The Importance of Lower Body Training with David Grey

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 67. Today I'm sitting down with David Gray and we're talking all about the importance of lower body training. Are you ready? Let's get started. Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance and movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast. What's up, coach? Thank you so much for pressing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. If this is your first time here, welcome. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson. And today I'm super excited because I sat down with David Gray, who is a neuromuscular physical therapist specializing in rehabilitation and performance. He's based out of Ireland. And we sat down and chatted all about things related to lower body core. We just can't help ourselves because we're. We both love talking about marketing, so we also talked a little bit about Instagram, Instagram growth, and talked a little bit about marketing. David works with clients from all over the world, from office workers to Olympians, professional athletes competing in highest level, in their perspective, sports. David's research and training has brought him across the globe, learning from some of the greatest minds in movement, strength and conditioning, gymnastics, stretching and mobility, Chinese martial arts and biomechanics. He integrates many systems and methods and takes a holistic approach to helping people get. Get out of pain and improve performance. David has spoken and delivered workshops internationally and regularly coaches and consults for some of the best minds in the industry. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. What's up, David? Thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?

I'm very good, Beverly. Thank you very much for having me. It's. It's good to come on and chat. So I'm looking forward to it.

I really am looking forward to it. I feel like our paths have been linked for a while but just never crossed. So this is. I'm super pumped about this.

Yeah, today is the day.

Yeah, that's right. So for those of you who don't know who you are, can you please share a little bit about what it is that you do, who you are, who you serve and how you got there?

Yes. Big first question, hardest question. I say that on every podcast, by far the hardest question. So I'm In Ireland, I'm a neuromuscular physical therapist and I kind of mostly work with a range of people, actually. It changes all the time a little bit, but it's kind of people in pain all the way through the rehab process and into spills into the performance world a little bit as well. And then there's kind of. So that could be anyone, that could be a granny, that could be someone who's. Who's just looking to feel and move a little bit better, are professional athlete or an Olympian or whatever. So I kind of enjoy working with all people, but it is mostly people who are trying to be quite active are more active than they like. They have ambitions to maybe be able to go for a run. It doesn't have to be a world record pace or whatever, but just to be able to enjoy their bodies and stuff. And they are the people that I really like working with. So how I got. There's a long story, but it's probably like being a frustrated athlete myself in Ireland and spending a lot of time trying to play Gaelic football and hurling, which are Irish sports, and rugby and soccer and stuff like that, and getting injured quite a bit, which I think is a lot of. A lot of coaches and therapists probably story as well, you know. So getting injured a lot and just being really frustrated with how I was being treated and the answers I was being given and like, just completely dissatisfied with that. So I kind of decided I was going to try and figure it out for myself a little bit and travel the world a little bit and start to do a lot of reading and studying and experimentation more than anything else. Just trying a bit of everything and seeing what felt right and what sounded right and what was logical. And I kind of. I'm very happy that I went about it that way. Like, I learned anatomy through going to courses and saying like, okay, I don't know what. I don't actually know what a glute does, but when I do this movement, I know my glute feels good. I know this area feels good. So I wasn't confined by what maybe the book was telling me was right. It was more like I could. I developed an eye, I suppose, to start to see other people's movement quite well and not put labels on it too soon. And that was with my own movement as well. So that's kind of how I got into it. And I just spent about 10 years working hard on that. And now I'm kind of in a position where I'm always. I'm always learning. But I'm lucky enough to work with some really top people and help a lot of people around the world, which is pretty cool. And a lot of that is online as well. So that's kind of, that's kind of the backstory.

I love that. So now I'm just curious, when did you get hurt and what was some of the, what was some of the common advice that you kept receiving that caused you to say, no, there's got to be something else out there?

