72: BREATHE. From Burned-Out Bodybuilder to Yin Strength Trainer with Anders Varner

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. We have a Pivot for the podcast today. It's about time. I'm long overdue to have somebody on to talk about the physical aspects of pivoting and as Anders would call it, movement as medicine. When I before I launched Pivot and the website and the book and everything, my Pivot was going from life after college to Jenny Blake taught me and my tagline was systems at the intersection of mind, body and business. And I felt like it was so important that we talk about business but from a perspective that honors the body that isn't just this entrepreneurial I'll sleep when I'm dead kind of a like run your body into the ground at all costs just to build this thing that you care about. And it's all about the hustle. So that's why when my guest Anders Sup Anders know you're there.

How are we doing?

Yeah, just figure, listen to this guy's energy. It's amazing. We've never talked before. He like cold emailed. We've never met. Normally I never say yes to have people on the podcast. We talked before you hit record. And yet the second that I read Andrew's story on his site and his journey through physical fitness to finding yin strength training, which we're going to talk about I was just like, got to talk to you, got to have you on the show. It's so important.

Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

Awesome. Quick bio. Anders is a co creator of the Low Back Fix located in San Diego, California. He found the weight room at 13 and a decided he would call it home for the rest of his Life. He's a four time CrossFit regional competitor and member of John Cena's One Ton Club. Anders has trained with and coached high level athletes from the NFL, WWE and CrossFit. And what I find so interesting is that you said you had become, you got this award, the 11th strongest person at Hard Knock south where John Cena used to work out. And yet you said, but I was broken, everything hurt. How could I know so much but constantly be in pain? And that led Anders to create the Low Back with his partner, Dr. Teresa Larson. So we'll learn more about her. And now he his true passion is helping everyday, everyday people live pain free, empowered lives through mindful movement. Anders, welcome to the show.

Thank you. You write all that stuff and you don't really even know it feels weird even when you say it. Even though that's me. That's like the snapshot of everything.

I find your journey so fascinating because there is, we do have a part of our cult that's all about machismo. How much can you lift, how much can you bench, how strong can you get? Especially for men, CrossFit is all about the grind, the hustle, just building, building, building. Even when I did CrossFit, I know I love you breathing even while I'm saying it. That's the answer's method. So I was doing CrossFit for about seven months and what I found was that I kept getting these weird body tweaks that were taking me out of my yoga and Pilates practice. And it was so aggressive. And when I would try, And I know CrossFit, yes, it's about form and function, but when I would try to scale back, the coaches because they didn't always know me personally would be like, come on, you could do it, push yourself. And I felt that it just wasn't body kindness. So ultimately, even though I did enjoy a lot about it, I stopped CrossFit and focused on more integrated movement yoga and Pilates. And that's why, and even at that, I used to do a more aggressive power yoga. And after my book came out, I just wanted more yin. So love to hear your journey from bodybuilder who was in so much pain to finding this yin side of strength training. And enlighten us. What is yin as it relates to strength training?

Yeah. So we so way, way back in the day, the clueless 13 year old that walked into the gym and I really found that this was kind of going to be my spot. I really enjoyed being there. I was training for sports. Like, being good at lifting weights was never really like the goal through high school. And it wasn't until I realized that, like, I just really enjoyed being in the gym and all the people. And when you enjoy something, you want to get better at it.

All my friends were into it. It was just like the place that we hung out. Once you start becoming better at this thing and you realize that it's something that you can learn about, there's science behind it, you clearly end up taking that deep dive and.

And then this CrossFit thing hit and I started. I was probably in like the first 1,000 people that started doing this thing. And it was like, graduated college in 2005. So 2006, I was pretty much introduced to it. And then 10 years go by and I had opened a gym. I had put 70 something athletes into the CrossFit Regional through our training programs. I competed at the regional four times. And one of the coolest things ever, through opening my gym, I had kind of always adopted this culture of like, I just wanted to be the best. I had always been just consumed by people that were just widely accepted as like, oh, you're the best. Like, they've put in so much work and built so much trust and so much just passion into what they do that they're just so well known for that thing. And that's what I really wanted my gym to be. I really wanted it to be where the biggest and strongest and fastest athletes hung out. We were at the CrossFit Games all the time. And I wanted to be like the poster child for this thing. You can hear the eyes in there a lot. Which usually relates back to a lot of that ego thing. And one day I got a call and John Cena was on the phone. And for three and a half years I was his training partner out here in Southern California and in San Diego. Like, it's his home gym out here.

