Future Proof Your Body & Reduce Chronic Pain With These Daily Hacks w/ Vinh Pham EP 1268

Today's guest is Vinh Pham, a licensed physical therapist with over a decade’s experience working with industry-leading health and wellness brands and treating top athletes, celebrities, and entrepreneurs. He is the founder of Myodetox, a group of design-forward manual therapy clinics that are reimagining the traditional therapy and rehab experience. Using his unique system of manual therapy, Vinh posts daily educational videos that help millions of people learn how to take care of their bodies. In this episode, you will learn:How to future-proof your body. Why you should be proactive about your health. How to improve your body's movement efficiency. How to unravel all the body damage you’ve built up over time. For more, go to lewishowes.com/1268 Be sure to buy a copy of Vinh's new book, Sit Up Straight - FutureProof Your Body Against Chronic Pain with 12 Simple MovementsCasey Means on How to Recognize and Fix Unhealthy Habits: 1252Andy Galpin on Weight Loss, Stress Management, and Reversing Your Age: 1247Dr. Joe Dispenza on Healing the Body and Transforming the Mind: 826 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Which is essentially not about sitting up straight. It's about paying attention, which is whether it's you're paying attention to your body, paying attention to what you're doing, paying attention to be self-aware. And being self-aware will lead to.

• 0:13Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, 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.

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious, what do you think is the biggest reason why so many people are struggling to stay flexible, mobile and healthy today? Is it the extreme workouts? Is it they're on their phones all day or on the computer? Is it they just aren't educated on how to be more mobile? What are you seeing?

• 0:54Speaker 00

  I definitely think it's a mix of all those three or four things that you've said, but I say the main thing is it's not top of mind awareness. You know, people are definitely more reactive versus proactive when it comes to their musculoskeletal health.

• 1:06Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  You know, they don't really care about it until they wake up one day and they're like, oh, I can't move or like, oh, I don't know what happened. I slept and I can't turn my neck. Like, oh, I need to go see a physio or see a chiro or get adjusted or get a massage. Or, you know, they get very stressed when the symptoms show up. But they, because there's no, the signs of MSK disease is progressive and more silent.

• 1:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:33Speaker 00

  We don't really take care of it.

• 1:35Lewis Howes?

  What's MSK?

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Musculoskeletal.

• 1:37Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:38Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Muscle and skeleton.

• 1:42Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:42Speaker 00

  Together.

• 1:42Lewis Howes?

  A disease of the muscle and skeleton.

• 1:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:45Lewis Howes?

  What are the main, the main diseases of muscle and skeleton?

• 1:50Speaker 00

  No, I mean it more like a issues with your body.

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  Got you.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  Coming up.

• 1:55Lewis Howes?

  Pain, inflammation.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Pain, inflammation, knee pain, back pain.

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  Neck pain. Yes. So that's like essentially muscle and skeleton together. Right? So it's kind of like body issues.

• 2:04Lewis Howes?

  What are the biggest issues people are faced with? Is it the lower back? Is it the neck? Is it the joints? Whether knees and elbows and wrists? What are you seeing is the biggest struggle for most people?

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Seventy percent of people in their lifetime will have low back pain. So I would say, yes, I would say low back pain is one of the biggest ones. Crazy stats for you to know. MSK, now that you understand the term, issues.

• 2:29Speaker 00

  Costs on average $600 billion a year for the US.

• 2:34Lewis Howes?

  Is that on like medicine or?

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, so healthcare costs, healthcare costs and also loss of wages for the US.

• 2:43Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, because if you can't work, yeah, I got you.

• 2:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, 600 billion, it's 1/6 of all healthcare spending in the US. Just to give you comparison of, yes, yes, just to give you comparison of numbers versus heart disease is like, I think 309 billion.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  Cancer is 243 billion and diabetes is 188 billion.

• 3:07Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 3:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, so MSK is like 600 billion versus all of that.

• 3:12Lewis Howes?

  And MSK includes what specifically?

• 3:15Speaker 00

  Well, back pain, neck pain, knee pain, ACL tears, joint issues, you know, all that stuff.

• 3:21Lewis Howes?

  And are a lot of these things preventable?

• 3:25Speaker 00

  I would argue yes, to a certain degree, for sure. Obviously, if you do sports, you're working out like crazy.

• 3:31Lewis Howes?

  Car crash, there's an accident, you fall over, you hit your head or something.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  Things obviously happen, but overall, I would say a lot of it is preventable. It just takes a lot of work.

• 3:41Lewis Howes?

  What happens when someone has lower back pain, neck pain, joint pain, and they don't address it, or they address it with just medication and not actually healing from the inside out, not actually doing the proper, I guess, natural remedies of mobility, stretching, adjustments, strength training, core training, flexibility? What happens if they don't do that?

• 4:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's kind of like this, before every symptom, there's signs, signs that show up, right? Let's say you end up having high cholesterol. Over time, the doctor goes, hey, you have high cholesterol, you're at risk for heart disease, heart attack. Do something about it, right?

• 4:27Speaker 00

  You have high blood pressure, that's a sign. You should be careful. You might end up getting a stroke. Do something about it. The problem with MSK is the signs, the low, with low back pain, the signs are silent.

• 4:40Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 4:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:41Lewis Howes?

  Why is it silent?

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Because you don't miss, because the body's so resilient and adaptable that we get away with sitting for X amount of hours, however we want. Doing however, whatever we want. And then at one point in time, you get the heart attack or you get the, oh my, I just woke up and my, my knee just gave out. You know?

• 5:00Lewis Howes?

  It's, it's kind of an instant. Like you wake up and you're like, oh, I can't move my neck. Or why is my lower back so painful?

• 5:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  And then it stays with you.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:09Lewis Howes?

  And you might try to take painkillers or something to help like go with the pain, but that's not actually fixing the problem.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. Not fixing the problem. And because again, the signs are silent, people aren't motivated or even aware to take care of it. Or they don't have the impetus to be like, oh, I have to do something about it. Versus someone, a doctor being like, hey, you have high cholesterol. Then you start, oh man, like I need to do something about it. Versus the, the symptoms of like, by the time you have pain, I'm not saying it's too late by the time you have low back pain or knee pain, but it's way more progressed at that point.

• 5:41Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting. I asked a, a doctor a couple of months ago on the show. Who's a well-known doctor, big New York Times bestseller, treated a lot of people. And I was like, you know, what's something you wish you had known earlier? In your life, just in general, not even like health related. And he said, I wish I would have flossed sooner. And he didn't tell me like what had happened, but I'm assuming there was some issues with his, his gums or his teeth or his mouth or something. Because he didn't floss consistently. And another friend of mine, uh, an older gentleman in this industry had like gum cancer and was like really a lot of challenges with the teeth. And I don't think he flossed either. I'm just making that assumption. But it's like, we may not see the pain until later.

• 6:23Lewis Howes?

  When we have something, uh, now my neck's out, or now I can't walk straight, or now I have to have a surgery. As opposed to just doing the preventative care. You know, that's a two minutes a day.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 6:35Lewis Howes?

  That could help prevent something that could be more painful in the future. But we don't think of our bodies necessarily in this way.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 6:43Lewis Howes?

