Effort, Force and Heaviness in Proprioception Training

Also, I've used this with people that are weightlifters, powerlifters, Olympic weightlifters, as a warm-up now, if they have a deficit right versus left in the amount of load that they can handle. And in some individuals, we've seen an immediate increase in their 1RM max. And I'm talking about Olympic weightlifters in Korea. I mean, it's their job. We're not talking about, sorry to say it, some CrossFit Olympic weightlifting guy. No, we're talking about the elite. You're listening to the Restoring Human Movement podcast, where movement experts discuss the latest evidence-based practices to help you and your clients move with mastery.

And now, your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hey, guys, this is Sebastian, your host again with the Restoring Human Movement podcast. Thanks for joining the Movement Movement. This is your first time in the show. Then this is a two-part series actually today. So we're going to have on Guido Van Ryssegem again. He's an athletic trainer who has, he's a podium speaker, as well as a professor and a teacher and great person to learn from. And so I do suggest you go back at least into the next, the last podcast and listen to the start of this one because there's not going to be any contacts. So just go backwards, come right back over here again.

Also, too, in the archives, there's a ton of other people I've interviewed. I've interviewed Guido two other times, as well as other people like Dan John and Stu McGill and all those other people that are very helpful. Now, the intention of this podcast is really just to improve our clinical reasoning process, to improve our ability to make patients feel better and not to scare them. Like, as you'll hear with some of the stuff that Guido talks about is that, you know, pain is not a red flag. It's pain is an experience. And so we can help our patients by not only implementing the right type of care, but also using better terminology and knowing when to not scare them out of doing stuff.

And so patients can listen to this podcast as well. This one's a little bit more technical. We try to keep it generally very terminology friendly. But because we're going into a little bit more of a clinical talk today, as well as research talk, it's going to be probably a little less friendly. But by all means, you can listen to it if you want to. There are other podcast episodes that we have that are very patient friendly, and they're designed as such, too. So we're going to listen to the second part of the Guido interview today and see what we have to say. We're going to go into a little bit more proprioception.

Oh, I guess I should give back context in case you forgot. Guido's going to be talking about the topic or the, I guess, talking about the topic, but also we ebb and flow between other topics as well. He's going to talk about the sense of effort, force, and heaviness in the relationship to proprioception. This is one of the, this is the topic that's new to him and he's really passionate about. He suggested we talk about it, which I love because I've not heard it before. He did it on the Kabuki Strength Education Week. At the very end, you're going to hear us talking a little bit about slides. I am watching the slides and I'm doing my best to describe them to you guys about what's happening.

Obviously, Guido gives all the good information with it. But if you want those slides and you want the whole thing, I have not even seen the whole thing either. He doesn't have rights to necessarily share them in full context. So you're going to have to go to Kabuki Strength Education Week to try to purchase that. By the way, I don't get anything for suggesting that at all. So let's go into the podcast and interview with Guido Van Ryssegem again. Thumb is the most important thing. You know, when I was working in a hospital years ago, if people came in, they got mangled in a piece of equipment or machinery and they would lose their thumb.

They can never grip anything. But you can lose all these fingers and just have your pinky. You can still grip stuff. You're still quite functional doing work. And actually, even in those, it's like 30 years ago, surgeons would amputate their big toe. Because it's about the same size, it has about the same function. And take all the musculature, tinnons, all nine yards, and basically put their big toe there. So they can still grip and be functional. So that thumb is probably the most important factor in grip. And then related to our topic, giving peripheral information to our brain, what is going on, and taking off some, let's say, load of that central nervous system.

Because if the weight is not heavy enough, then CNS does pretty much all the work based on the literature, based on the research. So I was actually going to go back to that, actually. I'm glad you brought it up again. Because I think I'll probably get a lot of questions on it. So when you say the peripheral system and the central system, and we're taking the responsibility away from the central nervous system, and kind of placing them on the periphery, in what circumstances is that important? What type of cases? What type of scenarios? Maybe I have a couple stories of how that was helpful to the person.

Okay. Yeah. Well, the majority of it, the majority of them that will benefit from this are the lifters. Those that get serious about lifting up weight. One study showed that they compared maximum weight and maximum fatigue versus a group of 35% maximum weight. And so, although the numbers are kind of far away, 100% versus 35%, they found that if the weight is only 35% of your one or a max, peripheral sensation is not involved. So we need, especially as clinicians, we should not be afraid to push our clients when the time is appropriate, of course, you know, depending on their injury and healing phases, et cetera, et cetera, to get them to a heavy weight.

That's the bottom line. Then, from a performance perspective, we should not be afraid, when it's the right time of the year, the season, et cetera, they're all factors, right, to, at some point, push our athletes to maximum weight training and maximum weight training to total fatigue. As long as we respect that after that, there's going to be time necessary to recoup, let's call it recuperate. There's not very good, at this point, as far as I know, good evidence what that time period should look like, unless you have a lot of, let's call it fancy and expensive equipment available to you, like heart rate variability, it's an omega, blah, blah, blah.