Yeah, so I was. So even before I was getting hurt, let's say I was, I was a. I was never moving like I felt I should be moving. I always felt like I was a 6 foot male trapped in a 5 foot 9 male's body. Like I just didn't have enough space there. There wasn't enough room. And I was always trying to find ways to get more room and stretching and foam rolling and getting massage and dry needling and all of these different things. And yeah, it might feel good for a little while, but it never stuck, you know, so that was very frustrating in terms of. Felt like it was limiting my performance. And then I did something a little bit, I did something a little bit silly. I went on a, I went on a trip to the States with my friends when we were in, in uni. So kind of in, in the summer, in the summer holidays, Irish people go to go to the States and, and work in all kinds of jobs and just pretty much spend the whole summer drinking. But I got on a, I got on a moped and I fell off it and hurt my knee. And I came back and started playing sport again within a few weeks at a relatively high level and developed pretty bad patellar tendinopathy. But the advice I was getting was crazy. Like there was a lot of rest, a lot of stretching, a lot of, like, don't let your knees go forward over your toes or even past your ankle at all. Like very small loads, your glutes are weak, all of these things. And it was just complete, it was, it was insane. Like when I look back, it was no, it was no loading. The actual area that was, that was sore and was, was obviously the quads were obviously significantly inhibited from that trauma, you know, and it was just incredibly frustrating. So, so like all that, you see all the people doing sissy squats and all this knees over toes stuff. Now, I started doing that myself eight, nine years ago when I figured out the physios didn't have a clue what they were talking about. Like some of the people that I was seeing. So I was like, actually when I do this movement, my knee feels better. And it started to play around with that. So that seems to come into vogue now, which is good. But it was my experimentation myself first. I felt it, you know. So, yeah, loads of bad advice, but I think that's getting. That's getting better now. But maybe that's just the people that I tend to.

Tend to see, that's your scope. Because when we look at it on a big, grander scheme, I mean, the only thing that I can compare it to for myself is, you know, the postpartum experience when I. Which happened to me when I. In 2015. And. And it was just surprising to me how much bad advice is still to this day being shared with people. I was just curious about that. And also you fell off a mob that. I'm so sorry. You want that to be like, hey, I'm an athlete and I have a war here. Like a. Yeah, I just was silly.

Yeah. I have a few. I have a few war stories as well, but not on that one. So, yeah, that's. I actually don't tell that story that much, but it's. Yeah, it's a. It's a shameful moment, but I have a lot of regrets around that. Like I was never going to be a superstar athlete by any means. Not. Not a chance. But I didn't. Didn't get a chance to fulfill my potential, whatever that was, and have regrets around that. But also it's kind of led me down this path which has made my life a lot better and hopefully a lot of other people's as well. So. So obviously every. You can't change one thing and keep everything else in your life. You know, if you could go back and click your fingers and say, I'll change that, but nothing else would change. Maybe I'll change that. But I know that's definitely not how things work, you know.

No, for sure. Which is, you know, it's a great segue because it did happen in your lower body. Right. And you were talking all about those things like the knees, the squats and. And you know, people tell you that glutes not firing, which is probably what led. Part of what led to your lower body course.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's. It's basically when Covid hit last year, we were. We were. I was in a lot of online work before that, but it was in a one to one space. Like it was. It was someone. Someone was an athlete from wherever, whatever organization would. Our regular Joe. So would Do a call with me and we'd figure out some things they needed to work on. But then Covid hit and my schedule was absolutely jammed because I was one of the only people doing online stuff and a lot of the in person stuff wasn't. People weren't able to do that anymore. So I had to kind of figure out a way to scale these things. So I was just like, right, what about bringing out a program that's like, here's the things that I think everyone should be able to do, regardless of who you are. Like, we all have bones that are the same shape, are very similar shapes that can access and can move in certain directions. They can. All our hips can all should be able to flex and extend and adduct and abduct and externally rotate and internally rotate like so. While we are very different, we're all very, very similar in some ways as well. So I just created a program there that like, hopefully before someone comes to me, here's the things I'd love you to be able to do so we can really get to work, you know, so we. That thing kind of exploded then, and there's been 5,000 people from over 50 countries have done it, which is pretty cool. And we've had a couple of programs since then. But all the principles. Exactly. That I picked up over the years just, just plugged it into that program I wrote. I wrote that program in 48 hours, or sorry, in about one hour and filmed it on my iPhone5, which when I look back now is a bit cringey. But like I just did it. I didn't wait for it to be perfect. And so people will say, geez, that program, like you kind of overnight success with that program is like, no. Like one person commented on when I released the core program, they said, oh, you made. Because I said, how many people bought it in the first 48 hours? And he said, oh, you made X amount of money in 48 hours. I won't say how much, but. And I said, well, you, you would not believe how much money I've actually spent on trying to figure out. Figure out all this stuff over the last 10 years. So. So yeah, it feels like a little bit of payback is on the way, which is well overdue.