How did he even just get a call from John Cena? How does that happen?

Yeah, it's really strange. And you know, you hear a lot of people say, like, you know, you never know when opportunities or things are going to happen to you, but you can only prepare so that when they do, you're ready and it was so much of that situation, like, I had no idea. I could tell you the long story of like, me not knowing who was on the phone, me not believing the person.

And really like the entire process of him actually showing up and walking in the door. And then I was like, oh, wow, like today's the day. Like, I get to hang out with this guy and we're gonna do this thing. And it was a. I mean, it still is a relationship that I'm like super proud of. Way less on the weightlifting side now and much more even on just like the personal development and watching a true, like, master of his craft just work over the last four years. I mean, the guy is incredible at what he does and his belief system and just the way he goes about his life.

But what's something you've learned from his approach to life.

That you just never stop learning?

So one of the most amazing stories, I tell this to everybody because anytime I bring it up, people are always like, oh, wow, you train with the wrestling guy. And I have to stop and say, no, I don't train with that guy. That's not the John Cena I actually know. I want you to know that the person I hang out with is like a very deep conversation on business and self development and the constant pursuit of like, finding out what's next and how you can better yourself to, you know, be ready for those moments because you don't know when they're coming. So about three years into our relationship, he invited me to come to his house in Tampa. And I'm just like a regular guy. Like, I think about when stuff like this happens, like that little 13 year old boy that like walked into the gym and was really nervous and surrounded by big people and didn't really understand how life worked. Not that I totally do now, but, you know, like.

Anybody can kind of do these things. It takes 20 years to get to a place where you can maybe have that conversation with somebody like him. And yeah, he hopped us in a private plane and flew us to Tampa and we went on like a three day weightlifting journey where if you.

It's basically this little challenge that he has in his gym where you get six lifts to lift the most possible weight that you can, hoping that it totals over 600 or 2,000 pounds and you join like the One Ton Club. If you ever watch, like Total Bellas or whatever, sometimes you'll see my name in the background, like written on the gym. And it always makes me feel pretty cool.

Love it.

For no real reason outside of I'm like, oh, that's me.

I did. When I saw your stats in your bio, I confess, even though my brother played college football and also was really into weightlifting, but I had to turn to my partner and say, honey, are these numbers good? Tell me what this means. And he goes, they're pretty epic.

So I was decently good at lifting weights.

And so, I mean, come on, you hit the two ton, right? Two ton club. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, £2,000. One ton gain, whatever it is.

Oh, one ton, okay.

Yes. It's a very, very cool thing. But on the plane, we were talking about how he was learning Mandarin so that he could bring the WWE and his brand of John Cena to China. And I was sitting there thinking, like, what, dude? You're like, 40? Like, you don't learn Chinese at 40. Like, nobody does that. And the weekend goes by. We've all kind of hit these numbers, and it's been just. If it had just stopped right there and I hadn't had the learning experience that I was about to have, it would have been a huge success. But we have a couple drinks on the last night to celebrate and have a good time. And I walk downstairs the next morning, and I'm kind of shaking off some of the hangover, and I hear two people sitting in the kitchen speaking in Mandarin. And he had woken up two hours before us and had his tutor come over, and in the middle of, like, this big vacation and this big kind of party and just celebration of everything that our relationship and, like, just everyone being there at his house and not in San Diego, like, he still wakes up and he still is making himself better. And.

Two weeks after we got back, I popped on Facebook, and he's doing a Facebook live in Mandarin. A week later, he did a press conference in Mandarin. And I just remember, like, seeing those things and being like, man, like, nobody knows. Like, I got to see that happen. And while I was on vacation, he was hanging out. But he was also realizing, like, this doesn't stop. It has to be a daily progression. Like, you have to always be working at your craft. And, you know, that's just like, a story of the endless things that you kind of see. Like, I've watched him become this movie star.

Yeah. And I love how in Trainwreck, like, even in the Amy Schumer movie.

Yes.

That he played this very side that was very contrary to his public image at the time, but kind of lets you know he has a side that he can be funny, he can be an actor, he can be sweet. They Even wrote his character as this really heart centered, nice guy.

And as soon as it came out, he came in, I was like, you made fun of us, didn't you? And he just kind of shook his head. But like, it's, it's, you know, and not to be like, just only about this, this like story, but like he really. All the things that you see on tv and it's one of the things that I have learned so much in my life is. And one of the reasons I struggled so much selling my gym and kind of breaking up with the CrossFit thing after 10 years is like.