There's all kinds of cool stuff out there with our elite teams, but that's not very practical to those that cannot afford this or have no access to that equipment. So do you think there's any value in, let's just say, if someone, say the patient is actually afraid of going heavy if it's merited, or the clinician is little, they don't have the equipment, or maybe they don't feel like they feel comfortable coaching it. Say we, say we, 60%, 50%, and then do like a, or we do things like myoreps, oxidatives, is there any value in going that way and going to an RP, like a high percentage RPE level? Or is the load more?

Now, now we're changing the sense to effort. So what does that mean? It's a very good question you ask. It means that if we can't train under maximum loads, because it's rehab, or it's a novice individual that haven't lifted or have never lifted heavy, then the effort should be maximum. Too many people I see in the weight room, you know, or in clinicians' offices, they're doing whatever exercise, let's say rotating of external rotation with a band, and they're having a conversation. Oh, yeah, man, did you see that last night on TV? Oh, my God. There's no effort there. There's no intensity. Zero.

So even under low loads, if we cue them appropriately, and we stimulate them to work under maximum effort and intensity, like you see the stare in their eyes, right? That's when intensity is up. When they're focusing completely on the lift, even if it's just an isometric fraction against a wall, let's say, we can still stimulate the peripheral system. But now it's tougher because we have to cue it. We've got to teach it. If I give you a very heavy load, I don't need to teach you anything. All I got to say is lift it up, press it up, push it forward, pull it back, right? That's like dynamic systems theory that you and I talked about, you know, before.

It's like the attractor state is now the weight, and you need to overcome it. I'm not going to tell you how. I'm just going to say, pull it, push it, and then let your CNS figure it out as you're practicing and or trying. I would imagine the weight, the heavier the weight, the less movement options the person will have. And with a more nominal weight. The opposite is the opposite. The less the weight, the more movement options they have. Oh, sorry, less the weight. The higher the weight, the less movement options, right? Right. So, say we're trying to get someone to work their glute, let's just say, and the weight is nominal, and they keep squirreling around, and they're really good at getting away from their using other movement options.

I would imagine we'd have to coach a little bit more aggressively in those situations versus just lift the weight, pick the weight up. Does that sound right? So, yeah, and now you need to use your external cues as best as you can. Okay. I know we're now we're jumping back into the dynamic system theory conversation. I do have one more question. Actually, I have two. I actually have two questions I've been meaning to ask you anyways. I'll save the one I've been really thinking about for later, but with environmental being important, is there anything that you've done in the past where, like, you'll use music, lighting, office setting to actually create an environmental experience for this person to succeed in what they're trying to get out of it versus, like, your regular, like, you know, like, surface-based, like, environmental type of things, you know?

I would say the only thing is not really music, but rhythm. And so for those people that are interested in learning more about rhythm, there's a phenomenal book out there called Rhythms of the Brain. It's by a French neurologist. It was published, you know, quite a few years ago. But anyhow, I won't talk too much about it. But if, for example, you have, I'm going to stereotypically say an older person that has fallen several times and now they come into your clinic and you're going to do balance exercises with them because you want to make sure that they can control their balance because they lost balance and then fell.

If you add rhythm to that exercise, like counting, something like that, especially if the rhythm is something they're familiar with, numbers, let them sing, et cetera. If they're rhythmic and it needs to be consistent, so the volume of their voice needs to be the same, et cetera, et cetera, that actually, and this is research-driven, helps to control the rhythm of balance. Because if I'm standing on one foot, although through the naked eye it might look like a stationary exercise, no. There is a constant sway in 360 degrees. And so we're basically testing the range. Too far, come back. In some individuals that struggle with that, adding rhythm to their exercise, I don't know if music would do it.

I mean, maybe it does. Can definitely help them to overcome that challenge. Before we run out of time, I want to make sure that the listeners have a practical application to this. Because really all I've been talking about is lift heavy and don't be afraid to go to fatigue, right? Of course, there's more to this whole topic. But let me go to my slides. And basically, I've developed an exercise progression based on a simple concept. According to a lot of smarter people than myself, we could make a distinction between interoceptors, proprioceptors, and exteroceptors. Intero, inside the body, what we feel here.

Proprio is the activity we're moving and these sensors are giving information. And then exteroceptors, we typically define that as an external source, a weight, a kettlebell, a band, a baseball that affects proprioception. Does that make sense? So, I want to have a sequence of exercise progression. So, I want to leave people with something prior. Love it. Let's see if I can get my slides going here. All right. People might wonder, are these slides going to be available? No, I don't have the rights to this. This belongs to Kabuki Strength. Okay. So, everybody should just write stuff down. Okay.