Yeah, no, you know, it's funny, it's funny. You know, people think that, you know, overnight success is overnight, but it took 10 years to become an overnight success, you know, so. Because it's a combination. It's a combination of all the things that you have been learning over the years. So I'd love for you to share a little bit because you. You mentioned that there are some certain print. There are certain principles and things that you want people to essentially have mastered before they come and see you, which is what you put in the. So would you mind sharing what. What are some of the principles that you're looking for before someone starts to work with you?

Yeah, I will, I will. I'll try and keep it as simple as possible. Not for you, but for maybe some of the listeners. But, you know, sometimes. Sometimes these things can be very visual. So like a podcast can be tricky on that. So I try and keep it as simple as possible. Some principles that we. I like. I like to. I pretty much will work on with everyone is, well, there's basic things, which is like progressive overload. So basic strength and conditioning principles, which is we just stress tissues over time, and if we do it the right amount, they'll adapt. But then in terms of biomechanical principles, one big one will be trying to get hip extension before knee extension. So a lot of people, instead of being able to access hip extension, which is a very, like, good glute max that can really push us forward, instead, what you'll see time and time and time again is they get a lot of back extension instead. So their erectors and all their. The muscles around their lower back really start to take over. And it's almost like a fake hip extension. So you'll see that. And that kind of couples with a knee extension. So the knee really straightens too soon and the back really arches because they can't really access this hip extension from the glutes. So that's one big thing. And that's something that a lot of people have learned from that program. And it ties in with another principle then of learning to be able to get co contractions around the knee joint. So there's a traditional way of thinking about muscles, which is an agonist and an antagonist. So I have my hamstring, I have my quad. One contracts, one relax, one relaxes, one lengthens, one shortens. But in real world movement, it's not quite as simple as that because we don't have time, especially as. Especially as time constraints are started to put on our movement. So as speed of movement increases, are the environment or there's environmental constraints or the environment has changed. So suddenly I'm stepping on rocks and all of these things as I go for a walk or a run now, my muscles have to. They don't have time to say, okay, we're going after your foot has hit the floor. Now I'm going to deal with the perturbations that are coming into my body after that. I'm going to, I'm going to feel that and then I'm going to, I'm going to try and contract then. That doesn't really work in real world. So what you'll usually observe, and what we want to observe is all the muscles around given joints will contract together even, even before my foot hits the floor. And that's kind of like a bracing mechanism to keep the joint safe. So it'll happen around my ankle, my knee, my hip, my spine, everywhere. And it happens at different times and they turn on and off. And a lot of people you'll see, especially around the knee joint, is that they cannot get that to happen. So the hamstring, the quad and the gastroc can't actually contract together to stabilize the knee and they end up with this, like, wobbly knee. And it's very different to traditional how people would see traditional strength training because I can strengthen my quad isolated, I can strengthen my hamstring isolated and my calf isolated. But that doesn't mean that the intermuscular coordination of the three muscles are the whole group of muscles. And the chain is going to be able to coordinate and time well together when it needs to. It just means that they might be strong individually. So that's, that's a big, big thing. And a lot of the, a lot of the things in the program are designed to help people re. Retrain that intramuscular coordination. Not necessarily inter and intra, but not isolated muscle. Not that there's anything wrong with strengthening isolated muscles, but when we get everything working well together, people feel amazing and very quickly because it's more, it's more, a little bit more neural than muscular, probably at that stage too.

I see. So when we're talking about co contractions, which is essentially what I feel like you broke down for us was how you trained your CO contractions. Now you'll have people. Are these, are these exercises accessory work? Is it something that you need to do in isolation? Or what about those people that are like, oh, you just need, need to do functional movement and, you know, just squat, just do the big five and then you'll be okay?

