LIVE Q&A Session: 20/10/2023

Hey guys, what's up? And welcome to this week's Q&A. As always, I appreciate you guys who are here, whether you're live or on a replay. I appreciate your time, and of course I want to do my best to make sure I answer your questions as thoroughly as possible. So this isn't just a kind of quick, you know, like, oh, what's your question? I'll quickly give you an answer. This is where possible, I'll give you enough detail and enough information so that you can move forward confidently. And obviously or, and hopefully implement the, the information that I give you, or the, the response that I give you. Now, this week so far, let me just double-check here, I've had 6 or 7 questions from John in the Ask Tyrone thread. Then I also noticed, uh, just a short while ago that Douglas, uh, posted a response to my reminder post. So that's handy, we'll get that answer too. And of course, if any of you guys have any questions that sort of come up as you're watching through this feel free to post them in the comments below, and I will get them answered as soon as I can. If I don't happen to see the question come through, but I notice there's a question there after we finish this session, then I will get it answered in next week's Q&A session. So I won't keep you guys hanging around too long. I just want to double-check I've got everything I need here. I believe we do. Awesome. Right. So as not to waste any time, let's get into it with our first question. So John's first question was, what are your thoughts on walking? I was taught how to walk by Tai Chi teacher. It was very interesting. So yeah, walking is a very beneficial movement-based activity that we should all be partaking in. The truth is, The majority of us these days do not walk enough. And of course, in fact, we generally just don't move enough. But it's very good for multiple reasons. So one obviously is it's going to just increase our general overall activity, which most people want or need in order to reach their health and their body transformation-based goals. So you guys have probably heard the recommendation, oh, everyone should get 10,000 steps a day. Now, the specific number of 10,000 isn't really that significant, except for the fact that on average, they find that people who do 10,000 steps or more tend to be leaner than those, leaner and healthier, sorry, than those who don't manage to hit their 10,000 steps a day. Now, you don't have to specifically do 10,000 steps, and you don't necessarily have to limit it to that. Like, you could do way more or way less, as long as you're compensating with other activity. But of course, walking is a very good way to get that overall calorie expenditure up and to just keep the body and the blood flow pumping well. So obviously your heart does its job and it pumps blood around the body each time the heart beats. But in order to help the circulatory system, particularly with what we call venous return, as in the return of blood to the heart, in order to then be pumped around again or reoxygenated and then pumped around again. In order to help that, it's always good to move as much as we can because as the muscles contract and relax and press on the veins, etc., that helps to pump the blood back up towards the heart. That saves the heart having to do all the work to try and get the circulation working and going and keeping strong and fluid, of course. So walking is very beneficial to help with circulation. It's also very good for helping with recovery. So many of us these days are, we're either unrecovered because we just don't look after ourselves well enough, we don't train, we don't eat well, we don't rest and recover properly, and so on. So we're unrecovered. Well, a good way to kind of get things pumping, help the blood flow like I was just saying, and also aid in nutrient delivery to the different organs and joints, etc., around the body and various tissues a good way to do that is again through walking. Regular walking will help to deliver additional nutrients, et cetera, around the body. So it's a form of what we call active recovery. So it's where you're actually using an activity that's not extreme or intense, but you're using that to speed up the recovery process that you're encouraging your body to go through. So that of course you wake up feeling refreshed, re-energized, rejuvenated, ready to hit the day. The following day with a body that's optimized and ready to go so that you can train hard or so that you can go and do long hours at work if you need to, but without it being detriment to you because your body is in this unrecovered state. So yes, walking is very good. Without getting into too much detail and turning this purely into a walking seminar, there are various types of walking. There is, of course, just standard walking, always better if possible when done in nature. As I always say, you don't have to become a tree hugger, but it certainly helps to be in nature. It helps to calm the mind, calm the emotional system, and kind of reconnect with where we ultimately come from. Many of us tend to forget that essentially we humans are just an extension of nature, but because we live in modern built-up concrete jungles and such, we tend to forget that fact and think that we're totally separate. It's like, oh, I'm here, I'm human, I'm part of modern society and technology and all the rest of it, and then we've got nature over there. And that's not the case. Instead, we are an extension of nature that's chosen to live in this new modern era as such. So, so it's always best where possible to do a lot of your walking in nature. Not always essential, but certainly beneficial and probably better in reality for multiple reasons, as I just mentioned— mental, emotional, and so on. Great way to de-stress. But there are different types of walking. For example, John mentioned here he learned to walk from a tai chi teacher. So you can do walking, which essentially becomes almost like a movement-based meditation. So your steps, etc., and your movement then gets timed with your breathing. So with your inhalation and your exhalation, that becomes the rhythm with which you walk on. So your pace will be that, will be matched with that. For example, some people will walk slow enough so that it's literally one step on the inhalation, one step on the exhalation. Others will walk at a pace where, for example, it's 5 steps on the in, 5 steps on the out, 5 steps on the in, 5 steps on the out. What you will likely find is the less practiced you are, the shorter the breath is, so therefore the quicker your rhythm might be. It might only be 2 or 3 steps on the inhalation and then 2 or 3 on the out. But as you practice this and learn how to breathe properly through your diaphragm rather than just up in the chest and so on, what you will find is as your breathing improves and your ability to control breath improves, improves, then you can extend that breath over a greater number of steps, 10, 20, sometimes even 30, depending on the pace that you're doing. But just having that rhythm— sorry, I'm just confirming that I've answered all of the questions and reopening my phone because it's locked here. Yeah, so having that rhythm will ensure that you, you get a good oxygen, oxygenative response from what you're trying to do. And because you're focused on the rhythm and counting and so on, and not necessarily taking in all the chaos of the external world, that's also a great way to essentially do a type of meditation. So that's why I mentioned that it's, it's like a movement-based meditation. So hope that helps. Uh, great. So what's happening now is my phone has decided that it's going to update Facebook, uh, which is where all the questions were. So give me one moment, I'll get them up on my screen here instead. Gotta love technology. Uh, featured. Comments. What are your thoughts on walking? Okay, right, it's cool. So anyway, I hope that helps with regards to, um, walking. If you want me to dig in deeper, or if you have something more specific you want me to cover, let me know and I shall get that answered. Now, question 2 from John is, how do you view the COVID vaccination