He is.

100% authentic. Authentically that person. Like that hustle, loyalty, respect thing, like, I've eaten dinner with him and we've talked about it and like that is the mantra. And when I think about like my life and when we're in business together, it's all. A lot of times it's driven from this like alpha and ego side of life. And then you get home and it's like, man, I need to be like a really good husband and I need to be compassionate and I need to be a better listener. And it appears like those things kind of rival each other. And a lot of what I've learned through him is like, just be authentically yourself in every scenario and you don't have to worry about like, who you are to other people. Like, things will just be drawn to you because you're able to create this authentic Persona that is you. And none of those things are conflicting because all you have to do is just be yourself better than everyone else.

Hmm. That's so powerful. When, when did it occur to you that as you write, I could go so fast with the best, but I was a complete amateur at going slow? When did that thought enter your consciousness?

So I, I started. So as you said, you, you've been through kind of the CrossFit thing and.

I can't believe you did it for 10 years. It becomes so much a part of your identity, your community, your daily life. Like, wow.

Yeah, we make a lot of jokes in my household how I went from having like 300 and something friends to about 5 when I left the gym. Because you are so this is very much the answer to your question. I guess.

Through competing, through constantly putting my body through this stuff and, you know, constantly pushing the limits on what I was capable of doing, I got burnt out. And when you get burned out on the physical side of things, it bleeds into the emotional, the mental, all of that. And not only that, but I was the owner of the gym, so I had created this.

Culture within my gym that was go, go, go. Intensity, intensity, intensity. And I'm at the high end of this thing thinking, man, if I keep doing this to these people, they're going to get burnout like I do, and they're going to be dealing with the nicks and dings and pains that I deal with every day. And I honestly just got so fried. And it wasn't just my body and the nicks and dings. It was all the way down to my nervous system. Like, I had just hit this end where I had. I needed to break up with it, and I needed to find out, like, what fitness looked like for the rest of my life, because I couldn't do that for the next 70 years. Like, if that just wasn't an option, I had hit the end. So I'm standing in the middle of this gym, and all these people are here believing this message that I'm telling them, and I don't believe in it. And Dr. Teresa was upstairs, and she is a former lieutenant in the Marine Corps, served in Iraq, and her story is incredible. She just published her memoir called Warrior, and she was doing all of this with an eating disorder that she had been dealing with for eight years. And I knew she had been through a lot of things, and I kind of just walked upstairs. She was my physical therapist as well. And anytime you're in any type of clinic or personal setting, you have really good conversations. And I really had just said, like, look, I'm struggling. What's going on downstairs is not me anymore. I've grown out of this, but I don't know who I am. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I've done this so long that how do I grow from here?

So my gym was three blocks from the beach, and she was just like, hey, look, go down to the beach. And I want you to just sit still and try to count to 10 breaths.

Of course. I thought that was going to be so simple. Wrong. Oh, my gosh, was I wrong. It was so hard. It was like the most painful thing to just sit still and watch my brain try and focus on one thing, you know, like, you have all these people to take care of in your gym and your family and all. Oh, my gosh. It was just. It was nuts, right? And I just. I came back and I was like, all right, like, what. What just happened to me down there? Like, I don't know why I can't count to 10 breaths and.

She walked me through, like the very beginning stages of meditation and slowing your body down and like rebuilding your nervous system and like learning these like super basic levels, which really are the foundation of the programs that we run now. Like focusing on the breath, creating balance in your life, and like changing your behavior patterns. Like, if we can focus on those three, those things, we can build anybody, no matter how much pain they're in, because it's not just this, like physical pain, it's this mental and emotional thing that goes along with chronic pain and injuries. And we can rebuild people because they find their purpose when they slow down. They find out what's important to them. And I am like the perfect example of this. I realized, like, I had broken up with that, like, I needed to leave the gym. I had accomplished everything that I wanted to do there, and it just, I needed to move on. And I didn't know what it was, but I had developed kind of through slowing down this real sense of purpose that my goal is to educate people on health and wellness and inspire them to like, make better choices. And I love working out. I love being healthy. It's where I have fun, it's where my friends are, and I want people to have that. So how do I share this thing that is so important to me, but do it in a way that is built off of strength, mindfulness, longevity, teaching people how to breathe, creating balance, the behavior changes that go along with.