Yeah, I suppose it depends. But in the program, movements like that make up a big part of the program, and I think they come before squatting and things like that. So I'm going to, I'm going to tackle this in a few ways. When you Say people just need to do functional movement and, or when people say that, one, I would question what is functional? It depends on the task, right. What we actually want to do. And two is I would not consider the big five like your squat or press, your lunge, your row or whatever the hell else people put in there as our basic movements in any way, shape or form. There are movements that we have kind of a God given right to do and is ingrained in our DNA are walking, running and throwing and breathing. They are our movements. And then everything else, every other pattern that you can think of falls into those patterns in some way or another. But our basic movements are the gate cycle. Everyone, if you look at everyone squatting, they'll squash in a million billion different ways. And some people can squat, some people can't squash low. Like all different things people, some squatting and lunging and all these gym movements, they're, they're, they're especially squatting. We might even take out squatting. But all the other ones, they're, they're a few hundred years old. They're not, they're not very old. They were invented with the gym pretty much. Whereas there's a reason why every single human being in the history of the world almost has stood up and walked on two feet and they just did it. No, not many babies or toddlers decided to walk on their hands, you know, because this is just, it's in our neuroanatomy, it's embedded there. So we have to pay respect to these things and make sure we're good at these things. And if we're good at them, we'll be, we can train the gym stuff and we can get good at that too. If we get good at the gym stuff without paying respect to the gait cycle and all of that stuff, that's when people run into massive problems. So I would say I break down that and then say, okay, are you good at this or not? And if you're not, then you probably need to make the co contraction stuff and that start the gait cycle stuff, a bigger part of your program.

That's so good. So you said now just out of curiosity and that that's really good. But how do you know when someone's good at it?

Good question. Assessment. So it all comes back to assessment. So sometimes, to be honest, we don't even have an assessment in the program though, because the exercises are the assessments. So basically when we put someone into a position and they can't, they have a target of 45 seconds and they cramp within three seconds. We can be fairly sure that they're not good at it, so they can't do it. Or we say, right, here's the movement we're going to use to open up your hips or get your hips moving and shifting in this way, and they can't move half an inch, then we know they probably need more of that. So that's the easiest way of assessing. I think a lot of people's assessment is quite, I don't want to say poor, but quite limited because they're. They've been taught, right, do your toe touch, do your side bends, do your extension movements, do your table test. But they don't necessarily know what they're seeing. When they see that. They just say, okay, do your toe touch. You can't touch your toes, and that must mean X, Y and Z. But the reason I can't touch my toes might be different to why you can't touch your toes, why a million other people can't touch their toes. Very different things. So we can actually break down in our assessments what's going on. And for me, that's become quite easy. But just because it's part of how I view movement, not necessarily because I'm amazing or anything, just this is how I view movement. So these are the things I'm actually looking out for, you know what I mean? So when I watch someone doing a squat, I want to see how quickly they do extend their knee or if they do extent, use more of their hip extensors to stand back up again and things like that. So you assess it in every movement, but it just depends on what works best for that person, you know?

Yeah, I do. Okay. So I know I interjected a question when we were talking about the co contraction. So I just want to make sure that I circle back and make sure that we answer all of the principles that you usually are looking for when you. Before they come to you.

