Training and Lifting Around a Tight or Strained Hamstring

This is session number 71 of the Performance Place Sports Care Podcast. You know what really salts my apples? Welcome to the Performance Place Sports Care Podcast, where you can learn about sports injury theory, rehab, diagnosis, and how to understand the doctor lingo you didn't understand at your appointment. And now, your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Sebastian Gonzales. I'm your host. What salts my apples? Oh, my God. Actually, you know what? I think one thing that drives me absolutely insane, and it's nothing about anything of the way that it's done, but it's just my neuroticism as I go through this whole experience is those yellow feet at the airport.

And if you've been flying and you go through that, what is it now? It's almost like a biometric scanner or something like that. They don't just wave into the meld detector anymore. But going through, it's funny, like, this whole security TSA thing to me is the worst because they rush you through, which is fine. Everyone's in line. By the way, this is nothing against TSA. It's just the experience of the airport. But I got to take my belt off, so my shorts or pants are falling down a little bit, and I got to shove them into the thing. I got to make sure to take my shoes off. And then, and then you look around, and I remember I saw this one girl one time.

It's like that whole region in the airport right there is where everyone decides to take off their shoes. And for me, like, I don't have a foot phobia. I mean, I work with people. I work on injuries. But at the same time, I don't really want to walk in the highest traffic region of people's foot zone, honestly. And I remember I saw this one girl one time that she had flip-flops on. She took them off, and all of a sudden, she curled her feet up, and she's up on the sides of her feet and kind of, like, walking like a penguin and stuff. You can tell she was very uncomfortable. And I thought, why did you not wear socks to the airport?

I mean, I legitimately have airport socks that I wear because I know I do not want to touch them again after I go through the airport. So, anyways, those yellow feet going through there, I actually kind of jump on there and just kind of half-ass the foot position because that right there is the highest traffic of foot traffic, literally foot traffic, in the entire world, probably. Those yellow feet. So, never without fail, and I tell people before I go there, I say, look, I'm going to go through there and watch. They're going to say, sir, can you put your feet on the yellow feet? And I go a little bit wider.

And they're like, sir, can you go directly on the yellow feet? And I think, oh, man, this is the worst. This is the absolute worst. Okay, I'll put my feet in those yellow feet. So, I probably have nightmares about those stupid little yellow feet. But, anyways, I appreciate what you guys do, TSA, but at the same time, I hate going through there. I hate going through there. So, thanks all for coming on. This has been a great month, the podcast, and I've had some great guests on. I'm going to have another great guest on today. He is going to be talking about hamstring training or training around hamstrings.

And you're going to hear throughout the entire podcast that I'm trying to pin him down to, like, what would you actually do for that one area of the body? But it's really just the collective ideas that we have to train the entire body as a whole. It's hard to separate, you know? So, the guest is going to be Brennan Gassamia. He was referred to speak with me by a good colleague and friend who was actually on session number 31. So, we're going to learn a lot today. But before we actually get into it, I want you to actually do me a huge favor, and I want you to tell me what you think about the podcast.

I want you to go on iTunes or whatever listening platform you're actually on. Scroll down and actually just rate this. It could be five star. Wink. It could be four star. Kind of like a grimace. But, you know, honestly, I just want to hear what you all have to say, okay? So, give me feedback. Tell me what you want to hear about because I do read those things. What you should be listening for today, though, is that if you're a clinician, a doctor, a trainer, and you've had this conversation many times with clients, then it is something that, I mean, you might as well just send them to this podcast.

Send it directly to them right now after you've decided that this podcast is actually something that you'd like to hear about or that they should hear about. So, I believe that we shouldn't have to say I have the same conversation all the time. And we really dug into the topic here at hand today. So, please share it with the public. A lot of times I think this miscommunication and poor knowledge that the public has about their injuries is because we don't share things such as this. So, if you're a patient, if this sounds like it's something that you're experiencing, then you should probably go see someone first for an assessment, as always.

And then we can build a program around it a lot of times. And that is the biggest thing that people don't understand a lot of times is that they feel like they can manage their own thing. And I know that for a fact with me that even I get too close to my injury and I have a hard time programming for it. Now, lastly, before we get to the interview, I want to remind all the docs, clinicians, and trainers out there that this is a part of an educational series that I'm trying to move forward with. This is the audio version, obviously. There are podcasts that come on every week. Please subscribe. There are videos.

This year, I don't know about next year, but this year, there's videos that go on every single day. And I'm trying to correlate them to the podcast or the topic of the month, which I don't know if I'm going to be able to continue with because this is a lot harder to do. But you hear Brennan today is going to speak about a bunch of different types of exercises or movements, and I'm going to try to reference all of them. And he's going to do a little bit of a video recap for me. So, that's all stuff for you guys to learn and share. Lastly, also the visual thing, which if you haven't seen the posters on my site yet, I'm starting to design posters that are designed to help clinicians and trainers create.

And understand, but also to buy in. We want clients and patients to understand why they are required to do what we're asking them to do. And I honestly believe that we shouldn't be treating clients and patients as children. We should build some responsibility with them, and they'll only fare better from that. So, this higher level of education, I want them to understand, these are all tools for that. So, go on to ptsportscare.com slash shop, and you'll see all these posters, smaller ones, also vinyl banners as well. So, these are all for you guys to help educate your patients and get everyone just collectively to start working as a better, healthy community.

So, thank you all for listening in. I am very gracious of you taking an hour or so out of your day to hear me and my guests. So, without any further ado, let's get straight to our guest. All right, here is the interview with Brennan Gassamia. Brennan, say what's up. Hey, how are you? Excellent. Thanks for coming in. I don't always get people actually in-house with it. Mm-hmm. So, we are... Well, actually, tell me what you did today. We're going to start with a little bit of... Well, you know, today, usually Wednesday is a pretty busier day, and so I actually got to start off with a VO2 max test on...

Yourself? ...client. No. Oh. No, not on myself. I haven't done one in a few months, so I'm kind of avoiding those. But I'm doing it on a new client, and then I had a first session following that with that same client, so that's always nice to kind of meet somebody new, assess them, and kind of see how the first workouts go and how they really move, even if you know that person. And other than that, a few regular clients that are on Wednesdays, and that's always great. What's their... So, you work at Equinox over in SoCal. So, I guess people could be listening all over here, so we don't know where they're at.

So, how long have you been there? I've been there for three and a half years now, and I also spend my time off time at Starz, which is down in Anaheim, which is a performance-focused facility. And I've been there for now two years, so I kind of split time there, but primarily Equinox. What made you want to... Like, what was the journey like to actually become a trainer? Oh, for me, I mean, it's been a lot. It's really been a lot of different focuses that all led to the fact that this was something that you could do long-term. I started off as... I've been a football player all my life. In high school, I got to play in college.

I was extremely injury-prone, actually, when it came to really large injuries. Both my ACLs have been torn, my meniscus have been cut out, and my shoulder labrums have been torn on both sides. God, you got a lot... Yeah, I'm like a bionic man at this point. You were probably, like, Gumby at the time. Like, you're just, like, extremely... I mean, I didn't know that the knee could go in the frontal plane that well, but I proved everybody wrong. So, yeah, you know, I kind of started off as that, so that shifted my focus to physical therapy a lot during playing. And I started to gain an interest in the human body and how my poor movement mechanics and my poor behavior patterns on rehabilitation, regeneration, and things like that were leading to really large injuries that took me out of my own identity.