Creating a long term solution to something that you love in life. And it's not an easy thing to rebuild your life and start back from zero, but it's also like the most rewarding and giving thing that can happen. It just, you know, we, we have combined efforts in this and this is our message to people. Like, we want them to slow down. It's so easy to go fast. And when people slow down, like, how many people just think that their days just fly by, but if you told them to sit still for a minute, they'd just be bored. It's like, no, you need to be better at sitting still and being happy with where you're at right now.

Yeah. I'm so grateful for your transparency in sharing your story and highlighting First. There's so much to say, but first, the physical side of burnout that I talk a lot on this show and a lot of people I know have experienced burnout, kind of the emotional kind that then manifests physically. And here you're describing, every system was fried. Everything was burned out. And when the physical is exhausted and fried to the core, it affects Every other area. And then I also love your transparency in sharing how hard it was to go to the beach and take those 10 breaths. Here's a guy, you've weightlifted so, so much weight. You've accomplished so much. And for you to be able to just admit and say it was so hard. And I've had yoga classes where the teacher says, within the first five minutes, close your eyes. And my eyes feel glued open, like they don't want to close. I'm not ready. My mind won't do it. And I don't want to stereotype too much. But I will say that more men than women have said to me, well, I just can't sit still. Or I just have too much energy to meditate.

I.

Or I'm not interested in yoga. That's for women. And I love what compelled me so much to you is that you're talking about yin strength training. So you're not leaving the gym. You're actually saying, why don't we take a more calm, yin approach to our entire lives and integrate it? It's not one or the other. But what would you say? Because I love that you're this former uber bodybuilder who. Who is now taking a stand for yin in strength Tr what would you say to other men who feel like, well, I can't sit still to meditate, or, well, no, I have no interest in yoga or doing anything slowly, for that matter.

Totally. I was that person. Actually, one of the largest arguments or disagreements I was ever in.

In the six years that I owned the gym was, should we put yoga in the gym? And I was so adamantly against it because it went against the entire culture of what we were building, which was not about going slow at all. And.

I think at the very basic level of so many of these things is the fear of failure. And people are so scared to walk into something that's brand new, feel uncomfortable, and realize they're not good at it. Like, we love being good at things. We love being in that normal space. Because I'm comfortable here. No one's judging me. I'm not getting these weird looks. And being somebody that goes fast all the time and then walking into a yoga studio is terrifying. And there's no reason to be at all. In fact, going slow really helps. One of the reasons I created this methodology of yin strength training was because it took me a year before I was comfortable enough in going slow and understanding some of the breathwork practices and why they're important so that I would actually walk into a yoga studio. And I didn't even necessarily like the normal kind of vinyasa type yoga, but when I found yin yoga, it just hit. And it was everything that I wanted because it was specifically designed to slow you down. Like you're holding posture, postures for four to six minutes. Everything focuses on the breath and you walk out of there. It is impossible to walk out of there and not feel just this, like, crazy sense of, like, recovery and just quiet inside, which you never get throughout the day. And if there's one piece of advice, it's just show up because you're going to be fine. No one's going to judge you. Their eyes are closed the entire time, so you can't really be judged. And one thing that I really like to do is if I'm going to do it, I want to buy into the full experience. So if you walk into something and you have this preconceived notion like, oh, I'm going to be with all these weird yogis and it's going to be stupid. And then you say for a long time to be like, exactly that.

Yeah. You said you thought yoga was a joke for a long time.

Yeah.

Why do these people do these things when they could be stronger? The reason is because it trains a different part of you. And even your vinyasa classes, it gets into a lot of the joints and the tissues and stretching and breathing at the same time. But that yin piece really even gets past that. And that's a lot of where we connect with people in our programs is everybody's chasing this physical freedom idea. And it's. I want to be able to go run a marathon, I want to go able to play CrossFit twice a week, and I want to go play with my kids, and I want to go to the park and I want to go surf and I want to. And it's like, okay, well, if you want to do all these things, we better start thinking about, like, how we're going to do it. So what do you need? And they're like, I need to be stronger and faster. And you're like, okay, I'll buy into that. And then you realize your movement patterns aren't good enough to be strong and fast because it leads to bad joints, bad tissues. Like, something's going to happen because you haven't thought about your movement. And it's like, all right, well, maybe I'll just start stretching more. That should help. So you foam roll and you stretch and you're doing this yoga thing and you're like, man, it's good, but it's not really working well. The reason it doesn't work in just these compartmentalized chunks is because we got to dig one level deeper. And you got to get into your nervous system and really start thinking about.

