Speaker 1: My brother is fifty five and can roll down from
Speaker 1: a standing position into a backbend, and he can keep
Speaker 1: his heels on the floor. He can hold a handstand indefinitely,
Speaker 1: and he is so close to being able to do
Speaker 1: the full splits. He also happens to be an ayanga
Speaker 1: yoga instructor. But the amazing thing is he didn't start
Speaker 1: any of this until he was well into his thirties.
Speaker 1: Prior to that, he was a regular joe, stiff like
Speaker 1: the rest of us. But he just found such a
Speaker 1: joy after taking up yoga for stress management that he
Speaker 1: actually ended up making a career out of it.
Speaker 2: Then you have me.
Speaker 1: His sister similar genetics ten years is junior. And while
Speaker 1: he was finding his zen in yoga, I was finding
Speaker 1: mine in marathon running. You know. He used to drag
Speaker 1: by plank of a wood for a body into his
Speaker 1: classes and I was just terrible. And I always prom
Speaker 1: when this racing season is over, I'll spend more time stretching.
Speaker 2: But that day kind of has never really come.
Speaker 1: So here I am forty something, still stiff as a plank,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering if maybe I.
Speaker 2: Have left it too late. This is helping her with
Speaker 2: Amelia Phillips.
Speaker 1: Are you like me, always seeming to put off the stretching,
Speaker 1: the mobility, or the prehabits it's sometimes referred to.
Speaker 2: Or have you seen the light? Have you felt the
Speaker 2: joy of a loose body? Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Good joint mobility becomes crucial as we age, not just
Speaker 1: for joint health, but for balance, for stability, pain management, and.
Speaker 2: Overall quality of life.
Speaker 1: So I have bought in the big guns today to
Speaker 1: help us get motivated. Okay, maybe selfishly, help me get
Speaker 1: motivated to do more mobility and give us the best
Speaker 1: strategies for supple healthy joints. Dan O'Sullivan or hands Dan,
Speaker 1: as you might know him on his Instagram account, which
Speaker 1: happens to have over half a million followers, specializes in
Speaker 1: mobility for over forty year olds. He runs online programs
Speaker 1: and has a popular YouTube channel with really really awesome
Speaker 1: mobility workouts for us all to try. So, Dan, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us today on.
Speaker 3: Healthy her Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Well, firstly, is it ever too late to start working
Speaker 1: on our mobility?
Speaker 3: Well, it's a great story about your brother. I actually
Speaker 3: only got into this probably on my twenty ninth heading
Speaker 3: into my thirtieth year, and that was down to too
Speaker 3: many injuries and needing to fill a void of no
Speaker 3: longer being able to play a high level of sport.
Speaker 3: So it was kind of like, all right, I got
Speaker 3: to fill this like eagerness of five hours training every
Speaker 3: day for the previous twenty years. For me, it was
Speaker 3: the question of like, why is somebody else who has
Speaker 3: the same body structure as me potentially not getting the
Speaker 3: same level of interues as me? And obviously now you
Speaker 3: know ten years later, what's really evident is that it
Speaker 3: comes just down to your movement capacity, and you hit
Speaker 3: the nail on the head there, like having good joints
Speaker 3: is just crucial for everything. So can you get it
Speaker 3: as we age or is it ever late to start? Well?
Speaker 3: Not starting is probably the worst thing you can do,
Speaker 3: because it's like any form of movement. I guess the
Speaker 3: difference is the focus of what you are actually doing.
Speaker 3: If I'm focusing and putting a lot of intent behind
Speaker 3: my movements, potentially at the start I have to put
Speaker 3: maybe a bit too much focus because maybe things aren't
Speaker 3: happening as naturally as they should. But you want to
Speaker 3: get to a certain point where you have better global
Speaker 3: movements right, like things just happen naturally, And so I
Speaker 3: guess the biggest block for most people is actually putting
Speaker 3: their hand up and appreciating what their starting point is
Speaker 3: and not always resonating on what I could have done
Speaker 3: fifteen years ago, but appreciating that that's there and that
Speaker 3: would potentially come back quite quickly because you have a
Speaker 3: lot of muscle memory. But actually it's been like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is where I'm at today, and this is the
Speaker 3: length of time that I can actually invest into it.
Speaker 3: So this is the best way I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1: And in some ways, you know, in my forty starting now,
Speaker 1: I've become a lot more aware of my mortality in
Speaker 1: the sense that although I'm barely halfway through my life,
Speaker 1: that second half and setting up your second half of
Speaker 1: your life for being pain free and healthy has become
Speaker 1: in sharp focus for me. And so I might not
Speaker 1: ever be able to do the splits, and I'm not
Speaker 1: that interested in it. But what I am interested in
Speaker 1: is preventing the decline of my joint mobility. So even
Speaker 1: if I'm just trying to avoid it getting a lot
Speaker 1: worse for me, that's still seen as winning.
Speaker 2: I'm setting the bar Low Dan.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean. It's like the negative of social
Speaker 3: media at the moment is everybody compares themselves and we
Speaker 3: have to appreciate that everybody is a story. So if
Speaker 3: I'm training a kid have to become more flexible, I'm
Speaker 3: dealing with a clean shopboard. It hasn't been rubbed out
Speaker 3: a few times. It doesn't have excuses. It has a
Speaker 3: left and the right, not a good and a bad side.
Speaker 3: You know, we have to appreciate that as we age,
Speaker 3: we do have excuses, and we do have a bit
Speaker 3: of a story behind us, and we have to appreciate that.
