Why Mobility Unlocks Better Strength & Endurance | Roger Frampton

0:00With the table there. And I'll have my dinner like that. I don't think you're meant to. Yeah, isn't it? Well, look, if we didn't have chairs, if chairs didn't exist, you'd probably sit like this all the time. They just love it. Oh my God, now he's doing frog stands. Oh my God. How long do you still eat your dinner like that for?

0:17Roger, welcome to Untapped. Thank you. Great to be here. Why do you think sitting down is destroying our bodies? Well, sitting down destroys you. You get that from the TED talk. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a great title. Sitting down destroys you. Yeah, sitting down destroys you because it takes away variety. So if you want to see the epitome of human movement, you just look at a toddler and look how they move around on the ground. And you can see the amount of variety, right? You can sit cross-legged, you can kneel, you can sit on your toes, you can, the amount of variety that you have when you sit on the floor, you can squat.

0:52You've got all these shapes that your hips can do and your feet can do. When you put someone in a chair, how many positions do you have? One, right? Or you can cross your legs if you can't, right? So basically, sitting down destroys you because it takes away options. It takes away our ability to express our full potential for our joints. That's a very good answer. Obviously, people need to be still, though, at times, right? Would you suggest sitting differently? um no because i would suggest to have a separate practice where you're focusing on or practicing what i would call a mobility so i think people should focus on on how they move i wouldn't suggest when you're working you should suddenly start doing mobility but it really just shows how the modern world has taken away or the body adapts to its environment so we've created through many years, an environment of sitting at desks and staring at screens.

1:48And so our body has adapted to a new environment. So mobility training essentially is taking your body and putting it in a new environment where your body can, again, express its potential through joint movement. And so, you know, plenty of our listeners will have desk jobs and sit in front of screens. What can they be doing to, you know, increase their mobility and decrease the risk of getting injured? Well, firstly, I'd probably start with what's missing. So again, if we take this toddler analogy, we were all toddlers once. So for you, you can just think about four-year-old Spencer and how he moved.

2:24So if you look back at four-year-old Spencer, what was he doing? He's probably, the amount of movement that Spencer had now, then, is like insane. So what we could say is now, however, how are you, late 30s? Yeah, I'm 37. Right, so 33 years ago, you had better joint movement than you had now. Could we agree on that? Yeah. So then for me, your goal would be to start to reclaim some of that. Do we think that, just thinking out loud here, jujitsu is a great thing to do in that case, right? I look at my kids, I've got a seven-year-old, five-year-old and a three-year-old. And when I'm kind of messing around wrestling with them at home, I notice that they are naturally good at wrestling because they're kids, obviously.

3:12So they can push themselves into like little, you know, holes and they can bend and they're very, very flexible. And, you know, it's kind of, it makes me jealous as somebody that practices jiu-jitsu, who's grown to be stiffer and less mobile. And it makes me kind of want to get them in early so that they can continue to be as elastic as they are. So my mind, when I'm thinking about what you're saying and movement and and mobility and, you know, being flexible takes me to jujitsu. Would you say that that would be a good practice? Yeah, it's, well, it's one expression. It's one expression. Like, if you think about, like, every single joint in your body has a job, right?

3:54So, your ankle has a job. It can, you know, flex, it can rotate. And so, it's whatever you're doing, you keep that joint doing its job. And whatever you don't do, like, the body as a system is an adaptive model, right? So whatever I do, I keep. And whatever I don't do, I lose. So you're not tight because you got older. You're tight because you stopped playing on the ground and playing in playgrounds. So as long as you can start from that, it wasn't due to an age. And now you're 40 now. And now that's the reason that you're tight. So when you talk about your kids and my kids are like this and I'm like this, the only difference is you change your environment.

4:32And they're in a very different environment to you. So you're right. If they stay doing jiu-jitsu or whatever sport that they do, they will adapt to jiu-jitsu environment but they won't adapt to a gymnastic environment which requires different pieces of flexibility so it depends on which sport they do on what pieces of flexibility or mobility that you would keep is good posture key to overall strength um i think when people say i think whenever people talk about the word posture right we imagine like this they imagine like a statue right this it's a still position it's upright so if i said now right right spencer squeeze your shoulder blades together right would you say this is good posture what there you go great uh yeah yeah it's kind of like smiling for a picture right it's really easy to fake right if i smile right but inside you don't know i could be freaking depressed right you don't know anything about that smile it was just a moment and that's how we kind of see posture it's just like you can squeeze your shoulder blades together it doesn't tell me anything about how capable a body you have if you could sit upright at a desk i don't know anything about your knee function, how your hips rotate, how your shoulders flex and extend.