Sympathetic parasympathetic. Are you calm enough to be able to recover? Are the wires that are firing from your brain to your body that make coordination possible? Do you have these movement patterns hardwired? Are you practicing these things? Do you even know what stretching does to your body? Maybe you're over flexible. Maybe you're hypermobile and you need to be working on stability instead of flexibility, stretching more. There's so many levels to it. But we got to get down to that baseline and start with your breath. Every time someone's like, so what do I do? The very first thing we're going to do is just sit still and deal with the most fundamental form of human movement, breathing. Watch your stomach go in and out. And if you can do that really well, then we can start talking about joints and tissues, then we can start talking about layering movement patterns on, and then we can really get into some physical freedom. And now you have the ability to run. Not because I'm a great running coach. It's because your body's calm and it's moving the way Nature intended it versus forcing the issue to go run some PR mile. We don't need those PRs. We don't need that external drive. We need to be wired and comfortable and confident on the inside. And then when we enter these situations, we have the mobility and stability in our joints. The tissues fire properly, we've got the proper wiring, and then you can layer some strength and movement on top. And then all of a sudden it's like, hey, I can go surf today. Awesome. Hey, I can go play CrossFit. Because it's just this movement pattern done a little bit quicker. Awesome. Let's do that. But we need to be able to find that baseline and as always, just go back. Breath, balance, and behavior patterns. And that is our baseline. That's how we get to change everything. It's how we make the largest impact just through those three things.

I actually, when I was doing CrossFit, started a yoga for CrossFit class that I was developing. Yeah. And it's possible. So a couple things. One, just to kind of get everyone on the same page. If you're not a yoga nerd like I am.

Vinyasa yoga is one breath, one movement. So inhale, raise your arms, exhale, Forward fold, inhale, flat back exhale, forward fold, one breath, one movement. It's kind of a flow. Restorative yoga is no effort at all. Like, very relaxing, kind of child's pose, holding poses for a long time. Yin yoga is deep, intense stretching, so it's not restorative. It's not meant to say, hey, don't do any effort at all. But it's mostly floor work and it does, as, as Anders mentioned, get you into your parasympathetic nervous system. It really sends your body into rest and digest. But you're stretching and you are getting into your myofascia and all of that. So one thing that I love about yoga and that I'll throw out for anyone listening, you can completely geek out on alignment. One pose. I hated Warrior One for 10 years. I've been doing yoga for 15, hated it 10 years, just hated that pose. And then one day I felt this opening in my hips, maybe it was from 10 years of refinement, and I started to love it. And so what I love. You mentioned John's philosophy, and yours too, of beginner's mind, that while it seems like, oh, this is boring or indefinitely, there are days I show up at class and I'm bored, or I go to the back and I want to just hide or I whatever, but I go. And there's so much precision and alignment where you can really get your body focusing on, you know, are my legs at 90 degree angles, are my, my shoulders over my wrists? And there's so much mindfulness from a physical perspective that could be really engaging if someone would have an open mind.

I, I think when we enter into situations, thinking that we know things gets us in a lot of trouble. And that's what happened to me a lot in the yoga world in the very beginning was like, oh, I know how to do this because I'm strong. No, I didn't. I didn't know it at all. And instead of when I started to do this and I was able to slow down a little bit and started to enjoy the classes, I went in and just said, what if Everything that they're telling me is extremely important, I should really pay attention and try and master what they're talking about. Not because it's the only answer, but because it's a really good answer. And when I combined that with the strength training, it all of a sudden really started to make this really crystal clear picture to me of how we can combine all these systems in our body and really get people empowered to move better focus on the breath. The breath is. Why is the breath so important? Why? Like, I worked out my whole. So, like, when you're on this journey, like, it's. It's like you study so hard and you learn so much, and then all of a sudden this thing happens to you, and you're like, wait a second. It was right in front of me the entire time. Like, how did I not know how to breathe? Like, no one taught me. Like, I've been doing this since day one of being alive. And no one was like, hey, there's a right way to do this and there's a wrong way. And currently, you don't really know. And if you can just figure this thing out, it makes so much sense. It's like studying nutrition or something. And it was like.

