77 Keys to Body Awareness and Movement Design for an Improved Life with Carl Paoli

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 77 with Carl Paoli.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  What is up everyone? Thanks so much for tuning in today. Super pumped. It's a beautiful day here in Los Angeles and I'm very excited because this is the most fun part of my day, which is putting out a new episode and connecting with someone who's inspiring in the world, who's changing the world, who's making a better place. And I'm excited to introduce you to this person. His name is Carl Paoli and he's actually been on the show before. He's one of a few people who've been on the show twice now. I think Tim Ferriss was one and we've got Chris Lee was one and I think now Carl might be the only other person who's been on twice. So very excited about this. The last time we had him on was a year ago. You can go check out that.

• 1:16Lewis Howes?

  I'll have this in the show notes where you can see that episode. But this one is all about maximizing sport and life performance with four basic movements and really how to become a master of flow with your body and a master of maximizing your body throughout your daily life and your lifestyle. Because once we stop moving, we start dying. So it's really important for us to understand how to move, why it's important and what to do about it. So I'm very excited about bringing you Carl back on the show and I'll be introducing you to all more about him here in just a second. And with that, let's go ahead and dive into this episode with the one and only Carl Paoli. Let's go ahead and dive in right now.

• 2:09Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone again to the School of Greatness Podcast. I've got my man Carl Powley in the house. What's up Carl?

• 2:17Speaker 01

  What's up dude? Good to be back on the show and talk to you again. It's crazy. It's been a year already.

• 2:23Lewis Howes?

  It's been a year. I literally just looked just before this interview and it was like July 30th or 31st or something when we did the first episode, episode number, what number is this? 26. And now we're in the 70s. So it's good to have you. You're one of three people, I believe, who's been on the show twice now. So this is a monumental mark, my man.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  That's awesome. I know we had a great time last time. So.

• 2:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. It was a blast, man. You had me like doing crazy stuff with my back and you know, checking out how my body moves. And I want to get into more of that because I've had some minor setbacks with a few different, I wouldn't say injuries, but I would say opportunities for growth in my body that held me back for a month here and there with some little tweaks. So I want to get into all the stuff about what you're an expert in, which is what we're going to be covering, which is about your book, which is called Freestyle. And it's all about how to maximize sport and life performance with four

• 3:32Lewis Howes?

  basic movements. So I'm pumped, man, because I believe that we're built to move constantly. And you can either back me up or debunk this theory I have, but I believe we're built to move constantly. And the desk and the chair and the couch is like our biggest enemies. And am I right or am I wrong?

• 3:54Speaker 01

  I agree, man. And I say this all the time. I'm like, if you aren't moving, you're probably sleeping in a coma or dead, you know? It's one of those things that we're constantly moving and constantly on the go. And it doesn't matter if you're sleeping, you're, you know, some part of your body is breathing. So if, uh, if movement is life, like my friend Lindsay Matthews with Birthbit would say, well, then we need to, we need to keep moving.

• 4:20Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, exactly, exactly. And is there too much movement? Is there such a thing as moving too much? Do our bodies need a break ever? Uh, obviously I understand the importance of sleep for recovery, but how much movement is too much?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, you know, as an athlete, you, you play, uh, several sports and handball specifically. You know, when you overtrain a little bit, uh, there's always a little bit of setback. Your body says, hey, yo, you can't go that far. Here's a, here's a little wall. I need to push you back a little bit. And usually it's, uh, yeah, we can, we can, you know, move too much and affect the physiology of our body. But it's usually dependent on how well we operate in terms of mechanics, meaning how well we move, how efficiently we move. And, uh, you know, I think our conversation here is that we have to be in constant movement for life. And we need to be in constant movement for performance.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  And for you as an athlete, if you stop moving, well, then, uh, you're, you're lost. And we need to find ways of optimizing that movement. So you can carry the physiology and make sure that the physiology actually adapts with you. So you can continue to move. So it always comes back to movement. And it's, uh, it's, uh, just learning how the body operates and how to cycle that, uh, the right way.

• 5:39Lewis Howes?