Speaker 3: But once we understand that, and we're willing to kind
Speaker 3: of put a bit of a plan in place on
Speaker 3: how to move from this point, then generally speaking, it's
Speaker 3: like consistent steps are better than big leaps, right. So
Speaker 3: it's that's the kind of way I like to promote things,
Speaker 3: especially as we age, because if I look at you
Speaker 3: as an individual and then I say, okay, based on
Speaker 3: what I can see, this is where you best invest
Speaker 3: your time. Because the reality is it might necessarily be
Speaker 3: your biggest currency right now. You might have a little
Speaker 3: bit of an interest into it, but I want to
Speaker 3: make sure that there's a day doesn't come where you
Speaker 3: wish you had have put a bit of effort into this.
Speaker 3: And that's not to scare anybody, it's just to hit
Speaker 3: them with a smack of reality. Like you know, it's
Speaker 3: maintaining muscle as we age is harder. So what have
Speaker 3: we got to do. We've got to continue to strength train.
Speaker 3: Our body is very efficient or lazy, whichever way you
Speaker 3: want to look at it. So in the context of
Speaker 3: if I'm not using a particular area, my body says, well,
Speaker 3: I'm not replenishing those cells or I'm going to focus
Speaker 3: on that, because why would I. We don't do that.
Speaker 3: So if I don't put my hand up over my head,
Speaker 3: guess what I lose kind of the ability to be
Speaker 3: really good to put my arm up over my head.
Speaker 3: And so all I try to teach people is this
Speaker 3: is a human being, and you're a human being, and
Speaker 3: can you do X, Y and Z, which is kind
Speaker 3: of like the foundations of what a human being should be.
Speaker 3: So in the context of can you rotate your shoulders
Speaker 3: internally and externally? Can you rotate your hips internally and externally?
Speaker 3: If you can't, but what's the limitation that we're looking at.
Speaker 3: Is there an opportunity for us to give you some movements,
Speaker 3: not necessarily a big training regime, but actually just movements
Speaker 3: that you could potentially do throughout your day that just
Speaker 3: allows you to explore that range of motion. Right like
Speaker 3: you hit the nail on the head saying, do I
Speaker 3: want to achieve the front split? Not necessarily when you
Speaker 3: working towards the front split gives you something visually to
Speaker 3: look at, but you're also then going to improve your
Speaker 3: hip extension, your hip flexion, so you're going to get
Speaker 3: better overall movements, and then potentially you get this cool
Speaker 3: visual skill that everybody goes, oh my god, look at
Speaker 3: our party trick. So you know, whether you achieve it
Speaker 3: or not, you're still going to be working on the basics,
Speaker 3: which is what every performer does. Like you look at
Speaker 3: any search to solay performer, all these things, they don't
Speaker 3: do all the fancy, nancy things that you see in
Speaker 3: their performance. They're generally doing the basics and they're doing
Speaker 3: it really really well, which in any sport you would
Speaker 3: see most people actually spend most of their time.
Speaker 2: I want to.
Speaker 1: Touch on the basics and really explore those in a
Speaker 1: little while. But before we get down to the practical element,
Speaker 1: are you able to explain to us the difference between
Speaker 1: flexibility versus mobility?
Speaker 3: So this is like the bait that happens online, right,
Speaker 3: And I guess from my approach and my opinion, I
Speaker 3: try not to overcomplicate things. I'm irish. I'll like to
Speaker 3: keep it nice and simple. And I guess the way
Speaker 3: I look at things for most people is if we
Speaker 3: just look at everything as being on a continuum and
Speaker 3: we appreciate the joint as the main focus point. Well,
Speaker 3: then based off where we are on that continuum could
Speaker 3: dictate whether we want to layer strength there or whether
Speaker 3: we want to improve our range of motion there with strength.
Speaker 3: So in terms of flexibility mobility, to really make it
Speaker 3: quite simple, I would say, flexibility is your range of
Speaker 3: motion for me on my platform, Mobility is the ability
Speaker 3: to express that range motion. So very simply think about
Speaker 3: it like, if I want to improve my flexibility, I
Speaker 3: need to improve the range of motion on that joint.
Speaker 3: So if I can't touch my toes, I want to
Speaker 3: improve the range of motion so I can touch my toes.
Speaker 3: If I can touch my toes, do I have strength
Speaker 3: when I do it, and people who are heavily invested
Speaker 3: in the ooga space who potentially could layer more strength
Speaker 3: onto the range of motion that they possess. And a
Speaker 3: good visual to think about is if I sit down
Speaker 3: into a front split, did I have to use gravity
Speaker 3: to allow me to do that? If I look at
Speaker 3: like a ballet dancer or a martial artist who can
Speaker 3: stand there and literally lift one leg and nearly touch
Speaker 3: their nose with their knee, they have the strength to
Speaker 3: possess that range of motion, so they don't have to
Speaker 3: sit down with their body weight into a front split.
Speaker 3: And So what I'm more concerned about for people, especially
Speaker 3: as we age, is to have good capacity in our joints.
Speaker 3: Very simply, do you have the capacity to facilitate for
Speaker 3: everything that life throws at you, Because I want you
Speaker 3: to be able to continually make decisions in your life
Speaker 3: based off your interests, not on your ability to carry
Speaker 3: out those movements.
Speaker 1: So we've got many different types of joints in our body.
