26 Carl Paoli: The Key to Success in CrossFit, Freestyle Movement and Human Performance

A world class movement/ lifestyle coach joins us today on the The School of Greatness. He does groundbreaking work with the fittest athletes on earth, helping improve mobility, economy of motion and to recover faster from injuries. Not only is he an gymnastics expert, he also has an amazing insights into lifestyle, mindset and total body […] Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 26 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, greats? Thanks so much for tuning in today. I appreciate you guys so much. And here is the quick quote of the day. "When I let go of who I am, I become who I might be." And that's by Lao Tzu. I always forget how to pronounce his name, but Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher. "When I let go of who I am, I become who I might be." Think about that for a minute. Think about who are you holding on to right now? What type of person, what type of feelings, what type of anxiety and stress, ego are you holding on to? And how is that helping you achieve anything you want to achieve and achieve the greatness you're looking for?

• 1:19Lewis Howes?

  And when you let go of who you are, you become who you might be. So I just want you guys to marinate in that for a second and think about what are the things you've been holding on to that isn't really serving you and becoming who you want to be, or achieving what you want to achieve, or going after the dreams you want to go after, or being in the relationships you want to be in, whatever it may be. Start letting go of that BS nonsense that holds you back so you can become who you really want to be. True vision, your true purpose, the true sense of who you are. So. This is a big episode. I've got my good friend Carl Powley in the School of Greatness Studios for you guys. Now, if you don't know who Carl is, he is a movement and lifestyle coach,

• 2:04Lewis Howes?

  and he's a really cool guy blowing up in the CrossFit community as kind of like the gymnastics coach expert in the CrossFit community. And he talks all about movement. He used to be a big gymnast back in the day and now teaches people about how to move their body the right way and the correct way to position your body throughout the day and how important the body actually is in achieving greatness in every aspect of your life. So I'm very excited for him to share with you his wisdom, his knowledge, and he actually puts me through a little exercise. This whole interview, you'll see I'm kind of positioning my body in a certain way in a chair because we, as entrepreneurs, we sit in chairs a lot. And when you learn to position

• 2:47Lewis Howes?

  yourself the right way, you can actually get more done, be more effective, have more focus and clarity, and feel better while you're doing it. So he puts me through an exercise, and I want you guys to, I want to challenge you guys to actually doing the exercise that he has me do. You'll recognize when it comes up, doing it, and see if you can hold it throughout the entire time. Now, if you're running or working out or on a jog or whatever it may be, then obviously you won't be able to do this. But if you're sitting and you're listening on your car, in your office, whatever it may be, then practice this and see how long you can go through this exercise. And I've got some pictures on the blog as well at schoolofgreatness.com on the show notes that talk about and kind of show you what he puts me through. So make sure

• 3:31Lewis Howes?

  to go back and check out schoolofgreatness.com so you can see the show notes. So again, when I let go of who I am, I become who I might be. That's the powerful quote of the day. Couple fans of the week. Big shout out to so many people. Man, every day I just get tweets and Instagram

• 3:50Lewis Howes?

  messages of pictures where all of you guys are watching the show and people from all over the world and cities that I've never even heard of, beautiful places, the gym, the car. At work, whatever it may be. And it's just really inspiring to see where you're all listening to it. So here's a shout out for Spencer Nickel, who on Instagram is SNI C O L six. And Spencer posted a picture, just said, listening to School of Greatness on the way to work. And I don't even know where this is located, but it looks like it's somewhere in the Midwest. So thanks for that, Spencer. Appreciate you. And also I saw another one that came in just a

• 4:30Lewis Howes?

  a couple of hours ago from, let me see, it's this Paul Carlson, who is Paul underscore S S A on Instagram. And he posted this picture of the sky and the clouds and the trees and says, what is greatness? This week it is about recharging out from a, out for some exercise on a cloudy day in Florida, while listening to at Lewis Howes and School of Greatness. So I appreciate you, Paul. Thanks so much, guys. You guys are the fans of the week. And again, keep posting pictures of where you are listening to this. And what, uh, what you guys are getting out of these episodes. I appreciate you. And I also gotta give a quick shout out, because I think I missed this the last time for the

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  review of the week. We got a bunch of five star reviews coming in lately. And here's one from Craig Boys, who says addictive, addicting and uplifting. Amazing podcast, utterly inspirational, listening to this podcast and hearing other people's struggles and ultimate success stories. Makes me want to be a better person in all areas of my life. Thank you so much for finding amazing guests that have truly enlightened view of the world. Keep up the great work. So thanks so much, Craig, for the review. And again, guys, just head over to iTunes. If you want to leave your feedback, review, whatever it may be, we want to hear from you. We appreciate you because I build this and I create this specifically for you in mind and your needs.

• 5:58Lewis Howes?

  So with that, we've got an awesome guest who's jumping on right now. It's the one and only Carl Power.

• 6:17Lewis Howes?

  What is up greats? I am here in the School of Great News studio. This is actually the first interview in the news studio and I'm with my good man Carl Paoli, which I always thought it was Paoli before, but it's Paoli. So what's up my man? How you doing?

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Dude, happy to be here. This is crazy. Yes, it's a Paoli. It's a tricky one, right? You would read it Paoli if you're a true American, but uh

• 6:42Lewis Howes?

  Paoli.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. Uh, but it's, uh, it's Paoli. That's just how we, we pronounce it in our family.

• 6:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  It's, it's just one of those things. Tradition, tradition, but you just keep it, keep it rolling.

• 6:55Lewis Howes?

  I love it. And you're in town from San Francisco for the CrossFit Games all week. Got a lot going on.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:00Lewis Howes?

  And I'm excited to actually go. I'm thinking I'm going Friday or Saturday because my buddy Graham Holmberg is competing, who won in 2010. So we'll see what type of damage he can do this year.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Well, he's looking good and strong. Beautiful man.

• 7:13Lewis Howes?

  So beautiful, right?

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Yes. Happy guy. Happy guy.

• 7:17Lewis Howes?

  He's got a new kid on the way. So all good things.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  I think you already even had his kid.

• 7:21Lewis Howes?

  Well, I mean, he had his kid, Storm.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:22Lewis Howes?

  His name. Yeah. So excited for him. A lot of new things happening, but uh, we're here, man. I'm excited to do this because we connected probably like, what a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Something like that. Yeah. We've been, we've been talking back and forth, the internets.

• 7:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Instagram is where I first found out about you. And I was like, who's this guy doing these cool like handstands and like, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background and all this cool stuff. And I was just like,

• 7:44Speaker 01

  I was just trying to make it look sexy.

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, man.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  So it worked.

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  It worked. I was like, all right, we gotta connect. I want to be friends with this guy. I want to be able to do a handstand, you know? I still can't do any like breakdancing moves.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  It's all good. I'm still learning. You know, breakdancing has been one of those crazy obsessions. Uh, I'm a terrible dancer.

