Eliminate Back Pain💥Become Anti-FRAGILE, Strong, Resilient & Mobile with Rope Flow, Landmine Training, Kettlebells, Unconventional Exercises & Healthy Lifestyle Practices! Weck Method, Edward Troise

0:03 This is the Fitness wisdom podcast.

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0:37 It comes with none of the nasties and all of the good stuff that your scalp and hair needs to be healthy. Grab yourself some non-toxic and super effective hair wash and use the promo code mobility fitness for a 15% discount as well. Hello everyone, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Fitness Wisdom podcast. Today we're going to be talking about how to become anti fragile. And what I mean by that is that we all have some weaknesses, vulnerabilities and muscular imbalances in our body, which could potentially open us up to the risk of injury, right?

1:09 And if we don't live life a certain way or train a certain way to be able to eradicate those imbalances and weaknesses and vulnerabilities from our system, this could, you know, lead to something, you know, way worse down the line. And we're only as strong as our weakest link. So I'm going to be talking to my brother, Edward Troyce today. I just wanted to talk to you today because you are the true unconventional trainee slash coach and you are a WEC method certified and you're, you know, you're a master when it comes to Rd.

1:41 flow. I look at you, you know, as such a big inspiration like up there with David WEC and and Chris in terms of the level and the dedication that you have towards movement and road flow. And why I wanted to talk about those things and those training modalities with you like the landmine and also the kettle bells is because you know, the world is becoming more and more fragile these days. And I feel like there are two camps when it comes to coaches, those who are thinking that the body is frail and that we need to brace at all costs.

2:15 And then the other camp, which is in our camp, where we think that no, we must train the body in the weakest positions in those vulnerabilities to be able to eradicate those vulnerabilities, right? Yeah, I would say the the caveat is probably more that both camps are trying to get people strong. And I, I do truly believe that anyone that is in the health and fitness world as a coach does so with good intention. And it I personally think it's more so related to their presuppositions about the body and how it's organized, how it is best trained, how it is best adapted.

3:00 And then those presuppositions are just going to be the lens that they view their services and how they can potentially help someone through. Now, I'm also personally a fan of more people believing that they are objectively correct in the fitness world simply for the fact of being able to help more people, right? So if I want to be a bodybuilder, I'm probably not going to come to me as a coach. But if I'm fat and bodybuilding is the thing I want to pursue, and then I go see the bodybuilder who maybe makes me tight and whatever, but I can see my abs and I build some muscle, well, then he's the guy that helped me.

3:40 And then maybe that's the next step to be like, well, hey, why does my body feel like trash and what else is out there? And then, you know, so we're all kind of just in this spider web of really just trying to help people. I think again, more of that kind of objective confidence and belief that one person is right over the other. I think it produces better conversation. I think it helps more people overall. And I do still think that what I am doing is more effective at the same time, right? Just like the other guy is going to think I'm an idiot and they're smarter and better than me.

4:16 So it's it's all fun in my opinion, when it comes to not really trying to like dichotomize good and bad coaches or good and bad systems, but more so just kind of making it a both and right where it's like in context, those guys are right and out of context, they are totally wrong at the same time. And I'm sure I am in some ways as well. So I think we're all dealing with the same problem, but we're all also trying to help the same problem as well, so. That's. That's my kind of perspective on that with, with trying to, you know, divide the two camps.

4:49 And because I'm I'm, I'm all one for disagreement, but at the same time, I still think as a whole, the fitness industry is essential no matter where anyone's coming from when they're coaching. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I loved it how you unified everything together and that you said that how context is everything because it truly is, because social media, when you go on social media, find so much conflicting information to do with training, diet, lifestyle, basically any area of life really, but especially when it comes to training, like when it comes to bracing the core as an example, it's it's probably useful when you're doing deadlifts and squats, you know, you know, in that kind of situation, but in any other situation outside of that, it doesn't make any sense.

5:37 So I think that what would be valuable is if we go into explaining to people your idea, the way that you view the body and the way that you train it accordingly. Yeah, absolutely. Do you view the body that you see? You seem to view the body more as a system rather than isolated parts where a lot of people do as well. We do functional type of fitness, but you are, you know, doing a lot of this rotational movement training and road flow and landmine training. And why is that? Yeah, so, you know, I came from a bodybuilding background.

6:11 Bodybuilding was my first love of training and what I eventually had learned through all of the adaptations that I made from that training based on my frame, based on my past injuries and everything like that, was I had a ton of asymmetry. So I've had three major injuries all on the left side of my body. And if all I did was isolate and bilateralize all my movements to 1°, where like anything unilateral was probably on a machine, was probably still isolated to 1° or another. And was not informed by this idea of weight shifting or athletic transitions that Dave and Chris have so plainly outlined and systematized and created language around that makes it easier to understand.

7:02 So when it comes to how I see the body having gone through that kind of isolationist model and then moving into yoga, completely emaciating myself and losing all of that muscle and then becoming super hyper mobile, right? So I developed all this tissue by the time I was 19 and I, I was on my one cycle of steroids that I had done in my life. I was 198 lbs on a 5 foot 7 frame. Like that is so much tissue. You know, I had some fat and some water retention from the gear and whatever, but at the same time like I blew up, right?

7:41 So I had all this tissue on me, which I then basically atrophied over the couple years from the injuries, just catching up and kind of putting training on the back burner because my body was just so beat up. Then seeking yoga, which on that hyper hypertrophied and then atrophied tissue. My body was so loose already. And then I made it even looser through yoga, right? So by time I started, so it was really when I had my first son, I kind of looked in the mirror and I've posted this plenty of times.

8:14 And it's like, I was just this skinny fat, like flaccid, couldn't do hard things, couldn't produce tension in my body. And I looked at myself and I'm like, man, I like, this is a joke, dude. Like I like what have I become? You know, so I wanted to get back into strength training, but I knew based on my past and based on my pain and all the stuff I was dealing with, like I had to try something different, right? So I went through, you know, trying FRC, which at the point I was hyper mobile. So more joint mobilization just wasn't the best input for me at the time.

8:51 You know, I, I did the 10 week functional patterns course and I wound up just disliking so much about the philosophy of FP that I stopped that. You know, I tried the Mace, I tried getting into aesthetics and hand balancing and I kind of dabbled for a year and I got stronger and my physique changed. I started going back to the gym and just from like those handful of newer inputs, I wound up feeling a little bit better in some of the more classic lifts. Like I would try a bench press and my shoulder wouldn't hurt as much, but I'd still feel real lopsided.

9:23 I'd try a deadlift, but I could barely even deadlift like 2 plates and 25, you know, So I tried them and it was like, OK, but then you know, I was like, OK, well let me try and add some of this FP stuff. And you know, at the time Gota was kind of big. And then I, I wound up seeing Tim Sheef with the rope. And I had followed Tim from seeing him on a bunch of podcasts when he publicly basically like cut ties with his vegan persona and brand because he had such a massive following around being like a vegan athlete, right?

10:01 So at that exact time was when me and my wife were also coming out of veganism and everything. So I respected him as a person who was willing to be transparent in the face of an insane amount of criticism from the cult mentality of veganism. And then branding yourself as a vegan athlete and then, you know, cutting ties with that community, It's vicious. And and then I also respected him from his movement capacities, like, like what Tim can do is unbelievable. And so I see him with this rope and I'm like, man, like that looks a bad ass 2, like I'll really suck at it, but it'll probably still be fun.