  Right. So for those that don't know Carl yet, or you didn't hear the first episode, give us a little bit of background about you. You know, you were in the gymnastics world for a long time. So you're, you're able to do things with your body that I can't even fathom doing. Uh, like going upside down, you know, hanging on a bar is like, makes me dizzy and nauseous. And you can do like crazy flips all the time. And you're, if, if you're not following his Instagram account, make sure to follow his Instagram account. Because it's lots of cool videos of him doing like b-boy and backflips and stuff like that. So. Um, but you're a gymnast, you're in gymnastics. And then what happened? You've, you've transitioned from that into being a specialized strength and conditioning coach and CrossFit and specifically gymnastics, right?

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, uh, gymnastics was of course the root where I grew up, uh, in the gym and. Uh, artistic gymnastics was the sport that I, I, I trained and I practiced and that was something that I was very obsessed with, of course, until uh, it was time to retire and of course, I didn't wanna retire until I made the Olympics. And you know what I'm talking about.

• 6:44Lewis Howes?

  I, I'm still there, man.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  I know, but you're, you're on that path, which is, is really inspiring, but um, yeah, I, I, I tell people this story all the time, you know, as a kid, I was so obsessed with gymnastics that I would go to bed early just to close my eyes and think about gymnastics. When I, you know, sat in, in the backseat of my parents' car as a kid, I remember looking out the window and imagining myself doing flips down the street and tumbling and uh, you know, I have those, those vivid memories, but by the time I was eighteen, I had had several little injuries and uh, if you, if you see me standing next to a gymnast, I don't really look like the average gymnast, I'm, I'm almost, I almost look like a basketball player compared to them.

• 7:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  So, I just didn't fit the mold, man, and I, I couldn't hang, so um, I kinda dropped out of, of gymnastics when I was nineteen, I still was in the gym, of course. Uh, but I found this passion for wakeboarding during the summer. I, I grew up in Spain in a beautiful city, uh, by, by the water uh, called Alicante, and I was fortunate enough to have access to a little boat and I would go on a wakeboard with my friends and I realized that the gymnastics that I learned had carried over to that and during the winter, we would go up to the mountains and I, I learned how to snowboard and

• 8:12Speaker 01

  uh, once again, I, I continued to realize that my gymnastics background had carried over and

• 8:19Speaker 01

  You know, long story short, I ended up moving to the US and uh I started coaching gymnastics to these little boys, they were six year olds, at a at a gym called Acro Sports here in San Francisco. And um it's when I got into the gym, actually, that I started realizing that I knew something about gymnastics, that I could uh deliver a message that these kids could kind of take with them and and you know, improve on and and apply to what they cared about, which I thought was gymnastics. But uh I was actually very wrong about that.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Uh these kids didn't really care about gymnastics, they just cared about moving and feeling good while moving and uh they wanted playtime and they wanted to, you know, feel things that uh made their bodies uh do things that they hadn't done before and and uh this took me a while to figure out, but one day uh when I walked in, instead of teaching them gymnastics, I I actually asked them what they really wanted to learn and they, you know, at first, of course, were like, oh yeah, we want to learn all the different events and do proper handstands and all these things and one of the kids actually said, you know what? Coach, I just want to eh run up this wall and do a backflip.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  And I was like, damn, that's that's cool, uh I like that. And then, you know, there was this other kid, he had a treehouse and he's just like hey, coach, I just wanna, you know, jump out of this treehouse and survive.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  And I was like, that is awesome. So I started hearing all these things and I started realizing that they didn't really care about gymnastics, they they cared about other things. And what I knew was gymnastics. And what I decided to do was, I decided to use gymnastics as an excuse to teach them

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  those movements.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  And I think that's, you know, the time, this was in two thousand four that I really began to coach and to train people and

• 10:29Speaker 01

  I carried that over into the fitness world and of course I found CrossFit through Olympic weightlifting and kettlebells and uh eventually I realized that it didn't matter what discipline you were in, it was really all about understanding how the body functioned for those different disciplines and styles of movement and it was really about decoding how the body moves so you can train it, break it down, rebuild it again and then apply it into your performance and that's who I am as a coach. I I would I would say I'm uh not a gymnastics coach but definitely uh uh I guess a movement coach.

• 11:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:12Lewis Howes?

  You're like a human movement coach.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Something like that. Sounds kinda geeky though.