• 8:00Lewis Howes?

  Are you?

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Terrible.

• 8:02Lewis Howes?

  You can make it look cool with like the little spins and the flares, right?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Pictures are easy. You know, picture you can get the, get the moment and capture that and just freeze frame it.

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  Act like you know what you're doing?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Exactly. But the, but the breakdancing thing has been kind of new. So nothing to worry about, but I can show you a couple of things now. I got, I got a couple of things down and uh,

• 8:19Lewis Howes?

  Even for a tall guy like me with a broken wrist, can I do something that like?

• 8:22Speaker 01

  That's totally fine. That, you know, with a broken wrist, even better because you get creative and you can do some alternate things. Yeah. No one can match that.

• 8:30Lewis Howes?

  But you know what I would love to learn is like, what's it called? The butterfly or the uh, The flare, whether you're like with your legs in the air on the ground and you're like spinning on your back.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Oh, windmill, windmill.

• 8:40Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  Can you do that?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  I can do that. Actually, that's how I tore my groin a couple of months ago.

• 8:45Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just too excited and I just realized I'm not 15 anymore. I just turned 31 recently and I just jumped in cold and all of a sudden I was like, oh.

• 8:57Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  There it goes.

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  That's the thing. Let's talk about injuries really quick because, you know, I'm 30. I just turned 30 or 31. And I realized that I really need to take care of my body more.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:10Lewis Howes?

  It was about a year ago. I started picking up a new sport called Team Handball and I'm on the USA National Team now. The goal is to make the Olympics in 2016. But I remember, you know, like five years ago, you could just go play pickup basketball, go no stretch, no warm-up and just play full court for five hours.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Going cold.

• 9:26Lewis Howes?

  And I tried to do that one day like a year ago and I like pulled my groin, just like doing a small little jump, doing handball and it's just like, oh, my God, I was out for two months. I couldn't really do much. Injuries happen a lot more when you get older if you're not taking care of your proper movement, of your body and all that stuff. And this is something you teach right now, right?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Definitely. You know, I come from a gymnastics background and gymnastics, even though it's a pretty dangerous sport, if you looked at it at high levels,

• 9:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  has very great levels of progression. I mean, you can build up to things and there's a proper way of doing it and there's a million steps to just get up to the most simple movement, which is what they they call in the world of CrossFit scalability, but it's basically just allowing everyone to be able to participate in one way or another. And I think as a kid, you just take it for granted that, oh, I can do these things and you may get a little hurt, but you don't really know what pain means or discomfort means and you kind of get away with a lot. Eventually you get a little older and things get a little tighter and stiffer and you you start forgetting that your body is your your main vehicle.

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  And you forget to, you know, change the oil sometimes, or you know, maybe the tires are don't have the right pressure and then all of a sudden you're driving and there it goes, wheels just fell off somehow. So, yeah, injuries are a problem, but you know, something that I've come to realize is that injuries for me, uh, when I was sixteen, I actually broke my neck.

• 10:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, wow.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  And

• 10:59Lewis Howes?

  In gymnastics or?

• 11:00Speaker 01

  In gymnastics, yeah. So I, that was during a little lunch break. I was just goofing off with my friends and I was doing triple fronts off of a trampoline. So triple front flips off a trampoline into a foam pit and we had a little mat on top.

• 11:14Lewis Howes?

  Triple flip?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Triple flip.

• 11:15Lewis Howes?

  Off a trampoline, up to big air and then falling into a foam pit?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  It sounds like a big deal, but anyone that's in gymnastics like, okay, triples into a foam pit, not a big deal, whatever. So I was just messing around and then all of a sudden I, you know, just laughing and talking and not thinking, just did this thing, over rotated, laying on my head and just happened to just pull my head to my butt almost and I heard something just go very wrong. I could move perfectly, but broke my neck and the crazy thing about that was, I was like, oh no, this is all over, this is bad. Um, I don't know what's gonna happen next. But I realized that I became way more aware of who I am as a person and how I move physically through space and how I perform

• 12:03Speaker 01

  gymnastics. And I think for a lot of people, injuries at first become something scary that just stops you from performing.

• 12:12Lewis Howes?

  Cause you're afraid to go back and do the same things you did before.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Totally. But what in reality, it really is, is uh, it's an opportunity and it's an opportunity to take it to the next level.

• 12:23Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  And I feel like every injury I've had is just like a little stumble and no matter how, yeah, it's just a lesson. Exactly. It's a just a lesson and I've been, I've been really, uh,

• 12:35Speaker 01

  fortunate enough to be around people that know a lot about injuries just growing up around the national team and having all the best doctors, all the best physical therapists, and now working at San Francisco CrossFit and having someone like Kelly Starrett, who's a physical therapist and has been very, very good at what he does and been able to make very good changes in a lot of people, especially teaching them how to heal these injuries. But all these things have given me a better outlook on things and opened up a new path that just allows me to see every obstacle is just an opportunity. And these opportunities, when you take advantage of them, you can really change the game and that's what I'm all about.

• 13:14Lewis Howes?

  Right. So let's talk about the efficiency of the body and specifically for, you know, someone who's an entrepreneur or just someone who's like getting a little bit older, say mid twenties, thirties, whatever, late thirties, and they start to realize they're waking up a little stiffer, they can't touch their toes anymore, they're, you know,

• 13:33Speaker 01

  That happens.

• 13:34Lewis Howes?

  They try to sit up from the ground and like feel a tweak in their back, you know, whatever these things are. What are the main causes of this? Is this because we're sitting in our chairs all day long or we're not like efficiently moving our bodies when we do walk or we're not exercising enough? What is the things that make us like start to deteriorate?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's, of course, poor behavior, but I always set this example. Imagine you, I travel a lot, so I sit on planes and, you know, you sit on a plane and let's say you're taking a six hour flight. After three hours, I'm basically just, my neck is starting to crank, my back is starting to go. I'm just like, oh, I'm so lazy and I look like, I'm basically getting like fetal position after a couple hours. And once I step out of the plane, I'm just like, oh my God, I feel miserable, everything's hurting. And that's a problem. So that's just us being a little lazy. But now think about it this way. If I stepped onto a plane, I sat down and I just was conscious of, hey, if I get

• 14:30Speaker 01

  into a better position, which just means get better posture and I maybe sit upright and my neck is tall and I think about all these basic concepts that they talk about in every single specialty of movement, like for example ballet, everything's about having the longest neck possible, shoulders are down and back and back is flat. The same thing happens in gymnastics.

• 14:51Lewis Howes?

  I'm sitting up right now.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:52Lewis Howes?

  I'm like, alright, yeah, I'm sort of feeling.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  We're both having right now.

• 14:56Lewis Howes?

  The long game and neck.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Long necks right now, back is flat. But if you do that,

• 15:06Speaker 01

  you would feel better, of course, coming out. The problem is, it's hard to do.