with winter coming up? I would say not much. Um, is, is John's comment. So you may or may not know, I did not personally have the COVID vaccination. I personally was well against it. Um, not just because, oh, you're an anti-vaxxer. No, because one, I work in holistic health, so I understand the, the benefits of being healthy versus the alleged benefits of vaccination, especially one that is completely experimental, never been used on humans before, and all the rest of it. So I won't go into too much detail on this, but I personally didn't have it. I figured, in my opinion, based on the, the statistics and what I was hearing from experts or alleged experts on both sides of the coin— so those who were saying, yeah, get the jab, get the jab, and those who were saying, no, don't get the jab, whatever you fucking do, do not get the jab— so I stand very secure in my health and my ability to stay healthy. So looking at the data on both sides— oh, here are the risks or the alleged risks of COVID and here are the risks or alleged risks of the mRNA vaccine— I chose to go with COVID So cool, I feel like I have a strong enough immune system and a healthy enough body that if I was to get COVID, it won't really affect me. Because if you look at it based on the fact that on average it was actually only, um, I guess a danger to 0.03% of the population, we didn't really have much to worry about. But of course the media did a very good job of hyping things up and over-propagandizing it and so on, and of course mandating and trying to force you. And if you look throughout history, what you will find is It is very rare in history where the government are trying to force you to do something that is actually a benefit to you. So I had my reasons for not. So in my opinion, with winter coming up, do I believe that anybody else should have the, the jab? Uh, personally I do not, but of course I also understand that it is not up to me. It is down to the individual to make the choice that sits best with them. Now I would instead say no, Make sure you're eating well, you're exercising well, and you're recovering well, and you've got your head in the right place so you're not stressed out, fearful, scared that the, the crazy virus is going to come and get you, or the crazy jab is going to come and get you. Instead, focus on being healthy because it's very difficult for disease to live in a healthy body, whether that's an infectious pathogenic disease or whether that's a chronic long-term disease or illness or metabolic dysfunction that has accumulated and tried to develop over time. So what I would say is, if that's something you want to do because you will feel better about it, cool, go do that. But just bear in mind that unfortunately there is a risk, and unfortunately quite a high risk, of you suffering a detrimental effect from it. But if you feel that, well, actually, if I was to get COVID, I would also suffer a detrimental effect from that, then of course you may decide, well, actually, then in that case I am better off with it. So that's up to you. In my opinion, I would say no, um, and I have several clients who still have problems since having their, their, uh, vaccinations. So again, it's up to you. I had one that got pleurisy. I've had, um, several who literally had colds for 3 months post-jab, um, and so on. And they're still not 100%. People with extreme shortness of breath They've called it Long COVID, but yeah, if that's what you want to believe, then cool. So yeah, I personally, based on what I've seen, what I decided in myself, I'm a no-no. But I would say if you do do it, just make sure you do not do it alongside taking the standard seasonal flu jab. Take them if you're going to do it because, you know, you believe in the system, which is fair enough. If you take them take them apart. And I would recommend at least a month, but minimum of 2 weeks, because on average it's approximately a 2-week cycle for your immune system to respond, build antibodies, etc., to the, the jab. So, um, and when I say the jab, I mean like the standard flu jab and so on. For your body to respond to a virus and go through its standard immune response is on average around 2 weeks. So just bear that in mind. Ideally, take them separate if you're going to take them, or of course, focus instead on being healthy, and that way, if you were to catch something, you're far more likely to get over it very quickly or suffer very minimal effect from it, if any, in the long run. Cool. So, I hope that helps there, guys. Going into full details and explanations on all of it, if you want to hear it, I'm more than happy to do so. All of the data and stuff, but I'll do that in a separate video. Right, question 3: What are your thoughts on breathing in training and normal walking? I've done a lot of this in Tai Chi Chuan. Very interesting. Whole body circulation, repair, and protection. Yes, so breathing. Now, my thoughts on breathing in training are Essentially, that your breath should dictate your movement. Not so much that, oh well, I can't move unless I'm consciously thinking about my breathing, but ultimately it's the breath that dictates the direction you're moving in. Or said another way, we can reverse that and say, well, actually, it's the direction or the way that I'm moving which should dictate how I'm breathing. So just on a simple, from a simple standpoint, what we have to remember, I'm just going to drop my camera here a touch so you can see more of my torso. What we have to remember with regards to breathing, so inhalation is coupled with extension of the spine. So if I'm sort of slouchy, if I breathe in, what that means is we pick up, so the spine tends to lengthen. And reverse in its curvatures. When I exhale, that relaxation is coupled with flexion of the spine. So let me quickly grab my spine. So basically we breathe— if I go back here, obviously here's our spine, there's the pelvis at the bottom. This is where the head would be. And basically, as you exhale, your spine wants to flex this way. And as you inhale, it will want to come upright and extend you. Exhale, inhale. So if I'm doing a movement that I'm going to be breathing with, let's say, for example, cool. Let's say, for example, I'm doing a row. Yeah, so I've got a bar or a cable machine or whatever it might be, and I'm doing a row-type movement. I have a high elbow. Now, if I pull my arms back in this movement, okay, so I'm just pulling here, squeezing my shoulder blades together. Now, if I was to continue that movement beyond what's normal range, that's going to want me to start to go backwards and lean backwards. So because I'm technically moving into a position of extension, I should be inhaling. So it's like, and then as I return, like so. As I pull in, as I exhale in, and then exhale. Same with squats or deadlifts, for example. Now we're talking moderate weight here, okay, not maximal load. So if we're at 60% of our max weight or less, this is how we should ideally be doing these things. So we, we want to breathe physiologically, which is exhale, inhale. So we're not going to move that extreme, but that's what should be happening. So if I'm doing a squat, it's the same thing. As I squat down, I exhale. As I stand up and get taller, I would inhale. Squat down and then inhale up. Same with deadlifts and so on. So in an ideal world, basically, when it comes to breathing, we would breathe physiologically. Which just means as my movement takes me down or collapses my posture or makes me smaller, then I will exhale. And as I inhale or get bigger, then I— sorry, then I will inhale as I get bigger or as I get taller in the movement. So that is what we would call physiological normal breathing in, in concert with your movement. Now, when the loads get much higher, or sorry, if the load gets higher, or the movement gets faster, like more explosive, and then requires us to, to stabilize through breath, then things might change slightly. So for example, that same rowing movement, let's say I'm now doing a 3-rep max with a row. Well, now I might need to stabilize my torso, stabilize the spine, the upper, the upper back, and so on and the low back. So now as I