• 11:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, no, I like it. And here's the interesting thing is, you know gymnastics was so boring growing up, like no kid, at least where I was from, did gymnastics. It was like the most minor sport that you could do. Is it even considered a sport? Even it's like kind of like, who knows, right? That's what I grew up thinking. But now, I almost wish that my parents sent me to it and that was mandatory, at least for one year, as like a seven-year-old. To be able to do basic, learn basic movements when my body was flexible enough to do a somersault and to do a handstand and just like jump around in a trampoline and flip, flip in the mats, just to kinda get used to body awareness because, although I feel like it's pretty good now, I mean obviously I've done a lot of sports, but I feel like there's so many

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  people that don't have great body awareness and don't know how to move properly. It's probably because they never were um, you know, given that opportunity as a kid, except for rolling around on the ground. And uh, I don't know why it's not more, you know, why it's not mandatory for at least one year of kids growing up. I think it'd be a great thing for everyone, uh, just for like the health, overall health of the world. It's my opinion.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  I I couldn't agree more, you know, it's. It's too bad that it's uh, it feels so uh, unattainable somehow like. I think people see gymnastics and it's uh, the gymnastics that they see, they see it in the Olympics and they're like, wow, that's impossible. I can't, you know, jump up on a set of rings and do an iron cross, you know, that's, that's crazy. But um, if you think about, you know, gymnastics as just your ability to move your body through space in ways that you want to move them, uh, now we're starting to talk about something that we're all aware of.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  And you know, I talk about this every day. I'm like, you know, what if uh, you know, you broke your arm today and tomorrow you went to get out of bed? Things would all of a sudden feel a little bit different and you would, would like to be able to get out of bed comfortably. And I think being able to cover those basic needs that the human being actually has, which is being able to move under any kind of circumstances, to be able to accomplish uh, a very basic task like getting out of bed, uh, or picking up your kids or playing with your kids, like playing tag with your kids. I think that is the essence of gymnastics and that's what people don't understand.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  And uh, you know, you very well said it. I, I wish now that I could do a handstand and tumble and do some things. And I wish it had been mandatory back then, but because adults uh, right now, our, our generation just doesn't understand how to make that accessible. It doesn't exist and the goal is to, to make that possible because it is very basic.

• 14:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and it's almost like, you know, with CrossFit, at least CrossFitters, gymnastics is coming back. Like everyone's now wants to learn about how to master gymnastics for their CrossFit game or whatever. And uh, that's why you've been such a powerful force in the CrossFit world with gymnasticswad.com. By educating people on very basic things that they can do to apply just with the positioning of their hands, their arms, like their shoulders. And it's making a huge impact in how people are, are staying healthier, how they're able to lift more, you know, shave time on their uh, On their, you know, their wads, things like that. So it's been, you've been a powerful

• 14:48Lewis Howes?

  force in that community, which has been awesome to see. And now you've got this book, which is really for, you know, the world, not just CrossFitters, but for average people like myself, who just want to like, learn how to maximize their body and their movement. And what was really, you know, your inspiration for writing the book? Because if this thing is beautiful looking, it's like, it's one of the most detailed books I've ever seen. It's like beautiful, it's large, it's heavy, lots of content in here, so many images, it's like ridiculous how much time you spent into this. You know, I looked at Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Chef book, I almost put this in comparison to the how like, much detail

• 15:31Lewis Howes?

  that book is. This is like, almost the exact same amount of detail. I'm like, wow, blown away.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 15:37Lewis Howes?

  So, why were you inspired to, one, write this book and make it look the way that it is?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  You know, I joke about this, but I, I, I was kind of tricked into writing it.

• 15:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Uh, I was actually hanging out with Kelly Starrett, who is of course, physical therapist and author of Becoming a Supple Leopard. And we were shooting a couple of pictures for his book, actually. And he was there with his co-author, Glenn Cordoza. And Kelly said, you should sign this kid. And he looked at me and I was like, me? I, I, I'm not, I'm not ready yet for a book. And Kelly's like, you are ready. You, you need to do this. You're a superstar. And of course, I believed it. I was like, alright, sign me on, I'm, I'm ready to go. And, uh, of course, they wanted me to write a gymnastics book.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  And, you know, when I first started gymnastics WOD in 10,000, uh, 2010, uh, my intention was never to teach artistic gymnastics. My, my intention was to show the CrossFit community, which is, uh, a, a, a community of fitness that I'm very attracted to, because they bring all these aspects that I was, uh, really studying as, as a young coach and trying to figure out how they would actually fit in within, uh, a strength and conditioning program for a professional athlete, or a snowboarder, or for someone that did trampoline as accessory work for snowboarding. Uh, I realized that within the modality of CrossFit,

