is we're pushing like 30 plus reps,

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you know, and then you would consider that potentially more endurance.

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And then the outcome though is still over time clients can do the same duration

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with more resistance um if heavy is harder or less support body weights the

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load so there is like evidence there purely based on their performance that

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they have improved physically,

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and then you go to what is that is are they stronger now even though it's endurance

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range you know is it strength so that's the the part that i always find that

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i would appreciate a little bit more nuance on and how to describe it accurately

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what the actual outcome is i mean is it just a bit increase in strength endurance but then it's.

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Is that strength, you know what I mean? Yeah. So in, in the broad literature,

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we would define strength as your ability to exert force against an external object.

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So we measure like how heavy of a thing can you move or how much,

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you don't even have to move. It could be isometric, but how much force can you

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exert against an external object?

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And that's very easy to measure. We measure it in newtons or kilograms.

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And so that is just like the higher, the number of

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newtons you can produce the stronger you are and so

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that is strength but then within the

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category of what the acsm would call muscle fitness which

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broadly speaking kind of falls under the umbrella umbrella of

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strength there's endurance which is how

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long you can lift a submaximal amount for so how many

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reps can you do at like three quarters of your maximum for

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example then there's power which is like how

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fast you can move something of moderate load then

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there's speed how fast can you move something light so

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there's all these different and then there's kind of like hybrid like

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you know speed endurance and you know so there's

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there's all of these kind of subcategories of muscle fitness

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and broadly speaking in terms of there's

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a lot of crossover and overlap between all of these

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things uh and broadly speaking

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any of them that you improve you're

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going to accrue a lot of the health and

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life extension benefits and a lot of the functional benefits you know so it's

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not really to say that like pure strength is better than power or endurance

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you know in terms of health or you know whatever so that's one thing is that

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the benefits kind of cross over but obviously if you're sports specific,

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like if you're a speed or power athlete,

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then endurance is not going to be as good, you know, and vice versa, right.

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If you're a marathon runner, you know, power is not very important. Yeah.

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Um, so it becomes kind of sports specific depending on what outcome you're optimizing for. Um, but.

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But in terms of like, there's also a lot of overlap between developing these, uh,

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capacities at a basic level, by which I mean, if you're relatively new to resistance

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training and you do any sort of resistance training, whether you're doing like a hundred reps,

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you know, or two reps with a really, really heavy load or whatever in between,

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you're going to develop all of, you're going to get faster and more powerful

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and stronger and better endurance, like all of the above.

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And if you just do keep doing that,

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you will keep improving all of those attributes up to a certain point.

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But then when you get to a certain level and you're sort of above,

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you're already in the above average category at this point, you know,

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if you want to maximize strength, well, you have to lift really heavy things to maximize strength.

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But if you build up your endurance by doing 30 pushups or 30 lunges or whatever,

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well, you're going to increase your muscle mass.

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And ultimately that is going to increase strength. You're going to get stronger

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by doing that, but you're just not going to get as much stronger as you would

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if you lifted something very heavy, but you're going to get better endurance.

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So you're sort of biasing it more towards endurance, but it's still,

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you're still going to improve your strength.

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And in one way, kind of endurance kind of falls under the umbrella of strength training anyway.

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So in terms of like, what should we be doing with our clients? I think it's like.

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Back to the ACSM point number one, the routine they stick to and enjoy is the

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one that's going to give them the greatest benefit over the time because the

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biggest benefit comes from doing nothing to doing something, right?

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So if we just keep them coming back, like we already won 80% of the battle, right?

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So we have to show them some kind of results over time in order for them to

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achieve that, to look better, feel better, have more energy,

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not have sore knees when they walk upstairs or be able to do all this exercise

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they couldn't do before.

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And so you can do that with endurance you can do with power you

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can do with strength you know like there's no inherent benefit

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to maximizing strength i

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mean yeah i think when you try and maximize anything

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it becomes a little bit obsessive and you

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have to sacrifice other things in order to do it and for

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some people like elite athletes that's a trade they're willing to make but

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for most of our clients they just want to show up a couple of times a week get

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a bit toned have more energy look good in jeans you know it's like it's anything's

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good it's all going to work definitely have you ever played those games video

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games back in the day where you had like a must have been like a character maybe

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it was an athlete or like um.

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On the game and it had like a list of attributes, you know, like speed,

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strength, endurance, power, acceleration.

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Yeah. I'd always love those games so much because I'd be trying to maximize

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the hell out of every attribute. I want these guys to be the fastest,

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strongest possible thing possible.

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Yeah. And I feel like that's kind of the same approach to like training these

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clients. It's like, I want them to be so fucking good, you know,

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like, um, build them up in all the areas.

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Well, you can get people, you can build people up in multiple areas up to a

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point, but no one's ever going to win the gold medal in the marathon and the powerlifting.

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In the same, you know, body because they, to a certain extent,

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once you get to an elite level and for most people, you can improve endurance

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and strength and power all at the same time.

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But once you get to a certain level, like probably competitive level,

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the more you maximize one, you actually have to decrease the other.

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Like there's no marathon runners winning powerlifting competitions because the

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sort of body that you need to win a marathon is kind of the opposite sort of

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a body you need to win a powerlifting competition.

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And so when you get really, really good at, to maximize your strength,

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you have to put on a lot of muscle mass, right?

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You, you, if you go and look at like someone winning a powerlifting or a weightlifting

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competition, they've all got muscles, right?

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And there's a very strong correlation.

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There was a study a few years back where they looked at the Wilkes score of

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elite powerlifters, which is basically just their pound for pound strength rating,

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like it was irregardless of their, their body weight, it was like their,

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their, their relative strength, relative to their body weight.

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What they found was there was almost perfect correlation between the amount

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of muscle mass, muscle mass and their Wook score.

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And so what that says is that over time, you know, someone who's more muscular

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is going to be stronger than someone who's less muscular.

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So anything you do to increase muscle mass is going to increase strength over time.

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And so you can't really kind of separate out those functionalities.

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But if you wanted to become really, really like a speed athlete,

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like if you look at elite mixed martial artists, right, they're not massively

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muscled because all of that extra muscle mass actually slows you down.

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There's more weight you have to move.

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And so it actually hinders you. and it hinders

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your endurance as well because you have to provide oxygen to all of that muscle mass

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so but for most of our clients like i would

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say 90 of our clients we can you

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know increase all of their stats you know at the

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same time but i think often in pilates i'm not necessarily talking about the

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way you teach pilates nathan but the world at large we focus a lot more on moving

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very slowly so we we eliminate the speed and power development which is really

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important not just for athletes but But for everybody,

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like if you have an elderly client,

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their chance of falling and having a fracture is vastly decreased if they have

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increased muscle power.

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Because if you trip, which is how most falls occur...

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You can catch yourself on your leg and explosively decelerate, right?

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Like you catch yourself. That requires power, right? It requires speed and power.

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And so even elderly people, not elite athletes, like everyone needs speed and

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power. And speed and power are the things that decline the fastest.

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Like we say we lose strength and muscle, but actually we lose speed and power

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much more quickly as we age.

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Everyone, you know, will know that elderly people aren't as fast. Yeah.

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As younger people, right? Even more obviously, even the, even the,

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the kind of fit muscular elderly people are slower than fit muscular younger people, you know?

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And so speed and power is something we really need to work to preserve as we age.

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And so I think there's a real need for moving fast in, you know,

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with load in Pilates, you know? Yep. But I think we neglect that a lot.

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Yeah, that's right. But, you know, if you talk about the purpose of training

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to kind of prepare your body for the real world, like obviously you have to

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move quick in the real world too.

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Yeah. Yeah. And it's usually things that you're not anticipating.

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So, you know, reacting to situations

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like getting out of the way of like a vehicle you didn't see or, um,

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yeah, an obstacle you didn't see or, you know, someone kind of running into

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you and you have to kind of catch yourself, you know, all those moments that require you.

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I think, um, yeah, to be ready.

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So you have to have the body that's capable the.

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The muscle mass thing, I think, could be like a really good way to minimize

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the confusion because if the outcome of your training is you increase muscle

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mass, then you get all the benefits of that, you know. Right.

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And there are lots of research, like I said at the start, on the correlation

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between strength training and longevity

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and health and dementia and mental health, all that kind of stuff.

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And so we can look at three things when we look at that.

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We look at strength training volume, like how much strength training you do

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on an average week look at muscle mass which is like a pretty

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good correlation between if you do more strength training as long

00:15:47.896 --> 00:15:50.696

as you're doing right you're likely to have more muscle mass over

00:15:50.696 --> 00:15:53.856

time and then third thing is actual strength like how much can you lift right

00:15:53.856 --> 00:15:58.696

and those three things are not exactly the same thing like you could do a lot

00:15:58.696 --> 00:16:01.536

of strength training but do it very badly not put on a lot of muscle mass and

00:16:01.536 --> 00:16:06.996

not get much stronger right or you could do strength training the way that say

00:16:06.996 --> 00:16:09.196

Olympic weightlifters do it, which is very,

00:16:09.456 --> 00:16:11.576

very low reps, staying away from failure,

00:16:11.996 --> 00:16:16.056

focusing more on the explosive power actually is what they develop.

00:16:16.376 --> 00:16:19.376

And so Olympic weightlifters, obviously they're much more muscular than the

00:16:19.376 --> 00:16:23.836

average person, but they're much less muscular than the average bodybuilder.

00:16:24.736 --> 00:16:28.756

And yet they can lift double or triple sometimes what a bodybuilder can lift.

00:16:28.876 --> 00:16:32.276

So strength and muscularity are not exactly the same thing.

00:16:33.156 --> 00:16:37.036

And so there's studies on looking at strength training volume,

00:16:37.276 --> 00:16:40.756

the study's looking at muscle mass and the study's looking at strength as measured

00:16:40.756 --> 00:16:43.416

by how much you can leg press or whatever.

00:16:43.996 --> 00:16:47.956

And they all, all of those things correlate with improved lifespan,

00:16:48.196 --> 00:16:50.116

improved health span, improved quality of life.

00:16:50.816 --> 00:16:55.336

But of them all, strength, objectively measured strength, like how much can

00:16:55.336 --> 00:16:58.896

you leg press, for example, how much can you squeeze on a hand dynamometer,

00:16:59.156 --> 00:17:02.016

that has the highest correlation with strength.

00:17:02.840 --> 00:17:08.460

Health, et cetera. So strength, muscle mass, resistance training volume.

00:17:08.660 --> 00:17:11.780

But muscle mass has a pretty high color. It's not a very big difference between

00:17:11.780 --> 00:17:12.560

muscle mass and strength.

00:17:12.660 --> 00:17:16.900

So I would say, and muscle mass is the easiest thing to train for because you

00:17:16.900 --> 00:17:22.760

can do 30 reps, you can do five reps, you get the same amount of muscle mass. Yep. Right. So yeah.

00:17:23.080 --> 00:17:25.700

And plus that's what makes you look good. Yeah.

00:17:26.280 --> 00:17:31.120

Yeah. Well, I suppose the body composition is just a ratio between body fat

00:17:31.120 --> 00:17:32.880

and muscle mass. Right. Um.

00:17:33.835 --> 00:17:39.035

And it's amazing how much more attractive everyone looks naturally when those

00:17:39.035 --> 00:17:43.855

ratios change, you know, and you build the natural abilities that you already have, you know.

00:17:44.375 --> 00:17:50.495

So I find that exciting that, you know, we could potentially simplify it down

00:17:50.495 --> 00:17:53.635

to just increasing muscle mass because in these general populations,

00:17:53.635 --> 00:17:56.255

anything you're going to do is going to basically do that.

00:17:56.435 --> 00:17:59.755

Anything. And if you're doing 30 reps or even maybe 35,

00:18:00.035 --> 00:18:02.775

40 reps, you know getting pretty close to

00:18:02.775 --> 00:18:05.895

failure in that time you are going to

00:18:05.895 --> 00:18:08.895

increase muscle mass exactly as much

00:18:08.895 --> 00:18:11.935

as if you did five or ten reps like there's

00:18:11.935 --> 00:18:16.375

literally no difference in the outcomes in terms of muscle mass and you're going

00:18:16.375 --> 00:18:23.135

to get for the average person like way more strength than you probably even

00:18:23.135 --> 00:18:28.675

thought you could develop you know just by doing that right and so we don't

00:18:28.675 --> 00:18:31.395

need to maximize strength,

00:18:31.495 --> 00:18:33.235

you know, and if you, you know,

00:18:33.555 --> 00:18:36.855

realistically, if you truly want to maximize strength, you're going to run out

00:18:36.855 --> 00:18:40.695

of options on the reformer fairly quickly because there's just not enough springs.

00:18:40.715 --> 00:18:43.195

And even when you get to body weight, it's just, there's not enough body weight

00:18:43.195 --> 00:18:50.695

to, you know, so I think you can, you can, you can bias for strength,

00:18:50.695 --> 00:18:53.695

you know, as in like very high load,

00:18:53.955 --> 00:18:58.675

relatively low reps, like under 10 reps, you know, to failure when someone's

00:18:58.675 --> 00:19:03.335

relatively a beginner, because there's lots of stuff on the reform that's really hard for a beginner.

00:19:03.755 --> 00:19:08.335

But as you get to be more experienced, you have to have been going like a year

00:19:08.335 --> 00:19:10.855

or so pretty regularly and working pretty hard.

00:19:11.055 --> 00:19:14.115

It's like, you're going to run out of springs, you know, so you have to start

00:19:14.115 --> 00:19:20.275

increasing the reps or you have to add, add some big ass dumbbells at some point. Yep. Yeah.

00:19:20.815 --> 00:19:23.555

Yeah. Yeah, I think the...

00:19:26.354 --> 00:19:31.314

The systems that everyone kind of is creating to try and achieve these outcomes.

00:19:31.534 --> 00:19:35.394

Like that's where the kind of diversity in the market offerings are because

00:19:35.394 --> 00:19:38.074

everyone has a unique take on how to try and get to the same point.

00:19:38.434 --> 00:19:41.934

I mean, I've definitely much different beliefs to a lot of people out there

00:19:41.934 --> 00:19:44.234

about the best way to get to it.

00:19:44.574 --> 00:19:48.714

Um, but that's the magic, you know, you can go out there and you can pick any

00:19:48.714 --> 00:19:51.014

experience you want, you know, you can try them out and see what works for you.

00:19:51.474 --> 00:19:55.074

Um, well, the main thing is the intensity, you know, And when I say intensity,

00:19:55.074 --> 00:19:56.574

it means proximity to failure.

00:19:56.774 --> 00:20:00.814

Like you need to get, to substantially improve muscle mass, you need to work

00:20:00.814 --> 00:20:05.354

within like two or three reps of failure where you literally cannot do another

00:20:05.354 --> 00:20:07.554

concentric, you know, rep. Yep.