Well, if you don't mind spending a little bit of money, you go to Kabuki Strength and you can pay some money. I don't know what it is. They have full access to this and the whole presentation I did for them. There you go. Which included a lot more. Here, you remember this guy, right? I don't see your slide yet. Go in San Diego. Go in the – oh, is it going to be DeLuca? Hold on. Yes. I saw that picture in one of your things. All right. Help me out here. How do I share my slides? So, go to the bottom, hit Screen Share, and you'll have to go to – it'll give you a lot of options of things to share.

Desktop, Google Chrome, Finder. Sorry. I had to interrupt. Have me no options. It says, hold disabled participants screen share. Oh, I got to make – I got to let you share. Okay. Here we go. I'm going to make you the host, okay? So, I think the host will have the ability. Right. Try that again and see what happens. Can you see the slides now? Not yet. So, I think – so, go down to share again. So, now I have disabled screen share for myself. All right. I got three options here. Number one, one participant can share at a time, multiple participants. I guess I got to pick that one. I think it's – Okay.

Here we go. You got it? I think I got it. Well, yeah, I think – One second. Here we go. Got it. All right. How much time do we have left, Seth? Let's see. I – like 20 minutes. 20 minutes would be like the hard cut, but I think we'll probably finish further than that. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. So, this slide here, you know, this gentleman actually published this, that effort, force, and heaven is one of the factors related to proprioception. This is 1906. The bottom line is this. We kind of forgot about all of it. We started standing on BOSU balls, et cetera, and forgot that there's other factors related to proprioception that are important.

So, I'm going to kind of quickly go through the slides again. Remember him? I remember. Yeah. That's Allie in the back. Right. Well, not Allie. The dude on the floor. I know. Big Ben, right? Yeah, I see. Yeah, I know. He hated that moment. He was having to – you were screaming at him, push the floor. Exactly. So, I was actually coaching him to get to that level of maximum effort and intensity, right? Heaviness is not a part here because he's not lifting up anything. He's pushing into the floor. Remember that? Right. Let me go further. I got to show off this one. Oh, yeah. Okay. The only way a shrimp like me can do this is maximum effort and maximum intensity.

It's that simple. You know, it's over 100 kilos. So, let me move forward here. This is me and Chris Duffin applying these techniques. Can't talk too much about this. This was at a tractor state anterior wall? Yeah. Okay. And a lot of chiropractors have gotten back to me on this and say, hey, it helps so much with my patients. If their back is too protected and I can't manipulate them, I make them do this and then their back extensors relax so I can do a manipulation. So, with him, it was about increased back tightness and discomfort to the point of pain where he needs a lot of rest between sets because the amount of weight he lifts is astronomical.

And then by actually changing the attractor state to his abdominals, his back extensors basically went to a level of more relaxation and he can lift more. I can say I've used this. I use this a lot or something, other exercises similar for the same thing. I actually used it yesterday. There was someone with like an L1 hinge point creating like a referral to the hip. And we did, we did from Ben Ramos, we did a crossover rolling series with some Passovers. So, it worked really well, no pain after. Yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean, to the lifter and to a lot of individuals, they think back pain is bad, right?

That's our whole culture too. Pain, go see the doctor, get medication, you got to rest, you can't do this anymore. Like you can't lift your own ass out of the chair anymore because that would be dangerous for your back. It's bullshit. As long as there is no red flag where there's real damage, contact sports, car accidents, etc. Then we need to respect these phases of healing. Otherwise, pain is just a sensation. Well, let's change the sensation. Anyhow, that would be a whole workshop in itself. Let me go forward now. So, these are just some examples, right? Kabuki Strength and I actually will do a full weekend workshop at their facility around this.

But I want to leave the listeners with some practical examples. This is me in Korea, for example, working with a professional lifter. And all I'm really doing is this. And that's my level one exercise. I'm putting him in an unstable environment. This guy actually couldn't even stand on one foot without some minor support on this medicine ball. Most people, I try without the ball. Then I put a band around his waist. And I basically slowly but surely add tension to that band. Now, all I'm telling him is, I'm going to slowly pull on this band. And I want you to try to let me pull you out of bounds.

That's simple. I'm not telling them how to do it. Because I like this dynamic systems theory approach. Let that CNS figure it out all on its own. It does much better than we telling them what to do. Let them figure out how to do it. So, let me see if I can frame this real quick. So, this exercise is level one for what problem would the person be demonstrating? This person, back pain. Okay. But, you know what? I use the same exercise if you had ACL repair, etc. Okay. I think we need to get away from this. You got back pain, you need to do this. And if you got knee pain, you need to do something else.

Not necessarily so. Now, early in rehab, when you had ACL surgery and or back surgery, of course, you need to do some specific work. But once they start becoming more functional and the healing phase is to the point where you can actually add some load onto their exercises, I see very few differences between lower extremity injuries, plantar fasciitis, low back pain. Now, it shouldn't be, in my opinion, it shouldn't be that much different. We're trying to create function here or return to function. So, my goal now with this exercise is it's actually an assessment at a screen, I should say, at the same time.