And from there, you know, my college major was in exercise science, so I'm pairing both my own experience with education of just understanding anatomy and different biomechanics and some general courses. From there, I took it to a master's degree to focus on sport and exercise psychology because, you know, again, relating it to myself and what mentally an injury did for me. I wanted to learn more about how to untap that fear again and how to bring in the coaching side that related to the biomechanics and the anatomy of movement. And, yeah, I mean, I guess over that time started working as a trainer and as a physical therapy aide, and that just kind of built into being a full-time performance coach.

So what made you not want to then do actual physical therapy and go more to actually the – I guess I would call training more like the movement or performance side. But did you not want to work with injured people or was there more freedom or like is there a reason? That's a great question. I mean, I definitely switched back and forth a lot throughout college, I'd say, the most of do I want to go down physical therapy or do I want to go down development? And as I was working in the physical therapy clinic, I started to really enjoy that, but I enjoyed more of the return to activity aspect of it.

So once those patients were coming in and they got to tell me how they were able to run again after their knee surgery or things like that, I started to realize that that was something I wanted to try to develop in people again. And the performance side of things from an athletic perspective has always enticed me more. So, you know, I figured let me see where this development side goes and if I could work closely with the rehab side and build a bridge with that to understand more, that'll be really nice as well. Yeah, well, that's good. I think you made the right choice. I mean, you went to the same seminar I did.

You were handpicked by Cody Dimak for this podcast. Oh, man, Cody Dimak, too. That's a pretty big honor. He's a great guy. So, yeah, I mean... I almost surprised you. Like, I know he's working today, but I was going to let him know, hey, this is the day we're doing Brennan, so why don't you just come in and heckle at him? Oh, man, he can heckle, too. I actually threw him off his flow yesterday during his workshop because a co-worker threw away the ball that I was sitting on and threw him off his flow. So, I think today, if he did come, he would let me have it, too. So, I'm glad you didn't do that.

No, no, I'd back you up. I can't... Big guys, I don't know. Well, I wasn't going to manhandle him. I was just going to bring him down mentally. Everyone, if you want to hear that, there is... Cody Dimak is in on podcast. I think he's around, like, number 25 or something like that. So, you can search down there for that. But, so, Brennan, the reason I wanted to have you in, at least for... So, when I asked Cody Dimak about who would be a good person to talk to about how to train, move, and lift around hamstring injuries, or at least perceived, whether they're real or not, hamstring injuries, which I'm sure we'll go into that.

Tell me your experience of working with people like that. You know, I'd say there's two ends of the coin with that. I've worked with an athletic performance where you're really watching, you know, sprinting and jumping where the hamstring is involved in some way. And it's... You see dysfunction at a high threshold area. So, I have some experience with that. Not rehabbing it, but trying to work around it and trying to find ways to improve the mechanics rather than perfect them. But with general population, which I'd say I have a lot more exposure to, you know, you get a lot of people that have, you know, that perceived hamstring injury or full-blown hamstring injuries that occur.

Or maybe a general activity like playing with their kids. And you could see it coming almost as with their movement patterns and their overall posture, how they're sitting, and what their lifestyle dictates with a sedentary lifestyle and things. So, I'd say I have a lot of experience with almost dysfunction of the hamstring and trying my best to take away the overall injury risk that general population tends to have. And I don't want somebody, you know, chasing around their kids and popping a hamstring. So, if I can develop some strength and some open movement to it, then that's really the goal with that.

I feel like the best remedy is probably just to hobble children so they can't move so fast. Yeah. Yeah, just like hold them down. Just be stronger, I guess. Yeah, right. Corral them. Yeah. So, then... So, you said you can almost see it coming. Then, is there a certain way these people will present things they'll say? So, when the listeners are listening in here, I want them to think this is me or this is not me. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, I'd say with my own assessments, I guess I can see things. And in their movement, like every movement, as we know, is an assessment. It doesn't have to be a peer assessment like the FMS.

And it can be something like a lateral side bridge, which you can start to see from a clinical side and from a practitioner side. We can see that things are coming. But, you know, I like to try to see their general movement even with me. So, something as simple as how they pick up their weight in an unrelated movement, like a farmer carry, let's say. Like how they pick up their weight can tell me a lot about what they're doing in the rest of their day. And with clients that, you know, report that their back may be tight or that they've been sitting too long and they kind of feel almost soft in the middle.

Those are things that I like to look for where, you know, maybe there's something going on with the posterior chain altogether. But it could be focused a lot more on, you know, lack of hamstring strength or even, you know, lack of hip mobility and things. But I try to listen to how their day is going and some different feedback that they're giving me during movement. So, you know, I really feel my glutes on this one. Or, you know, they try to name out muscles, which is always great. And I love the awareness. But it's when you lose that awareness of feeling in the movement that we need to address.

And I want them to at least have that sensory feeling of it. Well, let me reiterate then, or for everybody then. So, the sensory awareness, what's that all about? Well, you know, when I, you know, let's say, for instance, I have them doing a glue bridge. Okay. And this could be from movement prep, could be during the exercise. If they tell me, like, their hamstring is cramping up or their back is tightening up, then I know there's something going off with either their posture or their overall activation with the movement. So, it's more of their own reporting that they'll give me telling me that something feels tight, something feels loose, something's cramping up during movement.

But when it comes to how they tell me their day is going or little things that they're reporting to me with a client that's in pain or just somebody that wants to kind of improve their posture and improve their overall quality of life. You know, I hear things over time, just some success stories and some other ones where they almost feel overly tight from just a general movement that doesn't really warrant it, such as golf. Golf's a big sport in the general population. Once we get older, we start to, you know, we're doing a golf swing without really understanding, like, where our body is really supposed to move.

So, that's actually a lot of cases. I get gentlemen that will say they cramped up their hamstring on like a chip. With golfing? Yeah. With a chip. Yeah, with like a chip. I'm like, what kind of chip are you doing? But it's that emotion that they can find a lot of cramping coming up. But that's when they start to report it to me. That's when I understand that their own general movement without it being within the session is really important for me to address. So, then when people are, I think it's an important point you made there where you're saying it's the movement could merit a certain type of sensation.

So, should day-to-day life, such as sitting, walking, sleeping, let's just leave out chasing kids, could those, do you think those should merit any sort of single-sided tightness or two-sided tightness? I mean, because people probably think, well, this is just normal life. This is how it is. And they might not tell you, right? Yeah. So, I mean, is there anything of those normal activities that would actually be of merit? Yeah. You know, like sitting and sleeping. What was the third? Like walking. Yeah. Let's go with that. I don't want to go with exertion yet because that'll be a whole different story.

Yeah. So, I'd say walking, I don't feel like people are aware enough of maybe the lower half as they are of their overall posture. And typically, people usually address like how their chest or their spine is feeling in walking and in sitting. So, I feel like people don't really have too much awareness down there. But, you know, there is a lot of merit to the fact that when we sleep and when we sit and when we walk, there is going to be some tightness there. And, you know, like we talked about, sometimes the tightness can be in our head. But, sometimes true muscle tightness can be addressed through movement and through, you know, soft tissue manipulation and things of that nature.

But, you know, we all need to understand that the way we shift, the way we choose to sit in a chair and the way we choose to sleep will have some sort of long-term effect. Does that mean it's always going to be negative? No. And, you know, are there asymmetries to be expected in somebody's left hamstring to the right hamstring or how their glute works and things? Like, you know, we shift in our chair and if we consistently do that over year and year and year, it's going to have some sort of an effect. Whether that's a red flag, I don't feel like that's always something to bring up. But, if it gets to the point where it's a red flag and they actually address it, you know, and sitting is something that becomes almost painful to do or so discomforting that they want to stand up, then that's definitely something where we can address it more directly.