  Until people like you came along and started educating us over the last decade, but.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  But let me ask you a question. Can you imagine?

• 6:51Speaker 00

  Imagine if you didn't brush your teeth for the last 20 years.

• 6:53Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  What do you think your teeth would look like if you didn't brush or floss?

• 6:56Lewis Howes?

  I mean, they'd be, yeah, they'd be cavities and yellow and, yeah, falling out and everything, yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  You can imagine that world, you know? Imagine you up to now, you didn't brush or floss your spine or knee or stuff like that on a regular basis. And that's why, imagine if you did, imagine how well you'd be moving right now, right? Would be my argument. I feel like if you, we was instilled in the education system, you were educated early about it. Your mom taught you how to stretch or things like that. You would, the, the dividends would pay off insane.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  What's, what's more powerful for protecting our joints and reducing pain and extending your life? Is it strength training? Is it flexibility and mobility? Is it stretching? What is the thing that's gonna help us reduce pain and extend our life?

• 7:52Speaker 00

  Yes, I think in all of that is, is kinda like the cop out answer. But, but to be a little bit more specific, I would say you want to experience your body fully. What we don't do every day is experience the full range of motion that we're capable of, right? For example, let's say you're right now, you're turning your neck to the left, to the right. Can you, do you really know how much you're missing on each side? And then can you explore the nooks and crannies of how much? For example, I have way more range to the right than I do on the left.

• 8:24Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Why is that? Most people have range more on one side than the other.

• 8:27Speaker 00

  It's all movement habits of things you've accumulated over time, mix of injury, mix of your whole history.

• 8:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  But you have to unravel that, all these, all this damage that you built and habits that you built over time. And that is what's gonna basically future-proof yourself for the future.

• 8:43Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  And then it's all about exploring the dark zones of your body and learning more about your body. Again, coming down to self-awareness for everything. Forget only the body, you know, for everything.

• 8:53Lewis Howes?

  What, what are the dark zones of the body? What, if someone's like, oh, I feel like I understand every part of my body. How could they do an assessment to see what is the dark zone?

• 9:02Speaker 00

  Simple test, just use your body. You're here. Right now, I'm just lifting up my arm to the max. Have I ever explored this space every single day? Not really. How about this? How about this? How about this? How about this? How about this?

• 9:16Lewis Howes?

  Oh wow.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  You know? And then they start being, oh, this is okay.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  But oh, right here, I feel it here. Why do I do that? Oh, because when I sit on the couch watching Netflix, I like to do this.

• 9:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  For three hours during COVID, every day for like three months.

• 9:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  And now all of a sudden, your brain, everything starts kind of like adapting to this position. And then you end up kind of being a little bit like this.

• 9:42Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  Right? And then you end up playing sports or doing whatever. And then your back goes, hey.

• 9:47Lewis Howes?

  Cause your body's out of alignment. Would you call it out of alignment or off center?

• 9:50Speaker 00

  Yes, I would say, yeah, out of alignment, off center.

• 9:52Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, and then the whole idea is as you experience all this space that you're able to do, your body naturally starts getting aligned again and coming back to center.

• 10:03Lewis Howes?

  What's the practice of, cause you talk about this thing, brushing your spine, flossing your muscles?

• 10:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean? And why is this important to do on a consistent basis?

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, I always start with this question. Everyone understands, you understand the concept of hygiene.

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  Right? Great. Dental hygiene, skin hygiene, you know, hair hygiene.

• 10:25Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Every one of those things for dental hygiene is a two-step process generally. Brush, floss. Agree?

• 10:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  Great.

• 10:34Lewis Howes?

  Some people maybe do mouthwash, which

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  It's debatable.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, debatable. I do it. I definitely need to do that. Yeah.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  When you're talking about skin, skincare hygiene.

• 10:46Lewis Howes?

  Soap, maybe a brush or something, yeah.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Soap, brush, but generally it's like a moisturizer, cleanser, right? If you're my girlfriend, Kayla, I love you. Fourteen step process. She goes in. There's like so many things. I'm like, what is this serum? What is this? You know, like

• 11:00Lewis Howes?

  It's like just for the cheeks and just for the eyes.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's like, whoa. Um, um, and then if it's, you know, hair, for example, it's like shampoo, conditioner.

• 11:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  Generally, right? But what is your, for example, your body hygiene for your knee? What about your big toe? What about your elbow? What about your shoulder? Would you, you know, would you argue that it's important to, those things are important to you? Your joints?

• 11:22Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Exactly. So then why don't you think about it every day? But you think about everything else every day.

• 11:26Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Right? And that's kind of like what I want to shift the whole mentality of the world towards. It's like, it's not, it's not about like, oh, let's, let's be scared of, of, of back pain and, and neck pain and all these things. No, it's like, you should take care of the only possession that you truly own. Which is your body, you know, and not only your teeth, not only your skin, not only your hair. But the main reason why people take care of those things is because if you don't brush your teeth, someone's gonna tell you. If your hair look crazy, someone's gonna tell you. You know, if you, um, you look at you didn't shower in a few days, someone's gonna tell you.

• 12:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and if you don't take care of your body, your body's gonna tell you eventually.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  Yes, eventually, and that's the problem, it's the eventually part. You know, but there's no warning signs, there's no, there's no dirt collecting on your back, but it is collecting. And that's what I'm trying to do.

• 12:16Lewis Howes?

  It's collecting in your muscles and your spines, your joints.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Essentially, so tension, habits.

• 12:21Lewis Howes?

  So what's the, what's the thing that people should be doing on a, on a daily basis? Is it the thing they do in the morning, in the afternoon, at night, is it's, if they only had five minutes a day, or two minutes a day, what would you recommend?

• 12:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would recommend get my book and then learn about what you need to do. But I've essentially assembled 12 movements that is essentially going through your whole body. And if you're doing the whole 12 movements, it would take you, give or take 15 to 20 minutes. If you start to learn your body and go, hey, listen, I actually don't need this part, I only need the front of my teeth. You know what I mean? Or like, basically, essentially like, I only need my ankle, I only need my left shoulder, then you can reduce it down to five minutes a day, for example.

• 13:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 13:00Speaker 00

  For me personally, I have a habit of how I, I sleep is like, I kinda sleep in a banana like this. That's because of how my nostrils, um, flow and it's my preferred position.

• 13:12Lewis Howes?

  To breathe?

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Yes, to breathe.

• 13:14Lewis Howes?

  It brings you back to childhood.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. So imagine if I'm here like this for eight hours, right?

• 13:22Speaker 00

  What I need to have my body experience when I wake up is

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  The other way.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  The other way. So my routine every morning is I need to open this up, right? Or I could fix the way I sleep, but I don't want to. So I would rather just do the homework and have my body open up in this direction every day. And did you know, this is like fun stats that I was like, you know, researching to prepare for this. One out of four people sit for work.

• 13:49Lewis Howes?

  How long?

• 13:50Speaker 00

  On average, including sitting at home, they sit on average fifteen hours a day.

• 13:54Lewis Howes?

  Fifteen hours?

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Fifteen hours a day.