00:20:08.692 --> 00:20:13.372

And, you know, you'll get like a non-zero amount of muscle growth if you go

00:20:13.372 --> 00:20:16.872

like five or six or seven reps from failure, but it'll be vastly less.

00:20:17.092 --> 00:20:21.732

And if you go 10 reps from failure, you're basically just doing low intensity cardio. Yep.

00:20:22.392 --> 00:20:25.492

Yep. Which is what most Pilates is. Yeah.

00:20:26.172 --> 00:20:29.612

Especially, you know, if the spring doesn't change, you're doing some extended

00:20:29.612 --> 00:20:32.472

flow. Two years later, it's still two springs on footwork. Yeah.

00:20:32.852 --> 00:20:36.332

Yeah. Yeah. No change over time. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

00:20:36.752 --> 00:20:39.492

All right. So, um, I like it.

00:20:39.592 --> 00:20:44.952

So you bring extra nuance to that topic about, you know, the improvements you can get.

00:20:45.872 --> 00:20:49.872

Technically you are getting stronger, challenging the general population. Um,

00:20:50.432 --> 00:20:55.552

I mean, if we just got everyone in the world, all adults to go to Pilates once

00:20:55.552 --> 00:20:59.832

a week for 50 minutes and just do 30 reps to failure once on each muscle group,

00:20:59.912 --> 00:21:03.572

like we would like massively reduce the burden of chronic disease.

00:21:03.572 --> 00:21:06.552

We would extend people's lives by decades. like this would

00:21:06.552 --> 00:21:09.512

be a major step forward for humanity you know so

00:21:09.512 --> 00:21:12.232

forget optimizing the training we just get

00:21:12.232 --> 00:21:17.152

them to show up and work hard that'd be amazing well

00:21:17.152 --> 00:21:19.932

that's the i think um from other posts i've seen you

00:21:19.932 --> 00:21:22.932

do um you went

00:21:22.932 --> 00:21:26.232

through like a list of things which is kind of typical that a studio owner

00:21:26.232 --> 00:21:29.532

or instructor might be posting you know posting on

00:21:29.532 --> 00:21:32.532

the social media like hey you know i got a spot free wednesday

00:21:32.532 --> 00:21:35.232

night but all you're doing is hitting the same market which is

00:21:35.232 --> 00:21:38.012

already committed you're not kind of accessing the people that

00:21:38.012 --> 00:21:41.872

haven't come yet and they're the ones that you really want to get to so um

00:21:41.872 --> 00:21:44.952

so are you uh providing like

00:21:44.952 --> 00:21:49.912

a training for people how to do paid marketing to kind of access to kind of

00:21:49.912 --> 00:21:54.792

bring in new clients is that something that you've created um when i i've got

00:21:54.792 --> 00:22:00.052

like at the moment like 22k followers on instagram when i do a post it varies

00:22:00.052 --> 00:22:03.652

depending on who shares or whatever but typically i'll get like 1 000 people We'll see a post.

00:22:04.956 --> 00:22:07.356

And so if you're a little Pilates studio and you've got like,

00:22:07.396 --> 00:22:11.576

you know, 1200 followers or whatever, you do a post, I've got a free class on Wednesday night.

00:22:11.716 --> 00:22:15.156

It's like 15 people are going to see that. And they're probably the people who

00:22:15.156 --> 00:22:17.136

are already your clients anyway, who already like your post.

00:22:17.216 --> 00:22:19.116

And that's why the algorithm shows it to them. Yeah.

00:22:19.716 --> 00:22:22.476

So it's like, you're preaching to the choir. Yeah. You're like,

00:22:22.556 --> 00:22:24.956

Hey mom, I've got a class on Wednesday and you want to come.

00:22:25.036 --> 00:22:26.796

You're like, your mom's like, yeah, nah, I'm not coming.

00:22:27.916 --> 00:22:31.196

So I just think social media as a

00:22:31.196 --> 00:22:34.136

marketing tool for a local Pilates business

00:22:34.136 --> 00:22:37.236

is not a great thing because you're limited

00:22:37.236 --> 00:22:40.736

inherently by geography and whereas

00:22:40.736 --> 00:22:43.536

for you and me nathan our market is

00:22:43.536 --> 00:22:46.476

the whole english-speaking world right you're going

00:22:46.476 --> 00:22:50.356

on a tour of the us the uk i've got most of my clients are outside of australia

00:22:50.356 --> 00:22:55.456

uk and us predominantly bit of europe i've got a few in australia too but when

00:22:55.456 --> 00:22:58.856

your market is the whole english-speaking world or at least the big five countries

00:22:58.856 --> 00:23:05.476

australia canada us uk you know new zealand pretty much then yeah Instagram is a great place to,

00:23:05.536 --> 00:23:08.496

to meet people and to introduce yourself to your market and stuff.

00:23:08.596 --> 00:23:11.456

But when your market is like a five mile radius around, you know,

00:23:12.296 --> 00:23:15.756

your studio, it's like that's, Instagram is not the best tool for that in,

00:23:15.956 --> 00:23:18.616

like as an organic medium in most instances.

00:23:19.216 --> 00:23:23.236

And also cause most studio owners like, like as you know, Nathan,

00:23:23.436 --> 00:23:28.956

cause you've been doing it for years to grow an Instagram, like it doesn't mostly happen by accident.

00:23:29.096 --> 00:23:36.616

You have to have a deliberate strategy like it's work it's a job that's right um and uh,

00:23:37.716 --> 00:23:42.416

Most studio owners don't have a strategy and they're not that excited by posting

00:23:42.416 --> 00:23:45.256

on Instagram and it shows. Yeah. You know?

00:23:46.636 --> 00:23:50.216

And so to me, I just think it's basically a waste of time for most people.

00:23:50.776 --> 00:23:55.636

I think Instagram is really good as a, just a source of social credibility.

00:23:55.836 --> 00:23:59.316

Like if, if you look, found an ad for a studio or whatever, you probably go

00:23:59.316 --> 00:24:02.536

and do your due diligence and check them out on Instagram and see if they're legit.

00:24:02.696 --> 00:24:04.836

And if, you know, what, what it looks like. Yep.

00:24:05.196 --> 00:24:07.356

That's what I do. Anytime someone applies for a job with me,

00:24:07.356 --> 00:24:09.196

I'll check out their social media, et cetera.

00:24:09.616 --> 00:24:13.116

Or if I'm talking to a potential new client, I'll check out their Instagram

00:24:13.116 --> 00:24:14.156

and see what they're all about.

00:24:14.436 --> 00:24:18.856

Yep. But I'm not going to find that employee or that client or whatever.

00:24:19.556 --> 00:24:22.636

You know, I'm not going to find them on Instagram. They might find me on Instagram

00:24:22.636 --> 00:24:24.116

because my market's the whole world.

00:24:24.356 --> 00:24:31.356

But yeah, so in terms of paid ads, I don't run a course on paid ads. I do coaching.

00:24:32.116 --> 00:24:35.616

I've got various programs I do with studio owners to coach them.

00:24:35.616 --> 00:24:40.976

And one of the things i'd help people with is paid ads but i don't have a i

00:24:40.976 --> 00:24:45.396

don't i mean we've got trainings inside actually i do have a training but it's

00:24:45.396 --> 00:24:49.256

i don't sell it as a standalone training i share it just with people because

00:24:49.256 --> 00:24:51.256

with people inside my program because.

00:24:52.696 --> 00:24:57.196

I think the pilates industry is in a really really exciting place at the moment

00:24:57.196 --> 00:25:02.076

is growing just unbelievably fast and the speed of growth is accelerating i

00:25:02.076 --> 00:25:06.576

think and we're getting to a stage now, we're in a lot of places,

00:25:07.156 --> 00:25:10.836

uh, Australia, a lot of parts of the US, some parts of the UK now,

00:25:11.156 --> 00:25:13.096

it's becoming quite saturated.

00:25:13.276 --> 00:25:17.216

Like I've got, I've got several clients in my mastermind where there's like

00:25:17.216 --> 00:25:21.076

half a dozen Pilates studios within a four block radius, you know?

00:25:21.876 --> 00:25:23.476

And so the.

00:25:25.716 --> 00:25:28.956

2019 when you could just like open a

00:25:28.956 --> 00:25:32.556

Pilates studio and put a sign out the front saying Pilates and

00:25:32.556 --> 00:25:35.336

you know next day you're full you know those days aren't coming

00:25:35.336 --> 00:25:38.656

back any you know anytime soon and so

00:25:38.656 --> 00:25:42.056

you know what worked in in advertising three

00:25:42.056 --> 00:25:45.236

years ago two years ago doesn't work now you

00:25:45.236 --> 00:25:48.236

know so I think there is no kind of real cookie

00:25:48.236 --> 00:25:50.956

cutter approach and I've got some clients like I said

00:25:50.956 --> 00:25:53.956

in very high competition areas I've

00:25:53.956 --> 00:25:56.836

got other clients opening up the first ever studio in some

00:25:56.836 --> 00:25:59.876

rural town in nebraska or whatever it's like so

00:25:59.876 --> 00:26:02.676

good yeah it's like great it's like put a put a

00:26:02.676 --> 00:26:05.636

handwritten you know sign up in the local local supermarket

00:26:05.636 --> 00:26:09.776

notice board and you're full the next day and so

00:26:09.776 --> 00:26:12.456

i think there's a different strategy you know

00:26:12.456 --> 00:26:15.736

for each studio of course there's overlap but i don't

00:26:15.736 --> 00:26:18.516

think there is one kind of cookie cutter strategy but

00:26:18.516 --> 00:26:21.296

i think one thing you have to know unless you just live in

00:26:21.296 --> 00:26:24.796

a microscopic small town where everyone knows everyone you have

00:26:24.796 --> 00:26:27.776

to learn how to run paid ads and it's

00:26:27.776 --> 00:26:30.576

like you might fucking hate it it might be boring it's like all

00:26:30.576 --> 00:26:36.616

that might be true but it's like well do you hate making money yeah do

00:26:36.616 --> 00:26:42.676

you hate having clients you know like yeah yeah so it's a necessary um necessary

00:26:42.676 --> 00:26:47.396

thing but the thing about it is if you are effective with it then it's like

00:26:47.396 --> 00:26:50.676

it's like a tap you turn on and off, like when you need it. It's pretty cool.

00:26:51.136 --> 00:26:57.136

I, um, you know, I post every day on Instagram. I think I've,

00:26:57.276 --> 00:27:00.756

I don't think I've missed a day since three, four months, you know,

00:27:00.796 --> 00:27:03.156

like I post, even those I don't feel like it, I still post.

00:27:04.816 --> 00:27:08.616

Um, and I also run ads and I'll tell you what's easier.

00:27:11.516 --> 00:27:16.156

Uh, so yeah, the ads are just, just, I mean, you want to reach twice as many

00:27:16.156 --> 00:27:18.156

people, you just double the budget.

00:27:21.276 --> 00:27:27.176

Yeah and then you got all the metrics all the data to look at and then you're optimizing yeah um,

00:27:28.183 --> 00:27:33.023

Very good. Now, another thing I was really interested in is you're talking about

00:27:33.023 --> 00:27:40.303

previously kind of held beliefs about loading the spine, you know,

00:27:40.383 --> 00:27:42.583

being straight or in flexion and things like that.

00:27:45.183 --> 00:27:53.263

And pretty much everyone, you could say, has like an aversion or a fear that,

00:27:53.383 --> 00:27:56.743

you know, if you load the spine in a flex position, then you're going to be

00:27:56.743 --> 00:27:58.023

doing some kind of damage.

00:27:58.183 --> 00:28:02.403

But in the posts I've seen you do recently about that, that's completely the

00:28:02.403 --> 00:28:04.183

other way around. Well, it's interesting.

00:28:04.523 --> 00:28:09.283

Whenever I do a post on that topic, there's a couple of other topics that get

00:28:09.283 --> 00:28:14.263

the same response, like spinal stabilization, like cueing the deep abdominals and stuff like that.

00:28:15.103 --> 00:28:19.703

A couple of other topics, but this is one of the classics. I get comments,

00:28:19.883 --> 00:28:21.723

like I did a post on this a couple of weeks back.

00:28:21.763 --> 00:28:25.403

I think it's up at like several hundred comments already.

00:28:25.763 --> 00:28:28.043

And the comments fall into three baskets.

00:28:28.663 --> 00:28:33.183

Um and basket one is like yes amazing love this post you know thanks so much,

00:28:34.423 --> 00:28:39.103

basket two is like this is bullshit no one says that like no one in pilates

00:28:39.103 --> 00:28:41.823

is saying don't flex your spine i teach my clients to flex your spine you don't

00:28:41.823 --> 00:28:44.143

even know pilates what the fuck are you doing go and learn pilates,

00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:48.959

And then basket three is like, oh, this is so bullshit because neutral spine

00:28:48.959 --> 00:28:51.139

is so important and we should never flex.

00:28:52.999 --> 00:28:56.039

And so group two and group three are directly contradicting each other.

00:28:56.219 --> 00:28:59.819

Cause one, group three is saying, yeah, you know, you should never flex.

00:28:59.939 --> 00:29:01.819

And group two is saying like, no one says that.

00:29:03.819 --> 00:29:07.539

But it's so interesting. And I get it with the core activation thing and spinal

00:29:07.539 --> 00:29:09.799

stability and a couple of other things as well.

00:29:10.319 --> 00:29:12.759

Pelvic tilt. I did one on pelvis. Oh yeah, I love that. You know,

00:29:13.599 --> 00:29:17.299

no one did Pilates teach us pelvic tilt, you know, and then there's right under

00:29:17.299 --> 00:29:19.919

that, there's a comment going, yes, pelvic tilt is so important, you know. Yeah.

00:29:24.699 --> 00:29:30.299

So this is something very interesting to me because of my academic kind of background

00:29:30.299 --> 00:29:32.579

in exercise science and physiology and stuff.

00:29:32.719 --> 00:29:36.699

And just, I've just been really interested in biomechanics for a long time.

00:29:36.699 --> 00:29:44.799

Um, and around the, the year 2000 and the kind of the, the decade after that,

00:29:44.819 --> 00:29:48.059

I was very much into neutral spine.

00:29:48.059 --> 00:29:52.879

I'd like every, I've got lots of photos of me teaching clients. I've got neutral spine.

00:29:52.959 --> 00:29:57.459

I've got testimonials from clients who, you know, I saved like,

00:29:57.559 --> 00:29:58.979

hallelujah, Jesus saved me, you know,

00:30:00.019 --> 00:30:06.679

um, but I'm not saying I'm Jesus, but, um, but like I was saved this client

00:30:06.679 --> 00:30:11.299

says by you know raf taught me neutral spine and now now i can walk again sort of thing um,

00:30:12.681 --> 00:30:16.821

And I was basing that on kind of research that I was reading at the time.