10:43 And then three, he was hanging out with this wacko in San Diego, Dave. And I'm like, what is this guy? What is like, what is this are all Dave's charisma and his ability to speak and laurate and tell stories and very captivating personality. You know, so I got interested. I started following Dave and I started following Chris and I decided to buy the RMT rope, which comes with the free training videos on YouTube with the QR code or whatever. And knowing Tim's story about all the value he was seeing in applying the rope for the past few months, kind of starting to listen to Dave and his philosophy and all that.

11:20 I, I realized there's got to be some value here. But I was also kind of skeptical at 1st, and so I decided to do a legitimate blind test. So I think I remember in one of Dave's videos talking about how one of the best ways to use the rope and one of his older YouTube or Instagram videos is just like between sets, right? Just to keep your body moving, to get your core activated as this kind of active rest period that also stimulates your brain and proprioception and all this stuff. So I took the rope in the box to the gym that morning and it was a pull session.

11:54 And historically for me, my first set of pull ups was always my best set of pull ups. So the most amount of reps, least amount of exertion, right? And then it, it had a pretty steep drop off in the consecutive sets. And, and with my injuries, I always really struggled to activate this left side, particularly my left lat, due to chronic partial dislocations or subluxations of this left shoulder, which I dislocated the first time when I was like 12 or 13 years old. So when you have an injury like that at a super mobile joint like the shoulder at a young age where all the tendons are still developing, everything is still in this state of flux.

12:35 And then not rehabilitating it or training it in an ideal way. Throughout my teen years, I was set up for a hyper mobile, very compensatory left side from the shoulder down and and down through my left arm. So I I did my first set of pull ups. I picked the rope up out-of-the-box. I watched the YouTube video for the race and chase and I literally just do 60 seconds of just overhand race and chase. I do my next set of pull ups and not only did I get more reps with a lesser perceived level of exertion, but I legitimately felt my left lat in a way that I had been like chasing for years.

13:15 And I almost like cropped I. I was like, how in the world does a piece of rope for 60 seconds solve attentional neurological, proprioceptive issue that no PT helped me with in that degree in 60 seconds, that no physical therapist helped, that no chiropractic adjustment help, that no pressure tissue fascial release ART. None of it did anything that a freaking piece of rope did in 60 seconds for me. And I was just blown away. And so that was late 2019 on that first experience. And then obviously through 2020 and the the gobbledygook that wound up going down and everything closing down, I had an opportunity to just dig and dig and dig and dig and dig with the rope flow practice for hours every single day cuz what else did I have to do?

14:17 I was excited for training. And then obviously the gym gets taken away. I think I had a pair of dumbbells like the adjustable pairs, and I think I had at that time also wound up buying like the Bosu Elite and a couple other things. So I wound up just like training in my backyard, just doing all these weird explorations with the rope, with the BOSU, with the pulsars. And by time the gyms wound up opening back up, I felt like I had a brand new body like within six months or so when everything started opening back up in a late summer for I was in a more conservative state at the time.

14:52 So things opened up and got back to quote UN quote normal a little bit sooner. And I just took off from there where like I had access to new types of tension. I had essentially no more pain. And even though my body at that time was still relatively asymmetrical and compensatory, I had so much more access to the sensations that I was looking for for a decade plus that at that time, I, I knew that I had found the foundation to like actually find that kind of middle path between movement quality and strength.

15:31 And it really all started with the rope for me and. Rope flow posts and stuff like that and. I just lost you there for a second maybe like no problem 10 seconds ago. OK, so, so basically all throughout 2020 I was just like tagging Dave in my rope flow posts and, you know, watching Chris and getting inspiration from him and all his workouts. And at that time, Alex was just starting Landmine University, so I was doing Landmine U before it was even called Landmine U And you know, so Dave wound up inviting me out to San Diego.

16:10 I hung out with him for a long weekend. I trained with Chris. I did a session with Alex. And after that, man, just kind of learning almost through osmosis and those mirror neuron type pathways, like watching Dave move, hanging out with him for 72 hours, watching Chris move, watching how Chris coaches, watching how Alex puts so much power and intent into his movements. And from there, it was just like it seemed. And as Dave puts it, like I found X on the map, it's doing nothing but amazing things for my body.

16:47 And like, let me find a million to the 10th NTH degree of ways to explore this type of tension and like what is possible. And five years later, I've yet to find a ceiling at all. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for that amazing breakdown. I think what would be a really good is if we explain to the audience like what is Rd. flow in the 1st place? Because maybe a lot of people who follow me, they have no, they, I'm sure they have seen it on mine in your page, but maybe they have no idea what it is. So maybe if we just verbally explain it because there may be some people who are just listening to this podcast conversation, which I'll be posting later on Spotify and YouTube.

17:25 So then they can really grasp the idea, like what's going on there with this piece of rope that you're explaining? And also, what do you think when you said that you started to feel so much better in your body after those six months of practicing all this good stuff? What do you think actually happened internally to your body that actually made you feel better? Yeah, absolutely. So the way that I categorize rope flow is in its essence it is a practice that synergizes the brain and the body, right.

17:59 So our brain and our capacity to take in the environment through our senses is a large part, if not the main part that dictates our motor output or our response to the stimulus in our environment. And so when and then in practice with the ropes, right? So the essence is we're getting our brain and our body synergistic and it's practice. We're inherently understanding weight shift and spinal engine theory, meaning rotation and all, for lack of a better word, athletic or natural human movements are generated by the proximal tensioning kind of being the source of the distal expression, right?

18:51 So what I'm doing at my hands is driven by the rotational components of the core. What I'm doing with my feet is influenced by the rotational intent at the course. This center out approach which to kind of circle back to, you know, the difference between something like a bodybuilding split or a bodybuilding, you know, kind of presupposition versus this type of spinal engine presupposition. Meaning the way that the bodybuilder looks at the body is the parts equal the whole. And then the way that spinal engine is is the whole encompasses the parts.

19:28 And so when we, when we work from this center out approach, what I've learned is it's a very effective way to deal with the distal issues we might be having. So for example, for my left shoulder that would dislocate on a lateral raise or an overhead press. The last time I did that, it was with a 20 LB freaking dumbbell, right? No one should sublux their shoulder in an overhead press with a 20 LB dumbbell. Whether you're a man, a woman, doesn't matter. Like that should just not happen. And So what this type of practice will do is it will inform the distal joints, particularly the main ones being the shoulders and the hips, because they're the most proximal to those rotational muscles at the core, how to tension and support below and above those joints.

20:21 So for example, what I wound up realizing was that my left shoulder was so unstable because it didn't have a good connection to the structures underneath it that would support it in those positions. And so through being able to take on thousands and thousands of repetitions with rope without a severe amount of fatigue to sensitize my body to actually understand this supportive musculature proximally at the core, everything just sorted itself out to a place where then I could go in with the scalpel and try and think about things my shoulder in particular couldn't do.

21:02 But if I had only focused on the shoulder and not thought about all of the stuff underneath it, if I had only thought about my hip and not thought about below and above it, then I wouldn't have be able to actually integrate everything as effectively as I have. And that's my kind of general framework for what rope flow is. So it's a very integrative practice. And, and one of the most important parts of it is it has that sense of playfulness to it. And, and as we're in the later years of our life, and by later, I mean, you know, pretty much past our 20's, the sense of playfulness in our movement basically for most people is gone.