5:42It doesn't tell me anything. So it doesn't give me any expression. Where you could have someone, all right, now I'm going to slouch in a chair. Maybe I've got amazing capability in what I can do. So posture is, well, there's a saying in modern science, the best posture is your next posture. It's not a still position. Posture is your ability to express your joints through all their ranges for as long as you can. It's that old saying of, you know, you don't get old and become immobile, you become immobile, then you become old. Right. Right. So it's kind of like, to your point, you, you know, you stop moving, you stop, you know, being flexible, you stop training, you stop lifting, and then you become more wooden and older and get worse posture because you've stopped doing the things that help keep you elastic right because because your body's an adaptable system and everything that you do you keep and again everything that you do you don't do you lose um so the but the thing is is like modern science has changed a lot so our old model of how a body moved years ago this this actually started from the 90s before the 90s our idea of of the body was like a tire it was like you only have a certain amount of miles and the tread will wear out right and this was old this was literally in the 70s this was your doctor would have told you this that if you you would hear expressions like if you jump up and down you'll wear your knees out right don't wear your knees out right they would say that now through studies runners have better knees why because they use their knees and they're impacting them through force and the the knee responds and you have a better knee so the body responds through force um so imagine and if you look at the body this way right imagine if i said to you i've i've invented this amazing tire and this tire the rougher terrain you drive on the thicker the tire gets that's the way to look at a human body if you the more potholes you go through the better the tire becomes the more capable a tire becomes is it the case that lifting weights or strength training, shall we call it, is the biggest contributor to longevity?

7:58So I was doing an event yesterday and somebody on the panel was saying that data points to lifting weights and training strength as being the most important thing for living longer. Well, it's a factor. It's not the factor because it only shows you one position. So when you say strength training, like strength as in what? As in a squat, as in a deadlift. Like what I'm more looking at is how many joints are moving within that shape. Like the strength of your hips doesn't tell me anything about the strength of your feet. It doesn't tell me anything about the strength of your shoulders. So and every joint has different angles.

8:34So you could be strong in one angle and weak in another angle. You could be strong lifting your arm overhead and weak lifting your arm behind your body. So as an expert in this field, what do you do yourself to be in the best possible condition you can be in? Well, I'd definitely start from, it depends on what my specific goal is. So I have a very specific and clear goal that I'm working on and nothing else can touch that goal. What is it? Which is to be as mobile as I can for as long as I can. So my goal is a long-term goal. I want to be moving as well as I can for as long as I can. I can. So my journey is back to how I moved as a toddler.

9:14So I want my foot to function like a foot, my knees to function like knees. So everything is about how my joints are functioning throughout my body. And so I have a very long-term view of how my body is moving. You could essentially say I'm an investor, but I don't trade, I invest. So I have this very clear long-term view. I compound interest my body and my objective is to move amazing for the long term. So I don't have any short-term goals. So in fitness, I don't play around with how my body looks, how much I weigh, getting fit. Everything is about joint function.

9:54Hey, it's Tony from Tony Told Me. On Iyanla, The Inside Fix, a podcast from OWN, Iyanla Vanzan revisits the stories, teachings and insights that made her show Fix My Life a must watch for millions. With fresh eyes, she reexamines those lessons with greater clarity and shares new wisdom for the challenges we face today. Personal growth evolves over time and there's always room to find new meaning in old lessons. Listen to Iyanla, The Inside Fix, wherever you get your podcasts. Most women have been there. Something feels off. You don't feel like yourself, yet your doctor says everything looks fine.

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11:30When did you land on this as a goal? It's quite a specific goal. Do you crawl around on the floor like a child or do you move around like a baby would or what do you physically do? I physically do joint movements. For example, earlier today, I went to the gym and I did some knee work. So I did some sissy squats, I did some knee squats, I did some squat work on the ground, working in different kneeling shapes. Basically, I was just stressing my knees in every direction. And here's the thing, when I was training my knees this morning, most people only train their knees if there's a problem, right?

12:13And that's how most people see movement. They're like, oh, why are you training your knees? Is there something wrong with your knees? I'm like, no, because I want to keep my knees going for as long as I can. So therefore, that's why today. I'm at the gym and I'm training my knees. So it's a different way to look. It's a maintenance. It's a maintenance view on the body. And also because I know how the body operates. I know my body's an adaptable system and whatever I don't do, I lose. So therefore, I have to remind my body every time I train to keep those movements alive. So do you figure out ways of stress testing certain joints that are underused?

12:48The thing is, is that even though, you know, you're calling me an expert, which is lovely. But for me, we all taught ourselves how to move. Sport, yeah, you need to be an expert because it's very specific. But we're all experts at human movement. Everyone taught themselves how to move. You didn't get a squat lesson from your parents going, this is how you squat and this is how you sit. You have to remind yourself of the movements that you grew up doing every day for many, many years. When you went to school and they taught you to sit on a chair, you started to lose like going to the playground.

13:22There was a time you used to go into the playground and you would just play. Girls throw themselves in cartwheels all the time. They don't think about it. So it's, you've got to try and get back to, it's not something, oh, you need to go out and you need to become an expert in X, Y, and Z, but you need to get back to what you did as a toddler. And remember that, you know, you are a natural ball mover. So I think we're all experts and it's getting back to that. Is there a perfect way to sit? So obviously, since seeing your TED Talk and understanding that, of course, sitting at a desk with a bad posture is bad for you, that stands to reason.

14:00How should we sit? Should we sit cross-legged? Should we sit on the floor? Should we use a pillow, you know, like a chair is inherently bad for posture. You know, what is the best possible thing that humans can do? Which tooth should you floss? Sorry? Which tooth should you floss? All of them. There you go. So just do it differently all the time? Well, basically, this is the idea is whatever you do, as you sit here now, right now, this very second, you are sending a message to your body right now that this is the movement that you want to keep. So you've got your left leg crossed over your right.