• 13:56Lewis Howes?

  And then you're probably sleeping for seven or eight.

• 13:58Speaker 00

  Yes. And during covid, people were were sitting for two hours more, so seventeen hours a day.

• 14:04Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  And then they're sleeping the rest. So you think about.

• 14:07Lewis Howes?

  There's no movement. What what happens to the body when they're sitting or laying down most of the time?

• 14:14Speaker 00

  I mean, there's so many things like muscle loss, you know, decreased circulation, you know, you you start getting into all these habits, partial habits that end up staying with you, whether you're here like this, you're here like this, you know, losing neck motion, you know, sedentary behavior is just the worst.

• 14:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, it can lead to so many things, you know?

• 14:32Lewis Howes?

  And what happens if someone, okay, so not moving at all, there's a lot of problems. What happens if someone moves too much? Is there such a thing as like I'm working, you know, I'm working out too hard, I'm stretching too much, I'm not relaxing enough. What happens then?

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Yes, I mean, that's then it's overuse. So you have an overuse situation, right? And then what I preach all the time is it's all about like movement efficiency. It's like, how do I make your body more efficient at moving, using your whole body versus only using a specific part? Let's talk about overuse. Do you play tennis or no?

• 15:09Lewis Howes?

  A little pickleball recently.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Oh, pickleball. I love pickleball. Yeah, pickleball is fun. I totally suck at it, but it's so much fun.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  But for example, let's say you end up getting tennis elbow.

• 15:21Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  So one of the ways to look about, to look about fixing, to go about fixing tennis elbow is you would, let's say, stretch or strengthen it, for example. So, hey, maybe it's tight, it's too tight, you want to stretch it, or your muscles are weak, you need to strengthen it. But another way to look at it is, to look at it is, is when you're swinging your racket, you're only using your arm and you're not using your whole body. So it's it's a swings, swing mechanic situation. And because you're swinging only with your arm, you end up overusing your forearm extensors. And that's why you end up with tennis elbow.

• 15:56Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  So that is a case of, for example, overuse.

• 16:00Lewis Howes?

  Right. So using using the fore range of your body with the activities you're doing as well, not cheating on something, right?

• 16:08Speaker 00

  Not cheating, absolutely. And.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  The better you move essentially, the more you mitigate the amount of damage that you accumulate on your body.

• 16:18Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  You know?

• 16:20Lewis Howes?

  How bad are people walking these days? Um. Like the gait, their slouched shoulders, is it gonna affect them long term how they walk? Or is there a specific way that we should be walking?

• 16:33Speaker 00

  I wouldn't say there's a, there's a specific, specific, these, this is the way you need to walk. But there are definitely more efficient ways and less efficient ways, right? And everybody to a certain degree is individualistic. So you can have a more personalized situation of how they should walk. Based on a multitude of things, injuries, limb length, blah, blah, blah. Uh, but generally, there is a, you know, maybe like this range of like, this is how you should walk, give or take, if you're healthy.

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  What should it look like, or what should we be thinking about?

• 17:04Speaker 00

  You should be thinking about, how well is your foot articulating with the ground?

• 17:08Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 17:09Speaker 00

  Articulating meaning when your foot hits the ground, it should be this thing called pronation, right?

• 17:15Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 17:15Speaker 00

  And then this is supination, right? So just to make it simple, pronation is essentially, if you were to throw a ball, do you wanna throw a ball like this? Or you wanna throw a ball like this?

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  You wanna throw the full range of motion?

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Full range of motion, agreed? This looks way more better than this, right? This is pronation, right? You're loading your foot, and this is supination, you're throwing your foot.

• 17:38Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 17:38Speaker 00

  So your foot hits the ground, you're loading your foot, and then it pushes off the ground, and it goes into supination. A lot of people, if you, if you sit at the airports and you watch, you started watching how people walk and stuff, people walk with their foot turned out. People walk with their foot turned in, people start whipping their foot however it is that they.

• 17:55Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 17:56Speaker 00

  Because injuries, yeah, injuries, habits, they don't use it, no one taught them how to do it properly, they, they mimic, uh, you know,

• 18:04Lewis Howes?

  Other people.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Other people, their sports started making their feet a certain way, but no one ever like reprogrammed their feet. And then they, you know, they go run a marathon and their knee blows out. You know, for example, not, not to be catastrophic, but you know.

• 18:20Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  I can't even say that word.

• 18:21Lewis Howes?

  Catastrophic.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:23Lewis Howes?

  So, so we want our feet to essentially land forward and, and heel middle to toe, right?

• 18:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:31Lewis Howes?

  We don't want to be toe walkers.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:34Lewis Howes?

  You see the toe walkers out there?

• 18:35Speaker 00

  Toe walkers, yeah.

• 18:35Lewis Howes?

  You want to be a bouncy toe walker? Have you seen people that kind of like land and they pop real quick?

• 18:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all about efficiency. Exactly. The more you're efficient, the more it's like less energy for you.

• 18:44Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  And you just, you just whip it, you know?

• 18:47Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. And you've seen, I'm sure you've seen people who run really well.

• 18:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 18:50Speaker 00

  And people who run less well.

• 18:51Lewis Howes?

  I know. And you're like, what is that? Yeah.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. You don't necessarily even understand, but it looks way different. Hey, you look like you're having a great time.

• 18:59Lewis Howes?

  And what about the, the abdomen, the shoulders, the back? How should we be? Should it be shoulders back, shoulders neutral? A lot of people are shoulders forward when they walk. Should we be engaging our core or keep me a more relaxed gait?

• 19:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. I would probably go more towards relaxed. I think that if you experience all the motions and you do all these exercises, you kind of let the body settle in what is the most optimal alignment, given what you have currently.

• 19:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  Right? I don't necessarily think that posture is a, there's such, there is such a thing as bad posture, but it's, it's kind of like, this is the best posture your body could come up with based on all the factors.

• 19:39Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  But as I give you more exercises, over time, you develop, oh, hey, actually this is more efficient for me now.

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Right? It's not about, you know, the cut, the, the name of my book is called Sit Up Straight, but it's not about sitting up straight all the time. The whole point of Sit Up Straight was more about pay attention to your body and understand your body and take care of your body.

• 20:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  That's what Sit Up Straight is about.

• 20:03Lewis Howes?

  You hear a lot of these stories about. Some of the top athletes, Tom Brady, LeBron James, Novak Djokovic, I saw him. He's got a whole team that travels with him and has like a trailer with massage table and cryo and you know, float tanks in his trailer that every place he goes. These elite athletes that have realized that if they want to stay at the top, they need to invest in their body, their health, the longevity of their health. Why are you seeing more and more top athletes, especially you work with a lot of the top athletes as well and helping them? Why are they saying, "I need to invest in this more than ever now and spend the money to take care of my body"? Whereas 10, 15, 20 years ago, that wasn't really the thought.