21:48 Like, training is just a chore. You know, it's usually boring if, you know, I went to a very commercial gym for the first time in about 8 years when I was visiting some family in Phoenix, and everyone looked miserable. Like it's great that they're getting some physical activity, but it's like you're on your phone scrolling through social media between your sets on this machine and it's like, OK, cool, you're getting a pump. Yeah, you're doing, you're doing some of the kind of blanket level type things.

22:17 But there's no sense of like presence in so many people's training. And that sense of playfulness, which I'll move into kind of why I think the rope helped me so much, has a lot to do with more of that neurological side of things, right? So whenever we're approaching something from a sense of play and we're able to drop into that playful flow state that does so much for neuroplasticity. And we know this, it's documented, it is true. And so when you have a practice that invites, emphasizes and creates that sense of playfulness, everything about how you perceive your body and what you could do with it is going to change and it's going to change at a much faster rate.

23:01 And that's why I think rope flow is a very important practice for for people to at least just give it an honest try and, and just figure it out. Now in terms of why it helped me and why I think it is also a super valuable practice on the neurological side of things is how it improves our proprioception. So I've made many posts sharing the homunculus models, which would basically be how our body is proportionately represented based on how our sensory and motor cortexes perceive the brain or perceive the body, I should say.

23:40 So if we were to think about our brain, we have two dedicated areas in each hemisphere for sensing our environment and moving through our environment. And with respect to those models, our hands are our largest part of our body, especially if we were to add the size of them together compared to like the face or the genitals or or the rest of the body. So what we can take away from that is that our brain cares a lot about our hands in terms of our ability to sense and move through our environment.

24:12 Now, because the brain is connected to opposing sides of the body, what we get in the rope flow practice is this constant hands crossing midline position and transition. So for thousands of reps, I'm going to be bringing my right hand, which is controlled by the left motor cortex to the left side of my body, which is being perceived by my left eye and hearing it on the left side with my left ear from the right sensory cortex on the in the brain. And so we're getting, and then at the same time, my left hand is most likely on the right side of my body, still right.

24:52 So not only are we taking these Figure 8 patterns with the hands, with all the joints, with everything from the core, but we're also able to kind of paint the picture of this Figure 8 communication between the brain where we're getting the left and right hemispheres integrating communication. Every single Rep for thousands and thousands and thousands of reps without an intense or even noticeable sense of fatigue. And so for me, what the rope did in that set of pull ups was prime my sensory and motor cortices in my brain to be better prepared for the pull up task, which I was then able to recruit that left side in a way that I could not do previously.

25:48 So for me, what I wound up realizing was a lot of my range of motion issues, a lot of my movement compensations and all this other stuff, I think maybe not primarily, but to a very large degree was a proprioceptive issue. And if when we start improving proprioception and there's tons of ways to do it, juggling right, you know, any kind of directional change, head movements, eye movements, all these little things that we can do, the rope flow kind of being this umbrella, to be able to do all of them simultaneously.

26:22 Plus getting the athletic rotational inputs physically is such an amazing panacea to improve our movement IQ. And that is basically what I think solved so much of my issues because it was taking care of so many different things. It was taking care of the rotation that I was getting through hockey, but then stiffening and resisting against through bodybuilding, right? It was also helping me tighten up my body from all that hypermobility and atrophy and being able to understand I can produce tension through my entire body.

27:00 And it started with a 1 LB rope and now I'm able to toss, you know, my 56K kettlebell over my head. Never ever with a second thought or guess of this left shoulder ever being dislocated again outside of an extreme, you know, catastrophic kind of uncontrollable, right? Like, you know, mishap, right. But not, it's just not something that is a story in my brain anymore because it has it's been proven that hey, like I found the solution and now we're we're we're back. Yeah. Now like where's the limit?

27:38 And and that's what I'm chasing now is like what is possible because I don't think anything is impossible at this point having come from where I've come from and and improved how I have in the last five years. Yeah, it's truly incredible to witness your transformation and I think it's it's really inspiring if people go and check out your social media channels to see where you have come from. And I, that's why I'm also a huge fan of Rd. Flow as well, because I didn't get it because I had any issues per SE or I didn't know that I had issues, but I just got it because it looked fun.

28:11 And I saw, so I also saw Tim Sheath as well doing the rope flow. And that's where my first rope flow rope came from. And I think I basically bought all the all his ropes, like the the light one, the medium one, and the heavy one, like all in one go. And yeah, I just started practicing immediately and instantly within the first week, I picked up the fundamental patterns and I just started to, you know, start to create the flow with the actual rope. And I found that, wow, now my shoulders are not aching anymore, even though that wasn't something that I really thought about only during training.

28:47 But when I started doing the road flow, I noticed that, yeah, like, my stiffness in my shoulders had totally disappeared. And I thought that was because, you know, I'm opening, opening the scapula more. You know, when I'm doing the race and chase or when I'm just doing any of the movements, You're just moving so much of your joints in this full range of motion, which is beautiful for the lubrication of the joints. But you're also moving them in a way which is very unconventional, like compared to daily life use, you know, you're really taking them through that full range of motion.

29:18 And I also found that my, my balance improved. And I also had some lower back issues in the past, I guess because I was also doing bodybuilding. The first half, you know, seven years of my training. Now it's been more than 1415 years since I started training, when I started training when I was 14 years old. And the first seven years of my life, I was doing bodybuilding too. I wasn't taking care of my mobility or doing any kind of rehab work or prehab work. And so basically, yeah, when I started doing the rope flow, I noticed that that just unlocked my lower back so much, and I started to feel so much more athletically capable.

29:56 And I didn't feel as vulnerable when doing squats or deadlifts or any other of my main conventional lifts. I just noticed that all my conventional stuff improved massively and then all the when I started to become passionate more about unconventional stuff like kettle bells, landmines, battle ropes, you know, sandbags. I just found a new love in incorporating that into my training program as well in combination with bodybuilding training. And it just both of those things together unlocked a whole new level in my body, which was like, I got the size from the bodybuilding training, I got the explosiveness, the strength and the athletic capability from the other side of training.

30:36 And it was the rope flow that kind of started the also. It's really cool to hear that we both have such a similar background. And I also was doing yoga at one point when I met my partner Tina, and she was more into yoga and functional training. And I became also hyper mobile from, you know, being super stiff to hyper mobile. And I found that also that the, the rope and the propulsors and, and sprinting and all of this good stuff, it helped me to get the tightness in the right places of the body, right?

31:06 Because it's not, it's not about like just being tight, but it's being tight in the right spots and loose in the right spots. And that's the cool thing about training correctly or in this way that you and me are training with the rope and the landmines and the kettle belted. It stiffens you in the right places so you can generate the maximum amount of force when it matters most, right? Yeah. I mean, I would say fluidity is a type of stiffness, right? It's like a dynamic capacity to organize your body under the demands of a potentially unknowable scenario, right?

31:47 So if we look at like athletes, they are in an environment that on the drop of a dime, something can entirely change every drop of that dime, right? So it's like the the access to movement strategies is the way that I train now. So I look at movements more so as what attributes are they going to develop rather than what muscles are they going to train and hypertrophy and size and all that kind of stuff, for me is more of a byproduct of intensity and strength than something that I really care to focus on anymore.

32:31 Because I've been bigger on my frame than my frame could manage effectively. And I want to find the sweet spot in the longest period of time possible to actually make the most out of what my structure can do with the least amount on it. And I think, I think if we start looking at movement or exercises as what attributes are we developing from putting this into our program? A lot of what is quote, UN quote, good, bad, right or wrong, A changes to where it becomes much grayer and B gives us just a lot more freedom to kind of do whatever we want.