go to do that movement, it might be a case of instead I'm taking a full breath hold, and then I pull and go through the row, but with my breath held, and then I can let it out slightly as I relax off the movement. Pull, and then pull, and so on. So it will vary based on what we're doing. And that's why it's, it's risky. And I used to do this myself. So I'm just as guilty as anyone else might be. I used to have this idea that, oh, you always exhale on exertion. So every time I produce force or I try to overcome a load, well, then that's when I exhale. Turns out that's not actually the case. It will work, but it's not actually in alignment with what we would call physiological breathing. So long term, what it can actually do is start to create breathing disruptions and faulty breathing mechanics. So we just have to be mindful of that. Particularly if we want long-term health and breathing and good joint health and good rib cage mobility and so on, because that's not the way that we're actually supposed to breathe. As for breathing during walking, then you can refer back to question 1. I've kind of covered that already. So yeah, breathing, very important. Generally speaking, as you guys know, I talk about my metabolic matrix system. Oh, you want to get healthy? You want to get lean? Or lose weight, whatever it might be, then we need to focus on the key 4 pillars: metabolic mindset, metabolic movement, metabolic meals, and metabolic melatonin. There is sometimes this component of breathwork that we have to bring in as well. Breathing, we have to remember, is the most essential function in the body. And many of us, even though we're healthy, we're getting by in life, we actually breathe wrong and our health is held back and limited due to the fact that we have these poor faulty biomechanical patterns happening or these poor faulty, what am I trying to say? The way we breathe is wrong, inverted, that's the word I was looking for. So we've got this inverted breathing pattern. And what I mean by that is for most of us, we will take a deep breath and we inflate the rib cage first. So we inflate the lungs, which then obviously inflates the rib cage. But what should actually happen is as we inhale, the first 2/3 of the breath is the diaphragm. As it presses down on the organs, it makes the abdominal cavity expand. So the belly will actually expand for the first two-thirds of the breath. And then for the final third of the breath, the ribcage expands. So that's what is normal breathing. But for most people, instead, they will take a deep breath in, they inflate their chest, and they actually pull their belly inwards, which is completely reversed. Like, that's a stabilization pattern. In response to a stress or a load. So sometimes we would do that in training voluntarily, as in we would choose to do it because we're about to stabilize for something, but it's not the way we should be breathing normally in an unstressed body. But obviously many of us have a lot of mental and emotional stress that we tend to carry around, whether from our relationships, whether from work and so on. And because of that, we end up over time with this chronic faulty breathing pattern, which actually takes away from our health, chips away and keeps us feeling less and less vital, less and less energetic and so on. So yes, breathing is very important and always something that's worth looking into and making sure your breathing mechanics are good. Cool. Hopefully that helps for question 3. Where are we now? So we now have question 4, which is, What are your thoughts on how the mind controls the body and how you can improve it? Cool. So quite simply, there is this train of thought that the mind controls the body. The mind is the master. And I almost 100% agree, as in that's why I have metabolic mindset as the number one pillar in my metabolic matrix system. What we have to consider, though, is Yes, we must think right in order to create the opportunity to act right, but just because we have the opportunity to act right or have a thought, belief, idea doesn't mean we're going to follow through. So I have spoken about this to, to many of you guys before. I know, or many of us know, that in an ideal world we eat healthy whole foods and we avoid junk and crap. But even though we know that and we believe that to be true, I'd be healthier if I ate well, and I'll be less healthy if I eat junk food. Even though we know and believe that to be true, we still don't necessarily act in alignment with that. Many of us still opt for the convenience, opt for the junk because we want to feel good in the moment and so on. And that's the key. We want to feel good in the moment. So yes, the mind is the master ultimately, as in consciousness is the mind, is the mind and is the master. But unfortunately, on a day-to-day, activity-by-activity basis, we tend to act based on our emotional desire or our emotional need, not so much our mental desire or need. So, oh, I want to lose weight. Cool, you might want to lose weight, but you might not want to feel how you're going to feel when you do the things required to lose weight. So it might be a case of you feel intimidated to go to the gym, so you avoid it. It might be that you feel like you've got to sacrifice too much in terms of giving up all your favorite foods or maybe alcohol at the weekends or whatever it might be. And because you feel like you don't want to lose those things, you feel like the loss is too great, you will continue to do the things you shouldn't be doing. So, yes, you know, in your mind, the mind is saying, do this, do that, do this. And you're like, yeah, that makes sense. I should be doing that. But your feeling state will prevent you from doing so. Because in the moment you want to feel good. And in order to feel good, many of us obviously, uh, sedate and prop up our emotional state through the use of junk foods and, and, um, and sweets and alcohol, fucking porn, Netflix, and, and all these different things. We essentially sedate ourselves from the world that we live in because we don't actually like it. You know, we've got this life that we lead, it's not necessarily the life we want to lead, But in order to get by, we use these, these, uh, crutches essentially to, to ensure or to enable us to get by day to day because we have these feel-good periods, all these moments of pleasure that don't actually equal long-term happiness, but it's enough to get us by to the next moment. So I would agree the mind should be the master, but it isn't always. Quite often it's actually our feeling state that's dictating how we're acting on a day-to-day basis. Now, of course, if you can learn how to overcome that feeling state and what we call self-parent through it, so it's a case of, oh, what tends to happen to me every night after I get home from work? I just need to chill out and I need a couple of glasses of beer or whatever it might be, or wine, or I'd snack out on junk food or whatever it is that you sort of do to sedate yourself from your day and to to get over it, what you want to do is start to recognize how and why you're doing that. Like, what's the feeling state that's driving it? When one— sorry, once you've identified the feeling state and the driver of this behavior that you're trying to stop, then you have the opportunity to use the mind and choose something different. Oh, this is what I really want to do right now. I really want to eat this ice cream or whatever it is. But I know it's not going to serve me. So now I have the opportunity to use my mind and allow it to be the master and to choose a different path instead. So the mind is the master, but only when we learn how to consciously control it. And of course, over time, we want to condition ourselves or brainwash ourselves to automatically choose to live in alignment with the goals that we want and not the things that are obviously going to hold us back. But that takes a little bit of time and practice. But it also comes down to us being willing to make the decision. What many of us sort of forget is that making a decision is one of the most powerful opportunities that we have. We will talk in terms of