00:30:17.901 --> 00:30:22.081

But since then, there's been a lot more research come out that has basically

00:30:22.081 --> 00:30:28.541

just, I guess, shown a more nuanced position.

00:30:30.141 --> 00:30:35.021

So what we used to think, what I used to think, and what Pilates, I think,

00:30:35.401 --> 00:30:38.641

still thinks, apart from the people who say Pilates doesn't think it,

00:30:38.901 --> 00:30:42.021

is that there's something special about

00:30:42.021 --> 00:30:45.821

neutral spine like it's somehow like safer or more

00:30:45.821 --> 00:30:48.761

efficient or stronger or

00:30:48.761 --> 00:30:52.021

somehow optimizes your ability to activate particular muscles

00:30:52.021 --> 00:30:54.981

correctly or something like there's some kind of special thing about neutral it's

00:30:54.981 --> 00:30:58.481

different to any other particular position you

00:30:58.481 --> 00:31:01.741

know that's just not true like there's just like no evidence

00:31:01.741 --> 00:31:05.121

for it you know it's just neutral is a

00:31:05.121 --> 00:31:07.881

it's not even a position it's a zone and the

00:31:07.881 --> 00:31:11.701

biomechanical definition of neutral is the

00:31:11.701 --> 00:31:15.341

mid-range of any joint where the ligaments around

00:31:15.341 --> 00:31:19.481

the joint are all lax right so ligaments of

00:31:19.481 --> 00:31:23.481

bands of connective tissue that join bone to bone may say they attach you know

00:31:23.481 --> 00:31:26.861

from one vertebra to the next vertebra in your spine and then you got them in

00:31:26.861 --> 00:31:31.421

your elbow your fingers everywhere and there's ligaments on the back that as

00:31:31.421 --> 00:31:34.541

you bend forward those ligaments get tight they stop you bending too far forward

00:31:34.541 --> 00:31:37.021

like you don't want to bend like It's slinky.

00:31:37.221 --> 00:31:41.441

You don't want to be like, you don't want to bend like 90 degrees at your L4-5, right?

00:31:41.941 --> 00:31:45.021

So there's a ligament there to stop, to limit the range of motion. Yeah.

00:31:45.621 --> 00:31:48.301

And there's a ligament on the front that stops you bending too far backwards.

00:31:48.441 --> 00:31:51.041

One on the right that stops you bending too far to the left and so on and so forth.

00:31:51.181 --> 00:31:54.921

So it just stops you from falling into a puddle on the floor and keeps you relatively

00:31:54.921 --> 00:31:56.421

structured. Yeah. Right. Right.

00:31:57.432 --> 00:32:00.552

And so as you bend forward, the ligaments on the back get tight.

00:32:00.772 --> 00:32:02.892

And as you bend backward, the ligaments on the front get tight.

00:32:03.052 --> 00:32:05.292

And when you're in the middle, neither of them are tight.

00:32:05.552 --> 00:32:10.252

Right. And so there's about a 10, you know, roughly 10 degree range of motion

00:32:10.252 --> 00:32:13.932

around the midpoint of the joint where none of the ligaments are tight.

00:32:14.092 --> 00:32:16.712

Right. And that 10 degree range is called the neutral zone.

00:32:17.092 --> 00:32:22.892

Right. And that is actually, interestingly, it's where there is the least stability

00:32:22.892 --> 00:32:26.952

to the joint because all of the ligaments are lax.

00:32:27.212 --> 00:32:30.072

Right. So it's the least ligamentous support in the neutral zone.

00:32:30.152 --> 00:32:32.232

Now, does that mean it's dangerous? No, it's perfectly safe.

00:32:32.232 --> 00:32:33.252

There's nothing wrong with neutral.

00:32:34.764 --> 00:32:39.804

I just, it's not more stable. It's actually less stable mechanically. Yep. Right.

00:32:40.584 --> 00:32:45.464

Um, so yeah, there's just nothing special about neutral.

00:32:45.584 --> 00:32:48.064

Now there's nothing wrong with being in neutral, nothing wrong with teaching

00:32:48.064 --> 00:32:49.984

people to be neutral. It's like fine.

00:32:50.204 --> 00:32:52.064

It's nothing wrong with it at all.

00:32:52.644 --> 00:32:56.104

There's nothing special about it either. And I just think there's no particular

00:32:56.104 --> 00:32:58.604

reason to teach. Why would we teach someone?

00:32:58.884 --> 00:33:02.404

I mean, why would I teach someone 17 degrees of flexion? It just seems like

00:33:02.404 --> 00:33:05.604

a random thing to teach people. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with it, right?

00:33:06.044 --> 00:33:08.384

But it's like, well, why do we teach them zero degrees of flexion?

00:33:08.484 --> 00:33:10.444

What's special about that? Yep. You know?

00:33:12.004 --> 00:33:16.984

And we have interesting literature in several areas.

00:33:17.064 --> 00:33:19.284

So the reason that we think neutral or we thought neutral was,

00:33:19.284 --> 00:33:20.964

you know, better, we thought it was safer.

00:33:21.344 --> 00:33:23.784

We thought it was more stable. We talk about the stability thing.

00:33:23.864 --> 00:33:24.644

It's actually less stable.

00:33:25.024 --> 00:33:31.444

From a purely biomechanical standpoint, we thought it was strongest.

00:33:32.564 --> 00:33:35.644

Um we thought it was most efficient okay so

00:33:35.644 --> 00:33:38.464

when we look at the those in order like all of those are not true

00:33:38.464 --> 00:33:41.944

we'll look at the pain thing right so neutral protection

00:33:41.944 --> 00:33:46.744

against injuries or pain it's like no there's no evidence that people with sore

00:33:46.744 --> 00:33:51.064

backs have worse posture in fact people there's the opposite people with sore

00:33:51.064 --> 00:33:55.244

backs tend to stay straighter when they lift if you look at somebody imagine

00:33:55.244 --> 00:33:56.284

somebody with a really sore back

00:33:56.284 --> 00:33:59.384

imagine doing up their shoes what do you imagine them bending like a cat.

00:33:59.584 --> 00:34:04.004

No, you imagine like staying stiff like a board and kind of like bracing and

00:34:04.004 --> 00:34:05.284

like, you know, getting down on one knee.

00:34:05.604 --> 00:34:10.924

So people with sore backs actually move with more rigid, neutral spines.

00:34:11.344 --> 00:34:14.204

People with no back pain, they're going to slump and slouch and bend,

00:34:14.404 --> 00:34:15.704

you know, it's like a normal person.

00:34:16.784 --> 00:34:19.184

We look at the strength thing, actually, as you bend forward,

00:34:19.364 --> 00:34:25.104

there's very good biomechanical literature and cadavers on this and also in actual living people.

00:34:25.944 --> 00:34:29.684

This is a pretty clear biomechanical finding. As you bend forward,

00:34:29.864 --> 00:34:33.704

uh, and then you got to pick something up, like you pick up something heavy off the floor.

00:34:34.584 --> 00:34:37.444

Uh, if you do it with a rounded back.

00:34:39.157 --> 00:34:42.577

Your ligaments on the posterior side, the back side of your vertebrae,

00:34:42.617 --> 00:34:46.777

and also all the fascia sheets back there, become tight, right?

00:34:46.877 --> 00:34:51.477

And it turns out that ligaments are way stronger than muscles, right? Yep.

00:34:52.589 --> 00:34:57.889

And so you actually can produce more force when you flex because you actually

00:34:57.889 --> 00:35:03.069

tighten up those ligaments and they, it's like pulling on a steel cable as opposed

00:35:03.069 --> 00:35:05.769

to like a flex band, which would be the muscle, the contractile tissue.

00:35:06.149 --> 00:35:11.209

And so at around 90% of your maximum spinal flexion,

00:35:11.409 --> 00:35:18.609

you are substantially stronger, as in you can deadlift more than in a neutral

00:35:18.609 --> 00:35:22.189

spine where you're just using the muscle force because the spine is much less

00:35:22.189 --> 00:35:25.109

stable because you're not tightening those ligaments.

00:35:25.429 --> 00:35:30.229

Yep. So it's more efficient, requires less effort. I mean, you can think about this as well.

00:35:30.589 --> 00:35:35.309

All right, so imagine you have to pick up a coffee cup or a pen off the floor, right?

00:35:36.229 --> 00:35:39.429

Imagine you have to keep your spine neutral to do that. So you stand up tall,

00:35:39.589 --> 00:35:42.469

you're neutral, get your hips under your shoulders, you bring your ribs in,

00:35:42.549 --> 00:35:45.769

everything's perfect. Okay, now lock that in, brace it in that position,

00:35:45.869 --> 00:35:47.189

keep your spine neutral, pick up the pen.

00:35:47.589 --> 00:35:51.189

Okay, that's going to require a lot of effort. Yeah. Right? Whereas if I just

00:35:51.189 --> 00:35:55.929

said like, hey, just bend over like a normal person, pick up the pen, way easier, right?

00:35:56.429 --> 00:36:01.289

So it's more efficient. Now, the definition of efficiency is how much input

00:36:01.289 --> 00:36:04.649

versus how much output, right? If it's more effort to do the same task,

00:36:04.849 --> 00:36:08.069

it's less efficient. That's what efficiency is, right?

00:36:08.289 --> 00:36:12.229

So neutral spine is not safer.

00:36:12.609 --> 00:36:17.929

There's no evidence that people who bend when they lift or whatever get more

00:36:17.929 --> 00:36:24.349

back injuries or anything like that, it's not associated with less pain.

00:36:24.349 --> 00:36:25.669

In fact, it's associated with more pain.

00:36:26.289 --> 00:36:29.589

I don't think that's what causes the pain, but I think it's part of the cycle.

00:36:30.649 --> 00:36:33.529

It's not stronger. It's not more efficient. It's not more stable.

00:36:34.389 --> 00:36:38.009

Now, it's not bad. There's nothing wrong with neutral, right?

00:36:38.269 --> 00:36:41.269

It's like, what's all the fuss about? Yep. Yep.

00:36:42.429 --> 00:36:45.649

Yeah. Wow. There you go. That's awesome. I love it.

00:36:46.289 --> 00:36:50.929

And I know that you're talking about there's natural variation in like –,

00:36:51.625 --> 00:36:55.225

structure of people's hips and then trying to use those points to determine

00:36:55.225 --> 00:37:00.645

like that to me because obviously the body is not symmetrical the body is like

00:37:00.645 --> 00:37:04.585

highly asymmetrical and then that's just in in one body and then you look at

00:37:04.585 --> 00:37:06.405

your variations between all the humans and I mean,

00:37:07.005 --> 00:37:12.745

it's incredible the differences between all of us anyway the idea that everyone

00:37:12.745 --> 00:37:16.425

would have the same points on their hips to kind of better find these things

00:37:16.425 --> 00:37:19.065

I mean you think about it's laughable really. It is.

00:37:19.465 --> 00:37:24.925

And I don't, well, it's laughable when you contrast it, because I think it's

00:37:24.925 --> 00:37:27.025

one of those things that's not immediately obvious.

00:37:28.205 --> 00:37:30.345

It's not obvious until you kind of see it. And then it's like,

00:37:30.405 --> 00:37:33.125

oh yeah, how could I have not seen that? But before you see it, it's not obvious.

00:37:33.585 --> 00:37:38.865

And so I was always under the impression for years and years that that skeletal

00:37:38.865 --> 00:37:41.505

structure is kind of like this immutable structure.

00:37:42.218 --> 00:37:45.638

Thing. Like if you have a structural scoliosis, like a sideways curvature of

00:37:45.638 --> 00:37:49.458

the spine, it's not something you can just fix with exercise or whatever.

00:37:50.018 --> 00:37:52.698

Or if you've got a leg length difference is because one femur,

00:37:52.898 --> 00:37:54.378

one thigh bone is longer than the other.

00:37:54.538 --> 00:37:59.358

It's like, there's no exercise that's going to fix that. So it's kind of immutable in that sense.

00:38:00.438 --> 00:38:04.178

And so it's like, okay, well, if your bone is higher, that's got to mean that

00:38:04.178 --> 00:38:06.518

your pelvis is in the wrong spot, you know?

00:38:07.158 --> 00:38:09.918

So it kind of made sense to me for a long time. But now the more

00:38:09.918 --> 00:38:13.038

I've thought about it and I've read the research obviously now showing

00:38:13.038 --> 00:38:16.138

that we do have different shaped pelvises and different shaped femurs

00:38:16.138 --> 00:38:19.178

and different shaped hip sockets whatever it's like i

00:38:19.178 --> 00:38:22.258

think about it and i think about like way back in the early 20th

00:38:22.258 --> 00:38:26.198

century when we had this kind of what was it called um eugenics or something

00:38:26.198 --> 00:38:30.098

where we'd measure someone's like head circumference and go oh yeah you must

00:38:30.098 --> 00:38:33.918

be dumb because your head circumference is this you know or it's like the distance

00:38:33.918 --> 00:38:38.538

between people's eyes would indicate how trustworthy they were or you know that

00:38:38.538 --> 00:38:41.878

kind of like crazy what we'd now think I was just ridiculous,

00:38:42.478 --> 00:38:44.678

you know, who, what idiot would believe that? Yeah.

00:38:46.298 --> 00:38:50.418

Oh, Nathan's head is X number of centimeters. Therefore his IQ must be this much. Yeah.

00:38:52.058 --> 00:38:56.258

Um, uh, and it's like, well, we're just literally doing the exact same thing

00:38:56.258 --> 00:38:57.598

with your pelvis. Oh, your bones at this point.

00:38:57.698 --> 00:39:00.818

Therefore you've got this muscle balance. It's like, well, no,

00:39:00.918 --> 00:39:05.078

it's like, are people's heads different shapes? Yes. Are their eyes different distances apart?

00:39:05.298 --> 00:39:08.178

Are their ears different heights? Are their cheekbones different?

00:39:08.478 --> 00:39:12.618

You know, of course. Yeah. Of course they are. So why would their pelvises all

00:39:12.618 --> 00:39:14.538

be identical? Yeah. You know?

00:39:16.598 --> 00:39:20.998

Yeah, it's just, I mean, look, look, any, any people, dear listener that you

00:39:20.998 --> 00:39:22.158

know in your life, right?

00:39:22.338 --> 00:39:25.798

Loved ones, family, whatever. Like put your hand next to their hand, right?

00:39:26.118 --> 00:39:29.458

They have different length fingers, different width of your palm,

00:39:29.918 --> 00:39:32.238

different circumference of your finger.

00:39:32.578 --> 00:39:35.358

Like some people's fingers are more straight. Some people's are more wavy.

00:39:35.478 --> 00:39:38.218

Sometimes the middle finger is a bit longer. Sometimes the first finger is a

00:39:38.218 --> 00:39:40.878

little bit like people's hands are very different, right?

00:39:42.201 --> 00:39:45.441

Why would their pelvises be all identical?