• 17:11Speaker 01

  there were certain aspects of gymnastics that were missing in terms of the specific techniques of gymnastics. And uh, I said, you know what, well, let me offer that to the CrossFit community. I think uh, CrossFit gymnastics is already doing it, but I'm gonna offer it from a little bit of a different perspective. And my perspective was, let me translate why a gymnast cares about these body positions and performing the movement with this technique. So it can actually transfer over into whatever your specific purpose and need is as a, as a performer. And all I did was, in gymnastics squad, was teach movements, show very basic progressions.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  And then I became a translator by using movement. I would say, hey, here's the gymnastics movement. If you perform it this way and you train it this way, it would directly relate to the movement that you're trying to accomplish, maybe in lifting. Or if you're a runner trying to run faster and longer, or if, you know, you're a snowboarder and you're trying to do bigger tricks and jump and land. And when I got first signed by, by the publishing house called Victory Belt, I was told, you know, do a gymnastics book. Show us some feats of strength, show us these cool tricks that you do. Hmm, right. And when I started writing that, I was just kind of blah, you know, just disappointed.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  I didn't like it and I told them, hey, I, I, I'm not feeling this. I, I, I don't know really how to, how to write about this. I don't, I don't necessarily feel like this is my calling. And they said, well, write about anything, write about CrossFit or weightlifting or just strength and conditioning. So I tried to write about that, um, but it, it, it just wasn't coming together. And then I realized that, you know, I've been teaching this seminar called Freestyle Connection for uh, several years and I was, I was talking to my, my uh, My co-author Anthony Sherbandi and he said, why don't we just write a manual for the seminar?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  And in fact, screw the book, let's just write an ebook, super small manual. And that day, I was on fire and within three hours, I just wrote the whole outline, got it all done and I was like, oh my goodness, this is it. And that's when I realized that the inspiration was to create a book that could be used as a translator and a dictionary that you can come to and say, oh, this is who I am as a human being and who we all are as human being. Here are the principles for those movements. And this is how I can train them in different styles and disciplines.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  And this is how I can take that training and actually apply it to my purpose for training. So this book is really a manual uh to help you translate uh why you move the way you move and how you can further train and develop that movement to further enhance your performance. So it's it's really a a translator and a tool to help you see across all these disciplines through human movement.

• 20:29Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Yes. So there's, there's a lot of people who are listening who aren't athletes. Maybe they work out from time to time, but they're not, you know, hardcore athletes like myself or do CrossFit. Some of them do, but not everyone. So you talk about in the book Freestyle, which is free plus style, not one word. Uh, you talk about it's covering four basic movements. And my, my question is you've got all these different like symbols on the cover of your book. And one, what do those symbols mean? Uh, and do they pertain to the four basic movements?

• 21:02Speaker 01

  So these symbols are supposed to represent basic body shapes. Uh, you get straight lines, like when we're standing, that's a very basic body shapes. You got uh ninety degree angles, which is almost like sitting in a chair or bending over to pick up the groceries. And then you got these kind of semi-circular uh shapes, which are basic body positions that we get into. We, we flex into uh a little ball or we extend into different positions depending on what we're doing. Like if we're throwing or swinging, uh, we get into these positions and. Uh, here on the cover, they're kind of represented separate, but as you go through the book, you will realize that.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  We live in the crossover of all those shapes.

• 21:51Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Um, and for people that, you know, are not athletes, uh, they must realize that, just like you said, we, we are designed for movement. And athletics is simply a, a, a high level expression of how we move. It's, it's an exaggeration of reality. It's an exaggeration of playing. And I think that motivation of playing something because it's fun and because it feels good is what. I'm also trying to inspire people to do and uh. I think a lot of us take, take who we are as physical beings sometimes for granted.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  And um, we just kind of go through, through our life thinking, oh yeah, this is normal. But I think you should ask yourself, is it really normal? And if it's not normal, what else is there? You know, can, can I go a little further? Uh, what can my body really do? Can I be pain free? Can I, you know, perform something with my body that I didn't know I could? And how do I get there is what I'm trying to solve as well. So I'm trying to encourage people to develop their lifestyle, but understand that if you.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Just study a little bit how your body moves, simply by listening to it and by paying attention to it. You will learn some things about yourself that will get you a little further, uh, and closer to being something and someone. You kind of just dream of.