Oh, wait a second. My gut biome. Hold on a second. I've been talking about protein and fat and carbohydrates for the last 20 years, and now I have to worry about my gut biome. Oh. And it's the most important thing I could ever imagine. Like, great, now I have to start back over. But all that stuff is so incredible because you keep digging and digging and digging, and you realize there's so much to learn and so many pieces that we can use to create this idea of wellness.

Absolutely. On the subject of nutrition, I had acne for probably 15, 20 years, and not one doctor. I was on every prescription you could imagine struggling. Not one doctor said, what are you eating? Are you having dairy? Are you having a lot of sugar?

Yes.

Yes. Do you have a lot of stress? Yes. One asked me about stress in 20 years, but not one asked me what I was eating. And I felt like. You felt when you found your breath literally under your nose. Just had to say it right there. Yeah, right there for me. Same thing with nutrition. And you talk about. You say your brain. Your brain, body, and biology crave balance and that you're really passionate. You and Dr. Teresa about guided meditation as it relates to the gym. So give us now some practical pointers. Even if someone is not going to a yoga or a yin class, what can they do? How can they approach their workouts, whatever form it may be, with this yin and yang imbalance?

Right. So I think it's kind of hard to get away from maybe the idea of strength training, being in this kind of yang side of things. Like, it. It feels like even if you come into it on, like, a. With a slower approach, you're still going to be. Maybe we're moving external objects. Right. But we can counter that with starting our routine. So when I think about, like, what does the majority of people need? Like, what. What are they faced with during their day? And it's, well, how many people, like, actually wake up on time every day? Or when they do wake up, even if it is on time, they have kids running around. They've got, you know, so many things to do in the morning so that they can go sit in traffic. And it's like, stress on stress on stress. And then your job's stressful, and then you get back on the highway and your commute's more stressful, and then you get to the gym. So what we have really started to try to develop in our programs is creating this transition point, right? So instead of just going right into your workout and bringing all of that stress with you, all we ask for is five minutes. Just sit still for five minutes. Whether it's legs on the wall, whether it's in some sort of kneeling pose, some sort of stretch, feet forward on your back, I don't care. Just give me five minutes where we focus on the breath. And that way we can just instead of enter into our workout in this extreme sympathetic state that you've been in all day. And then we're going to be less mindful when we get to the barbell or to the weights. How about, let's do it from this parasympathetic side. And when you get. Maybe it's in the kind of some sort of intermediate level of understanding the breath or a little bit of practice at it, you will actually feel your body calm down. There's a moment where you're, you know, the first two or three minutes before it takes for your brain to realize, like, hey, it's okay to chill out. Let go of the rest of the day, like, we're here now. And then right around that three to four minute mark, it just kind of like. Kind of feels like the power just, like, shuts off a little bit. And that moment right there is kind of where we teach, like, let's move from there after our body's downregulated. Now let's start to get into the tissue. So Dr. T's put together all this mobility and stability plans. Once we've gotten the stress downregulated a little bit, then we can get into the joints and tissues, and then we can get into the workout. So we don't really need to be lifting weights for 60 straight minutes, right? 40 minutes is cool. And we can do it in a manner that we focus on movement patterns. We're going to do it better because we've done some stretching, we've done some stability work. We've developed, like, turned our core on a little bit better in the gym doing postures than maybe you would do sitting at your chair during your workday or sitting in your car. And we're going to get into the tissues better because we've down regulated, we've come into this through the parasympathetic, and everything is a little bit slower. So all of it kind of pieces together and then. And we want to transition out of that as well. So when you're done with your workout, we want to reverse that process and we want to go back to working on a little bit of mobility and then back to the breath to finish things off. So in that hour, people have that one single hour all day long to really focus on, what do I need right now? Well, do you think you need way more stress? And does your PR or whatever you're about to do really matter in the grand scheme of life? Because if you were to ask me, as someone that's kind of been around this world for a long time, I would say that more than anything, you need to calm down and you need to become present and you need to let go of work and let go of traffic and let go of all those things that happened and just be present with you so you can have that conversation with yourself of, hey, I'm going to just take care of my body right now and treat it well and kind of come from this place of love versus coming from this place of anger or frustration. And let's move forward now.

What has changed in your life since you made that shift?

What has changed in my life is I am.

I love the idea, and this is a constant struggle, but I can feel and recognize myself.

Getting better at this. And I think it's the greatest skill that I've ever. One, recognized as a skill and two, made a very conscious effort to develop is creating space between things that are happening and my reaction to them.