00:39:45.941 --> 00:39:49.901

Look at people's feet. Why do we have like 10 different shoe sizes available

00:39:49.901 --> 00:39:51.301

and different widths of shoes?

00:39:51.941 --> 00:39:55.841

Why do we have like regular suit jackets and then tall suit jackets?

00:39:55.941 --> 00:39:57.101

People have different length spines.

00:39:57.681 --> 00:40:02.721

It's like the evidence is just everywhere that people are different sizes and shapes.

00:40:03.461 --> 00:40:07.301

And if you think if you've got someone who's six foot four, 300 pounds and someone

00:40:07.301 --> 00:40:10.961

who's like five foot one, 125 pounds, we think of those two people who died.

00:40:10.961 --> 00:40:14.041

We looked at their skeletons, they would look the same. You know?

00:40:14.841 --> 00:40:21.341

I don't think they would. No. Right? No. So, so it just seems ludicrous the more you think about it.

00:40:21.481 --> 00:40:24.481

Yeah. That if we go, oh, your bony landmark is here and your bony landmark is

00:40:24.481 --> 00:40:28.661

there, therefore you're, this one's wrong, you know, and this one's correct.

00:40:29.161 --> 00:40:32.001

It's just, it's just a meaningless exercise. Yeah.

00:40:32.121 --> 00:40:36.421

Yeah. And the science backs that up, that when we, scientists,

00:40:36.741 --> 00:40:40.381

we get, you know, like the, the,

00:40:40.961 --> 00:40:45.661

And I hope your listeners will forgive me here just to go into slight digression,

00:40:45.781 --> 00:40:51.161

or not digression, but just like nerd out here for a second on the anatomy, is that neutral pelvis,

00:40:51.521 --> 00:40:56.421

okay, as we're taught in the Pilates land, which came from Kendall et al.

00:40:57.061 --> 00:41:00.061

Muscles Testing and Function with Posture and Pain, which was first published

00:41:00.061 --> 00:41:04.921

in I think 1947 or 49 or way back mid-20th century.

00:41:06.246 --> 00:41:11.686

They defined neutral pelvis as when the ASIS, the front pochiated bit on the

00:41:11.686 --> 00:41:17.426

front of the hip bones, and the symphysis pubis were aligned vertically, right?

00:41:17.546 --> 00:41:21.526

So symphysis pubis and your ASIS are directly in line, like neither one is in

00:41:21.526 --> 00:41:22.246

front or behind the other.

00:41:22.906 --> 00:41:27.306

That's neutral. And the idea was that when you are in neutral,

00:41:27.546 --> 00:41:32.026

then the PSIS, the pochiated bit at the back of your pelvis next to the sacroiliac

00:41:32.026 --> 00:41:35.406

joint, would be at the same height as the ASIS.

00:41:35.406 --> 00:41:38.466

Now, when I was taught in Stott Pilates, I was taught on a female,

00:41:38.486 --> 00:41:41.866

it should be one to two centimeters higher and on a male, it should be level in neutral.

00:41:42.406 --> 00:41:47.606

Turns out that's not true. But when scientists actually get cadaver pelvises

00:41:47.606 --> 00:41:52.346

and they put them in a jig, that puts them in a perfect neutral with the ASIS

00:41:52.346 --> 00:41:54.946

and the symphysis pubis perfectly aligned. Okay.

00:41:55.306 --> 00:41:57.306

And they measure the height of the PSIS.

00:41:57.806 --> 00:42:03.566

They find there's a massive variation of up to 23 degrees in how high the PSIS,

00:42:03.766 --> 00:42:06.906

when all of those pelvises are in a textbook neutral with the symphysis pubis

00:42:06.906 --> 00:42:08.106

lined up with the ASIS, right?

00:42:08.286 --> 00:42:14.986

And they also find differences up to like 11 millimeters in the heights of the iliac crests.

00:42:15.586 --> 00:42:21.166

Even when the pelvis, like the ASIS is perfectly level, okay,

00:42:21.986 --> 00:42:23.806

they'll have one iliac crest higher.

00:42:23.966 --> 00:42:25.946

So the test I was taught, a lot of us were taught, you know,

00:42:26.166 --> 00:42:28.726

you feel the iliac crest, oh, this one's higher, therefore your pelvis is hiked

00:42:28.726 --> 00:42:30.866

on the left side or the right side or whatever it might be.

00:42:31.806 --> 00:42:34.946

Maybe that size of the pelvis is just bigger. Like, has anyone ever got like

00:42:34.946 --> 00:42:38.006

one ear bigger than the other one foot bigger than the other one hand bigger than the other?

00:42:38.166 --> 00:42:41.106

Like, you know, it was like, of course, one eye bigger than the other.

00:42:41.246 --> 00:42:44.706

Like we all have these weird asymmetries all over our body, right?

00:42:45.226 --> 00:42:48.906

It's like, why would the pelvis be different? You know, like there's other,

00:42:49.086 --> 00:42:52.746

the average person, can't remember what was left or the right ASIS,

00:42:53.566 --> 00:42:58.126

10 degrees forward of the left ASIS, just structurally, like it's actually a

00:42:58.126 --> 00:42:59.706

pokey or out of your bone, you know?

00:42:59.866 --> 00:43:02.666

And, and so when you're palpating, oh, this side's a bit further forward.

00:43:02.726 --> 00:43:03.546

So your pelvis is rotated.

00:43:04.347 --> 00:43:07.907

Probably not. It's probably just, that's just the shape of the bones.

00:43:08.067 --> 00:43:11.747

You know, just feeling their normal variation in their human shape, you know?

00:43:12.127 --> 00:43:16.947

So yeah, anyway, it's just normal variation and we pathologize it. And, um.

00:43:18.987 --> 00:43:22.847

You know, another study that, uh, I really love, they, they,

00:43:22.967 --> 00:43:26.387

they looked at 120 pain-free people and, um,

00:43:26.787 --> 00:43:32.927

measured the pelvic alignment and they found 75% of women and 85% of men had

00:43:32.927 --> 00:43:34.827

an anterior pelvic tilt. Right.

00:43:36.107 --> 00:43:41.247

And it's like, all right, well, so if 80% of people, pain-free people,

00:43:41.367 --> 00:43:43.007

80% of pain-free people have it.

00:43:43.867 --> 00:43:46.567

Is it a tilt or is it just, that's a normal shape of the pelvis?

00:43:48.007 --> 00:43:49.947

80% of people are above average.

00:43:54.787 --> 00:43:55.887

Yeah. Yeah.

00:43:57.676 --> 00:44:02.856

Yeah, just sit with that for a moment. You know what I mean? It's crazy, isn't it?

00:44:03.176 --> 00:44:07.556

Because that's the pervasive language. That's the standard speak out there,

00:44:07.736 --> 00:44:09.256

you know, the standard kind of thought processes.

00:44:09.916 --> 00:44:13.556

But when you take just a little bit of a look into it, it just doesn't make sense at all.

00:44:13.836 --> 00:44:17.856

Well, I think in Pilates, and like there are so many other disciplines in which

00:44:17.856 --> 00:44:20.116

people do this. I think physiotherapy did this for years.

00:44:20.836 --> 00:44:24.376

You know, other disciplines, osteopathy, chiropractics, classic for it,

00:44:24.556 --> 00:44:27.876

massage, naturopathy, you know, so many disciplines do this.

00:44:27.936 --> 00:44:29.016

I think it's almost universal.

00:44:29.176 --> 00:44:35.636

I think let's just say humans do it. Yeah. Is we, we make up dysfunctions that

00:44:35.636 --> 00:44:37.156

we can then fix with our special method.

00:44:39.816 --> 00:44:44.256

Yeah. Yeah. And, and so we, we gift somebody, you know, oh, congratulations.

00:44:44.256 --> 00:44:48.056

You've got anterior pelvic tilt or your spine's unstable or what you've got

00:44:48.056 --> 00:44:50.796

a hyperlordosis or your glutes don't fire properly or whatever.

00:44:51.516 --> 00:44:52.816

Oh, don't worry. We can fix it.

00:44:53.936 --> 00:44:56.876

If you just come twice a week for the next five years. Yeah.

00:44:57.256 --> 00:45:00.936

But it's like, the thing is though, we don't need to make up these bullshit

00:45:00.936 --> 00:45:03.616

fairytale, you know, things that don't exist.

00:45:04.056 --> 00:45:08.196

We can just help people get stronger. Like we have a genuine thing that we can

00:45:08.196 --> 00:45:10.876

help people with, which is to fucking live longer. Yeah.

00:45:11.256 --> 00:45:14.696

Like there's nothing finer that you can gift somebody in my opinion.

00:45:15.156 --> 00:45:18.416

So it's like, we don't need to make up stupid, you know, make believe,

00:45:18.676 --> 00:45:23.916

you know, pathologies like anterior pelvic tilt or glutes not firing properly.

00:45:24.496 --> 00:45:29.116

Like when just, when there's a genuine pathology, which is people aren't exercising

00:45:29.116 --> 00:45:31.916

enough. They're not strong. They're not confident in their bodies.

00:45:32.596 --> 00:45:36.076

We can, we can fix that. We actually can fix it. It's a real thing and we can

00:45:36.076 --> 00:45:40.176

actually fix it. So let's just do that. Yeah. Let's just do that really well. Yeah.

00:45:41.136 --> 00:45:45.416

Yeah. No, no, it's awesome. That's awesome. It's really refreshing.

00:45:46.522 --> 00:45:49.522

It's almost like when you kind of look at these things in more detail,

00:45:49.662 --> 00:45:53.102

it's almost like a bushfire and it just burns everything away and it's like

00:45:53.102 --> 00:45:57.282

rejuvenating, like the freshness that comes out of it, the new openness,

00:45:57.602 --> 00:46:01.082

the new focus on actually what is important, you know?

00:46:01.302 --> 00:46:04.342

Because it's so easy to get bogged down in all these kind of like things because

00:46:04.342 --> 00:46:07.722

it's all like second person, third person information bouncing around.

00:46:07.862 --> 00:46:11.982

You've got people debating it without ever having read any literature themselves.

00:46:13.282 --> 00:46:15.302

Because someone else said it and someone else said it.

00:46:15.802 --> 00:46:18.602

And that was me like 15 years ago, you know?

00:46:19.042 --> 00:46:22.642

And so no shade on anyone out there. If you've, if that's what you currently

00:46:22.642 --> 00:46:25.822

believe or have believed or whatever, it's like, yeah, we've all been there

00:46:25.822 --> 00:46:27.422

and you have to trust people.

00:46:27.742 --> 00:46:30.922

You know, when I went to Pilates certification, that's what I was taught.

00:46:31.042 --> 00:46:33.182

I was like, why wouldn't I believe that these people are the teachers?

00:46:33.282 --> 00:46:35.062

They've got a textbook and it seemed legit.

00:46:35.822 --> 00:46:37.982

And I think they genuinely believed what they were teaching me.

00:46:37.982 --> 00:46:41.682

They just didn't know any better, which is a bit shameful really,

00:46:41.782 --> 00:46:44.962

because as an educator, I think it is incumbent. I think you actually have an

00:46:44.962 --> 00:46:50.442

obligation to actually fact check and learn what you're teaching if it actually is true.

00:46:51.182 --> 00:46:55.402

But I think it reminds me of that meme, the sort of like the idiot savant meme,

00:46:55.562 --> 00:47:00.422

sort of like, you know, there's the village idiot who's got this very simplistic

00:47:00.422 --> 00:47:03.862

view of like, oh, why don't we just help people get stronger, you know?

00:47:04.442 --> 00:47:07.942

And then there's this like journeyman who's like, you know, knows a little bit

00:47:07.942 --> 00:47:10.462

and they're like, oh no, we've got to fix their anterior pelvic tilt and correct

00:47:10.462 --> 00:47:13.082

their muscle activation and their pelvic and their lordosis and their,

00:47:13.082 --> 00:47:15.742

you know, tibial torsion and their blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:47:15.922 --> 00:47:19.822

And then there's the Jedi master who's like, hmm, why don't we help people get stronger?

00:47:23.242 --> 00:47:28.242

Yeah. Yeah. I can see why these ideas, they can be kind of.

00:47:31.138 --> 00:47:34.838

It's kind of like this, they sound technical enough to be true.

00:47:35.838 --> 00:47:38.858

So it's easier to believe because it feels like it has credibility.

00:47:38.858 --> 00:47:40.898

And then if it comes from a credible source, you think, well,

00:47:41.038 --> 00:47:45.158

it must be, you know, why else would they be talking about it if it wasn't important?

00:47:45.438 --> 00:47:48.838

Yeah. And I 100% agree with that.

00:47:48.918 --> 00:47:53.478

And I think the thing is with credible sources, you shouldn't,

00:47:53.598 --> 00:47:56.718

you know, dear listener, you shouldn't trust anyone.

00:47:56.878 --> 00:48:01.538

You shouldn't trust me. like in this episode, I haven't cited any specific research papers.

00:48:01.778 --> 00:48:04.578

And so don't take what I say here as gospel.

00:48:05.198 --> 00:48:07.098

Uh, if you want to, uh,

00:48:08.461 --> 00:48:12.601

you know, look at one of the 350 plus episodes of my podcast where I've talked

00:48:12.601 --> 00:48:17.161

about these topics repeatedly. And I do have a crap ton of scientific citations

00:48:17.161 --> 00:48:18.561

on each of those episodes.

00:48:18.861 --> 00:48:24.201

And so it doesn't matter who says it, I think you should always look for,

00:48:24.401 --> 00:48:29.281

if someone's making a claim about something about exercise science or strength

00:48:29.281 --> 00:48:31.741

or pelvic tilt or pain or stability,

00:48:32.261 --> 00:48:36.181

they should have, you should, it should be a totally normal thing to ask them,

00:48:36.241 --> 00:48:37.001

well, well, how do you know that?

00:48:37.561 --> 00:48:40.861

You know, how do you know that's true? Because I've known lots of things that

00:48:40.861 --> 00:48:42.281

were true that turned out to be not true.

00:48:43.781 --> 00:48:48.001

And so you have to be able to ask that question. And I think it's a massive

00:48:48.001 --> 00:48:51.641

red flag if someone doesn't want you to ask that question.

00:48:52.661 --> 00:48:56.561

How do you know that? Yep. That's right. Yep.

00:49:00.001 --> 00:49:08.901

Now, just before we came on air today, I was talking to Raph about one of his posts.

00:49:09.321 --> 00:49:14.801

He was saying that it seems like a common practice that new instructors get

00:49:14.801 --> 00:49:16.921

overloaded by trying to learn how to do everything.

00:49:17.501 --> 00:49:20.301

They're trying to do like a hundred things, but not doing any of them very well.