14:37And so you're leaning back a little bit in your chair. So your body is now like, this is what I'm keeping. So now you can change that. You can switch legs and then you remind your body, okay, now this is what I'm keeping. There will never be a perfect position because bodies have millions of possible movements. So whatever position that you're in, you're just reminding your body that you want to keep that one. And whatever you don't do, that you're going to lose. So there is no, I wouldn't ever say there is a good posture. There is no bad posture. But I suppose being sat with a nice straight back, you know, with a nice relaxed and square shoulder with, you know, not too much pressure being put into the wrong places or, you know, in an imbalanced way is probably favorable to being sat with a, you know, slouched over spine.

15:30because you realise that you've been sat badly if you're sat badly for a while when you stand up and things ache or you're sat in a car and you're driving and your seat's not quite right and you're two hours on the motorway and you get out of the car and everything kind of hurts because you haven't been sat properly. So there must be, I suppose, we should all be looking for comfort. Is that what you're saying? As a human, what should humans really be doing throughout? If I went to Indigenous culture, what would I see? I would see movements, humans in their natural environment, right? So they would be squatting by the fire, sitting cross-legged, climbing trees, shooting, whatever they're doing, foraging, blah, blah, blah, right?

16:10Their body would be a tool and they would just constantly be moving their body. I wouldn't have a job. There would be no mobility training. There would be no fitness industry. Like none of it would exist because we'd all be moving beautifully in our natural environment. So then along came, you know, chairs and whatever. And then we came up with an idea and we were like, well, how can humans do their best with this? We'll all get them to sit upright. And then this upright position is supposed to be good. And if I slouch, it's supposed to be bad. But what you're saying is like, this is just a singular shape.

16:39This is just one shape. And one shape can't be good because you're a human body full of joints. So my answer is there is no good posture and there is no good way to sit. And there's no bad way to sit. The way you're sitting is the way you're sitting. And your job should be to keep all your joints functioning as well as they can. When did you fall in love with this idea? Probably, well, not the idea of the body. But I mean, as a kid, I used to go out and organize the woods. So I love organizing stuff, I could say. Like, who freaking does that? We grew up on a farm, right? And I used to just go into the woods.

17:19And I was like a kid. I don't know. It was probably like seven, eight years old. And I would just start organizing it. And everything would be perfect. And all of its place. And every den would be here. and say yeah i just play and explore and so i guess all i'm doing now is just a um yeah like a modified version of it no but i'm like i don't know i just have a different perspective of the of the human body and the way the human body moves so like if you did a press-up like you would be probably ticking how many press-ups you did i would be observing how your shoulder blades are moving how your elbows are moving whether your elbows are moving before your shoulder blades the direction of your finger whether it's facing out or your index finger is facing forwards whether your pelvis is rotated whether your ribs are opening i want to i want to get into the depth of every single joint movement within that position we're going to do some press-ups aren't we cool nice let's do it at the end at the end that's that's happening but that's but this is the the difference it's just i'm looking at the detail and the reason i'm looking at the detail is because i want all the joints moving as best as they can and if you don't if you don't focus on that then you're just allowing the body to to adapt to a modern environment so how much can be gained from mobility training.

18:27So for example, um, you know, use me as an example, I guess, like I, I run a lot. I, I do a lot of, you know, fast, you know, tempo speed stuff. Uh, I run long distance. Um, I also lift weights three times a week. So, you know, I, I like to keep, you know, strong and, uh, mobile, uh, but I don't do any specific mobility training. Like I don't do any yoga. I don't really do any stretching. Like I'll do some stretching after a really heavy session. What would you add into the routines of those who lift weights and run and train in a kind of more normal way, I suppose? I don't mean normal, you know what I mean?

19:12Just like ordinary way. Yeah, yeah. Most people follow like a fitness model of training. I'd say they probably focus on muscles instead of joints so they like focus on their chest day and their back day and their leg day or something like that people follow this this standardized model of of the fitness industry for example um i would say just focus like again it's just it's more focusing on how how your joints are moving so like is is is is your joints the the way they should move the way they're supposed to move do they move like that now and if not that's i would step in and try to increase the range of motion in those positions so again i want to see like is your is your is your foot functioning like a foot because your foot should be able like i think every single joint in your body has a job all right your foot has a job and it should be able to move in specific ways and if it doesn't then your knee will take over and start to become trying to do a foot and then you get a knee problem and then uh and then that's like your body just compensating constantly so it's really important to keep all of your joints moving as best as you can from your spine to your shoulders to your whatever right and so i would incorporate or just ask the question are my joints functioning as they should so i would treat it as a separate a separate idea and then i would want to get into are my joints moving well so for example if i was to sit at the bottom of a squat position it's just an expression of you know ankle dorsiflexion as well as knee flexion right so it's everything's an expression so i want to say well when someone does that can they do it or can't they do it if you can't do it then that's what that's our that's our training that's what our training becomes let's get that back let's let's restore motion to those joints what are the best tests that you can do at home to see if you are a mobile person?