33:14 You know, I personally believe that we were created with an an unimaginable amount of intelligence and a large part of that intelligence in our body is expressed through the movement that we enjoy, right? So when we are stuck in our body, a part of our expression is also stuck. And if we fall into the trap for of a system, for example like FP where they say the second you touch a barbell, you are wrong, bad, broken and you will be messed up. Like what if a part of me just genuinely loves training with a barbell?

34:01 Yeah, right. And, and so now if I fall into that trap, and that could also be like, well, what if I, you know, want to move with the rope, but I'm a bodybuilder and now my ego and my friends and the culture around me are going to look at me like an idiot. And I'm not going to try that, right? Just just because I'm stuck in, in that box versus the other box versus whatever other box, you know, someone might put themselves into with training or movement. For me, it's like, I, I want the cake and I want to eat it too.

34:31 I want all of it with no limitations other than just like maybe what my body is or isn't prepared for, right? Like I'm not going to go and try and load up when I'm training by myself in my garage. A1 Rep Max on a back squat because I don't have anyone to help me bail from it safely, right? So it's like, I'll do the back squat, but I'm not going to cry about, you know, not hitting a certain number. And I'm just going to let that grow slower over time because I, I don't have a box around me. And if back squats wind up making me not feel so good, well, it's like, OK, now I'll go do something else.

35:08 Maybe I'll back off of, of the bilateral work and I'll do something else. And then and, and now there's just so much more freedom without me getting trapped and thinking I need to continue to back squad in order to improve. And then I wind up hurting myself or getting stiff in a way that doesn't feel good to me, right. So I, I, I also personally think that there's so much value at the same time of completely rejecting stuff as well, right? Like I totally just absolutely rejected bodybuilding training for a long time, but by pursuing the other things brought me back to a place where now I could do a squat, bench, deadlift throughout my week.

35:51 Not really have any issues. Deadlifts are the one thing that just never felt good in my body even though they're strong lift For me, the adaptations from a standard barbell bedlift just don't feel good. So I'll, I'll do sandbags, I'll do stones, I'll do other ways to hinge and produce that type of power and not feel like I'm missing out because deadlifts are the standard, right? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. That was such a great breakdown. I feel that so many people get caught up in this idea that when they hear that something is good that they should always be doing it, no matter if it doesn't feel good on their body, right.

36:30 I was also stuck with this mentality as well that, you know, squats and deadlifts are the king of lifts and you should be implementing them in your training routine if you want to get stronger and you want to, you know, it developed power and hypertrophy. And they didn't feel good on my body. You know, when I was doing bodybuilding over the years especially, and I got deeper and deeper into it And when I just admitted the fact that they are not the best for my body and I left them out for a while and I did more unconventional stuff and I went up when I went back to them, they felt better.

37:00 But then again, once I did that, I went up to, you know, a higher weight or when close to one Rep Max, it would always never feel 100%. So I just realized that for me and for my anatomy, those lifts are probably not the best things and I probably shouldn't do those lifts. And that's, that's completely fine because I'm OK with not doing those things because I've accepted that I don't want to injure myself and put myself 10 steps backwards just because of my ego and this idea that, oh, I should be doing back squats because everyone says so.

37:33 And, you know, they're the king of lifts when it comes to legs and, you know, lower body development or deadlifts, for example. And so I think what was really important that you said earlier is that the muscle or the how your appearance is, you know, byproducts of everything that you're doing. And that's something that I tell all my clients as well, that your aesthetic appearance is a byproduct of your athletic capability. So the more, the faster you can Sprint, the more pull ups you can do, the better.

38:03 The more deeper the range of motion in the exercise you can do, the more control you have over exercises, the more athletic you look, right? So it's The thing is that somebody who sprints the way that they do, they don't necessarily necessarily want to look the way that they do, like like a sprinter, but they, their body has to meet that demand of the sport. So then it ends up developing that specific structure, you know, musculoskeletal structure in a way, and organizes it so that you are performing that activity at your best, right?

38:36 Yeah. And if we look at kind of classic approaches, right, like if we look at a bodybuilder and a power lifter at all different points of that curve of achieving the ends of those means, they're essentially producing cookie cutter physiques, right? Like the guys on the Olympia stage, they're all the same. You know, maybe maybe the proportions and, and all of it is just a simple genetic difference between muscle insertions and fullness and muscle belly size. And you know, certain people have smaller waist than others and proportions and limb lengths and torso lengths and femur lengths and all this other stuff.

39:22 But you're, you're kind of cramming everyone's structure into the same box, which is going to produce the same result. And then when you start looking at, you know, people who are unbelievably strong or unbelievably athletic, there's such a variety of structure, right? Like, like if you look at MM Idalia, who just broke the world record of a Turkish get up, that's right, doing 255 lbs on an axle bar. And, and if you put him next to a bodybuilder, it's like, OK, yeah, Mike's Mike's a big dude, but he looks kind of soft and there's no way that he could possibly do that.

40:08 And then you look at the bodybuilder and they would fail like a 40K lift, you know? And, and he's putting 110% of his body weight in a single arm for 45 seconds through all these ranges of motion. And that's because, you know, someone like Mike has obviously trained through many disciplines, but it's produced a a capacity and a presentation of that capacity that is unique to his structure. Where the bodybuilder, it's just cookie cutter like someone is putting them in a factory and pumping out the same exact physique on that structure.

40:43 Yeah, yeah. And it's just, it's just kind of a weird it, it's a weird thing where it's almost like they're trying to fit their structure into this box rather than allowing it to produce its own natural expression through the means of which it can do what it can do, rather than it can look like something. And I, I personally think that in the world that we live in with social media and everything else in between, and now with all the transparency of the abuse of exogenous hormones like testosterone and HGH and all this stuff and having people now talking about it so openly and ease of access, so many young men, not even men, they're boys.

41:33 They're they're legitimate boys are getting the green light to set themselves up in a perpetual state of never being satisfied with what God created them in their body. And they are a puppet of the pharma complex because they're reliant on their entire sense of self, their entire sense of masculinity, because they are not themselves. Right. Like I've done test that is the most potent psychological substance you could ever take because it is the main component of who makes of what makes you think you are you in your body as a man.

42:15 And it's it's creating this outside to inside approach which can have virtue, right? The pursuit of better is a discipline. And there's always going to be value in bettering yourself through whatever means you are doing it wholeheartedly. But when that is tainted with the measurement of that being your external appearance, there is always going to be a void in your soul, in your heart that is never going to be fulfilled. And so for me, and especially coming at it from someone like myself, where I had dreams of being a bodybuilder on such an asymmetrical frame that I used to train as like a sense of punishment to try and perfect myself.

43:03 And it was just this cycle of chasing and chasing and chasing something that is never going to actually get there. And so when it comes to training out of a sense of how would I put it, what not not just purpose, but rather than, and rather than thinking about training to, to look a certain way, but to do it out of a sense of like, this is what God gave me. This is my body and what can I do with it that is inherently more fulfilling because you're, you're doing it based on what you can actually do, not what it looks like, right?

44:00 So the the appearance versus the internal drive, it is the main difference that you'll almost always find outside of the conventional landscape and fitness. And there's a ton of value in getting into it for those reasons. Like I was fat and I wanted to be more confident. I wanted girls to look at me when I was 14, right? It's like, cool. But if there's no growth out of that mindset, which, which the, the type of training kind of makes it harder to get out of that, then then you're always going to be fighting this internal battle.