I will then move around this individual repeating the activity to see if one or multiple ranges that he constantly fails in. That's the range I train. So, we're going 360 around him at some point. Yeah, all the way around him. Okay. Single leg stance, one foot on a med ball with a band around his hip. He's not leaning on the med ball. The med ball is some contact. A balancer or a helper. It's an assistance. Yeah. Because he could not stand on one foot, save his life. This guy's specific problem was six years post-ACL, he's still an apprehension to do certain things. Got it. No pain. But I take the screen and then challenge the failures.

Okay. The progression of this is the following. Once he can handle, and you know what? It happens in mere seconds. Okay. Unless they are weak, like I want to stereotypically say an older person, the strength is not a problem with them. They just can't handle what's called a challenge. You can't overcome that. They can't put the pieces together to make that happen. In a weak person, of course, we need to think about strength first, et cetera. But even then, at some point, we need them to become more functional. So we need to still return to this. The scale is just different. You know, in a strong individual, I actually challenge them faster.

In a weak individual, of course, I need to work on strength. If they have pain, I need to also take care of that. But at some point, they all end up here, with me at least. Right? Progression is the following. To overcome this challenge, he also needs to overcome the next level, which is oscillations. So he needs to learn to rhythmically stabilize. Because when he goes back on the soccer field, he needs to overcome feet forward and feet backward challenges. He sees a challenge coming at him. Another player is going to try to tackle him. Or he doesn't see it coming. They try to tackle him from the back.

So we need to work on bold systems. Eyes closed, eyes open, et cetera. Rhythmically, I'm not pulling on this band. First, relatively slow. Because failure is not a good learning process. If I pull him over, he's not learning. And in this guy's scenario, the last thing I want is failure because he's already afraid of failure. Then slowly but surely, I make this rhythmic pulling faster. I'm going to now move around him a lot faster and challenge him. If he needs to learn to control an object because of a sport, like a baseball player, the progression will be the objects that he needs to be able to control.

Catching. So now, his internal model, his prediction model, where the ball is going to end or where he needs to place the ball, needs to be retrained. Internal model. So my author, my primary author in the paper, Myth of Proprioception, D.M. Kim, that's one of his huge interests now. Internal model. Prediction model. And that's going to be part of our new paper. How does that incorporate it in Proprioception? That's a whole other discussion. But it basically means that we need to have the sense of predicting what is going to happen. And then through practice, that internal model, that prediction model, constantly changes, which is normal.

Okay. But in some individuals, they can't predict very well post-injury. Got it. There's a lot of senses going on right now, Dito. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Quite complex. But in reality, the practical application is quite simple. You'll see once I get to the level two and level three that I'll show. Okay. The next level will be, I'm going to make him, I'm going to ask him to jump on both legs, and I'm going to pull him off balance, and he needs to land and stabilize. Again, I'm going to go around him to see if there's any range that he cannot control very well, and then we practice that. And objects that they need to handle in their sport activity come into play, obviously, as well.

And there is more to it, but that's kind of, you know, the simple way for me to explain this level one. Level two becomes a little bit more interesting. And again, the first exercise that I showed on a picture, it looks like a piece of cake, right? Trust me, it will challenge the hell out of you. Like I have strong people struggling like crazy with that level one, but they learn quickly. So it's a very fast progression. So in one treatment session of, let's say, 30 minutes, I might take an individual all the way to level three, when they can control level one and level two. We need to get away from this phase of progression, like week one, do this, week two to four, do that.

Bullshit. The moment they can control it, you progress. As long as it's safe within the healing phases, I keep repeating that. I want people to separate damage to a structure, need to respect healing, and I got pain or I have a dysfunction, but there's no damage. You do your assessment, your clinical assessment. There's no red flag. There's no yellow flag. It's just discomfort. It doesn't mean we can't progress them. The guy here on the video was actually in San Diego. I don't know if you were there at that point. But anyhow, I can't say too many details about him personally, but let's say he's an elite operative.

Okay. Right? Okay. Now, I picked this video specifically because he does a fantastic job, and most clients cannot do this. And I'll explain a little bit the rationale behind this exercise in a second. Let's see if I can activate that video. I'm just there to make sure that if he would lose complete control, that that bar doesn't fall forward. That's it. I'm not holding it, anything. So he is now reaching. Why is this important? Well, other research has shown related to sense, effort, and heaviness that this peripheral contribution to the central nervous system is augmented also by not only fatigue and heavy weights, but also by unilateral activities.

So one arm, one leg activities. Also, other research has shown if the sense of stretch is incorporated within this unilateral work, in this case, I picked reaching, that actually the peripheral sense will be augmented as well. So I kind of came up with this exercise. Actually, it was put in my mind when I was in China, where I watched traditional Chinese military from the past train with these long swords, which was some traditional combat technique from way back, thousands of years ago. And I saw them train and doing similar activities with this. And suddenly it clicked on me. I'm like, holy crap.