ideas. Oh, I'd like to, I think I should, I know I should, I've got to, and all the rest of it. But very rarely do we say I'm going to. Instead, it's like this kind of wishful talk. We talk in terms of aspiration rather than in terms of, this is what I'm gonna fucking do because I'm a man of my word and I've decided I'm going to do it. Once we can get like that and actually confidently say, no, this is what I've decided, yeah, I do actually want some ice cream, yeah, I do actually want some alcohol right now, but I've chosen to not have it because the results that I want are on the other side of acting different. I can't continue to show up this guy that I have been. I need to show up as the new version of me, the version that chooses not to have this stuff every single evening and so on. You know, if I choose to have it on an odd occasion because I do enjoy it, fair play, and I won't get emotionally beat up about it. But I'm not the sort of person that eats it daily because I know that it doesn't serve me. Once you're able to make that decision and stand in a place of power and actually essentially control your own life rather than allow your life to control you, then things get a whole lot easier. And much of it actually just begins with that decision. I am no longer going to live as that, that particular individual and live in that way with that sense of being and so on. This is how I now need to operate. So hopefully that one helps, guys. So yes, the mind is the master, but only when you take control of the mind. Ways to improve it, as I just mentioned, through decision. Other ways, which some people are or are not into, meditation helps a lot, journaling helps a lot. I actually use a process called stacking, which is like a form of structured conversation with self. I do that as a way to kind of identify why I might be repeating stupid habits, behaviors, and so on that aren't serving me or aren't taking me towards my goals. And then once I realize, oh, you're doing this and you're doing it because of that, and it's because you need to feel like this, then it's much easier sometimes to find a way around it. Exercise is also another way to gain control of the mind, particularly if you're serious about exercising. I mean, just not just doing movement or a workout plan just for the sake of doing it. Oh, well, I know I should. But when you're actually focused and intent on creating a result from your training, it's a very good way to start manipulating the mind and it's a very good way to start teaching yourself to move outside of your comfort zone. Um, because obviously in training you can go in the gym, keep it nice and easy, do a bit of movement and a bit of fluff and then leave. Or you can go there, providing your body has the capacity to do so of course, you can go there and you can actually— I don't want to use the word hurt yourself, but I mean make it this, or make it uncomfortable, you know, long deep sets, slow tempos, heavy weights, or whatever it might be. Or sprints and so on, like things that are challenging for you to do and that encourage you to push yourself or to lead yourself outside of your comfort zone. They're also great ways to help improve the mind. And then another thing that a lot of people forget to consider is your environment. The types of people that you hang around with will make a big difference. If you have people that tend to have shitty, low vibrational mindsets around, then unfortunately you'll likely end up with the same type of mindset. Or you'll have, deep down, you'll have this different mindset. You'll think different and you'll kind of judge them, um, like, oh, why do you always think like that? You should be like more like this and more like that. But you then struggle to actually act in that way because you don't want to be disassociated from the tribe, so to speak. So we have to be mindful of who we're associating with and having a mind that is in alignment with what you want from life. It certainly helps when you have people around you who think the same. And when I say think the same, I don't mean think identical to you, but I just mean are more positive in their thinking and who are leading themselves rather than being led. Cool. All right. Sorry. Our next question, number 5. What do you think is the best form of recovery after an incident such as a fight or a car crash, etc.? The best immediate form is just rest. Do as little as you can because obviously the body's gone through a stressful or traumatic experience. So you would, you would rest. Now, there are, of course, things you can do to speed up that recovery process. I don't know if many of you guys know, but one of my key areas that I work in is rehabilitation, as in injury rehabilitation. Um, and in fact, I was doing injury rehabilitation long before, um, the body transformation stuff. So that was my key sort of skill originally. Um, so when it comes to, to recovery and so on, as I say, the first thing you want is rest, but only long enough for you to get over the initial trauma, impact, incident, so on. And then what you want to do is focus on trying to nurture the body as much as you can, because obviously you've got to fuel the repair process. When you've been injured, your body has now shifted into a fight or flight response, so it's in a stressed state. Well, in a stressed state, it's going to consume more energy, so you're going to want to replenish with a greater number of calories than you might have been on. It's almost like you still eat and nourish yourself as if you were training hard because the body is going through lots of repair processes and so on. And obviously it's in that stressed fight or flight response. So we want to fuel that. We want to ensure that it's not stressed and then starving at the same time because that's just another stressor on top of the stress. So we will rest. We will ensure that we're eating well. Then what we want to do is make sure that we can reestablish optimal movement again. So let's say, for example, you're doing some martial arts training and you're grappling with your buddy or training partner or opponent, whatever it might be, and you get your shoulder damaged. And then you find, oh my God, it hurts every time. Every time I lift my shoulder, it's just incredibly painful. I can't get my shoulder or my arm above my head. Well, when that happens, the longer you allow the body to remain unable to get your arm above your head, the harder it's going to be to re-establish that movement. Now, if you have real trauma and damage to the joint, it might be an extended period that you obviously have to keep the arm strapped up or not doing any extreme movements. If you've actually got tears and things like that, you might have to allow those to repair enough before trying all this stuff. Or in some cases, we sometimes need surgery. Now, I would always encourage you to, where possible, avoid surgery because the body is not supposed to be invaded in that way. That doesn't mean there's not a place for surgery. Of course there is. But what I'm just saying is, where possible, avoid it because we're not supposed to expose the internal body to the outside world. And in many cases, different when it's traumatic injury, sometimes with that, like if you get a muscle rupture or a tendon rupture, well, of course you want to have that reattached and so on. But if it's just a case of, oh, I've torn a muscle, but it's not that bad really, as in it's bad, but it's not function or life-threatening long term, then you might want to not consider, oh, I've had this back pain for 20 years and now I've been given the opportunity to have my disc removed. I would say don't do that, not until you've exhausted every other option first. Now, you might think 'Oh well, it's been 20 years. I've already exhausted all other options.' Most people haven't. All they've done for 20 years is put up with it and then bounce back and forth from a doctor to an alleged specialist to a chiro to an osteo who tend to unfortunately just treat symptoms. You've gone in with back pain, they'll look at your back, they'll go, 'Oh, it hurts here. Let's rub that bit better or manipulate that bit.' And maybe you go to the physio and he gives you a couple of exercises. 