Speaker 1: We've got the ball and socket joints in our shoulders
Speaker 1: and our hips that really allow us to do these
Speaker 1: big global rotations. We've got hinge joints elbows, a great
Speaker 1: example of a hinge joint that kind of just moves,
Speaker 1: you know, in one plane. Our knees, our fingers and
Speaker 1: toes oral hinge joints, and we've got gliding joints such
Speaker 1: as our neck, our spine, our ankle, and wrist.
Speaker 2: Now I've heard you ask the.
Speaker 1: Question before, and I love this question. Are you training
Speaker 1: the way your joints are designed to move?
Speaker 2: Can you explain what you mean by that?
Speaker 3: So, as an adult, we are very time pore. So
Speaker 3: what we want to always try to do is maximize
Speaker 3: things like if I'm not somebody who enjoys going to
Speaker 3: the gym, as an example, I want you to make
Speaker 3: that as seamless as possible for me. So in terms
Speaker 3: of movement of your joints, I'll make it very very
Speaker 3: simple for people listening. For every joint in the body,
Speaker 3: if we focus on rotation as the primary focus, just
Speaker 3: in the context that's making us more mobile, the only
Speaker 3: caveat would be the spine. And I'll explain if we
Speaker 3: just focused on segmentation specifically through flexion and extension on
Speaker 3: the spine, that could literally drastically improve your life. So
Speaker 3: you said it earlier about the elbows and the knees
Speaker 3: being his joints. But there is also elements of rotation,
Speaker 3: and for a lot of people, what happens is this,
Speaker 3: And we'll take the lower body as an example. Your
Speaker 3: ankle obviously has a lot of rotation. You know, if
Speaker 3: you're listening to this, you can roll your ankle right
Speaker 3: sitting in a chair. It's very very simple. You can
Speaker 3: stand beside a door frame and potentially try to get
Speaker 3: some rotation through your hip by just bringing your knee
Speaker 3: up towards a chest and just trying to create some
Speaker 3: form of a circle. Right, But your knee doesn't. For
Speaker 3: a lot of people, they've probably never even thought that
Speaker 3: it actually does rotate. But what happens is this For
Speaker 3: a lot of people, if you think of all three
Speaker 3: those they want to structurally work together. And if your
Speaker 3: ankles are weak and unbalanced and your hips are stiff
Speaker 3: and don't really want to rotate, but unfortunately, your knee
Speaker 3: takes the brunt of that because it does have some
Speaker 3: form of rotation, but it's quite minimal because it is
Speaker 3: a hinge joint. And so what happens a lot of
Speaker 3: people is the end up with you know, eggs and pains,
Speaker 3: because all three are not working alongside each other. And
Speaker 3: so what I say to most people is, if we
Speaker 3: do think of your neck, and we do think of
Speaker 3: your shoulders, and we do think of your hips, we
Speaker 3: look at the big joint and we do focus on
Speaker 3: rotation and whether I'm controlling all aspects of that rotation, well,
Speaker 3: it's going to improve my overall movements. And then with
Speaker 3: the spine, the reason why I want you to focus
Speaker 3: on segmentation is because if you can imagine when you
Speaker 3: sit in a doctor's surgery or whatever, and you can
Speaker 3: see the skeleton over in the corner and you see
Speaker 3: all those vertebrae that are just kind of suspended to
Speaker 3: make up your spinal column. You know, if you were
Speaker 3: to go over and move it, it would move quite well,
Speaker 3: and it was you know, it's quite nearly like a slinky. Right.
Speaker 3: The problem is is most of us spend our days sitting,
Speaker 3: especially as we age, and if we haven't been exposed
Speaker 3: to kind of mobility based training. We're predominantly doing squats
Speaker 3: and deadlifts where we're very much educating our spine to
Speaker 3: be in a er braced position. It's not a bad thing,
Speaker 3: but it's one element of the movement of the spine.
Speaker 3: And so if all those facet joints are all sitting
Speaker 3: on top of each other and it's quite jammed, what
Speaker 3: actually happens is your body searches for the weak points
Speaker 3: because that's the only point that's going to move. So
Speaker 3: if you have three or four vertebrae stuck together, and
Speaker 3: then your movement comes from the weak point, which is
Speaker 3: going to be the top, and then depending on how
Speaker 3: low it is towards your hip, it's going to be
Speaker 3: on the bottom. And so what happens is you're not
Speaker 3: actually rotating through those areas. But if you focus on
Speaker 3: segmentation and creating space in between each vertebrae and actually
Speaker 3: educating the spine on how to you know, flex an extent, well,
Speaker 3: guess what, the rotation's going to get better anyway because
Speaker 3: you're creating more space.
Speaker 2: What do you mean by segmentation.
Speaker 3: I guess the best way that somebody could think about
Speaker 3: it would be like a cat kel. So if you
Speaker 3: go down onto your hands and knees, and then you
Speaker 3: really push your spine up like an angry and then
Speaker 3: you allow your hips to kind of tip out behind
Speaker 3: you and really try and extend your backs of going
Speaker 3: into more of that kale position. That would be a
Speaker 3: more of a global focus to spinal segmentation, which effectively
Speaker 3: means this, you're trying to get each vertebrate to move
Speaker 3: independent of itself.
Speaker 2: Not just those weaker or more mobile parts.