44:39 And, and again, it's not to say that there aren't people who can progress in a way through that type of training. It's just it makes it a lot harder. And then if your body's hurting and you're not feeling good, but you're delusional because you value how you look so much, you don't have an honest barometer of how you actually feel and what is actually possible. And then you're going to reject and completely like laugh at the other side of the fitness spectrum. And so it's it's really like that internal difference where it's like if someone thinks that they were put on this earth to be a bodybuilder and they've grown not just in the physical discipline of it, but they've grown emotionally, mentally spit like awesome, amazing.

45:24 I just think for the average young man is not going to get him there. Yeah. And so we look at like abilities versus aesthetics or attributes over aesthetics, right? Let that be a byproduct of what you can do, right? Not let it be the focus of what you do. Yeah. And bringing it back to, you know, building this anti fragile body, it comes from building a capable body, a body that is resilient. And that happens through trying different, you know, fitness modalities and training modalities and exploring what is the right thing for your body anatomically.

46:04 This is not the same for everybody. This is what me and like Edward are saying, that there is no like one-size-fits-all perfect sports for every individual. But one of the cool things which I can say like quite confidently, I'm sure you agree, is that road flow, landmines and kettle bells are going to feel good to pretty much anybody because you can meet the body where it's at. And I think that that's one of the most important things when we are trying to become pain free and good movers, is to meet the body where it's at and to slowly build it up to a level of capability which is resilient, strong and pain free, which is what most people want, right?

46:46 And the reason why most people are experiencing pain and movement discomfort or dysfunction, it's because they are hammering a system on their body, whether that is bodybuilding, functional patterns, or any other training modality. And they're not meeting their body where it's at. And they're just doing it just because they think that's the way to go forward in terms of training, either because they are not aware of other possible training modalities and lifestyle practices or because they are, you know, they don't want to look like, as you said, made fun of by other people in their little world that they have put themselves into.

47:26 So it's it's a lot to do with mindset and breaking, breaking themselves free, isn't it? Yeah. And I think, you know, movement variability is movement security in a lot of ways. And when it comes to only strengthening yourself through the means of classic lifts, the reality is you're getting very strong, but you're only getting strong under particular circumstances and strategies of movement that your body's then going to adapt to. And so if all we do right, like if all anyone did was rope flow, they're going to have a hard harder time bracing under a load because they're just too fluid, right?

48:11 And so, so that's where again, for me, I just look like, even when it comes to like, let's say someone comes to me with, you know, whatever postural imbalance, to me, it's not that their body is wrong. It's not that they're dysfunctional. It's not that there's anything inherently broken or an issue. It's all their body knows are particular strategies for structure and for movement and for performing tasks. And that is the same with a bodybuilder. That's the same with someone who does that. It's the same with everyone.

48:42 That's all it is. It's it's your body has an objective set of strategies for dealing with movement problems, right? And the more strategies you have, the better period. And I think everyone could agree with that. And that's where, you know, there's like, there's so much value in all of it. And for each person, it's going to be what is the minimum effective dose? What do they enjoy and what's actually solving their problem? And, and, and then having as a coach as many tools in your belt to then help that person do that?

49:22 You know, So for me, it's like I've gained 35 lbs over the past five years. I'm leaner at this weight than I've ever been in my life. I'm more muscular at this weight than I've ever been in my life. I'm more mobile, I'm more athletic. I'm more capable to do a bodybuilding workout and feel fine. I'm more capable right now. I could go Sprint if I wanted to. I could, I could go squat and then Sprint like I could do whatever I want. And that's where for me, it's the ox and the cheetah, right? We're taking two complete dichotomous animals, right?

49:55 The ox is thick and sturdy. It eats freaking grass. It pairs up well with its homie and it plows the field and it feeds the village. And then you got the cheetah where if the hunt is on, the hunt is on, and there's no second thoughts. Doesn't matter if I haven't eaten in four days, if that rabbit's in front of me, I don't want to stretch. I don't want to wait. I don't want to hesitate. I want right there, so thick and sturdy, fast and Purdy both at the same time. The royal path into the middle of movement is having both ends of the spectrum both and at the same time.

50:39 And there's no way you can develop the cheetah doing slow, stiff, braced movements that the ox is only used to. And there's no way you're going to get strong, right? Cheetahs are small. They're they're very balanced. They're, they're kind of perfectly proportionate for speed and, and agility, but they're not the ox, right? So having both things together is always going to produce the most full spectrum of movement capabilities, strategies, performance, pain, freedom, movement freedom and everything else in between.

51:13 So, you know, I, I, for a long time, I, I hated bodybuilding and now it's like if I wanted to grow my biceps, I know how to grow my biceps, but I don't care to grow my biceps. So I'm not going to do that. I'll grow them through heavy kettlebell swings and goblet squat isometrics and doing all this other stuff, you know, because again, yeah. And, and again, it's all about the attribute, right? Like a goblet squat, Dude, there are 200 plus # dudes that can't get a 200 LB kettlebell. Up to here, I'm 170 lbs and I could do it for multiple reps, right?

51:49 And it's not that I can only squat 200 lbs. I could squat almost £400 on a barbell. But I have to midline pressure, right? That's an attribute. Upper body isometric, that's an attribute, right? A front loaded squat pattern. That's the attribute. It's not just, oh, I can only squat 200 lbs for for three reps, so no like it. It is all of these things combined that produce the limitation and then produce the result on top of that. And there's so much transferability as well in all the things that you're talking about in the way that you train is going to have a real life transferability as well to, you know, to improving the quality of your movement outside of training, which I think is the most important thing.

52:36 To be able to save somebody, you know, like by lifting up a car or, you know, to do these like incredible feats of strength outside of the gym, I think are, you know, one of the most important things. But if you're only training a certain way, which is just like bodybuilding, let's say, you're not going to be as capable, you know, athletic outside of the training, and you want to be able to. There's no reason why you can't combine the two worlds together. I think that's like what we're trying to say here to people is that you don't need to choose one or the other.

53:06 One is not necessarily better than the other. Like, context is everything. You use different tools for different things, but when you merge them together, you get what you say. Like you get the ox and the cheetah, right? You get this unification of athleticism, and then you get the strength and the power on the other side of things. And then you also notice how much better both sides feel by combining them, by doing both. But if you do only one, you don't have perspective. But if you have two, then your brain can perceive.

53:38 Okay, this is something hard, this is something really light, but it's different, you know, and then and so on. So I would like to take it back to the, to the proprioception because I think that's super important for people to understand why proprioception is so important. Because we understand that the the brain needs to receive information from the environment to feel safe. And when it feels safe, the body can relax and go into a parasympathetic state, and all the structures can work as they should, pretty much.

54:09 But when we are not receiving the information from the eyes through the touch on the skin, you know, temperature, like being wearing barefoot shoes as an example, and, you know, having good like, mobility, then our body freezes up. And then when it freezes up, then we have limited range of motion. We have less athletic capability, we're more vulnerable, more prone to injuries, and we feel weaker, even though we may not be necessarily weak in our muscles, in our ability to produce force, our brain is limiting our ability to produce the force because it feels under threat.

54:47 And so I think that what me and you are teaching in terms of the rope flow, the land mines, the kettle bells, people need to understand that you are getting this sensory information like you mentioned that previously, from the road flow and the hands and the hand eye coordination and the movement of the body. And by, you know, doing things outside barefoot, it's going to create another next level type of athleticism compared to doing just something that's disconnecting you from your sensory input, isn't it?