Here's a very simple exercise. Although, trust me, listeners, tough to execute if you do it right. That can actually then facilitate the senses the research is talking about. Because these researches really don't give us any practical application. Let me describe this one real quick. Let me describe this. Yeah. How is this exercise done? Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. Oh, no, you got it. First of all, can you see it? I see it. I just wanted to make sure everyone can visualize it. Sure. So as you can see, he's reaching forward, right? And there is a weight on one end on the barbell. Now, he controls this so well, because we practiced it, that actually he can lift his back foot off the ground.

But the research also shows that if you want to incorporate exercises like this, you need to move very, very slowly. Because basically, this is an exercise not only physically, but for your brain. If you do it too fast, which a lot of athletes do, I got to slow them down like crazy, you know, slower, slower, slower. I want to identify if there is a range within that extension, let's call it, that they fail at, and then we practice it. Now, the biggest mistake I see, especially in strong individuals, like a lot of my athletes that I deal with, they bend their elbow to use their bicep. No, I want you to use your whole body to reach.

Now, again, we're going to go around his body to see if there's any range that he sucks at, and of course, we're going to practice right versus left. And screen, I should say, right versus left. Again, folks, this is very easy. I did it in kabuki strength with a power lifter, very strong guy, Juan Martinez. He was sweating bullets doing this. This guy on the video does it with 45 pounds. Juan did it with 25. Oh, yeah. So, strong individuals, when you load up that bar, they think this is a piece of cake. They want more weight. I go, no, no, no, no, no. Let's start something slow, something relatively controllable.

Then we're going to progress with weight. Yeah. There's almost like a landmine right at their foot, and he's reaching with the weight at the top. Yeah. The only thing you want to make sure about is that on the bottom here, this thing doesn't slip. So, don't do it on your kitchen floor. All right? Otherwise, this thing is going to flip up, and you know where it's going to end up. Yeah. He won't be standing there very long. Yeah. Exactly. So, make sure it doesn't slip. Sometimes I use, if the floor is not productive, like I go to the individual's homes or the private gym, and it might not always be the exact floor.

Or, I just put a plate on the floor and then stick that in the hole of the plate. Mm-hmm. Okay. The next level is, hold on. All right. Remember this dude? He's a chiropractor. Oh, yeah. All right. He's a strong individual, right? So, that's the next level. Why? Because the research also shows that uniloads, which I've discussed earlier, are going to be productive in augmenting this peripheral system. So, what I typically do, it's not on the video, I basically ask him, what's your max one RM? And I think his deadlift was over, it was heavy, like 500 pounds or something like that. He's a strong dude.

Then, I typically put two 45ers on the side, and I make him do a couple of slow deadlifts to coach him to be slower, because they're too fast. They want to pick that thing up as quickly as possible. So, a couple of reps, five or 10 reps, right? So, I can coach them to be slower. Then, I make him shift to one side. So, remember, there's still two plates here. And they already start feeling this. Oh, my God. This is very different. It's not heavy. But I'm kind of standing on the edge of the bar. And, of course, the movement arm now changes, right? Biomechanics. And that plate here is, of course, feeling heavier.

The sense of heaviness changes, which forces him to put in more effort. So, let's look at the video. Once he can control that, we look at right versus left, because it's a screen, right? Does he suck on one side, but not on the other side? And in some sports, you can predict it. If they're constantly rotating to the right, they're a baseball player, throw right-handed, hit right-handed, they're going to suck on the left side. So, once that's taken care of, now I'm going to move him over to the side. Now, he saw me picking this thing up like it was easy, because I've done it at all times. And that's the other thing about the research.

The research shows, around effort, force, and heaviness, you want to introduce a novice activity. So, most people have never lifted like this before. Now, he tries to lift it up. And remember, he's a strong dude, right? And I won't put the volume on, because he says some really interesting cussing words. He can't pick it up. He's like, what the F? Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's like a 25 on the end, too. Is that a 45 or a 25? It's a 25, actually. We lowered the weight with him. He couldn't handle 45. Yeah. Strong, dude. All right, let me get back to the video. So, I didn't say anything, but he basically said, F this, and he went closer to the center.

So, basically, decreasing his movement arm. So, watch him shift now. There he is. And now, he can pick it up. He's still too fast. So, you don't hear me. I'm going, slower, slower, slower. And now, let's try the other side again. Strong people like him. Yeah. But here's the interesting part, right? He feels that he can control that. So, research shows that this change in sense and effort, any experienced lifter, or somebody that's been able to overcome loads. It might be a farmer, right? Loads is load. That they quickly change that sense. I mean, it's like he picks it up and he goes, oh, I got it now.

That's kind of what they say or what they think. And then, he immediately shifts back to that longer movement arm. And you'll see he can overcome it right away. Bingo. Yeah. And then, actually, for the hell of it, he wants to know how much he can handle. Now, he does a fantastic job. I'm cueing him to keep – I don't know if you can see this. Let me try the mouse. Here we go. See, the bar is relatively horizontal. And the bar doesn't shift away from him. So, for a lot of people that can handle it, you'll see them shifting away from the center. Like, their arms move to overcome the load. I go, no, no, no.

