Can We Identify The Human Athletic BASICS & Turn Them Into Step-by-Step Systems For ALL AGES?

0:00 Accelerating and decelerating are more basic human abilities than jumping,

0:05 but I think we can turn all of that into step-by-step

0:08 levels of rehab and performance for all ages, though.

0:12 I'm just trying to systematize what we all see in front of our eyes.

0:15 So, please keep me posted on your own observations.

0:18 Thank you.

0:19 Three main solutions I've used to rehab the issue of acceleration, deceleration,

0:25 and we'll look at kids naturally first aging as well as world-class athletes.

0:31 I've been watching my kids at the park for a few years now.

0:34 Kids sprint and then they have crazy downhill ability.

0:37 They're going down giant steps without pain, huge decelerations,

0:42 and landings, but you then look at aging,

0:47 that gets wiped out and part of what gets

0:49 wiped out is continuing to go up and down hills.

0:53 And in parts of the world where they're like, "Exercise,

0:55 what's that?" And they just live robustly in a long

0:57 time and don't need help from other people,

0:59 they tend to keep going up and down hills.

1:01 So, finding a hill near you could be life-changing,

1:04 but a tip on that is when you go downhill,

1:08 take as slow and small of steps as you

1:10 need for you to be in control without pain.

1:14 If you just kind of go through and miss the tension on the downhill,

1:19 you could be missing part of that process.

1:21 So, you have a progressive overload device like that now.

1:25 Daryl Green, guy who was arguably the fastest in NFL history, ran like a 4-2 40.

1:32 He called me cuz he saw the stuff I was doing

1:33 with backward and he's he told me about his routine he's been doing.

1:36 He's like 57 now and he can sprint up a hill backward like that quick.

1:42 So, he's like, "This there's something with this backward." So,

1:46 we do have a fundamental rehab to the downhill by simply going backward.

1:54 In Asia, they've been doing this for thousands

1:56 of years to help prevent arthritis in the elderly.

1:58 Holding hands, one person facing so they can

2:01 see where they're going and the other walking backward.

2:04 Now, we talked about real hills.

2:05 This is like a rehab device for an actual hill that you can just have at home.

2:11 Notice I have zero weight on my legs.

2:13 So, you can control the pressure until it's

2:16 more like the full pressure of sprinting and then

2:19 you don't have to slow down like a hill

2:22 and then you can separately work on the backward.

2:26 My mom has been doing this or using sleds,

2:30 same concept, forward and backward for 8 years.

2:33 She's 72 and can sprint.

2:35 I'm working on kind of like

2:36 a family little modest little family compound situation.

2:40 Get my parents living with me.

2:41 So, you'll see you'll see Nana sprinting soon.

2:44 My dad's 68, has already been helping with me

2:48 and my wife and the toddlers and I catch him out here

2:51 and he's working on it like this and he's also

2:53 going backward and this has been one of his favorite exercises.

2:56 Same with the sled.

2:59 And then my mentor Charles Poliquin,

3:01 he used backward sled work and step down work with Olympic gold medalist.

3:09 He called this the million-dollar knee exercise of handling a reverse step up

3:13 because of how helpful it was for the knee in these Olympic athletes.

3:16 But, let's look at this.

3:18 $2 cinder block, $2 2x4.

3:21 You could assist yourself to get started and the general concept you

3:25 have here is going from the ability to step up to step down.

3:31 Now, for me, this is represents years.

3:34 So, think weeks.

3:37 Look at the control here.

3:38 Months.

3:40 Now, getting all the way out.

3:42 So, for my goals, I like where it's almost like I

3:43 could have an awkward landing in basketball or miss a step.

3:47 I'm protected.

3:49 No knee issues.

3:49 So, I'm reaching to that heel as far as I can.

3:52 But, for someone else, maybe this is a level that works for your goals.

3:57 So, as you can see, equipment not a barrier to some of the most

4:02 successful methods in the world

4:04 for everybody at this acceleration deceleration issue.