For a very long time being married, like, I would bring the gym home with me or bring my training home with me, and my wife would talk to me for 45 minutes at the dinner table, and I wouldn't hear a thing. And then something would happen and I would just react to it. And I never realized that I was bringing all of that stress from my day and all the kind of external things that were driving me at the time into my home life, which was then affecting my relationship and just the ability to create space and have transitions and recognize that like, okay, that event happened, it didn't really affect me. So I don't really need to react, especially in a negative way. It gives you the opportunity to make a choice and you can always choose to go down that negative route or you can look at it and find a way to create a positive out of it. And that only happens through practice. So often we just react to situations and what we really want to do is give yourself that quarter of a second, maybe half a second if you're really lucky and just say like, yeah, I'm not going to react. I'm going to just let that go. And it creates a calming situation versus intensity. It de escalates what could be a fight. Instead of escalating things into a fight or when you're in business, you're going to make a better decision because you don't have to react to it right now. You can come up with a better, longer term plan. There's just so many benefits to taking that. Developing the skill of creating space between your thoughts and your actions.

I love that. It's amazing.

That comes straight from the yoga studio, which I didn't know was a possibility. Yeah.

From that tricky skill called breathing.

Right?

Yeah. It's wild. It is wild how it's such a key. And I love how well you've articulated this life skill of creating space between the event and our reaction to it and then choosing how we want to respond.

Yeah.

Before we wrap up, I want to hit back on one more physical thing which is lower back pain. Because people are spending more time now than ever sitting, whether at their desk, on the couch, at the end of the day, day in their cars. And I know we could spend an entire episode talking about lower back pain, but can you give us a quick nugget? If someone is experiencing back trouble, where do you start with them? Or what would you recommend other than going and taking your course and being part of your community?

So exactly what we talked about earlier. The very first thing I want them to do is find a comfortable seat and I want them to learn how to breathe. That, that is not just me trying to reiterate how important the breath is.

That is, can you walk us through one? Just wherever everyone's listening, can you just show us how you would do it? Okay.

I guess without talking. Exactly how the program works. This is exactly how the program works. So we sit people down every. The first eight weeks of what we do, every single day is going to start with a five minute breath work. We teach you different ways to breathe, but what we want you to do is sit down for five minutes. And even if it's just to. I have a mindfulness coach and he often reminds me, like, you're not here to daydream with your eyes closed, but if that works and it helps you realize how crazy your brain is, we'll count it. And that's kind of the approach that we take. Like, if I can just get you to sit down, sooner or later we're going to develop the skills and kind of sharpen the ax on the focus side of things. From there, I want you to connect with your glutes and I want you to learn about your abs. Right? So movement patterns is the number one reason why people suffer from back pain. Like, 97% of musculoskeletal injuries happen because of movement patterns. Like, we can prevent so much of the pain that people feel throughout the day, and so much of it is just, can you push your hips back? Do your abs function the way that they do? So how many people go to group fitness classes and they're like, I need to do abs. And you see them doing like 100 sit ups before they leave. That's not what your abs are there for. The six that everyone sees actually, like, that's not. Those are the least important ones. Like, we need to learn about your intra abdominals, right? We need to learn that your rib cage does a really good job of supporting your upper spine. That's why not a lot of people have upper back pain. They may have it in their traps in their neck, but that's very similar to our abs where there isn't a lot of support in our neck. So how do we stabilize our core below our ribcage? I don't know. Well, we have to work out.

If you want to go take a Pilates class right now. Pilates changed the game for me, by the way.

Really?

Yeah, it changed my life. I hated it the first year, but I hated it so much. It was so hard. I found muscles I didn't even know I had. I've been doing yoga 10 years, and when I found Pilates, I couldn't make it through a single set. My teacher, Terry Steele, would do sets of 10 for an hour, and I couldn't make it barely through a single set the entire hour. And I knew that's how I knew I needed to keep going. And once I did a couple years in my handstands came, inversions came. My yoga had a breakthrough when I was doing CrossFit it completely helped me with that. Like it's been a game changer, even though it's now I have to go. You gotta go. Actually, no, go put the link in the show notes. Terry Steele is the most incredible teacher. She's been teaching 30 years. I just watch her classes. You buy, I bought them through Gumroad, through her website. There's a yoga ball class, there's a mat class. I do them all from home. I mean, of course, good to go in person and get feedback, but also what I love about this stuff and what I want people to know as well as you. Yoga, breathing, Pilates, these things. You don't have to go, you have to go anywhere. You don't have to have any special equipment. That's what I love is there's no excuse really. Whether you're traveling, you can do 10 minutes, 20 minutes meditation. All of it is within you, within your body, empowered to do.