Keep it in the center. So, that's another common mistake. So, for the joke of it, we call this the alien. You see his abs, right? They just stick out like a sore thumb right now. So, I've also used this now with athletes that had some abdominal strain, groin problems, chronic low back pain. This is purely anecdotal subjective. I've noticed with them that their abdominals and diaphragm expulsion – it's like an alien that comes out, right? – is actually smaller on the injured side versus the non-injured side. Again, this is not research. This is just me having clinical experience and go, oh, we see some difference.

Also, I've used this with people that are weightlifters, powerlifters, Olympic weightlifters as a warm-up now if they have a deficit right versus left in the amount of load that they can handle. And in some individuals, we've seen an immediate increase in their 1RM max. And I'm talking about Olympic weightlifters in Korea. I mean, it's their job. We're not talking about – sorry to say it – some CrossFit Olympic weightlifting guy. No, we're talking about the elite in Korea and now in China. So, I'm a consultant in the Olympic weightlifting organization. And when they have a problem with an individual coming back from injury, whatever the injury is, and they struggle with them to get them back to par, to their max effort so they can compete in the Olympics, et cetera, et cetera, we've actually seen an increase in 1RM max.

30 pounds on an elite lifter like that is huge, right? And I can't mention names on the powerlifters, but the same scenario I've seen. They also tell me after they use this as a warm-up, including Juan when I was at Kabuki Strength, he's like, oh, my God, I feel ready to get in the weight room now and do some serious work. So, maybe it can also be used to decrease their warm-up time. I don't know for sure. It's what they're telling me as feedback. And I'm starting to use it a little bit more as a screen again. I go, let's see if this improves your 1RM max. And in some individuals, it actually has.

Now, related to this activity specifically, another ex-student, Nick Winkleman, of course, he's famous, right, from XOs and then went to Ireland, and he wrote the book on Q&A. As an undergraduate student, when he was with me, he wrote a paper and did a study on bilateral deficit. So, there's very few articles in that, maybe at this moment, 12, 14 research articles. What is bilateral deficit? Well, to explain it in a very simple way, if you train exclusively bilaterally, which a lot of lifters, even recreational lifters do, right? So, they did a deadlift with both arms, both legs on the ground, etc.

There often is a bilateral deficit in strength. So, when you test their unilateral strength, right versus left, if you accumulate that. So, I deadlift 200 pounds in a regular deadlift position. But when I do a one-legged deadlift, right, and then I do it left, the maximum number is sometimes more than the bilateral strength. Does that make sense? If I now train unilaterally more, very often, the research has shown, is your bilateral strength goes up. And vice versa. Some people are training a lot unilaterally and not a lot bilaterally. By improving their bilateral strength, often their unilateral strength goes up.

Now, what is the practical application of this? Well, from a clinician perspective, if there's an injury on one side, then don't be afraid to bilaterally load them up. There's going to be some carryover effect to the weaker unilateral side. So, we shouldn't think consistently around, he's weak on his right side. I've got to train the right side. Well, yes, but maybe you're coming to the point where you hit a plateau. And it's typically seen in ACL repairs. You rehab them on that injured side like crazy. And then they're like 75% of their previous strength or 75% of their non-injured side. And isokinetic tests have demonstrated that since the 70s and 80s.

You know, not a lot of people use isokinetic strength testing or isokinetic training anymore because it's very expensive. And it takes a lot of room and equipment. And you need to learn to interpret the data. But we still need to acknowledge that there is that research out there that have shown for years and years and years that unilateral strength deficits are often a problem in our athletes. And I don't know exactly the number anymore, but I think we need to put them above 75% or something percentage. Otherwise, them tearing their opposite ACL or the same ACL within a time period of two years is very high.

So, that unilateral strength deficit needs to be corrected. And what I'm saying is that by training bilaterally, it can actually help. So, depending on the athlete you work with, if I work with a powerlifter, Olympic weightlifter, I actually want to incorporate this type of work and any unilateral work to improve their bilateral strength outcome. If I work with an athlete that needs to perform right leg, left leg, or right arm, or left arm, let's say soccer players, basketball players, et cetera, then I'm actually going to focus a lot more on bilateral strength improvement to get their unilateral strength out.

Does that kind of make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. So, this activity, this exercise that you see here as a demonstration, can potentially not only help this peripheral feedback to offload your CNS, there is also a very practical application to it. Number one, I can identify unilateral strength deficits. So, he sucks on his right side and does really well on the left side. And if I get into functional progression, I can actually use the same principles to augment either his bilateral strength deficit or his unilateral strength deficit. I don't know if that makes sense. It's a lot of fancy. Good.