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is that for a lot of us,
Speaker 1: we will have these very locked and stiff parts in
Speaker 1: our spine, and we think we're doing some mobility work,
Speaker 1: but maybe we're actually just allowing those weaker or looser
Speaker 1: parts of our spine. And so by segmenting, you're trying
Speaker 1: to get into even those really locked up parts of
Speaker 1: our spine.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 3: It is? Indeed, Yeah, there is some contraptions. I use
Speaker 3: a specific contraption because it gives me like tactile feedback,
Speaker 3: so you know, obviously that comes with an investment. So
Speaker 3: I have other quirky ways of doing it which I
Speaker 3: can I can explain. One of the best ways to
Speaker 3: do it is if you put your back against the
Speaker 3: wall and you step your feet out, maybe about two
Speaker 3: feet so you can actually took your butt. That would
Speaker 3: allow you to put as more of your spine onto
Speaker 3: the wall. Flat back, yeah, like really really flat against
Speaker 3: the wall. Then I would get something like a tennis
Speaker 3: ball and I would stick it behind my neck, and
Speaker 3: then the challenges You want to took your chin towards
Speaker 3: your chest and you're trying to peel one vertebrate at
Speaker 3: a time off the wall. And what that would allow
Speaker 3: you to do if you do it right, is the
Speaker 3: tennis ball should just trickle down the wall nice and seamlessly.
Speaker 3: Whilst if you're doing it and you don't feel the
Speaker 3: tennis ball coming down nice and seamless, then potentially what's
Speaker 3: happening is maybe three or four vertebrae are coming off
Speaker 3: the wall at the same time, so you don't have
Speaker 3: that ability to actually move each vertebrae one at a time.
Speaker 3: And that's a really really good way. Anybody who does
Speaker 3: pilat is you do a lot of that kind of
Speaker 3: segmentation lying on a reformer as well. So it's just
Speaker 3: to kind of visualize what that would look like. Because
Speaker 3: as an adult, I would say the biggest challenge for
Speaker 3: people is if I've never done it before or I
Speaker 3: don't remember doing it, then unless you can give me
Speaker 3: a way to really experience it, it's going to be
Speaker 3: really hard for me to decipher that I might be
Speaker 3: able to see you do it, but I want to
Speaker 3: be able to do it myself. And that's something that
Speaker 3: I've really become good at. Is actually it's like, this
Speaker 3: is the way I do it, but if you can't
Speaker 3: do it that way, here's maybe three or four different
Speaker 3: versions so that you can experience what that feels like.
Speaker 3: Because once you experience it, then you can try and
Speaker 3: change back to the other variation and explore what you're
Speaker 3: trying to look for.
Speaker 2: Well, I want to get practical.
Speaker 1: I want to go through some of the common tight
Speaker 1: spots that me and my listeners are feeling at the moment.
Speaker 1: And obviously this is not a visual medium, so we're
Speaker 1: going to have to challenge you here, Dan to help us.
Speaker 2: But where do we.
Speaker 1: Start if we want to improve our mobility, we're feeling
Speaker 1: a bit stiff, maybe a bit a key.
Speaker 2: Where do we start here?
Speaker 3: You follow me on Instagram?
Speaker 1: Yes, and oh my gosh, your YouTube videos are.
Speaker 2: Fantastic, by the way, For a lot of us, the.
Speaker 1: Thought of doing this online is an appealing Don't you
Speaker 1: need to be hands on?
Speaker 2: How can you do it online?
Speaker 3: The way I like to look at it is it's
Speaker 3: simple but simple doesn't mean easy. Simple is put the
Speaker 3: blinkers on, stop downloading random videos, put a bit of
Speaker 3: structure behind what you're trying to do, and then just navigate.
Speaker 3: And you know what I say to most, because if
Speaker 3: you don't want to invest in your health, like, that's
Speaker 3: totally fine. I do appreciate life can be busy and
Speaker 3: there's a lot of things happening in life where our
Speaker 3: expenses are going elsewhere. So that's why we created the
Speaker 3: YouTube channel. We have some follow a lungs on there
Speaker 3: which are like, you know, twenty minutes, twenty five minutes,
Speaker 3: and you can just literally click play and follow along,
Speaker 3: and we pick exercises that I can be really clear
Speaker 3: and precise with to help you. But for those that
Speaker 3: are listening and potentially don't use YouTube, you know, we
Speaker 3: can still simplify lot of our things here. I mentioned
Speaker 3: earlier about let's just take the spine, the shoulders, and
Speaker 3: the hips as your main focal point. Obviously the neck
Speaker 3: as well. But what's interesting is when the shoulder blades
Speaker 3: move better and when the spine moves better, you're holding
Speaker 3: on to less tension. It can actually, you know, help
Speaker 3: to alleviate what you potentially are having in the neck anyway,
Speaker 3: We're just like a puppet on strings, and if something's
Speaker 3: out of whack, everything else is going to know. So
Speaker 3: in terms of the shoulders generally, the one that I
Speaker 3: like to give is, I guess, for the purpose of
Speaker 3: not being able to visually show you, what I would
Speaker 3: say is a good option is if you're sitting in
Speaker 3: a chair and you put your hands out like a
Speaker 3: tea position, so you just have your hands straight out,
Speaker 3: you know, as far as you can. And the idea
Speaker 3: here is you're trying to push your wrists as far
Speaker 3: away from you so you can nearly feel a bit
Speaker 3: more space in the shoulder.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, my biceps are tired. I'm doing this now.
Speaker 1: Got my arms stretched out to the side like I'm,
Speaker 1: you know, Jesus on the cross and my biceps a
Speaker 1: lock in.