21:06I'm sure there's some people listening that aren't even aware if, you know, they're flexible or not type thing, you know, is a good test something as simple as, you know, putting your palms on the floor or holding a deep squat or, you know, how can people just stand up and try something? I think a really good idea is to separate flexibility from mobility, just for the audience understanding, because touching your toes is a passive test and it's flexibility. Sitting on the ground cross-legged, again, it's a flexibility test, but it doesn't tell me how mobile you are. So for example, if you sat cross-legged on the floor, it shows me how flexible you are, how much range of motion you have.

21:44If you can get up from the floor from a cross-legged position, that tells me how mobile you are. So by mobile, I mean you can use your body. I don't want to see you in the splits. I want to see you lower into the splits without holding on, right? There's a massive difference between flexibility and mobility. Flexibility is just, we're just testing range of motion. It doesn't really show me anything. Mobility, we're testing capability. So when you say standing up from, so you mean you're cross-legged? Cross-legged on the ground, no hands, get up. Simon, go for it. What was it? Cross-legged on the ground.

22:21You're to stand up with no hands at all. Ow!

22:30You're going to need Zyno waving. Just standing up, mate, with no hands. Lean forward, stand up. Here he goes. Nice, there you go. That's all right, there you go. Cool. Mobile. Thorne, you give it a go. Okay, I'll do it. Move the chair back and do it right in the middle of the carpet. This is bloody embarrassing. Can we see it? Can we see it? There you go. Nice. That's the problem with balance. not mobility my balance my balance is off god that's one of those moments where you go that better work yeah so embarrassing otherwise so that was a beautiful example and it just shows you what mobility is any others so when yeah so well when i'm talking about mobility just i just want to make sure that people know people tend to use flexibility and mobility they go oh flexibility and mobility that that thing and it's like no flexibility is is very different do you want to test the difference between your hamstring flexibility and mobility of course i do okay great so you're going to sit on the floor nice and have your legs out straight now use your hands and lift one leg as high as you can use my hands you can use your hands yeah yeah perfect lift it as high as you can cool keep the legs straight keep your legs straight cool and then that's your flexibility and then now you're going to pick it up again all right now you've got to be able to hold it there without holding on all right that's your mobility so that's your capability that's quite high you're testing the other side and then this is yeah so you hear you're holding on so this is flexibility and now you're going to let go all right and now you can feel it's working all right you're using strength and the cramping is your body just not used to work like using strength at your end range of motion?

24:22I think that people, you know, I know a lot of people that train six, seven times a week, you know, and it's just standard normal stuff. A lot of people already have quite a full training schedule, right? Like I'm going to run four or five times a week. I'm going to lift weights three times a week. In the weight sessions, I'm going to do my upper body twice and my legs once. You know, it's all kind of quite regimented normally. Like I don't think you get too many people nowadays that just turn up to the gym and go, I don't know what I'm going to do today. Like, you know, people ordinarily know what they're doing, right?

24:53They have a session planned. To then throw in, you know, I'm going to train my knees or my hips or my wrists or my elbows or whatever it might be, might feel to some people like, well, how do I do that? Is it a full session? Like, do you have any examples of, you know, how you would layer it into an already existing plan yeah so well i would i would first start because it comes down to intention and purpose so i never want to be like oh you need to now add this new thing into your training because it's all about intention and purpose right so i i you know i'm very inspired by going to like or observing parks in shanghai where the eight 70 or 80 year olds are moving beautifully all right so for me that's the freaking dream right so my my dream isn't to become a better runner or to become fitter or etc right so so i'm just practicing what i what i what i want all right so i just want to clarify clarify that point that my intention is is about specific about joints um you probably find that a lot of people are already doing mobility it's just changing it's i guess it's just changing the idea of the the fitness industry have brought in in terms of separation so say for example um like we talk about strength and we talk about flexibility or you talk to to me that like these are two separate components right over here i have my strength which people have and over here i have my flexibility which i never do right which for most people right most people don't do their flexibility but but the body doesn't work like that.

26:34The body doesn't have two separate systems. The body system is movement. And if you look at a toddler, you won't see them training strength and you won't see them training flexibility. You will see them training movement. So what I'm showing you here is an example of movements. Hang from a bar. Movement, right? You don't need to do anything crazy. Try and hang from a bar for two minutes. That'll keep you entertained for years. Once you've completed that move onto one arm that will keep you entertained for a few more years can you hang off a bar for two minutes with one arm um i don't know about two minutes with one arm but for this example i said two minutes two arms and then move on yeah yeah no we've got two minutes two arms come on we've got that let's do it i know that we've got that i just you know the two minutes one arm sounds pretty high end hey it's tony from tony told me on iyanla the inside fix a podcast from own iyanla vanzan revisits the stories teachings and insights that made her show fix my life a must watch for millions with fresh eyes she re-examines those lessons with greater clarity and shares new wisdom for the challenges we face today personal growth evolves over time and there's always room to find new meaning in old lessons.

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29:34but really good examples of mobility again are we just look we need to track back to it's not adding something new this is stuff that you did in a playground right throw yourself into a handstand you and max were talking about it the other week right a handstand is like something that kids do now i'm not saying everyone should go out and start doing handstands but hanging from a bar is a great one because again it's mobility you're using the position you're not just being passively within that shape from a physical perspective what does by the way it's you know i love hanging from bars i do it kind of between sets randomly in the gym so you're doing mobility but i find myself doing it just for the fun of it really so i'll finish a set and then i'll go and hang off something just for a while and then i'll go back and do another set and i don't know why i do that i just like doing it because you're a natural born human mover who hangs from stuff and you're a human.