I love it. Simple but effective. But these are three kind of progressions that I use. And again, we're going to do a workshop. There's more to it than this. But I think it's a nice start for those that are listening and can see this to try themselves to test these three different exercises. And then rationalize how they can use this potentially with their clients and or patients. Okay. So, if they want to access these slides, they're all at Kabuki, right? They're for purchase at Kabuki, you said? Right. Okay. I do not have the rights to share them with others. Okay. Now, we're going to have a workshop on this, et cetera, et cetera.

There's – I mean, to the listeners, don't be afraid to reach out to me. I can share some of these slides, not the whole packet. I can share information. I can share practical application to their patient population if they go, what about these people? Yeah, I think everyone should reach out to Guido. They should all reach out to you at some point. I remember that there was a listener that reached out to me, and I referenced you. And then you guys talked on the phone, I think, for a long time. I'm not saying you'll talk that long with everybody, but you're very approachable, and I think you'll give everybody what they're looking for if they come to you for it.

Yeah. People don't be afraid to reach out to me. I might not be able to get back to you right away. Sometimes I'm quite busy. Now, with COVID, I can't travel. Most of my work is China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore. And then, of course, the clients that I see all over the world. But I will get back to you. There's no way around it. Now, do I have all the answers to all your questions? Nope. I'm just a student like you are. But when I became 60, I'm 62 now, there was a sense of reality to me. And the sense was this. I'm 60 now, and how many summers are there left? You know, I'm a baseball guy. So, I think in summers, you know, baseball seasons.

Yeah, maybe I'll live another 25 years, but it's only 25 summers. There's not that many. So, I want to share my expertise. I want to share my experiences so people can benefit from this. And then, philosophically, if that is successful, well, I never die. Because people will use some of the stuff that I've learned. Living in the legacy. Well, good. I'm glad that you're going that route. I think you do have a lot of information to share. And I saw that your website changed a little bit, too. People have asked me, like, because I've referenced you quite a few times in the podcast. And I'm like, so I need to find more information on Gita.

What do I find it? I'm like, I looked at your website. I actually bought your e-book the other day, too. And I'm like, oh, she's got the e-book coming. Let's see what's on here. So, yeah. Any, where should they go for, what website should they go to, to get all the information about you and from you? Yeah. The bummer is this. I'm not, I hate all the tech stuff. Like Zoom, I'm a freaking idiot. You know, I started with these things. So, to get some basic information, let's go to the website first, kineticintegrations.com. One word, kinetic integrations. There is some information on there. Yeah, there's an e-book on there.

I mean, the information is outdated, but the information is still basic, meaning a lot of the stuff that we do as clinicians and as strength coaches is based on fundamental principles. And so, the e-book is about 270, yeah, more than that, pages. So, it's thick. And it's the start of my, let's call it philosophy around rehabilitation and or performance. So, people still tell me, man, I know it's 10 years old, but it still has fantastic information. There's also a great little formulae in there, how to calculate the weight that you can use with your patients and or clients. Because a lot of times, we just guess, right?

We look at somebody, and we might ask them, how much have you lifted before? We give them a weight, and off we go. That's pretty pathetic. I think we need to be better at that. So, there's a cool little formulae in there, how you can calculate the starting weight, incorporating things like time that people never have lifted or novice lifters, et cetera. So, people constantly tell me that they picked something out of that book that they use on a day-to-day basis. So, that's helpful. Yeah, useful. From what I've read so far, you're very useful. Thank you. Facebook, again, I haven't been very good at the last couple of years putting stuff on there.

My wife keeps telling me, you need to do this, so it will promote your work, et cetera, et cetera. I'm just kind of a little lazy about that, and for me to spend an hour putting stuff on there is an hour lost. I can do other stuff. I think we should just do the keto podcast. Like, you like telling stories, and you're good at presenting. We should just, I'm going to, I should just buy you a mic and send it over there, and you can, well, the other thing is, now that you bring that up, is Google my name. I mean, there's probably 15 podcasts or whatever out there that you can listen to, presentations like proprioception, movement variability, dynamic systems theory, et cetera, et cetera.

So, it has started to accumulate quite a bit, so people can have a better taste of kind of the generalist that I am, because I attack a lot of things. Yeah. I just, I just want to know more, and then share that. I don't like to give out my phone number. You don't have to. They can, if you screen them on the website, you can. But, you know, I'm sure you can figure it out. Yeah. But it often starts with people sending me an email. So, or contacting me via Facebook as a message. So, email address is one word, safe recovery. I'm not an alcoholic, but that's kind of how I came up with it, safely recovering, because that's pretty much my specialty, is athletes and individuals struggling to return back to normal function.

Safe recovery, guido, at gmail.com. Nice. Go ahead. Just one thing. Don't ask me stupid questions, because then I will not respond. Well, I will respond and basically give you a list of things to read, and then say, read this first, and then get back to me. The professor in you. So, try to be specific. Try to be specific on what you want to learn. I'm a bookworm and a research article worm, meaning I have hundreds of thousands of articles. I'm not kidding. And probably over 500 books. So, I'll give you good resources, or if you're really interested to learn things. So, don't try to reach out to me only for, I have a problem.