Speaker 3: So stay in that position right now. We're going to
Speaker 3: do is I want you to challenge yourself. We're not
Speaker 3: gonna let our shoulders go near our ears. They're gonna
Speaker 3: stay pulled down away from our ears. And the challenge
Speaker 3: is this, We're gonna roll our shoulder. So think of
Speaker 3: like the top of my arm in my shoulder I'm
Speaker 3: gonna rotate it as much as I can forward without
Speaker 3: letting that shoulder hike.
Speaker 2: Up like I'm tipping.
Speaker 1: I'm holding two cups of a cup of coffee in
Speaker 1: each hand, and I'm tipping that coffee out as I'm
Speaker 1: rotating down.
Speaker 3: Yes, I like to think of as if I had
Speaker 3: a rag in my shoulder. It's like I'm trying to
Speaker 3: twist the rag as much as i can. Okay, twist.
Speaker 1: I hope all my beautiful listeners are sitting wherever they are,
Speaker 1: or they're stopped on their morning walk or run, and
Speaker 1: they're doing this exercise because it feels really good.
Speaker 3: Keep the shoulder one position, left shoulder. We're now going
Speaker 3: to do the opposite. So you're going to like you're
Speaker 3: trying to put your thumb back behind you, like you're
Speaker 3: trying to point behind you. Then keep pushing the risks
Speaker 3: away as much as you can, and then very slowly switch.
Speaker 3: So now my right shoulder is rotating behind me. Listeners
Speaker 3: can't see you. But the good picture, I say is,
Speaker 3: do you know that song walk like an Egyptian? Well,
Speaker 3: I want you to not do that. We want to
Speaker 3: move the shoulders, but we want to keep the body
Speaker 3: static because we're just trying to rotate the shoulders. You
Speaker 3: can feel that heat going into the shoulders, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to just have a little bright then.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I would generally say sixty seconds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a shoulder rotation and gosh, already just the
Speaker 1: short space that I did that in I can feel
Speaker 1: and see what we're doing there is we're moving that
Speaker 1: ball and socket joint in that rotation fashion, which is
Speaker 1: like you say, that's what the body's designed to.
Speaker 3: Do exactly, And what we actually are doing is one's
Speaker 3: going internally, the others going externally, and then we're switching.
Speaker 3: And what I always say is, don't be happy with
Speaker 3: the range of motion you have. Keep trying to explore
Speaker 3: is there more can I twist that rag out just
Speaker 3: a little bit more. It's like when you're twisting a
Speaker 3: rag and you know there's a little bit of water
Speaker 3: still in there, You're going to keep twisting that extra
Speaker 3: a little bit, try and get that last little dropout.
Speaker 3: That's what I want you to envisage. And in terms
Speaker 3: of the hips, we want to do something similar, but
Speaker 3: we have to appreciate that our hips, for a lot
Speaker 3: of us, they're a deeper socket, so your shoulder generally
Speaker 3: has more rotational access to it because it's a shallower socket.
Speaker 3: There is people who have shallow sockets and their hips,
Speaker 3: and they're generally the people who maybe are hypermobile or
Speaker 3: potentially you'll naturally see that they just have this great
Speaker 3: range of motion that they explore the caveat to. That is,
Speaker 3: sometimes with it being a shallow socket, they're more susceptible
Speaker 3: to potential injury. Now, in terms of the hip rotations,
Speaker 3: the way I want you to envisage this is you
Speaker 3: would stand up and you would bring yourself over to
Speaker 3: a door frame, because I don't want you to have
Speaker 3: to worry about the balance aspect. Let's say your left
Speaker 3: foot is going to stay on the floor, you would
Speaker 3: bring your right knee up towards your chest, so you're
Speaker 3: effectively balancing on one leg. Now, as you bring the
Speaker 3: right knee up as high as it can go, then
Speaker 3: what I want you to think about is you're trying
Speaker 3: to now keep it in the same height, but you're
Speaker 3: trying to allow that right knee to go out as
Speaker 3: if it was going to go behind you as soon
Speaker 3: as the body.
Speaker 2: Says drift it out to the side, so what we.
Speaker 3: Would call abduction, like you're getting taken away, and so
Speaker 3: when you can't go anymore and you could feel your
Speaker 3: glutes are screaming at you and potentially a bit of
Speaker 3: a lengthening on the inside of your leg, then what
Speaker 3: we want to do is try to search for that
Speaker 3: rotation that we did in the shoulders. So effectively, what
Speaker 3: you would do is think of your knee as tipping forward,
Speaker 3: so that dragging or that squeezing of the rag and
Speaker 3: your heel is actually going up and out behind you.
Speaker 3: And the beauty of that then is you are searching
Speaker 3: for whatever kind of rotation is there. So the knee
Speaker 3: would come up, it would go out to the side,
Speaker 3: and then we would search for what rotation is there
Speaker 3: as we're searching for that rotation. Be kind to yourself.
Speaker 3: It might rotate as much as you wanted to, but
Speaker 3: that's probably more of an evidence as to why you
Speaker 3: should probably do it more often. And then you just
Speaker 3: reverse what you've done, so you just bring it all
Speaker 3: the way back in, all the way back down, and
Speaker 3: then you repeat for a few times. In terms of
Speaker 3: the spine, I want you to think a bit like
Speaker 3: a deadlift or at least like an RDL for listeners,
Speaker 3: like a Romanian deadlift, which is where we keep the
Speaker 3: legs stiff, okay, And so what we would want to
Speaker 3: do there is stand up nice and tall, keep the
Speaker 3: legs nice and straight, and then visualize what I said
Speaker 3: earlier about standing against the wall with the tennis ball.