55:22 Yeah, to tie up what you mentioned before the proprioception, I, I do think in terms of like, you know, marrying the the two ends of the spectrum, strength built on a movement quality basis is always going to get someone further than strength built on a lack of movement quality. So I think, you know, for a lot of people they've developed a lot of strength, but they don't have those kind of general movement abilities. And so going and diving deeper into a movement style practice and things that are going to actually get you moving better and then returning to the strength and marrying the two is always going to be a better approach.

56:05 And then finding ways to do both at the same time is awesome. Which kind of builds into the proprioceptive side of things, which if we think about proprioception, you know, our eyes and our vestibular are going to be really the things that conventional training don't give us too much of. And then anything that does not require a skill component to the movement isn't going to get that kind of physical proprioceptive side of things either. So if we think about the visual aspect of training in a bodybuilding model, for the most part, people are looking at themselves in the mirror.

56:47 And, and I've learned that looking at yourself in the mirror while you train is setting you up for a negative feedback loop for sensory input because you're looking at yourself reflected back at yourself, and you're basing that internal response to that external stimulus in a flipped fashion. And if we think about the vestibular, right, so much of bodybuilding training is, is stable, right? You're on a machine and you're not moving. And if you are moving, it's likely just this vertical up and down.

57:21 There's no turning, there's no direction change, there's no lateralizing or shifting. That's going to get all of that stimulus from the inner ear that's going to then again kind of refine that signal in of what we have available to us on the movement side of things. We could think about something like a two hand kettlebell swing versus a deadlift. Both are a hinge pattern, both develop posterior chain. But if we think about the vestibular and the visual input of an aggressive swing versus this like very strict eyes in a fixed location, head only moving up and down of a deadlift.

58:01 Obviously we're going to be getting a ton more sensory feedback from A2 hand swing then we're going to be getting from the deadlift. So both are going to develop strength, but one of them is also going to develop a lot of other attributes at the same time, especially through that lens of proprioception. Now when it comes to the visual side of things and why the rope is so tremendous for it is a we can always change direction when we Start learning how to sequence the patterns together, which is going to give us a lot of visual feedback, a lot of vestibular feedback because we're going to be leading the movement with our heads rather than with, you know, anything else.

58:42 And the main thing about the rope and something that everyone will benefit from in our modern times is the peripheral stimulation that the rope provides. So we're stuck in a culture that is so dialed in and hyper fixated on, on close proximity, very stimulating through light, through our phones and computers and whatever else, very fixated and dialed in in terms of like what our eyes are actually focusing on that we're not getting that peripheral feedback nearly enough in our lives. And with the rope and with peripheral feedback in general, our periphery is kind of like the the widescreen high def ability to take in information.

59:26 So if I'm moving through my environment and all my eyes can do is hyper fixate and focus and they can't actually relax and take in that width, I'm going to always have that type of fight flight restriction because the peripheral stimulation is what brings us very quickly into that parasympathetic state. And so with the rope, even in the beginner patterns, you're looking past it and every single Rep is getting your brain used to this object that is consistently changing and moving and passing through the periphery.

1:00:03 And so the visual stimulation of the rope is huge. And it's one of the main reasons that a lot of people, I think, find that kind of meditative state a from the peripheral parasympathetic feedback. Plus you're getting the brain synchronization through the hands, plus you're getting this fluid rhythmic, right. Our bodies love rhythm. Our bodies love cadence. We operate on rhythm being our circadian rhythm, of course, and our circadian rhythm is everything to do with how well our body operates on a fundamental level from day-to-day and our ability to create homeostasis.

1:00:42 And so much of training is maybe rhythmic to a degree, but it's like not consistent. It's 10 bicep curls where I'm fixating on the eccentric for three seconds and the concentric for one second and so on and so forth. I walking but at the same time. Walking is like the best rhythm, right? So you just go and walking. And and the rope is walking without walking. Yes. It's the same movements, it's the same everything. It's the same weight shift. It's the same organ massage. You're not getting as much of the peripheral feedback, right?

1:01:18 And that's where like walking outside is very different than walking on a treadmill because when you walk outside, stuff is moving past you. When you're walking on a treadmill, nothing is moving and your eyes are not taking in any new stimulus. So it's like how you even get your steps in makes a big difference neurologically. You're still getting the physical movement. You're still getting that kind of low zone 2, maybe high zone 1, whatever cardio on a treadmill, but you're not getting that neural relaxative feedback loop that actually walking provides us.

1:01:53 And that's where, you know, having a proprioceptive practice, which could legitimately just be walking. It's, it's essential, it's essential. And nowhere near enough people get that in their training. You know, they're, they're doing kind of these like gross, for lack of a better word, but like larger picture type stimulus, but they're not getting the fine details in a lot of ways. And and incorporating anything that you enjoy that brings in those fine details is always going to help whatever else you're doing on the larger scale of things.

1:02:32 So proprioception, I mean, proprioception gets people out of pain just because like you were saying, if, if my body is constantly under a threat, everything is magnified,

1:02:46 including pain, including range of motion and everything else in between. So just proving improving proprioception, it creates a clearer feedback loop of what that signal actually is, right. And your two or I'm sorry, your 6 pain might actually be a 2, but the way your brain is wired and the way you're perceiving it through the lens of that threat system, just being online is amplifying that 2 to the six. So it's amazing. It's amazing what juggling could do. It's amazing what walking can do. It's amazing what rope flow can do.

1:03:20 And the more multi dimensional those inputs are, right? Something like the rope is going to get you a lot more than walking in terms of the the feedback. And something like walking is going to get you a different feedback than than learning how to do an Indian club, right. But all of these things are bringing in those proprioceptive benefits that can dramatically change that internal state of how someone perceives their body. What's up, guys? You going out? Is it your ducks? No, my boys, Yeah, they're going.

1:03:51 They're going to the library. That's nice. They were just coming. They were just coming to say goodbye. What's today? And. These are. The car ride. Oh, cool. Yeah, you can't bring those to the library. You got to keep those in the car. All right, See you later. Parenting one O 1.

1:04:19 Dude, you want to talk about a trial by fire? Have have some amazing kids. That's amazing. Yeah. It makes you, it makes you more resilience and a better human being overall, right? It makes you to really face your inner inner self and reflect on how you are, you know? Treated. Yeah, that, you know, that look in the mirror moment that I, I mentioned earlier was right after my son was born. Like I looked at him in the eyes and I looked at myself in the mirror and I'm like, whoa, I got changed. Something's got to change because I can't keep this up.

1:04:55 If I got kids, you. Know Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's the cool thing is, is that it gives you this feeling that you need to be in another level of responsibility and authority in your life. You know, you need to be in charge of your life. You can't just let things happen to you, but you need to step into this creator mindset that you are the one who is determining the course of your life. It's like instead of, you know, life happening to you and then and then in this way, you start to change every single aspect of your life slowly, slowly, in a way that you are manifesting reality based on not only your thoughts but also the actions that you're taking every single day.

1:05:39 Yeah, I, I, you know, I, I don't necessarily, I don't subscribe to the idea of manifestation, nor that we are actually creating reality in front of us. I think we're participating in what God has created that we all share. Not to say that we don't have the capacity and the willpower to make change in our lives, but I think a lot of that comes from purpose. And and there's nothing that's going to give you more purpose in your life then creating a human being with the person you love, right? So, so that creator kind of mindset, right?