00:49:21.581 --> 00:49:24.781

And i think that reminds me

00:49:24.781 --> 00:49:28.581

of that uh must have been a quote from bruce lee maybe like don't fear the guy

00:49:28.581 --> 00:49:33.801

who does has done 10 000 kicks fear the guy's done one kick 10 000 times i thought

00:49:33.801 --> 00:49:37.921

it was so funny because that is the same philosophy i've got when it comes to

00:49:37.921 --> 00:49:42.701

like training a new trainer um so rather like i'll do like a general,

00:49:44.335 --> 00:49:47.775

kind of workshop induction about like the loading principles

00:49:47.775 --> 00:49:50.795

and about the philosophy and some of

00:49:50.795 --> 00:49:53.555

the methods like the teaching method but as soon as that's done which takes about less

00:49:53.555 --> 00:49:58.035

than an hour then we just focus on teaching one exercise we do it like 10 or

00:49:58.035 --> 00:50:02.275

15 times and we do it right before a practice teaching session and then they

00:50:02.275 --> 00:50:06.935

just teach that exercise three four classes in a row and then next week we do

00:50:06.935 --> 00:50:10.795

same process again just add another exercise until eventually they're doing the whole warm-up,

00:50:11.095 --> 00:50:13.575

then doing third of the class, half the class.

00:50:14.015 --> 00:50:17.835

And then, so you get that contact time and you get the reps in.

00:50:17.975 --> 00:50:21.515

And it's very like, if you look at the time you practiced it versus the time

00:50:21.515 --> 00:50:24.795

you get to use it, it's literally, we did it like eight times in a row and now

00:50:24.795 --> 00:50:27.735

you're teaching it right now. So that...

00:50:29.184 --> 00:50:33.624

That post you have on that, I just could not agree more with that because it

00:50:33.624 --> 00:50:38.444

just is very, very effective at skill acquisition because you're just getting

00:50:38.444 --> 00:50:39.664

to action everything straight away.

00:50:40.124 --> 00:50:44.664

Yeah. Yeah. I think there's no, it's not a coincidence that you like that because

00:50:44.664 --> 00:50:49.424

I think it's just that reflects a reality about how humans learn.

00:50:49.624 --> 00:50:53.404

You know, it's like no one is going to learn better by trying to memorize a

00:50:53.404 --> 00:50:57.564

thousand things at the same time. Like it doesn't, that's not how a human brain works.

00:50:58.144 --> 00:51:03.924

So anybody who's taught a lot and experimented with different methods of,

00:51:04.064 --> 00:51:06.984

you know, speeds of progression and different ways of training people,

00:51:07.424 --> 00:51:09.644

eventually you have to figure this out.

00:51:09.884 --> 00:51:15.024

You know, it's better when you drip feed things to people and let them get them

00:51:15.024 --> 00:51:19.944

doing a lot of reps of something very basic and then get them to implement that

00:51:19.944 --> 00:51:23.584

and then keep cycling on that until they nailed it. And then you move on to

00:51:23.584 --> 00:51:24.644

the next thing, you know?

00:51:25.204 --> 00:51:28.324

And if you read the scientific literature that's what

00:51:28.324 --> 00:51:31.144

it says as well but it's like that's the scientific literature is just

00:51:31.144 --> 00:51:33.864

literally people did trial and error experiments and figured out what

00:51:33.864 --> 00:51:36.964

worked and that was it you know but i

00:51:36.964 --> 00:51:45.424

think that in pilates we we mistake often breadth for depth and we think like

00:51:45.424 --> 00:51:48.984

okay if you know 500 exercises and you're comprehensively trained that makes

00:51:48.984 --> 00:51:49.944

you a good instructor it's like

00:51:49.944 --> 00:51:55.544

well knowing an exercise is not a binary it's not like a zero or a one,

00:51:55.624 --> 00:51:58.804

you either don't know it or you do it. And it's like, well, how well do you know it? You know?

00:51:59.344 --> 00:52:04.244

Okay. You can do it, but can you cue it?

00:52:04.524 --> 00:52:08.064

Can you cue it to someone who doesn't know those anatomical terms?

00:52:08.284 --> 00:52:10.844

Can you cue it to someone who's never been on a reformer before?

00:52:11.774 --> 00:52:15.714

What do you do if someone can't do it on the spring setting that you gave it?

00:52:15.874 --> 00:52:17.674

You know, how do you know what, do you know what that looks like?

00:52:17.974 --> 00:52:21.954

You know, and how many more springs do you take off or add on based on what you see?

00:52:22.054 --> 00:52:26.954

And like all of these things are things that it just takes time to learn, you know?

00:52:27.054 --> 00:52:31.914

And I think the example I use in a podcast recently with Heath was my daughter's

00:52:31.914 --> 00:52:37.294

been, she's 19 and she's been, become sort of mildly obsessed with baking sourdough bread.

00:52:37.434 --> 00:52:40.634

Oh, nice. And so she watched a couple of TikTok videos, learned how to make

00:52:40.634 --> 00:52:42.034

sourdough starter and just did it all myself.

00:52:43.543 --> 00:52:46.783

And the first couple of loaves, you know, it didn't turn out perfect, but they were edible.

00:52:47.063 --> 00:52:49.723

And then after, you know, three or four loaves, she started to get the hang

00:52:49.723 --> 00:52:52.643

of it, but then she sort of started to overcorrect and then she undercorrected

00:52:52.643 --> 00:52:55.943

and then she, you know, and so after her like 20th or 30th loaf,

00:52:56.103 --> 00:52:58.583

it's now like perfect every time. Yep.

00:52:59.223 --> 00:53:04.203

But you just have to go on that journey of reps, you know, to encounter those

00:53:04.203 --> 00:53:06.723

kinds of weird situations where like it was a little bit different,

00:53:06.823 --> 00:53:09.523

you know, the fridge was a different temperature or the humidity was different

00:53:09.523 --> 00:53:10.863

that day or the whatever.

00:53:10.863 --> 00:53:13.663

And you just have to learn how to incorporate all

00:53:13.663 --> 00:53:16.643

of those little variations into the way that you use a

00:53:16.643 --> 00:53:19.743

skill and that you just have to do reps like

00:53:19.743 --> 00:53:24.583

there's no substitute for reps in in learning and if you're learning 500 things

00:53:24.583 --> 00:53:28.643

you do one rep of each thing it's like you don't get enough air time that's

00:53:28.643 --> 00:53:34.743

the bruce lee thing right you just you need more reps and so i think it's kind

00:53:34.743 --> 00:53:38.643

of backwards the way people in Pilates broadly,

00:53:38.643 --> 00:53:40.643

you know, view quality.

00:53:40.763 --> 00:53:44.243

They say, oh, you know, we, all our instructors are comprehensively certified

00:53:44.243 --> 00:53:45.523

with 500 hours of training.

00:53:45.683 --> 00:53:48.003

It's like, yeah, but what did they do in those 500 hours?

00:53:48.223 --> 00:53:52.643

You know, like if they spent 500 hours and they need to teach footwork,

00:53:52.743 --> 00:53:54.563

I'd be like, fuck, I bet this person is really good.

00:53:56.823 --> 00:54:00.743

But if they've learned 500 exercises and spent one hour on each of them,

00:54:00.883 --> 00:54:04.183

including learning how to do it themselves, I'd be like, yeah,

00:54:04.183 --> 00:54:04.883

they probably know nothing.

00:54:05.083 --> 00:54:07.383

Yeah. Because there's no way they remember them all.

00:54:07.683 --> 00:54:12.103

Yeah. Like if you get to number 500, there's no way you remember number one or number 17.

00:54:12.403 --> 00:54:17.643

Yep. Right. So I think, you know, simply listing all of the things that you've

00:54:17.643 --> 00:54:25.063

supposedly in quotes learned is, it's not only kind of misses the point,

00:54:25.123 --> 00:54:26.663

I think it's kind of flips the point.

00:54:26.963 --> 00:54:31.303

It's like literally the more breadth you learn, the less depth you can learn.

00:54:31.303 --> 00:54:32.943

Because we've only got so much capacity.

00:54:34.037 --> 00:54:38.497

And so if my daughter had done one loaf of sourdough, then done a salad,

00:54:38.657 --> 00:54:42.477

then done a chicken Kiev, then, you know, practice flambé and crepe Suzette's,

00:54:42.517 --> 00:54:45.617

it was like, she would be shit at all of those things, you know?

00:54:46.897 --> 00:54:50.957

Whereas she's done like 50, 60 loaves of sourdough now. She's really fucking

00:54:50.957 --> 00:54:52.197

good. She could sell it. Yeah.

00:54:52.357 --> 00:54:55.557

You know, she could sell it. And it's like, every time she puts a loaf in the

00:54:55.557 --> 00:54:57.797

oven, I know it's going to turn out exactly perfect.

00:54:57.877 --> 00:54:59.537

And she brought two loaves out the other day and she was like,

00:54:59.577 --> 00:55:01.477

oh, which one do you think is the good one?

00:55:01.497 --> 00:55:05.257

I'm like, they're both perfect. like she's like no this one's better i'm like

00:55:05.257 --> 00:55:09.857

yeah they both look fucking perfect to me like and so she's now at the point

00:55:09.857 --> 00:55:13.357

where it's like you know this one's like a quarter of a percent better in her

00:55:13.357 --> 00:55:17.917

mind because of something that's like dude they're both like top one percent awesome.

00:55:20.037 --> 00:55:22.797

That's the that's what comes from just lots of

00:55:22.797 --> 00:55:25.537

reps with introspection and feedback and looking at

00:55:25.537 --> 00:55:28.877

tiktok and going oh mine doesn't look like hers you know and then why is

00:55:28.877 --> 00:55:31.537

why did it turn out this way and then just trying to figure it all

00:55:31.537 --> 00:55:34.277

out and getting really good at doing a narrow range of things

00:55:34.277 --> 00:55:37.037

and then she can start to branch out and add in she did

00:55:37.037 --> 00:55:39.677

a fruit and nut loaf and the first one kind of sucked because it

00:55:39.677 --> 00:55:42.857

made it too heavy and it didn't rise at the right but then she figured out oh

00:55:42.857 --> 00:55:45.677

if i use these different fruit and nuts and i fold it in this different way

00:55:45.677 --> 00:55:49.077

and i put it on this different temperature it's like after five or six attempts

00:55:49.077 --> 00:55:52.897

she's nailed it right and then she's like oh what if i made crackers and what

00:55:52.897 --> 00:55:56.877

if i you know and so now she's done a chocolate loaf and she's done all these

00:55:56.877 --> 00:55:58.477

kinds of different layers. Yeah, that's cool.

00:55:58.877 --> 00:56:02.897

And that just comes, that's the equivalent in Pilates of if we're teaching footwork

00:56:02.897 --> 00:56:04.077

and now we've come across someone,

00:56:04.197 --> 00:56:06.957

oh, someone had a knee replacement or someone had a sore back or someone had

00:56:06.957 --> 00:56:10.377

never done Pilates before or somebody, you know, was really strong and had been

00:56:10.377 --> 00:56:14.097

squatting double their body weight at the gym or, you know, like now we've faced

00:56:14.097 --> 00:56:14.837

all of those situations.

00:56:14.857 --> 00:56:16.977

We've figured out how to solve each of those.

00:56:17.117 --> 00:56:20.617

And now somebody else comes in we've never seen before. It's like we've seen every other darn thing.

00:56:20.797 --> 00:56:23.877

So we can just figure it out on the fly because there's nothing can surprise

00:56:23.877 --> 00:56:27.157

us at this point. We've just done the reps, you know, but I said to my daughter,

00:56:27.297 --> 00:56:30.637

Hey, do a loaf with cinnamon and apple.

00:56:30.777 --> 00:56:33.537

She'd be like, yeah, you know, bam, probably turned out perfect first time.

00:56:33.637 --> 00:56:35.837

Cause she's done enough reps now. She just knows.

00:56:36.765 --> 00:56:41.045

She knows what it's meant to look like, feel like, smell like, taste like. Yep. Yeah.

00:56:41.485 --> 00:56:44.865

And that's where the confidence comes from because you've got the experience

00:56:44.865 --> 00:56:49.885

to back it up and then you can predict, you'd be able to kind of anticipate

00:56:49.885 --> 00:56:53.685

and predict success in the future based on what you've done in the past.

00:56:53.685 --> 00:56:57.365

So you're walking into environments where there's like not many things that

00:56:57.365 --> 00:56:59.205

you wouldn't be aware of that you wouldn't be able to handle.

00:57:01.005 --> 00:57:04.505

So maybe one of the reasons why new instructors feel a little bit stressed is

00:57:04.505 --> 00:57:07.445

because they're trying to learn 500 things and not, not, not doing anything

00:57:07.445 --> 00:57:10.725

well, you know, just take it, strip it right back to the, what's the one,

00:57:10.845 --> 00:57:12.825

because you can only teach one exercise at a time, right?

00:57:13.165 --> 00:57:16.785

That's why I always get, I always get the fires of me up.

00:57:16.885 --> 00:57:21.545

It's like, there's no, there's no point getting fancy with stuff. You know what I mean?

00:57:21.745 --> 00:57:26.685

Like it's, to being a great teacher isn't really about knowing all these exercises.

00:57:26.805 --> 00:57:29.385

It's about how well are the clients doing the exercise you gave them.

00:57:29.605 --> 00:57:33.945

That's what makes you good. So being fucking awesome at teaching the fundamental basic exercises,

00:57:34.645 --> 00:57:37.345

sets them up to be able to do everything else so if you can't teach them how

00:57:37.345 --> 00:57:40.685

to do a lunge or a chest press or a plank then

00:57:40.685 --> 00:57:43.325

that's the fucking problem because that's the thing they have to be good at

00:57:43.325 --> 00:57:46.005

first it's like the prerequisite to every other exercise it's like you

00:57:46.005 --> 00:57:49.465

unlock exercises based on building the core attributes

00:57:49.465 --> 00:57:53.285

to better handle the different variations so when i'm

00:57:53.285 --> 00:57:55.985

teaching an instructor i'll be getting them to look at all

00:57:55.985 --> 00:57:59.225

right they've just given the movement cue everyone's moving i'd stand

00:57:59.225 --> 00:58:01.865

there on the side of the room with them at a vantage point about like all right

00:58:01.865 --> 00:58:04.925

cool how many people are moving exactly the way you intended so we're looking

00:58:04.925 --> 00:58:09.685

at speed of movement range of motion body position springs and coordination

00:58:09.685 --> 00:58:13.125

is everything exactly the way you wanted and you might go okay we're doing footwork

00:58:13.125 --> 00:58:16.425

he said you want to toes in the bar but see there's three people with the heels in the bar.

00:58:17.131 --> 00:58:19.991

So they pre-cure that, you know, they're like, okay, cool. So they're already

00:58:19.991 --> 00:58:22.191

starting to get the feedback loop from the environment.