So, when people start working with you, is it common at all for them to, like, leave stuff like that out? And just because their goal, I'm guessing their goal to come to you, a lot of them, general population, is just to probably look better and feel better secondarily. Yeah. And so, they want to get a sweat on, right? I mean, do they ever leave that history part out? Yeah, I'd say the general client that has the goal of, you know, lose weight, build muscle, look better, isn't going to have as much heightened awareness of the little things that go on in their day. Like, are they moving on a constant basis and are they doing things that involve a full body, good posture?

Their sitting is not something that they're really worried about or they feel relates to what we're going to do in the gym. Because when we get into the gym, their mindset is, it's time to, you know, have an intense workout, sweat a lot, and, you know, the result I expect is to lose weight and burn body fat. And, but, you know, they're, I'd say for the general population that has experienced any sort of major injury, that's when they will bring up those little things constantly. And I love the fact that they had that heightened awareness, that heightened awareness is almost a mandatory once you're injured.

Second, you're injured, wherever it is, you are highly aware of that area. You start getting crazy about thinking about it. Yeah, yeah. Suddenly, everything you do, you can suddenly feel that area and you're wondering like, why? You know, it's always been there, but now you feel pain, so your body's just sending you that little reminder. And that's when I get a lot of people that bring up the way they sit, the way they sleep, and how their shoulder felt all funny when they fell asleep, and so on and so forth. So, you know, it kind of takes that little bit of a extra feedback for those clients that may not be as aware of, you know, the little things that go on in a day, that I need to be maybe a little bit more demanding of how they pick up things, or bringing more awareness to their overall posture, how they're walking, you know, when they come in.

So, you know, that just kind of takes time. Okay. So, just to kind of bring things back a little bit, since we started on hamstrings, and so we're changing it out to whole body and movements. So, just to make sure everyone understands that we're still on the same podcast, can you explain how their movements and the body as a whole correlates to their hamstring tightness or injury? Yeah. Yeah, totally. I mean, so, painting a picture for the general population, we are a sedentary population. When we're sitting down, we are in a shortened position on the hamstring. We are in sometimes a slump position, and we're kind of bringing kyphotic.

This will be on video, by the way, over there. So, if you want to emphasize those. We're in a kyphotic position, and obviously now bringing that into an upright posture, we are now taking that into movement, the poor posture that we're having. And it is affecting the overall strength and usage of our hamstring. So, when, again, client comes in, we're starting to warm up. If they start to feel overactivity of the hamstring, when we're not even directly affecting that, like a glute bridge or like a squat, and they're starting to feel perception of a hamstring tightness, that's when we need to really intervene with how are they sitting, how are they walking.

That's when things in the session are starting to focus on that more. And I start to change the position. I start to change how they're resting, maybe, and starting to enforce a better posture so that I know that they're getting better movement overall out of the hamstring without either overactivity or just, you know, lack of awareness. Yeah. Well, this might sound like a ridiculous question, but I'll ask it anyway. So, someone's probably out there thinking, with a glute bridge and a squat, I thought I was working my hamstring. So, what should I be working? What should I be feeling, if not the hamstring?

You know, I, and that's a great question because, you know, you and I understand that, like, we want to not really feel anything when we're doing a squat. We don't want to feel one area light up where the other is dead. But if you're feeling an overstretching of your hamstring, you know, in a squat, you know, or a deadlifting motion, a deadlifting motion, I guess, would say is a little bit more common that people were saying, ah, you know, hamstring is really tight today. And usually, just intervening and mobilizing the hip really helps. But when we're doing a squat and a glute bridge and things, we want our mover to be coming from the hip.

Therefore, our glute wants to get tight at the top. Our core needs to be nice and braced and down rather than here and overextending. And when it comes to the hamstrings of those movements, there's tightness, but there shouldn't be, like, an over-twitch because that's just a dysfunction in itself. So just be like, so you should feel something working probably everywhere, but nothing should scream at you or say, I need to stop because of this one section. Yeah, yeah, and if there's one section of, like, a compound movement, you know, and you're only focusing on one, almost like an isolation movement, like a bicep curl.

Yeah. Then, obviously, you know, top or bottom is not working at all or overworking and there's some tightness there. And that alone will tell me that I need to regress that movement, whatever it is, in order to gauge just a little bit more overall movement. So I will regress how, whatever the squat is and whatever the bridge motion is to something that's just a little bit easier for them. Yeah. To do. And now a word from our sponsor, Health IQ. Did you know that higher levels of physical activity, like running, is actually associated with reducing risk of seven, seven different types of cancer?

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So you brought up a good point there. So you brought up compound movements. Wait, is it compound or complex? I forget the... I take both of them. I was like, okay, you're talking about squat, dead, lunge, and everything. Yeah, so with that then, so if someone was having feeling tightness in a region, and we'll stick with a hamstring example, is there a reason to do an isolated, like say hamstring curl, and I don't want to bash on the hamstring curl, but an isolated single joint rather than a global body movement, or which would you rather pick for most people? I know everyone's different. So, you know, when it comes to the hamstring, I definitely love training it as an isolated movement, but I want to pair it with a postural hold of some sort.

So the Nordic hamstring curl has gained some popularity over time. In my opinion, not many people do the Nordic hamstring correctly. I'll be the first one. It's hard as hell, man. Hell yeah. It's so hard that people don't realize, like, we're trying to do it, but, you know, most people break at the hip or overextend, and I'm doing the same thing. I'm trying to work on them to see where, like, where I can adjust it for just a general client, general population. I can't give it to anybody because my own hamstrings are, like, they're feeling like they're getting torn up, and I have no control of it.

You know, my favorite movement to come with actually isolating the hamstring is eccentrically loading it, but in a bridge where I could slide my feet away slowly. So if you were to lay on your stomach and do a hamstring curl, now you're just bringing it back the other way. Good thing about that is that you know you're going to keep a pretty neutral spine during that time. You can keep bridged up, and once you extend out, I at least know that your hamstrings are going to be focused on mostly in that movement while we're also bracing our core, tightening up our glutes, and we're holding a pretty positive posture.

So that's like, actually, you don't have a video about that. Anywhere? Have you? No. Unfortunately, I don't. I'll try to find one. I'll link one. But I'm assuming you're talking about, so face up, hips up, knees bent, and then imagine like on a Swiss ball, letting the Swiss ball roll out. Yes. Something like that. Or even a taller gliders on the floor. Because then you can get more of like the neutral glute bridge, drive up, so now you just slowly slide out. You know, people have a lot of control of that, so they can only go three seconds at times. They can bump it all the way up to 10 seconds.

The good thing is, is that they have room to adjust from rep to rep on how they're feeling. Oh, cool. Yeah. And that mainly came from the CFSC. You know, Mike Boyle was talking about it and actually kind of brought up why Nordic Hamstring curls weren't as beneficial as this type of movement. Because Nordic Hamstring curls are just honestly too hard. Yeah, they are. For a lot of people. I've had people like do them into like, we'll put like a bench in front of them. But like the benches, I don't know how I have benches, but I mean, they don't, they're not going very far and they're definitely not going past 45.

Yeah. So it doesn't take much. Yeah. So it's not even getting to the, like the biggest tension arm of the movement. So, you know, if people want to use that as a progression and they feel as though they have benefits and also like bringing in those parameters, I find it to be a great tool to isolate hamstring strength. But when it comes to actual like isolation of just that one motion, I feel like I'm going to go with what's going to give them the best opportunity without overworking other areas. Yeah. So before we started, um, before we started the podcast, we were talking about, um, neural tension and I'm not going to pin you down to answer this fully, but cause I know that, um, it's going to be important to talk about in this setting.