• 23:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  You know?

• 23:30Lewis Howes?

  So for those looking to.

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  You know, take their performance in life to the next level, whether that's their energy levels, whether that's their business, their career, their relationships, um, just having more energy throughout the day, stay, being clearer, being more focused. And really just optimize their human performance, their life performance. What are some things that they should be doing or should be focusing on? Um, let's just say they're, you know, an average weight individual, not overweight, not really fit, but what's something they can do to start optimizing their life through these movements and through what you talk about in the book?

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the first thing is just becoming aware of who you are as a physical being. And I mean, this is something you can do in the morning and I, I try to do it as often as possible. And, you know, just to share a little bit of a personal story, I, uh, with all the work that I've been doing and all the traveling, I, I suffer from a little bit of anxiety and I was very stressed and nervous. And I just wasn't eating well, wasn't sleeping well, constantly at hotels. I would suffer from some anxiety and I would just start going down this spiral. And, uh, uh, what I realized is that one very basic thing to do, and this is something everyone tells you, oh, just stop and take a breath.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Um, what they're really saying is just stop for a second and feel your body. And one of the things that I do in the morning is right as I wake up, as I realize that I'm waking up, before I even open my eyes, I become aware of who I am. And then before I even open my eyes, I think about, oh yeah, I'm lying here in bed. This is where I am. I feel the sheets, I feel the bed. I'm warm or cold, or I have to go to the bathroom or whatever it is. And, and it's as simple as that. Just that brings you to that present moment. And then I proceed to open my eyes.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  And just that right there, uh, will change everything because immediately you feel like you're in control.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Um, so that's something that you can do even through the day. Let's say you're at work and you're just sitting there by your desk. Or hopefully standing now because you have a standing desk.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  And just becoming aware, where are you standing? What's the ground below you? How do you feel the ground on your feet? Are you standing with your legs straight? Are they kind of bent? Are you posting on one leg or the other? Are your hands in your pockets? Are you crossing your arms? What's your posture look like? Small things like that now create a presence and that's number one.

• 26:22Lewis Howes?

  So creating completing complete awareness about your body, the way it feels and the surroundings of your body.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that's just kind of scratching the surface, but it's the beginning of becoming present. And in the moment, like a lot of people say that you should be.

• 26:38Lewis Howes?

  Right, okay.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Which is the hardest thing to, of course, to to master. And then, once you have that, you need to create a lifestyle that revolves around physical movement. And this is the hard part because it's hard to move. And, you know, I I set this example all the time. I fly a lot. If I sit down in a plane and I travel from San Francisco to New York. As I'm sitting there, I start feeling a little uncomfortable and I start bending over and hunching over and then my neck goes and then my shoulder rolls in. By the time I get off the plane, I'm feeling wrecked. But if I get on the plane and I make a little bit of an effort to actually sit a little bit taller.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Focus on how I'm how I'm sitting and reading or typing on the computer. When I come out on the other side, I immediately feel better. So it's now bringing that presence into something that's physically expressed. And that is how you're projecting your body in space.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  And then you can take it a little further. And that's where you need to find a discipline or a physical activity that you enjoy doing with others. And that can be as simple as if you have kids, play with your kids.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Pick them up, put them down, but make that part of your lifestyle. Don't make it a chore. That's something that you want to do because it feels good. And uh if it's you wanna go beyond that kind of physical activity, you can go to a place that's dedicated for physical culture, like a gym.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  And the rule is when you go to a gym, I don't care what kind of gym you go to. It is important that you go in and you take care of yourself and you treat yourself. But the treatment can't just be, oh, let me just, you know, let me just get in the sauna today. That sauna, of course.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Let me get a massage. Massage is great. It needs to be something that challenges you, that makes you a little upset because it's hard to perform. That you feel like you have to overcome something. And another rule is that you need to do with people. Because you know very well, being on a team, it makes you accountable, it makes you wanna work harder. And the bottom line is that when you accomplish whatever you set out to do, that challenge. When you come out on the other side, whatever happens. Uh if you made it through, that's a victory. If you learn something new about yourself, that's a victory. If you set a new record for yourself, that's a victory.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Uh you know, those victories, I always consider them uh great, but unless you are able to share them with others. It doesn't really become uh progressive. And what I'm saying here is that those victories, once they're shared, they become a reality. It's almost like, hey, I just set a record in this in this sprint. Uh and you tell someone, they saw it, you shared it. All of a sudden, that becomes a reality and it becomes a benchmark and it becomes something to chase and even beat. And when you do that, that's always progressive. And progress is success. So that's how you should be cycling through your day.