• 20:49Speaker 00

  I think the education wasn't there before. So, and then also with the internet and all these things happening, people are starting to understand the importance of recovery. And to your point, you were saying, you know, when we started 10 years ago, and we met like, you know, seven, eight years ago at these like gym events, festivals, all these things that we were at, SoulCycle, Orange Theory Fitness, all these things were starting to happen. You know, Equinox, working out was no longer only a bodybuilding thing. Before, it was only about Arnold and Venice and Gold's Gym and all of that stuff. And it started being more mainstream. And then for those five, six years, it was all about boutique fitness. And then in that period of time, everyone started going to SoulCycle five days a week.

• 21:34Speaker 00

  And two years later, they all have hip flexor issues.

• 21:38Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 21:39Speaker 00

  For example.

• 21:39Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 21:40Speaker 00

  Again, you're just on a bike all day, you're just doing this.

• 21:42Lewis Howes?

  They're not recovering and using the full range of their body.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  Yes, it's like you're here like this, and then you go SoulCycle here, and then you go sit at a desk, you're here, and your hip flexors are never experiencing extension. Your hip is never experiencing extension.

• 21:55Lewis Howes?

  It's tightening, it's shrinking.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that is why like, I feel like today, it's so relevant because everybody went crazy with fitness.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  I happen to have this idea slash concept mild detox that happens to intersect with where the public consciousness is now when it comes to recovery. Like you said, it's a lot more mainstream and athletes are obviously ahead of the curve. But now it's starting to trickle down to the rest of the population.

• 22:22Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. And so why do you think they're willing to spend so much on their diet, nutrition, trainers and all these different things to help them as opposed to just use, you know, they're going above and beyond what their team provides for them, right? Why is that?

• 22:39Speaker 00

  I think it's just they want to perform and it's all about longevity. They want to be at the top level for longer and stay relevant forever. Not forever, but like as long as possible.

• 22:49Lewis Howes?

  As long as the body's gonna handle it, right?

• 22:50Speaker 00

  Exactly. Extending their career and they're seeing that if you do take care of yourself, you see the LeBrons, the Tom Brady's, all those guys that represent that. They're still killing it in their 40s, you know?

• 23:01Lewis Howes?

  If you see Tom Brady and LeBron, if they never did any of this, but they're, you know,

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  amazing at their craft and they just did the workouts that the team provided for them and maybe stretched a little bit and ate the diet that they're always used to eating. How long do you think they could have lasted at a high level versus having stretching every day, cryotherapy on the legs, the nutrition, the mobility you see all these athletes doing now? Do you think they would all last as long at such a high level?

• 23:33Speaker 00

  No, absolutely not. I, you know, this is obviously my opinion.

• 23:37Lewis Howes?

  Even if LeBron is a freak athlete, you don't think he could have lasted at this high level?

• 23:42Speaker 00

  There's no way. There's no way. It's like you're saying, hey, I'm gonna take this Ferrari, massive engine, beautiful car. I'm gonna drive it around the track for 30 years and not maintain it. Not change the tires, not what the windows, not just let it go and just drive it. There's no way.

• 24:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  It just doesn't make sense to me. They would not be able to maintain that level of performance and longevity.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  Is there any athletes, you work with more than elite athletes, you work with, you know, big entrepreneurs and people that are up to big things in their life. Is there any case studies that you've seen from some of these individuals who had massive transformations? Or is it more of just like, listen, you know, you are preventing so much by doing this and you're increasing flexibility? Or have you seen people come in with a lot of pain and walk out eventually with completely transformed?

• 24:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I've been a physical therapist for like 15 years now and then pulling from my, man, I've seen thousands of bodies, like it's just, it's giving PTSD. How many people I've treated in my career? And yeah, there's so many night and day transformations that I was luckily been able to be a part of.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  One example that I actually said on our podcast recently. There's this one guy, when I flew down from LA, this is when I was kind of like new in Instagram. And then this one patient was like, not one patient, sorry, one follower was like, hey, I have shoulder pain, like I'm scheduled for surgery next week, like what can I do? And I was kind of like up and coming and I was like, hey, I'm, I'm in LA. If you want, I'll see you for free. Like I just want to help you out, give you advice. And he, and he's like, cool, let's meet up. So we met up in Venice.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  Somewhere in Santa Monica, I forget. And I still remember because there was a giant beautiful tree. There was a tree with a branch sticking out. And then I was talking to him, he was like, hey, I used to be in the military, you know, things hurt, you know, and I never really took care of it. The army killed my body. I am scheduled for surgery next week and.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  You know, I just really wanna avoid surgery, right? I don't really think that it's that bad, but I don't, you know, it's kinda like the doctor's telling me I need to do it. And then he, he goes, I go, sorry, I go, hey, what, what, what do you do to hurt your shoulder? Like what activities like cause you pain? He's like, oh, like doing a pull up, like I can't even do a pull up. So I'm like, oh, you see that branch over there? Can you do a pull up? I just wanna see how you move, right? So then he did it and he was like, uh, uh, like I can't, I can't lift my, uh, my body weight up. Then I was like, okay, let me talk to you about your shoulder a little bit, do a little bit of manual therapy, do a little bit of movement work, teaching you about the mechanics of how your shoulder should, your, your scapula should upwardly rotate, downwardly rotate, blah, blah.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  And within fifteen minutes, give or take, I said, hey, go try that, uh, pull up again. And he did it. He was like, and he looked at me and he almost cried. He was like, are you serious? And I'm like, yeah, it's kinda, it's kinda just like, like, it's very, it's very simple if you kinda understand how things work. It's just because the human body is, is, the knowledge is so low across the board and it's always been kinda like kept secret in a, in, in our industry, I feel. That it's like, and it's not available everywhere for everybody.

• 27:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  So then people resort to easier methods such as surgery.

• 27:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  Where you go, you go see a surgeon.

• 27:11Lewis Howes?

  Easy, but it's, the recovery takes a while, but you don't, you don't know the, the information on how to optimize your body and try to heal it naturally, right?

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Exactly. And then he ended up canceling surgery.

• 27:21Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:22Lewis Howes?

  He didn't go?

• 27:23Speaker 00

  He didn't go. And then I, I, um, yeah, and that was it. And he was fine since then. Obviously he would have issues here and there, but like, he didn't need surgery. It was more about he needs to maintain, he needs to do these exercises, he needs to stabilize his shoulder, blah, blah, blah.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  When do you feel like is a necessary time to do surgery? And when could you prevent that? If you're feeling pain, you're like, my shoulder hurts, my knee, you know, if someone tears their ACL or something, is surgery required? Or there are other things you can do, you know, what is back surgery, neck surgery, all these things?

• 27:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. Surgery to me is always last resort. Push it as far as possible, because the minute people start cutting into you, things are very different for me to help you or a therapist to help you, you know, deal with the issue.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  When it comes to, I would say, an ACL tear, it's kind of depending on the case, but generally, if you want to return to sports, usually you would probably have to get ACL reconstruction.

• 28:19Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 28:19Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah, most of the time. ACL is a little bit more.

• 28:22Lewis Howes?

  You break something, you tear something in a bad way, you're probably gonna need it.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, but if you, if it's more like a acute slash chronic pain, hey, listen, oh, that feels off. There's so many things you can do about that, you know, oh, hey, like when I'm walking upstairs, my knee hurts. Going straight to surgery is kind of.

• 28:38Lewis Howes?