30:25That's what we do. We climb stuff and we hang. Hanging's actually remarkably fun. Yeah, great. Keep it that way. This stuff doesn't have to be like a new workout. I love that you just do it for fun. What does hanging do? Aside from like feel nice. I hang mostly to stretch my arms, right? To stretch my body. So I'll do a really heavy set for me on the bench press and like you're it's it's a bit you know you're all you feel all kind of jacked up so i go and hang for a bit and like it just like loosens it all up again then you go back in um i'm glad to hear that hanging is part of your mobility that's great yeah well if you if you think about what it is if you put your arm over your head and someone pulled your arm up they're stretching you right so this point from a to b is getting longer but with a bar i'm just putting that length under attention so yeah hanging's a beautiful a beautiful example it's super lateral there's studies on it where it shows it improves grip strength is good for your long-term health that's good for your long-term health your long-term health not for longevity not for living longer but long-term health are you interested in longevity no i'm not interested in living longer i'm interested in living better yeah but not not no i'm not interested in longevity no i don't get it really i find it odd because like if you are very successful with your longevity you are just going to be really old for longer i don't really want to be really old to be honest like i i i have i i talk about this quite a lot with my wife right because she has a huge fear of death right she just hates she can't really she literally can't fathom the idea of dying like she'll walk past an old person in the street and feel like really sorry for them right just like you can't you can't fit like they've probably lived a beautiful full life that you're completely like oblivious to.

32:18And they're, you know, for all, you know, they welcome death. You know, they're like 85 or something. Are you scared of death? No, not at all. Like I would be disappointed if I were to be hit by a bus today because obviously I've not quite got to where I want to get to. And I know my kids are young and, you know, I want to see them grow up and I want to see them get married. I want to see them have kids, you know, whatever. I want to experience and be a part of their lives in a really meaningful way. So obviously, some freak accident would be a shame. But no, I don't fear death at all. At all.

32:56I think it will be quite welcome at a certain point in your life. When I look at some of these people who are keen on living forever, why do you want that? Everyone around you dies. You lose everyone you've ever loved. You're old and can't really do anything past a certain point. Oh, I've got to pick you up on that point. What do you mean you can't do anything? Well, like, okay, you can be as mobile as you want, right? But if you're 120, you're going to be less mobile, right? Like, you might have some mobility, but you're not going to be like... Why can't you be fully mobile at 120? Well, I've not seen it.

33:39I think one of the biggest measures that we have, you even spoke about it with Max whenever you guys did the podcast together, right? He said, oh, I'm no young spring chicken anymore. And you went, oh, I know the feeling. Do you remember that chat? Yeah. But I was listening in and I paused and I was like, oh, that's interesting. They both laughed at that point. And you both made a little contract, a little agreement at that point that life was better years ago and now you're older and it sucks. Maybe you didn't say it in that exact context, but it's like what people say a lot. They're like, oh, mate, when I was younger, I used to be able to do this.

34:14And, oh, you wait till you get to 50. Oh, it's not the same in your 60s. But you can agree with me, I'm sure. It depends on metrics. So if you're measuring speed, right? Or how, so 22-year-old Roderick, let's say me 20 years ago, right? 22-year-old me, right, would have just destroyed me in a 100-meter race, but he doesn't have my knees, right? I'm way more mobile. I can isolate my spine in so many different ways than my 20-year-old. But if I'm measuring speed, it depends on the metric that I'm measuring. So even you, right, who on all counts takes this quite seriously, it's your long-term goal, it's one of your main objectives in life.

34:52When you are 100 years old, you are going to be more mobile now than then. No, not necessarily. No. No, I'll be as mobile. I'll be as mobile. If I get there. I don't want to get there. Do you want to get there? No, I'll definitely be less strong. I'll definitely be less strong. Of course, we will naturally lose strength. I'll definitely won't be as fast. I won't be as quick off the bat. I won't be like, snap, snap. But fine, I think we're getting our kind of, we're getting crossed on the whole mobility thing. Like, I mean, you will be slower, weaker, less able to take on strain and kind of muscular stress.

35:31And you'll move at a slower, you know, like you're going to slow down, essentially. Well, it depends. My metric's capability. So joint capability, like can my shoulder blades glide up and down my rib cage? Can my hips rotate in either direction? So I'm measuring capability. I'm not measuring speed. I'm not measuring force. And so you can always get an improvement in capability. That's interesting. Yeah. And it makes it quite a nice metric. Then you don't really need to be scared of aging, right? You don't go, oh, you know, well, I can't do that anymore. Because you can always improve on it. Yeah.

36:06So it's quite, I'm not very positive. I mean, I'm British. But I mean, I have, it's quite, I'm not like, yeah, we can move amazing at any stage. But I'm like, you can always get more capable. but you have to train it. You can't get more capable and not train it. So it works both ways around. The reason I do mobility all the time so I'm not worried about how I'm going to move in my 50s. Like I know I'll move, you know, I was in the, I'd be training years ago and people were like, oh, you wait to get to 40s. Well, I'm in my 40s now and I move better. Are you in your 40s? Yeah. You look very young.