Yeah, yeah. So then, so what did we say? We said hip extension before back extension and hip extension before knee extension, which is pretty much getting. Being able to get core contractions around the knee joint. There are two big ones. Being able to breathe is another one, which might sound funny to some people, but just being able to get expansion into all different parts of the rib cage, that's obviously a big one. And then just being strong in these. In gait. Specific position, specific positions. So like when I'm in a position where if you are a runner and your knee joint is at whatever degrees of flexion, I'm not good at degrees, but a certain amount of degree of flexion or extension when your foot hits the floor in mid stance. Well, if I put you into a position that looks like that with a little bit of load or a little bit of your heel is off the floor, or maybe you're lying on your back and your foot is against the wall, but we're kind of mimicking that position in terms of the leg. Can you be strong there? So can you be strong in the positions that you want to actually use in your life? So that's another one and very, very specific with the positions that I load people in, but also very unspecific. So I will get people to squat and deadlift, but I just want to make sure that they can do both and not just, okay, now I'm going to squash and now I'm going to go for a run. So I, I like, someone wants to be. Someone wants to get back to running after a lot of injuries and they think that they're going to squat and then just go for a run. After six weeks of squatting, I'm just going to be fine and able to run again because I'm strong. Quotation or whatever that quotation marks, I'm strong now again. But that's not in any way specific to how you're actually going to move. So another principle then will be bridging the gap along that rehab, rehab process. So making sure that we can take small, logical steps along the way. So if you want to be able to run, you should be able to do a hop. If you want to be able to do a hop, you should be able to do some small little jump through the air and forward. If you want to be able to do that, you should be able to do a jump on the spot. If you want to be able to do that, you should be able to stand on one leg. If you want to be able to do that, you should be able to X, Y and Z. And we can just keep bringing it back and back and back. So that's, that's it. So just logical progressions is one. Very strong and very specific positions is another one. Being able to breathe and expand and compress different parts of the ribcage is another one. Having access to enough range of motion is another one. Active and passive. Getting hip extension before back extension is another one. And then hip extension before knee extension. They are probably the things that I want everyone to be able to do.

So now this kind of begs the question, and I'm going to assume that this is one of the indicators that you use to navigate this, which is the pain. When people say I'm in pain. So that's how they're navigating, whether or not they're progressing or not. Right. So I'm just curious, so I'm assuming that. Which is leading to this question, which is, I'm curious. Two things is how when you're dealing with people, how many of them get into self deception and they're like, oh no, no, I'm not, I'm not in pain, I'm just pushing through, you know, because athletes, we're, we are, it's embedded and ingrained in us to push past points of our threat, you know, to test our thresholds and our limits, which than most people. So I'm curious how many people are honest with themselves, honest with you, and how you navigate that and then also with that pain. The second thing is when you get that pain feedback, are you looking for it while they're doing the movement or after?

Yeah. Firstly, no one is honest with themselves ever, including me. We're all living in this kind of reality that we, we think is true, but it's slightly skewed, I would say are very skewed for some people. So that, that, that like with regards pain for athletes, that's a good thing and a bad thing. So like I fell victim to that. I ignored my pain or I felt it, but I just kept pushing on for a long, long, long time, many years. And I ended up with so many other issues in my body because I did that. But also I see people on the other end of the scale where it's like they get the smallest little one out of ten pain and, and they just say, nope, I'm not doing anything. Which we know is not right either. So I guess that's back to the therapist definitely to guide that person through it and say, right, here's, here's how much is too much? Roughly, here's. It's about education, I think. Like here's. And that goes by the, we might go by the injury or the pathology or the mechanism of the injury as well. So like we know with a tendinopathy, a little bit of pain is probably not a bad thing. But then with some other things, it's like, okay, we need to back off here a little bit. So very much it very much depends. No one is honest with themselves and that's a big thing. Like with our assessment, your initial assessment with someone, it's trying to be, it's trying to find out people won't even be honest with you when they say, like, why they're coming to you for a session because they don't know themselves. So they'll say, oh, I'm coming to you because I'm in pain. I'm in back. I have back pain. But you might actually dig deeper. And they'll say, well, I've had back pain for four years. I'll say, well, how come you're coming to me today? Have you seen anyone else? No, I haven't seen anyone else. So what sparked it off that you're now coming to me? And they say, well, actually, I got to the point where I can't go for that run with my friends anymore. So that's. They didn't want to admit that they didn't even maybe realize it that themselves, but they didn't have a problem with the pain. They had a problem with what the pain was now stopping them from doing. So that we need to understand this in terms of our rehab process, because am I going to. Is that person going to be happy if I just get them out of pain? Because if they want that, they can just go and take a painkiller and it's just, there you go. It's very cheap. Here you go, you're out of pain. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be able to get back to running. And is it even the running that they wanted to get back to, or is it. I actually love running because it's the one time in my week that I get to meet my friends and we go for a run together. So we have to understand their pain points and their internal motivators with this stuff as well. So pain is so tricky. But like, that's how you really keep someone motivated throughout the process as well. Because if their pain goes on the second session after they get a little bit of a release or whatever, that doesn't mean that it's not going to come back if they just go for a run again. Whereas if we help them understand this isn't about pain. This is about making sure that you're very robust and resilient. And we've, we've sorted out these movements and we've made you a lot stronger so that you can go back and you can go back running for the next five years without this coming back. You know, so maybe that's a big tangent, but that no one is honest with themselves, but that's. The clinician and the coach and the therapist and the client have to have very, very clear lines of communication, I think, if. When. Especially in the pain world.