• 15:10Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to focus for like more than three minutes. You're like, how do you stay in that position?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:14Lewis Howes?

  Cause it's like you need to have the core strength, right?

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 15:17Lewis Howes?

  To really sit upright. Otherwise you're just slouched because it's relaxing in your stomach.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Exactly. Sitting down is, it's easy to be lazy. That's why they make the couches so comfortable.

• 15:24Lewis Howes?

  Oh, it's so amazing.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Right?

• 15:26Lewis Howes?

  I got this huge couch I just lay on. It's so comfortable.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, you just sink in there, watch some TV and pass out.

• 15:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  But when you have to be active the next day, like you, you're an athlete. Everything you do, every second of the day has to be a conscious effort to get you where you want to be in your goal. And so that example of sitting on the plane, eventually what you have to do is just, you need to make the effort. You may not only last thirty seconds at first, but that's your first try. And then maybe you do intervals of thirty seconds every ten minutes or every twenty minutes. Next time you step up, maybe your stamina has improved and all of a sudden you can hold it for a minute. And then eventually it's five minutes and then ten minutes and then eventually it becomes a habit.

• 16:09Lewis Howes?

  So, so tell me, what can people do if they're flying or if they're working during the day on the desk, they got six to eight hours a day, sitting? Or they're flying a lot, what like, what should be focused on? Should it be knees like in? Should it be feet forward? Should it be like arms, you know?

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Well, there are many, many things. You want to start with, with the base. So where you're sitting is basically where your pelvis is. So you're sitting on your butt and your pelvis is right there, which is just that little bowl that is part of your hip joint. And

• 16:38Lewis Howes?

  So not slouching back or into your seat, right?

• 16:41Speaker 01

  It depends on that, who you are, right? But let's say

• 16:44Lewis Howes?

  The optimal way.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  The most optimal way of sitting. Uh, so you would say you're sitting and that bowl is just straight up. And then ideally the spine should be in the most vertical position possible. So sitting tall, it's almost like you're imagining someone grabbing you from the head and just pulling you up and making that neck really long.

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  Like a little puppet, yeah.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And here comes the ugly one. It's, you want to pull the chin in a little bit and then let it relax.

• 17:08Lewis Howes?

  That double chin almost?

• 17:09Speaker 01

  You desexify yourself. Right? It doesn't look very sexy and then the shoulders are just slightly back and then hands, if you thought about it would be palms up. That would be almost like you're

• 17:22Lewis Howes?

  Nod down.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Nod down, but you will be typing with your hands down, you'll be writing with your hands down, you'll be cooking eventually with your hands down, you'll be driving your car with your hands down. Everything happens with hands down, but what we do in training is we exaggerate what we're about to see in competition.

• 17:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  So in this case, let's say we're training for sitting, you'll be training on sitting up tall, you have no backrest, someone's pulling you from the head, shoulders are back, palms are up. Now the feet are a little bit different. Here's, yeah, you could go wide in the stance. Right now, Lou is sitting with his wide stance. He looks like a sumo wrestler. It looks good. But one of the things that you can do, and if you've ever been training and done any squatting, one of the most common cues is knees out. You've heard that before, but that's a hard thing to do.

• 18:15Lewis Howes?

  Especially if you've got a lot of weight.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:17Lewis Howes?

  To push them out when you're going back up.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Totally. So when you have a lot of weight, knees out is a hard thing to do. So one of the things that you can try, if you're sitting on a chair right now, just bring your feet together for me and glue your feet completely together. And now just relax there. Just relax, let the legs relax. You'll see that the knees automatically drop out. So that knee out position is a more stable position at the hip and that will actually stabilize the pelvis, which is that ball, which is the platform for your spine.

• 18:44Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  So you need to have all these things kind of checklist out. So feet together, knees fall out, belly is slightly on.

• 18:54Lewis Howes?

  Belly slightly what?

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Just turned on a little bit. So belly's slightly turned on, the back's kind of flat, shoulders back and down, palms are up, chin in, so the neck is long from the back. And then relax the chin to see if you can just let it drop down. So the jawbone kind of just

• 19:10Lewis Howes?

  Relax.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:11Lewis Howes?

  Take a breath and blow it out and just

• 19:14Speaker 01

  And hang there.

• 19:15Lewis Howes?

  And so sit in this position.

• 19:18Lewis Howes?

  For as long as you can, while you're sitting.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yes, how does that feel?

• 19:21Lewis Howes?

  Challenging.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  It's challenging.

• 19:22Lewis Howes?

  Cause you're like, you're feeling it in my lower back.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 19:25Lewis Howes?

  It's like really activated right now.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  So let's actually talk about, that's a great, that's a great point. You know, a- as a strength and conditioning coach and gymnastics coach, and now just focusing on movement. One of the things that we realize is that just like injuries, we run into these walls like, oh, I feel like pain here. Or for you right now, when you're sitting, you're like, oh, I feel some stiffness in the back.

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  That's an opportunity. What, why are you feeling stiff in the back? Is it because you've never done this before?

• 19:53Lewis Howes?

  Not for long. Not for this long.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Not this long. I got 10 seconds in. It's tricky, but uh, what you'll notice is that you can take advantage of this and be like, hey, maybe my hips are a little stiff. Maybe I'm a little tight here. Maybe I should be mobilized. Maybe I'm just not strong enough. I need to train this thing.

• 20:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  So this is up to you to kind of figure out, hey, what is it that I'm missing? And if you can kind of acknowledge what that is, or use the sitting position as a, almost like a diagnostics tool, then it's an opportunity. And I think that's, that's what this is all about.

• 20:26Lewis Howes?

  Now, can you diagnose other people's position and see what their flexibility can, you know, what they're lacking, or is it just based on what I'm saying and feeling?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  You, through experience, you can go through a checklist of, oh, you know, probably right now, you've never done this before. So you're probably getting tired because you are fatiguing.

• 20:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Basically you don't have stamina. You're not strong enough. Okay. Or test that. And then you're like, well, I am strong enough. I can do all these things. I can deadlift 500 pounds. Whatever it is, then you know, the most obvious thing is your hips are probably a little stiff.

• 20:58Lewis Howes?

  Tight. I have a, uh, my physical therapist, my CrossFit physical therapist, Dr. Trish. She, uh, comes twice a week and works on my hips and the, the mobility from the beginning was like. Like putting it out, my, my foot outward this way was like five percent like when she first started. Now it's like 20% angle. So it's like, it's slowly increasing, but man, they were tight.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So your stiff hips, I'm like, and you now can say, oh, Carl, you're a genius.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny. Every time I coach, people are like, oh my God, Carl, you're a genius. I'm like, no.

• 21:31Lewis Howes?

  You kind of know what everyone has though. Like everyone has the same issues, right? Like.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Everyone has the same thing, but I think where the genius comes in is how do you talk about it?