Um, can you talk about, uh, your understanding of the feeling of tightness versus actual tightness? Yeah. You know, um, and Cody DMACC has been a great component of this, uh, especially with him being such a frequent resource of this and also giving us a lot of insight on how posturally and how we're, uh, we're overstretching things. And, uh, you know, the, uh, the mental side of tightness can be some sort of a guarding mechanism in some cases where if they had a bad back or they just hurt their back, suddenly the hamstrings are always tight. Um, if they've been sitting so long that they're almost numb on their posterior chain and then the second you kind of try to activate it with an ASLR or even foam rolling, it's almost like an over sensation cause it's the first time you're waking it up all day.

And so when you get to that point where it's almost either overly sedentary or overly used, then people are going to perceive that as, you know, this, this area is extremely tight. Therefore, I need to stretch this on a constant basis when in actuality, posterior chain overall, especially the hamstring, we want to try to find some strength there and control overall. So, you know, I, I'd say the injury aspect or the sedentary and first awareness type of aspect of people's perception of tightness is the best way that I can think of it. When it comes to the clinical side, what you, what you guys do, I, I think it's amazing the type of tests that you guys can do that are just so simplistic that show people that, Hey, this can be in our head.

This is a guarding mechanism of some sort. We need to figure out the route of why you're guarding this area. And, you know, I've had back injuries and, um, even hamstring pulls where I've had those tests of just pulls of skin like you guys do. And it has taken away a lot of that sensation. So for me and my own experience, I am realizing that people's just are going to hype, like have a lot of sensation there and we're going to perceive it as tightness when really the body just moves all the way up. Yeah. Sometimes. Well, I think what I learned, um, is that like seeing like you hit your, hit your knee onto a coffee table, like you immediately grab it, rub it.

Yeah. You know, it's so it's a, it's a, I think it's an immediate thing for us to do, but I don't always think it's, it's like rubbing it is not going to do anything. Um, and, uh, just to, just to recap on that, uh, the, the testing thing that you said, um, there's like, we have, but I don't know if, uh, Cody talked to you about this at all, but we talk about buy-in sometimes and, uh, you guys did talk about it. Oh, well, I mean, the whole concept of trying to create that buy-in from what you guys do. Yeah. Please continue. Well, cause it's very, it's, it's interesting that like, even though there's, there's a lot of validation out there that, that stretching of that region, let's talk about hamstring then is not needed.

People continue to do it like most people do it. Yeah. So I guess our goal with that is that if we can get someone in with those sensations that change with something other than stretching, we've created like a trigger in the brain, like, holy shit, it could be something else. And then, then we push them down the path of doing something else, like what you guys do or what you do. I guess there's only one of you here. What we all do right here. There's a lot of people in the back. Yeah. There's a whole crowd back there. There's a whole grandstand. Um, well, so I wrote, I wrote a list of random questions that I was really trying to, um, I haven't dumped this on everybody, but, um, believe Cody's going to get a bunch.

He's going to get worse ones than this. Good. Would you rather have no knees or no elbows and why? No elbows because I feel like I need to be able to like move my lower body. I need to be able to be motor, like have a motor and travel a lot more. I feel like if I don't have knees, I can't really do that as well. And also I can, I can do something with this. As long as the shoulder moves, I can grab something, you know, I can get something done. I guess so. Well, I don't know. I feel like if you, I mean, I was recently on crutches, so it actually took out, uh, well, taking the leg out, took out the arms out too.

I tried to go shopping and pick up like a, like a water bottle and it wasn't working. I've had, uh, yeah, I've been in crutches a few times. It's the worst. You, you feel debilitated. Everything is slow trying to move, but I still would say no elbows. Um, that's a great question though. Yeah. No, I, I got, I got to, I got to move my legs around for sure. I'll, I'll, I'll be too sedentary. I'll lose my mind. Yeah. You didn't have a problem in having like those, what are those? I don't know what kind of capacity people have, like dexterity of fingers to like change channels and like, so how would you deadlift?

How would you load a hip hinge with no hands? How would I load a hip hinge with no hands? I mean, the good morning is something that I don't program too often for people, but banding around the neck. Oh yeah. And having a slight band. Uh, the GHD is always a pretty solid option if I'm not being able to hold anything with my arms. Ah, how else? I mean, I got to find some sort of like a back strap for that person. Like, let me band it around her back, put it around the bar. And just pray to God. I'm not going to injure them. Yeah. Right. Like think of all the compound movements that you couldn't do anymore.

I guess you can push. I don't know how you'd pull. I would do hip thrusters and bridges with them until the cows came home, I guess. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, we, I would have to hold their weight on the barbell, but at least, you know, they can get some sort of posterior chain exercise without having to grip anything. You could almost just sit on them instead of the barbell. I mean, it looked a little, my little, look a little weird. I think we're bringing up like other issues that like could put me in trouble. But I mean, I guess like if worse came to worse, like I'll sit on them. Yeah. Add some weight.

It's heavy though. There's been a couple of patients here that like in the beginning, like I'll feel comfortable enough to where I'll like, we do a face down test called Sorenson's. I don't know if you've heard of that one. It's a, they're face down. Um, imagine like a, so they're hanging off of a table with their belly button off and then just have to hold basically reverse plank position, but I don't want to hold them. So I sit, I sit on, so it's just some of them. Yeah. That's kind of funny actually. So you said, you said posterior chain a couple of times. So let's go down that route and just, um, explain what is encompassing the posterior chain for people that don't know.

You know, I, I consider the posterior chain actually starting up from the middle, middle back area. You know, it can even be the entire, uh, back muscles if you want to include it, but middle back all the way through down to the calves, the calves, again, I still consider, but from hamstring to lower mid back is, you know, a main area that I'm talking about. If I start to bring up posterior chain for people, but you know, everything back there, everything that you can't see in the mirror. Okay. I'm just, I just went straight to tattoos for some reason. Yeah. No, I, I mean, the posterior, I mean, obviously your posterior chain is going to come all the way down from the Achilles and everything, but I'm considering more main muscle groups, hamstrings, glutes, erectors.

Yeah. I guess I never, I never really think the, uh, the calf or the, uh, I hate saying calf, oh, that backside is of the light. Oh shit. I can't say leg either. That is leg. Thigh. Yeah. Okay. So I don't think of the calf as being posterior chain, but I guess, I guess you're right. Um, it's not something that I would, I'm actually talking about if I tell, if I bring up the term posterior chain, but like, I guess it goes into consideration at least, but what I'm addressing, if I'm saying, Hey, we're trying to work on strengthening your posterior chain, we're talking hamstrings, glutes, erectors up to the middle back so that the lats can be addressed too.

Do you, do you ever think anybody can be posterior chain dominant? Have you seen a lot of athletes? Yeah. Um, if anything, um, not, not too much general population, I guess. I, I, I think you can be, but I think that would take a lot of time and not a lot of sitting or in knee flexion movements. I guess they, they would probably have a pretty flared up open scissor like posture if they were overly dominant on the posterior chain, but I haven't seen it enough for them, for people to be like that. I, I see, I've noticed a lot on, uh, I was talking to, do you know, do you know Richard Ohm? He's a, um, Cody, you'll know him.

Um, but I had him on the podcast. We were talking about, um, extension dominance or extension compensation rather. Um, but he was, he was mentioning with, with lifters, especially like, um, Olympic lifters, CrossFitters, like they, they have, they don't want around, so they overemphasize too much extension. But then he said, they were saying, um, that something that can control that is internal pressure. So the breathing mechanics of it, but, um, he was the only person I ever heard say that. And I'm like, Oh, that's pretty interesting. So, you know, with, and I can, I can definitely see that with like a weight lifter or somebody like a recreational CrossFitter, like they are almost fearing the, the lumbar dump and the spinal flexion.