1:06:20 If God endowed us with will in his image, he is our creator, that therefore I participate in creation and the capacity for me to create something is another human being. And and that is like when like you don't have any kids. You. Know, dude, when you when you look into their eyes and you realize that that was the union of you and the person that you love and the and the fruit of that love, everything changes. Everything changes. And there is nothing in this world that can really solidify that mindset of creation more than creating another human.

1:07:08 And then the purpose that can be found in that is really unlike. It is unlike any other sense of purpose that you can have in your life. Yeah, I mean, it's a real wake up call, right? You know, you just all of a sudden feel that wow, like I need to now protect, take care and provide it. It gives you the ultimate purpose of what you were looking for your entire life. Because in reality, as human beings were put on this planet to procreate, right? So this is like literally what we were put here to do is to just basically like not necessarily to do all the things that we think that we are finding purpose to, to do in our daily lives.

1:07:52 But it's more so too, because I know that you also have a farm, don't you? And that your house is oh, you have a like a. Yeah. Yeah, on your house. And the cool thing is that that's one of my dreams too, that eventually I want to be able to have a nice big house with a farm and to be able to have animals and to connect with the food that you're eating and the land and to take care. Because it just feels that that is more meaningful and purposeful when it comes to life compared to just striving for something outside, you know?

1:08:22 And then you're not building something that's meaningful, that's going to last. It's like when you plant a tree and then after 10 or 20 or even 100 years, it grows like oranges or whatever that people can eat that you are not going to be able to experience in your lifetime. Like that's totally worth it. You know that compared to just chasing something that's just going to disappear when you're dead. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Planting, planting the tree that you won't be able to sit under the shade of.

1:08:54 Yeah, I think is the the kind of classic analogy for that kind of thought. Beautiful. Yeah. I feel like that this conversation has been absolutely epic. Edward, is there something that we didn't cover today that you wanted to talk about in terms of like training or lifestyle factors? Oh yeah. One thing I did want to ask you about was, Yeah, is there any like lifestyle factors that you can give to people that may help them to become more? Because, you know, it's not only about training when it comes to being anti fragile, right?

1:09:27 It's also a lifestyle outside of training. What? What are some things that you do on a daily basis that makes your body more bulletproof? Yeah, absolutely. That's a really great point, especially along the lines of pain and kind of the general homeostatic state of our body, right? So many people are, how would we but this well fed and malnourished at the same time, right? Empty calories, poor internal like makeup of the food that they eat, right? Things like that. So in my experience with training, the most important thing is twofold.

1:10:16 One, it is legitimately drinking clean water, which I would say well over 95% of people have never actually had a glass of clean water. And clean water has to be acid free, contaminant free, and it has to have bicarbonate, mineral salts. Those are the three things that if you do not have those three things together, it is not real water and water becomes your blood. So the question that I posed to people about their drinking water is how important is your blood to you? That's a good. That's a good way to pick it up, yeah.

1:10:56 And if you're not going out of your way to find the best drinking water, there is no nutritional choice, there is no bio hack, there is no shortcut that is ever going to replace that. Like I had someone ask me what kind of neotropic do you do you use? And I'm like, this is probably going to freak you out, but it's clean drinking water. There is nothing that will change your mindset then clean water as your primary source. Right? Like when I'm out, I don't care if I'm getting microplastics in a water bottle every once in a while.

1:11:33 I don't care if I'm drinking, you know a mineral, a mineral spring source that's literally just microscopic rocks that I'm drinking. Because what the industrial revolution has done to spring water has made it just a drinking Hard Rock filled contaminated water coming out of rusty pipes, right? And all this other stuff. Because I have put over the last eight years of my life so much effort into clean drinking water on a daily basis. I have the bandwidth to take in the crap every once in a while. And then on the other side of that, so after clean drinking waters like carbon bound, bioavailable freaking minerals, right?

1:12:17 Like you're big on Sheila Jeet, I've been taking Shilajit for six years, a gram a day. It is my non negotiable for the rest of my life. I will be taking Shilajit. And the cool part about Shilajit that I recently learned, I, I had read 1 of the studies is they've found that some of it or some of its benefits are happening at the level of the extracellular matrix, which is our fascia. And so I have found that when people take Shilaji for a sustained period of time where those carbon bound fulvic acid, humic acid bound minerals are able to actually chelate all the crap that's in your body and help detoxify you and all this stuff, people are able to develop tissues without the calcification.

1:13:09 And so like I've gone to a handful of body workers in recent years and based on the type of strength training that I do, the frequency, the volume, they are all blown away at how well my entire body can deal with pressure. So there's this sense of being able to receive pressure fluidly that is both in part movement stimulus for the tissues to adapt to it, but also what the tissues are actually made-up of. And the level of inflammation in the body and the level of mineral balance and all of these other things that create a healthy, like not just a movement pattern, but also a healthy tissue that can deal with movement patterns as well.

1:14:01 So minerals and water, carbon bound minerals through something like CMOS is pretty good too. I think shilajit is better than CMOS. And then clean freaking real water like those two things can take a decade of trying every diet, every training, every bio hack and just blow them out of the water within six months. Because those are the minerals hold the keys to all enzymatic processes in our bodies and enzymes speed up and make efficient processes. So if your body is in a place where it doesn't have the things at a cellular level to make an efficient, you know, chemical reaction or or biological process happen, you're always missing the mark.

1:14:49 You're always behind the starting line. And that's where I, I also think alt fitness usually leads people to alt health as well. And so there's kind of this nice marriage of open minded thinking that also produces the better result Where where for example, I, I use the brand Mydolife. I know they shipped to Canada and the US, I'm not 100% sure about international, but they, I, I use their pressed resin tablets. I've been using them for years. My code is ET strength, all the Mydolife products. It's also the water filter that I use, the seventh stage.

1:15:34 It's re mineralized with a little bit of magnesium bicarbonate. I make magnesium bicarbonate myself. I made a recent post on that. How do you do that? Oh, so, so magnesium bicarbonate. I made a post recently because I see at least once a day on Instagram some popular fitness influencer talking about the seven types of magnesium and glycinate and citrate and oxide and this and that. And none of them are talking about the form of magnesium that was in our drinking water free industrial revolution, which is magnesium bicarbonate.

1:16:10 Magnesium bicarbonate was created in spring water and bicarbonate minerals in general through the carbonic acid cycle and how it kind of peels minerals off of the rocks and all the medium it passes through over time breaks them down, creates these chemical bonds that create the four main minerals in their bicarbonate form. Now, the way you make magnesium bicarbonate is with a soda stream machine. So one of those machines that carbonates water and you get magnesium hydroxide powder. Now magnesium hydroxide powder, if it's not from a good source, is going to taste like a dead fish and it is disgusting.

1:16:52 And it's also a laxative when it is not actually chemically processed into bicarbonate form. So like, you wouldn't want to put magnesium hydroxide in a glass of water that is actually sold in pharmacies as milk of magnesia, which is a brutal laxative. Disgusting. It is horrendous. But what happens is the the CO2 makes the water slightly acidic, which allows for that environment of the chemical reaction of magnesium hydroxide to break off the hydroxide. It attaches to the CO2, which creates bicarbonate.

1:17:27 You're left with magnesium, H2O and bicarbonate. Now bicarbonate is our main pH buffering system in our body, so not only are we getting a ionic form of magnesium that does not require any organs to process it to absorb it, it goes straight through the small intestine right into the bloodstream, helps delivered to where it's needed. Magnesium is what we are by far super depleted in because most of us magnesium and calcium work in a relationship. Everyone is getting just burnt out with stress, which overproduces calcium and they don't have the magnesium to actually mitigate that stress process.