• 21:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Right. It's a, why would you care about posture? You, you may be able to sit all day, but you're an athlete and to be honest with you, like it doesn't affect me when I'm sitting really right now. Maybe I feel a little discomfort, but what you really care about is I want to make the Olympics 2016.

• 21:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  So I need to make that relevant to you that way. And I think one of the big things that I think we're talking about here today is, is really helping people understand that everything we do has to be dialed in to meet where our goals are taking us. And if we can do that, then it's a very powerful thing. I think that's what I do best as a coach. I, I make things relevant to people. And same thing with this.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Well, you're, you're known as one of like the top, I guess, mobility gymnastics coaches in CrossFit in the world right now. And you're starting to really blow up and everyone's bringing you in for seminars and coaching and you've got a book coming out, which we'll talk about. You've got DVDs and everything. Uh, so you've had the experience over the last few years to really see thousands of CrossFit athletes who are some of the top athletes in the world, you know, arguably physically, right? And with, with working out, you've been able to witness what their weaknesses are, what their strengths are and help take them to the next level. You know, it's important. It doesn't matter if you're a Crossfitter. I love CrossFit, but it doesn't matter what you're doing. You guys are here to learn about how to achieve greatness in your lives.

• 23:05Lewis Howes?

  Everyone listening is here to learn about greatness, whether it be business, sports, relationships. It doesn't matter, but it's important. Your body is one of your most, is your most important asset. And without having an amazing body and achieving greatness with the most important thing first, it doesn't matter what you're doing. Uh, it's going to be subpar unless your body is in perfect alignment or at least striving for perfection.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 23:29Lewis Howes?

  And you're constantly aware of where your positioning, your health is at. And I don't care how big your business is, you're not achieving greatness if your body is not where it needs to be.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  That, that's fully correct.

• 23:41Lewis Howes?

  And we can all work on it. You know, we both are in great shape. We look good, but there's certain things about our posture. I'm sure you're aware of certain things.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  No doubt.

• 23:49Lewis Howes?

  That we can all work on. And I know, you know, I've had injuries and it's like there's constant improvements and constant adjustments we can make in order to strive for that greatness.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  What else, what else can we learn about our bodies? What else should we be focusing on to throughout the day or when we're working out? Is there any like do's and don'ts?

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's definitely do's and don'ts. I do a lot of the don'ts, uh, clearly I, I, I'm guilty of that, but I think that's how I, I learn. Well, you know, I think first of, first of all, for me, and you may suffer the same thing is I, I've done gymnastics since I was five and of course I quit gymnastics 13 years ago.

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  You're in Spain, you moved over from Spain, right?

• 24:28Speaker 01

  That's correct. I was actually born here in the U S, Swedish parents, grew up in Spain. By the age of five, I was doing gymnastics and it was something that my parents put me into because I was this very scared kid. I was just scared of everything and they're like, we'll put them in here.

• 24:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  So I started doing gymnastics and, uh, that, that actually, uh, really molded me as a person. And which, which was awesome to hear from my mom just recently, actually, and this is just an aside kind of story. I was sitting having breakfast with her in Spain just a couple of months ago. And, uh, she told me that the first time I competed. She was so worried that I would just have a complete breakdown, not be able to make it. But right when it was my turn to compete, uh as I stepped out on the floor, she noticed that I was this completely different character. And uh this, this character that showed up was confident, ready to go, had no fears, knew exactly what he was doing.

• 25:25Lewis Howes?

  This when you were five?

• 25:26Speaker 01

  This, I was probably, that competition, I was probably six.

• 25:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Ever since then, uh gymnastics just became my, my safe place.

• 25:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Even though I was scared uh of many, many things, as, as you go into the harder elements, things, things get pretty crazy, but that, that really helped me understand who I was as a, as a person, and especially physically. And uh talking about these do's and don'ts, if you go to any sport, you, you do a lot of drilling, a lot of practicing, you go through a lot of progressions, and, and one of the things that you see in high level sports is that because they have a method that works, they just throw that method at you, and it's almost like throwing a bunch of eggs at a wall. Whatever egg survives, that's the egg that makes it to the limit.

• 26:13Lewis Howes?

  But not, not every method works for every person, it's all different based on what you're currently at, right?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Exactly, so, so I think I was one of those eggs that would break.

• 26:22Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  I, nothing came easy.

• 26:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  And it's funny because everyone tells me, "Oh, everything comes so easy to you, you're so good at everything." I'm like, huh, uh.

• 26:32Lewis Howes?

  You only knew.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  If you only knew.

• 26:34Lewis Howes?

  The pain I'm going through.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  It's the struggle.

• 26:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  It's a struggle, but physically I learned a lot of things about me and I learned what I could do, what I couldn't do.

• 26:44Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  I learned that, you know, I just couldn't throw things right away, I couldn't just, you know, chuck a triple front flip into a foam pit while having fun, I had to focus on it.

• 26:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  So it's just small things like that, it's being uh conscious of who you are as a physical being.

• 26:59Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  It's, it's very simple, it's what do you wanna look like, what do you wanna feel like?

• 27:05Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Act like that. Once you start acting that way, that becomes part of who you are.

• 27:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  So I think from the time you get up in the morning, if you're a normal athlete, you're probably a little stiff.

• 27:17Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  And you're like, oh, things are cracking.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah. Every morning, the back just twists my leg and it's like.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, no doubt, right? And you you you just feel a little stiff and you're uncomfortable and it takes you twenty minutes before you're normal.

• 27:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  You're like, I need, you know, extra uh go-go juice, as as a friend of mine says. But if you live your day the way you wanna feel, eventually everything comes comes full circle. And that's easy to say, hard to do.

• 27:47Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  But sometimes you just need to take a minute or two minutes, just focus on yourself, what do you wanna look like, what do you wanna feel like? And you're ready to go. And and this kind of ties back into some of my situations that I go through and I can set some examples. It's like when I when I travel far, long distance, and I'm about to do a seminar, I have sixty people there waiting for me. I wake up, I'm on a different time zone, I may have just slept three hours.

• 28:12Lewis Howes?

  You have airport food.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Uh, you feel very crappy.

• 28:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  But I I do this thing is that as soon as I walk through the door, I feel amazing.

• 28:23Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  I am the man.

• 28:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna give these guys everything I have. And it's just this mentality. I'm in my car, I drive over, I get out of the car. Once I walk through the door, I am a completely different person. I'm ready to go.

• 28:37Lewis Howes?

  How do you make that shift mentally? What do you do? What do you tell yourself? What's the routine?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Game on. But basically what I tell myself is that I am here for these people. These people are here to get some information. They're excited to be there. They put a lot of effort in to be there and.

• 28:53Lewis Howes?

  A lot of money.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Yes. This this thing costs a lot and there's traveling involved and it it's a commitment on the weekends, so I'm gonna deliver. And I think this is the same person that comes out, uh came out when I was a kid doing gymnastics. I'm just ready to go. And I I at first I thought it was for myself that I was just doing this. Oh, yeah, this is just because I wanna accomplish something. This is about me wanting to do something. But I realized that. If I'm alone, this this thing doesn't mean anything.