4:10 Before we get to the jump, the squat is another huge missing basic.

4:17 My kid squat the people in these places

4:20 where they don't break down like modern elderly.

4:25 They're still gardening and working in a deep squat.

4:29 Let's look from a rehab perspective first.

4:32 And the first thing to note is that when someone thinks they can't squat,

4:36 heel elevation and counterbalance usually fix it.

4:40 Now, you could say that's cheating the ankles.

4:42 But, unless you're watching the video like this, unless you were in school like

4:46 this, you're probably missing a bit of mobility

4:49 compared to what you would naturally have.

4:51 And not to worry because the moment you start doing a calf raise,

4:57 you're loading your ankle mobility and strength more than squatting like this.

5:03 So, you could always do your squats like

5:06 this and still have amazing mobility like this.

5:10 It's not something to fear,

5:11 and I don't think you should even care about what that mobility is exactly.

5:14 What I want you doing is just trying to exercise

5:17 your knees through a full range of motion without pain.

5:22 Knee over toe and full bending were incorrectly banished for millions of people.

5:28 That's why I'm knees over toes guy.

5:30 The research didn't show it as bad.

5:31 It just showed it as more pressure.

5:33 So, we now have tool to handle

5:34 that pressure in the long-term research shows that actually

5:37 full squats with the knee over toes equals

5:40 less knee pain and your knee joints last longer.

5:44 I still sit like a normal guy.

5:46 I don't actually really spend much time in life like that.

5:50 But I do it in my training.

5:51 So, there's number of ways you can

5:52 get this, whether it's naturally or with exercises.

5:55 The original [clears throat]

5:58 method of progressing the load and let's look for context of goals.

6:04 For example, if you told me, "Okay, Ben,

6:07 you sign this contract and you're going to live to 100 and still be

6:12 able to control 50 lb pain-free full range of motion." I would take that deal.

6:17 But the original how to even set up for this What is

6:24 George Hackenschmidt before squat racks existed

6:29 would hold weights or medicine balls,

6:31 things behind his back, balance on his toes, knees way over the toes.

6:39 He got the strongest in the world at that.

6:42 And guess what?

6:43 That dude was jumping over chairs till the till his death in his mid-80s.

6:50 No one has matched that knee longevity yet.

6:54 The hack squat machines in the gym named after him,

6:58 most people are using like this.

6:59 They're built for people to avoid the very position that he was in.

7:04 Maybe you're getting down like this or something.

7:07 Almost no one uses it the way that he was using it.

7:11 Now, the balance can be tough.

7:14 That can be tough to control.

7:15 I'm just going to show you the simplest I found,

7:17 and particularly for athletes who are very busy

7:20 in the strength training to be real simple to learn.

7:22 So, notice here from grandpa to my kids,

7:27 we have a progression of where that weight is.

7:30 And then with a hex bar, we can load that infinitely.

7:36 I left these here to show that even this works to make a podium for that.

7:41 Now, in my coaching experience with basketball players,

7:44 it's more common for a player to be able to lift twice

7:50 his weight through a partial range of motion than That's double my body weight.

7:59 than for them to be able to lift the body

8:01 weight through a full range of motion without knee pain.

8:08 So, you see we get this huge deviation

8:11 from natural proportion of upper to lower strength.

8:17 So, now you have my system that I've used for just about everyone.

8:23 Last note, I know this a long one,

8:26 is that I have very different knees cuz one side was super stiff from surgeries.

8:33 Leave one of these here so you can see that will work.

8:35 Other side, super loose cuz I was told I needed more surgeries.

8:39 And I did this patiently.

8:44 Tension here.

8:45 If you see it from this side, tension here.

8:48 I think this is low-key amazing for the low back along with back side training.

8:51 You can assist.

8:52 No pressure how far you go.

8:55 Again, weeks, months, years progressing full range of motion one side at a time.

9:03 So, that could remedy if you have some

9:05 major differences that the deep squats don't feel right.