'Here, sit in a chair and turn your head side to side.' and let's see if we can get you better. But what they're doing 9 times out of 10, unfortunately, is just addressing symptoms. Now, they haven't necessarily considered the cause or any contributing factors that may have led to you developing the back pain in the first place. So we have to look at those things. And quite often when we remove or readdress those original causing factors, the back pain or the joint pain or the dysfunction goes away as a natural byproduct of addressing that original root cause problem. So for example, sometimes it might be that someone sprained their ankle playing sports when they were younger. As a result, they've ended up with a tight restricted ankle, which means over the years they've compensated in their walking because they don't get a full flexion at the ankle joint. They can't get a natural toe off as they go through their stride. So they swing their hip through. Well, now because they're swinging their hip through, the hip flexors, etc., are getting tight. The low back is becoming too mobile because they're having to swing too much. And then, then like 5 years down the line, oh my God, I've got this back pain that just won't seem to go away. But it turns out it will never go away properly until you address the ankle. Now, that of course is a relatively extreme case, but it's the sort of thing we see. In fact, we sometimes even see people that end up with chronic back pain or shoulder pain and so on, because as they were going through their infant development, you know, they're born and you'll see a baby, they go through different stages of development in terms of their movement abilities and so on. Well, sometimes they'll skip or they will have been rushed through a phase by, you know, excited parents who are, oh, let's get them up walking, let's put them in a baby walker and all the rest of it. Or sometimes, unfortunately, rushing through certain phases or skipping them can lead to long-term dysfunction later on in the musculoskeletal system. So then they'll end up with chronic pain, dysfunction, injury, or whatever. But it's because they didn't do this pattern that they should have gone through between 6 and 8 months, for example. Sounds crazy, like, how the fuck would you even know that? Well, what we do is we assess for it. We do infant development assessments, and then we find out. But sometimes we literally have to regress people's training back to those infant development type movements and stages before we can actually get them out of pain long term. So they are the types of things you have to consider when you just have what appears to be a chronic ongoing issue. If it's a more acute trauma, you know, like a car crash or a fight like you've mentioned, well then it's a case of giving it enough time to heal enough so that you can now start manipulating it, moving it, and rebuild full function in whatever the area is. So the best form of recovery, let's go back through this. So the first thing we want to rest, give it time to at least get past that initial inflammatory stage. We want it to start to calm down a little bit. Then we want to, or whilst that's going on, we want to be nourishing the body, getting plenty of good quality protein, plenty of high-quality healthy fats, and obviously plenty of good quality veg for your bits, minerals, and phytonutrients, etc. You will also get vitamins, minerals, and stuff from your fats and proteins too. But healthy food is what I'm saying. We need to fuel the body whilst it's going through this stress state. And then of course, we want to re-establish normal optimal range of motion. Okay, so if I was here and I couldn't get— well, I need to find a way to get that back up. Now, during that process, sometimes it's a case of, oh, within a couple of days I've got full range again, but I'm weaker. So we would go, all right, full range of motion back. Now let's put strength into that joint or that muscle or movement again. Sometimes though, we might find it's not until we start to put strength into something that we get our full range of motion back. So just be aware of that. Sometimes people think, oh, well, I can't get here into my my position, you know, like full straight arms above the head or whatever, or I can't, um, go through a full range of motion in my knee or my hip because I'm tight, or, or it's, um, I'm tight, so therefore it's restricting my movement. But sometimes your body won't let go of that tightness or tension, or what we actually call facilitation, until we get stronger. So sometimes we actually need to use strength predominantly as our rehabilitation process in order to, one, correct anything that's been damaged or gotten weak as a result of the injury, but also to ensure a return to full function once the injury has passed and we've gone through the rehabilitation phase. So, rest, nourish, and then full range of motion, and then full strength back. Okay, so that's the main sort of 4-step process, I would say. Rest initially, nourish your body at the same time, then try to get full range of motion back and then try to get full strength and function back into that, that joint or movement. Cool. John's next question is lubricating the joints, what is the best way? This one's a bit of a simpler question to answer. The 3 main things that I would recommend you do in order to ensure that your joints stay lubricated. Hydration is absolutely key because obviously synovial fluid, etc., in the joints, much of that will be dictated, or the amount available will be dictated by your long-term state of hydration. So stay well hydrated. Excuse me. Then you'll want to make sure you've got, again, good quality protein and fats in the diet. Because you're going to want the collagen, etc. So you want to be eating ideally plenty of animal foods. Yes, fibrous veg, etc., will help as well, but fattier, healthy fatty meats and things like that and healthy fats and proteins will all help just to ensure that the joint stays healthy and has plenty of collagen for your cartilage, etc., so that that stays nice and smooth and you don't get any excessive sort of shear or wear in the joint. And the final thing is movement. But more so than just movement, we want to try to keep balance around the joints. So let's take, for example, the knee. We want a good balance between the quadriceps and the hamstrings. Now, that's not specifically related to lubricating the joint, but it will ensure optimal function of the joint, because we're not going to have excessive strength and weak sorry, strength on one side and weakness on the other. When you have, um, muscular imbalance at or around a joint, it disturbs what we call the instantaneous axis of rotation. What that basically means is, here is the optimal position for my joint to work in. Now I've got muscles that are tight on one side and loose on the other. Well, now that disrupts that, so the joint won't stay sort of perfectly centered, so to speak, and the tighter muscles will pull the joint out of alignment. And therefore we now get excessive joint wear, excessive shear, and faulty proprioceptive information. So it's a case of your, your body does know what's going on, because obviously it can interpret where your hand is from where your hand is. But the information from the joint is actually aberrant, it's faulty. So therefore, things like reaction timing is off and accuracy of movement is off because of those muscular imbalances that you've got. Now, of course, over time, even with a faulty joint, you can train, let's say if you're a martial artist again, you can train accuracy and so on with your movements because the body learns through muscle memory. But the problem is often just repeating those movements over and over is what creates and often develops those muscular imbalances in the first place, because you've done so many thousands of repetitions in one particular movement pattern, but never thought to reverse it and create balance and strength on the opposing movement or the opposing muscles. So keeping joints