• 29:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  And it's that that sharing concept, when you share something, uh, it just becomes more valuable. And that's what I've noticed, that if I can be the presence that allows people to share things, and then we can come up with solutions together, then we have something going and and it just all ties in so well. You need to be the physical person that you want to be, and the way to get there is just through common sense. What do I want to look like? Oh, do I want to be be tall and look tall? Well, stand tall.

• 29:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Right?

• 29:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Do I want to be strong and fast? Well, stand like you want to be strong and fast.

• 29:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  And that translates, and people can sense it.

• 30:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Every minute now, I'm like readjusting my back and standing up taller and making a double chin.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  So am I. I'm actually having to move my mic up slowly. I'm like, oh, the mic is getting lower.

• 30:13Lewis Howes?

  I love it. So you really come up with a mentality to that, where I'm here to serve everyone. And you get out of your body, get out of your like, physical, basically way of thinking that's painful or whatever, you're stressed out, you're not eating well, and you're like, I'm here to serve, and you stand for that, and you stand for the people that are there.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  No doubt.

• 30:31Lewis Howes?

  So that's awesome. Uh, let's go back to routine, like daily routine. What is something that people can do, like, right when they wake up? Get out of bed, wake up, what's the next step for like having an optimal day with your body?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's that's a that's a that's a great one. I think, you know, sleeping and eating is number one and and.

• 30:49Lewis Howes?

  Sleep is huge, right?

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Huge.

• 30:50Lewis Howes?

  It's like one of the most important things for our bodies to have eight hours at least, right?

• 30:55Speaker 01

  It's it's super important. There's so many theories on it. There's long seminars and books on, you should have a dark, cold room that you sleep in.

• 31:03Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:04Lewis Howes?

  Dark, cold room?

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, dark, cold room.

• 31:06Lewis Howes?

  So the light's not like waking you up or?

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:08Lewis Howes?

  To get maximum amount of like restful, peaceful sleep.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all those cycles that your body goes through. So you you want a fully dark room, a cave.

• 31:16Lewis Howes?

  I'm getting like a blackout from my window now. That's funny. Um, I also heard through another sleeping expert that you want to go to bed like before 10. When the lights go out, you wanna be ready to go out.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. Basically, it's like, uh, it's back to that caveman mentality, you know? There's no light out. What am I gonna do out there?

• 31:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  It's time to go to bed.

• 31:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, get ready.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  But that's hard to, that's hard to stick with, especially when you're traveling or working or training.

• 31:43Lewis Howes?

  Buffling, yeah.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's such a difficult thing. So, uh, what we're trying to do is we're just trying to adjust as well as we can into modern society with what we have. I think technology sometimes advances faster than we evolve. And, uh, we get hit by it, but we also need to know that we're evolving as well and we're intelligent beings for a reason. And we should have strategies to adapt to these things. So, being able to sleep well and, uh, have a dark room and kinda cold is number one.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Next thing in the morning, I have a tendency of drinking coffee right away, which coffee's not bad, but maybe it's better to have a glass of water. Get rehydrated, right?

• 32:22Lewis Howes?

  A lot of water, right?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  After you went for your tinkle.

• 32:25Lewis Howes?

  Do you do the bulletproof coffee or do you do something else?

• 32:27Speaker 01

  I have tried it, but, uh, I haven't really.

• 32:30Lewis Howes?

  I've never tried it.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 32:32Lewis Howes?

  I don't really, I don't really have coffee. I'll have like a chai latte every now and then, you know, or a cappuccino, that's about it.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Have a little cappuccino. It ma- it makes you sound more, uh.

• 32:40Lewis Howes?

  Enlightened, right?

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 32:42Lewis Howes?

  Cultured.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Cultured. Yeah, so I think, uh, just getting hydrated right away, uh, you know, I have a tendency of just going onto my phone and looking at all my emails. Uh, big mistake before I even get out of bed.

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  Oh, I'm, I'm like, the person who does that the most.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  And, and here's the thing that I've learned and we just talked about earlier is that, you know, when you go in colds or something, you're gonna mess yourself up.

• 33:07Lewis Howes?

  Break your neck.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Uh, exactly, or tear your groin doing breakdancing, whatever it is.

• 33:11Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  So, this is the same thing. When you wake up in the morning, try not to reach for your phone. Don't look at the emails yet.

• 33:19Lewis Howes?

  It's like your hardest habit to break.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, just stand up, walk around for a second, do whatever you have to do. Go to the bathroom, take a shower, whatever it is, eat some breakfast, get hydrated, get ready, and then start your day. I am guilty of this. I don't do this every day, but when I do, I know I feel.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  You feel great, don't you?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Phenomenal.

• 33:38Lewis Howes?

  The thing is, it's almost like you get in reactive mode right away when you wake up. If you pull your phone over it, like I find myself reaching for my phone. We use it my alarm will go off or something. And then I'll like, I'll reach my phone and I'll see a bunch of text messages. And I'm not, I have one eye open, literally texting back like four or five people. And I'm just in reactive mode right away. That's probably the worst thing to do as opposed to like, take a deep breath, focus on like what I want to achieve that day, how I want to feel. And just take a few moments for myself.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:08Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to just reacting to everyone or everything.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 34:11Lewis Howes?

  In your mind, I'm assuming if you relax your mind in the morning, as opposed to just go, then you're going to be a lot healthier long term.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  And that's, you know, just, I agree 100%. It's such such an easy thing to say, just hard to do. And you know, uh, there I, one of my favorite motivational speakers is Zig Ziglar, who now passed away, but one of the things that he said is that you should never be reactive, you should be responsive. And he compared this to taking a, a drug or a medicine. He said, you don't want to react to medicine, you want to respond to medicine. And this is, this is how we should live our lives. We shouldn't be reactive, we should be responsive. And I think that's one of those things is I open my eyes, I should be conscious of, I just woke up. It's a new day. I'm gonna have the urge to reach for my phone.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  But if I can make a conscious effort to not do that, that'll be awesome.

• 35:07Lewis Howes?

  Even for five minutes, right?

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Five minutes, just, just get moving. Here's another thing is I can't focus for a second. Right? I, I just, I have ADD, I'm just all over the place and how I focus is by moving. When my body is going.

• 35:23Lewis Howes?

  You can focus.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  I can focus. Exactly, I'm in the moment. So when I wake up, I'm just up, out of there, boom, straight to the bathroom, do whatever I have to do, I'm out the door.

• 35:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  So get moving if you're the guy that can't focus. If you're more of a calm person, good for you, you'll probably live longer.