00:58:22.431 --> 00:58:27.651

And they know that if we've got 18 people in the room, 18 out of 18 have to

00:58:27.651 --> 00:58:29.791

get it before you do anything else. There's no point.

00:58:30.291 --> 00:58:34.171

So that's kind of like internal metric. And you want that to be internalized

00:58:34.171 --> 00:58:36.991

within them because that means you're building autonomy and they're going to

00:58:36.991 --> 00:58:38.511

be awesome when you're not there.

00:58:38.951 --> 00:58:42.311

Yeah. Well, that's exactly the way we teach as well. The first thing is you've

00:58:42.311 --> 00:58:44.911

got to just say the words to get people into the position.

00:58:45.291 --> 00:58:47.851

Second thing is you got to look and say, like, are they actually doing,

00:58:48.011 --> 00:58:51.631

you know, what I ask them to do, like are the heels or toes or whatever it might be.

00:58:51.991 --> 00:58:55.391

The third thing is that we teach, and I'm pretty sure you teach some version

00:58:55.391 --> 00:58:58.371

of this as well, is like, well, are they at the right level of challenge?

00:58:58.751 --> 00:59:01.431

Does this person need an extra spring? Does this person need to move faster

00:59:01.431 --> 00:59:04.271

or smaller range of motion or whatever? Do we need to put foot bar down for this person?

00:59:05.171 --> 00:59:08.151

And then the fifth thing, or the next thing, I've got what number we're up to,

00:59:08.231 --> 00:59:10.031

but the next thing is we progress it.

00:59:11.111 --> 00:59:14.111

So everybody's there, everybody's with it, everybody's working. Great. Next level.

00:59:14.551 --> 00:59:19.071

Yep. Um, and I think where we, I think we often confuse this and I,

00:59:19.071 --> 00:59:22.691

I certainly made this mistake as a relatively young instructor is we feel like

00:59:22.691 --> 00:59:26.231

we need to entertain the clients by giving this constant stream of novelty in

00:59:26.231 --> 00:59:27.191

the exercise selection.

00:59:27.791 --> 00:59:32.311

But we're actually like as a lifelong exerciser and dear listener,

00:59:32.551 --> 00:59:34.391

you're probably in this basket as well.

00:59:34.511 --> 00:59:37.531

If you love Pilates, you probably do a lot of Pilates and you probably do a

00:59:37.531 --> 00:59:39.571

lot of exercise and running and weights or whatever you do.

00:59:40.051 --> 00:59:44.411

It's like the joy in the activity people. and there's research on this as well

00:59:44.411 --> 00:59:48.971

in terms of behavior change, people usually start an activity for extrinsic reasons.

00:59:49.131 --> 00:59:52.991

So they want to lose weight, they want to look better, they want to fit into

00:59:52.991 --> 00:59:54.891

their dress or they fit it into high school or whatever it is.

00:59:55.471 --> 00:59:58.051

But that doesn't keep you going five years later.

00:59:59.091 --> 01:00:03.771

People keep going five years later because the intrinsic joy of the activity, it feels good to do it.

01:00:04.031 --> 01:00:08.171

Just regardless of the result you get, it's just you like doing it and it becomes

01:00:08.171 --> 01:00:10.331

inherently rewarding to do it well.

01:00:10.731 --> 01:00:13.311

Anybody got good at anything is because you.

01:00:14.512 --> 01:00:18.192

You've found an inherent reward in improving it at doing that thing.

01:00:18.472 --> 01:00:24.052

Like it just feels like there's no, it's not good because it just is good. Right. That's the end.

01:00:24.552 --> 01:00:29.872

And so when you exercise and you get stronger, that is inherently rewarding.

01:00:30.092 --> 01:00:33.052

Right. If you can do six pushups and last week you get under do five,

01:00:33.212 --> 01:00:34.732

like that is not fucking boring.

01:00:35.072 --> 01:00:38.792

That is really fucking exciting. Like people get really excited about that.

01:00:39.112 --> 01:00:42.572

And when you get to the, when you do 30 pushups and 40 pushups, it's like.

01:00:43.152 --> 01:00:47.732

Fuck yeah, I'm like a super being now you know and and

01:00:47.732 --> 01:00:50.552

so like i think we we don't give

01:00:50.552 --> 01:00:53.872

people credit our clients credit for like

01:00:53.872 --> 01:00:56.692

people can be very motivated by

01:00:56.692 --> 01:00:59.752

very simple routines as long as they're progressing

01:00:59.752 --> 01:01:03.372

as long as they're getting better at doing the thing you

01:01:03.372 --> 01:01:07.312

don't need a lot of variety most of the time yep yep and

01:01:07.312 --> 01:01:10.232

the part of that is the education of like them understanding how they're improving

01:01:10.232 --> 01:01:13.192

like if they're doing the same exercise in a different spring setting

01:01:13.192 --> 01:01:16.712

which is technically harder a lot of the times they wouldn't

01:01:16.712 --> 01:01:19.552

understand why is like the lightest spring harder in

01:01:19.552 --> 01:01:22.372

this exercise why is the heaviest spring harder you know

01:01:22.372 --> 01:01:25.092

it's based on the loading you know like if we change the

01:01:25.092 --> 01:01:27.952

body position to stretch the spring more why is that harder you know

01:01:27.952 --> 01:01:31.492

so being able to kind of say all right everyone who wants an extra challenge

01:01:31.492 --> 01:01:36.112

yep everyone's like no like yes let's go all right everyone if you're next to

01:01:36.112 --> 01:01:39.052

challenge next time you push your arms straight let's lift the hips you know

01:01:39.052 --> 01:01:42.032

and the reason that's harder is you stretch the springs more it gives you more

01:01:42.032 --> 01:01:47.172

resistance so um so then okay cool so it's not just do this.

01:01:48.279 --> 01:01:50.979

Okay this this context like if you do

01:01:50.979 --> 01:01:53.839

it this will happen and then there's also why is it harder

01:01:53.839 --> 01:01:56.719

so you do that enough

01:01:56.719 --> 01:02:00.219

all the clients like know just know everything so by the time you're teaching

01:02:00.219 --> 01:02:03.659

like a intermediate slash advanced class they pretty much have almost like an

01:02:03.659 --> 01:02:07.499

instructor level understanding and they also means they know how to cheat so

01:02:07.499 --> 01:02:10.999

then you have to like watch that be like hey where are your feet over there

01:02:10.999 --> 01:02:16.579

you know um but it brings a lot of joy because you're focusing on such small details, you know?

01:02:17.039 --> 01:02:22.159

Yeah. I think it's funny that the, the, like you say, the small details.

01:02:22.859 --> 01:02:27.679

Like when you understand the relationships between the equipment settings,

01:02:27.779 --> 01:02:30.639

you know, your football setting, how far you're pulling the ropes,

01:02:30.759 --> 01:02:35.159

where your foot is on the carriage, whatever, spring choices and the load, right?

01:02:35.199 --> 01:02:38.999

And how you can manipulate all of those different things to apply more or less

01:02:38.999 --> 01:02:41.479

load in very, very fine increments to somebody.

01:02:42.039 --> 01:02:46.319

Like you say, when you lift up to your knees in a, in a chest press or,

01:02:46.919 --> 01:02:50.539

um, you know, arms in straps facing the foot bar, like why is that harder?

01:02:50.679 --> 01:02:53.519

Well, there's a balance challenge. Obviously you've got a smaller base of support

01:02:53.519 --> 01:02:57.419

and a longer lever, but predominantly, like you say, you're higher up.

01:02:57.519 --> 01:02:59.899

So you're pulling the ropes further, which stretches the springs further,

01:03:00.039 --> 01:03:02.919

which increases resistance on the spring. So it's harder on your shoulder muscles.

01:03:03.219 --> 01:03:05.099

It's not just harder on your balance and your core. I mean, you know,

01:03:05.219 --> 01:03:10.999

all of this back to front, But, but when you understand that as an instructor,

01:03:11.539 --> 01:03:16.719

like small little details, like move your foot two inches forwards or drop your

01:03:16.719 --> 01:03:18.339

foot bar one rung or whatever.

01:03:19.166 --> 01:03:24.486

Come up to kneeling, you know, can make a massive difference to the client's level of challenge.

01:03:24.606 --> 01:03:28.586

And that's where, even though we're not focusing, hopefully,

01:03:28.906 --> 01:03:33.446

on anterior pelvic tilt or muscle activation or your lordotic curve or whatever,

01:03:34.226 --> 01:03:39.086

small little details in alignment and equipment setting and positioning do make

01:03:39.086 --> 01:03:41.506

a big difference. And it is important to focus on these things.

01:03:41.706 --> 01:03:45.006

And so what I'm advocating, and I know what you're advocating,

01:03:45.146 --> 01:03:48.886

Nathan, is not just like free for all, no one gives a fuck about alignment or whatever.

01:03:48.886 --> 01:03:51.986

Us like that's couldn't be further from the truth but it's

01:03:51.986 --> 01:03:54.806

like we're trying to set people up in their body

01:03:54.806 --> 01:03:58.366

position their equipment settings etc to maximize load

01:03:58.366 --> 01:04:01.546

on the body part we're trying to load within the

01:04:01.546 --> 01:04:05.786

client's capacity so that they're right at the level of their right at the limit

01:04:05.786 --> 01:04:10.926

of their current level of ability and that requires an under a deep understanding

01:04:10.926 --> 01:04:14.626

of how the equipment functions their body mass their height how they relates

01:04:14.626 --> 01:04:18.806

to it and looking at their technique to be able to figure out,

01:04:18.966 --> 01:04:22.506

okay, is this easy, medium or hard for this person based on what I'm seeing? Yep.

01:04:22.786 --> 01:04:26.406

And so all of that's super important and alignment is really important for that

01:04:26.406 --> 01:04:30.086

and details are really important, but just not for the reasons that we probably

01:04:30.086 --> 01:04:36.026

used to think about muscle activation and posture and blah, blah, blah. That's it.

01:04:37.046 --> 01:04:40.886

The purpose of form, I believe, is to guarantee the target muscle group is getting loaded.

01:04:41.626 --> 01:04:43.746

That's why we're here. That's how you get stronger. You know what I mean?

01:04:44.106 --> 01:04:46.926

So like if you're doing an exercise to work your abdominals,

01:04:47.066 --> 01:04:48.246

you don't want to be loading your lower back.

01:04:48.386 --> 01:04:50.546

You know, your form is dictating where the load is being directed.

01:04:50.886 --> 01:04:53.586

Not that there's anything wrong with loading the lower back,

01:04:53.706 --> 01:04:56.646

but if you're trying to load the abs, like let's load the abs.

01:04:57.106 --> 01:04:59.766

And when we load the lower back, let's not load the abs, let's load the lower

01:04:59.766 --> 01:05:03.366

back. That's right. That's right. So you're setting an intention and you're getting the outcome.

01:05:03.786 --> 01:05:13.306

So the form is like the physical way to guide the load to that point, you know, so. um.

01:05:14.360 --> 01:05:19.660

That's why it's so important that the form is right um but the understanding

01:05:19.660 --> 01:05:23.940

of the instructors to be able to kind of always be aware of that that's that's

01:05:23.940 --> 01:05:25.360

also important because like um.

01:05:27.287 --> 01:05:30.267

Coming back to that point we made earlier about being really good at one thing

01:05:30.267 --> 01:05:32.507

at a time and then expanding that.

01:05:33.427 --> 01:05:37.507

A part of the process, for example, like if we're going to teach a lunge,

01:05:37.747 --> 01:05:43.227

it'd be looking at, all right, you know, this name springs, props, body position, move.

01:05:44.587 --> 01:05:46.867

Once you got them to the move part, which is the movement cue,

01:05:47.127 --> 01:05:51.127

what we're looking at is how they're moving, like what positions are they're in.

01:05:51.267 --> 01:05:55.587

And you're looking for things which are like high probability that aren't going to be working.

01:05:56.127 --> 01:05:58.567

Like you've got the foot in the wrong position, the springs are wrong,

01:05:58.927 --> 01:06:00.967

they've got their knee resting on the carriage when you didn't want that,

01:06:01.707 --> 01:06:05.287

the coordination's off, you know, maybe they're going too deep into it,

01:06:05.347 --> 01:06:07.867

turning into like a hip flexor stretch instead of loading up the front leg.

01:06:08.227 --> 01:06:11.807

And obviously there's like so many different ways that people teach a lunge

01:06:11.807 --> 01:06:14.207

and there's so many different beliefs about what you're trying to do with it.

01:06:15.107 --> 01:06:20.447

So just to quantify mine, let's say we're doing body weight lunge so less tension is harder.

01:06:20.787 --> 01:06:24.707

It kind of looks like a single leg deadlift. You're kind of hinging at the hips,

01:06:24.707 --> 01:06:27.867

leaning forward, loading up the front leg. So your glutes on the standing leg are loaded.

01:06:28.627 --> 01:06:32.607

And then as you stand up, carriage comes in. So you're targeting your butt on

01:06:32.607 --> 01:06:33.487

the standing leg, basically.

01:06:33.727 --> 01:06:34.907

And the carriage is there just

01:06:34.907 --> 01:06:37.427

really to support the back leg and stop you falling over. That's right.

01:06:37.647 --> 01:06:40.827

So if you were to put your knee on the carriage, then you're loading up the

01:06:40.827 --> 01:06:43.327

hip flexor on the inside leg and you're taking the weight off the target muscle

01:06:43.327 --> 01:06:44.727

group. So you're not going to get anything out of it.

01:06:44.927 --> 01:06:47.247

So when you're training that new instructor. Well, you are going to.

01:06:47.247 --> 01:06:48.767

It's got to be a nice, gentle hip flexor stretch.

01:06:49.367 --> 01:06:53.387

Yeah. It's not what we wanted. No gentle stretching.

01:06:54.667 --> 01:07:00.267

Yeah. So that, the measurable, basically the target muscle group's the reference

01:07:00.267 --> 01:07:01.427

point of every exercise.

01:07:01.587 --> 01:07:05.567

So if the experience you're meant to be getting is already dictated by what

01:07:05.567 --> 01:07:08.847

the target muscle group is. So if you are getting a light hip flexor stretch

01:07:08.847 --> 01:07:11.887

when you're going to be targeting the glutes, then obviously it's not the right

01:07:11.887 --> 01:07:12.807

outcome. You know what I mean?