lubricated, hydration, good food, and then good movement. Okay, so good balanced movement so that your muscles stay balanced around the joint. And that will help. Cool. Where is the last question? I know there's one more. Uh, cool, right. Sorry, I got one more which I do know the answers to but will help other people. Okay, why is it so important to be upright? What are the benefits? And is there any, uh, and is there any negatives? Uh, I think you'll like this one, Tyrone. Yes, I do. I like all questions, to be honest. It just For one, it gives me a chance to talk, doesn't it? I have to be careful, which you guys have probably even noticed in this video or in this session. I get ideas come in from all over, so I'm talking, talking, talking this, all that, and I'll get taken off slightly on a tangent, which I am talking about something that's related, but it might not have been on my original train of thought, and then I end up having to come back to it and stuff. But it's just, that's what happens when you've got so much information in your head. So, why is it important to be upright? So ultimately, we all should have ideal posture or good optimal posture. Now, going back to what we were just talking about with the joints, as in that instantaneous axis of rotation, which basically just means optimal position of the joint. Ideally, we would all have that. That way our muscles, sorry, our joints, the bones, the cartilage, the tendons, the muscles, etc., everything stays working well and stays balanced and doesn't get overly worn out and so on because we've got good postural alignment that allows us to move in an optimal way. When we are in optimal posture, as in nice and upright for most things, What we will find just in being more upright, one, you will feel more confident for most people because once you're up, oxygenation is better, blood flow is better, and you're actually standing in what would be termed as like a power position. You're not kind of slouching and trying to hide yourself. And when you are more upright, the biggest factor with it really, if I had to pick one biggest factor, goes back to what we were talking about with breathing. So if I'm slouchy as a natural byproduct, or sorry, as a natural posture, then as a byproduct of that, I am automatically unable to breathe properly. So I can still breathe, but my breathing mechanics are now going to be altered because as my upper back slouches and my chest drops, so the rib cage drops in, that actually closes down on the diaphragm. And prevents it from being able to fully drop down. So automatically I now can't inflate my lungs as much. So we've got this issue where the diaphragm can't drop down, which means it cannot press against the organs, which means it can't push the blood flow out of the organs because that's part of how the body replenishes blood in the organ systems. As the diaphragm drops down, that obviously creates pressure against the organs that are in the abdominal cavity. That kind of squeezes the blood out. And then as you exhale and diaphragm lifts, then what happens is obviously the blood comes rushing back in. So because your smooth muscle or your organ muscles are not like your musculoskeletal muscles, which are what we call striated muscle, but because it's not like those where we're choosing to pump them, which pumps blood in and out, Well, now with your organs, it's done through your movement. So that's why another reason why if we are too static in our day-to-day posture, often our organs can become starved of nutrients, oxygen, etc., and start to become dysfunctional. So we can then get symptoms of illness, disease, and it's purely movement. It's not like you are diseased, you've got this bad thing. It's just you don't fucking move. And that's quite, quite often it is as simple as that. We just need to move more. To help the body pump more, basically get more oxygen, more nutrients around to the different tissues and aspects of the body. So that's one thing. The organs don't get massaged properly if we're not breathing correctly. The other issue is because we're in this slouchy posture, the rib cage now can't fully expand. So your rib cage is supposed to be pretty flexible. Now, of course, it's rigid in the respect it's there to protect sorry, to protect your vital organs. But when I'm in this depressed state, the rib cage, like the ribs— let's say, for example, these are the ribs— well, they'll close down as I slouch and my chest drops. The ribs close, come down closer together. Well, I can't take in a deep breath and allow my diaphragm to drop down. So all of the breathing ends up in my chest. But the catch is the rib cage cannot expand laterally. so it can't open up and allow my lungs to fill this way. So instead what happens is our upper respiratory muscles, the neck muscles, etc., they will start to try and lift the lungs. So quite often people that have shitty slouchy posture have a lot of neck problems and a lot of tension in the neck, particularly in the scalenes, etc. And a lot of that is because those muscles are trying to pick the bloody lungs up all the time in order to get enough oxygen in. Then we have the issue of, well, you can't breathe properly, so we don't have enough oxygen in. Many of us are already stressed out. One, we're probably stressed because of our shitty job that we don't want to do but we tend to do, and the shitty lifestyle that we lead that we don't want to lead but we are leading. Many of us are in relationships we don't want to be in. Many of us eat junk food all the time, which is another form of stress. Many of us don't do any exercise, or we do too much exercise. We're exposed to loads and loads of electromagnetic pollution and stuff in our environments, chemicals, agrochemicals, and all the rest of it. So they're all different forms of stress. Now let's introduce the stressor of not breathing properly. Well, that's another one. And what did we mention earlier? Breathing is the most vital function in the body. So if the most vital function in the body cannot take place as it should, that automatically puts the body into a chronic state of stress. Now we're in this slouchy posture, we're breathing very shallow. Now because we're unable to effectively oxygenate the system, quite often the system will become quite acidic in nature, not to the full point of, oh my God, I've got acid literally flowing through my veins, but your blood pH will shift to slightly more acidic, which tends to also be coupled with increased inflammation, joint aches, joint pain, muscle ache, muscle pain, and potential risk of illness, disease, and stuff as such later on. Now, of course, on the flip, we don't want to be too alkaline either, but we want to, to remain— blood, from what I recall, our blood pH should be anywhere between, I believe it's 7.34 and 7.45 as a pH level, which is just slightly on the alkaline side. But that doesn't mean that we should be drinking alkaline water. I'll save this for a different day. But there's a big push, or there was a couple of years back, about how amazing alkaline water is. It's not. But that's a whole other story. The one thing I will say, though, the main reason is because we're supposed to be acidic from mouth to anus in order to prevent pathogenic and sorry, pathogenic organisms from taking over the system. So yeah, so we should be pretty neutral in the blood, but when we're in this deoxygenated state or this chronically, um, deoxygenated state, then what can happen is, um, the body sits in this chronically stressed-out, um, state. Now, what tends to also happen with that is unfortunately many of us will end up tired because you're not bringing enough oxygen in. It takes hydration and oxygen in order for us to feel energized because water is what we call— what's the word I'm looking for? It's going to bug me now. It will come to me in a minute. Ah, yes. So water is the most paramagnetic substance we have in the body and oxygen is the most diamagnetic. So it's when the two of those combine that we get the potential for energy. Yes, of course, there's all the potential for energy with calories that we're bringing in and the ATP and Krebs cycles