  Right, don't do that.

• 28:39Speaker 00

  Don't do that, yeah.

• 28:40Lewis Howes?

  What made you want to get into this industry in the first place?

• 28:43Speaker 00

  So funny enough, I've, and this is a crazy story, I was a Asian nerd growing up.

• 28:50Lewis Howes?

  Oh, really?

• 28:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:51Lewis Howes?

  Oh, I thought you were white.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  Super nerdy, I was super nerdy.

• 28:56Lewis Howes?

  Asian nerd.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, you'll see Verkell, and not in that, but Asian, right? So I would.

• 29:01Lewis Howes?

  Growing up in Canada, right?

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Growing up in Canada, yeah, so I'm originally from Montreal.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  And then.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  The French side or the?

• 29:08Speaker 00

  The French side.

• 29:09Lewis Howes?

  You speak French?

• 29:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I speak French, yeah.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Je parle français, mais je commence à parler un peu de Capri. Yeah, fluent.

• 29:14Lewis Howes?

  Parfait.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  Parfait.

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  I didn't know that, alright.

• 29:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then, yeah, so I used to hang out with my biology teacher at lunch.

• 29:25Lewis Howes?

  Super nerdy.

• 29:25Speaker 00

  Super nerdy.

• 29:26Lewis Howes?

  No friends?

• 29:27Speaker 00

  No friends, no friends.

• 29:28Lewis Howes?

  The kid hanging out at the teacher's table?

• 29:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm literally hanging out in his office.

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  As, more than me, man, I was just sitting alone at lunch, so.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, god, I'm, there's no way.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then in that process of me hanging out with him, I was like, hey, Mr. Tribber, like, what do you think I should do? You know, I love biology, I love anatomy, but I don't really know what career I want to do. I don't necessarily want to be a doctor. And then his, two of his daughters were physical therapists, and he was like, hey, maybe you should look at physical therapy. And I was like, oh, Mr. Tribber, what is physical therapy? And he was, he, he said.

• 30:04Speaker 00

  You know how I walk with a limp? I had an accident, a motorcycle accident a few years ago. And before I saw a physical therapist, after the accident, I wasn't able to walk. And those people brought me back to this level of what you see now. And then I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. And I kind of just took it as advice and kind of kept going with my life and then ended up in physical therapy.

• 30:26Lewis Howes?

  In college?

• 30:27Speaker 00

  In college.

• 30:28Lewis Howes?

  This was high school?

• 30:28Speaker 00

  This is high school. Yeah, this is like, I was like sixteen or seventeen.

• 30:32Lewis Howes?

  Taking kinesiology?

• 30:34Speaker 00

  Yes, kinesiology, exactly. So I ended up going to McGill University, graduated at twenty-three. Ended up having a tumor in my neck, which we can go into at some point if you want. It was a crazy story. But twenty-five years old, two years out of physical therapy. I was working at the Jewish General Hospital and I was on the post-op knee and hip surgery ward. So I'm walking around, fresh-faced physio. Yeah, like, let's, let's use the day.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  And I go to the door and there's this, um,

• 31:06Speaker 00

  kind of like a board, right? And then it's written Mr. Tribber, Tribber on it. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, hey, like, that's my biology teacher's name. That's interesting. But I didn't even think about him being him. You know, this is like ten years later, give or take. So then I walk into the room and I realize, oh, my God, my, my patient is Mr. Tribber. He had double knee surgery, right? And I was this physical therapist.

• 31:32Lewis Howes?

  No way!

• 31:33Speaker 00

  No way, yeah.

• 31:34Lewis Howes?

  Did he know that you went into physical, physical therapy?

• 31:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, he, I don't think he remembered, but I went crazy because I.

• 31:40Lewis Howes?

  You said, dude, I remember you.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I went a little, this is a really funny story because I, I went like full-on fanboy, you know? It's like, oh, my God, Mr. Tribber, you're the reason I'm a physical therapist. And he was like.

• 31:49Lewis Howes?

  He's like, I just had surgery, man. Get out of my face.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  Literally, he was actually.

• 31:53Lewis Howes?

  Who are you?

• 31:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was actually hopped up on, on drugs.

• 31:56Lewis Howes?

  Oh, he was funny.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, post-surgery and he was just like, what? Hey, what are you talking about? And I was like, yeah, and I was like crazy. And then obviously when he woke up from all of that and I calmed myself down. He was like, oh, hey, Ben, I remember you.

• 32:09Lewis Howes?

  You're the reason I'm here.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  So you got to treat the patient ten years later, who inspired you to do the career that you're in?

• 32:17Speaker 00

  Exactly, yeah.

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty cool.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, he like prepped me to take care of him, basically.

• 32:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so that's what got you into the, the field originally.

• 32:27Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:27Lewis Howes?

  What made you want to say? Huh, there's something missing in the field and I want to learn more about how to transform people's health to the next level.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  Yes, I, I think I always didn't like how, working in the industry, I realized that it was very like a, a mill industry and I'll speak specifically for Toronto and, and in my experience from talking to other people, it's like that in other words as well, other worlds as well, other countries, other areas. Where you come in for physical therapy and it's like, it's a factory, you're in and you're out.

• 33:01Lewis Howes?

  Same thing with chiropractic, it's like in and you're out, it's yeah.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  Louis, you good?

• 33:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  I, see you next week.

• 33:07Lewis Howes?

  Couple cracks?

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, you want an ice pack? All right, see you later. And I was working for a clinic in Toronto and I was seeing, think about this, forty patients a day.

• 33:18Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, forty, so four zero, forty a day and I was rolling, rotating. So I'd be like, hey, hey, how's your hamstring stretch? You good? Okay, awesome, all right.

• 33:27Lewis Howes?

  So we're gonna like four people at the same time?

• 33:29Speaker 00

  Four people at the same time per hour. It was insanity, like, and it wasn't proper care, in my opinion. But it was, it was meant to obviously bill insurance and make money and it was meant to make money and not really take care of people. And I was really annoyed because every job that I would apply to, in Toronto anyways, the clinics were all like that, set up to make money, not really to help the patient. Like, how much care can you get in ten minutes?

• 33:54Lewis Howes?

  Not much.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, imagine our session that we have, like, when I see you, ten minutes.

• 34:00Lewis Howes?

  It'd be tough.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  It'd be tough.

• 34:01Lewis Howes?

  It'd be like, stretch a little, I'll see you later.

• 34:04Speaker 00

  See you later, right? And then in that process, I was just frustrated at the industry, I was like, hey, I can't do this. I ended up quitting, um, working out of my condo, socks, my house. And I ended up being, within a two years, I ended up being full. So I was treating people on my living room, I was treating people in my condo gym, I was, I was out there hustling in this area called Scarborough. Yeah, I was, I was like the king of rehab in Scarborough. Everyone, everyone would come to my condo and I would be working out of my condo, I would have lineups outside of my condo.

• 34:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then I did that for two years and then condo security was like, hey, listen.

• 34:40Lewis Howes?

  You can't do this.