01:07:13.167 --> 01:07:16.447

Not acceptable. Um, if you wanted to stretch the hip flexors,

01:07:16.507 --> 01:07:19.487

obviously, yeah, go for it. Um, but the,

01:07:20.643 --> 01:07:24.303

basically in every exercise there's like a probability of what will go wrong

01:07:24.303 --> 01:07:28.143

because once you've seen it like 10 000 times you kind of get like a little

01:07:28.143 --> 01:07:29.843

bit of a list of like oh no well,

01:07:30.363 --> 01:07:34.423

this is probably going to happen so being able to let the instructors know exactly

01:07:34.423 --> 01:07:38.363

what to look for kind of they can anticipate the things and so they find them

01:07:38.363 --> 01:07:42.223

faster and then they teach them how to fix it in advance so then when it happens

01:07:42.223 --> 01:07:45.343

they can just fix it straight away um so yeah obviously,

01:07:46.303 --> 01:07:50.023

this stuff is exciting because you

01:07:50.023 --> 01:07:53.023

can really accelerate the learning of an instructor and the confidence by

01:07:53.023 --> 01:07:55.823

just letting them master one thing at a time rather than trying to overload them with so

01:07:55.823 --> 01:08:00.343

much stuff i think like in getting into the lunge again and i'm i'm not sure

01:08:00.343 --> 01:08:05.603

how much time we get so cut me off if we need to stop here but um like with

01:08:05.603 --> 01:08:09.443

the lunge if your goal is to load the glutes which i think is a fine goal for

01:08:09.443 --> 01:08:13.103

a lunge i would add and adductor magnus like the main adductor on the inside

01:08:13.103 --> 01:08:14.743

of the front leg, the glute leg,

01:08:14.863 --> 01:08:18.183

that's also going to work anytime you work those glutes in deep hip flexion,

01:08:18.343 --> 01:08:19.823

like you're going to work your ductors as well.

01:08:21.063 --> 01:08:23.403

And of course the quads, a little bit on the front leg, you're not going to

01:08:23.403 --> 01:08:27.663

avoid working those, but yeah, all right, point taken. Um, yeah.

01:08:28.682 --> 01:08:33.622

The things that are going to enhance that, you know, there's going to be like

01:08:33.622 --> 01:08:34.922

a list of half a dozen things.

01:08:34.982 --> 01:08:36.542

It's like, all right, well, you've got to have your weight on the front leg,

01:08:36.602 --> 01:08:38.742

not the back leg. That's thing number one.

01:08:40.222 --> 01:08:44.382

And if you hinge forwards more at the hip, you're going to go into more deep

01:08:44.382 --> 01:08:49.422

hip flexion, which is going to load those hip extensor muscles or glutes and adductors more.

01:08:49.562 --> 01:08:53.402

So if you hinge your torso forwards over the front leg, if you keep the knee

01:08:53.402 --> 01:08:57.022

back behind the toes, it's going to load the hip more than the knee less.

01:08:57.022 --> 01:09:01.622

Now, dear listener, there's no rule that says you can't lunge with your knee

01:09:01.622 --> 01:09:05.202

forward of your toes in, like I'm all for lunding with your knee forward of your toes.

01:09:06.342 --> 01:09:09.782

If you've got a reason for doing it, like you want to load the quads more or whatever, it's fine.

01:09:09.882 --> 01:09:11.642

It's perfectly safe, perfectly healthy, nothing wrong with it.

01:09:11.722 --> 01:09:15.362

But if you go also load the glutes, you're going to facilitate that more by

01:09:15.362 --> 01:09:20.442

keeping your knee back and your shin more vertical and hinging at the hip more

01:09:20.442 --> 01:09:23.442

rather than at the ankle and the knee more, because that's going to load the hip more.

01:09:23.482 --> 01:09:26.902

And if you go also load the hip, well, let's load the hip. And then if you want

01:09:26.902 --> 01:09:29.882

to take, once your body's hinged forward, you want to take your hands forwards

01:09:29.882 --> 01:09:32.522

overhead, that's going to lengthen the lever.

01:09:33.796 --> 01:09:36.916

Put more load on the hip. If you want to have a couple of two kilo dumbbells

01:09:36.916 --> 01:09:38.816

in your hand, it's going to add even more to that.

01:09:39.196 --> 01:09:42.916

Okay. So we can go more and more and more. And then at the other side of the

01:09:42.916 --> 01:09:46.136

body, the more springs we have on the carriage there, the easier it is.

01:09:46.216 --> 01:09:49.496

We're going to deload that front leg because this carriage now becomes a support.

01:09:49.856 --> 01:09:54.676

The more we lean our knee or our foot or whatever on the back carriage, the easier it is.

01:09:54.816 --> 01:09:57.536

So ultimately we would want to have our knee off the carriage,

01:09:58.656 --> 01:10:05.776

zero or a very light spring on and a hundred or 99% of the weight on the front foot.

01:10:06.056 --> 01:10:08.976

And in order to keep the spring as light as possible, whatever spring we've

01:10:08.976 --> 01:10:14.256

got, we want to have the front foot, the grounded foot forward far enough so

01:10:14.256 --> 01:10:18.576

that as you lunge down, the carriage doesn't get pushed out very far because

01:10:18.576 --> 01:10:20.736

the further you push it out, the more attention's the spring.

01:10:21.116 --> 01:10:23.876

And so all of these things, if we put them together, it's like, okay,

01:10:23.876 --> 01:10:27.876

front foot is at the base of the foot bar a little bit in front your weights

01:10:27.876 --> 01:10:31.476

all on the front leg shin is pretty vertical you're hinging forward at the hips

01:10:31.476 --> 01:10:35.416

chest forwards arms reach above your head back knee off the carriage half a

01:10:35.416 --> 01:10:36.856

spring or zero spring or a quarter spring,

01:10:38.117 --> 01:10:40.997

No one in the world is not going to work their glutes if you do that.

01:10:41.537 --> 01:10:42.617

That's it. You don't get a choice.

01:10:44.017 --> 01:10:47.017

Now you may or may not feel it in the moment, but you're going to feel it tomorrow

01:10:47.017 --> 01:10:50.077

morning when you wake up. Oh, if you stay there for three minutes, you'll feel it.

01:10:50.737 --> 01:10:54.457

Yeah. Everyone hits the wall at some point. That burning sensation basically

01:10:54.457 --> 01:10:56.317

is that fatigue sitting in.

01:10:56.497 --> 01:11:00.177

And if you're feeling it in the target muscle group area, then you know you've done it right.

01:11:00.357 --> 01:11:03.257

Yeah. And how do you know all that? How do I know all that? Well,

01:11:03.277 --> 01:11:05.757

you have to have done fucking 10,000 lunges, right?

01:11:05.857 --> 01:11:07.657

And gone, oh, when I lean forward, that hurts my glutes more.

01:11:07.657 --> 01:11:11.557

You know, when I put my knee on the carriage, that hurts my glutes less,

01:11:11.697 --> 01:11:12.777

you know, like yeah, you'd know that.

01:11:12.937 --> 01:11:17.357

And then also just understanding some basic biomechanics about,

01:11:17.557 --> 01:11:21.497

you know, what I said about loading the hip and loading the knee and all that kind of stuff.

01:11:21.597 --> 01:11:24.137

And just thinking through the equipment settings, like you've,

01:11:24.257 --> 01:11:27.377

you talk about all the time, like, okay, well in this, like you said,

01:11:27.437 --> 01:11:28.317

there's a bodyweight lunge.

01:11:28.657 --> 01:11:32.137

So less springs is harder. So therefore more springs is easier.

01:11:32.277 --> 01:11:35.637

So therefore more tension on the springs is easier. so therefore I want to have

01:11:35.637 --> 01:11:38.577

my foot further forwards to reduce the tension on the spring,

01:11:39.257 --> 01:11:42.897

right and if I really wanted to do it I'd have no spring on or I'd keep my back

01:11:42.897 --> 01:11:46.297

leg bent and I actually wouldn't push the carriage out as I I'll just just do

01:11:46.297 --> 01:11:48.857

a squat with my foot resting on the carriage but I wouldn't push the carriage

01:11:48.857 --> 01:11:58.397

out you know so yeah all of those basically just come from reps basically yeah that's right um so the.

01:12:00.722 --> 01:12:03.082

The interesting thing about this is like, you know, you might,

01:12:03.262 --> 01:12:06.802

if, if there was a comment section here, maybe there is a comment section somewhere

01:12:06.802 --> 01:12:08.442

on Spotify, I haven't had a look at that yet.

01:12:08.882 --> 01:12:12.422

Um, no doubt someone in comment section will say, oh, that's not a lunge.

01:12:13.122 --> 01:12:15.682

Yeah. Well, in the method you learned it in, it's not called that,

01:12:15.842 --> 01:12:19.582

but in the method that I've created or the method you've created,

01:12:19.802 --> 01:12:21.142

we call it whatever we want to call it.

01:12:21.302 --> 01:12:25.342

You know what I mean? And it's like, whoever does your method will learn your

01:12:25.342 --> 01:12:29.602

exercise names and spring levels and systems for the purposes of achieving the

01:12:29.602 --> 01:12:32.242

outcomes that were set by you or by the course.

01:12:32.922 --> 01:12:37.962

So to, to argue about like something as trivial as what it's called,

01:12:37.962 --> 01:12:39.602

it's really open to interpretation really.

01:12:39.742 --> 01:12:42.282

Like it's called whatever it's want to be, what you want to call it.

01:12:42.562 --> 01:12:47.102

And if you have a system behind it, then basically rather than kind of arguing

01:12:47.102 --> 01:12:49.542

about what it should be called, it's irrelevant.

01:12:49.862 --> 01:12:53.302

It's more about. What are you trying to achieve by it? Is it a hip flexor stretch?

01:12:53.482 --> 01:12:55.822

Is it a quad workout? Is it a glute workout?

01:12:56.102 --> 01:12:58.302

Like what's it for? Yeah. And if you don't know what it's for,

01:12:58.362 --> 01:13:00.582

I can look at it and go, okay, I can tell whether it's doing that or not.

01:13:00.682 --> 01:13:02.162

That's right. And therefore, you're achieving your objective.

01:13:02.242 --> 01:13:04.562

Whether it's called a lunge or not, who gives a shit? That's right. Yeah.

01:13:05.102 --> 01:13:08.662

That's it. That's just for the simplicity of like group understanding,

01:13:08.862 --> 01:13:09.502

you know, how to have a name.

01:13:09.642 --> 01:13:11.782

I mean, when you say lunge, I just think, okay, one foot's forward,

01:13:11.882 --> 01:13:14.742

one foot's back and we're going up and down in some manner.

01:13:15.142 --> 01:13:17.762

That's it. That's it. And whether your knees forwards are back,

01:13:17.862 --> 01:13:19.742

your hips forwards are back, your toes are forwards are back,

01:13:19.862 --> 01:13:20.962

your springs are high or low.

01:13:21.082 --> 01:13:23.542

It's like, yeah, there's 50 different ways we could do that,

01:13:23.702 --> 01:13:26.142

that would each achieve a slightly different outcome.

01:13:27.062 --> 01:13:31.682

And I think what people by and large struggle with, what I used to struggle

01:13:31.682 --> 01:13:34.682

with, what I see students struggling with at the early stages of that program

01:13:34.682 --> 01:13:37.862

is they see the movement, but they don't really understand what it's for.

01:13:38.442 --> 01:13:40.502

And I just think, okay, I'm doing a lunge, a lunge, a lunge,

01:13:40.562 --> 01:13:41.542

a lunge, a lunge, a lunge.

01:13:41.862 --> 01:13:46.482

Like, nah, depends on all of those things that we just listed out about positions

01:13:46.482 --> 01:13:47.782

and springs and settings.

01:13:48.242 --> 01:13:51.622

And you could totally change that lunge. Like if you put on two full springs

01:13:51.622 --> 01:13:55.742

and put your knee on the carriage, it's like that becomes a completely different exercise.

01:13:56.182 --> 01:13:59.542

You're not even working the front leg hardly at all. It's more about the back leg now.

01:13:59.782 --> 01:14:04.622

And so, like, you can completely change the exercise by changing a couple of small exercises.

01:14:05.259 --> 01:14:08.619

Things about the position or if you let them lean on their knee on the front

01:14:08.619 --> 01:14:12.119

leg which is a common one that clients will try and do it's like or lean on

01:14:12.119 --> 01:14:14.799

the foot bar whatever it's like yeah so it's,

01:14:15.599 --> 01:14:18.319

and then you think oh we did a killer glute workout today it's like

01:14:18.319 --> 01:14:24.819

yeah none not so much you know yeah like one of the worst things as an instructor

01:14:24.819 --> 01:14:29.139

you could ever hear is i didn't really feel that and that's because the body

01:14:29.139 --> 01:14:32.299

position wasn't right or something in the movement pattern wasn't right and

01:14:32.299 --> 01:14:37.059

that's something or you didn't have the right load on for that person. That's right.

01:14:38.719 --> 01:14:41.979

So that's something that you want to kind of eliminate hearing at all.

01:14:42.119 --> 01:14:45.119

You always want to be able to kind of have your finger on the pulse and be like, okay, cool.

01:14:45.379 --> 01:14:47.259

Because when you watch the speed of movement, range of motion,

01:14:47.419 --> 01:14:51.599

you can tell by all those things, like what they're actually feeling to do it.

01:14:51.839 --> 01:14:56.279

So you could make those changes. But you always want to get to a point where

01:14:56.279 --> 01:14:58.739

you can guarantee every single person is getting the experience you intended.

01:14:59.019 --> 01:15:02.399

So if you want them to feel the glutes on the front leg, that's what they've

01:15:02.399 --> 01:15:04.739

got to get. And then you've got to make the changes until everyone gets it.

01:15:05.059 --> 01:15:10.539

Um, yeah, one more thing I really want to cover with you is you had like a real viral post.

01:15:10.719 --> 01:15:14.159

I must've been a couple of months back where you, you brought together like

01:15:14.159 --> 01:15:17.959

all these different books and you're just kind of going through how the philosophy

01:15:17.959 --> 01:15:21.719

and the people that are kind of creating the rules and the definitions of what

01:15:21.719 --> 01:15:23.459

Pilates is and isn't changed over time.

01:15:23.599 --> 01:15:26.899

And I couldn't believe how like systematic it was.

01:15:26.999 --> 01:15:30.299

It was like, oh, this group kind of got into power and they decided that that's

01:15:30.299 --> 01:15:32.459

not a part of it now. And every new group that came through was like,

01:15:32.539 --> 01:15:33.799

oh, that's not right. You know?

01:15:34.919 --> 01:15:37.799

So can you run us through really quickly, just like a short version of that?

01:15:37.859 --> 01:15:39.259

Yeah, this is something I find fascinating.

01:15:39.419 --> 01:15:42.699

It's basically, I call it Pilates through the ages, the history of Pilates.

01:15:42.779 --> 01:15:45.379

And so Pilates was invented by a guy called Joseph Pilates.

01:15:45.579 --> 01:15:48.879

And he didn't call it Pilates, he called it contrology, the art of control.

01:15:50.171 --> 01:15:56.071

And he wrote a book in 1940, which he published in 1945, called Return to Life

01:15:56.071 --> 01:15:58.851

Through Contrology, where he laid out 34 exercises all on the mat.