So they're going to overly correct, um, in athletes, I see it a lot in a receiver and more of the track style receiver that typically it has trouble, uh, changing direction actually because they're so here and they're almost pushed back and like open civic forward, um, rather than being able to create any sort of a knee drive, their back, uh, recovery stride is extremely long. Yeah. They can like kick their, their heel to their ass. Yeah. But if you have them now starting to drive their knee up during acceleration and all that, you'll, you'll see a lot of trouble and it's almost because they can't find any sort of a brace in, in their, uh, posture.

So most people in general, they, they would fall into that first category. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure anyone thought there were exceptions, make sure to be clear with that. Yeah, exactly. We all, we all want to be in, everybody is an exception, but you know, in, in general, stereotypically it's, it's a lot more, uh, anterior chain dominant. So when you are, um, when you're watching people move and I know originally you said that, uh, assessment is basically just watching them move. Um, what types of things are you, are you just having them just walk about the gym or you have them sit down and grab something?

And, or is it actually like, okay, show me your best squat, show me your best this, show me your best that. Yeah. You know, um, when it comes to the, uh, assessment process where the way I start, most programs are going to be at those baselines that I create. Uh, the one assessment tool, let's see the two assessment tools that I can involve with that to begin with before I start working with somebody is going to be a posture analysis. I may not see too much when it comes to their hamstrings or to any assessment, but if I see that their, uh, frontal view posture is going to be off maybe as an anterior tilt or posterior tilt, I want to see that done in the FMS.

So first off, general population, if your trainer doesn't put you through some sort of a movement screen or at least an injury screen where they create their own movements outside of the FMS, then you should worry because they're about to load you. So let's, let's make sure that you're able to move without pain and without an over dysfunction that's going to leave you up for risk. Uh, but after the FMS, you know, doing different movements that involve their mobility of the hip with core stability is going to be a lot of my hamstring assessment as well. So a single leg RDL to reaching to a box is one that I want to see pretty early on, uh, any sort of squat variation.

It's usually going to start off as a goblet squat for people, but I'm, I'm watching their body weight squat, not even as the overhead, like in the FMS, I want to see how they just body weight squat. They'll tell me a little bit about their hamstring. Um, and actually one that's not as typical as the Koichi Sato lateral squat. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, if, if I just see them naturally lateral squat and they're sitting forward, their knees really forward, they may be on their toe. And I know again, there's some sort of perceived tightness there. If they're able to sit back and hold stable, then that's a really good sign.

And usually because it's the unilateral movement or side to side, then I could see some sort of an asymmetry with that. I don't want to, but you can at least see some sort of hamstring strength go into the play there. I find it interesting on that with, um, I don't know how you, how you end up going down the route when you teach it. But, um, I feel like people's first thing with the lateral squat is that they, they push their hip out further or at least over their, or sorry, I said hip, right? Hip over their foot. So I think they're trying to make it into a really deep movement. Um, and then the, the toe comes, the toe stays down, heel comes up and so on.

But, uh, I, I feel like when you teach it to them, aside from like having some like, you know, random things that they could possibly have, like, I feel like they get it at least. So I guess the, I guess my, I'm getting at is I don't know if they always know what they're looking to do before they do it with that one. It's just a foreign thing that people don't do it anymore, you know? Yeah. Very, really good point. And the depth thing that you brought up is, is really true because, you know, we've, we almost attribute that type of movement to when we stretch our groin out, which is a pretty common like warmup movement that we've all done.

And so we want to see how far away we can get. So the opposite side groin can stretch out. Uh, but it's really important for people to kind of feel where they are at their best position on controlling the frontal plane when, if they don't have the awareness and the ability to understand like, okay, where can I stop and where do I feel very stable at than using the lateral wedge. So pushing against the wall is at least a good, um, kind of introduction to creating some tension and creating, um, that tension from the opposite leg. But yeah, it's a movement that takes just a little bit of time. You know, it's, it's kind of a funny movement because there's not too much range of motion with it overall.

And like you said, people are almost trying to force more when it's not really about the depth that you can create in the lateral squat. It's really just about the tension that you can create going back. I'm going to put some videos of these for everyone in case they're wondering, um, it'll be on the show notes. Uh, so since lateral squat is probably the most foreign thing that you said to everybody, why do they need that for competency of the hamstring or just to, as a person? Yeah. So we're, we're talking about the frontal plane. Therefore our side to side stability is very important for everybody, regardless if you're just a recreational person, you want to just get in shape, or if you're full blown trying to be a weekend warrior marathons and things.

And it's really about, when we're talking about the lateral squat, we're trying to build our stabilizers, things that hold us together in more sagittal like movements, like walking and things. So with the lateral squat, what I'm trying to build is, uh, the outermost muscles with some stability here so that the, the stabilizers can do their, do their job so that the moving type muscles, like a gluteus maximus or quads, like those larger muscles that propel us forward can just focus on moving. Because if somebody doesn't have, let's say stability or control in that area, then if they're running, then there's most likely some sort of an overcompensation of your larger muscle groups while those little muscles that are just there to stabilize us more aren't really doing anything and over time, you know, we're just repeating poor movement patterns without awareness.

And, you know, it's really important for the general public to find that type of stability so that we're not leaving ourselves prone to any sort of hamstring injury. So does it create hamstring directly? Not too much. But does it help the hamstring do its job better? Definitely does. Yeah, I totally agree. I know that with general population, or at least if people don't understand, so you said frontal plane. So there's basically three planes of movement in humans do. And we kind of need to do all of them, but we spend most time in the forward backwards. Going forward and back. Yeah. So with training then, I'm sure that when you program for people, you probably include a bit of frontal and rotational, right?

Definitely. So what are some examples of ones you would give on that, that people that maybe they're not educated about, like the planes of movement or the importance or so, they would look at it and think, ah, this is such a waste of time. Why am I paying this guy to do this thing? So can you give me some examples of those exercises? Yeah. Let's give power to those exercises. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So, you know, let's kind of go down the line of where they would be involved. So like movement prep and warmups, I want to get them moving side to side, not just for activation of their stabilizing muscles and, um, but I also want them to kind of get some more coordination and some more self-awareness.

I don't believe in building some of these proprioception. It's kind of impossible, but during movement prep, some good examples would be a lateral band crab walk. So they're banded on either the ankles and knees, the toes, and they're walking side to side. Most people, as long as they're not feeling their quads, like, oh, the outside of the glute is really firing up there. Uh, the lateral squat is something that I use either for movement prep for, um, a back squat or a goblet squat or in the actual exercise. Um, from a rotational standpoint, oh, actually another one that is really, uh, a mainstay to me is the side bridge.

So it's like a glute bridge if I'm facing up here, but now I'm just lying on one side and repeating the same motion. It's creating the same hip hinging motion. That's the sagittal movement, but with all of my tension coming from one side, obviously. So, um, you know, other ways to train it, at least with the frontal plane is, you know, your pile-off press. That's at least giving you some sort of, it's anti-rotational, but there can be some sort of aspects where you need to hold some more frontal plane stability. Uh, but moving to rotational, I love chops, um, anti-chops. Uh, sometimes you're bringing it into a rotational chop as long as they're able to bring their lower body into that motion.

Um, when it comes to, like, movement prep or strengthening exercises, a curtsy lunge, a rotational squat. So a curtsy lunge is like you're doing a curtsy, stepping behind your, uh, working leg. And, um, you know, even bringing it into a transverse lunge where you're actually turning around or turning to a 90 degree angle. Um, those, those ones are always great because you're just adding a little bit more challenge to somebody's day-to-day movement, but creating a little bit more absolute strength in all planes of motion. As, as you were saying all that, I'm sure you see I'm writing it all down.