9:09 Doesn't even mean you can't deep squat.

9:10 Maybe you can work like one of each per week.

9:12 That's the average that I've coached.

9:16 Now, we get to the jumping.

9:18 And let's rewind that back.

9:20 That was height, hopping off the ground, distance.

9:27 But, the most natural jump I see,

9:30 my daughter make a friend or something, and she'll just be skipping with joy.

9:36 A is the only jump drill that I've given my mom who's 72.

9:43 She can sprint.

9:44 She's got mobility.

9:45 So, we can't say, "Oh, you have to do more complicated jumps." What is a skip?

9:52 You jump, land momentarily, jump again, land momentarily.

9:58 So, to simplify, think of skip then hop.

10:01 And And a skip could be a 1-in jump or could be multiple feet.

10:09 A skip is a basic in track and field

10:11 that has all kinds of variations within that basic.

10:14 A hop, you're now having to go again, jump again.

10:18 You don't get that momentary break.

10:21 Where we see this most naturally is

10:23 certain tribes and dances where they do that.

10:28 Unfortunately, my tribe didn't set me up with with that jumping.

10:36 I'm thinking if I start now and make like a family dance,

10:43 like a thousand years from now, be natural jumpers.

10:49 [snorts] But, who says a hop can't be this?

10:53 So, for my mom, I think she loved the skipping.

10:55 I think I think that's like, okay,

10:58 if we do the basics well, but then for elite athletic goals,

11:03 stuff like that, you'll see a lot of the top track athletes

11:06 in the world doing different jumps where they hop and then go into another hop.

11:11 And And at advanced levels,

11:12 it's like it's like they'll hop from one foot, boom, the next foot.

11:17 Even Look.

11:20 This is hopping.

11:23 That's hopping.

11:25 Different levels of force.

11:29 Closing words, though, guy come from basketball background.

11:34 And I've coached over a thousand people in person.

11:37 As a population, ex-basketball players have some

11:40 of the worst knees I've ever seen.

11:43 Hopefully, from this video you can quickly see,

11:45 okay, they had to do so much jumping,

11:50 an unnatural amount of jumping for a human,

11:52 with an unnatural lack of support through full range of motion for the legs.

11:57 So, this was actually what got me dunking.

12:00 I found out I could dunk a basketball after knee surgeries,

12:04 all kinds of problems, had never dunked, never thought I would dunk.

12:08 But, I did a lot of basketball.

12:09 So, then by bringing this up to some degree to match it,

12:12 then my knees could support it.

12:13 And I had a friend who was like, "Oh, yeah, you could dunk." I'm like,

12:15 "What are you talking about?" So, yeah, I found out I could dunk a basketball.

12:18 I've now gone over 10 years without

12:20 losing the ability dunk without a knee problem.

12:24 But, I try to keep my body in this balance.

12:26 And I recognize that jumping is a more extreme human exercise.

12:31 So, I think even having that awareness alone of like, okay, what are the basics?

12:36 Those can then support the jumping,

12:38 but to realize that jumping is then more of an extreme bonus thing,

12:41 which is normalized in sport, but often taken to extremes versus what's natural.

12:47 Last words.

12:50 I'm just trying to observe this stuff from the viewpoint of, okay,

12:54 the secret to greatness is going to actually

12:57 be figuring out what are the basics,

13:02 and then not taking those for granted or taking

13:04 them and or taking them to higher levels.

13:06 Like, if you look in a marriage, if you look in raising kids,

13:09 um you get down to some really basic stuff,

13:12 and that takes the stress out for me.

13:14 What are the basics, and then can I do those well?

13:19 I'm not trying to be perfect,

13:20 but if you if you really identify what actually are the basics,

13:23 and then you cultivate yours, I think you can do well in a lot

13:27 of areas and actually outperform that kind of hyper stressed complexity.

13:33 So, I hope this helps your life in and out of exercise,

13:38 but keep me posted on your thoughts just as I'm keeping you posted on mine.

13:43 See you.