• 35:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right. So what type of physical things should we be doing? Say, I'm in, I wake up, and it takes me five minutes to get out of bed. I'm kind of just relaxing, I'm being aware of what's happening. When I get up, first steps I take, is there a direction I should be going? Should I be in a air squat position? Or should I allow myself to slowly move and wake up, and then slight stretching? Or should I go right into push-up mode, like, do jumping jacks, you know, is there?

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Well, it depends. Sometimes you have to wake up and you have to run. That happens. Uh, but the ideal situation would be just wake up, take it easy, and of course you want to get some sort of workout. And I try to, I try to knock it out in the morning.

• 36:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  And I basically just cruise down to the gym and try to get my, my heart rate up a little bit. And then I, I call it practice working out.

• 36:30Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Where-

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  It's not a real full workout.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Sometimes you just can't, can't kill yourself, right?

• 36:36Lewis Howes?

  6:00 AM or whatever, just crush.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, for people that know who Rich Froning is, uh, Rich Froning now won the Games twice this, this year, coming in hot again.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  See, he could do it again, and repeat it.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  He's crazy. But people think when I come, for example, to Spain, they're like, oh, you come from the US? You're like Rich Froning. Let's kill you. And they just crush me.

• 36:56Lewis Howes?

  And you're like, I can't do all this.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  I feel like crap for 10 days.

• 36:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  And that's terrible. You don't want that. You want to feel good. So anything that feels a little uncomfortable, but that you feel okay doing, and that later on allows you to function like a normal human being, that's a good day.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  That doesn't mean it wasn't high intensity, or it wasn't productive, um. It just has to be something that goes by feel. Do you feel good? Then you're doing good. If it feels bad.

• 37:24Lewis Howes?

  Adjust a little.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:25Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  I've been saying this lately. I've been saying, uh, true performance can only be measured through feel.

• 37:32Lewis Howes?

  Through how you feel, huh?

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  You may, you know, go play handball and you may not have scored or played, uh, the perfect game, uh, on the, on the board. But you may have.

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  Statistically, yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, statistically speaking, but you may have felt really good physically. You're like, oh yeah, I have the potential to actually perform well. Now I know. So you could say technically that you felt great, so your performance was optimal.

• 37:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure. Yeah. As opposed to being like exhausted and yawning or feeling lethargic and sore the whole time.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly.

• 38:07Lewis Howes?

  Now, what's your thoughts on supplements and, uh, recovery products and proteins? And, you know, I'm, I'm a big fan of Progenics and Onnit for, you know, optimizing my performance. What's your?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, well, you know, I'm personally with NutriForce Sport right now, so, uh, and, and they've been great working with them. But growing up, I, I didn't know much about supplements and even, uh, recently I was just like, oh, I'll stay away from supplements. But what I've realized is that we're constantly playing catch up. If I had the time to eat that amount of food and I could make the day, uh, thirty-six hour day with just daylight.

• 38:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Then I would be able to just eat normal food, sleep well, do all these things. So supplements, I think one of the goals for supplements is they're trying to help you play catch up. And, uh, you can do it in many ways, but if you work with the right people and you do it the right way and you understand what you're putting in your body and what's coming out, then, then it's okay. Will I do supplements and have supplements around me for the rest of my life? Some sort of supplement will probably be around there.

• 39:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  I may not eat enough, you know, uh, fish, so I need some fish oil. I may have a lot of inflammation from other things that I'm eating, so maybe I have to buffer that with some of that. Uh, you know, maybe right after a workout if I need to recover and I don't have a meal right away. I'm probably gonna want some sort of shake, uh, with some aminos or something, just to be able to recover and, and feel better uh, in the long term. So that, that's where that's at. Uh, we could go into. All the talks of how that's produced and what that could do to your body, but I'm I do support supplements. I'm not super big supplement uh intake or just because I'm not a elite athlete. I'm I'm a coach and I take it just to be able to.

• 40:01Lewis Howes?

  Run optimally throughout the day.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  It's like an insurance policy, right? Like make sure you're getting everything you need and.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 40:07Lewis Howes?

  Now tell me about, I want to ask a couple more questions. Tell me about the perfect ring muscle up.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Hmm. What is a ring muscle up for you?

• 40:15Lewis Howes?

  What is it for me?

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:17Lewis Howes?

  Like the definition?

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, what do you think it is? I mean, how do you define that for you?

• 40:21Lewis Howes?

  I guess in simple terms is going from a hang position and getting uh above your your elbows above and then doing like a dip at the top, right? Or I bring you fully extended at the top of rings with your arms underneath you.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:37Lewis Howes?

  That'd be my guess.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  It's some sort of pull up where you pull yourself over these rings and get up and and for people that don't know what a muscle up is, it's it's basically just hanging under the rings, like you said, and pulling yourself over the ring so you're in a support position. And it depends on who you're talking to. If you're talking to a gymnast, they may say, you know, we want it to be slow and controlled and we want your body to be straight and to have all these lines.

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  In CrossFit, it's okay, you need to do thirty, you need to do fifty. Maybe there's going to be a swing in there and it's going to look a certain way and that's going to maximize your effort to get over the the rings and you're going to be able to last longer.

• 41:15Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  So there'll be like two signature muscle up. One for gymnastics, which is just a way of getting over the rings and maybe a conditioning thing, and then one for CrossFit that may look a little bit different, uh but still is the same movement. If we relate this to just kind of normal human being behavior, it would be your capacity to get over an obstacle.

• 41:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  So if you think about it, it's just getting over a wall. That's, that's, that's, that's what that perfect muscle up is. How well can you?

• 41:46Lewis Howes?

  Jumping up the wall and pulling yourself over.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. How well can you get over the wall? And it depends how you're doing it, why you're doing it. It will look a certain way and it'll be perfect and defined by the purpose.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  This muscle up thing is just another movement. People are obsessed with it because it's hard to do.

• 42:03Lewis Howes?

  It's really hard.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Especially at the gym. And I think that's something that's carried over from gymnastics into CrossFit and now CrossFit into the rest of the fitness industry.

• 42:10Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  And uh, yeah, it's pretty cool.

• 42:12Lewis Howes?

  Nice, nice. Any, any quick techniques or tips for like the perfect CrossFit muscle up?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Ah, perfect cross muscle, big hips.

• 42:19Lewis Howes?

  Big hips.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:20Lewis Howes?

  Big hips, like thrusting your hips.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, big hips, meaning pelvis goes up to the rings. I always say pelvic thrust, basic life skill.

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Right?

• 42:29Lewis Howes?

  We do it every day, right?

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Do it every day.

• 42:32Lewis Howes?

  Hip, I like to call it the hip thrust.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  It's the only way you can leave a legacy. Put it that way.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  If you don't have a dial.

• 42:39Lewis Howes?

  That's awesome. Um, what's the most important movement to optimize? If there was one thing we could focus on perfecting, a natural movement?

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Getting off the ground.

• 42:52Lewis Howes?

  Getting off the ground.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Getting off the ground, getting back on the ground.

• 42:55Lewis Howes?