Um, I, so I'm going to link to, I, I halfheartedly say this because I'm going to link to these, to these videos, but I'm realizing I'm going to have to make like 10 videos. Yeah. So we're going to need to, uh, I'm going to need to help you out with just sending some videos of this so that, uh, viewers aren't extremely confused. Like, what is this guy talking about? The side bridge and all that. Yeah. Well, yeah, the, I mean, I think definitely there's, there's some up there that are already done, but, um, I, I didn't mention to you, but I think I, uh, I, I said it in prior podcasts is that, so this year I'm trying to make one video a day on my YouTube channel to correlate to these.

Oh, nice. Um, so you just gave me a bunch of content to make, which I like, but I hate. This is a good thing. Thanks for the work, Brennan, but it's a lot of work. Yeah. I think you've given already more work than, than any other person I've interviewed so far. Yes. Um, that's what Cody told me to do. Oh, what an ass. Came in there. So is, uh, so it'd be possible to do a little video shoot. We'll just blow through all these, give a, give some cues and then we'll. Of course. Okay. I'd love to do that. So everyone can see Brennan featured on the YouTube channel. Yes. I'm good. Yeah. So with those exercises, then, um, do you ever, do you ever load them and how, how much of a load?

Cause I know with sagittal plane movement, squats, deads, and so on that you can get higher. Um, how much do you typically load those or are they just movement prep or warmup? Um, I, I will load them if, if there needs to be like repeated frequency of this. So for just activation purposes, if I need to get them up for more of a sagittal strength exercise in the beginning of the workout, like I'll load them, but it'll be pretty light. Um, it could be usually through a cable because those motions require a different line of pull that than just the up and down gravity weights that we use. So, uh, I will load them in a cable, but it's typically not that much because as we know, the sagittal plane is naturally stronger for those motions.

So I'm not doing 200 pound lateral squats with them. Um, I, I do tend to use a lot of my power and higher threshold exercises with athletes and general population, like using a medicine ball or light, uh, type of plyometrics. I will use those. And to me that that's loading it a lot because we're talking about higher threshold, therefore more landing mechanics, more eccentric loading, uh, for these people, uh, you know, regardless of its general population or athletes, I feel as though that's the highest threshold that I go, even if it's not direct weight load. Makes sense. Um, this question is a little bit of a tangent, but I, I can't finish with you until we ask this anyways.

Yeah. So, cause people are, I know there's many different types of exercise, strength training, hits training, blah, blah, blah. Um, what is, what would you prefer for someone, most people that aren't actually Olympians or making money off their body's performance and so on? And like, is there a high reward, low risk thing type that they could do if we could generalize a little bit? So just to clarify, this is for like general population. If I would just suggest like kind of a certain approach. Let's, let's say, let's say like a 30, 30 to 40 year old. Um, uh, I, I mean, I think of people that can, that I graduate high school with, they're like, Oh, I'm getting a little pudgy and maybe I should lose some weight.

And like, you know what, I think I'm going to go do, uh, like I'm going to Olympic lift like seven times a week, you know, like, or do I need to, you know, do burpees until I'm a pile of water on the ground? Like there's, cause there's obviously some things of high, high reward, but also high risk. Is there a certain thing that people like when they're asking you like, Hey, can I have these exercise tips for this type of population set? What do you, what's a good go-to? Does that make sense to the question? Yeah. You know, and my, my go-to with this is, you know, understand the general movements that we all need to do, you know, squat.

So push, pull on the lower body, push, pull on the upper body, you know, both going up and down vertically and, uh, forward and back horizontally and core and carries to me. If you can find movements in those, even if it's just one movement in the squat dead and push and pull type categories, find a way to master those, find a way to build strength and that's a strength is something to me. If you want to lose some pounds and if you want to kind of just get back into the gym and, you know, make this kind of like a general thing, rather than trying to go balls to the wall, you definitely need to gain your strength and you also need a lot of endurance.

Or some sort of conditioning aspect that can not only bring active recovery. So like a low steady state type of endurance, but, you know, changing up the intensities on your conditioning. So strength and conditioning are the two things that I would always recommend for people. Is that where that word comes from? Yeah. It's so weird. I've actually had that. Somebody asked me that. It's like, what should I focus on? I said strength and conditioning, but not even thinking that strength and conditioning. It's like, oh, wow. That's why it's called that. Yeah. Well, I think maybe like, maybe I don't think we break it apart as a, as a, uh, we don't break it into two words often.

It just flows into one. Yeah. It's a strength and conditioning S and C coach, you know? So yeah, but I, I want to keep, I want people to focus on the general movements that don't cause pain and that will kind of translate over to real life in some form. So yeah, those basic movements are really key for me to master for people. Good. I like that. It sounds good to me. Yeah. Very clear. Yeah. Um, now I got to ask you, you have a tattooed ring on your finger. Oh yeah. How did you pick that design? Oh yeah. I don't know if it's close enough. I think you got to punch it over there. There you go. So I'm guessing that's a marriage ring.

Uh huh. Yeah. So, uh, my wife and I, this is, uh, Kayla is her name. So that, that's kind of where I got the letter from at least the design. Uh, we had planned on doing like a little one right here that came off to the side, not too noticeable. Yeah. And tattoo artist, when I went in there, he just drew this on with a pen and it was pretty big. But I don't plan on wearing a ring at all when I'm working just cause of how often I need to grab iron and that those rubber rings are great. But for me, it just, I can't stop fidgeting with it. And, uh, yeah, so I decided to just get it this big on and my wife has one too, but it's small enough to where her ring actually covers it.

Oh really? Yeah. But she's a nurse too. So at times she has to take off her ring. Oh yeah. The gloves. Nice. Yeah. Um, it kind of works out well. Well, have you ever worn a, have you ever worn, uh, a band at all? Like for a period of time and then like, cause my experience with it was that you wore, you wear a band and it feels like you can't shut your fingers the entire way. It is like the most annoying thing. And, and I've never worn one of those other little band, those rubber ones, but I thought it'd be better, but shit, it's still kind of in a way. Yeah. Oh, that's the worst. Especially cause my ring, the ring I wear is made of a wood and stone.

So there's just not too much give to it. And yeah, you're right. Like I always feel like I'm kind of just open up like that and I can't stop fidgeting with it. It's like a watch is one thing. Cause I'm not constantly like using my fine motor skills for and aware of my watch, but when it comes to the ring, yeah, especially with what we do where it's really hands on. If I, if I feel that it's going to distract me a lot. And even the rubber rings were starting to do that too. I was starting to feel like I couldn't stop focusing on it. I don't know how you can set proper tension on like, you can't white knuckle a bar and you can't, you can't crack a walnut if you got that, if you got that thing in the way, tension screwed up, man.

I know. My, uh, uh, quick tangent story. My last client that I just had was really upset cause he actually lost his ring while water skiing. You know, to be honest with you, I felt really loose on that morning and all I could think of is like, why were you wearing your water skiing? I feel like that's one situation. It's like, uh, let's, let's take that off. But some people it's just, it's glued on there and they don't even think about it after. But for us, it's always, um, we're always aware of that. Yeah. Well, I can definitely, um, uh, I mean, I can, I can echo what the guys, that guy said.

There was, um, I was at a ring. I was married at one point a lot anymore. Um, but so I was on a mud run and I thought before, and should I take this off? I'm like, no, I'm fine. And they had one of those really sticky mud pits and I'm pretty sure it's at the bottom there somewhere. Cause there's a suction when you take your hand out. So I started thinking this was at Irvine Lake and I'm like, every year should go back and just dig up people's diamond rings in this mud pit. I bet they're all there. There's gotta be at least like five or 10 there. Like somebody like you, like, oh, it's not going to fall off.