• 34:42Speaker 00

  You can't run a business out of your house. And I would always kind of like at first kind of dodge it out of this time and be like, oh no, this is my friend. Louis is here just to hang out, you know, but then there's like three people coming in a row. And then I ended up starting Myo Detox in two thousand and fourteen. Yeah, and then, but the main reason is I just wasn't happy working in a place that didn't care about patients, in my opinion. Like, it wasn't about the patient. And everything I do is about educating people, helping people learn about movement health, helping people learn about their body. I truly care. This is my mission, reason why I'm here on earth. And I'm gonna go all the way to the end, whether I have to write a book, be on a podcast, fly here, fly there. I'll do whatever it takes because I believe that if I can make everyone understand

• 35:28Speaker 00

  how to take care of their body, the world will be a much, much, much better place.

• 35:31Lewis Howes?

  And what was the situation with the tumor?

• 35:33Speaker 00

  Oh, the tumor was twenty-three years old. I ended up waking up one day and I was like,

• 35:42Speaker 00

  what's this? And every time I would turn my neck out, a thing the size of a golf ball would pop out.

• 35:49Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was, it was like, yeah, it was really scary. And then my friend, one of my friends, his name was Mike. He ended up actually passing away two months before that because of a tumor. And I started being like, oh, my God, like, I'm next, you know, it's, this is crazy.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  In that process, it was a crazy process. I ended up going to see the doctor. The doctor said, hey, listen, you're actually going to lose your voice. It's, it's, the tumor is like, you know, in your vagus nerve. It's like you're left recurrent laryngeal and you're gonna be paralyzed from the left vocal cord. You're not gonna be able to, you're gonna have heart issues, all these things. Anyways.

• 36:27Lewis Howes?

  Tells you all the hopeful things.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Yes, all hopeful things. And he's like, you're good though, right? Yeah, yeah, but we're gonna take it out, so you're gonna live.

• 36:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, we got a ten-minute slot today.

• 36:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, really, it was a ten-minute slot. It was like he dropped the hammer on me. And then I, I still remember, this is in Canada, I was standing in front of a Tim Hortons, which is like a Dunkin' Donuts. Tim Hortons, and I was like bawling in the middle of the street. I didn't, nothing else. I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna lose my voice. This is crazy. You know, I'm gonna have like paralysis. I mean, it's like I'm twenty-three, I'm about to be a physiotherapist, I'm about to go and do this.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  The doctor was like, hey, we're gonna do this, or you're gonna die. Because the tumor is including two thirds of your carotid artery. So you're gonna stroke out and it's gonna be a bad issue. So you gotta take this out like next week.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  Twenty-three years old, I get pushed on the cart. Right? So you know, like in movies now, every time I watch a movie where there's a scene with the lights and the carts, the hospital carts, it brings me back.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  That's what happened.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, because they pushed me on the cart, day of the operation, they pushed me. And I was like, oh my God, like, I don't know what my life is gonna be like after this moment. And then, you know, I was, you know, I'm, I'm Christian. I believe in a higher power, you know, God. And I was like, you know, you know when you're in these moments where like things are not going well, you end up just looking up.

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  It's like, hey, listen, if you think, God, if you think for a second that I should lose my voice.

• 37:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  I will accept it. I will accept it. I will go with it. But if, for one sec, if you think that I should use my voice for the greater good of humanity, or to like just perpetuate a message to serve, please don't take my voice away. Please don't. And I remember push, and I, I did my prayer, did my thing, and then they pushed me. I did my surgery. And then I woke up, um, and I remember saying, mom in Vietnamese, ma, I'm like, mom. And then I was like, oh.

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  I can speak.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  I can speak. And from that moment on, when I was given the chance again to speak, there's nothing that is stopping me. I'm not afraid of anything. Like, what are you gonna tell me besides from the, what are you gonna tell me that's gonna hurt my feelings as much as what the doctor told me that day? That you're, you're gonna die, you're gonna lose your voice. There's nothing, nothing. I don't care about anything anymore. And that honestly helped me. And then I'm so happy to happen because it helped me be good at business, be good at therapy, just be driven.

• 38:48Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy, man. I mean, I remember having surgery on my wrist and it's, you just have to surrender. You, you trust, hopefully people are gonna be able to take care of you and hopefully they're having a good day and they do the right movements and everything works out okay, right?

• 39:01Speaker 00

  What, what happened to your wrist?

• 39:03Lewis Howes?

  I broke it playing football and I, well, here's the thing, I broke it twice. I broke it in high school. And I never, I never had surgery on it and I just kept playing on it. So it was just in pain and it never fully healed. Until six, seven years later, I broke it again. And it was always just kind of like hurting me, right? But I just played through the pain and I broke it again. And then I played another two months on it, broken. But I had, I had x-rays and the doctor was like, yep, there's the break in the, in the wrist. But it's like a bunch of little bones, I guess, in the wrist. So it was like, one of the bones was broken. He's like, and I go, well, can I keep playing? And he kind of looked at me like I was crazy. He goes, well, I don't know if you could hurt yourself more, you know, but I wouldn't recommend it.

• 39:49Lewis Howes?

  But we need to do a surgery as soon as you can, essentially. And then at the end of the season, I had the surgery. So they took, they did a bone graft from my, my hip to my, my wrist. And it helped some, but it kind of like the range of motion never fully came back. Even, even with a lot of the therapy that I was doing, it just never fully came back. But the pain, a lot of the pain went away. It still kind of hurts every now and then, but.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  And how, how much do you think, you, you see how like such a, a small, not small, sorry, a, a, an injury to such a small part of your body.

• 40:21Lewis Howes?

  Small little bone.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Small little bone can affect your life in such a huge, everything.

• 40:25Lewis Howes?

  Everything. The way I work out, like I can't do pushups fully without being on my knuckles, like, you know, it affects, affects everything. Sometimes carrying heavy weights or whatever. So.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah. And that's where like, you know, I think it's so important because so many people are living with so many issues and it really ruins their life.

• 40:40Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  And if we, if the whole industry was better and then the whole self-awareness of the world was better on how to take care of their body, there would be obviously still situations like that, but way less. And maybe, you know, if you had seen a, a, I'm not saying that those therapists weren't good, but maybe it could have been a better rehab process for you during that period of time. And maybe you wouldn't be worse off right now.

• 41:02Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  You know?

• 41:03Lewis Howes?

  Why, why is it harder for us to recover when we're, when we're older? But it seems like when we're younger, we can run around and get hurt and recover so much faster.

• 41:13Speaker 00

  I mean, this is, this is, this is aging, man, you know? This is like your, your recovery, um, your hormones, like everything just kind of goes downhill.

• 41:21Lewis Howes?

  What, what can make us feel like we're younger in order to recover when we're older? What is that process? Is it supplements? Is it diet? Is it nutrition? Is it the stretching? Is it everything you talk about in your book? What are? Is or or is it just gonna take longer to recover when you're older?

• 41:38Speaker 00

  I would say like you you wanna mitigate as much of that as possible aging as possible by essentially doing everything you just said, which is eating healthy, which is annoying, which is taking taking care of your body on a regular basis, which is annoying, which is working out regularly, which is annoying, you know, all you actually have to just put more work.