  From back on the ground, from the side, from stomach?

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Any position.

• 42:59Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Why? Now you said this with like intention. You were like, yes, this right away. And I, you didn't know this was coming. So why is that the most important movement?

• 43:06Speaker 01

  It includes a lot of the stuff that we do. Imagine you're lying down on your back, you're sleeping. The first thing you do is you do some sort of, you roll maybe to the side and then you drop your legs and then you do like a little lateral sit up. And then from that position, your feet are on the ground, your butt is on the, on the, on the bed. And you basically just stand up. So you do a squat and then you walk away.

• 43:29Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Now let's say you're lying on the ground. You're lying on the ground now. You probably don't go sideways. You probably go into a sit up. So you sit upright. And then if you're very mobile, you may get into a squat, but most people aren't. So they do some sort of leg crossing, hands go to the side.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, knees on the ground up and something, yeah.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Some sort of like crawl up kind of thing. So, so that's a variation.

• 43:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Um, I, I like to play this game where I'm like, okay, now you're sitting on the ground again. Uh, let's go ahead and put one hand on your head and now get up.

• 44:01Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  And I'll, tricky, right? And then they're like, okay, I got that. I'm like, sit down again.

• 44:06Lewis Howes?

  No hands.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  No hand.

• 44:07Lewis Howes?

  That's tough.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Tough, but what we see most people do is they cross their legs, they go into a lunge and then they stand up. So that's a get up and, uh, the kettlebell world or even the CrossFit world now, it's like a Turkish get up. They would call it where it's holding something overhead and standing up. Also a very popular move in Cirque du Soleil, anyone that's doing hand to hand balancing. Uh, they do that a lot. So they do a lot of get ups with their partner as they.

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  One person coming up, yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, hand balancing. Um, so it, it has so many different variations. And now I can say, hey, you know what? You're lying on your back. Go ahead and get up. Most people would kind of snake themselves up into some sort of push up, step forward into a lunge, stand up. If I said, let's go fast, it would turn into some sort of burpee or up down.

• 44:50Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  If I said, let's go one arm, now the variation would change. Let's go one leg, the variation would change. So being able to get on and off the ground, uh, combines all the basic movements from hinging in the hip, squatting, pushing. And there's no pulling here, but let's say there was something over your head that you could grab and pull yourself up from.

• 45:10Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  And that's why pulling is such a key component of strength and conditioning because it's the opposite of what we are wired to do.

• 45:20Lewis Howes?

  Which is pushing.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Yes. Your car breaks down, you don't pull your car.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  Push it.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  You push it. But in the gym, we train pulling because pulling is what allows us to do more pushing.

• 45:31Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 45:32Speaker 01

  Anytime there's a push, there's a pull.

• 45:33Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Pulling is usually a static hold and pushing is where the, the mechanics or the, the effort is being produced where the.

• 45:41Lewis Howes?

  It's using your legs, your hips, your driving into it or whatever. Yeah.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 45:45Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  So getting off the ground is definitely number one.

• 45:48Lewis Howes?

  So how do we learn how to get off the ground the right way?

• 45:50Speaker 01

  That's another thing. So who sets the rules? Here's the problem. Everyone's like, how do you do it the right way? What's the perfect form? Tell me, tell me, tell me. Everyone wants to know. Just do it. Get off the ground. Does it hurt? There's probably something wrong. Opportunity. Let's take advantage of it. How do we fix that? Okay, good. Now we fix that. Let's try another variation. Can you do it? Yes. Did you feel any pain? No. Beautiful. Now let's test it under different demands. Can you go fast? Can you go under load? Can you go after you've been breathing really heavy? Can you still do it that way? Oh, now it changed. I've had to adapt into the next thing. This is freestyle.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  That's what I live by. It's you should be able to move however your body wants to move. And then use every one of those movements as opportunities to develop the next thing. People are so concerned, this is the right way. I don't care if it's the right way for you. Your body is wanting to go this way. Let it go. Let's see what happens.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  That's what I live by.

• 46:50Lewis Howes?

  So Tommy, you actually have a book coming out called Freestyle.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Freestyle, yeah. So it's freestyle. The title is Freestyle and the subtitle is maximize sport and life performance with four basic movements.

• 47:02Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, and what are the four basic movements?

• 47:03Speaker 01

  It's get off the ground.

• 47:05Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Which would be a burpee variation. Another one is squatting mechanics. But we teach the pistol, which is a single leg squat, which body weight wise is the most challenging one to do. Then I teach a muscle up, getting over the obstacle. A lot of pulling mechanics in there to be able to talk about things. And then the last one is a handstand push up, which may seem like a party trick, but it involves.

• 47:31Lewis Howes?

  Handstand push up.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Handstand push up.

• 47:33Lewis Howes?

  I still can't do those because my wrist, man. I need like some type of a support thing or a bar to hold on to.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, some sort of handle, huh?

• 47:39Lewis Howes?

  Something.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  Because I can't do a full push up.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Once again, I mean, you broke your wrist. So there's a healing process that goes through it. And you've probably been able to get away with not having to fully heal.

• 47:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  With what you do.

• 47:51Lewis Howes?

  That's, yeah.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  And you know, that's actually interesting. It kind of just takes me back to thinking about why is it? Why do we do what we do kind of thing? What is it that motivates us and drives us? And, you know. There are two things that I've seen people really been motivated by is when either they hit a wall from an injury and now they're like, oh no, I need to fix myself. Or they are really eager to accomplish something and they physically and consciously understand that there's a physical limitation to their performance. Then they get driven and now they want to take it to the next level. So for you, handstand pushups doesn't mean that much.

• 48:29Lewis Howes?

  Right, it doesn't.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  But if I told you that when you're playing handball and maybe you're around people and you need to push them away and you need that pushing mechanics to be efficient so you can maybe jump, throw the ball, jump, catch the ball, run away, then you start getting a little bit more excited.

• 48:44Lewis Howes?

  So handstand pushup is a really important thing.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Huge.

• 48:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay, I'm gonna start learning how to do them then.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 48:51Lewis Howes?

  With something that I could use it, you know, I gotta be freestyle with it. And it doesn't have to be just my hands on the ground, but I could use some type of uh bars or weights and do it that way, right?

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. And then I would of course recommend a lot of mobility on the wrist and just make sure that you keep getting strong. But just knowing that doesn't matter what kind of physical activity you're doing, if you understand physical movement, you can transfer that into whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. And that can only be understood through this philosophy that I have, which is can you freestyle? Can you just let it go for a second and then be conscious of where you hit the walls and put solutions in there?

• 49:29Lewis Howes?

  Huh, alright, so I want to do something really quick because I know we gotta run in a few minutes. I wanna, I wanna show you my form for the air squat. You're gonna critique me.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 49:38Lewis Howes?

  See what I can do.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 49:39Lewis Howes?

  I haven't warmed up, so you can, you can sit there, I'll just get up here.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 49:45Lewis Howes?