01:15:59.171 --> 01:16:04.071

And so his system was very vigorous.

01:16:04.251 --> 01:16:09.531

It was based on kind of early 20th century, late 19th century medical gymnastics.

01:16:10.771 --> 01:16:15.231

Like, think about if you went into the army in 1920 and you did do like your

01:16:15.231 --> 01:16:19.931

physical exercises, like imagine toe touches and star jumps and those types of things.

01:16:21.291 --> 01:16:25.771

That type of thing. And so he never mentioned, like things that he never mentioned

01:16:25.771 --> 01:16:31.051

at all that are like we take as for granted in place, like activating individual muscles.

01:16:31.331 --> 01:16:35.011

Whole book in Return to Life with Contrology, you give very specific instructions

01:16:35.011 --> 01:16:40.251

on how to do every single exercise, never once mentions a muscle, no muscles.

01:16:40.451 --> 01:16:45.511

In fact, he specifically says in the book Pilates or Contrology is not merely

01:16:45.511 --> 01:16:48.811

for the development of this or that pet set of muscles, but for the uniform

01:16:48.811 --> 01:16:50.131

development of the body as a whole, right?

01:16:50.131 --> 01:16:55.711

So he's against targeting, you know, this or that muscle. It's for the whole body development.

01:16:56.611 --> 01:16:59.371

He doesn't mention neutral spine, not once. It's not a thing.

01:16:59.531 --> 01:17:01.111

It doesn't have the concept, right?

01:17:02.871 --> 01:17:07.831

Yeah, so he, in fact, specifically says when you're lying on your back,

01:17:07.911 --> 01:17:11.531

you should press your low back flat to the mat, right? So we should flatten

01:17:11.531 --> 01:17:14.771

our spine, which is not neutral. It's the opposite of neutral spinal flexion.

01:17:15.091 --> 01:17:20.071

So then we get to the classical area. Joseph died in 1967, and sort of the next

01:17:20.071 --> 01:17:25.251

person to kind of take up the mantle of the lead of Pilates was Romana Krasnowska, one of his students.

01:17:25.371 --> 01:17:28.371

And there was many other of his students who were just as senior as Romana,

01:17:28.411 --> 01:17:31.631

but for political reasons, she was kind of put in charge. She was kind of more...

01:17:33.203 --> 01:17:38.683

Um, had a bigger personality, I think. Uh, so she was put in charge of,

01:17:38.703 --> 01:17:43.963

of Pilates, uh, at Joe's old, um, studio and she was a prima ballerina with

01:17:43.963 --> 01:17:45.303

the New York ballet, right?

01:17:45.423 --> 01:17:49.163

And so this is where the classical era of Pilates came in, which was called

01:17:49.163 --> 01:17:51.643

the classical because she was a classical dancer, right?

01:17:51.643 --> 01:17:54.443

So she took all these things out of classical dance, like foot positions,

01:17:54.603 --> 01:17:58.203

first position, second position, the, you know, the V, the wide foots on the

01:17:58.203 --> 01:18:02.363

footwork positions that we have, they're all at a classical dance and this is a hug a tree.

01:18:02.503 --> 01:18:04.543

This is just like first and second position in ballet, right?

01:18:04.623 --> 01:18:08.203

So all of these, the rond de jambe and devil pay with the leg,

01:18:08.343 --> 01:18:14.103

all the ballet terms that came from that era and she changed the system, you know,

01:18:14.483 --> 01:18:17.863

fairly substantial, like added more exercises to it, changed the,

01:18:18.043 --> 01:18:21.243

modified the technique for certain exercises, changed the cueing,

01:18:21.423 --> 01:18:26.143

changed like quite substantial changes to the system. Um, yeah.

01:18:26.910 --> 01:18:32.350

And made it much more balletic. So it was much less medical gymnastics and much more like dance now.

01:18:32.630 --> 01:18:38.450

And then, uh, the people that Romana trained, you know, they became their instructors

01:18:38.450 --> 01:18:41.710

in their own right in the like eighties and nineties and early two thousands.

01:18:41.910 --> 01:18:46.150

And that was called the contemporary era of Pilates because they were contemporary

01:18:46.150 --> 01:18:47.430

dancers, most of them. Right.

01:18:47.850 --> 01:18:51.010

And so they introduced and they introduced stuff.

01:18:51.190 --> 01:18:54.470

You know, that generation was like Moira Stott slash Merithew

01:18:54.470 --> 01:18:57.450

and Rail Iskowitz with bassey and uh

01:18:57.450 --> 01:19:00.670

brent anderson uh he wasn't a dancer he was a physiotherapist but

01:19:00.670 --> 01:19:04.590

you know with with polestar and that kind of generation and

01:19:04.590 --> 01:19:08.590

they introduced uh biomechanics and

01:19:08.590 --> 01:19:12.070

principles and physiotherapy principles at

01:19:12.070 --> 01:19:14.770

the time so that's where we introduced like in stop pilates i was never

01:19:14.770 --> 01:19:17.790

taught oh actually the principles of pilates you know control centering

01:19:17.790 --> 01:19:20.910

precision breath flowing movement blah blah blah that was introduced after

01:19:20.910 --> 01:19:23.690

joseph died he never mentioned those in any of his books

01:19:23.690 --> 01:19:27.110

right they were introduced in about 1980 so kind of in the classical era

01:19:27.110 --> 01:19:29.790

um uh in a book by

01:19:29.790 --> 01:19:33.430

friedman and eisen and then in the 1990s and

01:19:33.430 --> 01:19:36.210

2000s in the contemporary era with with morris stott

01:19:36.210 --> 01:19:39.510

and the and the polestar stuff they introduced instead

01:19:39.510 --> 01:19:42.270

of the six principles of flow and precision and

01:19:42.270 --> 01:19:45.190

blah blah blah they introduced biomechanical principles so

01:19:45.190 --> 01:19:48.650

the principles that i learned in stott parties were pelvic placement breathing

01:19:48.650 --> 01:19:51.470

thoracic and rib cage placement scapular stability and

01:19:51.470 --> 01:19:54.270

mobility and cervical placement right so no mention of

01:19:54.270 --> 01:19:57.030

precision or control or flowing movement or you know it was

01:19:57.030 --> 01:20:00.210

all about the the scapula should sit flat and flush on the rib cage you know

01:20:00.210 --> 01:20:04.030

blah blah blah so it was all about biomechanical principles and that's where

01:20:04.030 --> 01:20:08.850

we introduced neutral spine and we went from flatten your spine fully on the

01:20:08.850 --> 01:20:13.790

mat to neutral or a very slight imprint which is a like a baby flexion uh then

01:20:13.790 --> 01:20:15.890

we went to activate your transversus abdominus.

01:20:15.910 --> 01:20:21.130

A lot of those contemporary systems are big on that sort of deep muscle activation.

01:20:21.330 --> 01:20:24.170

So we went from Joseph, never cue muscles.

01:20:25.101 --> 01:20:28.841

Work inflection. We don't have any principles. Okay.

01:20:29.521 --> 01:20:34.821

To like, now we've got these six principles to now work in neutral to cue muscles.

01:20:36.041 --> 01:20:37.921

Like it's, it's literally opposite.

01:20:38.121 --> 01:20:42.041

Wow. And the contemporary people introduced lots of partial moves.

01:20:42.181 --> 01:20:46.421

So like, like the prep move for the hundred or the rollover, whatever it might be.

01:20:47.681 --> 01:20:51.321

Uh, and then that became like in your first lesson with Joseph,

01:20:51.481 --> 01:20:54.001

we used to have this video, we show our students first lesson with joseph like

01:20:54.001 --> 01:20:57.781

never done pilates before he just some random person off the street completely untrained

01:20:58.161 --> 01:21:01.081

you're doing the hundreds you're doing the roll over like these full-on moves and

01:21:01.081 --> 01:21:03.441

joseph's like whacking on the head with a stick and telling you you know go

01:21:03.441 --> 01:21:07.561

harder not literally whacking you with a stick but he was pretty forceful and

01:21:07.561 --> 01:21:12.601

then you fast forward to like 2001 with stop pilates and it's like your first

01:21:12.601 --> 01:21:15.581

lesson you barely get to move you literally just sit there you have to focus

01:21:15.581 --> 01:21:18.661

on your breathing and expand your ribs this way and that way and you have to

01:21:18.661 --> 01:21:20.601

focus on your pelvic flora and your transverse abdominal,

01:21:20.761 --> 01:21:25.041

you never actually exert any muscular force at any point.

01:21:25.221 --> 01:21:32.161

And so it's gone from this very vigorous exercise form from Joseph to this essentially.

01:21:34.977 --> 01:21:39.897

The opposite of that, you know, very, very cerebral thinking about your muscles,

01:21:40.077 --> 01:21:42.897

thinking about your alignment, thinking about your awareness of each muscle.

01:21:43.077 --> 01:21:47.657

So mystical kind of. Yeah. And then now we're getting into this, um, fitness,

01:21:48.037 --> 01:21:54.197

well, well into the thick of the fitness Pilates, you know, era where it's about

01:21:54.197 --> 01:21:57.037

like what we've been talking about, targeting muscle groups and bringing people

01:21:57.037 --> 01:21:58.997

near failure and improving strength and all of that.

01:22:00.197 --> 01:22:04.437

And at each, and you know, so a lot of this fitness stuff, I mean,

01:22:04.497 --> 01:22:07.777

a lot of people, are still doing neutral spine a lot of them aren't you know

01:22:07.777 --> 01:22:10.537

so it's kind of a bit mixed bag some people are using dumbbells some people

01:22:10.537 --> 01:22:13.797

think that's not real pilates you know so on and so forth some people on mega

01:22:13.797 --> 01:22:18.857

formers some people think that's not real pilates and at each generation,

01:22:19.357 --> 01:22:22.957

they look at the next generation and go the

01:22:22.957 --> 01:22:25.697

kids these days you know back in my

01:22:25.697 --> 01:22:28.397

day we had to walk to school 12 miles through the snow you know

01:22:28.397 --> 01:22:31.277

bare feet it's like these these kids these days i don't understand

01:22:31.277 --> 01:22:34.297

pilates you know back in my day you know we understood pilates because

01:22:34.297 --> 01:22:37.197

we used to do neutral spines like yeah but the people when you

01:22:37.197 --> 01:22:40.097

were a kid they were like oh these kids these days with their neutral spine like

01:22:40.097 --> 01:22:42.857

oh for fuck's sake you know flatback was good enough for

01:22:42.857 --> 01:22:46.197

us you know like what's wrong with these people you know what's the biomechanical

01:22:46.197 --> 01:22:49.397

principles oh what's wrong with flowing control and precision and all of that

01:22:49.397 --> 01:22:52.497

and joseph would have been like what's all these newfangled principles flowing

01:22:52.497 --> 01:22:56.877

control and precision like you know why are you doing all this like isn't my

01:22:56.877 --> 01:23:01.117

method good enough as i wrote it yeah and so every generation there's just like.

01:23:02.697 --> 01:23:08.057

Resistance to the next generation i remember in like 2017 18 or something i

01:23:08.057 --> 01:23:12.417

was in the pilates alliance of australasia on the board there and i remember

01:23:12.417 --> 01:23:18.157

they had this brand new crazy franchise called kx pilates um which i'm not sure

01:23:18.157 --> 01:23:18.937

if you've heard of them or not,

01:23:20.057 --> 01:23:25.497

um at kx they had like some crazy number like 20 locations or something in australia

01:23:25.497 --> 01:23:30.457

at the time you know it's pretty small and um the board and the pia were like

01:23:30.457 --> 01:23:34.957

oh my goodness you know it's so dangerous like oh the group exercise is so badly

01:23:34.957 --> 01:23:39.357

trained you know injuries blah blah it's not real pilates it's like.

01:23:41.999 --> 01:23:48.639

Just fear it's just fear about the next new thing and now funnily enough i see on social media,

01:23:49.439 --> 01:23:52.459

not specifically kx people but all of the people of

01:23:52.459 --> 01:23:56.339

that generation who've been teaching group reform for a decade now like oh the

01:23:56.339 --> 01:23:59.199

new instructors these days it's dangerous i don't know what they're doing it's

01:23:59.199 --> 01:24:02.679

they're not trained properly it's the injuries and the people who are these

01:24:02.679 --> 01:24:05.399

days who are trained in 10 years they're going to be saying exactly the same

01:24:05.399 --> 01:24:08.959

freaking thing about whatever the next generation is it's like just get over

01:24:08.959 --> 01:24:12.239

yourselves people like move with the times Yeah,

01:24:12.419 --> 01:24:18.179

well, it just seems that people's kind of attention span is only limited to

01:24:18.179 --> 01:24:21.939

like a decade or slightly before, but they might not realize that it's actually

01:24:21.939 --> 01:24:24.399

changed so much from what it originally was.

01:24:24.939 --> 01:24:29.719

But in saying that, as long as everyone is creating good experiences for their

01:24:29.719 --> 01:24:30.879

clients, I think that's the main thing.

01:24:31.099 --> 01:24:33.239

And the whole judgment thing is a bit like unnecessary.

01:24:33.539 --> 01:24:37.139

I think there's a place for everybody. Teach contemporary, awesome, get a movie.

01:24:37.139 --> 01:24:39.979

Like i said right at the start the biggest benefit goes

01:24:39.979 --> 01:24:42.779

from doing nothing to doing a little bit even badly right so

01:24:42.779 --> 01:24:45.719

you just get people moving if they enjoy doing classical

01:24:45.719 --> 01:24:48.879

contemporary contrology fitness dumbbells mega format whatever

01:24:48.879 --> 01:24:51.559

like like it's all good and if you want to

01:24:51.559 --> 01:24:55.099

really maximize the benefit sure there is some biomechanics

01:24:55.099 --> 01:24:57.859

and exercise science principles we can apply to maximize the

01:24:57.859 --> 01:25:00.939

benefit but doing something is

01:25:00.939 --> 01:25:03.839

just way better than doing nothing so

01:25:03.839 --> 01:25:06.559

it's like we're all in this together and it's like

01:25:06.559 --> 01:25:09.499

we should all just like be applauding each other

01:25:09.499 --> 01:25:12.299

and sure we can help each other improve if we

01:25:12.299 --> 01:25:15.099

want to get better at targeting the glutes is the best way

01:25:15.099 --> 01:25:19.279

to do it right if you don't want to target the glutes fine you know if if your

01:25:19.279 --> 01:25:22.099

clients come along and breathe and think about the pelvic floor for an hour

01:25:22.099 --> 01:25:24.879

well it's way better than sitting on the couch drinking a glass of wine and

01:25:24.879 --> 01:25:31.379

scrolling yeah so yeah it's all good it's all good thank you raf thank you so

01:25:31.379 --> 01:25:33.019

much for coming in again mate yeah thank you,

01:25:35.139 --> 01:25:35.459

Bye.