36:38Appreciate it. Thanks. Mobility. I thought you were a lot younger than me actually. Oh, really? Yeah. But you're not, how old are you? I'm 42 tomorrow. 40, happy birthday brother thanks man where's the cake uh i didn't know it was your birthday so we can certainly get you a cake where somebody get the man a cake um but that's interesting i don't know longevity obviously wasn't on the the cards for for today but i do i do i i just generally find that odd no but i think you raise a really good point and like i think people just put you know longevity and like being healthy when you're older into the same bucket and it's It's very different.

37:13I don't want to just live as long as I can. I just want to, you know, do basic stuff. Like in my 80s, I want to be able to travel the world if I wanted to, if I wanted to. It doesn't mean like that I'm not worried about what I'm doing now. I'm still living my life. But I'm more like I want to be able to do everything later in life that I can do now. And so that's why I practice. You could be an 80-year-old kite surfer. I'm actually excited to get to my 80s more than anyone because I remember I was speaking to Ruth earlier. I think you're probably the only person in the world, by the way, who has ever said that.

37:43I was speaking to Ru Ferg. Who's not like 70. She works at ITV. And like in my early 30s, I tried to go on This Morning. And I wanted to talk about aging and mobility and la la la. And they were like, you're too young. Our audience won't take you seriously. So I'm like excited. Now I'm in my 40s. I'm like, cool, you can really freaking take me seriously. We can have this conversation about movement. Because I've been talking about this for years. So now it's like, oh yeah, people are like, oh, well, he is actually in his 40s and he does move well. So we can talk about it now. It's quite refreshing to hear you talk about it because I think it's another way of looking at the inevitable, right?

38:23So like everyone gets old and everyone ages. I myself don't care too much about that either, right? like, you know, I can't say I'm looking forward to being 80, I don't think, but I'm not bothered at all about my 50s, 60s, you know, I'm quite looking forward to that stage of life where, you know, my kids are grown up and having kids of their own. And so, you know, that's going to be a whole new, interesting and exciting chapter. I have never looked at age through a mobility lens. I have always actually just assumed that when I'm 80, I will be a lot less mobile than I am now. But I think I've been confusing that with strength and speed.

39:11And because obviously, you know, were my dad and I to do anything physical, I would win, you know, in everything, obviously, because I'm 37. So that's kind of how I would look at it. like we're just going to go gradually downhill but if you're saying we can remain exactly as mobile and i'm not saying listen to me i'm saying like just go on youtube and type and type you know park china and like observe other cultures we in the west created gym culture this came from america and bodybuilding right this is not how other cultures train the body so what i'm doing isn't like amazing and unique and special and special to me i just know in the west if i look at most older people in the west they don't move well so i'm not going to follow the the method and the tradition that we have in the west i'm going to go well what what cultures move well when they're older well eastern cultures so take their training and take their inspiration like don't look here if this if this isn't working right so the american model of business right was was about scaling gyms in a really great business way, right?

40:18How can we take a gym and make it super scalable and open up 10 ,000 gyms across America, right? Well, what I do is I basically make a production line like a Henry Ford or McDonald's idea. And I say, this machine does your chest, this machine does your legs, this does your back. But people then understand the body as these simplified parts and they go, oh, I've just done a little thing with the little red mark. and it's like, oh, I just did my bicep and I just did my this. It's a great business model. It's great for opening up 10 ,000 gyms and simplifying the body. But the body's not simple. The body's deep and vast and integrated.

40:54And so it's just, it's a really easy idea to teach a simplification of the body. But the body is, you're talking about something that self-repairs. If you've Terminator, watched it, Terminator 2, T-1000. Yeah, no, of course. Like you were literally a freaking - James Cameron. You're literally a Terminator. You self-repair. There's thousands of cells rushing through your body now, fighting viruses that will never exist. And it's unbelievable, isn't it? It's amazing, the body. Phenomenal. Wolverine is another example. Yeah. Slightly different. Slightly. I just had Terminator in my head. Yeah, Terminator is a good one.

41:31Wolverine as well, though. Yeah. He self-repairs real fast. Really? Not quite as fast as a Terminator. about as fast I'd say they're similar very similar do you ever stop and think oh wow I self repair I do think like that actually if I'm being honest yes I do I have all kinds of strange thoughts about humans all the time do you ever think that your skeleton is completely different to what it was 10 years ago the whole structure of your body is no sorry I have not had that specific thoughts no I do find it very strange that like we cut ourselves and bleed and the blood like clogs and then repairs itself turns into a scar and comes off and sometimes you don't even have a mark like that's insane yeah it's completely insane and like um i have all kinds of thoughts about like the heart specifically that like when you're born it starts beating and it just beats for 90 years without fail most of the time you know and it's kind of like that that's insane like you don't walk around thinking about your heart beating really but if it were to stop you're toast you know and it just doesn't it's pretty cool it is it's it's like fascinating right do you ever like coming back to that clone idea do you ever think like how how different your whole skeleton would be if you were born in a different culture yeah or like in a different era where chairs and desks didn't exist because i think a lot of the time people point at their body like there's something wrong with me right so someone's got back pain and they're like oh it's my back right and if someone's got neck pain that's my neck they'd be better off pointing to the environment they'd be better off going the chair the phone right the the screen who are the most mobile adults in terms of like professional athletes ballerinas or no well i would say it's highly specific Highly specific.