• 41:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  Essentially into it, right? It's almost like in order to stay baseline, you gotta spend like two to three hours a day to like to like work on yourself to be like.

• 42:06Lewis Howes?

  But if you don't do that, you're gonna start feeling some pain and it's gonna be harder for the last part of your life.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. And I'm not saying necessarily like three hours is a little intense.

• 42:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  Maybe like an hour, an hour and a half a day is essentially how much you should spend on conserving your body, you know, maintaining your body.

• 42:22Lewis Howes?

  What would you recommend to people who

• 42:26Lewis Howes?

  maybe have some extra money, you know, wherever they live in the world, they have some, they could do some of this on their own, but they're like, okay, I wanna see a physical therapist or get a massage once in a while.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 42:38Lewis Howes?

  What do you recommend? Is that a once a month type of thing? Is great for people to do some type of stretching therapy or physical therapy or massage or chiropractor? What do you recommend?

• 42:48Speaker 00

  Okay, we're talking perfect world or like realistic world?

• 42:51Lewis Howes?

  Tell me both.

• 42:51Speaker 00

  Okay, let's start, let's start with perfect world. Let's say I was building a plan for you, Louis.

• 42:55Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 42:55Speaker 00

  Okay, every day I want you to

• 42:59Speaker 00

  wake up, brush your spine, floss your muscle for five minutes.

• 43:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes, the exercises you talk about in the book and you showed me here, these things, stretching.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  Exactly. As you learn your body more, I want you to start creating a program for yourself that's literally gonna take you five minutes and you understand your body. You go, hey, I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do that. Great. Step one, so you got that down. Check.

• 43:21Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  Second thing is I want you to be doing activity, obviously, working out, boxing, running, whatever it is that you do, three to five times a week, give or take. And then I want you to get a physical therapist or a chiropractor. You would go see a professional to essentially.

• 43:48Speaker 00

  Fine tune your movement in in those things that you're doing. You would essentially see them for, honestly, once a month. Once a month is great.

• 43:55Lewis Howes?

  Once a month. What would you say for me, once a month?

• 43:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, once a month. I think once a month is great.

• 43:58Lewis Howes?

  Once or twice a month, okay.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, once or twice a month, twice a month. Yeah, yeah.

• 44:04Speaker 00

  And then in those sessions, once or twice a month, you would get a variety of like new exercises to help fine tune your movement. Or you would get like body work, myofascial work, massage, stuff like that to kind of relax your nervous system, realign your body, flush out all the bad energy.

• 44:20Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right. Okay, so those would be the three things for sure. Floss every day, three to five workouts a week, some type of massage, physical therapy, once a month.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, once a month.

• 44:29Lewis Howes?

  If you can do that, that's the...

• 44:31Speaker 00

  That's like the gold standard in my opinion, if you can do that. But that's a lot. And then because on top of that, you got to work and then run this...

• 44:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 44:38Speaker 00

  You know, this enterprise that you have going on, and then you got to eat healthy, then you got to sleep well, then you got to like manage your relationships.

• 44:45Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, man.

• 44:48Lewis Howes?

  Here's what, here's the interesting thing. The practitioners of the world who are doing this work, the therapists that are doing this work, sometimes don't take care of themselves.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:57Lewis Howes?

  Is this true for yourself, or do you take time to allow your body to recover too?

• 45:01Speaker 00

  Yes, I would say that in the last two years, I've definitely taken my health way more seriously and walked the walk.

• 45:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:07Speaker 00

  When I was starting the business, as you know, who's starting a business, I was just taking care of everybody and not take care of myself. The joke I always say is like, I was, those five years that I started the business, I was a smoking doctor. Like, I was like, Louis, you should definitely stop smoking. And I'd like, I'll see you later. And I go in there. On my, on my break, I'm like, oh my God, like, life is so hard.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  But yes, definitely in the last two years, I've ramped it up. It's just like, the first five years of my business, I had to focus on it and I dedicated every time, every ounce of my...

• 45:37Lewis Howes?

  To the business, yeah.

• 45:38Speaker 00

  The business and my...

• 45:39Lewis Howes?

  Are you doing once a month for yourself now, therapy, or once every couple of weeks?

• 45:42Speaker 00

  Therapy, I do, uh, once every two weeks. I get treated, yes, by my team.

• 45:46Lewis Howes?

  Well, that's great.

• 45:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, once every two weeks, I try to work out three to five times. Everything that I just told you, I, I kind of do.

• 45:52Lewis Howes?

  If you could only do one, have someone work on you and do some type of therapy on you, or work out. Which one is more valuable?

• 46:02Speaker 00

  I would say workout. Workout is, is trumps everything, I would say, for sure. Moving, because moving, you know?

• 46:09Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 46:09Speaker 00

  Um, but the, the, having, obviously, the adjunct of having a therapist overlook, oversee your situation is, is more like a plus.

• 46:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 46:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, nice to have.

• 46:20Lewis Howes?

  Um, couple of final questions for you, but this book is out now, Sit Up Straight, Future Proof Your Body Against Chronic Pain With 12 Simple Movements. So if you guys want the strategies for the movements, Vinny gave us a couple already, but if you want all the strategies, make sure you got, you check this out. He's got images and explanation, all the steps that you have here. So make sure you guys get a copy of this for yourself, for your friends. If you know someone who's dealing with back pain or shoulder pain or whatever, get them this first before they go and do the surgery. I think it'll be really helpful. Uh, Mild Detox, also for people that are in Canada or in LA. You got Mild Detox facilities. They also have an app coming out, I think.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:02Lewis Howes?

  Which will teach you and show you how to essentially see where is the pain and how to then future proof it yourself through these strategies and advanced techniques.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:12Lewis Howes?

  So I think that's coming out soon, right?

• 47:13Speaker 00

  Yes, so the whole point of Mild Detox, the company, is how do we push this idea of movement health to the world?

• 47:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:19Speaker 00

  Again, you understand dental health. The reason why you understand dental health is because, um, you have a teeth issue. You under, you can scale down or scale up your teeth issue, depending on what you have. Hey, I have something stuck in my teeth. I'm gonna floss. I'm gonna brush my teeth. Oh, hey, my teeth are really dirty. I really need to go see a dental hygienist. You scale up. Oh, hey, I need braces. I have a cavity. I have really harder issues. Dentist or to dentist, right? In therapy, there's, this is kind of all mucked up. You know, when it comes to like brushing your teeth, there's nothing, no standard, really. When it comes to higher level of stuff with surgery, it's kind of like.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  Messy, you know, no one communicates with each other. And then physical therapy is kind of like, hey, just, just get me out of pain and I'm good. It's very pain focused, you know, but I'm trying to build that whole continuum with my, so the app and the things like the book, YouTube education, stuff like that would be brush your spine, foster muscle. Then if you want to level up, you go see maybe a personal trainer that that's taking some of our courses and they will be our dental hygienist. And they will kind of help you, guide you, foam roll, do this, do this.