I, I mean, our, our rings, our guy rings are worth what? Like 500 bucks tops. Like, yeah. Oh, mine was like $50. $50. It was a tungsten, I think. Yeah. I think, I think I was like 200 and I was even like, that's kind of expensive, Kayla. But yeah, you know, her, her ring is obviously the female's ring is a lot more. So look for the diamonds rather than just like the guy rings. Yeah. Totally. Your second option was to wear that around your neck on a, on a necklace maybe. Oh yeah. Like Frodo. Yeah. And, uh, you know, at Equinox we have name tags, like lanyard, like name tags that hang off. Um, not going to lie.

Hopefully my bosses don't hear this. You know, they see it every day. I don't wear that name tag because again, it's, it's a, it's a focus that I don't need to have. Like if I'm hip hinging to see better form and like have a better view of things and it's just kind of hanging off of me. Yeah. I feel like that ring would do the same thing. I'm sure. How did Frodo go through all that in all those movies and not have just like the necklace fall off? He's a badass. But, but I don't, I don't know how he got it off his necklace so quick and put it on his finger when he needed to. It's not very accessible.

Yeah. I, I, you know, that's a hole in the story that they need to address. They need to make another movie just for that. Yeah. I can see they're going to be listening. We need to figure out how Frodo actually gets that off his neck. You guys are watching this and, you know, address this to us, please. We're really concerned about it. So, um, so as we close up here, uh, how can everyone reach you? I, I didn't find a lot of stuff of yours on websites. I saw Instagram, but I didn't see much else. No, I, I wish I was a little bit more proactive and sharing of knowledge, but I, I'm kind of apprehensive because I'm such a learner that I want to more just be the person to apply everything.

Uh, however, Instagram is, is a tool that, uh, I like to use from time to time. I guess more of my personal life is on there than anything educational wise. Uh, otherwise, you know, my, my email and my phone number and things like that are always available for people. If you're able to like post that, I can post that. Yeah. You know, I, I like to talk to people more on like a face to face basis because when I think about the population that I may be outreaching with anything I put out there, uh, I don't want it to be misconstrued and I don't want it to be kind of misapplied to somebody as a, like, you know, this is like the sure fix because as a personal coach for both, you know, and my athletes are in a pretty small group.

So everything is just on that N equals one basis. And I think that's been the reason why I haven't been able to really share as much like knowledge as I see. And I'm also just a follower of people like you that you guys teach me enough. I don't feel like I need to share it anymore. No, I think you got some good stuff. I think, I think everyone, uh, I think everyone's got their unique way of teaching. Um, or I always, I always say, uh, that you, you have your own unique advantage in the way you say things to people. So yeah, yeah, that's a good, that's a great way of putting it. Yeah. You just have your own perception of things.

Uh, but I'd love to, I, I, I love when people actually reach out to me to inquire. About something. And even if we're able to meet face to face, or if they can give me more of like a detailed aspect of what they're looking for, then, uh, I'd be more than happy. Anybody that is curious or in the area and wants to meet with me, then be more than happy to give my time up and answer any questions or just assess. Okay. So this is the orange can you're, uh, you're in, you're in, uh, Newport. Yeah. I'm at the Equinox in Newport beach and, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm local. So I'm everywhere around orange County in LA.

Oh yeah. Starge is up at Anaheim, right? Uh huh. Yeah. It's, um, it's at the American sports complex. Have you ever been there? No. It's huge. It's amazing there. It's so many, uh, volleyball courts and everything, but, uh, that's an amazing place for youth athletes all the way up to professional to really work on their performance. I spoke with, uh, you, you know, KG, KG coach KG. He's a, he was over there. He was in the beginning of it, I think. Oh, really? Um, I, I, I started off as an intern a few years ago, so I feel like maybe I'm just missed on. Yeah. I'd spoken, I'd spoken to him before.

I don't think he's there anymore, but, uh, I didn't know if you knew the same guy. Um, well, cool. So everyone needs to reach out to you and do they need to, do they need to be a member of Equinox to be trained by you? Uh, yeah. Yeah. To be trained by me at Equinox, uh, we do need to have a membership. Obviously that membership comes with a lot of different perks. So I guess I'm kind of selling Equinox right now, but, uh, we've got to figure out how to get people to, to be trained by you though. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, be a member at Equinox. If you guys are in the area, yeah, I mean, if you guys are in the area and you're trying to find a right gym that has a better environment, I can't think of anywhere better for the general population than Equinox because your environment that you're in and their investment to health and what they want to do for their members, it's pretty incredible.

And they really put in a lot of work to not only educate us so that we know what we're doing. Um, they reward us for that, but the type of services and resources they provide the member base through our magazine furthermore, or just through their newsletter that they send out, it's really a place that, you know, facilitates people's own growth. And I think that's like my biggest why, why I'm doing this and why Equinox is such a great place. It's like, I'm able to be a facilitator for somebody's own choice to grow and change however they needed to. So, uh, I think, I think Equinox is kind of the environment that helped me do that too.

Nice. Yeah. Well, you've already reached the apex of, you can't go higher than that, than that gym. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Right. I mean, after that it's, uh, you know, Exos is an amazing gym, but unfortunately they're pretty, um, selective about where they're at too. Yeah. I think you gotta go to Arizona or something, right? Yeah. So, but other than that, yeah, Equinox is probably the apex. I'm a luck, I'm a really lucky guy. Mm-hmm. I was just to tell people that, uh, there was like some people told, or some of my friends have been like, they're, uh, college athletes and now they're kind of like doing regular stuff like normal people.

Mm-hmm. And I just tell them you peaked too early in life, man. Yeah. Nowhere but down here. Oh man, I, I was that, I was that guy too. And even as a trainer, I was like, I can't squat anymore cause my knees, can't overhead press anymore cause my shoulders, can't bench anymore cause my shoulders. And, you know, I, I was kind of getting out of shape for a quick second there just cause I was so scared and fearful of those past injuries. And, you know, as a college athlete, you want to untap it, but some people can go overboard with that. You know, they want to get back to their college days. Like take it slow.

We got a whole life ahead of us. You don't want to peak again in four years and have to falter down to where you were at. So yeah, any former college athletes that are listening to this, like, trust me, take your time. You're an athlete, you'll figure it out, but don't rush back into it. You know, we're never going to get back to our college bodies. Yeah. Just work on the basics. Yeah. Really. So, so any, any, uh, final words you like to tell? To those hamstring people before we close out? Um, you know, definitely listen to your body. Um, without a doubt. If these certain telltale signs that I spoke about beginning are starting to come to light, um, or if you're starting to just become more hyper aware of the way you run and what you're feeling when you're running or walking or sitting, then, you know, go see a movement specialist, go see, uh, either a trainer that's really trained in opening up more proper movement or somebody like Sebastian that works so deeply and so specifically on these things.

But, you know, my advice is listen to your body. If you have any questions or any sort of fears that this may relate to you, then get it addressed now before it's too late and you pull something and then you're forced to be in here. There's nothing wrong with proactive care. It really isn't. I get checked up by Cody all the time just so I can avoid potential for, uh, knee injuries. Yeah. And it's just cause I, I don't want to just suddenly hold a blind eye to it and then it's too late. Yeah. And I know a lot of people, I think they're afraid to look cause of what they'll find and, but sometimes it's not, um, I mean, there's things they can do to make it better.