43:33They'll be very mobile in certain areas. Interesting though, what gives you the most all-round? Gymnastics probably. I like gymnastics. But then gymnastics, what you'll find is a gymnast isn't really about long-term ability. They peak. They're about performance. And then that peak falls. I'm more interested in, I want to know, if we take a professional gymnast, again, how are they moving when they're 80? right how is spencer you know guinness world records but how is spencer moving when he's 80 like that's where i'm fascinated like i don't care badly i would have thought like yeah but why why i don't know i just i don't know i don't know so anyway i just see most 80 year olds and think i think a lot of people take inspiration from sport right so they'll say like i don't know like mo farah or whoever what it's doing now your reaction to i see most 80 year old and just think I know like a few kind of 80 year olds that play golf and it's just a fucking pain you know going around with them yeah right but they haven't been doing mobility yeah no I know but like yeah they are not mobile I have to say no like little kind of half swings and shit and why would they be they grew up in an era where where science where your local doctor told you don't jump and down because you'll wear your knees out.

44:55Of course, people didn't grow up doing mobility. We literally believed if you jump up and down, you'll hurt yourself. So when you speak to people who grew up in the 70s and 80s, they've grown up. They didn't have a podcast where they learn about how to move their joints. They literally got told that if you jump up and down, you'll hurt yourself and you need to stop. But that messaging about modern science hasn't made its way out into public perception. Do you not think it's strange that like every few years doctors just basically get completely corrected by the truth. It's weird, isn't it? I think about that quite a lot.

45:32And it's always behind. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of it is that they're trying to protect themselves from saying it. And they're also behind because the stuff, it needs to be studied and it needs to go through a process. I'll just chat GPT it. It knows. It knows. It knows. It knows a lot. It knows. Do you use it a lot? I use it a fair amount it knows yeah well why don't you ask it about mobility put in chat GBT can I be as mobile in my 80s than I can now it will say yes why I don't know it just will yeah you do it yeah go by the way if your one says no my one's just my one's lying my one's just been telling me the whole time yeah that's fine you can say that are you sure this is true yeah yeah you're fine keep going it is a bit of a mind fuck with like I talk to it about super shoes all the time right and i'm like this is my cadence this is my stride length like this is how much i weigh like which shoe is the fastest shoe that i can wear for the marathon and it will be like this shoe and then i'll be like okay great thanks and then i'll be like is the adidas like adizero prime x3 faster and they're like yes absolutely it's like well then it's not that one then is it and they're like no it's this it's like okay so you were lying then before yeah yeah and he goes i hear you on that yeah something good yeah have you seen it when there's a guy who just asks it to do simple things so he'll say like count from one to 200 without breaking without stopping whatever and it'll always get to like 15 and be like so is that what you wanted to do no just keep and it won't do it like it fails basic stuff constantly However, it does say it is possible to maintain a high level of mobility at 80, similar to when you were 40, but it requires dedication to maintaining physical health.

47:25And that's what we're bringing you today. Yeah, and that's why it's all good saying that, but people need to practice. So the same way you brush your teeth, you've got to work on your joints. And I suppose kind of body weight stuff is good, right? Like push-ups, like stretching, dead hangs. It depends, again, like, it depends how you're doing it. Are you doing it to move your joints when you're doing a push-up or are you doing it just to count numbers? So it comes down to the how, the specifics. Okie dokie. And when I say specifics, I'm just looking at the function of the joint. So I'm saying a spine should flex and extend.

47:59So what's it doing in a push-up? If it's extending, great, then you're practicing extension. So like a bridge is an expression of extension of the spine. So again, it depends on what joints you're moving in which directions, which is why it's always great to instead go, what should we be doing? Go, well, what did you do as a toddler? Just keep getting close to that, because then you're not following my rules or what I think. are the perfect free exercises. Like, just get back to what you already did. You were fine before. You sat on a chair, you went through school, it messed you up. Now get back to what you did best.

48:34I'm going to go and roll around in the park, I think. You're doing great. You did a frog stand to a squat. You've already tested your mobility with your leg on your head. Listen, we all surprise ourselves sometimes. I've got a question. There's been changes in physiology over time. So if you're going back to like a person's skull and jaw is slightly different to how ours are now. Over time, would our bodies overall adapt to this? We'll be less mobile now than we used to be. But not just as individuals, but like as a species, I suppose. Yeah, well, okay. But we know you're less mobile because obviously we used to be apies, you know.

49:15They're super mobile. They're savagely mobile. You don't get much mobile. I don't think you get much more mobile than an ape. Yeah, I mean, like, is there a hierarchy in terms of how many, of which animal is the most mobile? Aren't all animals mobile? On this show, we like to bring animals into human problems. So I think that we should find the most mobile. I think I've got the answer. Do you reckon? It has to be an ape of some kind, surely. Have you seen an octopus? They're pretty good. Do they count? They can literally squeeze through tiny gaps. Yes, but they don't have a skeleton. Yeah. Does that not count then?