1:18:08 So everyone's just burning through magnesium at an insane rate. And then they're taking these products that are maybe 20% bioavailable, 30% bioavailable, better than not taking it. But magnesium bicarbonate because it's the liquid stable, water stable ionic form of magnesium plus the pH buffering system addition that you get with actually getting the bicarbonate in there. It's it's way more gentle on the digestive system and it's way more bioavailable than most of these other products. And it is the way we would have typically been receiving bicarbonate from natural spring sources, free acid rain, pre industrial revolution, free world that we're living in right now.

1:18:55 And so most people have way higher of a tolerance to actually consume more of it with way less digestive downsides, Constipation issues or diarrhea issues like magnesium can also cause. And your body's actually gonna be able to use it. The only trick to it is you have to hyper carbonate the water, which is where like getting a carbonated spring water bottle, it's just not gonna have enough carbonation to actually make the chemical reaction happen. So you which is where one of those machines work.

1:19:27 So you put the magnesium, you move the magnesium in before you make it or after the OR. Choice No. So, so the actual the actual process, Andreas, is you have to chill the water. So it needs to be cold water because that will eliminate how fast the CO2 is actually gonna leave the water, right. So it kind of keeps it in there a little bit better. Now you chill the water, you put it in the CO2 machine and you just pump that water with as much CO2 as possible. You take it out very quickly. You add like a teaspoon or two teaspoons depending on how large the bottle is.

1:20:04 You cap it and it has to be airtight. You shake it. You put it in the fridge every hour or every time you pass the fridge, just shake it up a little bit more and then it's going to turn clear. Once it's clear, all of the hydroxide powder. Has chemically reacted into the free floating magnesium ion plus the bicarbonate in the water. And if you're left with more carbonation, all that means is you could have just added more magnesium hydroxide, right? Because because basically you're left with CO2 and Clearwater, meaning that the CO2 could have reacted with more of the hydroxide I. See.

1:20:42 I see. So typically we get in like a 18 oz or 20 oz bottle, something like 3200 milligrams of magnesium. So you could just start with a little shot, you're probably getting a hundred 200 milligrams in that shot. And then you find your threshold of how much your body could handle with no, no digestive distress or anything like that. And then you build up that tolerance over time to where you're getting the ideal amount of magnesium each day for your levels of stress, for your your training intensity, for how much magnesium?

1:21:15 Yeah, between magnesium and it. Has to. Be hydroxide, it can't be any other form of magnesium. It's not going to react. So that's the process of it, which is it's just a simple science experiment. Takes a little bit of time, but it's like probably 20 times more cost effective than most magnesium supplements because you buy the powder in bulk. Again, it's got to be pure otherwise it's going to taste like crap and then you, you know, one bag can last you like, I don't know, 200,000 milligrams of of magnesium, you know, and it's cheap stuff.

1:21:50 It's not expensive. The brand that I like is crucial 4. Are you familiar with No Crucial 4? Never heard it before. They're awesome. They're an. Awesome company. I also. Have a code with MET strength. They also have an Icelandic sea salt that has three times more magnesium and four times more potassium in the salt than like Celtic salt or other sea salt brands. So between their sea salt and their magnesium, you're pretty much getting the three main minerals that are required for cellular processes and muscular processes in in their best forms and and highest purity.

1:22:30 So between the magnesium bicarbonate, shilajit and legitimate clean drinking water from like a cellular level and what your cells could then produce as the byproduct of new tissue growth, right? Clearing out old dead tissue regeneration, apoptosis, get rid of the bad cells, right? All that stuff happens from a state of actual nutrition, which is not coming from vegetables, is not coming from food sources. We need the help of supplements in the world that we live in because we are so brutally attacked.

1:23:10 It's it's a legitimate attack on our health you know, and so those the correct supplements are a legitimate weapon that that can make huge differences in people's lives and pain yes we're. Living in an unnatural. World. So we need to. Take some unnatural tools in a way like your unconventional tools to be able to assist us to be able to perform at a normal level, which is ridiculous to say, but this is just what it is now because of all the I'm really happy that you mentioned things like the magnesium, the salts that the shilajit, the water, because I, as you said, they are foundational to our health.

1:23:52 And I think that so many people are burnt out and stressed these days. And we know that the importance of magnesium for lowering stress levels, causing the muscle relaxation, helping people to get deeper sleep. Of course that's just a small patch to the problem. Of course people need to address their lifestyle right? So try and be as much in a parasopathic state as they can by breathing correctly, nasal breathing, by wearing barefoot shoes, sensing the environment so their brain can perceive safety getting outside in sunlight, you know, leading a circadian appropriate lifestyle.

1:24:29 Like as you can see all my lighting in the house after sunset. I'm sitting at the window right now. There's a natural light coming in, but as soon as it gets dark, everything will be red in my house. And then if I have to look at screens, I have to wear my red, blue light blocking glasses so I don't stimulate cortisol production, so it doesn't block my melatonin from being released and all this stuff. People need to take these a little bit more extreme approaches in an extreme world. This is just like the fact that we need to face, really.

1:25:00 But I really appreciate you, Edward. Thank you so much for this conversation. It's been awesome. Yeah, absolutely, brother. I appreciate. Appreciate the opportunity. Where can people find you, connect with you, work with you? Yeah. So I have. I have my. Website etstrength.com, that's where you can find my offers. I have my rope Flow foundations course, which I've had up for four years. I've helped hundreds of people worldwide learn, master and teach the practice. I also have my school community which is, you know, school.com back slash train with ET.

1:25:33 That's where I have all my training material, beginner programs, kettlebell stuff, the the rope flow course is there. The difference with the offers is the foundations course on my website is a one time purchase lifetime access versus the school community where the rope programming in there is like 15% of what's available. And by the end of this year it will be like a fraction of 1% of what's in there. And it's a monthly upkeep with that. I'll also have like my lifestyle foundations program in there soon.

1:26:03 So getting into the stuff we kind of wrapped up the conversation with. So it's kind of my one stop shop for everything I know done, coached, applied, figured out, messed up with in in one place is my goal with that community. And then my Instagrams Edward dot Troyce. You can also find me if you type in ET strength. But I'm a couple people down kind of bummed. I want to reach out to this guy and try and have him get rid of his handle so I can have ET straight. He hasn't posted in like 5 years. Is yours ET dot strength?

1:26:35 Is that the difference? No, no, mine just Edward dot Troyce because. Anything ET strength that's like, not with a bunch of underscores and numbers and weird stuff isn't available unfortunately. I I. Got there. Got to that party a little bit, you know, at the beginning when I saw the ET strength before. I knew your name. I thought it meant extraterrestrial strength because it kind of, I checked it kind of and. I thought, like, this guy's like an alien, you know, She's like. She's a beast. That's hilarious.

1:27:05 Yeah, no, I mean. That's that's a fun. Word play that that can kind of fit fit the whole thing but was not my intent. No, but it suits you anyway. You enjoy all these awesome conversations that I'm having with the guests. I would really appreciate if you left me a five star review on Spotify and you also followed me also on on YouTube as well because that helps to get the message out there and spread this awesome knowledge and wisdom. I hope that you have an awesome morning slash evening wherever you are in the world.

1:27:36 And until next time, this is the Fitness Wisdom podcasts.