and all that, but that's a totally different thing. Or as in, that's a slightly different thing, not totally different. It's all part and parcel of the same energy production, but we need hydration, we need oxygenation. So when we are in that chronic state, we can end up obviously Feeling stressed out, we become far more reactive and less, less able to cope with the daily stresses that are going on around us. We can become quite irritable and so on. And it's not because you're just an asshole. Often it's because your system senses that it's under threat. So it's no different from chronic starvation over time. It's like your system senses you're under threat. So people often get more aggressive, like if they're using fasting type diets and so on. They'll get snappy, irritable, more aggressive, because that's your body actually telling you, you need to go and hunt for food. And obviously, if we're in a more aggressive state, we're more likely to do that and be much more effective at it. So we need to be considerate of those things. Like, it's, it's not ideal to not have ideal posture, because over time, it can lead to chronic disease and illness. And then you'll be running around trying to find all these different cures. What's going on? What's the problem and all it is, you need to breathe properly. So yes, very, very important to be upright in your posture. Now we need to also ensure that our environment supports that. So for example, if you work at a desk job, you need to make sure that your desk— obviously you can't see mine here, but you want to make sure that it's set up what we would call ergonomically. So what that essentially means is everything's at an ideal position for you to be able to maintain optimal upright posture. Because if your monitor is too low, for example, then you end up looking down. If you have poor vision, then you end up kind of leaning forward and straining and end up with what we call forward head posture. And if your chair is too low, that will put you off. If the chair is too high and so on. So you do need to ideally just look into ideal desk ergonomics. and that will help you set up your environment. Also your car or anywhere that you're sitting for extended periods of time, you'll want to just get that set up because then it becomes much easier to support your new intention or new habit of trying to develop good, clean, upright posture. Now, one other thing I will mention on this before I, I wrap this question up is that when it comes to posture, if you have been in a a state of poor posture for a chronically extended period of time, then what you will likely find is you actually have mechanical restrictions. We tend to get quite rigid. The rib cage, for example, if it's spent many, many years in this position, it's very difficult for us to just now suddenly pick the chest up, fully extend the spine. We become quite rigid and fixed in those positions. That doesn't mean it's impossible to reverse. It just means it's going to take a little bit of time. One, to develop the mobility required. And then of course, once you've got the mobility and you've freed up all the restrictions, you can use a foam roller for most of this, by the way. Once you've freed up those restrictions, then we need to put strength and retrain those, the mind-muscle connection as such. So we need to put strength in the muscles that hold good posture as well. So that when you are standing, you're more upright, and those muscles in the back that have just gotten lazy, essentially, they remember to now stay active or tonic and hold you in position. So quite often what we need to do is first create mobility. So we want to loosen off the upper back, for example, loosen off the rib cage. As I mentioned, most of that can be done with foam roller exercises. Then we will also want to stretch off the anterior side of the body, so the front, Often our upper abs will end up short because we're slouched down. The pec muscles, particularly the pec minor, will end up short. That's what brings the shoulders round. The biceps end up tight and short, which is often what turns the arm in. So, you know, when you see people with that gorilla posture almost, that's because of those different muscle groups now becoming short and tight. The ones on the back have often gotten long and weak. So we stretch off everything on the front. And then we strengthen everything on the back so that it now holds us in place. Essentially, what we're doing is taking tone out of the muscles on the front and building tone into the muscles on the back to then hold us back in that neutral position. Cool. So hopefully that covers the benefits and why it's so important. You also said, and is there any negatives? So as a general rule, there are no real negatives to having good optimal posture. But what you might want to consider is you don't want to go in the extreme opposite. So what I mean by that is you don't want to build so much stress and tension in the back that you're now exaggerated, if you know what I mean. We do do what we call overcorrecting when we're trying to build the strength, simply because there's always a case of gravity wanting to pull you back down. So we strengthen beyond neutral in order for, for us to allow basically for when the body settles into the middle. But aside from that, like wanting— not wanting to overcorrect and put too much tone in the back muscles now, yeah, aside from that, there's no real negatives to having good upright posture. You do still need to make sure that where possible, the rest of the body is aligned too, of course, but Yeah, no real negatives that I'm aware of. As long as you keep— once you've got to that point, keep strong and balanced, you know, work the front, work the back, work the legs, work above the head, below the head, and so on. Work your core, obviously, in terms of both flexion, extension, and rotation, and lateral flexion as well, which is side to side. So yeah, in all planes, basically. So we have planes of movement, there's front to back, there's side to side, and there's rotational, or what we call sagittal, lateral, and transverse. So what you just want to make sure is that you train the body and the different muscles and joints in all of those planes. The more functional you can be, the less likely you are to have any problems with posture, the less likely you are to have any problems with breathing mechanics, the less likely you are to sustain injuries or chronic imbalance or dysfunction. So yeah, get yourself well and then train well, basically, is what we recommend. Cool. So I think that is all of John's questions. Let me just find Douglas's question here. Where are we? Where are we? Discussion. Sorry, give me one moment, guys. Right. Douglas's question is as follows: How does someone determine their optimal weight, please? I assume that there are various factors to take into account, for example, age, fitness levels, etc. But is there a basic rule of thumb? And how, if at all, does your optimal weight change as you become older more or less fit? Thanks. Cool. Right. This is going to sound a bit, maybe a little silly, because you're like, well, of course there are. There's not really such thing as an optimal weight. Because the optimal weight that you are is going to be determined, or the optimal weight that you should be, sorry, is going to be determined by the outcome that you desire. So, for example, if I am an athlete, I'm a sprinter, let's say, for example, I'm a sprinter, I'm going to have a different ideal weight to if I now choose to go into powerlifting, for example, depending on the weight class that I choose to, to, to compete in. Same when it comes to martial art. So it— there is no real ideal weight. Now, of course, you go to the doctor and they're like, oh, you don't fit within the ideal weight category. That's because doctors need a way to compartmentalize you and to categorize you. It's like, oh, you're not within this range, so therefore you're bad, so therefore you need this pill or you need this intervention. Same. That's why they have like the, the fucking BMI scale, which is the absolute worst scale ever for determining whether