• 29:58Lewis Howes?

  So do you feel like we should always be progressing and trying to achieve kind of a new benchmark? So with our bodies, with, you know, anything?

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:08Lewis Howes?

  You think so?

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing. I think in order to progress, you need to regress. And I use the sixty percent rule. And I say, you know what? Uh, let me try to accomplish this, this task or this challenge or here I, I'm gonna set a goal. And I go out to set this goal. Every step of the way, if I'm sixty percent ready, I move on. I'm sixty percent ready, I move on. And once I get to a point where, okay, I'm not reaching that sixty percent, I hang there as long as I can until I feel like, okay, I need to back off.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  But what I always do is, next time when I come back to pursue that task, I always start from step one again. And I make sure that, that first step, instead of being sixty percent, it's sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three. And I make sure that the foundation of what I'm trying to progress towards is a hundred percent.

• 31:05Lewis Howes?

  Can you give an example of this?

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Let's, let's say, uh, you know, uh, you're, one of the things, what, you, you said you had some injuries or something going on right now with your training?

• 31:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I, I tweaked my groin a little bit. It's, uh, better now, but for prior three weeks, I was kind of just rehabbing it and resting it and doing little exercises, but not, uh, you know, explosive work.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Exactly. So one of your goals is to, you know, take care of your groin. You wanna make sure that that area is feeling good and, and groin injuries are, are really painful and, and extremely.

• 31:37Lewis Howes?

  So painful.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Oh, they're terrible. I actually, I actually tore my groin last year of breakdancing.

• 31:44Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  It's the worst.

• 31:46Lewis Howes?

  You can't even walk.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  It's the worst. So, uh, you know, one of the things that you, you're definitely setting out to do right now, and it's your goal, is to progress towards having a healthy groin so you can play your sport.

• 32:01Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  So every day you go in and, uh, you maybe go into the gym or physical therapy or you see a doctor or whatever you are doing, I know you're working with some, some manual therapist as well.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  Yep. Doc Trish, I don't know if you've met her?

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Uh, you showed me a picture with her holding my book.

• 32:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Very happy. But you go in and uh with someone, you're building towards this goal. And each step of the way, you may be slightly better. Uh but there's always more work to do and you always have to come back and start from the beginning. That's one.

• 32:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  But another thing that's probably happening is that knowing that you are able to move in a certain way, but now having this limitation, which is this groin injury, is forcing you to set new standards for yourself in terms of movement. And it's almost like saying, hey, let's bring it down even further down to basics. So instead of doing explosive stuff, now maybe you're walking slower, or you're running in only one direction, or you're performing a squat a certain way in order to rehab the groin, which is something that maybe you wouldn't be doing if you were completely healthy.

• 33:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  And for some, that may seem like a regression, but that's what you need to do in order to see progression.

• 33:23Lewis Howes?

  That's true. Otherwise, I'd just be hurting myself if I try to do too much.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly.

• 33:29Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, okay. So we're always either regressing or progressing.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. And you know, this is something I I try to tell people, and let's see if you can get this visual. Uh when I teach movement, for example, I could uh I could teach you how to do a handstand or a handstand push-up, like a gymnast would. Or I can teach you how to do a handstand push-up like a CrossFit athlete would. And even though it requires the same mechanics at shoulder level, spinal level, the technique for performing it is slightly different. So there's almost like a fork in the road. It's a handstand push-up, but you can go this route or the other route. But what happens is if you keep digging deeper and deeper into

• 34:16Speaker 01

  these styles of performing a handstand push-up, for example, the gymnastics way or the CrossFit way, eventually, down the line, they will cross paths again.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  And it's almost like you've closed the loop. And it's that moment when you close the loop and those two paths cross again, that you're able to progress to the next level of performance. Because all of a sudden, you're seeing how movement is universal. The application, the application of that movement, the training of that movement is individual and specific to each person.