• 48:32Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Then you go see a mild detox clinic, you go, hey, you go see a dentist now, they're going to give you basic ideas on your movement, health, dental health, blah, blah, blah. And then you go to maybe like an orthodontist, high level people like, like me. Obviously, I'm kidding, you know, people who've done it for a long time and they would probably be like the sports performance guys, the health consultants, all those guys that treat it at the highest level. And then if you have to go see them, then you would scale up all the way to the orthodontist.

• 48:58Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 48:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. And no one's trying to build that continuum. Right. And that's why it's so confusing in the market right now.

• 49:03Lewis Howes?

  Right. So how do we, what's the app called?

• 49:06Speaker 00

  Right now it's the, the prototype name is mild plus, but you know, it's, it's kind of like the cop out, cop out plus for everything. So that's kind of where we're at.

• 49:14Lewis Howes?

  So if they, they go to the app store, they can type in mild detox.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. Yes, they would see that and they would, um, it's, it's an awesome app and I, I'm so excited to show you guys. Because there's going to be so much free information, stuff like that. So people, you can just like wake up, click, oh, I have this issue, this issue, this issue, and the app will.

• 49:32Lewis Howes?

  Walk you through what you need to do.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Walk you through everything you need to do. Here's the routine. It's going to take four minutes. You have left knee pain. This is what you need to do. Don't worry about it. Click play, copy what the person's doing.

• 49:43Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful, man.

• 49:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:46Lewis Howes?

  Reducing chronic pain, reversing all these different illnesses and ailments that we've had in our body, I think is a massive thing we need to be thinking about. And people are doing it in just ways that I don't think are as efficient as possible through medications and all these other things. So learning how to do this through your mild detox method and the set up straight strategies and all these different things will be really powerful for you guys. Make sure you guys check this out. Um, a couple of final questions. This is called the three truths question. So imagine it's your last day on earth, many years away from now. You transform the world with therapies and all these different things. You get to accomplish everything you want to accomplish personally, professionally. But for whatever reason, it's your last day and you've got to take all of your information with you.

• 50:31Lewis Howes?

  So no one has the books, the app, the trainings, the method. Nothing is available anymore. It's a hypothetical.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  Okay. It's a sad world.

• 50:40Lewis Howes?

  It's sad, right?

• 50:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:41Lewis Howes?

  But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world, three things that you've learned from your life. I like to call it the three truths. What would be those three truths for you that you'd share behind?

• 50:52Speaker 00

  Oh, you, I mean, I have so many, but do you think it should be more from a therapy perspective or more from a life perspective?

• 50:59Lewis Howes?

  Either one.

• 51:00Speaker 00

  Either one. Okay, let me go with life because therapy perspective, we can go so far and so many advice. The first thing is I would say, don't overthink it. I've met so many people that overthink so much of how they move and how they go about life that they end up essentially getting nowhere. They get in their own way. They create problems that do not exist. You have to just sometimes, obviously, you don't want to go crazy and do whatever. Have some thought process to a certain degree to what you do. Sometimes you just gotta, alright, my gut says, let's go forward, let's just go forward. And then you will figure it out. If you trust in yourself to figure it out, everything will go good. Right? And that's definitely, I would say, number one, truth number one. Yeah, even today on this podcast, I was like, oh, man, like, this is my second podcast ever.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  And I'm going on like the biggest podcast in the entire world. I'm kind of stressed. But I said, you know what, Lewis, my friend, hopefully you will let me hang and dry.

• 51:51Lewis Howes?

  Nah, yeah, yeah. Don't overthink it.

• 51:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, don't overthink it. Just show up and we'll figure it out.

• 51:55Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 51:56Speaker 00

  And then the second truth I would say is, you know, who you surround yourself with, whether it's a person or a book, all these things that you consume, the relationships and things like that, you have to make sure that you choose well.

• 52:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  Being around the wrong people will, wrong people, wrong book, wrong thought process, wrong habits, will lead you in the depths of hell. Right? As you know, just being, yeah, being in bad relationships with people is just ill everything else, just like.

• 52:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's not fun.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  It's not fun.

• 52:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  Yes. And then the third one would be.

• 52:37Speaker 00

  Sit up straight. Which is essentially not about sitting up straight. It's about paying attention, which is whether it's you're paying attention to your body, paying attention to what you're doing, paying attention to be self-aware. Right? Sit up straight, be self-aware. What is going on in the world? What is going on with this conversation? Is this conversation going good or not going good? Should I say, change the way I speak? Should I, you know? And being self-aware will lead to change. And change is good.

• 53:03Lewis Howes?

  It's powerful, man. How else can we be of service to you and support you besides the book, podcast, or the app? You have a podcast as well?

• 53:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna do a podcast.

• 53:12Lewis Howes?

  Launching a podcast.

• 53:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm gonna launch a podcast.

• 53:15Lewis Howes?

  You're on social media, Vinnie Rehab, which has got a lot of free informational tools on how to optimize these things. How else can we serve you?

• 53:22Speaker 00

  The best way you can serve me is come into the clinic and take care of yourself. Because you, people look up to you. And if you start taking your movement health seriously, the whole world will take it seriously.

• 53:35Lewis Howes?

  Okay, I'm starting to come. I gotta figure out the schedule. Make it happen.

• 53:39Speaker 00

  Yes. But yeah, but jokes aside, yeah, I mean, everything you're doing so far is, has been so helpful. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so appreciative to be here and.

• 53:47Lewis Howes?

  Of course, man. Well, I want to acknowledge you, Vinnie, for, for how you've shown up for the world. Because I think you did something and are doing something in the last 10 years that you got a lot of pushback on. People in the different therapy worlds were like, what are you trying to do by integrating all these things and making it kind of your own?

• 54:08Lewis Howes?

  And you got a lot of feedback and resistance from a lot of different people judging you, frustrated with your, your methods, your strategies. But you saw that you were helping people heal and relieve pain and get results and mobility. And I think it's so inspiring to see you push through that challenge and help and create a facility and a business and a platform. To help people really heal themselves because there's a lot of pain in the world. There's a lot of physical pain, there's a lot of mental and emotional pain. But to to give people back the freedom to use their bodies fully is a powerful gift. So I really acknowledge you for your efforts, your time, your your willingness to be educated and learn from so many masters in this industry

• 54:53Lewis Howes?

  and use it in a humble way to serve. I really acknowledge you, man.

• 54:56Speaker 00

  Thank you so much. You're making me tear up, you know, because it's like, you know, you're you're just when you start a new idea or like a dream, you know, and you have a mission. It's like you always feel like you're going uphill. And sometimes it's tough because the whole world is against you, especially if you're you're trying to change the old guard. It's so tough, you know, but hearing that makes me feel like you're giving you're giving me another two weeks of energy.

• 55:18Lewis Howes?

  You're doing it, man. You're doing it, man. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 55:23Speaker 00

  Greatness, I would say, is just pushing yourself to be better every day. Right? And then, how do I say this? Comparing yourself essentially to yourself at all times, right? And you're continuously chasing this new version of yourself that you know is just better. Right? And that's how you achieve greatness. And, you know, that's kind of how I look at it.

• 55:46Lewis Howes?

  My man. Appreciate you, brother.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  Thank you so much, man.

• 55:48Lewis Howes?

  Thanks, bro. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.