someone is or is not healthy. Because unfortunately with the BMI, all it does is go, okay, you are this height and you are this particular weight. and then it comes up with the calculation. Oh, your BMI is wrong. Well, if I'm 5 foot 7 like I am and I'm 20 stone couch potato, I will have the exact same BMI as if I'm a 5 foot 7, 20 stone muscle-bound bodybuilder. So on that BMI scale, we're both identical because all it's done is said, oh, he's this tall and he's this heavy, calculate, here's the outcome. So the BMI scale is useless. But as I mentioned, they need a way to categorize you and put you into ideals and norms. I mentioned to you guys last week there is no real collective norms, only individual norms. So that's what we have to consider. And in fact, if I recall correctly, Douglas, I don't know if you're here now, but that's irrelevant. So when we were talking about your weight before, when you first came to work with me, we looked at, or you looked at your ideal weight ranges, and I believe it had a recommendation of as low as 60 kilograms. Now I'm 5'7" and I currently weigh about 73 kilograms, so even if I went down to 60, I'd look pretty rough compared to what I do now, as in I'd be looking a bit underweight. But you being about fucking 6 inches taller than me, if you were at 60 kilos, you would look like an AIDS victim. So we know that their ideal, or so-called ideal, ranges are flawed anyway. So we need to be careful, but instead we need to look at what is my weight made up of. That is far more important than what is my weight. So tracking weight can be handy, and, um, it's a good marker of, oh, I'm moving in the right direction, in the respect that if I'm overweight, my goal is to lose weight, then in the early stages, cool, my weight's coming down, cool, my weight's coming down, I know that what I'm doing is It appears to be working, it's moving me in the right direction. But there always becomes a point where ideally we shift away from purely tracking weight and we start to also look at body composition or body fat percentage versus lean mass percentage. Because if we're still losing weight, that's all good. But if we start to get to a point where we're losing muscle mass as well, then that's not ideal. Because if we're losing muscle mass, we're also sacrificing metabolism. If we're losing muscle mass, we're sacrificing strength. If we're losing muscle mass, we're sacrificing potential longevity and also functional ability. So we need to be careful. Once we get to a certain point, we don't just want to look at weight. We need to start looking at body fat percentage because that's a much better correlated marker to track in relation to risk of disease, risk of illness. Or risk of any complications that may crop up or arise for you as you age. So personally, I wouldn't worry about whether there is or isn't an optimal weight. I would look more at body fat percentage because that's a much more effective marker to track. So if you have an ability whilst you're, whilst you're sort of on a weight loss journey or even a weight gain journey, if you have the ability to also track body fat percentage and lean mass, that's going to be a much better way because you can go, oh cool, I'm gaining weight— if I'm trying to gain weight, that is— I'm gaining lean mass, which is what I want, and I'm losing body fat. Or the other way around on weight loss, oh cool, I'm losing body fat percentage, as in my fat is burning off, but my lean mass is staying the same or going up. That's the trend that we ideally want to see. Sometimes, of course, if the weight loss attempt is quite harsh, you will lose body fat and lean mass for a while. Again, I would recommend you avoid it if you can, but short term it's okay as long as you get to a point where you're at where that settles off and, and you, you stay. Because if not, as I mentioned, you start risking metabolism, strength, vitality, and it can become more of a stressor to the body than it is of a benefit. So you just have to become— oh, sorry, you just have to be careful with that. In regards to age, the only reason that it should affect you as you age is if your activity drops. So I'm quite active now, for example. If I remain active as I continue to age, there should be no real change in my ideal weight, or what I should expect my body to, to, to look like. Now, of course, there will be some changes, and you are possibly going to lose a bit of weight as you age. But that's where you have to compensate, obviously, through even better recovery, because the older we get, the more important recovery becomes. We also have to support ourselves and make sure that we're doing strength work so that our body has a reason to maintain any muscle mass and strength that we have. And of course, we have to continue to fuel it and fuel the body so that I have the raw resources on board to allow my body to continue to rebuild and repair. So what have we got here? Metabolic meals, metabolic movement, metabolic melatonin. Then of course, we need that mindset to ensure that we carry on. Um, and it sounds like, oh well, everything you bloody talk about, Ty, always comes back to that metabolic matrix thing of yours. Well, of course it does, because that's the foundation of life. Like, that's all we really need. But many of us like to overcomplicate it. And what about this diet? What about that diet? And we try to make things complicated because it sounds better. It creates a better story for us to tell others. Oh, I'm doing this, that, and the other, this fancy thing. And it requires— but we can never bloody stick to it. So keep things simple, focus on the basics, and don't worry about your ideal weight. Instead, just worry about how you feel, what your body fat percentage is, and whether you, you, um, perform the way you want to. Now, of course, you want to look the way you want as well. That's why I say how you look and how you feel. But, um, that is more important, and how you fit and feel in your clothes is far more important than the, the specific scale weight that you, that you're, you may be having presented to you. Because, um, what what a lot of women in particular find as well, because women have obviously different body composition to men on average, uh, they tend to be much higher in body fat. But what often you will find is for a lot of women, they'll be overweight and then they'll actually have to gain weight in order to attain the body that they want. So if, uh, like let's say, oh, I'm 2 stone overweight, what sometimes happens is they'll lose some weight initially and then all of a sudden they'll start gaining weight, but it's where they're building lean mass and actually sculpting the body that they want so that they can look fitter, leaner, more athletic. Um, and then their weight actually increases as a result of that, and they're like, holy shit, I had no idea that I would actually look, feel, and function much better with additional weight. I always thought I needed to lose it in order to get to this place of satisfaction and happiness with my body, but often that's not the case. And the same thing often happens for men too. It's just sometimes less extreme because we tend to, on average, carry much less body fat than, than women do. Cool. So hopefully that helps, guys. Um, I believe that's all of the questions. I'm just going to refresh my page here just to make sure. Yep. No, I think we're good. We're good. Right. Well, As always, those of you who have been here live, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. And those of you who are catching us on a replay, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. And of course, any questions, let me know. You can either post them in these, in the comments of these videos, but obviously tomorrow I will put up the new thread for any additional questions that you come up with throughout the week so that when I go live again next Friday, we can get them answered. So yeah, have an awesome weekend. Those of you who are watching the rugby, hope it all goes well for you, um, and that it's enjoyable. And I look forward to chatting with you in my next video. Enjoy the weather, people.