• 34:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's interesting, the, you know, the older I get and the more I dive into deeper movement and athletic activities, I realize that it's all really connected. For example, you know, in high school and college, when I'm doing just weightlifting in the gym for football, I realized that some of these lifts are identical to what we do in CrossFit. Although I was probably had horrible form back in high school and, and learned better how to have the correct form in CrossFit over the last four years. And then as I started doing acro yoga, I just started picking this up like two months ago.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  No way.

• 35:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's, you know, I'm doing hand to hand with a partner. She's in the air upside down, you know, I'm, I'm balancing her with my hands and.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've actually seen you on Instagram.

• 35:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, whoa, was he a cheerleader or something?

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  I was, I was not a cheer, I was not a cheerleader. But I'm learning like some things that they do in cheerleading, like, uh, the girl, you know, my partner, it can be a guy or girl, but I've got a, a girl partner that I'm learning with. And I'm standing behind her, we're both facing the same direction. I grab her hands and then I throw her up over my head and as she inverts, it's called an inlocate, or she, I don't know if that's a gymnastics term or not, but I call it inception because it just seems so cool. So she goes upside down into my hands and I realized like, well, I'm just doing like a thruster. You know, I'm just getting low and like pushing up and doing like a thruster or like a, a power clean or whatever. And I'm realizing like, wow, it's like almost exactly the same thing that I learned in CrossFit.

• 36:22Lewis Howes?

  And it's all translating over into this activity now. So I'm seeing similarities, you know, and same thing in handball, the way I do certain lifts and certain movements. Um, and just the gym, it translates in the handball. The way I raise my arm, the way I twist my hips and explode, like everything is translating. And it's, uh, it's kind of cool to see these similarities in different movement activities in the world.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, for sure. And I think, you know, what's, what's really interesting about that and kind of going back to this, this concept of being present and aware of your body is that. When you become aware of how your body moves, immediately you become a better performer. And I think that's one of the reasons why teaching is such a powerful tool for learning.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  We need to become self-teachers. We need to self-coach. And that only comes by studying how we move as human beings and and that's what you're doing by exploring these different things. All of a sudden you're like, oh yeah, look how this movement actually translates in here and all of a sudden you become aware of it. And as soon as you become aware of it, you just increase your level of performance. And I think that's what we're talking about here. We're bringing that awareness to people and and it's so simple, yet difficult sometimes for people to implement.

• 37:43Lewis Howes?

  This is a little meta, but uh, you know, there's times where I get so I I I'm like seeing myself doing it, the movement and I'm analyzing it so much that then I get in my head and actually get out of the zone and start messing up, whether it be, you know, handball or lifting or aqua yoga. It's like I'll start seeing myself so clearly that I'm analyzing every movement and then it's like I'm not in sync anymore and I'm not doing it with, you know, with ease. It's like difficult. It's challenging. We're messing up. And so there, I think there's a a way to analyze and be like so in it, but then also just to like let it be, like just let it happen and not analyze it.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  One hundred. I I I couldn't agree more. And I think this is where also this concept of freestyle is, hey, let's not set such tight boundaries around each discipline. Let's be a little looser about it. Let yourself fall into the next thing. And uh, your body is smarter than your mind, really. And I think that's something that I'm also encouraging people to do is hey, go explore. Let yourself kind of just make a mistake because within the mistake you will discover something that can be really beneficial and optimal for you. And I think that's the creation of new movement patterns or new styles of movement patterns. And a very powerful thing.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  So I, I, I definitely agree with that. Don't, don't overanalyze, don't overthink it, don't think too much.

• 39:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, be in the zone, let it flow.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 39:22Lewis Howes?

  A couple more questions for you. Uh, what, and again, make sure everyone go picks up the book Free Plus Style. Uh, if you just go to, what is the site, Freestyle Book, Freestyle The Book dot com. You can check out all the information on this and I definitely recommend it. It's amazing piece of art, if anything, but lots of great content on movement. And everything that we need to know about our bodies, basically on how to move effectively and efficiently. Make sure to check that out. Uh, a couple more questions though. Can you explain what movement control is?