Can you help me to fix it? If you want just more knowledge, if you say, wow, I listened to your proprioception thing. I want to learn more about it. I'll be more than happy to share stuff with you so you can self-learn. Perfect. Well, thanks for being on, Guido. And then, the last thing I'd like. Yeah. Go ahead. So, yeah. Watch out for Kabuki Strength for that workshop, which will be a lot more than just this hour presentation and some demos and videos and pictures. Let's see what else. I got some workshops planned in Florida and Tampa, probably in May. I'm not sure yet, but I'll have a conversation this afternoon with those organizers.

I have an academy, which is a four-year college-level program. So, if you're interested in anything related to performance and or clinician, I hate to say it, but I'll probably have something on it. And then, I can share that information with you, or at least partially, if I own the rights to it to share it. Okay. Well, I'll put some links in the show notes so everyone can reach out a little easier. But I'll send you an email a little later today to make sure I have the links right. Does it sound good? Perfect. And if you have a client and or athlete you're struggling with, and there is enough money for me to come over, we can do personal things.

If you want me to come over and do a workshop with you a day, a week, a weekend, if you want to do anything on Zoom, fine. Duke University, actually, in April, will do a presentation on proprioception, the whole concept. I don't know if they shared it with the public, but, you know, it's high-level universities and organizations that have me as a consultant or as a lecturer, University of Oregon, Oregon State University, a lot of other, you know, educational institutions often incorporate some of my knowledge to their students or staff or staying at Asian staff, clinicians, et cetera. I'm always available.

Like I said, I'm 62 now. I'm running out of summers. So, pick my brain. One of these days, I'm not going to be here anymore. I don't want this stuff to be lost. Yeah. Well, I'll plan on having you on again. We'll do this soon. And you can always use this podcast as a sounding platform if you want, okay? Perfect. Okay. Thank you so much, Seth. Yeah. I'll talk to you in a little bit or I'll email you a little bit, okay? Sounds good. All right. Thanks, Guido. All right. Bye. Thanks to the listeners as well. Bye-bye. Guido, thanks so much for being on. I guess I didn't get to ask. The one question that I needed to ask is that if I had a patient right after we got off the phone.

So, I'll have to ask you maybe in private. I guess to allude to it, when I went to a Guido workshop, he started out the workshop by talking about how pain as well as movement or mobility is very, it's more complex than we really know. And so, he asked everyone to, he's going to give a demonstration of this. And so, he asked everyone, there's like 15 people there. And so, he said, bend forward, touch your toes. I want to find someone with a lack of hamstring length or mobility. And so, everyone bent forward and clearly there was people who couldn't touch your toes, including myself. And so, I don't know if he's looking for something, but he selected one person.

He's like, no, no, no, no. Yes, you come up here. And so, he picked the person, laid them on their back, supine, and he tested their hamstring length. And it was, let's just say their hip flexion with knee extension was like 45 degrees. Like, it wasn't good. You know, it wasn't painful, but it wasn't good. And so, he asked everyone, he said, okay, who's going to watch? I want you to time me. I'm going to wiggle his ear for a minute. And so, we're just kind of BSing and stuff. And he's wiggling his ear and, you know, it's like, what is this going to do? And so, after the minute was up, he put, he tested his hamstring length.

And I'm not shitting you, it was at like 90 degrees. And so, he said, this is more, there's a little bit more to it than just, you know, structure. So, I need to figure out the answer and how that trick, because I need to be able to wow people when I'm at a bar. Just let them see. So, anyways, I will ask that on another day. And if I find the solution, I'll let you guys know. So, anyways, reach out to Guido at kineticintegrations.com. He has a lot of topics to present on, as he mentioned. And actually, probably if you guys are looking for that, I'll probably share that answer on the premium podcast.

I know every week I've been talking about the premium podcast that I have, which is an adjunct to this podcast. It doesn't change what you're getting in this free podcast, but it gives you a little bit extra. So, I'll probably share the answer to that wiggle ear question once I get it in that one. If you're wondering what the premium podcast is, I'm going to share tidbits. They're about 15-minute segments that I do, release on Mondays, which are case presentations where I'm fresh out of the room. And we can kind of discuss how I did well and how the patient did well, patient questions, or I did poorly.

To be honest with you, I don't think I'm, I know everything. I just think there's ways to improve. And I think I can share in my experience a little bit what can help you guys improve yours. And I do believe that, as Guido mentioned at the very end, we need to share information going forward. I'm 38. I do have a lot more summers left, hopefully. But at the same time, I see what benefit my interns get from the learning experience that they have at the office. I call it our dojo. So I'm hoping that I can extend that a little bit more to you guys. And if you like what you hear, keep subscribing. It's cheap.

And hopefully you like it. So you can go down to the show notes and click on any of the show notes. Or sorry, the show notes will have links to all of Guido mentioned as well, as well as the premium podcast, if you want to do so and support the show. So I'll see you guys next week. Thanks for being part of the movement.