Speaker 3: So now the wall's not there, or it could be
Speaker 3: there if you need it. You could always do this
Speaker 3: against the wall. And then you want to try to
Speaker 3: peel that vertebrate. So it's like you took your chin
Speaker 3: and you're allowing the weight of your hands just to
Speaker 3: bring you down towards your toes, and then you would
Speaker 3: just reverse what you're doing. The thing here is it's
Speaker 3: different to the RDL and that we're not just focusing
Speaker 3: and hinging from our hips. We actually want to see
Speaker 3: how much of a rounded back I can create, how
Speaker 3: much do you feel like you're bellowing out through that back?
Speaker 3: And then you would just repeat, so the pace that
Speaker 3: you go down would be the same pace that you
Speaker 3: come back up. Because when you do put yourself into
Speaker 3: an exposed position i e. You're lengthening that tissue. If
Speaker 3: you're not used to that, you have to educate the
Speaker 3: body that it's okay. And that's where I would say
Speaker 3: slow and control wins the race on these Is.
Speaker 1: There an assessment or a way we can determine how
Speaker 1: healthy our mobility is or if we have any imbalance?
Speaker 1: Is is that something that you do with your clients
Speaker 1: where you run these assessments or is it more just
Speaker 1: based on feedback, based on I've got you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like my hips are tied or my.
Speaker 2: Back is tight.
Speaker 3: I like to see things visually because I believe that
Speaker 3: people can be hard on themselves. So you would be
Speaker 3: surprised that the people who think they move badly and
Speaker 3: then actually when you give them a little bit of
Speaker 3: an input into how to execute that movement, they actually
Speaker 3: surprise themselves. And that's why some of my videos on
Speaker 3: social media have gone you know, we're talking millions of views,
Speaker 3: because they do question that to you, and then it
Speaker 3: spurs you to test it and prove me wrong, and
Speaker 3: then actually it's the surprise of oh, that actually worked.
Speaker 3: And very simply if we appreciate movements as a skill,
Speaker 3: and it's like anything like you wouldn't dare try and
Speaker 3: lift three times your body weight in a dead lift
Speaker 3: without getting some cues or a strategy as to how
Speaker 3: you would approach that. Maybe you have to start lighter
Speaker 3: and then gradually get stronger. Right, It's the same with
Speaker 3: all kind of movement in our body. So what I
Speaker 3: want to see is I want to see you look
Speaker 3: like visually, and so anybody who works with me, we
Speaker 3: generally do very much like high end one on one
Speaker 3: because we believe people as the age need more than
Speaker 3: just a program. We also have like women's health specialists
Speaker 3: who work onside our platform as well, so it's very
Speaker 3: similar to what you do in that context because we
Speaker 3: believe people need more than just a program. But in
Speaker 3: terms of the way we do our mobility, it's very
Speaker 3: very simple. As I mentioned earlier, what we do is
Speaker 3: we look at you structurally and then we look at
Speaker 3: you dynamically. So I want to see how you hold yourself.
Speaker 1: This is online, so you would do say a zoom
Speaker 1: session or a video session with someone and you're literally
Speaker 1: watching them through the webcam.
Speaker 3: So what I would say is the main part of
Speaker 3: the program is how you progress, so we can still
Speaker 3: visually see your starting point. And then the difference between
Speaker 3: us and a physio or something is if physio will
Speaker 3: generally go through you, give you bands and then tell
Speaker 3: you to go and thry these things, and I might
Speaker 3: see you in two weeks time if you book back in.
Speaker 3: How we do things that's a little bit differently is
Speaker 3: because we say this is what I can see right now,
Speaker 3: this is the time that you said you can get
Speaker 3: in there, this is what I want you to do.
Speaker 3: We're now going to check in in seven days after
Speaker 3: you've thried that once, like one whole week of training.
Speaker 3: How did you feel? Did you need to change anything?
Speaker 3: Was there anything that was too easy? Okay? Cool? Now
Speaker 3: I'm going to challenge you to do two weeks of
Speaker 3: it and then I'll look back in. So to pull
Speaker 3: it back to how we assess what I would do,
Speaker 3: very simply is, first of all, I want to see
Speaker 3: what your feet are doing. So we ask questions like,
Speaker 3: do you wear orthotics? Do you have dead skin or
Speaker 3: hard skin on the outside of your toes? Why do
Speaker 3: I want to know that? Well, I want to see
Speaker 3: if you're actually extending through your toe as you walk.
Speaker 3: So for people who have a lot of dead skin
Speaker 3: on the outside of their toes, there's a high probability
Speaker 3: that maybe it's an inverted toe, maybe it's heading towards
Speaker 3: that second toe, so maybe they're not moving optimally. And
Speaker 3: then the benefit of that then is, like you know,
Speaker 3: number one is we don't want you to have bunions.
Speaker 3: We want you to have more dexterity in your toes,
Speaker 3: which is going to only enhance everything above it anyway.