Yeah. So how have you been navigating that as you've had, you know, 5,000 students that are going through your. Your program? Like, how do you navigate the. The scalability of your program? Because I feel like. And I know a lot of coaches battle this. Is that a lot of the work or a lot of the growth will happen when a trained eye can see what the. What the patient. What the client is actually doing.

Yeah, yeah. So it's impossible. It's impossible with that type of program. And it's not. It's not necessarily designed for that either. You know, it's just like, here's a relatively cheap program, very cheap program that. That you can go and do. And we have support system there. We have our Facebook group with thousands of members in it, and people post their videos and they talk and they. And I have an explanation video at the start of it to say, this is not. I'm not saying this is the answer to all of your problems. These are just some of the things that I think I'd love for you to be able to do, you know, so it's tricky. It's tricky. But luckily enough, a lot of coaches and therapists, thousands of them have done that program and then are starting to work with their own clients and incorporate those principles as well. So that's translating over to a lot of amazing results. But that program is definitely not meant to be the be all and end all or act, anything like that, you.

Know, so it's not the intention to fix it. It's almost just. This is the awareness of the principles that need to be done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And a lot of people get great results. Some people don't get as great results. But I do feel like most people, I would say the vast, vast, vast majority, learn something about their bodies from us. At least learn. Whoa. Like 10 physios have seen me and have been kind of doing weird stuff and stuff that hasn't really worked and talking about glutes and talking about giving me a rub and all of these things. But when I do this, these five exercises, I realize that I actually can't hold that exercise. And my hamstring can't hold that for three seconds. And it's like, these are things that I really should be able to do but can't. And I'm starting to learn to in a good way. These are opportunities, like, not like, oh, I'm a disaster, but, like, I've learned some things here that my body should be able to do, and I'm not quite so good at. And I think we're trying to culture our. Generate a culture of people who would see that as an opportunity and not a bad thing. You know, a gap. A gap. A gap. A gap for growth.

Mm. Yeah, for sure. So are you. And this is another slight segue. So now, you know, given Covid times, giving our pandemic times, are you still seeing people in person or are you primarily coaching online?

Just online for now. Will you go online? Yeah, I will, I will, I will. I'm not sure when I could. I could. I could be seeing people in. In person now, but the logistics of it is just very tricky. Like, in terms of how much. How much precaution and how much all this stuff that. Especially in Ireland at the moment, it's. Covid is pretty bad still. So it's. There's a lot going on and I. I want. We're only supposed to travel 5k from our house and all of this stuff. So I will go back, but I'm not. No. I'm also not in a rush because my. My. My calendar is full, you know, so I'm very lucky with that regard. So I will go back. We just finished our new gym in our clinic as well, so I'm. It's looking really good. We finished it there two days ago, I think, so I'm looking forward to getting back in. I really like a mixture of, like, here's some online, here's some in person, and I think if Covid has taught us anything, is that it's. It's important to hedge your bets.

Mm. Oh, yeah. I mean, for sure. Hedge your bets. And also have multiple streams of income and that we're just relying on one component.

Yeah. Big time. Big time. Big time.

It's given us a lot of lessons.

Yeah, big time, Big time. So, like. And I could fall into the trap of saying, right, I'm just going to do online work because it's going quite well. But that might be a mistake too, because what happens if the online stuff didn't. What happens if the Internet crashed or. God, I don't know, my Instagram account was taken down or whatever. So I am. It would happen a lot. So, like, that's my phase of. In the business at the moment. I'm trying to work on kind of risk mitigation in terms of making sure I have that Facebook group, the Instagram, a little bit on YouTube and some emails and stuff like that. Not. Not that I'm trying to dominate all these platforms, but make sure that if one goes down, I'm not completely out of business, you know.