Yeah. And one of the things that I love specifically about what you're saying is like when you do it in your own environment is you get to create your own environment. So training really can become this experience that you do where every little, like if you want to set a candle up in your room, I always do. That's going to make it like more personal, more calming and no one has to watch you do it. Like, you can create this environment that it's incredibly creative. You can make it incredibly calming, relaxing. If you really wanted to paint your walls like red, you could make your workout room so intense. And you know, like, fitness doesn't need to be like, go take this group class, feel like crap and go home. That's treat your body better.

Love yourself, go dread it. Go dread your workout. Also, I also, I just, I don't want to forget to second something you said legs up the wall. This is where you scoot your butt. So let's say I do mine at the door. I live in a tiny studio at the front door. You scoot your there and then you get your legs perpendicular to the floor, flex your feet and you're laying there. And 20 minutes of this I read. I don't know if it's true or not, so maybe this is placebo effect. But I read that 20 minutes is equivalent to a two hour nap as far as putting your body into a rest state. So if you do 20 minutes of just legs up the wall, eyes closed, hands can be in a cactus position or above your head, or resting on your heart and your stomach. I have become obsessed with this, Anders. I sometimes skip My whole practice just as soon as 20 minutes and I guess my body really needs it because I love it.

Yeah.

All of the things like that that you just reversing the blood flow, it's like.

It'S so simple yet the carryover to how your body feels. And you know when you're, when you slow down, when you're going fast, you rarely think about it until like the next day when you're sore, right? Like it's, I worked out really hard, I feel good about, I feel like this like warrior. And then the next day you're like, oh, I'm so sore. That must have been good. When you lay down on your back and do legs up the wall and then 20 minutes later you stand up, you're like I feel incredible right now. It's immediate how great your body feels, going slow, developing some mindfulness and.

It doesn't have that beat down effect to it. You just feel like you've re energized or kind of given your body. Hit the reset button.

I love this. I love everything you're up to. I could talk to you about it all day.

Right.

I would love to know. Yes. Last question. What are you most excited about as you look ahead to this next phase post CrossFit, post gym with the work you're doing?

I am so excited to teach people about Yen strength training. So Dr. Teresa Larson, the reason we started working together, she just published her book like a year and a half ago, two years ago. And she has been developing this leadership piece to her life through being a Marine Corps lieutenant, entrepreneur, all these things in her physical therapy practice, like speaker through MobilityWOD International, she did a TEDx talk and I remember just like being in my gym and she was upstairs and I was like I need to work with her. Like she is so awesome. And I was like, how do I work hard enough that she wants to work with me? And I guess I may have, I guess we did that or I was able to work hard enough and create this yin strength training piece. So we're melding a lot of the leadership principles that she works on through corporations, through tactical units here in San Diego and taking my personal training business that I was running inside my gym through this yin strength training and we're melding the two together and.

Really helping people. I want to help people. I want them to feel better. I want them to understand that they have control over this and like you can wake up in the morning and empower yourself with knowledge. I don't want to just hand you A workout. I want to teach you about your core. Like, I don't want to just say go squat. I want you to learn how to push your hips back and find your glutes. And on top of that, like, listening to the leadership principles that she has put in place and holding yourself accountable, showing up every day like these things are really, really important. And the more people that I get to talk to like you and share my story and her story together and why the combination of these two is so powerful and changing the way people think about things is really important to us. And I think that as we get buy in from people and as we get to spread the message that you can control your health and wellness and do it in a mindful way, you don't have to just be handed a workout and handed some stretches and expect like everything to be better. And realizing that the work is important, the work is fun. You want to put in the work to make yourself a better person. It's not just, here, go do this. I want you to hold yourself accountable and say, I'm going to show up and treat myself better today. And it's really, really important to us. And I just, I can't wait to share with the world as we grow.

I absolutely love it. Your passion is contagious. Anders, thank you so much for being here and enlighten us. Where can people find you if they want to keep in touch and learn more about what you're up to?

Come to TheLowBackFix.com for the low back fix on Facebook, Instagram. I am nndersbarner for all of the social things. And yeah, come to TheLobackFix.com come learn from us. Set up a call with me and I know I can help you. I know that what we're creating matters and I would love to work with you.

Amazing. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for pivotless, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always?

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for PivotList, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.