Speaker 3: We then look at things like can you sit in
Speaker 3: a cross legged position, can you touch your toes? Can
Speaker 3: you sit on your heels? And then the segmentation like
Speaker 3: I mentioned at the wall, can I see your spine
Speaker 3: actually segmenting or am I seeing a couple of vertebrae
Speaker 3: being jammed together there and not potentially moving to the
Speaker 3: best of their abilities. We check your shoulder, so if
Speaker 3: you think of like a baseball pitcher, we look to
Speaker 3: see what kind of rotation do you have an external?
Speaker 3: What kind of rotation you have an internal? So it
Speaker 3: gives us just that initial feedback of okay, based on
Speaker 3: our experience, can we now give you something that is
Speaker 3: going to get you heading in the right direction? And
Speaker 3: then it's the feedback, and then it's the you logging
Speaker 3: your workouts and us checking in and us having conversations.
Speaker 3: Then we open your horizon to everything. The benefit of
Speaker 3: what we do is we like to put visual things there,
Speaker 3: so I mentioned earlier around the front splits, but even
Speaker 3: more importantly, we might say things you mentioned your brother
Speaker 3: does handstands. You know, we are very heavily invested in
Speaker 3: more body weight skills as well, because when your mindset
Speaker 3: has changed to earning things, not just standing in front
Speaker 3: of a mirror shifting weight, which for some people is
Speaker 3: good for the head, but sometimes we want a bit
Speaker 3: more of an understanding as to why you're asking me
Speaker 3: to do what I'm doing. That's where we really excel
Speaker 3: because we go, this is what you need to do
Speaker 3: right now. These are the things we've talked about that
Speaker 3: are potentially going to happen over the next twelve to
Speaker 3: twenty four weeks. Okay, this is the way we're going
Speaker 3: to do it. Don't overthink it, and we're going to
Speaker 3: hold your hand along the way. And if you need support,
Speaker 3: if you need to get on a call and just
Speaker 3: talk like a human being because life is in the
Speaker 3: way and there's a lot of busy things happening, let's
Speaker 3: do that because we know that if you stay consistent,
Speaker 3: that trumps everything else as long as you keep showing
Speaker 3: up in some form of fashion, you're going to continue this.
Speaker 3: Because I'm highly motivated. I'm anticipating you're highly motivated. For us,
Speaker 3: it's a little bit easier for us to go, well,
Speaker 3: this is what I'm going to do, and it's a Tuesday,
Speaker 3: and I do this, so every Tuesday, I make it
Speaker 3: my damn this to show up. Obviously, with clients who
Speaker 3: are reaching out for our help, they need a little
Speaker 3: bit more like I want you to push me when
Speaker 3: you can push me, I want you to nurture me
Speaker 3: when you can nurture me, and everything else in between.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of what we do. We say, look,
Speaker 3: don't overthink it, like, yeah, there might be loads of
Speaker 3: exercises out there, but what if we look at you
Speaker 3: when we say, when you sat in a cross like
Speaker 3: a position, did you notice your right knee was higher
Speaker 3: than your left kneeh? I notice it? Now? Okay, so
Speaker 3: potentially you don't have external or the adequate amount of
Speaker 3: external rotation in that right hip. So could we prioritize
Speaker 3: external rotation for you?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Why hasn't anybody ever said that important? I don't know,
Speaker 3: but I'm just showing you this Now.
Speaker 1: I love that targeted approach because so many of us
Speaker 1: are not even aware of what those imbalances are. And
Speaker 1: to have someone else explain it to you, show it
Speaker 1: to you on video, and give you that then guidance
Speaker 1: and here is a really simple strategy to improving it.
Speaker 1: You are setting yourself up for success. And if you
Speaker 1: then choose to take that into other elements of your life,
Speaker 1: such as your yoga class, your pilates class, the mobility
Speaker 1: component in the CrossFit workout, or whatever it might be,
Speaker 1: you've got this lovely balance of this personalized protocol that
Speaker 1: you can then adapt into your everyday life. And you know,
Speaker 1: my husband is quite self motivated, and we'll often be
Speaker 1: watching TV at night and he's.
Speaker 2: Down on the ground rolling around doing.
Speaker 1: All his mobility work while I'm sitting there like a
Speaker 1: pork chop on the couch. And you know, I do think, gosh, Like,
Speaker 1: that's the great thing about mobility is you can just
Speaker 1: flop down onto the floor and start doing it. It's
Speaker 1: not like you have to structure in a whole hour
Speaker 1: and find an hour.
Speaker 2: In your day.
Speaker 1: You've just got to be engaged and motivated enough to
Speaker 1: prioritize it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so for that, what I say to people is
Speaker 3: as much as we build programs for people, we also
Speaker 3: try to create healthy habits. One of the biggest healthy
Speaker 3: habits I give to most people is most people will
Speaker 3: start with a tennis ball, but challenge people to move
Speaker 3: up to a golf ball. Put it beside your toothbrush
Speaker 3: or beside your desk, and every time you see it,
Speaker 3: you put on the ground, you roll the soles of
Speaker 3: your feet out on it, so that you know, if
Speaker 3: you think of people who are in the commercial space
Speaker 3: and they're spending so much time in heels, are locked
Speaker 3: it away in shoes, it's just to you know, give
Speaker 3: a bit more of expression through your feet.
Speaker 2: Oh it feels so good.
Speaker 1: It feels amazing to roll a tennis ball or a
Speaker 1: golf ball under your.