  So.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Okay, you're about to squat. He pulls his pants up. He is smiling, he pulls his pants up even more. Squats up, gets a little stiff, is it the pants? No, it's not the pants.

• 49:57Lewis Howes?

  It's ankles.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  It's the ankles, so that right now we're seeing his toes turned out like Charlie Chaplin. The knees are kinda caving in. The hips are below the knees, which would be considered a full squat, but he's clearly very stiff, the ankles are stiff. So go ahead and stand up for me. One of the most common things that any coach would tell you would be like, let's push the knees out a little bit more, right? So if I asked you to do that, A, your pants may rip. B, you probably can't because you're so stiff. No big deal. This is what I want you to try to do. Bring your feet together for me. So right now, even closer together, glue the feet together. Louis is standing up right now, his feet are together, glue them even closer together. He's just standing up tall, feet are glued together, they're literally touching each other, right?

• 50:43Speaker 01

  From there, what I want you to do is I just want you to bend over, put your hands flat on the ground. So he's standing tall, he's gonna bend over, you can bend your knees if you want, bend your knees if you want, there you go. Now his hands are flat on the ground, right by his feet, his feet are together, and he's literally just bent over. Right now, his position is optimal because the knees are coming out, the hips are in full flexion. That right there, hinging in the hip, that's the foundation of squatting. Now, go ahead and stand up for me.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Just that, can be hard if you're a little stiff, but the mechanics were optimal. Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna pull the chair behind you, so pull that chair behind you for me.

• 51:24Lewis Howes?

  I should be like videotaping this right now.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Yes, this should be, we should, eventually you'll be filming this podcast, people will see this stuff. So now he has a chair behind him, he's standing tall, uh, feet are together, once again, same thing. Go ahead and bend over, put your hands on the ground the same way. The beauty of this is that he looks good. Now from there, without your hands coming off the ground, see if you can sit on the chair.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he's grunting, it's hard to do, but if you look at him, and if you had a picture, this is what he looks like. He looks like he's in a squat with his toes facing forward, his knees are out, his hips are in full flexion or closed up, just like squatting. His back is rounded, no big deal. Yeah, let's take a picture of it. Pass me your phone.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  So Louis is, he's scrambling, he's scrambling. Anyways, he's squatting right now, he is bent over, his back is rounded, and he's just in a good position right now, knees are out, toes are forward, we like that. Now from there Louis, do me a favor, just bring your chest up, and lift your hands off the ground, and just sit up tall. Do you see how that's a good, original squatting position? That's where we wanna be. Knees are out, chest is up, toes are forward. And all you needed was, I needed to put you in a position of emphasis, which is, hey, let's bring your feet together, forces your knees out, and then eventually just start developing that range of motion.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  So this is the conversation we're having right now is basically if someone says this is the standard for squatting.

• 52:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  And when you perform that standard, you look a little funky.

• 53:03Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  You need to be conscious enough to say, "Hey, this doesn't feel right, doesn't look right. Tell me, how do I get into the most optimal position, into the most optimal shape of squatting?"

• 53:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  That's what a coach is supposed to be able to do. And that's a little bit of what I just did with you.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  Man, I'm gonna have to hire you now.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 53:22Lewis Howes?

  The one I want to coach soon.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Oh, snap.

• 53:24Lewis Howes?

  I love it. I'm all about awareness of my body and getting better every day. It's all about greatness. So with that, before we wrap it up, what's your definition of greatness?

• 53:31Speaker 01

  My definition of greatness is, I always say this, and people think this is crazy, but I say, "I want to make history." And when I say, "I want to make history," what I want to do is I want to help people understand that life is about living it to the fullest. And the way you do that is if you have a vision, you have a dream, you have a need or a want, you can make that happen. And it's how well you execute on that. And it has to happen by sharing what you believe in. And sharing is not, "Hey, guys, this is what you're gonna do." It's helping people understand and make them self-directed, so they can actually make better decisions. And if you can do that, I think that is, that is being great.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  And you may not reach the goal exactly the way you want it, but you're probably gonna discover some very cool things in the process. So if you can do that, that's greatness. And that may not be a definition, but it's the way I look at it.

• 54:27Lewis Howes?

  I love it, man. I love it. And where can we find you online?

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Right now, you can find me on gymnasticswod.com, which is just gymnastics, W-O-D, dot com. And you can find me on my new venture, which is freestylethebook.com. And right now, it's a... Just the subscription page, but we're gonna have a lot of content coming up. It's gonna be pretty awesome and hopefully we'll be able to give you a lot of insight on the philosophy of the book and little things that you can do to take your physical performance to the next level.

• 54:58Lewis Howes?

  I love it, man. I mean, there's four movements, it makes sense. And now it's like, I've got to optimize these four movements. And if you can optimize those four movements in freestyle, then your life is gonna run a lot better, right?

• 55:08Speaker 01

  That's the goal.

• 55:09Lewis Howes?

  Your life, your body, everything is gonna be more efficient.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:12Lewis Howes?

  You're also on Instagram, super inspiring pictures and photos and cool little breakdancing moves and stuff like that. So make sure to check Carl out, at Carl Paoli.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 55:21Lewis Howes?

  P A O L I.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  That's correct.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  On Instagram. If you guys are on there right now, go ahead and tag a photo of yourself of where you're listening to this specific episode with me and Carl. Just tag at Lewis Howes and at Carl Paoli and with a hashtag greatness or a hashtag school of greatness. So we can see where you're at in the world. I got a lot of cool photos from people from all over the world listening to the show. So hopefully, and if you guys are, if you want to do a handstand, actually when you are listening to this and you tag it with a handstand photo, that could be pretty cool too. So maybe Carl can give you a quick little tip on what your technique is if you post a picture of your handstand.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  No doubt.

• 55:59Lewis Howes?

  Would you be open for that?

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. They can also hashtag freestyle connection all together and I'll definitely find you there. Anything you need, I'll always try to give my two cents.

• 56:10Lewis Howes?

  Awesome. Well, Carl, I appreciate it, man. And have fun this week at the game.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you for having me, man.

• 56:25Lewis Howes?

  Boom shakalaka. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed having a workout during the episode and having my back and neck in alignment the entire time and having Carl put me through a few different exercises. It's important to think about how we use our bodies throughout the day, throughout everything we do. It's the most important thing we have, our bodies and our minds. So go ahead and keep practicing what Carl talked about. Make sure to check out his book. Check him out. On Twitter and he's got some amazing, cool things on Instagram as well. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends. Head over to schoolofgreatness.com.

• 57:05Lewis Howes?

  Check out all the show notes, images, videos of what we talked about today from Carl and myself. And share with your friends on Twitter, on Facebook, post a picture on Instagram and tag both me and Carl. If you, uh, if you like this, I appreciate you guys so much. And make sure to always do something great.

• 58:19Lewis Howes?

  You