Yeah, the inner, you know, the Instagram is borrowed space. I definitely talk about that all the time. It's borrowed space. But. And also too, you know, this is total side note, but for me, and what I'm recognizing too is sometimes people just need in person connection.

Yeah.

So all personalities do well working online and just, just all. And it goes back to knowing yourself.

Yeah, big time.

How you know yourself in movement and how you got to know yourself in business too.

Yeah, big time. Exactly. Exactly. So I think anyone has the potential to be really good at doing online consultations. A lot of people say, no, I just can't do that. And as soon as they say that, they limit themselves, which is a load of crap. Right. But of course you can do it. It's a skill that you just learn like anything else. But that doesn't mean that everyone has to do it or everyone would love doing it. But I do think a lot of people could learn a lot from doing some of them online consultations and saying, right, I have to use my communication, my words better, my cueing is better. My, My coaching has to be better rather than always relying on my hands or being able to show someone an exercise, okay, look, watch me. And now you do it. And that's harder online as well. And I don't show anyone an exercise. I just try and coach them through it and say, right, do this, do this, do this. And that's made me significantly better at coaching. So I think there's lessons to be learned. But that doesn't mean everyone has to love it or even want to do it.

I also think too, you know, that it kind of goes a little bit back to what you were saying about the assessment, is that even when people are person or in person, if they don't know what it is that they're looking at in person, then you're not going to know what you're looking at when you're online.

No, not hope. Most people's assessment is a load of crap.

I think, honestly, yeah, you have to really train that eye. And it's a skill that's developed.

Yeah, big time. You have to understand what you're looking for, like a toe touch, a rotation, you can break these down and say, like, right, that foot should be doing that, that knee should be doing that, that hip should be doing that, the spine, the pelvis, all of these things. Here's how the joints should be interacting together when they turn and for instance, like I had someone yesterday who standing up, rotates to the left, rotates to the right, rotates to the. They get the same amount. They get it around the. Almost the exact same amount, or at least that's what it looks like to me. But how they achieve that movement was completely different. So when they get around on the right side, really nice movement, you see all the joints kind of articulate and the pelvis starts to get around. When they go on the left side, it's like the pelvis just stops like a third of the way and then they just pull themselves around with their back and their upper body further. And what's the complaint of this person is, oh, my left side of my back is sore when I pretty much do every movement. So my left lower back and I'm like, just show me a rotation to the left and the pelvis just does not go left. So but to the naked eye that's like, yeah, you can turn left, you can turn right. But how you are achieving these movements, that's what we need to look at. What joints are actually loading, what joints are not. And a good, efficient, powerful. I won't say pain free because pain is very complex. But a system that can share load very, very well is a system where all the joints can just do their own little bit of job and all the muscles can do their job and nothing is getting overloaded and nothing is getting underloaded. And that will never be the case because none of us are perfect. But that is the goal, to start to get all these things to share. And that's what we're looking for in our assessment.

That's good. And what I'm hearing you say is that you're looking for the root cause. People are always looking at symptoms and it just comes from getting a good mentor and learning it. But more than just reading it, no one learns, no one learns how to re ride a bike by reading about riding a bike. You have to get on it. You've got to learn the lessons. And I think that it's just, that's true for any skill acquisition, which is what we're talking about when we're talking about developing, you know, what to look for, what to assess and what to look for. It's just going to take step and implementation.

Yeah, practice. That's all. That's all it is, practice. What most people are missing is practice. They're afraid to fail so they don't do anything.

That is so true. That is so true. I laugh. I'm laughing because I my gosh I can't tell you the amount of embarrassing stories I have about things I've said to clients or things that when I was learning, you know, trying to figure it out. But I'm grateful for those moments. Otherwise I wouldn't know now.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's it.

You know, a lot of people want to skip steps, but there's no skipping steps.