Speaker 2: Feet, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: And Planter fashi itis is a huge concern for particularly
Speaker 1: women over forty, and it's such debilitating injury because it
Speaker 1: really does ground you. And when weight management and you know,
Speaker 1: cardiovascular health and mental health is such a focus and
Speaker 1: you can't get out for your beautiful walk each day,
Speaker 1: it's very frustrating.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the main reasons why we ask
Speaker 3: if our clients were orthotics as an example, because as
Speaker 3: much as I think orthotics have a place at times,
Speaker 3: we have to remember that if I put a cast
Speaker 3: on your arm and left it there for four months
Speaker 3: and then took it off, would you expect to have
Speaker 3: the same level of dexterity as your right arm? Probably
Speaker 3: not anybody who's ever broken a bone. You lose that
Speaker 3: movement from that joint. So I guess the reason why
Speaker 3: I challenge people then to try to find the happy media.
Speaker 3: And obviously in Australia it's you know, we can get
Speaker 3: down the beach and stuff. But you know I worked
Speaker 3: a lot with the States, which is like a totally
Speaker 3: different kettle of fish compared to Australia. And you know,
Speaker 3: some people are they have no choice. They're working eight
Speaker 3: ten hours a day with an hour each side commute.
Speaker 3: So it's like I'm trying to give healthy habits that
Speaker 3: you don't have to put too much expectation on it,
Speaker 3: You don't put an end date to it. You just
Speaker 3: do it. And take it from somebody who used to
Speaker 3: wear a football boot five hours a day and had
Speaker 3: no dexterity in his toes. When I first moved to Australia,
Speaker 3: I couldn't walk. If anybody listening to this is around
Speaker 3: the Manly area, which is on the Northern Beaches. I
Speaker 3: wasn't able to walk out to Shelley Beach, which is
Speaker 3: kind of like a concreted little bit off like stone
Speaker 3: kind of a flooring. I couldn't do that in my
Speaker 3: bare feet because it was way too sensitive. And so
Speaker 3: my challenge when I first moved to Australia was to
Speaker 3: get to the point that I could walk that in
Speaker 3: my bare feet. So sometimes we take these things for granted,
Speaker 3: but actually, you know, it's something that we should look
Speaker 3: at for anybody who's listening to this as a toddler
Speaker 3: or like, you know, young kids. Look how much they
Speaker 3: use their toes, watch their big toe when they're just
Speaker 3: like like doing things. My daughter picks things up with
Speaker 3: her toes right like, watch how easy they do it.
Speaker 3: And so as we age, we have to appreciate if
Speaker 3: we have that dexterity, like what's that doing for everything
Speaker 3: above it? It's such a good structure to focus on.
Speaker 1: Look, Dan, we have covered so much today and I'm
Speaker 1: definitely feeling motivated to focus on my mobility. Just to
Speaker 1: wrap up I'd love to ask you, finally, for a
Speaker 1: mum listening today, who is time for? What would your
Speaker 1: partting tip be for her to help her look after
Speaker 1: her joints better and to improve her mobility.
Speaker 3: But what I'd like anybody to do is to number
Speaker 3: one is to write it on a calendar. Like I
Speaker 3: don't know how I survived before having Google calendar, but
Speaker 3: like if you actually write like, okay, Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
Speaker 3: I'm going to try to do ten minutes, don't put
Speaker 3: an hour like ten minutes. I'm going to try to
Speaker 3: do ten minutes. Because I say to everybody under commit
Speaker 3: to overachieve, it's better that you do three weeks of
Speaker 3: ten minute sessions for three times and then you go,
Speaker 3: I could do fifteen minutes right then what I do
Speaker 3: is I go shoulder, hip spine. That's all you focus on.
Speaker 3: We already touched on it. You do a rotation, You
Speaker 3: do a rotation, and then you do a segmentation. My
Speaker 3: YouTube videos, there is a mobility one there. It's about
Speaker 3: eighteen minutes long. You literally just click play and you
Speaker 3: follow along. It has zero equipment.
Speaker 1: Given what we've spoken about today, would you be able
Speaker 1: to choose the most suitable YouTube video, and I'll pop
Speaker 1: it in the show notes so that our beautiful listeners
Speaker 1: can follow along in one of those workouts for you,
Speaker 1: maybe under twenty minutes, like somewhere around that ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes long.
Speaker 2: Is that something, because I'd love to give that to
Speaker 2: my listeners.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they just might hate me because that one was
Speaker 3: that particular one was recorded in the Maldives on a beach.
Speaker 3: So maybe it might be a nice thing to look at.
Speaker 3: Maybe it might.
Speaker 2: No, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: We'll live vicariously through your perfect Instagram life, flexible on the.
Speaker 2: Beach while we're all at home. Time purse iff as
Speaker 2: a plank. Will yeah, will either hate you or will
Speaker 2: be inspired by you. But yes, okay, so you said
Speaker 2: ten minutes. Put it in your diary.
Speaker 1: Shoulders, spine hips, couple of rotations follow that video.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it.
Speaker 3: That's it. Don't overthink it. Yeah, just don't overthink it
Speaker 3: because the reality is if you don't do anything, it's
Speaker 3: not going to go anywhere. So it's like, once you
Speaker 3: get into that consistent practice you are a human being,
Speaker 3: you will get hungry for more. That's what happens. Create
Speaker 3: the consistency, then change the intensity.
Speaker 2: Dan I Sullivan. I'm ready to do this. You've got
Speaker 2: me over the line, my friend.
Speaker 1: This plank of wood is going to be very bendy
Speaker 1: very soon. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: You're welcome. Thanks for having me.