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's a great question. Have you ever, have you ever been on a skateboard or on a, on a bicycle and, and bombed a hill? Just gone down really fast?

• 40:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  And then got the death wobbles, the speed wobble?

• 40:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh my God, the scariest part.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, that's loss of, of movement control.

• 40:14Lewis Howes?

  Jeez.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Um, have you ever seen, you know, um, someone perform a very heavy deadlift and start shaking like?

• 40:23Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  It's classic, right? Uh, so, so that's also loss of movement control. Uh, and that's something that I'm trying to teach people. I'm trying to teach people how to learn how to move so you look fluid. So you have control over every millimeter of that movement. You know, when you see a good athlete and you know, I'm not even into baseball. I grew up in Spain as a gymnast, of course, but when I see someone pitch a ball and they're just so spot on, you just watch them and you say, that's beautiful.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  That is movement control. When you watch a gymnast perform a routine and stick the landing, come out of a tumbling pass, like, you know, I'm, I'm a big fan of, uh, Shawn Johnson and you know that.

• 41:11Lewis Howes?

  No, she's a good friend, yeah.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  She's so, uh, she's amazing, uh, but when you watch her on TV perform a tumbling pass and land and just stick the landing, you're just like, that is movement control. And that kind of expression is what the foundation of my teaching is all about.

• 41:31Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Very cool. Very cool. Well, Carl, it's been a pleasure, my man. And, uh, again, make sure everyone go check out freestylethebook.com. You can also go to gymnasticswad, check out Carl on Instagram. I'll have it all linked up back on the show notes. But, uh, since I asked you this question a year ago, I believe, I'm gonna ask it again. And maybe it's changed. It's what I ask everyone at the end of the podcast. And that's what's your definition of greatness?

• 41:57Speaker 01

  You know, I can't remember exactly what I said last time. But I think greatness is truly living your life the way you wanna live it. The way it feels right in your head and your heart and in your gut. And trusting that. And as you do that, being able to share it with others that you care about and that you know you can make a difference being around. And I think if you're able to do that, you, you certainly are great. And I think that, that's, that's greatness. It doesn't matter who you are and what level you're doing it at. But if, if you can feel it in those three places, in your head and your heart, your gut,

• 42:40Speaker 01

  and you live your life like that, and you know, you do it with others, then, then that's greatness.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  Carl, you are the man. I appreciate you. I appreciate what you're up to in the world, your level of commitment and service to people on having them live a healthy lifestyle through movement. And, uh, keep it up, man. It's, it's always a pleasure to watch you from afar and connect when we're in the same area and, and I'm so glad to have you back on the show.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me and, and same to you. I mean, I, I follow your work and I, I just, I'm always truly inspired. And, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's great to have you around and as a friend and I, I truly appreciate it. Thank you.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  I am super pumped that Carl was able to come on today and share his wisdom with the world. So, thank you guys so much for sticking around to the very end. You guys have been a huge support. If you liked this episode, go ahead and share it with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, you know, MySpace if you still have a MySpace account, anywhere you can think of online where your friends are hanging out, please share this and let's get the word about greatness out to the masses. Again, this has been growing exponentially since we put it out there. Each episode gets more and more downloads, more exposure, and people's lives are being changed. Literally, I get emails every day from people saying that this podcast and the guests and the information that the guests are sharing are changing people's lives, both with their

• 44:15Lewis Howes?

  relationships, with their physical health, with their business, and they're so excited. So, I want to get this message out there to more because there are some great people who are coming on and they're going to continue to be amazing people who are coming on who have simple solutions to big problems. And that's what this is all about at the School of Greatness. So, with your support, let's get it out there. Leave a review over on iTunes so we can increase the ranking and get more exposure. Share with your friends. Do whatever you think you can to get the message out there and I'll keep pumping out amazing information, bringing on even bigger guests for you if we can work in that partnership together. So, thank you guys so much. Thanks again Carl for coming on.

• 44:54Lewis Howes?

  Make sure to check out the show notes over at lewishouse.com/77 and you can get all the information we talked about today. That's lewishouse.com/77. I love you guys. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.