49:54I don't think that counts. Because they don't have joints, do they? I mean, isn't every animal just mobile by definition? Because it's not limited by its environment. Well, I wouldn't say that a praying mantis was very mobile. That feels to me to be quite rigid. But mobile based on what its capability should be. so your capability should be your knees your feet so if I talk about your joints like a praying mantis would have specific capabilities can it move in terms of what it should be able to move within I can tell you I can give you a few examples of animals that are not very mobile manatees they're not that mobile sea urchins not very mobile they're not yeah but what a manatee has to do it's very mobile if you know what i mean it's not as mobile as a monkey manatees are what some may call very overweight manatee a manatee yeah those enormous seals like the great big seals very the great big heavy things right right is it fair to say that if a human were to be very overweight, that their mobility would be restricted?

51:12No, not necessarily, because you're looking at how their joints function. Like, for example... Yeah, but their joints are going to be under more stress and function less well. Well, you'd have to see. You can test it. You can test every joint and see what its capabilities are. So, for example, sitting cross-legged on the ground is the expression of external rotation of your hips. So you're just saying, can the joint sit in that position? right if i sit in like a 90 90 it shows like an expression of internal rotation of the hips so again you can just put yourself into shapes and i'm just using examples of again you could either look at the shapes of yoga or you could just look at the shapes of what a toddler naturally sits in but again you're just testing via shapes it doesn't really matter about like the again like the physique of the person and like physique is all from the fitness industry like for me it's always secondary to how the body should move but for a lot of people it tends to be the goal like the goal is like if you think about if here's an interesting when you when you watch olympics have you noticed that different running distances create different body types of course yeah and but but they're not training to get six packs right they're training to get better at whatever distance they're running at and therefore their body then adapts to whatever so the aesthetics are always secondary they're a byproduct yeah so like i i have abs but that's that's always secondary right i'm not trying to get abs i'm trying to get as mobile as possible right and then how you look and how you weigh or whatever is always a byproduct of that i agree yeah so do you train for aesthetics or do you train about is your training about how you look no it's i i train for performance strength and speed mostly strength speed and endurance mostly.

53:02So you're already a fan of mobility? Yeah, I don't like it. It's been a long time since I've like tried to get booger shoulders. You know, I used to like be a vain little prick. Long before I was able to even set performance-based goals, I would train for vanity. Yeah, I'd lift weights to look good, for sure. Why do you think you were interested in looking good? Do you think it was too attract the opposite sex or do you think it was more for your own confidence or because you saw it in a magazine and you thought that that was the ideal?

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55:23Yeah, I wouldn't think this is like black and white. is like to attract the opposite sex. Yeah, I think it's more, you know, that was deemed to be a good-looking, positive aesthetic, a healthy aesthetic. So that is what you would chase, you know? It's like back in the day when influence was more guided by magazines and movies and, you know, that it might be today. And yeah, the idea of having a six-pack and looking like Brad Pitt in Troy was, you know, the kind of goal for lots of gym goers, you know? Yeah, but isn't it fascinating that that only came around like mid-20th century, like bodybuilding?

56:02But like, no, now I will focus on like, how do I get to a 17 minute 35K? How do I get to a two hour, you know, 50 minute marathon? How do I keep a one rep max of, you know, 135 to 140? How do I press 110 for 10? you know like it like like but do keep it all cooking at the same time so like it's nice to have like lots of mini goals within the goal i suppose i suppose the goal is to just be healthy right like that's my my ultimate goal is to be fit well and healthy how do you measure that though how are you measuring to be to be fit for example well i suppose with the results from my running and my gymming, you know, but like, I don't, I wouldn't say that if I can't hit this milestone, then I'm unhealthy.

56:52Cause like, obviously I'm a healthy person, but I don't know. It's quite a vague goal, isn't it? Just like to be healthy, obviously. That's why I ask because it's when you, for example, like if I'm doing joint work, I have, I can measure it very specifically, right? If I sit in a squat, I can say my heels are, 1.2 centimeters off of the ground and 6 months later that's 1.1 centimeter so I can measure it in terms of the angle of a joint so that's why I'm interested when you said to be fitter, to be healthier and what metrics I suppose I don't really need it backed up too much with data I know when I feel strong and fast and good I also just feel like sometimes you plateau you get to a place you just stay in the same place and it kind of feels a bit less like you're pursuing a goal.

57:43You're just staying healthy. I don't know. It's a bit of a negative way of looking at it, I suppose. But I'm not really working towards anything specific now, really. I'm just keeping fast and strong. So more like maintaining. Yeah, and obviously I could go away and I could set myself a target of, I want to run a 245 marathon now and I'm going to put like a 12-week training plan in progress. And then, you know, we're going to work towards that goal. And every day we're going to do specific things to achieve that time. But it's like, I'm not actually that bothered. Although I might get bored and go, great, that'll be my next target.

58:22You know, I don't know. Today, as things lie, like I'm not obsessed with getting my marathon time down. You know, I cracked three hours in Tokyo. I'm pretty happy about that. You know, 2.57, you know, 2.57, 2.45, whatever, you know. until your next extreme yeah I think we'll come up with another nice big charitable fundraising thing at some point and work towards that that'll be fun I found this fascinating Roger thanks so much for coming in again it's been awesome chatting to you and fun as well yeah I'm glad we did this I really enjoyed that thanks so much for your time appreciate it