No, no, there is, mate. Like, there is mentors and teachers who help you along the way. But even then, I think, and I've had some amazing ones, like, incredible ones, I'm very grateful for. But even then I see people trying to be a carbon copy of their mentor. And like, it's like, right, here's a system I learned. So that person has to fit into this box. And here's what my teacher told me or my mentor told me. And you're actually still not learning to see, because when you. To see, you have to critically think. And to critically think, you have to be your own person and step back and try and take away your biases. Even though we all have our biases and me included, definitely. But we have to try and critically think. And that's about taking what all these amazing teachers and people that are out there teaching and saying, well, how does that fit into what I do and what I see and how I work?

So true. I think a lot of people feel that way too. And I think that that also goes, like, that's where I feel like imposter syndrome will start to live, is that people miss that, the critical thinking component. This is true in marketing business, in developing your own systems. And so then when. Then you start to feel like you're in the noise.

Yeah, big time.

Adding your own thoughts to it.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's. And I know you. You obviously coach a lot of people on Instagram and business and stuff. And I do a little bit of that with some of the people just teaching them some clinical stuff. And then we talk about that as well. But it's. People are. People are looking at the smartest person and comparing themselves to them and saying, well, I can't post because that person, what I'm saying, like, might not necessarily be as smart as what that other person is saying. I'm saying, well, the people who are on your page are not there for that other person. They're there for you and your energy and how you articulate those thoughts and all of those things that you put into it and your voice and your words. So it has to be. You have to try and make things into yours. And make sense of them and help people understand them from your perspective. And there's just a lot of people just carbon copy, carbon copy, carbon copy, trying to say the same thing. And of course, it never works. Of course, no one gets attracted to that because it's not you. It's not your personality, it's not your energy.

Mm. Oh, yeah, for sure. People are. People forget that your work has an energetic impact in the world. People, on a subconscious level can feel when it's yours or when it's not.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that's a big thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is, for sure. And also, too, I also think people forget, specifically when we're talking about Instagram, is that the people that they're meant to be working with aren't following everybody. Yeah, we. We forget that our context bubble is this big. You can't. You can't see me on the podcast, but it's, like, so small. It is like 1%. And people think everybody's talking about breathing, when in reality, breathing was only introduced to me in 2015, and that was when I thought I was, like, a master trainer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had this exact conversation with therapists yesterday. A physical therapist. We were just having a little bit of a chat about our business, and I said, oh, did you come out with a little program on breathing stuff? Like, people love you. You talk about that stuff, It'd kill it. And that was the thing we spoke about, because she said, well, everyone's talking about that. Everyone has that program. I said, oh, there's like 200 people in the world are talking about that. And like Kyle Dobbs said to me, we were chatting about something similar, but he said Gymshark has 20 million followers or something on their page, and they're talking about, here's a. Here's a glute band, a booty band. Like, so it's like. No, it's just the people that you see are talking about that, but it doesn't mean all your followers are seeing them. That same thing, you know?

Absolutely. And I look at. You know, I also look at my mom. Right. I always. I use her when I start to get into that, like, everybody's talking about it. I use my mom as an example, because if you go look at her followers, she's following, like, two fitness people.

Yeah.

And one of them is Jillian Michaels. And you're like, mom, but that, you know, your gen pop people, they are not following all the people that you follow. Not your friends, not your colleagues. So it's going to Resonate different.

Exactly. Exactly.

All right, David, I want to be very mindful of your time. So for those, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. So for those of you who want to learn more about you, learn more about your programs. Can you share a little bit about where I should send them?

I can. It's very, very easy. You can go to davidgrayrehab.com G R E Y this is our same on Instagram, David Gray Rehab. But this is the first podcast that I've actually said go to my website because we just launched a new website and it does for, for the first like day, first time ever. It doesn't look like trash now. There's a little bit of work to be done on it, but I'm actually semi proud to send people there now. So that's where people can go and have a look and that you can see the different programs and webinars and different things like that and whatever. They can just check it out and if they, if they don't like it, they can delete me forever.

No shame. No, that's not gonna happen. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

Thanks for having me on.

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