It's not like it's a death sentence or any, by any means, you know, exactly. So, and also when you're, when you're seeing somebody, try not to see somebody that is on the high end of the spectrum where they're just going to want surgery or an MRI, go with somebody that's going to move you first and let them refer you out to the appropriate person. So try not to go with the worst case scenario, you know, just inquire for sure. Go with someone that strokes your hair. There you go. Uh, well, cool. Well, thanks so much for coming on. That was amazing. Thanks for having me. Yeah. It was a lot of fun.

I'll have to have you on a panel sometime. I think you'd be good on a panel. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah. I love that. Just have Cody next to me so I can kind of annoy him a little bit. Well, I was, I was thinking before about like how many people I should allow on one panel. So, cause we have one coming up. There's one going to be released in April. It's, it's three people and I'm just the moderator. So I'm not really going to do any input. I'll do a little bit, but it's mainly just like posing a question and let them fight each other. Uh-uh. But they don't like, in a good hearted way. Yeah. Um, may I ask who's the three?

Like what, what career focus is? Discipline. Um, so these ones are, they're from, have you heard of functional neurology? Uh, I've heard of it, but don't know much about it. Functional neurology is, um, like I wanted to have them on cause I've had all three of them on independently and they have all had really good, um, ways of saying things. And also to like, um, looking at the, let's say the vestibular system or like the eyes in relationship to, let's just say lower extremity injuries. Like if your body doesn't know where it's at, then, then we have a problem. Like you might misstep and turn something.

Right. Totally. Um, so they'll work a little bit. Yeah. So, I mean, they're, they're the kind of person I would send a concussion patient to cause I don't deal with those much. Um, but so I wanted them to, since I feel like even, even with what I, I know, not that I know everything, but like when I'm interviewing them, I'm like, huh, there's a lot of holes in here in my knowledge. I feel like an idiot. So I'm like, why don't I just put them all three right there and I'll keep having them say the same thing different way so everyone can understand a little bit better. Uh huh. But that's cool. Yeah.

Like that. And you're putting your own company, their own company against each other a little bit. That's kind of fun. Right. Well, I don't know how to do it with like, what if I had people like that had conflicting ideologies, and then I don't know what the, uh, cause I kind of want the end all to, at least there to be some type of conclusion, not like the listeners, like, I don't know what to think next, you know, but. Yeah. You know, and I think blending the disciplines can be a great way of like maybe bringing in like that final conclusion because we'll all consider different things. Yeah.

Our ideologies may be different, but if my ideology is different than yours, I should understand you're in a different discipline. So you're seeing this through a different lens than I am. And therefore we should at least come to some sort of consensus of, you know, what should the general, you know, listeners and audience overall just understand and take away from that. No, I totally agree. Cause it's, it's basically the art, the art of co-managing, right? Yeah. Um, and communicating between professions. Um, but I almost wonder with like, I'm not, I'm a little hesitant to do it just to, cause I think the people on the other side have to understand that their way is not the only way, or there's going to be holes in what they say and they have to be humble enough to have a calm discussion about it.

So I'm, I'm picking people that I think would be very much like that. And that we would come to a roundabout conclusion in the end. Yeah. You know, and that, that's a great, that's a great way of putting it because in this field too, with all this uncertainty that we have and how, you know, it may work for one person. It definitely doesn't work for this person. It kills this person. A lot of stuff. I mean, we got to understand that like, there is no one answer for this. Like, you know, it's, it's really individual basis. And I love the fact that you want to find that type of person that at least can just have an open mind.

And this is what I do, but you know, I can, I can see how the other side of the coin is, uh, valid there. So that's cool. Yeah. I'd love to be on that. That's a lot of fun. Well, good. Yeah. They'll be, they'll be amazing. Like I I'm thinking about getting, so there's two more mic slots in here. Just get them all at the same time and then just have a beer. Just go at it. Shot for shot. Yeah. Something like that. Just make it, make it a little bit more rowdy. When, when, when someone stalls for an answer, they, they, as soon as they, they stall, they have to take a sip. I don't know if I'd last very long with the show.

So actually, I don't know if Cody told you. So we got one, have beers, um, and we, and we discussed stuff like this. And, and actually it was kind of like the, the flow of that is something I kind of wanted for these podcasts. Cause it's, I learned something every time. I don't know if he learned anything. Um, but he, uh, but I think we get through a lot. And I, I told him this recently that the, um, cause I wanted to have him on again, cause I think he's an interesting dude and he's got a lot to share. And he's like, well, I don't have as much to share. I don't think as I think. I'm like, no, you have great stuff.

You have great knowledge. And then you have to, you share your own unique way. And so I get around to the story that there was one time that we had, I mean, so I'm like, I'm like 155 pounds right now. He's like 225. Right. So he can have a lot more alcohol. So I'm always one that gets trashed first if I get trashed at all. So I was that time. Um, cause we drink heavy IPAs. Yeah. Um, Cody, I hope I'm okay sharing this by the way. Too bad. He's okay. Cody can suck him down. Yeah. So, um, so at the end of it all, like he, he said something like, um, we're taught, he mentioned intra-abdominal pressure and I'm like, what's that?

Right. And then, so he just gave me a little bit of a hint of what it was. Cause we were kind of at the end of the night and it wasn't like, and I think he thought I knew and I didn't, I had no idea. So after that, like I woke up and I'm like, what's intra-abdominal pressure? And I went through this whole thing and this is kind of how, like it really molded how I practice today now. Really? Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. So something that I think that we, that we might think is easy to understand, like even you might think is, holy shit, that just changed my life. And then him the same thing. Yeah.

So. It's amazing. I mean, like, uh, kind of going off of that, like there are times where I'm rewatching or going through the same types of lectures with the same people and I'm always coming away with something new that I have learned before, but I didn't retain and apply it. And like you said, it's like, what is intra-abdominal pressure? Like we're not going to catch everything. And I think that's why we share insight because we don't have to have all the content. We just need to be able to openly discuss things and you never know what we learn from that for sure. Yeah. Good. That's cool. I'm glad I didn't turn the mic off.

Yeah. That was good stuff. Yeah. Right. All right. Well, officially, thanks for coming on. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Everyone, that was Brendan Gassamiya. Uh, he did not have a ton of contacts, but if you're looking to contact him or get in touch with him, especially if you're in the Orange County, uh, Southern California area, if you're looking to go in and train with him, you should, you really should. He's a good, good guy. He's honest and he knows his stuff very well. I'll put all of his contacts into the show notes, which you can find at p2sportscare.com slash podcast and then pound or slash pound the session number you're listening to.

So this is 71. So it's going to be podcast slash pound. Uh, sorry. It's a pound or yeah, I said pound, not hashtag. So pound 71. So any of the correlated videos, uh, that we in exercise videos that we spoke about on there are going to be on to the show notes though. That is a huge reference for you guys to use. Now, don't forget that these podcasts come out every week. Please subscribe, share with your friends, share with your colleagues and your, uh, um, patients. I mean, I really think patients and clients really need to hear this stuff too. We try to break it down real easy. Like go to the YouTube channel as well.

If you don't know where to find that, go on to, uh, if you just search performance place or Sebastian Gonzales, uh, sports injury or something of that nature on YouTube, you'll find it. There's a ton of videos. So we have one coming out every single day for 2018. And next, if you're still looking for those posters as well, that I mentioned in the beginning, all this is part of a huge, I call modern modernization of patient education toolbox. So go onto there, those posters are, uh, the graphics that are the web versions are completely free. So just go on there and, uh, uh, contact me and I'll, I'll let you know how to find them.

So I don't, I don't think on, uh, if they're all, they're all formatted for social media and I don't think there's any reason why we can't share these types of things with our clients. Now, lastly, the golden rule, all that stuff applies. Leave others better than what you found them and be good to each other. See you guys next week. Talk to you guys next week. Thank you.